#jiejie in this case lol

[jingyi-ma-boi]

#NMJ feeling weird about her chonky leather boots on the floors of xiyao's immaculately well-kept house. #(i was about to say penthouse but frankly i think xichen would die without a garden so they live in a mansion now) #they've got a fully equipped home gym they barely use other than xichen doing some morning yoga #haha yeah of COURSE you can do your workout routine here mingjue please 😏 they don't mind 😏 at all #in fact meng yao is feeling so... inspired by watching you she wants to get in shape herself!! #so she'll be over here just... taking things slow... watching you for... proper technique. #is it too hot in here? sorry the thermostat is uh. broken. yeah. but you could always take your shirt off!

(via @lgbtlunaverse your tags are amAZING)

consider: married milfs xiyao (rich and successful) slowly seducing awkward butch nie mingjue (young single mum working two jobs energy)

[moononmyfloor]

Not many Cdramas caught nor retained my attention in the 2nd half of 2022, but the few I did watch were pure gems. However I didn't think I have enough entrees to fill 30 days with, so I cut the number down and also conjoined some. Without further ado here we go!

My C-Drama Review of the 1st Half of 2022

(Concept loosely based on anniedelavoye' s. I did hers last year but then realised I simply cannot submit only one entry per day NOR wait a whole year to do a review. I do things by bulk 😆. So I broke the reviewing into two halves so I can do this with fresher memory and also more dramas will get the spotlight.)

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1. First Drama I finished in the 1st half of 2022

Love Between Fairy and Devil! Lots of praises have already been sung about this show, I don't have anything new to add.🤭

.

2. New Favourite Actor/Actress

Zhai Zilu, Zhou Dawei, Wang Youjun, Chang Long.

All caught my attention this year, all very promising! I hope they have successful years ahead! (And please don't end up being evil people :( 🙏)

.

3. Best Performance

Wang Xiao and Yan Bingyan as Zhou baba and mama in Examination for Everyone. These two veteran actors brought this two characters and their dynamic to life SO realistically and endearingly, you could almost touch it. It was like seeing my own parents onscreen. Mad respect.

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4. Favorite Drama OST

This is an odd answer but the first few seconds of the opening theme song of Fei Teng Ren Sheng captivated me. I was like: "Hold on. That's one BEAUTIFUL melody?" And I replayed and replayed that part over and over. The rest is good too but it was really the part before the verse that I felt was quite unique.

I also liked this song from Side Story of Fox Volant.

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5. Most Watched Genre

I think I should remove this question here onwards. I never pick a drama by genre, I have no aversion to almost any. I do have a preference to Period dramas and Slice of Life but they are not really taken to account if everything else about the story doesn't appeal to me. So this question goes nowhere and indicates nothing in my case.

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6. A Drama I Dropped

Light Chaser Rescue. Its first episode was one of the most annoying I have ever seen in my life. The ML cool-hero driving and the FL sassy-heroine force hitching a ride and the entire sequence of the car crash rescue had me 🙄. A show either has to own up the wackiness or should be full on realistic, for me. This was neither here nor there.

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7. Favorite Character of 2022 2nd Half

I don't think there was anyone I fell head-over-heels for this time, but did like Madam Danchuan in New Life Begins a lot. I just love her aura of power, how fiercely protective she's of her women, AND how she will always allow you to have the final choice. She never forces her authority to make decisions for others, no matter how good she might internally think it'd be for you.

I also liked Bai Lu a lot, she's just a minor character but she stood out most to me among the Solar Term girls. She's sassy, and I think if I am to travel into NLB verse I'd like to be Bai Lu. Just like her I don't particularly care for men, I want to mind my own business and just chill with my jiejies lol.

.

8. Best Cinematography

I should remove this question too because I feel like I'm not professional enough for this, haha. Sometimes I love the visuals of some dramas only to find out that from technical aspects it actually sucked.

.

9. An Older Drama I Watched

Red Sorghum (2014). It's a CRIME that Red Sorghum's drama version has only ep 1 eng subbed, but also, having watched the movie I know how brutal it can get so maybe its a good thing only ep 1 is subbed, and after all ep 1 ends in a kind-of conclusive place so it does feel like a standalone story of its own, and I HIGHLY recommend watching it.

Do yourself a favor and watch this single ep because baby Zhou Xun and baby Huang Xuan are SO CUTE! Like toe-curlingly cute, I was squealing the whole time! 😍😍😍😍😍😍

Also it has some GORGEOUS backdrops!

https://youtu.be/zh55pwzBNag

.

10. A Drama that kept Me on Edge

Nothing really. I mean I did eagerly wait everyday for new eps of NLB and Da Kao but that's not the same.

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11. A Drama Location I Want to Visit

I kind of want to visit Hengdian replicas of real locations, then visit the actual thing (such as Forbidden City) and try to compare and contrast lmao. I wonder how similar they are!

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12. A Popular Drama I Didn't Enjoy

Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty. Not due to any particular fault of the drama itself, the production and visuals and aesthetics all were excellent, and all the ingredients were right there. I simply felt it didn't particularly offer anything I haven't already seen. The first ep reminded me strongly of Legend of the Demon Cat, which was a movie I loved a lot and still had a pretty fresh memory of. Sometimes strong acting and unique execution will carry a story that is otherwise pretty tried-and-tired, but unfortunately that was not the case here either.

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13. Best Scriptwriting and Directing

Though I wouldn't say they were the best overall scripts, New Life Begins had the BEST female character writing I've seen in ages, and Da Kao (Exam for Everyone) had the most thorough writing of family dynamics.

Directing-wise, I liked what I saw but nothing that particularly blew my mind.

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14. Best Production

The Long River. Even though I didn't get to properly see it yet, I heard they made an artificial Yellow river simulation for all the flooding scenes and there are LOTS of those scenes in this drama and... whew. It's not often you get a proper serious historical drama and when you do, it's usually difficult for any other drama to beat them production scale wise anyway😆.

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15. A Drama that Made Me Laugh

Mr. Bad. The "character from a story comes to real life and messes with the other lead's life" premise will always be full of potential for unhinged shenanigans, and Mr.Bad doesn't fail. The main leads are so fun and the dynamic never boring, and Chen Zheyuan is SUCH a hoot with his expressions.

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16. A Drama that Made Me Cry

NLB and Da Kao did, but they were more like tears of exhilaration. Instead lemme share this very good crying scene by Wang Yibo and Wang Jinsong in Being a Hero haha.

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17. Most Satisfying Drama

New Life Begins owns my whole heart and soul! You can read my review for ep 1-14 here, and my current opinion of the drama remains the same if not better!

Even though it is a fluffy and ahistorical drama, lots of "proper" period dramas could learn from NLB about how to write your women as intelligent, dimensional individuals and not caricatures fallen victims to irrational jealousy and hatred. Since it's a feel good romcom everything always turn out for the better and that may not always be the case in history, yes. But this approach that these women tried to make a difference still holds valid regardless the genre.

You should learn that Past =×= 100% Oppression, 0% fighting back when it came to women, the same way Modern times doesn't mean 0% Oppression and 100% feminism (laughs in sarcasm). The foundations of how far we have come has been laid since centuries ago, AND there are lots of fronts that we have actually backtracked/regressed in compared to the past as well. Progressiveness is rarely linear.

Ok I digressed. Back to review 🤭.

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18. Most Dissapointing Drama

Hu Tong. Life in Beijing hutong neighbourhood across eras told through 3 women of 3 generations of a family is quite possibly one of of the most interesting premises I've heard, but the first episode dissapointed me thoroughly with its unconvincing, in your face and over the top characters and storyline. Such potential, gone down the drain. If the drama didn't take itself seriously, neither would the audience.

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19. Favorite Wardrobe

Hao Jia's wardrobe in NLB and Dongfang Qingcang's in LBFAD. The fine details and embroidery are 😘🤌. 100% would wear both styles, depending on the day lol.

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20. A Drama That Deserves a Shoutout

Our Times. An omnibus type of drama where you'll be told slice of life stories of people in such interesting and niche jobs that you rarely get to see portrayed realistically in dramas. Such as traditional Chinese theatre dancers, or a sports coach in a rural area with minimal facilities. Also if you get uninterested with one story you can jump few episodes ahead to the next, so that's kind of a plus too, haha.

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21. A Drama that Taught Me New Things

Are You Safe. Taught me lots of valuable tips about cyber safety. Unfortunately that was the only positive thing about this drama and I think it won't be presumptuous to say literally 99% people who watched it will agree with me.

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22. Best Relationship

The care and nuance all the families were written in The Examination for Everyone was through-the-roof excellent. Unnecessarily stereotyped toxic Asian family portrayals out, empathetic and 3D Asian parent-children dynamics in! Gosh, I saw myself, my family, my society, my culture in this drama. Thank you and much love.

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23. A Drama I Wanted to Watch but Couldn't

The Long River. No subs 😭

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24. An Upcoming Drama that I'm Excited for

JoL 2 and Under the Microscope! 🤩 (Please come 😭)

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More posts by me

[crystalflygeo]

you’re bi too?! have u considered fem zhongli 😳👀👀👀

I HAVE 3000% CONSIDERED ZHONGLI JIEJIE I *LOVE* HER (in case anyone doesn't know fem!zhongli is regularly called "zhongli jiejie" by many in the fandom, jiejie meaning something akin to jpn's nee-san used to refer to a lady older than you but still young and not necessarily related/family at all. It can also be similar to saying "Miss" or "Lady")

I WANNA WRITE ABOUT HER TOO I SWEAR I JUST 😭😭😭 haven't gotten the right feels I guess but

I ADORE HER WITH ALL MY HEART!!!!! exhibit A: me regularly going insane on discord to my besties uwu

I do like her with a moderate-sized chest tho, whenever I see her with huge exaggerated boobs I cringe sorry lol

[soundsaboutrighttumblr]

I am thinking about MTYL, and where they took the narrative of pain and boundaries, and mine and people’s reactions on here about it and what I feel bubbling up to surface regions in my own life right now.

This might not be an objective meta, and more a personal rambling, without much structure and possibly no resolving matters, but maybe that’s part of the choice of narrative, mine and theirs.

There was this part in an actor interview where Andy said something along the lines, that sometimes pain - like grief, maybe guilt -  cannot be resolved, but you grow up alongside it, around it, carrying it always. Or that is what I heard, made of the translations. What spoke to me. There’s working to grow out of some issues and some sorts of pain, but ‘getting over it’ cannot be applied to every sort of pain, and the difference is crucial to our understanding of life and healing.

And I think maybe this show had a way of implementing both, they showed healthy ways to work through issues, had ways to show what healthy boundaries and relationships, and steps toward healing as in dealing with pain can look like.

But. Maybe they also showed the limits to this, in a very life-like experience shown? How through our connections to people, the connections we choose, some pain -along with love- will always be there to be carried, not resolved, because at times it is not ours to resolve, but still we carry it, too. A burden shared, even if that might not even lessen the weight.

I mean it is a choice of narrative, and i feel like the message was at times, look how it is done healthily and look what growth looks like, but i feel like another message was also, that when it comes to poeple and life, there’s these theories and ideals to strive for, but there is also the limits of it. Because of other people and their pain, and relationships and how we are not islands and that shapes our decisions, too?

It’s in JIEJIE’s storyline with her brother, how you cannot save someone that is not ready to be saved. But also in Xun-An’s arc to sacrifice part of his own health to pacify his father, a connection he decides to keep even at the cost of pain, to keep him in their lives.  And it’s also in how he takes on that decision and the pain of it all by himself, but Bai Lang stll feels it through their connection, unable to resolve it for Xun-An as well, but enduring.

Choices that fail to set a ‘healthy’ boundary in a way that feels needed are valid decisions, too, ones that make up life just as much, whether that should be the case or not.

I get how we seek catharsis through characters, and we want to see them achieve what we in our peronal lives struggle to do, or worked very hard to achieve ourselves; we do not want to feel set back by what we are shown by them on screen.

Maybe it is bad writing or a wrong narrative choice, but if i try to see it as a conscious narrative choice by the makers, then it for me holds the message about the limitations we might face to the work we put in for our healing, as in there will always be sacrifices to that ideal of healthy and right we will make, because of our choices about the connections we decide to keep as part of our lives. And that shapes life and makes it, too.

They could have spent more time on showing the working through it as they did with other issues, but maybe it was not there to be something to be completely resolved by the narrative? Or that was even the point being made by it?

Maybe i am trying to make it work somehow, lol, but if I use that trust I gave the show, and try to hear what they might have wanted to tell me, it could have been this. I hear this. When it comes to life both kinds of decisions shape ours, the ones striving for personal betterment, and also the ones that seem to sacrifice that path in some way and cost us. We navigate our happiness through both.

And as for thoughts on pain?

I am lingering on the thought presented, that some pain we will never heal from, in the sense that it is resolved, that tension we feel will be relieved. That our only option is to grow around and alongside it.

Some pain might not be better for being shared, might not be halfed by it, but actually doubled, because it cannot be dissolved for the other party by us, if at all.

We share pain of others without having the tools to resolve it. It comes with human connections and empathy. Connections we won’t cut even despite that pain, so we live with it. As adults, these are valid decisions, when consciously made.

How do boundaries in that context look like? Maybe they are the individual, personal decisions, each time anew, how to deal with the pain we are presented with?  What to share, with whom, what to speak of, what to make a topic, what to work on resolving, what to keep to ourselves, what to endure, live with and around.

I am trying to give myself steps to tread on here, not expecting absolute answers, and that last part is more personal than that it might have to do with MTYL, but I am so happy for that show, to have given me some new words to speak around all of this.

If you have thoughts to share on this, I am happy to hear them <3

[milfhandholder]

Bringing back Black Butler actor AU by writing a bunch of headcanons for it

Sebastian has a dog, yes. He loves it very much, a big fat bulldog that WILL run at you to show you love

The children do homeworks on set so an adult can help them LMAO (don't ask Will though he hated that shit)

Not Sieglinde though, she's homeschooled!! Sucks to sucks, it's not easy being rich 😩😩

Grell and Sebastian are childhood best friends. Sebastian's the one who scored her the role because he "works well with his bestie"

Grell: I genuinely thought I was just going to play a cute butler who's going to have this big gender identity revelation but turns out my best friend just thinks I'm a psychopath so that's nice to hear

Ron originally was a make-up staff who did stand-in for script readings but then the director was like "you're the perfect amount of British"

William genuinely adores Grell because she's been in the industry longer and also she's hot as hell

Madam plays extras after her death scene

Madam: I was just too hot to be alive </3

This is Lizzie's first role and for her great work, she was allowed to bring home 3 dresses of her liking

Had it been their way, Redcliff would've had more screentime and deeper relationships but ig ppl aren't ready for that

The one who breaks character the most is Ciel and the one who does it the least is surprisingly Finnian

Finnian is more known for darker and more serious depictions of teens so when he got casted, everyone was like "we're about to witness mental illness y'all"

Ran Mao is very talkative outside of her screen time. Girlie would infodump about her favorite thing that month to everyone

Mey Rin's a Chinese diaspora and so Lau takes her to 'reconnecting with your roots' trip at least twice a month

Ran Mao's a streamer and it's just her yelling "A FUCKING MONA 💀💀💀"

Lau is actually younger than Sebastian, Madam and Grell so when he first started, he called everyone with honorifics because this is his first non-chinese film and wow you white people really do go call everyone by their names even if they're older

Yes, this is an excuse for him to call Grell "Grell jiejie" and I just think that's cute and I love it. As a Chinese who can't speak Mandarin for shit, I want to call her jiejie LEAVE ME BE

Sieglinde has a very thick German accent that slips sometimes and whenever that happens, she and Ciel starts laughing

Sienglinde: it's not my fault you british have weird as hell accents

Ciel, a british: YOU TAKE THAT BACK

Lizzie brings all the young sapphic watchers bcs y'all,,,my girl is not straight at all and if she is, it's written in the most cursive shit ever

Sebastian on Grell's Instagram comments: SO TRUE QUEEN, MY WIFE, MY LOVE, PLEASE MARRY ME ❤

Grell replying back: lol no you're ugly /j

Grell is unfortunately a brunette irl rip to her roasting her own hair

The ones who are the least like their characters: Ciel (dude he's like 13), William (very sweet and soft-spoken, hates confrontation)

The ones who are literally their characters: Lau (he doesn't have a script, that's just him), Lizzie

Sebastian did actually accidentally stepped on Grell's face. He felt so bad that he kneeled to the floor and basically gave her an apology poem while she's just >:( that she has to redo her makeup

Mey Rin is blind as shit irl, she's just like me fr

Mey Rin: I wished I could see really far instead but no, I can't even see past my own nose

Ran Mao followed Lau's footsteps and calls (only) Grell "jiejie" because she likes her the best LMAO. The highest honor from Ran Mao is if she calls you with a Chinese honorofic, unless if you're Lau in which case she feels obligated to call him 'Lau gege'

Ciel is absolutely in awe with Sebastian's acting skills, he's all starry-eyed like "TEACH ME PLS"

Sebastian could only dance thanks to his theater kid days with Grell

I firmly believe that Sienglinde would love kpop and Hatsune Miku

Finnian has a RBF when he doesn't realize it, it scared Ciel shitless the first time

[drwcn]

《midnight sun》 — # 13

Summary of questions: does lan wangji believe jiang yan is wei wuxian and jiang cheng's daughter? does wei wuxian know lan wangji thinks jiang yan is jiang cheng's daughter? Answer: worse. wei wuxian thinks lan wangji knows jiang yan is their daughter. lan wangji doesn't know shit. LOL.

(i recommend listening to [x] for this snippet)

When she opened her eyes, it was Jingshi and a guqin's melancholic tune that greeted her. She had half-hoped (and half-feared) that she would be back at Lotus Pier again.

But back then, did you really believe in me?

Lan Wangji did not respond, and so they fell into a silence. Wei Wuxian rested there, propped up by pillows, staring into the darkened woods around Lan Wangji's home. She was still in Mo Xuanyu's clothes, but his macabre steel mask sat on the bed-side stand.

Wei Wuxian touched her own face gingerly. Thirteen years — a lifetime has gone by. There were secrets she had taken to her death, but this time around, she no longer wished to hide.

Earlier that day, she had not seen Yan'er amongst the Jiang disciples at Mt Dafan.

Weren't you the one who killed her yourself, Jiang-zongzhu?!

Lan Jingyi's words had reminded her of what death had obscured - the horrifying fact that she had left her only child in the custody of the brother who had willingly taken her life.

Heavens...

Suddenly, it no longer seemed important that she continued to keep this secret from Lan Wangji. She had to know that Yan'er was safe. At once.

"Lan Zhan, there's a person, a junior, I want to ask you about -"

"Jiang Yan."

Lan Wangji lifted his eyes from his guqin to meet hers from across the room. There was... hurt, disappointment, and something entirely too deep to comprehend inside those eyes that kept her company in her dreams during her years at the Burial Mount.

Wei Wuxian felt the heart she carried in her throat plunge to the pit of her stomach.

"You know."

It was not a question.

"Mn."

"How long have you known? Did Jiang Cheng -?"

"He did not tell me anything. He didn't need to. The first time I met her, I knew. The child bears a great likeness to you."

"I -" She clutched the blanket that covered her, fighting the urge to escape under it as one hand curled around her belly subconsciously. "I..."

Wei Wuxian! Stop, stop pushing, stop trying, you're dying damn it! Listen to me, you're dying! Wen Qing's lovely face floated into her mind, one of many souls who'd been let down by her arrogance and pride, a ghost of her guilt.

In the end, Wei Wuxian supposed she had let Lan Wangji down too. All those men who had wanted her for her power, for the Stygian Amulet, circling the newfound Lotus Pier like sharks in the water...she may not have lost her virtues to them, but perhaps she did lose sight of herself along the way. That day in the forest, at Phoenix Mountain, what a selfish impulse it had been to lay claims to the untouchable Hanguang-jun.

If she were fair to him, she would have drank the medicine Wen Qing offered her. Give him a clean break, release him, absolve him. The minute she had pulled Lan Wangji down onto the grassy meadow and wrapped him between her legs, she knew she'd be tainting him. Yet still, she had held on so tight and begged him for everything he had. When he gave himself to her, with fervor and faith, she had greedily consumed him: his first touch, his first kiss, his first release...his first child.

She had taken it all and gave nothing back. Now, when nothing could be changed or salvaged, she would not assume that he would ever forgive her. And if he did not wish to be burdened by the consequences of her actions and desires...well, she understood that too.

Wei Wuxian, please, forsake the baby, choose yourself. Wen Qing had clutched her hand and pleaded through her scared and desperate tears. Give me permission, give me permission to save you!

No, Qing-jiejie, I can - I can do it! Lan Zhan - Lan Zhan -

Lan Wangji is not here, Wei Wuxian! It's just you. Just you, do you hear?! Please, please don't -

Her heart was not broken. Heartbreak was a privilege of her last life.

"Is Yan'er well?"

Wei Wuxian was fully aware of her every debt and sin, but they were hers and hers alone. Jiang Yan should not be the one left to pay for a mother whom she had never known.

"Yes. She lives at Lotus Pier. Jiang Wanyin is very good to her. He raised her as his first disciple and her named her Jiang Yueqian. She is very bright, and a strong cultivator. He's very proud of her; as you would be too once you meet."

And you, Wei Wuxian wanted to ask. Are you proud of her too?

Externally, Wei Wuxian let out a breath of relief. "Jiang Cheng kept his word to me after all."

Lan Wangji's face seemed to fall at those words, though that could easily have been a trick of the light.

"Wei Ying, you and Jiang Wanyin …"

Wei Wuxian frowned. "What about me and Jiang Cheng?"

Lan Wangji stroked the strings on his guqin contemplatively, mulling over his words for a moment before carefully asking, "Would you like to... go back to Lotus Pier?"

"After shijie's death, you think I would still be welcomed back at Lotus Pier?"

"But you are Jiang Yan's mother. Surely -"

Wei Wuxian shook her head. "If Jiang Yan is as you said - the first disciple of Yunmeng Jiang - then she is an orphan, and her mother is dead. I am the resurrected Yiling Laozu; I cannot be her mother. For her sake, I should have stayed dead. Since that is not the case, then at the least, I shall stay away."

Lan Wangji said nothing in response.

Wei Wuxian closed her eyes. She did not cry.

[stiltonbasket]

If you’re still accepting prompts, I’m curious how much chaos qin su!wwx was able to subtly cause at jinlintai without being caught? bc i don’t think he could go that many months without doing Something to Someone lol

(brief author’s note: this au is entirely prompt-based, so please reblog if you can for future updates!)

Three months into his stay at the Jinlintai, Wei Wuxian discovers that he dislikes Su She even more than he dislikes his husband.

It’s not even that he falls all over himself doing Jin Guangyao’s bidding, because he doesn’t, he reflects, observing the two in conference at one of the Jin sect’s private banquets. Su She’s really loyal to him, and that’s even worse.

Before her death, Qin Su was almost certain that Su She had taken part in Jin Rusong’s murder, simply because Jin Guangyao could never have done the killing alone. She maintained that Jin Guangyao would not have been able to go to the guest kitchens, poison the plate intended for him, and visit He Su’s private quarters with time to spare; and Wei Wuxian agrees with her, if only because plotting the murder of a young sect heir in public would require a like-minded accomplice.

“Poor A-Song,” Wei Wuxian sighs, laying down his embroidery as his two handmaidens hurry to his elbow to comfort him with tea and snacks. “Yongpei, what will I do?”

“Nothing will bring our A-Song back,” the elder maidservant says, with tears already welling in her eyes at the mention of her mistress’s son. “But Mistress, just because it hasn’t worked in these last years, you mustn’t give up persuading the master to give you another baby! Mistress hasn’t said anything about it this last year, and A-Tai and I feared you’d lost hope--but Mistress, you are so pretty, and you love your husband so dearly, so how long can he resist favoring you even if he can’t bear the thought of losing a second child? Mistress gave Sect Leader a wonderful baby boy, it wasn’t any fault of yours that our xiao-gongzi passed away--and surely the same horrible tragedy can’t happen twice! You can’t give in, no matter what the master says about it.”

“A-Pei,” Wei Wuxian says gently, “this mistress is grateful for your faith, but in the end, I am A-Yao’s wife, and in matters such as these, I must respect his wishes. What kind of shameless woman would I be if I forced my husband to my bed, when I know he wants nothing less than to have another child with me?”

“A woman should have a child!” Shao Tai cries. “Mistress, it’s not the same at all! When Sect Leader first stopped favoring you, you never said a word, and it was all right before we lost A-Song--Mistress only wanted to be a good mother to her baby, and obey Sect Leader faithfully in all things! But now, even though it’s been more than ten years since xiao-gongzi died, he still...”

“Do you really think it’s unkind of him?” Wei Wuxian murmurs, glancing down at his half-embroidered handkerchiefs and pretending to blink back a few tears of his own. “He says he’s afraid for my health, but...”

“Yes, he is being unkind! Mistress shouldn’t be afraid to ask for what she wants!”

Wei Wuxian chews on his lip for a moment. “Do A-Pei and A-Tai really think I should go ahead with this?”

The two women both nod forcefully, setting the tea and cakes down on the desk so that they can kneel by his feet. “You have served Sect Leader without a word of complaint all this time, so why shouldn’t he grant you this one wish?” Yongpei says. “Mistress, if you leave it to us, we will see to all the preparations!”

A-Tai gives a timid cough. “But jiejie, if Mistress acts too suddenly, won’t he be suspicious?”

“Well, what else is she supposed to do?”

“No more of that,” Wei Wuxian scolds, barely keeping his lips from twitching as he finally thinks of another way to approach his plans to escape the Jinlintai by seducing Jin Guangyao. “Yongpei, A-Tai, you know this mistress of yours is a skilled cook?”

For once, Wei Wuxian isn’t actually pretending; he is a good cook, having learned the art at Jiang Yanli’s knee, even if he ruins all his dishes at the last moment by pouring chili oil into them. “Yes,” A-Tai replies, clearly confused. “Do you want to cook for your husband, my lady?”

“Not for my husband,” he smiles, brightening up like a summer sun cresting the horizon at daybreak as he looks at his fine-featured reflection in the mirror. “I’ve cooked for us often, so doing it again won’t mean anything much. But he has a dinner with Su-zongzhu and Zhang-zongzhu scheduled for the end of next week, so I’ll tell him I mean to cook all the dishes myself.”

“But, Mistress...!”

“Nonsense. I’ve made up my mind, and that’s what I’m going to do,” Wei Wuxian says briskly, putting away his embroidery needles. “And you two ought to get to bed, you know. It’s nearly eleven o’clock!”

It goes without saying that Wei Wuxian has no interest whatsoever in cooking for any of Jin Guangyao’s associates.

However, he does have access to a small store of hot Yunmeng spices laid aside for Jin Guangyao’s personal use, and he knows well enough that Jin Guangyao likes them--and that Su She, whose clan is native to Lan Zhan’s Suzhou, will not be able to tolerate so much as a speck of it.

(The plan goes off without a hitch, and Su She’s mouth and stomach fare so badly after eating a dish Wei Wuxian swore was meant for his husband that he has to take three rest days in the guest house to recover.)

__

“No way!” Jin Zixuan crows delightedly, as Wei Wuxian finishes narrating Su She’s unfortunate encounter with the mighty trifecta of Sichuan peppercorns, horseradish, and the spiciest chillies that Lanling gold could buy. “I wish I’d been there to see it. Who knew you could be so sneaky, Wei Wuxian?”

“It had a greater purpose,” Wei Wuxian shrugs. “I didn’t just do it for fun. I had to keep making overtures to Jin Guangyao so that he wouldn’t have any choice but to send me away when I finally tried to seduce him.”

On the other side of the campfire, Lan Zhan goes still. “Seduce?”

“Yes, of course. How else did you think that Jin-furen, wife to a zongzhu and xiandu all at once, could ever manage to get away from the Jinlintai without her husband noticing? He tried for months to placate me when I cooked him dinner and dressed in the colors he liked and proposed building a temple in Meng-furen and A-Song’s names, and then I finally had my handmaidens prepare me to receive him in my chambers and gave him the fright of his life. Smart, don’t you think?”

Lan Zhan’s face pales. “You ought not to have taken such measures,” he says hoarsely. “What if something had happened to you?”

“I’m his wife,” Wei Wuxian replies, bemused. “What could possibly have happened to me? Everyone thinks Qin Su must be barren, so no one would even try bumping me off to make sure Jin Guangyao could never have another heir. And he does care about her, you know.”

In answer, Lan Zhan only lets out a small scoff and turns his back to the fire, facing out into the night while Wei Wuxian and Jin Zixuan exchange puzzled glances over his head. “Rest, both of you,” he says quietly. “We will have to ride on towards Yunmeng in the morning, just in case that courtesan Mo-gongzi mentioned in his letter might be there.”

And then, as the three of them have done for the last month’s worth of nights they spent traveling together, Lan Zhan drifts off to sleep first, and Jin Zixuan and Wei Wuxian follow into a mist of uneasy dreams.

[betafibiiiiiivviiixiiixxixxxiv]

doing yelan’s story quest

spoilers below

i unfortunately got spoiled a little bit so i’m biased but based on what we know so far:

qianwei is a bit of a dick

i like mingbo

zhiyi seems like a good guy

-

hmmmm

why is uncle tian telling us to be thorough

is there something going on behind the scenes?

ah

more people appearing out of thin air lol

reminds me of ayato’s story quest hahaha

oho? it looks like they have a dice on their back

lol

-

phew, at least this tailing part of the quest was easier than ayato’s

oh paimon, so gullible

LMAO PAIMON SO EASILY BRIBED

oho? people he’s never seen before spreading rumors about zhiyi?

i wonder who they are

i think it’s the treasure hoarders but i could be wrong

-

oh i like shanghua lol

the way he was promoting himself before yelan cut him off lol

looks like qianwei is an honorable guy

his attitude is still a bit of a problem tho lol

LMAO SHANGHUA

oki yea i like mingbo

qianwei has an attitude problem and zhiyi is too sus

i liked mingbo’s manifesto too

-

rip wupei? what happened?

ah, he fell into the ocean lol

-

ah so it was the fatui

it did seem a bit too thoughtful for a scheme by the treasure hoarders

-

ah so he was poisoning the soup

i figured that was the case

tsk tsk the fatui sure do know how to ensnare a guy

oh my

that took a turn i was not expecting

-

ah, i forgot how much i like baizhu’s cn voice

i might pull for him based on his voice alone lol

oh cute, uncle tian calls ganyu ‘ganyu-jiejie’

-

hmmmm

still don’t know if i want yelan or not

i’m gonna dig through her voicelines and stories

[yibuo]

1 - Hi so i have a question about chinese culture in the c entertainment industry and i wonder if you could help? This is my first time getting involved with c entertainment so i'm still trying to grasp the norms, but are sibling dynamics really prevalent between actors and artists in the industry? Bc i'm more familiar with japanese entertainment and they seem to engage with senpai-kouhai dynamics way more than sibling-like dynamic which i see a lot of in my limited consumption of chinese media

2 - I see a lot of gege's and jiejie's essentially adopting younger artists as their didi or meimei in variety shows and interviews and as a long time japanese entertainment fan it feels sort of jarring in comparison to what i'm used to. Granted my viewing experience is limited to mostly yibo-centric stuff and this could probably be chalked up to yibo's uncanny ability at amassing an army of gege and jiejie lol. Anyway sorry for my incoherence but I'd appreciate your help nonetheless ^^ cheers 

hey! i’m not the right person to ask regarding this because my scope of c-ent is limited to survival shows, ddu, happy camp, and dramas, but i definitely notice that there’s less of a senpai-kouhai or even sunbae-hoobae structure compared to j-ent or even k-ent. there’s like less formality when juniors address their seniors (unless it’s a college setting or something) , but i’m not sure if it’s necessarily a sibling dynamic? depending on how close they are they add a -ge or -jie  (don’t think it necessarily means sibling energy, but like a broad comparison would be how k-artists use oppa/noona/unni/hyung even though they’re not siblings--it’s more like a younger person and older person being comfy with each other) but i don’t think i’ve seen many people refer to a senior celebrity as senior. it seems everyone’s just really chill with each other while still being respectful but there’s isn’t a rigid distinction in place .. but ya i feel you it’s a little bit of a change coming from following k-entertainment where people use sunbae a lot

again i’m not sure about the general sibling dynamic in c-ent--in yibo’s case if you’re referring to like the ttxs bros, i’m guessing it’s because he’s been part of the bros for a few years now and they dote on him, but i’m not sure if the “adopting a sibling” thing happens usually

if anyone who’s chinese/familiar with chinese culture and entertainment culture wants to answer this question for me that’d be cool just drop it in the replies and i’ll add to the post! i’m interested in explanations because i think it’s cool to know!

[beihonglin]

seeing lin yanjun irl!!

okay i want to preface this by saying that yanjun is Really Not My Type (my type is zhangjing / honglin / eunwoo i.e. soft smiley angels) so all this is coming from a non-yanjun stan!! please don’t kill me

so a little while back this guy i follow on wechat posted about yanjun’s flight schedule from shanghai to new york and @ynajun​ and i were like !!!!!! except he didn’t post any details so we had to scout around for information ourselves?? i.e. relying on info from friends & fansites’ previews of him leaving shanghai and counting 14h forwards and trying to find flight details on flight apps 

this is gonna get long y’alls so under the cut it goes

180907

but fast forward and we’re at jfk terminal 1 at 2pm and ready to die!! we meet a bunch of c-fans who specially flew from china to new york just to follow him (it’s insane how much money they have!!!!!! one of them was just like ‘sure i’m gonna buy yanjun a dior gift just because’ even though ! she was an ikun/isee ! and not an evanism!!) and some who drove down to ny for the weekend and we form a group chat!

and so we wait one and a half hours for yanjun to come out of customs dammit yanjun and he !!!! appears!!!! 

skinny legend himself!!!! and we can’t see him at all bc he’s all bundled up but it’s okay we know he a tol and skinny god!!!! also bc he's looking down at the ground and makes no acknowledgement of the people around him whatsoever 

also there's a LOT of people and everyone follows him out of the waiting space into the pick-up area (it really wasn’t as crowded as it looks in the picture like there was space to walk and stuff but also i’m used to new york crowds so i can’t objectively say)

but boi gets in a car and drives away and conno and i have to leave for a meeting anyway so we go back!

and proceed to go to times square after the meeting bc we’re both dumbasses and thought he would go to times square... bUT GUESS WHAT AYEEE WE SAW HIM THERE!!!

jk lmao he didn’t go to times square that night so we sat there like two idiots for two hours in a slight drizzle for nothing ajajkahskjs

180908

okay so the night before we’re sitting on the group chat and one of the jiejies in the chat was like hey bitches so tmr he’s gonna be at world trade centre for the longchamp show at 3pm and at the soho store at 4pm yall wanna go? and ofc we’re all like ??? yeS????

so we meet for lunch and start camping out at world trade centre at 1.30pm waiting for him to come and he !! doesn’t show up until the last minute 

also bc we were waiting for so long one of the jiejies was like, “damn if he doesn’t show up soon i’m jumping wall and opening a fansite for the security guards,,” which was ?? understandable bc look at one of them:

like ?? damn boi 

and after a lot of false scares later (other celebrities show up and everyone rushes there only to find out it’s not yanjun etc) GOD HIMSELF FINALLY ARRIVES JESUS CHRIST ON A STICK 

connie: “what did he do in his past life to deserve this face,,,, fucK you,,”

yall i got an ask asking if he really was unphotogenic and,,,, yanjun,,, mr leej,,,,, a whole god,,,,,,,,, listen you know how you try to take a photo of the sun but your camera fucks up and you’re left with one (1) shining dot in the middle of a black blur,,,, that’s what taking pictures of lin yanjun is like 

also to clarify i don’t whitewash my pictures i only adjust for exposure, shadows, contrast and vibrance so uh mr golden statue in all his glory  

also there was like a shit ton of people (more than the airport crowd) mostly bc there were also reporters and other non-yanjun fansites + random people from the memorial site across the road who came over to see what the commotion was so i’d estimate about 50 people:

but also ?? his name 冷彦俊 (cold yanjun) really isn’t for nothing he didn’t look at anyone at all and mostly stared into the distance and he didn’t smile or acknowledge anyone once the entire weekend and his rbf was ?? really hella strong so mmmmmmmmm idk

also ^ this is the best picture i took all weekend oof i’m really proud of it please don’t edit or crop logo thanks 

so after he goes into the building we all sit around and cry for a good ten minutes before getting our shit together and planning our next course of action (read: i pull out lightroom and start editing photos until everyone else decides on our next course of action bc i’m terrible at making decisions) 

and after a good half hour it’s decided that conno and i check out the spring street location while the rest of them wait for him to come out of the longchamp show!! and so we take the subway to soho & they send us a picture of his car plate so we can look out for him in case he gets there earlier than they do but as it turns out the new york subway is reliable for once and they arrive before his car gets there so !! 

anyway the longchamp staff were like yall can wait inside!! and so a good two thirds of them went to wait inside to get good pics but conno and i were like nah we don’t trust that shit so we stood outside in the slight drizzle

a good choice!! bc his car pulled up near the side entrance instead of the main entrance and since conno and i knew the car plate number we were like o shit that’s him and ran into position!! 

he went in through a side door like really really fast and i think we were two of the few people who actually saw him enter / got pictures of him entering the building?? we waited a good two hours for this one moment zzzzz also he changed clothes in the car asdjhdaskjdhsa 

and so we wait another two hours outside in the rain for him to come out and this time everyone was smart and nobody waited in the longchamp store so everyone poured out to wait for him and it was really really crowded + there were other bystanders who were like ?? who y’all waiting for??? and decided to wait and take pictures too even though they had no idea who lin yanjun was so it was Packed (there were even people waiting across the road just to get a glimpse of whoever we were waiting for) and i didn’t get photos zzzz 

180909

so the night before conno and i are trying to catch up on homework when someone in the wechat group sends a picture of yanjun on the street and we were like !!!!! o myg od 

bc 1) he looks hella good asdlhkfja 2) i’ve lived in housing for two years and both those years were spent in different dorms in zip code 10003 so if there are pictures of any celebrity in any part of 10003??? both conno and i are highly likely to be able to tell where they are

and so we immediately recognise the background of the picture as somewhere near one of my old dorms (i’m not gonna say where his hotel is ajsdhfkjd he’s still in new york at the time i’m posting this) and like ??? damn yalls longchamp really spending that dough on yanjun 

i know i put the header of this section as 180909 but it’s a lie asdjhkjs i check the weather forecast and it says it’s going to rain all sunday and i’m just like :~) jk i’m not going out in new york rain even for mr lyj so uh that’s the end of my account asjkhkdsajd 

(SPEAKING OF THE WEATHER!! it’s been raining every day since lin yanjun landed in new york and the temperature has been dipping lower every day kajsdlha and it’s apparently going to get warm tomorrow right when he leaves so uhhhhhh i’m not saying he’s causing the black clouds but that’s,,, also exactly what i’m saying)

(also bi wenjun just landed today and apparently the weather’s getting warmer from here until he leaves so coincidence that the weather’s getting nicer the moment weatherman boy wenjun arrives??? i think not) 

anyway things i’ve learnt from this weekend:

fansites really work very hard to take photos - they spend so much money flying back and forth to get airport pictures + they spend so much !! energy !! running up and down and playing waiting games just to get a few good shots, please respect their photos and !! stop!!!!! editing !! without their permission!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

most of them also buy their photos - there were some fantakens uploaded to fansites that clearly weren’t taken by them (photos from inside the longchamp show when clearly nobody but the media was allowed in) so we knew that those fansites bought their photos from journalists + there were also more fansites releasing photos than people at the venue so some of them were 代拍s selling photos to fansites (not that there’s anything wrong with this, it’s just ?? interesting to have found this out i was wondering how some of them got their photos)

some fansites also have like 0 sense of privacy - at the longchamp spring street store they had cars prepared and running just waiting for him to leave so they could jump into the cars and follow him wherever (we’re still trying to work out who they are so we can stop supporting them on forjingyan ;;;;)

yanjun,,,, truly is one of the coldest idols asjdkldasjk our wechat group was talking about it and one of the jiejies in there (we were two of the youngest,,,, a first!!) has been following him around for the thx with love tours and she says she’s only seen him talk to fans one (1) time the whole time she’s followed him!! compared to another jiejie who usually follows 1k around and she says ziyi’s usually very gentle & always speaks to fans ;;;;; + how there are always pictures of zhangjing smiling or at least waving at the airport 

(more of a self-reflection point) but i realise the type of idol i tend to bias is very much the kind to smile easily / the more warm ones that interact with fans (like honglin and ruibin) or at least acknowledge the fans that have been waiting for a period of time to meet them like ziyi and zhangjing!! (not that there’s anything wrong with being cold in case yall disgruntled diehard yanjun stans come at me lol) so really yanjun is really truly not my type akjsdfhlaksjd 

but that’s it!! thank u for reading kjfkjasdhf

[alwaysfortracer85]

I can't say I dislike her. I don't care. I watch some of her vids time after time, they are informative, I give her that. But well, with LoF it was a nasty move. It's not that she criticized it that rubbed me in a wrong way, it's the way she kept murdering it in nine videos in a row. Like, she made a rant video - good for her, she has a right for her opinion (and she was not even cruel to YB there, she was mean to jiejie saying she didn't try hard). But after that she kept on mentioning LoF again and again when the talk was about completely unrelated dramas. And before that and after that I saw her finding good words for some really bad dramas with really bad acting and also one talentless actress (I am not talking about SHL here - just in case SHL stans find my CC lol, it is about other dramas and people). So first I raised my eyebrows, then it raised lots of questions in me (if you know what i mean). Like, LoF is not a masterpiece, but not so bad to mention it as a prime example of failure, come on. So after that I just don't trust her. She was never mean to YB in the videos I watched, praised him for guiding his fans, promoted SDC etc. So me not being her biggest fan has nothing to do with me being YB's fan. IDK what is happenning on her discord though, I was never there and I'll never be. I am glad mtjj never bullied her like shrimps did for her 227 vid and for that shitty covid drama. People need to be able to criticize YB without being scared of harrassment. Better get criticism than become Voldemort. And, well, they can criticize and we can stop supporting them if we find them biased (for example I unsubscribed - so the only thing I can offer her is one view for her view count when I feel the need to watch smth on her YT channel)

[fyeahfandomtrash]

just some info you should know when nct china starts promoting in china and/or speaking chinese:

“gege”, or 哥哥 in simplified chinese. means older brother, and you can just use one character when talking about a male older than you (an older guy is a 哥哥 no matter what gender you are, unlike korean, which distinguishes between “hyung” (male speaker) and “oppa” (female speaker)) like how chinaline calls kun “kun-ge”, or older brother kun. Since kun is the oldest in nct china he’s going to be called “gege” or “ge” a lot. 

“didi”, or 弟弟 in simplified chinese. means younger brother, same rules apply as above. the nct china members are all of kun’s “didi” or “di”.

in case you’re wondering about the rest of the sibling/age-relation names:

“jiejie”, or 姐姐 in simplied chinese. means older sister. nct’s beauty team might be called this. it’s equivalent to a “noona” and a “unnie”. again, no gender distinction.

“meimei”, or 妹妹. means younger sister.

it’s pretty typical to see people just use one character i.e. “ge” as opposed to “gege” in most situations. using two characters kind of comes off as cute.

for chinese speakers you tend to call people in the above generation different names. obviously you call your mom and dad “mama” (妈妈) and “baba” (爸爸), but you’ll call people in your parents’ generation “aunt” or “uncle” (nct china’s managers might be called this). i tend to address my parents’ chinese friends that way because it’s pretty typical when you’re somewhat familiar with someone and it shows that you respect that they’re older than you and therefore have more wisdom than you. chinese doesn’t utilize honorifics the way that japanese and korean do, so you’ll tend to see chinaline speak pretty “informally” aka they roast each other a lot lol and they’re way less filtered when they speak and it’s not a big deal if the younger members don’t call the older members “ge” and just call them by their names. i remember the dream+kun cooking dessert v live they did in february of 2018 where renjun was switching over from mandarin to korean to address kun and he accidentally dropped the honorifics in korean and everyone freaked out lol struggles of being bilingual. but yeah anyway don’t sleep on nct china when they debut guys and plz look forward to their future promos in which they’ll be a beautiful mess speaking in mandarin if their v live is any hint.

[tonyglowheart]

yep I agree with that. Jiang Cheng calls Jiang Yanli a-jie, while WWX calls her shijie. In this case/in the genre, shijie, as you said, refers to her being the senior sister in the cultivation sect. So really, if there were any other character more senior to wwx in the sect who is a lady, she’d also be his shijie. But since he’s the number 1 disciple, he only has JYL as shijie. In CQL, JC actually calls WWX his shi’ge that one time at the Gusu Lan intro :’) idk if he ever does again.

I do want to note though - bc I sometimes see ppl claim that this is the 师 means “martial” and therefore it’s only used in martial arts, or in a “mafia” context - that I have literally heard my boss refer to someone as their shidi recently, and in looking into that more, recently learned that this is a thing used within, like, grad school cohorts for example. But it might also just be a term people use/can use for their “juniors” and “seniors,” the way jpn has terms for these.

So people who say you wouldn’t have a “shijie” in modern AUs... actually ARE incorrect lol. (My stance previous was: you’re very obviously doing an AU of MDZS; I don’t see a problem with having courtesy names even in a modern AU just bc I find a lot of EN writers aren’t really writing true to CN modern culture anyway, and since it’s an AU what’s wrong with using the name structures that are most familiar to the audience? But I also tend to bias modern cultivation AUs or modern AUs that tap more into canon vs pure modern AUs for ppl to do whatever with, so that’s also just a preference for keeping courtesy names vs having the characters only go by birth names to everyone.) tho I guess the complication comes in if you’re saying WWX was adopted into the Jiang fam and you don’t have a structure wherein she’d be his senior vs adopted relationship (or... honestly imo for CN culture, he’d also refer to her as jiejie out of politeness if she’s older than him anyway), in which case I guess he maybe would call her jiejie vs shijie.

hello i have a question about the corrections on CQL’s subtitles (i know, it’s an old post!!!). from what i’ve understood, the way wwx and jc call yanli show the difference in their relationships right? do you know what exactly ‘shijie’ means? and is ‘a-jie’ an affectionate way of saying sister? bc i was trying to google it but only ‘jie’ came up. thanks so much!

Okay, so, I’m not EXACTLY the ideal person to answer this, because I’m not a Chinese speaker and am just relying on what I’ve learned from other people in the fandom. 

But “shijie” is like Sect Sister, or Cultivation Sister, in the wuxia/xianxia genre.  It means they are in the same cultivation sect.  The prefix “shi” is used in this way, like in shizun “cultivation teacher/master” and “shidi”, which is what Jiang Cheng would be to Wei Wuxian.  (Younger cultivation brother.)  “Jie” is older sister. (”Mei” is younger sister? I think.) I’m pretty sure what Jiang Cheng calls Jiang Yanli (at least sometimes) is “jiejie” basically just an affectionate nickname version of sister.  The prefix ‘a-’ is basically affectionate when added to anyone’s name.  It’s used before single syllable names to make nicknames.  Especially for children or significant others, but also in families.  I.e. Wen Yuan being called A-Yuan when he’s little.   So, yeah, A-jie is an affectionate and familiar way to say sister.

For more information about naming conventions and terminology, see this document on AO3 which is super useful.

Am I correct above?  Tagging some folks to check me: @tonyglowheart @pumpkinpaix @chinajousama

[alwaysfortracer85]

tbh fireflies knew pretty well that these comments were coming from cpf and still blamed it on mtjj because they wanted to blame it on mtjj. The looked down on YB from the start and lets be real, pollen is known to be toxic and steps on their jiejies' costars, there are many cases like that. I never tell people what to do, but for me jiejie and her fandom stepping on YB (even after LoF ended when she dragged him into the mess with her new drama) was a good lesson. I am never going to hype anyone, but YB. I mean, I will respect the work of all his costars, watch the drama, but for me only YB and his character exist. And with Luoyang we are going to have not one, but two flowers, so beware everyone, new pollen is coming lol