#just. gonna throw it out there for now

[stormyoceans]

weekly show reviews

BL SERIES

between us - ep. 12/12. gotta be honest, any coherent thoughts i might have had just flew out of the window because of waantul. i do think their resolution was incredibly rushed, but it's hard to complain about it when tul was there saying stuff like "can you be my future?" and "i want to be your safe zone". waan never stood a chance. and you know what else never stood a chance? my sanity as soon as waan started to take off tul's clothes, but let's just not go there. it was a nice final episode, where all the pairings got their little moment to shine, but im not sure i'd call it satisfying ;;;;;; overall i think the show as a whole would have benefited from being shorter (10 episodes would have been enough imho) and from taking out at least one side pairing. don't get me wrong, it's not a bad show, i still enjoyed it a lot, but at times it felt pretty repetitive and i think the resolution between win and team got dragged along way too much. the insanely high expectations that everyone had for the show also didn't really help it. still, winteam remains one of the best pairings i've seen in BLs and im definitely gonna miss them.

candy color paradox - ep. 06/08. this is probably the first japanese BL that isn't quite doing it for me and i can't really explain why. despite the terrible things he did, during this episode i found myself being more interested in inami kei and his secret love for his friend rather than in onoe and kaburagi's relationship, which.. isn't good ;;;;;; i still hope the last two episodes will make me come around tho!!

cutie pie 2 you - ep. 04/04. THEY GAVE JAYFOEI THE MOST PERFECT HALF INTERACTION THAT IM GONNA USE TO FUEL MY CLOWNERY FOREVER SO I REALLY COULDN'T BE MORE SATISFIED WITH THIS. like it happened with the show, i still found jay, foei, and nueasyn to be the most enjoyable part of it, but i actually ended up liking this special significantly more than the last couple of episodes of the main series, maybe because there was more communication between lian and kuea, so im glad it happened, even just so i could say goodbye to the show with nicer feelings towards it!!! i also really liked the way they shot the last scene, because it suddenly felt more like a korean BL rather than a thai one, but im not an expert on this, so i could just be talking out of my ass ;;;;;;

history 5: love in the future - ep. 05/10. somewhere in this there's a plot i really like (time travels are the kind of things i tend to enjoy, just like timeloops), so it makes me incredibly sad that i can't quite click with this show. dai zhe ni and hai yi are a bit too chaotic for my taste, and there are some old tropes that i was hoping we were moving away from. im enjoying the side pairing a bit more, mainly because i find wen hsen very charming and adorable when he drops his composure as soon as huai hen isn't there to see him, but they still suffer from some questionable writing, especially in this episode.

i will knock you - ep. 11/12. PAIN SUFFERING TORMENT AGONY ANGUISH. CAN'T BELIEVE EVEN MY FEEL GOOD SHOW COULDN'T ESCAPE THE 11 EPISODE CURSE. of course noey doesn't really mean what he said and im pretty sure someone (maybe thiw?) said something to him to make him change his mind in the short time it took thi to talk to his mom on the phone, but IT STILL HURTS AND THEY WERE SO MEAN TO HAVE THI DANCE ALONE IN THE END CREDITS. THEY BETTER GIVE THEM THEIR HAPPY ENDING OR I WILL RIOT. im willing to forgive some of their crimes only because they gave me a hint of side lesbians AND THAT'S EVERYTHING TO ME.

individual circumstances - ep. 03+04/08. im honestly not sure how i feel about this show ;;;;;; i do spend most of the time being frustrated and yelling JUST TALK TO EACH OTHER at my screen, though, so.. maybe that's not good ;;;;;; i do like the use of the novel as a way to mirror their story and give us a glimpse into woo jae's thoughts, however most of the time i find it hard to sympathize with him. the interactions between the manager and yeon woo in ep 4 were actually far more interesting and entertaining to me ;;;;;;;

my school president - ep. 08/12. THESE KIDS CONTINUE TO BE UTTERLY DELIGHTFUL TO WATCH AND GIVE ME INSANE AMOUNT OF SEROTONIN. OH TINN'S FANTASIES, HOW I'VE MISSED YOU. however, as funny as they are, i appreciate how the real moments he shares with gun always end up being better and more significant for their relationship. they really have one of the healthiest dynamic i've ever seen and are probably gonna ruin me for any other pairing because now im just gonna expect the same kind of emotional maturity from all characters in existence. win and sound also have me by the throat, but then again i always enjoy a good enemies/rivals to friends to lovers when it's done right. sound also quickly climbed up my list of favorite characters and i think his friendship with gun is really cute. GUN AND HIS MOM MEAN EVERYTHING TO ME AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP IS SO GOOD IT MAKES ME TEAR UP EVERY TIME. i just hope tinn's mom is gonna be as understanding when she's gonna find out that tinn lied to her (which, btw, i don't blame tinn for: if a kid doesn't feel comfortable and safe talking to their mom, then that's on the parent, not the child).

never let me go - ep. 07/10(?). palmnueng is making me rabid. benchopper is making me rabid. this entire show is making me rabid in ways i can't really explain. i do understand the criticisms about the plot, but i personally don't mind the island getaway: when set roles and social classes play a big part in a relationship dynamic, having the characters being placed somewhere where those kind of rules aren't as strong is a pretty common narrative device to put them on a more equal ground and bring them together. i also think they are gonna pay the consequences for it, because im pretty sure that sadly tanya is going to die, which will make nueng reject palm, so im willing to overlook some stuff if it means letting them have some temporary happiness. or maybe im just biased because i find every single dynamic in this show incredibly compelling ;;;;;;; im pretty sure the final kiss is gonna enter my list of favorites of the year because it was SO GOOD and i absolutely loved the parallels with their first one.

the new employee - ep. 06/07(?). GROWN ASS MEN BEING CUTE AND IN LOVE WILL ALWAYS BE SUCH A WEAKNESS FOR ME. "do you want to see my cat?" is also quite possibly the best pick up line i've ever heard. im very glad it didn't turn out to be an euphemism ;;;;;; something tells me that the reason seung hyun wasn't hired is probably linked to what's making jong chan looking kinda worried when he's at work, so i wonder how they're gonna deal with it. viki is listing only 7 episodes instead of the 8 on mdl, which means the next one is gonna be the last and im not quite ready to say goodbye to them.

GL SERIES

gap - ep. 10/12. the final boss made her move so IT'S TIME TO KILL AN OLD LADY. in an unexpected turn of the events, nop has also become the most sensible character in the show. who would have thought. i do wish mon and sam would stop defaulting on running away and getting jealous as soon as an issue arises, but im glad they actually managed to communicate this time around. and i do think they got married (however symbolical it may be) a bit too soon, if i have to be honest, but im also fully aware that there are a lot of things im willing to overlook for their sake. at 49 minutes length, this was also the shortest episode of the series up until now, so it's making me wonder if it's because they cut a lot of teeyuki scenes. im still trying to understand why they even decided to cut them out tbh, but at least we got cher and risa.

OTHER SERIES

dirty laundry - ep. 03+04/06. i admit i liked the first two episodes a bit more, but the show is still insanely funny while also having a solid plot: the mystery of who took the briefcase is well done and pretty entertaining imho. the entire cast is also doing a fantastic job, but i have to admit film in particular keeps surprising me with each episode. maybe it's because the only roles i saw her in before this were eugene in not me and earn in 2gether, but i didn't expect her to be so insanely good at comedy. i love to watch her play as neon and im starting to like her and night together a lot!!!

the warp effect - ep. 07/12. i was expecting what happened to kat and yet it still was incredibly distressing to watch. i do ship her and jean quite a lot, but honestly i just hope she's gonna be okay and that they won't make her change her mind about relationships by the end of the show, because women have every right to just have fun and stay single if that's what they want. i'd actually be okay with jean ending up with tony (if he doesn't turn out to be an asshole too), but sadly i don't have much hope for it. jan and silvy have great chemistry and are doing an amazing job as nim and molly, and the same goes for fluke and thor as army and joe. im not sure if they're going down the asexual joe route, or the joe being side route, but either way it makes sense for him to not tell army about it since army seems to consider penetrative sex as more 'serious'. after what happened it's understandable that he would try to protect himself and his heart again, so i can't wait for army to surprise him (and us) positively on this!!!! a huge shout out to singh and ciize as well, they were AMAZING in that last scene, though i admit it was pretty frustrating to watch ew walking straight into disaster when he 1) knew what he was risking and that he was in the wrong, and 2) could have just talked!!!!! to liu!!!!! IM SERIOUS PLEASE JUST TALK TO YOUR PARTNER MAYBE IT WON'T SOLVE STUFF AND MAYBE YOU'LL BOTH DECIDE YOU'RE BETTER OFF WITH OTHER PEOPLE BUT YOU HAVE TO COMMUNICATE. also there's something shady about liu's boss and i don't like it one bit.

[egophiliac]

messing around with techniques! I...like the foxman and the catboy a lot okay

also, a couple of quickies that honestly don't deserve any more effort than I've already given them:

[gatoiberico]

parfait pals

[silverraes]

Pit Babe + actual sentences they say in the show (alternative title: Pit Babe + causing me psychic damage)

[kindaorangey]

"are you asking me or making me?" is soooooo interesting to me because i think armand only asks it when he can't gauge whether he's letting louis down. it's barely even sexual - it's a hail mary. it's a show of trust, indirectly admitting that he wants to do something other than what louis expects of him, but that he's willing to obey louis anyway, for the sake of their relationship. it's sort of heartbreaking watching them at the sacré-cœur, because if louis had said "i'm making you" armand would've done it in a heartbeat. he would've taken it as a show of committment on louis' part, and he wouldn't have betrayed him. but louis takes the question just as an expression of disagreement, and so he doesn't play the game. ironically, he respects armand's independence too much to make him turn madeleine if he doesn't want to. and so armand isn't convinced of louis' commitment to him, and he betrays him.

and by the time we see them in san fransisco, louis knows what the question means now, and answers "no, arun, i'm not asking" without question. and armand accepts it without complaint, even as it pains him. companionship really is the most important thing in the world to armand, just like it is for lestat, and he's willing to do any number of horrible things to louis and himself just to keep him as a companion, just like lestat. louis' biggest mistake is not realising how to use that to his advantage sooner.

[danwhobrowses]

You know, as much as I would've loved a massive catharsis-led triumph over Athion Zathuda in battle, possibly left at the mercy of the vibrant flames of Fearne's Titan form reiterating herself with aplomb as Fearne Calloway, I actually kinda love how the narrative chose to defeat him. In many ways it is just hilarious, but also ironically in-character. Man talked all about wanting to prove himself, had a grandiose title of 'Sorrowlord' and was looking to be both a physical and mental adversary after threatening to torment Fearne into becoming Exaltant by targeting her loved ones. But then when he is pit against Bells Hells he barely does a thing; he tries to talk his way into turning Fearne again, gets jumpscared by Ira, the 'farm girl' he mocked to Fearne commandeers his dragon, he loses a leg and is thrown off his dragon, and the Hells even opt to keep him alive for some reason in 107 before kinda accidentally offing him in 108.

He thought he was the shit, but enemies of true threat like Ludinus, Otohan and Liliana (a threat before she was turned) looked down on him, and thus his attempts to prove them wrong - while also falling into the same trap as Ashton's father in seeking out a personal destiny and being willing to see their child as a tool to do it - bore no fruit at all, he was practically an afterthought through and through, his dragon really being his entire threat level. In the end, he got killed running (well, hobbling) away, and while Gloamglut's keening was a little sad in a way that a pet cannot fathom the moral complexity of having to kill their owner he still had it coming, plus following his eternal torture in the Tiki Bar of Ligament Manor, the last sorrow he wrought was his own; he achieved nothing, everything he hints he did to get to his position was for naught, and for all the fear and danger he tried to make himself possess he truly had no power over anyone, especially not Fearne - who can only pity him and, as further proof of being better than he ever was, hope that he takes the time to reflect on his sorrows.

[juricore]

what really gets me about rei asaka isn't the suit or the lesbianism or the substance abuse or the fucking hall of mirrors she lives in. it's the fact that she seems to keep five to seven ornate golden little daggers on her at all times and she uses them like whenever. whenever! i know that getting high and throwing knives with pinpoint accuracy at a crudely drawn silhouette of a girl who will never love her back in any way let alone the way rei wants her to is like thee common pass time for her but like. why did she do this. this was so unnecessary.

why did she do this. get down from there.

[starzonez]

truth

[getosugurusbangs]

i’m a lucky girl, i know

[aardvaark]

i was thinking about how i wished leverage had a birthday episode for some of the characters cause that would be sweet, but then i realised something and basically…. okay here’s my thoughts in quotes form, just for fun

hardison: so when’s your birthday? i could plan something for us and the team to do and-

parker: i dont know

hardison: you don’t know… your own birthday?

parker: no, how would i know? pshh, cmon, you’re telling me you remember EXACTLY when you were born? watch this - hey, eliot, do you know your exact birth date?

eliot, innocently passing by, who was canonically anonymously dropped off at a hospital as an infant: no, how would i know?

parker: that’s what i said!

hardison: excuse me?? what is going on right now

sophie, walking into the apartment: whats wrong?

hardison: parker and eliot- well, okay, when’s your birthday? i just have to prove something.

sophie: …….july 12th

hardison: why did you pause? wait, is that your birthday or sophie devereaux’s birthday?

sophie: ………… (guilty silence)

parker: see, no one knows their real birthday! haha you’re so weird sometimes, hardison

hardison:

hardison: what the fuck guys

[egophiliac]

the lovers, reversed

(aka I'm still freaking out about Jou)

[giggly-squiggily]

Hi hello I work this weekend and I'm beyond over it but here's a quick tododeku dabble cause the new episode made me ugly cry and Lee!Todoroki makes me feel better <3

CW: Foot Tickles, very very mild suggestive humor

Todoroki was going to die. No, really- he was!

Hiding in the first closet he found, he held his breath in wait- his heart racing a mile a minute. It was so loud he was sure his pursuer was using it to track him.

The thought alone was nearly enough to make him laugh- he bit his lip to keep down the giggles.

“Shooootooo!” The voice was close. Todoroki straightened up, freezing all over with his hands clamped to his lips. He heard footsteps coming closer, the sound of soft laughter muffled by the door. When they suddenly stopped, he nearly gasped.

Then, they kept on walking.

Todoroki didn’t move- stiff as a statue as he waited. He waited until he couldn’t hear the footsteps any longer, until the anticipation in his bones yielded enough to return feeling to his limbs. Then, and only then did he open the door and look.

The dorm hall was empty. The background was filled with sounds of his fellow classmates in various rooms going about their day. He listened for a moment longer.

Nothing. The coast seemed to be clear. He dashed out as silently as he could, running for the safety of his room-

Something slithered around his ankle. Black Whip- Midoriya’s additional quirk. He was down and out in seconds.

“Nooo!” He cried out, already laughing as he was dragged across the floor. “Don’t! Please! Have mercy on me!”

“Mercy is for the weak!” Midoriya cried back, his villain facade fading with his own giggles as Todoroki clawed at the floor. The whole gesture reminded him of a reluctant cat. “Beg all you want- you belong to me now!”

“That doesn’t sound too bad thou-AHH!” Todoroki let out a shriek when he was finally within Midoriya’s reach, his boyfriend scoping up his ankle with ease. “Waahhahit nohohohot thahahhat!”

“Huh?” Do that” you said?” He cooed, slowly dragging his fingers against Todoroki’s socked sole. “Eager aren’t we? If you wanted me to tickle you this bad, you could have just stayed put! Very well then- tickle tickle tickle!”

Todoroki could only thrash about on the floor, his laughter taking a new pitch as he struggled to grab at Midoriya’s hands. “Dohohohoohn’t yoohhoohu dhahahahare! Gehahahahahha, cohohohome ohohohohn!” He let out a small squeal when Midoriya focused on a particularly bad spot along the base of his toes, nearly making him slam his head into the floor with how much he squirmed. “Mihihihidoriya, pleahhahahahase!”

“Hehe, you look like a fish! It’s like I’m wrangling in the catch of the day!” The green haired hero laughed as he took a seat, Todoroki’s foot still trapped in his grasp as he watched the other flail and cackle. Seeing him smiling so suddenly gave him a terrible idea.

“Somewhere, beyond the sea,” He began to sing.

“DOOHOHOOHN’T YOOHOHOHOU DAHHAHAHRE!” Todoroki cackled, pounding the ground beneath him as he struggled between hiding his flushed face or kicking at the other with his free foot. “HHAHAHHAHVE MEHEHEHRCY!”

“Someone is waiting for meeee~” Deku drew out the notes as he skittered his fingers up his boyfriend’s foot with a flourish, melting at the hiccupy laughs he produced. “And I forgot the rest of the wooooords~” He gave the trapped foot within his grasp one last tickle before releasing him, crawling up his tired frame and coming to a stop at his exhausted but oh so lovely smile. “Something something, I love you. That’s how the song goes, right?”

“Eheheheheh..hehehee..suhuhure. Let’s go with thahaht..” Todoroki groaned, running a hand through his messy bangs as he struggled for composure. When he could finally catch a breath, he glared halfheartedly up at his smiling boyfriend. “You’re terrible- who hooks someone in with their quirk and tickles their feet like that?”

“I do!” Midoriya laughed openly, making Todoroki giggle as well. “I should go fishing more often- I caught myself one heck of a beauty!”

“So you did. Bet you can’t wait to show off to the guys what you reeled in.”

“Heck no- they can go eat fish sticks out of the freezer. I already told you- you’re all mine.” Midoriya leaned in, kissing him slowly and gently- just the way he liked it. Todoroki could feel his heart racing, warmth spreading through his core and making his toes curl. Oh how he loved the way Midoriya kissed him.

“We should go somewhere. Before someone interrupts.” He somehow managed to gasp out when they pulled away- his brain and lips suddenly working far slower than he’d like.

“Sure. Your room or mine?” When did Midoriya get this bold? He could feel his entire face burn brightly at the question, worsening when the little bastard smiled knowingly. “You’re so pretty when you blush, Shoto.”

“I’m gonna dump ice down your back if you keep acting up.” Todoroki threatened, once again unable to hold on to any real glare as he was swept off his feet, carried away to whichever room Midoriya picked. “You’re lucky I love you- else I’d turn you into a human ice sculpture.”

The green haired teen merely leaned in and kissed him again, that warm feeling coming back like a cozy blanket on a chilly day. “I love you too.”

Thanks for reading! :D

[one-flower-one-sword]

"Mu Qing spat out a mouthful of blood and grimaced like he'd been stabbed where it hurt. He replied, spiteful slowly, "Thank goodness I kicked you out. If we'd kept you in the army and let you get closer to His Highness, were you going to watch him all day with your mind full of unspeakable filth? Disgusting!"

Xie Lian's heart squeezed violently. Hua Cheng had his fist raised at first, but it froze in midair when Mu Qing spat the word "disgusting." Veins bulged on the back of his pale hand. The fingers clenched and loosened, loosened then clenched.

A long moment later, Hua Cheng said icily, "For now, I won't argue with you on that point. [...]"

TGCF Volume 6, page 66

Hua Cheng's reaction here is really interesting - and gets more heartbreaking the more you think about it. I think to understand it, we need to take a look at his distorted self-image and his extreme self-blame whenever he feels he's failed Xie Lian in some way. While doing this, I think it's important to keep in mind that we're looking at these things as separate from Hua Cheng's very real - and very earned! - confidence in his knowledge, abilities, and strength. He knows exactly what he can and can't do and has no problems stating those things as facts. That "aggressive, rebellious confidence" as Xie Lian describes it is a defining part of Hua Cheng's personality and who he is as a person, that is then juxtaposed by a surprising fragility in other matters.

Right when we meet Hua Cheng at just ten years old, he's already been abused for so long and so severely that it's made him actively suicidal. He's also already internalized that his right eye is ugly, evidenced by the way that he keeps covering it with his hands when the bandages are removed after he was beaten and dragged through the streets by Qi Rong and his lackeys:

After a pause, Xie Lian smiled softly. "The doctors will see to your wounds now. Don't be afraid and lower your hands, okay?" The child heard but hesitantly shook his head.

"Why not?" Xie Lian asked.

He was silent for a long time before replying, "Ugly."

TGCF Volume 2, page 349

The right side of his face also appears to receive the most abuse when he gets beaten, as Xie Lian realizes when he sees him again a few years later and his bandages come loose after being attacked by a group of other kids:

During that scuffle, the bandages on the boy's head had been partially yanked off, giving a peek on the other half of his face. It was quite swollen, covered in black and blue bruises. It was obvious that these injuries hadn't been caused by the brawl just now. TGCF Volume 3, page 56

It can be deduced that he probably learned very early in his life that if people see his eye, he gets beaten. It seems to be known around the area that he frequently gets beaten up and kicked out by his family, to a point where even kids from wealthier families know about him and refer to him as apparently everyone else does - the "ugly freak":

"Wow, wow, the ugly freak got kicked out again!" Although these kids were all around the same age as the boy in the shrine, every single one of them was taller than him and looked like their parents fed them well. There was probably a holiday coming up, since they were all dressed in new clothes and shoes. [...] "Hey, ugly freak, are you sleeping at the shrine again tonight? Watch out, your mom is gonna beat the crap outta you when you get home!"

TGCF Volume 3, pages 54-55

This post is going to get quite long, so I'm putting the rest under a read more.

Hua Cheng seems to internalize this view of himself as something ugly and revolting to a point where even hundreds of years later, he's wary about showing Xie Lian his true form. At the same time, he seems to long deeply for Xie Lian to see and accept the real him, so he tries to test the waters when Xie Lian asks the "young master" on the ox cart what Hua Cheng looks like :

The youth laughed. "Who knows? But he's blind in one eye." He pointed to his right eye. "This one."

That was nothing outrageous. Xie Lian recalled one of the many backstory versions where Hua Cheng wore a black eyepatch to hide that missing eye and asked, "Do you know what happened to that eye?"

"That's a question everyone wants the answer to," the youth replied. Others asked because they wanted to know what Hua Cheng's weakness was, but Xie Lian asked purely out of curiosity. He didn't say anything, and the youth continued, "He dug it out himself."

TGCF Volume 1, page 175

And then again after they're back from Banyue:

Hua Cheng didn't turn around but continued to stare at the dilapidated ceiling of the shrine, and Xie Lian could only see this handsome young man's left profile. Hua Cheng said softly, "If I was ugly."

"Huh?" Xie Lian gaped.

Hua Cheng finally turned his head slightly. "If my true appearance is ugly, would you still want to see it?"

Xie Lian was taken aback. "Is it? Although there's no real reason, I never thought your true appearance would be too horrible-looking."

"Who knows?" Hua Cheng said, half-jokingly. "What if I'm discolored, disfigured, ugly, monstrous, and horrible. What will you do?"

At first, Xie Lian thought this line of inquiry was rather fascinating. So the overlord of the Ghost Realm, the one called the devil incarnate and feared by all in the heavens, would care about his looks? But when he thought about it deeply, he didn't think it was very funny anymore. He vaguely recalled, in one of the many rumored backstories of Hua Cheng, one said that he was a disfigured child from birth, or something along those lines. If that was true, then he must've grown up discriminated against by others. Maybe that was why he was particularly sensitive about his appearance.

TGCF Volume 1, pages 369-370

This quote is really long but I wanted to include all of it because Xie Lian's realization here is very important - Hua Cheng's issues don't stem from vanity but from being othered and subsequently abused because of his unusual red right eye. The society they're in shows many instances of ableism, racism, xenophobia and classism, where any attempted change to the status quo as well as anything that goes against "the norm" is regarded with instant suspicion and rejection - as Pei Ming puts it once, "Where there is abnormality, there is evil."

When he finally does show Xie Lian his true form, Hua Cheng is anxious about it up until Xie Lian remarks that it doesn't look bad:

Xie Lian examined him as he followed, smiling. "So, this is your real appearance." Hua Cheng paused slightly in his step. Maybe it was his imagination, but Hua Cheng's shoulders seemed to stiffen for a flash of a second. The moment didn't last, and Hua Cheng responded naturally. "I did say that the next time we met, I would greet you with my real appearance."

Xie Lian grinned and said earnestly, "Not bad." Xie Lian's tone wasn't teasing or consoling, the words were simply said. Hua Cheng gave a small smile back, and this time, it was genuinely relaxed.

TGCF Volume 2, page 103

Xie Lian's acceptance of his true form seems to have reassured Hua Cheng enough that he appears in it a lot more regularly after that, though it's always with the place where his right eye used to be carefully covered. He's also still too afraid to tell Xie Lian about their shared past and who he really is, and even more afraid to confess his feelings because he fears that then Xie Lian will no longer look at him with acceptance and instead see Hua Cheng as this:

He pointed at a little blood-red person on the wall. Right next to it, there were a bunch of messy, twisted, indiscernible characters - it looked like they had been written in a state of delirium or scrawled to vent the author's feeling during a period of extreme suffering. Based on those characters, Xie Lian could guess that the little blood-red person painted there was Hua Cheng himself, but for some unknown reason he had depicted himself as extremely ugly and disfigured.

[...] There was an ugly little blood-red figure at the bottom of the mural. It cupped a small flower in its hands, which it was offering to the statue.

TGCF Volume 6, pages 52-55

Hua Cheng having internalized this distorted "ugly freak" image of himself isn't the only thing tripping him up though. Every time he can't prevent Xie Lian from getting hurt or can't help him, Hua Cheng takes it as a personal failure on his part and immediately seeks to punish himself. Be that by lashing out at Eming, which is essentially an extension of himself:

Xie Lian stroked Eming. "Fangxin is still better suited." Fangxin remained motionless. Eming had tried so enthusiastically to offer itself up but was so blatantly rejected. It hopped back to Hua Cheng's side, weeping. Hua Cheng didn't spare it a single look before he smacked it with a backhand slap. "What are you crying about? This happened because you're useless! Trash!"

TGCF Volume 5, page 120

Or denying himself to touch Xie Lian, like after Xie Lian got accidentally hurt by Eming (an especially cruel punishment given that Hua Cheng had longed for Xie Lian for hundreds of years):

Hua Cheng, however, let go of his hand. "Don't mind them," he said to Xie Lian. "Come with me." His voice was low, the emotion behind it hard to discern. Yet the way he let go of Xie Lian's wrist was swift, almost like he'd been shaken off.

TGCF Volume 2, page 192

Repeatedly witnessing Xie Lian be brutalized and violated while he didn't yet have the power to stop it from happening traumatized Hua Cheng deeply and left him with a wrathful anger that he wields not only against those who wronged Xie Lian but also against himself for any and all perceived failures.

Now, what does all of this have to do with the quote that started it all? In it, Mu Qing accuses Hua Cheng that if they'd have kept him in the army, he would have kept watching Xie Lian "with his mind full of unspeakable filth! Disgusting!" (the fact that he describes a man having romantic feelings and sexual desires for another man in such a way comes off as extremely homophobic of course but that's not the topic of this post)

Hua Cheng, who hates Mu Qing deeply and with good reason, then not only stops his assault but actually goes on to say that he won't argue with him on that point for now. His inner conflict shows in the repeated clenching and loosening of the fingers in his fist - he's extremely angry and would usually never agree with Mu Qing, yet finds himself unable to deny his words. It's noticeable also that it's the "disgusting" that makes him freeze up.

So why would Hua Cheng, someone usually so confident and so unapologetically himself, concede this point to Mu Qing, someone he hates and who's just been viciously insulting him? I would argue that there are two possible reasons.

First of, if viewed through the lens of everything we reviewed in this post, Hua Cheng feels like he "can't argue" on this because he does desire Xie Lian and always has - while at the same time knowing that he, an ugly disfigured other that has repeatedly failed at keeping the God he's pledged his existence to safe from harm, could never be good enough to deserve being with said God like that.

Second of all, as I analyzed in my previous post, Hua Cheng's reaction to Xie Lian having seen the statues and murals is profound fear and heartbreak because he's so sure Xie Lian must now be scared of and disgusted by him. At this point in the story, Hua Cheng is still utterly convinced that his feelings aren't requited, which is something he can deal with. But what he can't bear is the prospect of his feelings, his very devotion, causing Xie Lian pain. Failing to keep Xie Lian safe from being harmed by others is bad enough, but hurting Xie Lian himself? Unforgivable. His fear that his desire for Xie Lian will be upsetting to him is so strong that even after the confession scene, his immediate reaction to Xie Lian even just mentioning the murals is "I'll go destroy them" (Volume 6, page 88), and he doesn't calm down until Xie Lian reassures them that he only saw a few of them and won't look at the others if Hua Cheng doesn't want him to.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

chat i think im gonna be sick

(Powers of X #6)

[shoutmon1v1]

I kinda wanna see someone make an edit of instead of Gummygoo just out right disappearing after the poof he gets turned into a marketable plushie

And yes there is already a plushie and a keychain of him

Already bothered my mom to get me this for my birthday lmao

[front-facing-pokemon]