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three--rings · 3 years ago

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I posted 3,480 times in 2021

633 posts created (18%)

2847 posts reblogged (82%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 4.5 posts.

I added 4,154 tags in 2021

#word of honor - 828 posts

#shan he ling - 745 posts

#山河令 - 686 posts

#shl - 664 posts

#mdzs - 332 posts

#mo dao zu shi - 239 posts

#asks - 231 posts

#tgcf - 162 posts

#tian guan ci fu - 143 posts

#woh spoilers - 124 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#i have to go clothes shopping with him so he doesn't come home with all pink shirts because he doesn't want to deal with other men about it

My Top Posts in 2021

WOH/SHL versus the Novel

In order of importance? Maybe.

-- Wen Kexing doesn’t fake his death in the novel. In general the armor plot is pretty different but around this point in the novel WKX decides to return to the Ghost Valley for a Final Stand and sends Gu Xiang and Cao Weining away with Chengling to go looking for Ye Baiyi. He’s basically sending them into safety. Zhao Jing and his dudes are going to attack the Ghost Valley to get the Key.

-- Zhou Zishu isn’t captured by Prince Jin, and basically Prince Jin plays no role in the plot except as backstory. Zhou Zishu basically goes off on his own to hunt down the Scorpion King and ends up joining his entourage in disguise.

-- A’Xiang and CWN catch up to YBY when he’s joining the rest of the force assaulting the Ghost Valley. CWN basically jumps out and gets involved, A’Xiang follows, and eventually Master Mo does basically the same thing as in the drama and kills him. A’Xiang tries to launch herself at him but YBY knocks her out and takes her away.

-- The invading force arrives at the Ghost Valley to fight with WKX. The final confrontation, with WKX revealing his identity to everyone is here, and he finally kills Zhao. Gu Xiang arrives intending to kill Master Mo. But she throws herself in front of a strike meant for WKX and dies, like in the drama, begging him to kill him for her, calling him gege. WKX does, it’s just like the drama. The Scorpion arrives and is going to kill him, but ZZS arrives in time and stops him, leaving him wounded to run away.

-- Guess who ultimately kills Scorpion? Zhang Chengling, when he happens to run into him, already wounded and having lost control of his own men.

-- ZZS carries WKX off the mountain. Then they all go to the top of YBY’s mountain to perform the nail removal surgery because it has to be in a cold place. The Shaman does the procedure and ZZS sleeps for weeks and then wakes up to WKX holding his hand, end of book. They stay on top of the mountain for a few months recovering, (and having sex) but eventually go back to the world and everything is awesome.

-The armor was NOT a key to a secret armory in the book. It was basically encoded texts containing martial arts secrets. (I think?) The key was a fragile little thing and WKX destroyed it before the novel ever started so the entire thing was people fighting over nothing, a useless trinket. He instigated it to get his revenge.

-There’s an extra you should really read if you’re sad about A’Xiang and CWN. It’s here (in Eng translation): https://chichilations.home.blog/2021/03/18/fw-extra-3/

In it, CWN goes to the underworld to wait for Gu Xiang, who comes along a few minutes later and they are reunited. Before going back to be reborn, they are given a red string of fate and are reborn with matching birthmarks to two friendly families, who take this as a sign and betroth them to each other as children. The bracelets from the drama are clearly a reference to this and you should read this as canon, I think.

-- Scorpion King is totally different in the book to the drama. He’s not Zhao’s adopted son at all, and seems middle aged. He likes to watch people have sex and tries to get Wenzhou to “perform” for him. He is just really sleazy, but loves to gamble, so he kinda forms a tentative alliance with wenzhou for a minute. He thinks he’s playing everyone who has hired him, but ultimately was getting played by WKX the whole time.

-- In the novel, WKX isn’t part of Four Seasons Manor. He wasn’t accepted as a disciple by ZZS’s master, they didn’t know each other then. So the whole plotline of rebuilding the sect and ZZS taking him back and that theme of sect brothers isn’t there. They don’t spend any time at Four Seasons Manor together. Instead that period is spent at the Puppet Master’s stronghold, while ZZS recovers from nearly dying there. It’s several months of them sharing a bed and being domestic.

-- The reveal of WKX’s identity to ZZS is WAY earlier in the book than the drama. Basically around the time Chengling is kidnapped and they rescue him they’re sitting around a fire and WKX goes: “So you’re the leader of the Tian Chuang. huh?” and ZZS is like “And you’re the Master of Ghost Valley” and they both just sit there feeling very smart. And ZZS, even though he’s still CLAIMING to not like him and suspect him, etc, just doesn’t let this information slip to anyone.

-- They constantly refer to each other as husband and wife in the book. It’s started by WKX but eventually ZZS just gives in and plays along and at some point it shifts to sincere. WKX is almost always called the wife.

-- They kiss a few times but don’t actually have sex until after the end of the main novel. (Though they intend to once and get interrupted.) The first extra deals with this, in which they spend weeks fighting (physically) over who is going to top, both determined to top. Eventually WKX wins by being manipulative and having a crying breakdown over the loss of his parents and A’Xiang and ZZS gives in “just this once” and let’s him have his way. There’s no explicit scenes, it’s a fade to black fyi.

In general, the book is really fun and delightful in the first half, when WKX is being very blatant and flirtatious and it’s driving ZZS insane. The actual plot is almost more confusing than the drama armor plot and it’s basically just a sea of names to me even now (and they don’t match up with the drama...woes).

I definitely recommend it for the much more blatant and snippy banter and the explicitly, unreservedly happy ending. There are things about the drama that I think were done better, though. It’s a strange case of adaptation, and I’m sure I’m going to talk more about that.

355 notes • Posted 2021-03-28 07:45:44 GMT

Just had a bit of a revelation. Thinking about that post from earlier today about wuxia tropes...

The problem with Western CQL onlies (and yes some of you are very nice, I don’t mean You) is that they not ONLY refuse to read the novel, where all the inconsistencies of the drama make sense and the world and the plot and the timeline has actual logic behind it....but ALSO they are missing all the context of the genre which the drama creators were COUNTING on their audience to have.

Like, you don’t make a xianxia cdrama with the audience of complete noobs to the genre and setting and the entire idea of cultivation in mind. That’s just, not, traditionally, at all who would be watching it. So they made sure someone familiar with wuxia OR someone familiar with the novel could make sense of it. But not NEITHER.

Which is why people sometimes get these WILD interpretations of things. Like, to return to the example I brought up in tags this morning: imagine encountering Harry Potter and never having heard the word wizard or knowing that a “magic wand” was a thing, or that witches in folklore traditionally ride broomsticks? Those are all things that RELY on a certain amount of cultural knowledge to GET, and if you were trying to make sense of the Wizarding World without that knowledge (as surely happens in non-Western countries from time to time) you’d probably come up with some out-there theories. Why BROOMSTICKS? Is it a pun on “sweeping?”

So my point is...MDZS/CQL is part of a GENRE that has general rules in how things work. It is based on cultural tropes and folklore and religion and lots of other stuff. It’s not just a stand-alone thing. And this stuff can be looked up! Or there’s a convenient novel version one could read that might be enlightening. Like really take your pick? But so many fans seem to think that the only recourse to learning about how CQL works is asking other fans to do labor for them in explaining it. Fans who are drawing on these sources that are accessible to all!

And since both myself and others may be expanding into other cdrama fandoms, this applies to other shows as well. Read wikipedia. There are lots of websites in English about wuxia and xianxia and whatever aspect of Chinese culture you may have questions about. Have fun!�� Start with google.

365 notes • Posted 2021-03-30 06:06:31 GMT

So I’m not super thrilled with what I’ve seen from the TGCF leaks so far. As far as the main actors I think the Hua Cheng actor looks MORE suited for his character, but I’m Big Skeptical of Xie Lian’s actor.

(And no I won’t be sharing leaks here so you’ll have to like look in the tag if you want to see them. Leaks are usually bad for productions and is encouraging paparazzi and obsessive fans in ways that lead to a lot of disruption of filming.)

And yeah I agree that the costumes look ATROCIOUS but apparently they’ve said they aren’t the real costumes either because that’s true or because so many people are making fun of them.

But also, I would cautious the entire fandom from jumping to conclusions about the production based on anything until it actually airs. MDZS fandom was up in arms about the casting for CQL, in particular, Wang Yibo, who was obviously the worst ever choice for Lan Wangji, and we all know how that turned out. (While CQL has plenty of flaws, it’s not the acting, especially not the main cast.) (Also as someone who watched CQL as it aired and was already in MDZS fandom, I remember all the people who had spent six months talking shit about Wang Yibo continuing to dig in their heels about his acting and then growing like quieter and quieter the longer the show aired, though some were very stubborn. They mostly disappeared as the fandom grew though.) (And some people were totally honest about how against WYB they’d been and how wrong they’d been, tbf.)

Plus, the entire industry and fandom was sure Word of Honor was going to be a piece of trash and a giant flop.

So, basically, no one knows shit until we all get to see it.

373 notes • Posted 2021-07-26 06:30:10 GMT

So I finished binding TGCF. This is ONE NOVEL.

The spine fabric I made myself from some solid cotton fused to printer paper. I made the first volume with a version using tissue paper but it showed a lot of the tapes and details of the text block, so I switched to using printer paper. It helped, but the spines still look messy... The covers are fabric, including the super pretty stuff I used for Faraway Wanderers and a matching butterfly print, because...Hua Cheng.

So these are very imperfect. For the endpapers I used parchment-looking printer paper, but it’s really so thin it shows all the texture under it and looks messy. But I didn’t have anything else to use for this many volumes, so...IDK.

The spines are various degrees of rounded, with pre-made headbands from Hollanders and red ribbon bookmarks.

Ultimately, I feel like these are very readable copies, and I’m looking forward to actually doing a reread with these, but I might at some point in the future want to redo this project with some better spine fabric and endpapers.

411 notes • Posted 2021-06-12 23:57:54 GMT

Word of Honor: Watch It Already

Yeah it’s time to do a rec post for real. Because seriously, y’all, join me.

NOTE: All gifs in this post were made by @jingyans, who very graciously allowed me to use them. Please do not repost and go see her blog for all the gorgeousness!

What is it?

Word of Honor/ Shan He Ling/ 山河令 is a Chinese drama series with 36 episodes currently in the process of airing. It is based on a danmei/BL webnovel by Priest called 天涯客/ Tian Ye Ke/ Faraway Wanderers. (Which I have not yet read, so everything in this post will be based solely on the show as aired up to ep 11.)

It’s set in Fantasy Ancient China, much like previous popular series The Untamed and is part of the same general genre.

What’s it about?

Okay. So Zhou Zishu was the leader of the Window of Heaven/Tian Chuang, an organization of spies and assassins who worked for a prince.

He saw basically everyone he cared about/his entire sect killed for the organization, and he decides he wants out, but there’s no leaving alive. He essentially manages to find a loophole by using a cruel fantasy method to basically slow poison himself, guaranteeing his death in three years. But he’s free.

Cut to six months later, when he’s living his best life being completely drunk in a gutter, disguised with a fake tan, terrible beard and general squalor. He draws the attention of a mysterious gentleman, our love interest Wen Kexing.

Wen Kexing completely fixates on Zhou Zishu (or Zhou Xu, as he introduces himself), declaring him incredibly beautiful, despite his rough state, and starts a bit of light stalking.

These two have a lot of humorous bantering around, before eventually stumbling into the plot in the form of a young teen boy who is the only surviving member of his brutally murdered clan. They are tasked with taking him to someone trustworthy and thus the two equally mysterious warriors now have an adopted son together.

That’s the basic set-up, and the show is pretty much evenly split between really adorable flirting, wacky hijinks, and operatic political drama plot. All of these typically involve fight scene choreography. Though, to be fair, I’ve seen less than a third of the show at this point, though I have something of a feel for what is coming from people watching it without English subs.

So...about that romance?

Look, there’s no beating around the bush here, I really can’t imagine being into this show if you’re not into the idea of a prominent romance between two male characters. The novel, being danmei, is blatantly a queer romance, but this is China, which means censorship.

**And I’m only saying this because this is tumblr, and no one cares what we think here, but, look, it’s a freaking miracle this show passed censorship because it is NOT subtle at all in its gayness. The plot...really doesn’t make sense without a romantic aspect, and it’s really hard to miss. It’s so blatant, that it’s hard to watch without remarking on it, which means a lot of people are afraid of the show being pulled or edited by the government before it’s done airing. There’s precedence for that happening. Seemingly even the makers are concerned, hence them releasing 9 episodes a week, up from the original 4. So please, if you do watch it, don’t go yelling in the comments or on twitter or wherever about how it’s showing up the Chinese government’s censorship or whatever because that’s putting people’s careers in real danger, not to mention harming the show.**

ANYWAY. The romance involves a HUGE amount of flirting, mostly initially from WKX to ZZS, but fairly soon they start throwing around the word “zhiji” aka “soulmate” to describe what they mean to each other. If this seems very blatantly romantic, it IS, but it can also describe a platonic connection, which is how they manage to get away with this. Still, it’s swoon-worthy honestly. The mood for me is a very good period romance, because I’m wildly flailing about their sleeves touching or hands brushing over here, so if that’s your jam, please join us.

I’m going to get into slightly more spoilers under a cut, because I think it’s very fun to watch the show without knowing ANYTHING about it, but if you need further convincing/specifics please follow me.

The show also seems to involve a lot of alternating fluff and angst, which, let’s be honest here, is kinda what we like right? It seems like they don’t want to keep us in pain for more than an episode or so without some resolution, but then new pain happens again. These two break up and get back together a lot, is what I’m saying.

Why should I watch it?

Like most good danmei, the show balances deep romance with interesting and exciting plot, but the characters are the real stand-outs here. Both male leads are older than your average drama protagonists, somewhere close to 30. And they are both essentially villains. Not just characters with dark pasts, but really the bad guys of other people’s stories. The novel is actually a sequel to a totally different romance, and at least ZZS was an antagonist in that story.

(Above: Evil is a good look on Wen Kexing.)

But here we have two very morally dubious characters: one who has given up that life and one who is still actively causing harm, and the story is about how they connect and change as a result. (Again, I’m drawing slightly on what others have said of where the story is going and also just making assumptions.)

If you have a moral problem with loving and shipping dark characters, this isn’t the show for you, no matter how cute it may appear. This isn’t a “pure” couple, no matter how little on-screen sexuality we will get. But if you love exploring morality and complicated characters who don’t always make the right choices, like I do, this is Your Thing.

Thankfully, the scriptwriter has come out and said there will be a happy ending for the main couple, at least. So there’s that to hold on to as we face the angst and pain that is inevitably coming. (From the novel I hear, yes, there’s some serious suffering in store.) A lot of us thought the show looked light and fun and now...we’re gonna be in pain. So consider this fair warning as well.

There’s also a cast of very easy to like side characters, in particular the “kids” A-Xiang (WKX’s servant) and Cheng Ling, the boy they rescue. There’s also a colorful cast of villains that have huge amounts of style if nothing else.

Downsides?

So the show was made on a VERY limited budget. Overall I think they did a fantastic job. But the seams DO show from time to time. There’s not a lot of CGI (which is a good thing imo) but sometimes there are very obvious places they didn’t have the resources they needed, like crowd scenes made of the same 4 actors cut and pasted again and again, lol. However, I think they did a great job on the costumes for the most part, and the sets look nice.

There’s also been some criticism for the makeup which ZZS wears in eps 2-5, his disguise. He’s meant according to the novel to look totally different and ugly. But in reality he has a tan, some small scars, a painted on beard, and is dirty and disheveled. Making his skin darker and calling that “ugly” is an unfortunate trope. I think the criticism is valid to an extent, but I hope it won’t destroy anyone’s enjoyment of the show. The makeup is gone forever midway through ep 6.

Where can I watch it?

I’m going to assume most people reading this will be looking for a version subbed in English. That is available on Youtube on the Youku official channel. As of this typing, they have released 11 episodes with subs. There are no fansubs otherwise available. The Chinese language release is somewhere around ep 20-something? That is available through the Youku website. I believe their release schedule has the last episode coming out around March 23, but we’ll be weeks behind for the English version. (Pardon the lack of a direct link to YT, but just search Word of Honor and you’ll find it. If I have links tumblr will disappear my post.)

So please, come join us in this hell. It’s been a while since a ship hit me so incredibly quickly and a lot of people have the same feeling, it seems. Give it a few episodes, and see if you’re not WILDLY in love by episode six. (Before that I was in like. After episode six I wrote emergency fanfic.) (Episode six pictured below.)

1289 notes • Posted 2021-03-10 13:11:04 GMT

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#my 2021 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #long post #very long post #word of honor spoilers #shl #I can't cut this so I'm sorry it's so long #but look there are stats and I love stats

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