#li xiangyi: ...someone who i thought loved me

[zishuge]

Oooof Tushan Jing being the younger brother who is world-renowned as an elegant and accomplished scholar and musician, who ends up being locked up in a dungeon and tortured for years by a jealous older brother who then throws him out into the street to die, and tells him, "Without your fancy clothes and without your noble status you're nothing".

"Qingqiu-gongzi is just a joke."

God this is 1000000% exactly what Shan Gudao would've done to Li Xiangyi if he had had the chance and now I badly want to read that fic.

[kseniyagreen]

In the deathcar we alive (part 2)

My final thoughts about Mysterious lotus casebook, conclusion.

Li Lianhua is a healer by his very essence (his internal energy is healing), but he is already mortally tired of fixing broken things.

In the depths of his soul, he wants it to be completely broken already and so he does not need to roll this Sisyphean stone up the mountain. And it seems like the last thing in the world he wants to “repair” - the image of Li Xiangyi. This role that he deeply associates with guilt and loss of self.

But eventually he will have to fix this role in order to let it go.

Become the “real” Li Xiangyi, the hero-savior for Fang Duobing, the "prince" whose blood is able to stop the apocalypse, the destroyer of the villain.

So that this ghost stops haunting him.

Di Feisheng is absolutely mirror-like in this situation. Unlike Li Lianhua (Li Xiangyi), he tries with the tenacity of a fanatic to fix what is broken. Fix Li Xiangyi, but most importantly, fix himself.

Because for a person who, from early childhood, lived within one traumatic scenario and adapted to it as much as possible, the breakdown of this scenario is felt like a disease, a malfunction.

Li Xiangyi broke this scenario for him, probably even before the battle, and then this crack only grew.

But Di Feisheng is not ready to admit it. After all, a swordsman should not have weaknesses.

Di Feisheng grew up in the arena, he did not know any other relationships, and even after escaping from slavery, he carries his coliseum with him. He no longer needs to be first to survive. But he continues to hold on to this goal - because he simply has no other goal.

And even through love he tries to live according to the same scenario of gladiator fights.

And now it seems to Di Feisheng that if he returns Li Xiangyi, he will also return the old Di Feisheng. And that if he fights a fair fight, everything will be as before and the longing he does not understand will go away.

But as before it is no longer possible.

But just as Li Lianhua could not complete Li Xiangyi’s story on his own, Di Feisheng cannot fully leave his coliseum on his own. He defeats his tyrant. But this final chain is broken for him by Li Lianhua when he breaks his sword.

When he breaks a promise sacred to the swordsman code.

It is easy to conquer the world, but much more difficult… to change your own handwriting, to change the script according to which you have learned to live this life and build relationships.

Since childhood, Li Xiangyi has always been running from something, without remembering from what. And Di Feisheng has been running towards something all his life, not quite realizing where he wants to run and what to find there. Did they have to meet to stop running - or to finally run away together?

In a fight there is a winner and a loser.

But Li Xiangyi (Li Lianhua and any other name he may have later) for Di Feisheng will never be either his victory or his defeat, and therefore he will always be his weakness.

Accepting this weakness as the inevitable price of being alive - is personal rebirth for Di Feisheng, in my view .

And so, in closing, I want to offer some criticism. In my subjective opinion, it is not right to end a story about emerging from a half-hearted existence with a half-hearted ending.

For me personally, the whole story takes on full meaning precisely in the case of a positive ending. If the main character accepts Li Xiangyi within himself and lets him go, and then he finds a way to start a new life. And together with Di Feisheng they will go in search of a new goal and a new self.

Because it is impossible to be reborn alone. You always need someone else in whom you can see your reflection, and therefore change it.

[demoniqt]

Ideas I have for MLC, a fix-it and another abo fic. Dunno when I'm going to write it but I want to.

1. Time travel - LLH died at the end of episode 40 n suddenly he wakes up at the beginning, 10 yrs before the fight with DFS at the East Sea.

Knowing what he knew now, he heads off years of scheming on Shan Gudao's part and Li Xiangyi aka Li Lianhua ropes A-Fei into going on the adventure to get the karmic mother bug and destroying it.

Since he already knows where the mother bug is, it would save them all a lot of trouble destroying it rather than go to Yipin tomb and hunt down the ice shards.

While he was at it, he might as well help DFS get rid of the mind control that he's suffering from.

DFS is very confused by the change in LXY, who's now less intense, lies non-stop and more flirty with him. (He's not dying now, he's allowed to think about his future with his A-Fei.)

2. Abo - DFS go looking for LXY to challenge him for the first time but arrives at Sigu Sect in time to find out that there's a Groom Selection for the omegas of the sect. Basically, the qianyun aka alphas fight in a tournament for the hand in marriage of their chosen kunze/omega.

Of course, DFS immediately signs up for it. Coz, it's fighting. It's what he does best. Hahaha.

Only he meets and fall for a competitor who introduces himself as Li Lianhua 🤣

Meanwhile, Shi Shui and Qian Wanmian is sitting at the parapet having popcorn going, 'When do you think ppl will realise the no 1 prize is competing with them right now?'

Coz there's no way Li Xiangyi would allow the boys to have all the fun.

Then FeiHua falls in love n DFS wants to forfeit the last fight coz he already found a partner, even though he thought LLH is an alpha. But LLH keeps telling him to stay and finish the competition. Cue the miscommunication where DFS thinks that LLH wants him to marry LXY 😂

At the bridal suite, LXY is dressed to the nines with a veil like in Immortal Samsara and DFS tells him that he's in love with someone else. That person is LLH.

DFS: I just want to fight you! *Pulls off the veil*

LXY: Surprise! But we've already fought! And you won me! 😄

DFS: 😳

[languidlotus]

Gosh, just look at how excited Fang Duobing was at the thought of travelling the world with Li Lianhua.

And then how crushing it is to be told that not only are you not the close friends you thought you were and not only are you not going to travel the world together as lifelong partners, but this person you love and look up to thinks you're a spoiled, useless nuisance, a pest, who can't do anything without his help. Someone he couldn't wait to get rid of once he no longer owed Shan Gudao any favours.

My house, my life, my heart doesn't have room for you, Fang Duobing. I do not wish to share it with you.

All this aimed at Fang Duobing, who'd been told he'd never amount to anything from infancy. Who had to fight his own body to achieve his dreams. Who had to escape the restrictions his - albeit loving - family put on him to be able to live those dreams.

Just be a pretty, spoiled princeling on the arm of a princess who'll have all the power, Fang Duobing. Be stuck in a gilded cage doing nothing of importance. That's what everyone expects of you.

Fang Duobing, who chased the ghost of his master - his master who said a kind thing to him once and then died before he could even acknowledge him - in an attempt to live up to his own expectations. His own hopes. He wouldn't be useless. He'd be like Li Xiangyi. And then he meets Li Lianhua and feels like he's doing good. He's figuring out cases and catching bad guys. He's finally getting the badge he's been chasing after for years. He's protecting Li Lianhua. He thinks he's found a lifelong friend. A partner. Someone he can travel the world with and chase all his Li Xiangyi inspired dreams. Someone who feels the same way and complements him. Someone like him.

Only to be told he imagined it. Li Lianhua doesn't feel the same way. Li Lianhua thinks of him the way all those people did back then. He can't do anything. He's spoiled. He's weak. He's not wanted. You're silly, Fang Duobing, for thinking differently. And it's Li Lianhua who returns Fang Duobing to his cage.

He showed up beaming at the thought of sharing freedom with someone very important to him. He left downcast and sad, tied up alongside a murderer.

Like, trust me, I know why Li Lianhua did this, but it's heartbreaking. Episode 16 is so, so painful to me.

[acequinz]

Listen most of my thoughts on the lotus trio emerge when I am making silly ot3 comparisons or seeing someone else's post about one character that gets my mind reeling about the other two as well.

And once again I am thinking about how the lotus trio had a different relationship with love and how it affects them in their growth and the way they would/do deal with it when it comes to ot3.

Di Feisheng - barely got any love, actually make it none. He was raised as a soldier, assassin, or whatever just meant to kill others and was trained as such. He did not get any affection while he lived.

Then when he finally ran away, he attracted people due to his talent and strength but never once did he fall for the sweet words and was very good at seeing it for what it was. They were loyal to his strength and not just him that's why despite having a lot of people in the jingyuan alliance he only has like 2-3 people he truly trusts and it's likely that they go the longest together. (I don't remember exactly but you get me) He's not blinded by the fake love people throw at him and is good at discerning genuine affection.

Li Lianhua/ Li Xiangyi - my beloved.... Now heeee, he got some love. It wasn't all the love but it wasn't no love at all. He went from losing everything and starving to finding someone who was kind to him and appreciated him.

To me he also is someone with almost the worst relationship with love out of the three. Not just because he always ends up betrayed or dumped. But because he has the toughest time with discerning genuine love from the fake one.

When he lived as Li Xiangyi, he thought he was genuinely loved by all and it wasn't that they loved his strength because there is a difference and he didn't see that difference, (which is why the break up happened) but also he was hungry for love, he needed it.

You know how they say that if you are starving and you take one bite of something your hunger only gets worse.

That was his scene. Of course he had people who genuinely loved him but by the time he realised the difference between Li Xiangyi's strength and Li Xiangyi himself, he was too far gone and had even lost himself.

Then he started living as Li Lianhua, completely detached because he now no longer needed love as if he was an addict giving up on an addiction but love isn't exactly an addiction not if you are surrounded by the right kind and manage it well.

And he knew himself to not be able to manage it so he gave up on it, maybe even began to fear it.

Then we have Fang Doubing- he got all of it! Every bit of it. But not always. He was a sickly child once, most likely to die, people didn't even think he would live and no one believed in him until he started showing promise after his meeting with Li Xiangyi.

So yeah he was spoiled in love but that love wasn't exactly unconditional at all times, but he had a safe environment to judge it.

Like yes Fang Duobing is open to love and trust but not always, he is smart about it and he knows that if he's wrong and falls he will have people who love him to catch him so he is more open to new people and can take the risk of being kind without knowing everything immediately.

Cause again, it's not like Fang Duobing just opens his heart for everyone and invites them in but he's definitely kinder to himself and others when things come down to it.

He is nice and kind to people he understands as deserving of his care and has an actual ranking of people he cares about.

And honestly all of this is only visible when you watch the three interact together.

At all moments Li Lianhua is the most uncomfortable, is it his hunger acting up? Is it the unraveling of the plot? Or resurgence of the emotions he tries his best to suppress?

He is very confident with resolving mysteries but his biggest fears are dealing with the people who genuinely loved him and it's so obvious with the way he hesitates and even stops in his tracks.

Like he knows the people who never actually loved him and has gotten over it but he still fears the people who did love him with all of their being and he fears having to face them the most.

Even with Fang Duobing we see him struggle to open up and bare himself, it's harder with Di Feisheng because he already sees through every cover up and Li Lianhua doesn't exactly get a choice there. ( Is it also because Li Lianhua doesn't consider himself to be someone loved by him? Probably)

Di Feisheng isn't exactly open to anyone except Li Xiangyi from the start but he doesn't really fear it and back away either and that's visible in the almost indulgent way he treats Fang Duobing.

Like sure initially it's cause he can't do anything about Fang Duobing but eventually they do begin to work together very well, there's an almost unspoken understanding between them. (Unspoken from dfs because we know fdb loves to yap) And Di Feisheng sees the promise in Fang Duobing as well, respects it but like- it's too early for you to be considered for my rival position, come back in another 10 years and I will THINK about it-.

And it's because he doesn't shy away and actually looks at Fang Duobing too, maybe it's because he knows Fang Duobing is looking at him or he just wants to see what Li Xiangyi sees in him but he does look at Fang Duobing and most definitely appreciates what he sees.

Maybe the view is that of a defenseless puppy at first who most likely won't survive but not only does the puppy continue to survive but he only gets stronger and he doesn't lose himself in the change.

Neither Li Xiangyi nor Di Feisheng accomplished that. And Di Feisheng wouldn't change himself even now but he will respect the grind of the protective puppy.

And very few people have his respect. (Also if I may add, respect and acknowledgement is the way Di Feisheng loves hence his constant screams of Li Xiangyi being his only rival and worthy of standing against him are practically love confessions that Li Lianhua/ Li Xiangyi never saw)

Then comes Fang Duobing, he clings to Li Lianhua very fast, open and trusting despite the trickery that befalls him.

He has subconsciously already made the decision that he trusts Li Lianhua and once his subconscious connects it to his main consciousness he takes it in a stride, like fuck yeah! I trust him.

He knows the other keeps his secrets but he also judges his actions and makes the choice to continue trusting Li Lianhua cause let's be honest there are many instances where Xiaobao is indignant and would/should walk away but he makes the active decision to stay because he trusts and loves Lianhua (platonic or romantic is your choice).

Then comes in Di Feisheng and he doesn't cling half as fast, he's on the edge and still judging until Li Lianhua reveals a 10 year long connection and even then he just relaxes a little, still considering a-fei and trying to decide which slot to put him in? But he has already accepted him by this point, he is one of the people under Fang Duobing's protection and he will care for him, even if he doesn't get him yet.

There's few reasons to trust either of them but he does anyway because that's just how loved and honestly he wasn't wrong with it.

Now I know I am using mainly Fang Duobing to explain my thoughts on others but it's because there's a lot of offscreen history between dihua and I have yet to form full ideas on how i think their relationship actually goes other than the simple unwavering trust they have in their own knowledge of their rival.

And we more or less meet dihua in their final arc while fang Duobing is in his first arc so I have more in show stuff to go off of. So my headcanons for difang and fanghua are a lot more detailed compared to my dihua headcanons. (I am still building around them).

[angryteapott]

Still going on about this because it's rotating in my mind like kebab, even tho i am in the already annoying li lianhua definitely bit it crew I'm also in the even more annoying faction of refusing to romanticize his actions. While I love everyone's interpretations and what they say about us I just don't see it as a settled ghost story! Even if we ignore that there was treatment (and oh boy i have Thoughts about Li Xiangyi refusing to collaborate with others only seeing his solutions and causing bad endings, boy did Li Lianhua not learn his lesson about arrogance), i think if we pretend like him that there was no chance of him surviving more than a week, from HIS perspective he thinks he's giving closure to an inevitable death and that it's a ghost story, but that's just not the story MLC tells.

He himself tells yun biqiu how meaningful it was to live past guilt and feed himself and a dog, but he doesn't give his honest reasons as "I'm dying and tired, let me go in peace" he says "li xiangyi deserved to die. And he did." Di Feisheng is right that he's a stubborn, lost soul. There's no such thing as ghosts, and he's escaping because he finds the things that contradict that delusion discomfiting. Fang Duobing has actually been very obedient when told Li Lianhua's actual reasoning. Say I'm tired, I don't want to fight. Have a conversation. Have a final meal. Let yourself be cared for in your last days.

Li Lianhua wants there to be some sort of easy closure where he doesn't have to be honest with himself or others by escaping care instead of refusing it and leaving letters and books, and saying it's for their sake, but really it's because of his guilt. He wants to die; I can't think of a crueler way to do it. Who gave anyone closure? He left a letter instead of a body. I took the ocean as you can't hold on to something determined to leave you. What fang duobing said about cups and cups only applies if someone will drink with you.

To be fair this interpretation is definitely shaped by my own damage (rip) but I do think what I'm saying is in text, from the monk begging him to tell his loved ones to his master's wife saying at least let me take care of you here. There is no neat closure, just living with people and leaving honestly. But li xiangyi felt too unworthy to do that.

In order, i think that di feisheng represents wanting to return to a past that's totally fine, I think li lianhua represents wanting to hold onto pain and refusing to engage with the present, and i think fang duobing represents acknowledging the past can't be changed but there's joy in growing forward. Just see his reaction to Shan Gudao, his birth father! I think it's important that the series ends on his perspective, and I think that refusal for real closure, closeness and healing was li lianhua's greatest betrayal.

[angryteapott]

Okay, someone else posted so it got me thinking but one of the reasons I hate the reveal that li lianhua is ~secretly royalty~ and more importantly that shan gudao was a regular guy is because of happy's death. To sum up:

Happy is actually the reason i got so into the show, because without him the first few arcs would feel very flat. There's a bunch of little moments that show happy's interiority, and a bunch of little moments that show fang duobing blithely not getting it. My favorite of these moments is when fang duobing snatches a letter with happy's fathers handwriting as evidence. He'd intended to burn it at his mother's grave.

This is an interesting writing choice! It sets up our hyper privileged protagonist not really caring about non privileged people. It works nicely with Li Xiangyi's past being that he was a beggar. We also get a bit of that sort of backstory with di feisheng, but it doesn't really have a regular people vibe so it doesn't fit into this theme of this inherent conflict of who's important and who isn't.

And for the first few cases this is very important! Happy's death makes Fang Duobing seek vengeance for him, and he seeks justice for the guards as well while learning it was really the rich who vented their anger about their own selfish mistreatment of a loved one. Very much dual themes of who is justice for (fang duobing's arc) and people who were treated badly by the people who were supposed to love them. Yeah they got justice for the guards by... killing their enslaved colleagues... but fight scenes are a must I guess. This also is interesting in the context of Li Xiangyi founding Baichuan Court, a mechanism for justice (it's a cop show, I know, I know). This is the moment I think Li Lianhua first really notices Fang Duobing.

Then they never. Mention. Happy. Again.

Sputteringly, the themes are continued! Qiao Wanmian intentionally lets go of people related to the jinyuan alliance instead of assuming they're guilty by association. The lotus mansion arc's first victim is a redeemed courtesan with few choices and the girls of girl manor are treated sympathetically. Zijin is shown as evil both because he's jealous but also because he's shallow and obsessed with power instead of justice. There's a throwaway line that Sigu Sect should search for a merchant the same way as they do for Li Xiangyi. An important moment revealing that Fang Duobing sees Li Xiangyi as more than just his status is him understanding that the Sigu Sect should be about justice, combining neatly with Xiangyi's previous status as a beggar that people say he should be so embarrassed of he would kill Shan Gudao about it. But never is there a case with the same justice is for everyone thrust. The villains become determined by their ethnicity with a few one off 'greedy' characters. What is the point of the king of hell arc, other than to be background as LLH and FDB divorce? By the time we see Li-er again, Happy's erstwhile friend, the show is wrapped up enough in the main plot that it doesn't really notice that Fang Duobing tried to send Li-er for a blanket when the mansion is under attack in place of his mother when he says out loud he never thought his mother was in any real danger. The villains were people with birth defects mad about being treated as disposable who killed women to (reads notes) detoxify poison that actual emerald would work for that they never figured out how to identify from a local after ten years.

Then the main plot is revealed- Shan Gudao! Thematically, Shan Gudao is a villain because he was always jealous of Li Xiangyi, but he clings to shallow things like bloodline making him matter in the face of his trauma.

By this time in my least favorite way of upping the stakes not even Li Lianhua cares about the little people anymore, only about the "peace of the world" maintained by an emperor who was going to build an expensive pagoda for fertility issues, presumably at the expense of the people. Before we even get to the horrible no good reveal it's shown that Shan Gudao was treated as less than by his adults because his parents didn't have a relationship with them. He's evil because he was mad about it, not because his anger was misdirected. Then they reveal that all along good guy Li Xiangyi was the royal bloodline and the emperor and Shan Gudao are not.

Do you see. How far we've come. From a theme of you shouldn't ignore the lives of those of the lower class. Our fascinating justice seeking protagonist is secretly royalty, oooh. I guess it could be a play that these things are shallow and arbitrary, but it's a) actually important to the plot that he is for his literal actual blood and b) so far removed from the nuance of the first few cases it feels baffling to rewatch them. I hate it! I hate it so much! Instead of learning the explicitly stated lesson of the first few cases that things shouldn't be about shallow markers of power it should be about justice for everyone it turns into Fang Duobing learning Tianji Manor servants sure are useful as cannon fodder, no need to learn any of their names, oh my boyfriend is the most important interesting man on earth. Literally the end of the Fang Duobing Happy dichotomy is oh we forgot we did that. It's not even that they said the theme i liked was wrong it's that they said forget about that theme it's too complicated and low stakes really people just get too jealous of special people and the "world" is at risk ie the emperor and not anyone else. Which if they set that up as how things are or interrogate it and end up there I'll argue with it, but I won't call the writing just based on that. Here...

I really do love the characters and their relationships, but in terms of themes they dropped the ball so badly I'm having issues with the characterization