#lwj's moment of longing and his face makes me think that he is very gay

[starsxinxthexbluexsky]

The Untamed | Episode 28 [Mutual Longing]

⤳WangXian’s Favorite Scenes [12/∞]⬿

[llycaons]

ep7: ah, young love

okay so this episode had a lot of EXCELLENT scenes but also some that don’t land very well and read as a little tryhard and poorly thought out. imo

since we weren’t done being beaten over the head with the parallels yet 😭

exchanging significant looks! the first (?) of MANY. they will have a long career in staring at each other ahead of them

oh damn is that what the original plan was? fuck, this plot is boring

this is so sweet. wwx got a little connection to his grandmaster

I remember wwx having much bigger ‘rip to you but I’m different’ vibes but he seems more chill here this rewatch

FAKE ROCKS LMAO

this is actually one of my least favorite tropes/moments for wx. it just feels like a contrived situation that’s designed to make the audience go ‘oohhh, that’s gay!!!’ without any intentional input or decisionmaking from the characters. like it turns them from subjects into objects? it’s hard to explain but I think this is annoying and meaningless as a romantic writing choice

I love how I can read lwj again now. and he looks SO hurt and betrayed

also his face/nose look rounder than usual. he’s always had round features but they look accentuated in this shot. another reason that lines about lwj’s sharp jawline confuse me in fics

aw shit did he say zhiji

wwx is so cute when he’s serious

lwj writing off wwx as telling stories and being silly, internally rolling his eyes, and then VISIBLY reassessing when he realizes that wwx is actually being very clever in misdirecting nhs. like ‘OH. he’s smart!’

wwx literally looked at lwj for five seconds and jc lost it lmao

all of his looks of sadness tend to be so...private? inwardly directed? he’s out theoretically in public but he’s experiencing this sorrow entirely unconnected from anyone else. wwx tends to be expressive when he’s sad, jc is loud and physical, jyl reaches out to others. but lwj usually doesn’t let anyone else see, then just tucks it away like this

this shot is so fucking funny. wx and xy awkwardly standing in the waiting room as the evil cc does heretical experiments in his throne room

I usually don’t endorse assigning a character top/bottom status because it’s dumb and unrelated to how real life people act. that being said this man is a slut and I fully believe he knows what he’s doing. where’s that post about him being erotically darth vader chocked by wrh

awww jyl is so pretty

man, wwx really was a dick to nhs

ah I love this scene. so pretty!

mm! lxc and lqr being there too is so nice. it’s easy to forget that they’re teachers too and they look after these kids

CLASSIC SHOT. I fully endorse the ‘lwj had a crush he was confused and frustrated by, and at this moment his crush compounded into genuine and very intense young love’ I don’t endorse love at first sight I think it’s silly

at first I felt bad because jzx didn’t want to be in an arranged marriage (fair) and wwx kept going after him for it but nah. look at his face. what a tool

wwx trying so hard to protect his sister’s heart/reputation bc he loves her but his public freakouts just embarrass and humiliate her more 😭

I love that lwj has never looked this confused before or since

I love youuuuu

so funny that this is how we’re introduced to jfm, who is notorious for having no backbone

this is what I mean when I say wwx seems to be from a different setting than other characters. nobody else would do this type of exaggerated posturing. it gives him such a distinct personality and mannerisms, which is probably really hard to write coherently

interesting you say that, with your history. you who never married, hm?

I cannot believe that people genuinely think jfm was as bad or worse than myu. for all his faults, he stood up against jgs to ensure his daughter didn’t end up in an unwanted marriage like his. and he doesn’t treat wwx (or jc) as well as he should, but myu would never have taken wwx in and never would have loved him or defenced him or taught the way jfm clearly does. he does treat jc badly, but it’s not like myu treats jc much better, and the fact that she treats him worse because wwx is around and better than him at stuff doesn’t reflect on jfm or wwx, but rather on her as a person. I have a soft spot for jfm despite not really respecting him at all

the song playing here is SO sad god he misses her so much

jyl saying wwx will marry a beautiful woman, because she thinks him flirting with guys is a phase or something?. I actually read her as very sweet and loving to wwx, but straight and not really totally understanding how his attraction to men is just as important to him, if not moreso, than his attraction to women. a few explanations for his response

1. he means it because he’s not bi as speculated, he’s gay (possible - he’s been very forward with the porn and the insinuations)

2. he means it because he’s already sold on marrying lwj (VERY early for this to be the case imo. also he was laughing about living in CR and the idea of someone marrying lwj just a few eps ago)

3. he means it because he genuinely doesn’t want to get married he just wants to hang out with his big sister (if so: 🥺😭)

4. he’s pretending to joke around but he really means it but he doesn’t know why yet (given how good he is at masking his own desires and avoiding his own feelings, perhaps this is most likely)

5. he’s fully joking in order to make her happy (he doesn’t seem that serious to me)

imo if the writers wanted this to be a legitimate moment of wwx expressing his desires that conflict with jyl’s (and the rest of society’s) views on what marriage should be, they should have maybe not framed it so lighthearted? ah, it’s wwx, he hides what he really wants under jokes all the time

in the book he actually inspired like, dozens of disciples to drink and shirk their classwork instead of just nhs and jc. very funny ngl

hard to see in this shot but wwx’s look of what I can only describe as awe when lwj walks in. my boy

I love his confidence he’s so funny

oh everything hurts

he’s so funny playing around with the bunnies and making them talk. too much ‘chaos gremlin’ wwx not enough ‘playful and sweet’ wwx

something I really love about these early arcs, despite that yin metal plot being so boring I could cry, is how protective wwx is of lwj. he really cares about him and wants him to be okay!

overall despite adoring young wwx and lwj, and enjoying many of the scenes in this episode, I still think this arc has the least compelling wx. but it's laying really important groundwork for plots and relationship dynamics that will become delicious later, so I don't mind

personal highlights

lwj’s confused face

wwx being very dramatic

jfm defending jyl and jzx’s right to decide who they marry

xy, for being very entertaining in his sluttiness

wwx making the bunny talk

wwx being protective of lwj

[bunny23ygo]

Cql The Untamed rewatch and cry party

Welcome everyone. A while back i made a post about how i want to make a series of posts of me... basically rewatching the untamed while making lots of comments. This will surprisingly have spoilers for the untamed, but also probably for the book (as in references and comparisons. I'm also a little drunk, so this is... interesting.

Episode 1

The girlies are fighting over our bigbig important stygian tiger amulet, which we will not see for the next thirty episodes.

What i think makes the untamed so interesting is that you really have to go back sometimes and relive moments again, because you have gained more information. The beginning already, obviously it's an emotional scene but you're mostly confused.

The foreshadowing ahhh it's already so great. Jingyi asks if Weiwuxian really is dead and we see a man with a fan, who's not showing his face. Obviously he is important to the storyteller and the question. How come i forgot about this the first time i watched it? It just doesn't seem relevant, does it? By the time you are back in the present, there's so much happening, you are surprised by the mastermind behind the plan again.

Quick break for Mo xuanyu sad times

Everytime i think about him i get sad. Being able to go to this rich sect for teaching, being able to get pride for you and your mother. Finding out your half brother killed his sworn brother, dad, son and married his sister. Getting thrown out partially for knowing this (i think) and also because you're gay. Your mother is ashamed and dies because of that, so you get locked into this small room for years and go crazy.

Anywayyyyyy, mo xuanyu wei wuxian was kinda hot.

"Did he come too?" - not yet. He clearly didn't want to meet lan wangji so fast after he just came back from the death. I can't blame him. There was a fondness, without a doubt, before his death. We do have to remember how weiying thought he wasn’t worthy of any love, and lwj? he hated him guts anyways. Spoiler for the book Before he died even when lanzhan was calling out for him, all he could say was get lost. He was so overtaken by the Yin energy, he was lost. I will get more into the whole thing about his dead when that scene comes up again, but it's a lot. I don't want anyone to say that weiying didn't care about lanzhan before. Just seeing the lan robes makes him sad and nostalgic.

The whole flag and arm stuff. I actually don't remember if they mention it in the series (maybe later). The thing is, as wei wu xian said before, these flags are weak. That arm is so resentful, it was placed there intentionally. I think they will mention it in the later episodes but it's interesting anyway, something very logical that just goes under the radar in all the new information. Slight foreshadowing, maybe?

Hanguanjun has arrived. Wei wu xian is starstruck. A face he hasn't seen in a long time. The young guy, who used to get flustered by his flirting joking, all grown up. Again, he understandably doesn't want to talk to the guy he thinks hated him, and on a Tuesday night? no. He has to get out of here.

Meanwhile, our friends the sixteen year olds and the thirty something year old realize the sword that appeared is connected to the stygian tiger amulet. What i think is really interesting is how jingyi and sizhui react to the possibility of weiwuxian being alive again. I wonder if they were just excited or if they knew about the lan zhan version of weiying. Our humble old grandpa lan wangji also looks very hopeful that his love has returned. I will never take criticism about this, you can see how much he wanted him to be back.

So ends episode 1

Tell me what you think of this format, obviously i can't talk about too much yet since it's the first episode.

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 08 first part

(Masterpost) (Other Canary goodness)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Rabbits

The Jiang kids have some quality time with the rabbits. Initially Jiang Cheng says it’s wrong for gentlemen to hold rabbits, which is definitely in no way related to gay-rabbit-god symbolism, but changes his mind when he discovers how fun men rabbits are to cuddle. 

Jiang Yanli says, in a moment with zero foreshadowing, that if they take one rabbit away from the others, it will miss its family and be lonely. Also if a rabbit were to watch from the rooftop while a mean enemy rabbit poured wine on the corpses of its parents, that would be extra upsetting. For a rabbit. So let’s leave all the rabbits where they are. Check. 

Speaking of cute fluffy creatures that are upset, we see this distressed look on Wei Wuxian’s face kinda often when he’s talking with Jiang Cheng.  

There are some sibilng relationships where you will always do anything to help each other because you survived a shitty childhood together, but as adults you find you don’t actually share values, and that your interactions are kinda toxic -- for both of you. This seems like one of those. 

Even though he’s younger, Jiang Cheng is in the role of the elder sibling who is being abused by the parents, and is handing the abuse on down the line to the “younger” sibling, in the form of constant criticism and casual hittings. Wei Wuxian isn’t actually younger, but he is lower ranked because he’s not a blood relation, and he gets plenty of parental abuse as well. It’s...not a healthy family. 

(more after the cut!) 

Lan Wangji has been lurking nearby during this conversation, and after the Jiangs leave, he looks at the rabbits and says farewell.  He clearly means farewell to Wei Wuxian, or else he has a really unhealthy level of yearning being directed toward the rabbits. At least, for a vegetarian.

Uninvited Gusu Guest

Lan Xichen is meditating, and because the Director of Photography loves us, we get a bunch of nice closeups of his exquisite face. He hears a noise thing and tells Wen Chao to come in, which results in a dire bird scream and Wen Chao’s muddy feet intruding on his day. Why did Wen Chao bring the bird with him? He’s trying to be sneaky, right? So...ok whatever.

Wen Chao acts like a dirtbag and menacingly reminds Lan Xichen that his didi just hit the road all by himself. Lan Xichen gets so upset he curls his fingers slightly. His beautiful, beautiful fingers.

Is it slapping time yet?

Road Tripping

Fortunately for the Lan brothers, Lan Wangji isn’t going to be alone for long. Wei Wuxian is determined to follow him, and where friend-maker Wei Wuxian goes, an assortment of other helpful cultivators will soon follow. 

Wei Wuxian leaves a note to say “I’m running away from home with the hot boy I met in summer school” and signs it with a smiley face, the dork. Jiang Cheng is angry, as usual; Yanli has confidence in Wei Wuxian, as usual, and Jiang Fengmian is autocratic and doesn’t explain what he’s thinking, as usual. JF is aware of the Yin Iron, however, so he may understand that WWX will be useful in protecting it on the road.  

Lan Wangji has changed his hair, upgraded his crown, and put on the most absurdly beautiful outfit of the entire show to go on a solo road trip totally without any hot infuriating boys. 

Quick, Lan Wangji, catch this callback to that time you rejected my advances back in Gusu! This time Lan Wangji catches the offered fruit and keeps it, presumably to consume furtively when he wakes in the dead of night, restless with unslaked thirst for Wei Ying. Or, you know, to have with his lunch while they’re riding on the boat. 

This is a level of synchronized walking-with-shoulder-contact that would make the Guardian boys proud. Lan Wangji is all touchy feely now that he’s out from under the eyes at Cloud Recesses. 

He also has upped his troll game, actually smirking after he says “boring” to Wei Wuxian’s declaration of I’m-gonna-come-along-you-can’t-stop-me. 

He also...doesn’t seem angry? Like, he is still seriously on edge, but it feels like he left the boiling rage at home.  Lan Xichen is right; having a friend IS good for Lan Wangji. And for whatever reason, Lan Wangji is ready, now, to accept Wei Wuxian’s friendship.

We Rate Birds

Wen Chao has the weirdest fucking pet. This bird has a resentful energy problem, obvs, but it also seems to be invisible except for resentful energy, but it leaves random feathers behind at places, and then when Wei Wuxian kills it, it’s a regular bird corpse with a little smoke. “Imbued with Yin Iron energy” seems to be the explanation. But Nie Huaisang said they see a lot of these in their neck of the woods. Did he mean “just a regular bird” and didn’t notice the billowing black visual FX? Either way I want to see a nest full of baby dire Yin birds, I bet they’re hideous cute. 

Wen Qing has a new outfit and an elegant fiery golden crown. There’s probably some plot stuff happening here. Wen blah blah Yin Iron blah blah. She’s so pretty. I love her ears and her cool double hair parting. The girls’ hairlines are always nice and soft, presumably because they get to wear their own front hair instead of a lacefront like the boys are glued to stuck with. 

I Call it Bondage

After the fun they had in the ice cave, it’s only fair that Wei Wuxian gets to have a turn tying up Lan Wangji. 

One of the fun things in clipping The Untamed is that the show’s editors generally didn't drop any frames when they intercut the various scenes, meaning that some longer shots can be spliced back together by removing the other camera portions, as with these two string-pulling bits.

Lan Wangji totally lets Wei Wuxian put a leash on him, quickly declaring it boring and taking control of it, pulling Wei Wuxian along behind him. 

Incidentally, at this stage about half of Wei Wuxian’s talisman’s are blue. After he loses his core, they are 100% red, but nobody notices that. Well, maybe Nie Huaisang does because he notices a LOT, but nobody says anything. 

After they play around in the field for a bit, Lan Wangji’s magic bag of plot advancement goes off, sending them to Flower Town. 

He’s Leaving Home Bye Bye

Meanwhile, at Lotus Pier, we get a nice view of the rooftops. I’d hate to be the guy whose job it is to hang up bells and tassels at any of these places. 

Jiang Cheng sneaks out to go join his brother’s road trip. He gets caught, because his idea of sneaking is to walk out the front door in broad daylight and leave the door open behind him. 

Jiang Yanli tells him to go ahead, though and he scampers off to have...the last carefree fun of his entire life, actually. Sigh. 

Flower Town

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji go to Tanzhou and immediately run into Nie Huaisang, because sure, why not. China’s not very big.

Lan Wangji’s startle response

Wei Wuxian’s startle response

Nie-Xiong and Wei-Xiong are delighted to see each other, once Wei Wuxian explains that Lan Wangji isn’t there to bust them. 

While Wei Wuxian and Nie Huaisang squee over each other, Lan Wangji ...tries to deal with that. His reaction is probably a mix of jealousy and social anxiety. This town has got to be overwhelming for him after the order and quiet of Cloud Recesses; he even admits--aloud!--that it’s too crowded for him at one point. Add in his boyfriend’s travel partner’s number one enabler, and it’s not a comfortable situation.

Oh great now they’re going to want me to get high and make out with them, ugh

However, with Lan Wangji in the mix, the Nie-Wei dynamic shifts away from mischief making, and they very quickly become a friend trio sharing a serious purpose. When Wei Wuxian, in his second life, refers to NHS as “that old friend of ours” when talking to LWJ, he’s not wrong. Nie Huaisang and Lan Wangji become friends during this trip, and arguably remain friends, within the limits of Nie Huaisang’s revenge remit. 

From one point of view, Nie Huaisang is grown-up Lan Wangji’s very best friend (not counting his eventual husband). Everyone in the cultivation world knows what Lan Wangji’s heart desires most, after Nightless City, and Nie Huaisang gives it to him. By, uh, manipulating a crazy guy into ritual suicide. Hey, no gift is perfect.

Continued in Next Post! Soon!

[midnyghtmadnes]

Thoughts

So... I finished SVSSS. Gonna just stream out my thoughts. Will be long cause I wanna cover all my final opinions. Then I’ll shut up about it lol.

So, all in all, the novel was enjoyable and fun. Definitely can't say I have the same emotional investment in the characters as I do in MDZS though, except SY, he's my favorite.

To start, I guess this is where fanfics will come into play, but I want more SY and Airplane interactions. They're the only two that can truly understand the other's situation and I think that’d make for a lot of interesting and fun interactions. Though at the same time it's also funny how they have that understanding but their current relationship is basically just like, not a love-hate relationship. But a.. somewhat camaraderie I'll help ya out maybe if you need it-but I also don't particularly like you, relationship. Still, I am falling onto the Cucumberplane wagon (not in a shippy way though).

As for MBJ and Airplane.. I just wish the novel went into the status of their relationship after everything that happened. SQH was constantly stressed out by him and seemed to have had his share of beatings from MBJ. I saw shipping stuff with them as I was reading it and I was like.. ehhhh? At that point the only connection I knew was that MBJ was the one who was supposed to kill him, so I was like ?? Where did that come from. By the end of the extras, I wanna say I'm on board with it lol, but I just wish we saw more.

Tianlang-Jun and Zhuzhi-Lang... :( I love them and am really sad for them. And yes, I do constantly forget that ZZL killed Gongyi Xiao (who I liked a lot), but come on. He's snek Wen Ning and you can't tell me otherwise. I also actually like Shen Jiu's character. Which is kinda funny thinking about it, cause for example I know many ppl find JGY to be a sympathetic villain, and while I can understand, I still hate him lol. But SJ, who feels very similar to JGY in some ways, I find him really interesting and want to explore him more (that's what fanfics are for ayyy). Funny how all the antagonists of this story caught my eye lol. I didn't care for any of the villains in MDZS in terms of nuance (not that they were poorly written, but they just weren't the Type™ I fall for). But SV managed to get me to want to know more about all of them.

Bingqiu final assessment.... complete indifference. It wasn't as terrible as it could've been, and the extras did make it better, but idk. I flipped flopped a lot as I was reading regarding whether I was okay with it. The 50s chapters, no. Then it got better. Then chapter 80 happened and I was just.... it was genuinely painful getting through that chapter lol. I was constantly pausing and just.. collecting myself. Then the extras and I was like, hmmm it seems.. ok I guess. But I still think it's not the healthiest relationship. You can’t tell me his spiel in chapter 79 isn’t still a total guilt trip. Xin Mo exacerbates his negative emotions, it doesn’t make them up. He’s also constantly jealous even in the extras, making comments of suspicion on the slightest things and just wanting SQQ’s attention for himself. His whole world revolves around SY, and that’s just not a healthy thing for any relationship. It’s undeniably obsessive, and while I don’t see LBH acting on his jealousy, I think that’s only because “it’d make Shizun sad” and not because it goes against his morality. I think LBM is just as capable of doing messed up stuff (murder, torture, etc.) as LBG.

I also just feel like there's something that just doesn't connect between SY in the whole novel, and SY in the extras. By chapter 78 he still did not seem particularly reciprocative of LBH's advances. And even within the extras he's very no-touchy and anti-PDA. He tends to refuse LBH’s requests for intimate moments (until the crocodile tears guilt him into doing what LBH wants) and overall is easily embarrassed, like he's not confident in this relationship. I think at the least more lines of buildup should’ve been added, particularly in moments where it was just the two of them.

And you know what also kinda bugs me about it? I dislike how much the story pushed on that SY was confidently straight since birth. If you want to convince me that the initially ‘straight’/uninterested character ends up falling for another guy, just don’t push it so hard in my face contradicting that. Wei Ying flirted with girls, cool yeah. But the novel never gave the impression he was completely closed off to the idea. With how WY is written, I can totally see him being bi. But SY is more like, well I somehow ended up raising the ML as gay but hey that’s not so bad I guess, at the last minute. I can't say I ship LiuShen either, but I can definitely see the appeal when the canon alternative may easily not float your boat. Nothing beats Wangxian in my heart though 💕

As I expected, am sad with how the relationship with Cang Qiong Mountain ended up. I mean I guess it wasn't necessarily on bad terms, but basically his other disciples are left without their shizun and the sect's whole familial relationship is scattered. I guess it's because I appreciate Wangxian staying in the Cloud Recesses, having this space of theirs and the Jingshi that they can call home. I read the fanfics that have LWJ making WY a lotus pond out front and just their beautiful domestic post-canon life. I love that they can go out night hunting with the juniors. They can go out and travel, just the two of them, when they want. They could retire one day if they wanted. But they'll also always have a family to come back to. LQR begrudgingly accepting WY in time. The bread and butter that is Yunmeng bros reconciliation. Bingqiu.. doesn't really have anything like that. For instance, Liu Qingge and LBH are on terms that I don't feel could ever be recuperated the way WWX and JC could. I don't think Bingqiu could ever stay at CQM in complete comfort. So that's just a little sad.

Also is it just me who, when reading, would always imagine TLJ with short hair, even tho nobody ever has short hair in these novels lol.

Anyway lol, I think that about covers everything I can think of. If you got this far, you the real one ✌🏼

[restingdomface]

Lan Wangji makes extremely deadpan videos of his daily life with Wei Wuxian and their kids and nephews (and nieces if JC and JYL had more). This would include:

*shows a video of LWJ staring out the window for a solid thirty seconds, face entirely unchanged and somewhat disappointed, turns camera around to show Wei Wuxian and the kiddos putting mentos in soda bottles and trying to chuck them at each other, camera pans back to his face, still entirely devoid of emotion*

That one time Jin Ling got stuck up a tree and Wei Wuxian tried to get him down and also got stuck up there and now the other kids are looking for a ladder while LWJ just watches them from the patio, drinking tea. The kids finally give up and shamefully come to LWJ and ask him for help, he gets his husband and nephew down without a word.

The one where he buried 5yo A-Yuan in a pile of bunnies and got scolded by Lan Xichen for it because they might bite him if they get annoyed with him.

There is an entire compilation of rabbits that won’t leave him alone. Climb into his lap. Follow him with every step. Get excited when he comes outside. Hear a guqin and start looking for him. Just. He’s the rabbit whisperer. One of the black ones is just about always with him.

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian interacting in any capacity is going to involve a lot of hitting each other and pushing each other over. Only-child kids think they hate each other, but people with siblings are all ‘no no, siblings are just Like That’. People think Yanli is all innocent till they realize she def only tells them to stop when she thinks they might actually get on each other’s nerves. She’s in the ‘boys will rough house and probably only have one collective braincell’ category.

People won’t stop asking him if he speaks so he vaguely makes mentions of having extremely low verbility. They ask if he does sign and he’s not really sure how (lol cause words hard) to explain to them that sign doesn’t really help when the issue is more of him not having much to say tbh. This is apparently the wrong thing to say because then people start being all ‘yeah I get you, I’m pretty dumb too, at least you’re pretty’ and he’s just sorta sitting there with this smacked fish look on his face while WWX can’t stop laughing next to him at the very idea of someone calling his husband slow. Wow. LWJ just sorta finally gets out that he has like two degrees and teaches giqun lessons and it’s amazing. The kids find out about it and can’t stop laughing for hours.

“Hey, why did you name your son ‘sorrow and longing’?” *commense 10 minute video of that time Wei Wuxian got arrested for something to do with a satanic ritual and that’s when LWJ ended up with custody of his adopted son for the next three years and he was in a really angsty mood tbh so it just kinda happened* not a single commenter expected that, even less so when he mentions that they weren’t even together at that point

Films what the viewers think is a prank at first, where he pours a dangerous amount of chili powder into a mug of hot chocolate (with a completely straight face) and then brings it to WWX who takes a drink and makes a dreamy little sigh and goes ‘you always know how to make it just like I want it’ and no one is sure how to react to this video. It’s like watching someone peel and eat a lemon.

You know that video of the girl with the deadpan voice saying she went downstairs to take a shower and there was something brown in the bottom of the tub but it turned out to be potatoes and she’s all ‘not a problem I was expecting, but a problem I can handle’? Okay so that’s how he talks in every video. WWX hands him a baby and he talks to them exactly like that. People ask if he’s good with kids and WWX is all ‘yeah, he’s not just a rabbit whisperer, he’s a baby whisperer too, he’s super great with kids’ *shows LWJ talking to a baby in That Voice while the baby looks at him in utter adoration*

“What’s it like growing up gay? Do you ever get shit for it?” LWJ.exe has stopped working, he has only met one straight couple the same age as him and they’re his sister in law. His brother has three boyfriends, one of which is his brother-in-law. He doesn’t know what a het-er-o-sexual is and he doesn’t want to. Pretty sure his uncle is acearo and hasn’t seen his parents in like 20 years.

LWJ: ‘I apologize for being so emotional in my last video.’ *viewers scrambled to find what video he meant because they ain’t ever seen that man emotional before but end up finding a video where Sizhui told him he loved him and called him papa and gave him a hug while WWX filmed, you can barely see LWJ’s left eye twitching and he pets Sizhui’s head for a moment* viewers are very confused on how this constitutes emotionalism.

Viewers ask to see his brother ‘you know, the one who apparently has three boyfriends’ and LWJ posts a video of LXC passed out on a couch with like three fully grown men all in various states of sliding off onto the floor while the teens play a game of ‘who can stack the most random objects on uncle’s bodies without them waking’ because apparently LWJ and WWX were gone for a weekend and the uncles were supposed to watch the kids (like, all ten of them probably, there’s probably a lot of kids) and it’s Sizhui filming the whole thing cause he’s the ‘good one’ and never does bad things. But he’s also like Auntie Yanli and is totally gonna egg them on from the sidelines.

WWX hands LWJ literally any food and LWJ will eat it all with a completely straight face but as soon as WWX is turned around LWJ is chugging a glass of milk with a look of death on his face. The kiddos straight up can’t stomach his cooking.

😭 someone asks why their hair is all so long and LWJ puts up a video of chatty adorable Sizhui braiding WWX’s hair while he tells him about his day at school. It’s. Too. Cute.

The never ending debate on if LWJ’s deadpan personality/speech is acting or not. No matter how much everyone assures them he’s really just Like That people just aren’t convinced.

Someone points out several times that in their house they have a room with a satanic symbol on the door. That’s just WWX’s home office it’s all good. This is treated as ‘lol WWX is so dramatic’ for like four whole weeks before LWJ posts a video of Sizhui standing outside the office looking nervous. ‘What’s wrong?’ He says. ‘Dad called me into his office.’ Sizhui replies. ‘WWX must be a very strict father,’ the viewers think. That’s not it. That’s not it at all tbh. That video got flagged on like four different platforms and kept getting removed for graphic images and half their viewers don’t. Want. To know. What happened. In that office. (WWX doesn’t even see what the big deal was, that goat was dead when he bought it shut up.)

The others do videos sometimes too lol. Videos include

Jin Ling’s compilation of ‘Mom, what’s for dinner’ and the answer is Always Lotus root and pork rib soup. Someone asks ‘lol she must make that often’ and JL is all ‘lol often, fairly sure she got same-food syndrome, it’s always soup’.

Lan Sizhui at like 17 years old: The one true secret I’ve never told my dads? My most shameful lie? Rabbits aren’t my favorite. My favorite is butterflies. *proceeds to cuddle a bun* I’m sorry Mister Bun, but you just aren’t nearly as pretty as butterflies.

Shaky video of someone sitting on the couch, pointed at NMJ: Brother, while you’re away on vacation with your boyfriends, I don’t plan on leaving this spot for even a minute. NMJ: Oh yeah? What’ll you do when you have to use the bathroom? NHS: Listen, I found a guy on Craig’s List who’s exact fetish is lazy young men who refuse to move and also diapers exist and he’ll be my slave for the week if I let him change me. NMJ: ...I’m taking you with me on vacation. NHS: Yay! NMJ: I’m also taking your phone away. NHS: -wait, no- NMJ: Too late.

Jin Ling: JiuJiu, I spilt soda on your Valentino white belt. Jiang Cheng: *incomprehensible sputtering* -soda on my Valentino white belt-!

Sizhui: *brings Jingyi a bowl of food* Here. Jingyi: Thank you! *takes a bite, face falls in terror, gives Sizhui a betrayed look* Sizhui: Dad’s worried I’m getting sick, he said this would clear my chest cold up. He didn’t consider what horrible things it would do to my bowels instead. Please eat it, he gets sad when I don’t finish what he makes. Jingyi: *glaring* Just dump it down the garbage disposal! Sizhui: *def has a fever if he didn’t think of that* Oh. Good idea.

LWJ: *swaying in place* WWX: This bitch drunk as hell. LWJ: I’m. Gonna comit. A crime. WWX: *crying a little* I love drunk hubby times. A full shot of vodka and he’s not gonna remember any of this. Hey kids, I’m taking Papa on a walk! Sizhui’s in charge!

Zizhen: *sitting quietly on the couch while LSZ, LJY and JL all argue behind him somewhere, covering his mouth with a slightly horrified look* Jingyi: I mean, that’s not fair at all! Who HASNT made out with their cousin at one point or another? Ling: ... Sizhui: You said you’d never bring that up again please shut up. Ling: ...!!!!!! Zizhen: Amazing.

That one time the kiddos hypnotized Jin Ling into thinking he was a kitten. The adults all thought it was really weird that he was finally going through the whole ‘pretending to be an animal’ phase at like ten, but then the kiddos fessed up to learning how to hypnotize and they aren’t sure how to fix it. WWX instigated a rule that no brainwashing is allowed outside his office from now on.

People ask how WWX and LWJ met and it’s told from the POV of Lan Qiren who progressively getting drunker as he tells the story of the terrible high school romance that he had to watch between bad boy WWX and his precious baby angel nephew that made him consider quitting and how no one believed them when they insisted they didn’t get together till after WWX got out of jail for the cow incident.

[coffintownkids]

Alrighty! Ch. 32 is done and such brings an end to the 朝露 arc. I’m sure y’all remember the cute scene in The Untamed/CQL when WWX comes across a group of kids playing make-believe about the Sunshot Campaign. This is the chapter where that takes place. However, as previously mentioned, we’ve actually never met pretty much any of the characters involved first-hand. So this is again slowly filling the readers in about how the world perceives all these characters.

I couldn’t decide what part I liked best...So you get the entire scene! Very long post beneath the cut.

*EDITED* @weishenmewwx was nice enough to help me fix a couple of errors. Thank You!!!

The group of children stopped chasing it, then gathered together to start seriously wracking their brains over it, “What do we do since no one shot down the Sun? It fell by itself, so who’s the Leader now?”

One of them raised a hand, “It’s obviously me! I’m Jīn Guāngyáo and I killed the greatest villain from the House of Wēn!”

Wèi Wúxiàn sat on the inn’s front steps and watched on with great pleasure.

In games like this, there was boundless high regard for the Chief Cultivator Liǎnfang-Zūn. Of course, everyone would welcome playing that role the most. Although his background made people too embarrassed to speak of it, it was precisely because of it that him climbing to the highest position made people gasp even more in admiration of his achievements. During the Sunshot Campaign, he had acted as a spy for a number of years and had been a natural at it. He had run around in circles deceiving the entire Wēn Sect of Qíshān both inside and out, having them divulge countless secrets without even realizing it. After the Sunshot Campaign, he was fawned over in every possible way with terrific amounts of cleverness and an extreme variety of methods. Finally, he took the position of Chief Cultivator and became the person fully deserving of ranking first among the multitude of cultivation Houses. Such a life can be called legendary. If was playing, he would also want to try out for the part of Jīn Guāngyáo. Picking this little boy to be the Leader was just common sense!

So JGY is super well-liked by everyone, or so we’re led to believe at this point in the story. It’s mentioned in the novel very early on that he is JGS’s bastard, but it’s definitely pretty much glossed over and this certainly makes it sound like nobody cared about his “embarrassing” history. (We will come to learn this is, in fact, bullshit.) BUT, WWX does seem to think quite well of him.

Fun language bit about the “fawned over in every possible way with terrific amounts of cleverness and an extreme variety of methods.” The sentence uses 百般, 千般, 万般 to show the increase of how much praise got heaped upon him as 百=100, 千=1,000, and 万=10,000.

My other takeaway, which I think the show did a pretty bad job at conveying, was the passage of time and that JGY was actually with the Wēn Sect for years.

Moving on.

Another one of them protested, “I’m Niè Míngjué and I’ve won the most battles and have had the most captives surrender to me. I should be the Leader!”

‘Jīn Guāngyáo’ said, “But I’m the Chief Cultivator.”

‘Niè Míngjué’ raised his fist, “So what if you’re Chief Cultivator. You’re also my sān-dì, so you won’t see me running off with my tail between my legs.”

As expected, ‘Jīn Guāngyáo’ was rather well-suited at getting into character. He hunched his shoulders and ran away.

Sān-dì (三弟) just means third brother. AKA JGY was the youngest within 3zun.

Then another kid said, “You’re the one that died young.”

Since he had chosen to be a certain cultivation head, he naturally had been looking forward to being said cultivation head a little bit. ‘Niè Míngjué’ got mad, “Jīn Zixuān, you died earlier than I did. You had an even shorter life!”

‘Jīn Zixuān’ was unconvinced, “So what if I died younger? I was ranked Number Three!”

“Being ranked Number Three just means your looks were ranked Number Three!”

At that point, one of the little boys seemed tired of both running and standing, so he slowly walked over by the steps and sat down by Wèi Wúxiàn. He waved his hand like he was some sort of mediator and said, “Alright already, there’s no need to fight about it. I’m the Yílíng Lǎozǔ, so I’m the most awesome.”

Wèi Wúxiàn, “……”

He glanced down and, sure enough, the little kid was carrying a little branch at his waist that was probably meant to be Chénqíng.

There was actually a child pure enough to not bother arguing about good and evil. He was only debating the value of combat abilities and had willing taken up the honor of being the Yílíng Lǎozǔ.

Another kid said, “No way. I’m the Sāndú Shèngshǒu and I’m the most awesome.”

The ‘Yílíng Lǎozǔ’ rather understandingly said, “Jiāng Chéng! What can you do that’s better than me? When haven’t you lost to me? How is it a good idea for you to say you’re the most awesome? Aren’t you embarrassed?”

‘Jiāng Chéng’ said, “Hmph! How am I better than you? Do you remember how you died?”

Wèi Wúxiàn’s faint smile got wiped right off his face once his meaning sunk in.

It was like being jabbed with a highly poisonous needle without warning and it sent faint prickling pain throughout his entire body.

Oof. That is a lot.

The ‘Yílíng Lǎozǔ’ next to him clapped, “Look at me! On my left is Chénqíng, on my right is the Tiger Seal. Plus I have the Ghost General. There are none beneath Heaven that are my equal! Hahahaha…” He had a stick in his left hand, a stone in his right, and was laughing hysterically, “Wēn Níng, come out!” A kid in the back of the crowd raised his hand and weakly said, “I’m here…that’s…I want to say…during the Sunshot Campaign, I didn’t die, either...”

Wèi Wúxiàn felt that he couldn’t not interrupt.

He said, “Fellow cultivators, can I ask you a question?”

The children had never had an adult take part when they played this game before, let alone one that didn’t scold them and was completely serious about asking them a question. The ‘Yílíng Lǎozǔ’ was giving him a strange and guarded look as he said, “What do you want to ask?”

Wèi Wúxiàn said, “Why don’t you have any people from the Lán Sect of Gūsū?”

“We do!”

“Where are they?”

The ‘Yílíng Lǎozǔ’ pointed at a kid that hadn’t opened his mouth to say a single word from the start, “That’s him.”

Wèi Wúxiàn looked at him and, sure enough, he was completely fine-featured and looked like a charming child. He had a clean, white string wrapped around his forehead to serve as his head ribbon. He asked, “Who is he?”

The ‘Yílíng Lǎozǔ’ disdainfully curled his lip and said, “Lán Wàngjī!”

…Great. This group of children grasped his essence. If you’re playing the part of Lán Wàngjī you really ought to shut up and not talk!

Then suddenly, the corners of Wèi Wúxiàn’s mouth began to curl again.

That little poisoned needle got pulled out and he didn’t know what cranny it got tossed into, but all the stinging pain had instantly been swept away. Wèi Wúxiàn said to himself, “It’s both wonderful and strange. He’s such a stuffy person. Why does he always make me feel so happy?”

*yelling* Why does he make you so happy, WWX? Any guesses?

I’ve seen this translated as “boring” instead of “stuffy” so I’ll explain a bit. The word used is 闷 (mèn) which can be read as boring, so that’s not wrong. But, it’s a little more nuanced than that. It can also mean something “sealed tight” or “suffocate” or “shut indoors.” Like how a hot room without circulation can be called “stuffy.” But in English, we can use stuffy to mean someone that’s kinda old-fashioned and very stuck on being prim and proper. Which certainly is someone people might consider “boring”! I just didn’t think “boring” alone really captured it though.

Of course, this is when LWJ finally emerges from his Fortress of Solitude (after needing time to get through his Gay Panic.)

When Lán Wàngjī came downstairs, he saw Wèi Wúxiàn sitting on the steps and sharing a steamed bun with a group of children. Wèi Wúxiàn was eating his bun while directing two children that were back-to-back in front of him. “……There are currently countless Wēn cultivators before. They’re all armed and they’ve got you completely surrounded. Keep your eyes sharp. Yes, just like that. OK. Lán Wàngjī, pay attention. This isn’t the current you during peacetime. You’re covered in blood! Your killing intent is so heavy! Your expression is so fierce! Wèi Wúxiàn, get a bit closer to him. Aren’t you going to twirl your flute? Let’s see you twirl it one-handed. Have pizzazz. Do you know what pizzazz is? Come let me teach you.” ‘Wèi Wúxiàn’ made an “oh” sound and handed over the thin stick he was carrying. Wèi Wúxiàn rather skillfully and swiftly twirled ‘Chénqíng’ around between two of his fingers, causing the group of kids to whoop with excitement.

Lán Wàngjī, “……”

He quietly walked over and Wèi Wúxiàn saw him coming, so he brushed off the dust from his backside and called out his goodbyes to the kids. It had been so easy to just stand up and walk along the road with a smile. It was oddly like being drugged.

Lán Wàngjī, “……”

Wèi Wúxiàn, “Hahahahahaha, I’m sorry, Hánguāng-Jūn. I ended up sharing the breakfast I bought for you with them. I’ll buy more for us in a moment.”

Lán Wàngjī, “Okay.”

Wèi Wúxiàn, “How about it? Weren’t those two kids just now cute? Who do you suspect the kid with the string around his head was imitating? Hahahaha…”

He was speechless for a moment, then Lán Wàngjī ultimately couldn’t help saying, “……What exactly did I do last night?”

It definitely couldn’t have been anything simple. Otherwise, why did it make Wèi Wúxiàn keep laughing???

Wèi Wúxiàn kept waving his hand, “No, no, no, no, no. You didn’t do anything. I was just being silly, hahahahahaha…Alright, ahem, Hánguāng-Jūn, I swear I’ll talk business.”

Lán Wàngjī said, “Go ahead.”

Apparently WWX missed his calling and should have gotten into theater!

And poor LWJ is still panicking.

So now they’re off to Shǔdōng and we’ll be starting the Yi City arc next.

[zhuhongs]

Upon rereading tgcf, one of the biggest complaints I have is how lackluster all the extra chapters were. literally none of them were good and all contained rlly gross and harmful sentiments (like the amnesia one which.. yea.. or all the things implying xl should get pregnant for hc thus equating gay relationships with hetero ones and playing into the wife thing and just GOD I HATE MXTX) 

There were a lot of little plot points i wish that had been further elaborated on more in the extras as opposed to hualian being ... like that. I had enough. Like mdzs had actaully good extras (minus the incense burners) that were nice side stories that elaborated more on the characters. Like the hook one with the juniors was so cute and i loved seeing them grow more. Or the lotus pod extras omg.. im such a lotus pod extra stan. those were so cute and gave us a lot of good insight into just how lovestruck lwj was during the times when he didn’t see wwx. mxtx should've stuck to those sorta extras in tgcf but NOOO. SO I have a list of so many other more interesting things those chapters couldve been spent on like:

A resolution on He Xuan’s revenge and his character arc. Bc its implied He Xuan is still hanging out and watching over sqx and that taking revenge didn’t fully satisfy him bc ok.. yea shi wudu is dead but he xuans family will never come back. Now what does he have to live for?? i wish we couldve seen a look into his life during the entire ordeal. like a chapter from his perspective while he was posing as Ming Yi  and maybe a look at a conversation btw he xuan and the real ming yi or a chapter after SQX was banished to see what he’s doing now. Also what did he xuan owe hua cheng money for anyways?? Like ik not every little thing has to be explained but I Want to Know. PLEASE more goth boyfriend content now I just wanna see him :,((

a better resolution of yin yu and quan yizhens storyline. im still mad abt how that plot point was split btw books 3 and 5  when it was rlly out of place and  there were other more pressing plot matters and it just rlly deserved more time. Also i thought yin yu died!?!?!? but apparently one of the extras says he’s alive and man... i;m not reading any more of the extras to see that, give me a full yin yu and quan yizhen chapter.. fuck.

a day in the life of the guoshi fangxin or general hua PLEASE especially like one where hua cheng was SO CLOSE to meeting xie lian but had no clue that xie lian was there at the time but the two did smth that inadvertantly helped the other and they still were connected even though they hadnt met omg pls that’d be so nice. like imagine Hua cheng catching a glimpse of the guoshi in public in yong’an while he’s trying to follow some lead that points to xie lian or maybe following a lead to capture qi rong bc he said he knew qi rong was a part of the yong’an stuff and originally thought the guoshi was one of qi rongs pawns. like can you IMAGINE him getting so close. but at the last second he did smth small that impacted xie lian. like they bumped into eachother on the street or smth. god i’d go crazy

OR vice versa.. like a day in the life of the young ghost king hua cheng. Like again, one of my biggest issues was that hua cheng just knew everything and its never really explained how he got all of that info. like yes he’s been alive very long and has eyes and ppl working for him everywhere but like... how did he build that network?? I’d love to see a chapter of young ghost king hua cheng travelling around trying to learn as much as he can abt the world and how it can help bring him to xie lian. and the two maybe are in the same kingdom for a bit and they don’t meet exactly but hua cheng stops some fight or something and helps xie lian indirectly or maybe xie lian is performing on the street in some costume and hua cheng doesn’t recognize him and smiles and gives him a coin or smth. idk i’m just dying for any sorta extra chapter or fic like that. i’m honestly so tempted to write my own but i cant write

also!! we’ve seen how xie lian picks up people down on their luck near him and show them kindness (like banyue, lang ying, xiao ying, he tried to with san lang but we know how that ended lmao) so i’d love to see another little vignette of him doing that on his travels and how every person he meets teaches him smth about life and being a good person and idk, i just think it’d be rlly sweet. i love this facet of his character and feel like we didn’t see enough of it towards the end.

ALSO hua cheng only seems to respect one heavenly official besides xie lian and thats yushi huang.. i assume thats mostly bc she was the only one to help xie lian and let him use the rain master hat to bring water to yong’an. I was thinking maybe when he was a new supreme he had run into trouble and maybe was picked up by the rain master and helped him heal and in return he promised to help protect her village from harm in the future. Like i know a heavenly official wouldn’t cooperate with a ghost like that but yushi huang is different and doesn’t really care about the heavens so i think she would protect him if he could do something to benefit her village. ik this is kinda far fetched but when he first became a supreme I’m sure a bunch of ppl probably tried to mess with him and didn’t rlly believe him to be undefeatable bc he hadn’t proved himself yet also i doubt all his power came overnight. he had to learn how to use it once he escaped the kiln. and some group probably thought they could weaken him somehow. I’m thinking maybe a rlly well formed group of ghosts actually caught him off guard once and he had to retreat and was picked up by the rain master and stayed with her and learned from her a bit. i think it’d be a cool concept also i just rlly want more yushi huang content and i’m on their friendship agenda bc he rlly did seem to actually respect her when she first appeared and i think it’d be cool if the two had some history together.

Also idrc if this was addressed I couldve missed it But!! Did xie lian ever tell Hua cheng that the reason he got the curse shackles and was banished again in the first place wasnt bc jun wu wanted to punish him, but because he requested it. And specifically requested it bc he felt guilty abt letting wu ming take the human face disease and disperse for his sake. So he took the shackles and descended to atone for that?? Bc I dont recall hua cheng learning that bc his soul was already dispersed at that point so it didnt follow him and xie lian didnt say anything so uhhh... someone should tell hua cheng that. Like I dont think xie lian rlly said how much hua cheng meant to him and didnt show him he was loved in grand ways. Like xie lian did always care for bc in other ways but I think if hua cheng learned abt this on screen it wouldve been such a great moment and I'm rlly surprised mxtx didnt address this iirc!?!? Like imagine jun wu telling Hua cheng this in the kiln bc xie lian wouldnt say it himself. Imagine how cool that would be.

Also a small thing adding into the whole young ghost king Hua cheng stuff. Its implied and p much stated that hua cheng isnt his real name. That he likely doesnt have a real name bc his parents died? (It's not clear. I'm still mad at mxtx for not making his childhood clearer). So I'd like to see when and why hua cheng chose that name for himself. The new tgcf ending song kinda hints at its meaning with the lyrics "for you I'd fill a city of flowers" as xie lian is the flower wielding martial god so it's probably inspired by that. Also xie lian saved hua cheng from leaping off the city walls but I'd love to hear him say it bc the implication of his name didnt dawn on me for quite a bit and I dont know if everyone made the connection. Again I sure as hell didnt. So itd be cool to see a chapter that takes place in his past after just ascending as a supreme

Overall I rlly think tgcf had a lot more potential to be even better and a lot of that comes down to fleshing out the side characters and letting hualian have more of a storyline independent of one another. like i know the appeal and message of tgcf is that through love, people can overcome anything, but fuck man. i just wanna see what these two (mostly hua cheng) where like in the absence of each others presence. Part of what I really liked abt mdzs is that we got to see that longing develop btw wangxian when the two weren’t together and how they thought about each other and did things in thei others spirit bc they knew the other wouldve done the same thing. but whatever, mxtx was too consumed by her own unhealthy idea of what devotion and true love looks like but still. i rlly think the extras couldve helped the story be better rather than be fujoshi fuel that i try to bleach from my mind -_-

[inessencedevided]

The Untamed, episode 42 - watching notes

I was up playing partygames over discord until 3 am yesterday, so I didn't get to watch another episode. I complained about it to my friends, which in turn made them complain that I sounded like I would rather watch my "gay chinese fantasy show" than spent time with them. I contemplated saying yes, but decided to keep my friend instead :D

And we were currently in the middle of a confrontation with Jiggy (as I've been informed he's called ... what? ^^) who apparently murdered his son to keep some secret, which with how this shows is going, I wouldn't be surprised is them going full game of thrones and ... you know what I'm talking about

Oh right, Su She is there

He's the Jin Zixun to my wei Wuxian. As in, I can never remember his name or why I should care 🤷‍♀️

(But thus time I DO remember who he is. That is, after lwj said his name ^^)

I'm so sure that jgy hit all evidence by now, btw

Okay, no. his wife is still there

Su She might be an asshole but his hair piece is gorgeous :D

What does it say about me that my first thought about that dagger was COOL!!! 😱😱😱

How dare you take Wen Qing's name in vain! 🤬

😱

I thought she'd stab him!!! Not herself :'(

I'm a bit surprised that with 5 cultivators in the room, no one does more to save her

Oh, JGY is a damn good actor!! I mean we knew that before, but now his apparent confusion and grieve for his wife seems even more (dare I quote lwj?) shameless

Lan Xichen, i know you love him but ...

Fun fact: In German, we call fake tears "Krokodilstränen". Literal translation: "crocodile tears"

That's what this is 😐

Especially about the nie Mingjue

Poor Nie Huaisang 💔💔💔

"Taking the head. Who in the world would have done such an insane act?" GEE, I WONDER ...

Sorry, I still find jgy fascinating, but this is so uncomfortable to watch, knowing at least part of what really happened 🙈

Lord, give me the power to murder people with one gaze like Lan Wangji 🙏

This whole conversation is so supremely uncomfortable

I'm still unsure if Jin Guangyao really doesn't suspect that "Mo Xuanyu" isn't who he says he is or if it's just a very convincing act 🤨

Favourite trope: Hanguang Jun, Yiling Laozou's knight in shining armour

First of all: Hot

Second of all: Lwj internally: DON'T YOU DARE FUCKING TOUCH HIM I ONLY JUST GOT HIM BACK AND WE HAVEN'T EVEN MADE OUT YET

probably

Also, for a split second there, you saw Jiang Cheng leap forward with a real look of concern on his face, like his first instinct was to help wwx himself 🥺🥺🥺

HE'S USING SUIBIAN AGAIN!!!

This feels so huge! 😱

I'm weirdly emo about a sword rn :')

His cover is blown of course

And him and Jin ling just had a good relationship :(

NHS, JL and JGY: How could it BE that this is Yiling Laozou???

Meanwhile Lan Xichen and Jiang Cheng

"With the right kind of sacrifice, it can safe one who was seriously injured." Is this another instance of "we can't say this it's necromancy because censors, but y'all damn well know this is necromancy because no one falls down a cliff and then lies there "seriously injured" for goddam 16 years"?

I'm all teary eyed at lwj not even hesitating to flee with wwx :')

Jin Ling 💔🥺

Fuck you Jin Guangyao for playing at his pain!!!

Omg they're as good as holding hands!!! 😭😭😭

Of course, wax is pushing lwj away, OF COURSE. Self-sacrificing idiot!

That mask reveal was *chef's kiss* the drama! The gasps! The ... long-suffering "here we go again look" from lan Xichen :D

I LOVE IT WHEN LWJ SPEAKS UP!!

"You're wrong."

So simple. Yet saying so much: "I kniw him. I trust him. I chose this."

And OF COURSE Wei Wuxian gives him another way out

BUT THESE TWO FINALLY GET THEIR SHIT TOGETHER AND COMMUNICATE THEIR THOUGHTS! FINALLY!

"Did you believe in me back then?" YES, I WAS JUST TOO AFRAID TO SAY IT,SO MY CONCERN CAME OUT AS ANGER 😭😭😭

And the single logged bridge again 😭😭😭 I adore that metaphor! And I love that they chose to show us the flashback. Because last time, wwx and lwj parted, took different roads so to speak, one the one of defiance, the other the one of orthodoxy. Neither wanted to part ways, but neither probably thought that they had much of a choice. But they did have a choice and they made it. And lwj has already expressed his regret over that. So here he is again, using his second chance without a thought.

Because lwj believes that wwx is right, MORALLY, so he will go against his clan, reputation be damned, and stand with the man he loves ... finally. He'll choose what they both believe to be right and walk with him "until it's dark" :')

And THAT'S WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS SO MUCH!! It's not just that "oh they're so cute and they compliment each other so well, they must be soulmates uwu". Most of all they share a common morality!!!

I'm so goddamn amazed at this ship! This is not I was thought I was getting when I boarded it, but goddamn it I'm loving the ride! 😭😭😭

And .. just, the look in Lan Wangji's eyes ... they have 50 swords drawn on them, but guessing from the look on his face and the softness of his gaze they might as well be at their wedding 😭😭😭

He looks like a man entirely at peace with his decision :')

Just ...

Look

At

THEM!!!

They're holding hands in that last shot!!!! 😭😭😭

I'm absolutely floored at how utterly beautiful this scene is! "Romantic" seems too insignificant to describe it. It feels more like 42 episodes worth of love and pining and misunderstandings coming to their natural conclusion

My heart is so full right now guys :')

Very nice of these 50 people to wait for their moment to pass before attacking. Very considerate 😁

"Are we going to fight or not." "Too much talking" I WANT 50 EPISODES OF THESE TWO BICKERING!!! 😭😭😭

Jin Ling :'(

Noooo

No

Noooo

I don't know who my heart is bleeding for more here

Jin ling doesn't deserve to have to shoulder his parent's and uncle's pain :'((

All this supporting each other when injured? That's the good stuff

And those flashbacks ... wwx finally FINALLY realizes that lwj never hated him for his actions, he was afraid for him :')

Tbf,the guy has a sliiiight communication issue 😐

That quote about how lwj is at his side now that everyone else despices him!! That's it THAT'S THE SHIP!!😭😭😭

Oh, lwj took him back to cloud recess

I'm surprised he was allowed to, tbh

Ooh, so Mo Xuanyu knew something!

And... someone else must now know about him?

Also, I didn't realise that wwx still had a cut from the curse

I gotta take a moment to scream about HOW UTTERLY DOMESTIC AND AT EAS THESE TWO NOW ARE WITH EACH OTHER!!! 😭

XICHEN!!!

I should have known that the OG wangxian shipper would support them

But he still trusts Jin Guangyao. Not that I'm surprised

It's so weird to see anyone on this show in trousers btw 😅

"You're more than I can handle." Lol ^^

"You trust Master Wei, while I trust Jin Guangyao." Oh boy ...

I feel like this might be more of a confrontation than these two brothers had in their entire lives

Love me some detective-wwx

Poor Xichen 😔 he doesn't want to believe it

Somehow, wwx with a white underrobe makes me think "that's what he looks like when he and lwj accidentally swab robes" :D

Uuuh! The restricted section forbidden chamber!

So ... jin Guangyao somehow got this piece of music from the lan library?

But he's good! He's really good! He consistently uses others weaknesses and prays on them so that they act in a more extreme manner, but not so much that others would suspect foulplay. Case in point: nie Mingjue's death by anger and (more recently) the way he played towards Jin ling's feelings.

Aaaand another rather abrupt end in the middle of a conversation. That's one thing this show does not do well 😅

Anyway, I'm not complaining this episode send my shipper heart (BECAUSE I'M SO DWEP DOWN THIS RABBIT HOLE AT THIS POINT) fly with joy!!

@sweetlittlevampire @fandom-glazed @elenirlachlagos @allhailthedramallama @luckymoony @kyrrahbird @i-love-him-on-purpose 🖤💙🖤💙

[eldritch-elrics]

the untamed: i am going to scream

why is there like an earth-shaking reveal like every other episode i swear to god

uhhh let me see. i will try to keep some of this brief or else i would just be Yelling about events that everyone who’s seen the show has already seen and reacted to

actually nvm it’s gonna be long again sorry

i feel really bad for lan xichen? like what a breach of trust? and he’s been absent so wow man i reaaally hope he’s ok

lwj got quite the punishment when he protected wwx at nightless city D: fucked up

lwj bringing emperor’s smile for wwx? character development.

i am Very Happy that my ~big theory~ about jgy is shaping out to be probably correct

just gonna add a huge “gay rights” banner over this whole post because you can just tell how much lwj loves wwx throughout this entire time and it’s so good and wonderful

“lan zhan... sorry and thank you” - a line that will never not fuck me up

i wonder what the name of the song was, lan wangji :)

OH I WAS REALLY HAPPY TO SEE MIANMIAN I LOVE HER

wen ning: covers himself in mud and grass, follows wwx around, fights puppets, and scares off potential intruders

me, crying: i love you so much

literally wen ning was so good in these episodes!!!!! ugh what a friend

he’s so loyal to wwx they are FRIENDS i love them!!!

also i love how he’s so awkward and sweet but when he needs to be intimidating he’s like. actually good at it

to write these summaries i always look through my liveblogging to my friend and like. i literally forgot about the whole thing with su she. it was a good twist and made lots of sense given what we know about the ghost-faced man but like compared to everything else that came after it that part occupied like 2% of my mental space

su she is a little bitch and very forgettable i think. moving on

IN MORE IMPORTANT NEWS: LAN YUAN!!!!!!!

SCREAMING AND CRYING I LOVE HIM

WAS THINKING ABOUT HOW MUCH I LIKED SIZHUI AND WHAT DO YOU FUCKING KNOW.

every interaction between him and wen ning is UGH IT’S SO GOOD THEY’RE SO HAPPY....

the part where sizhui buys that little butterfly toy. i’m thinking about it. all the foreshadowing. the flashback to the spinny toy. hoooo boy

thinks about wwx being a dad to him in yi city..

poor jin ling though!!! man

he has no idea how to use his words :( just needs some time to process all this shit

THEN THE TONAL WHIPLASH IN THIS EPISODE???? IT GOES FROM SO HAPPY TO SO FUCKED UP...

not gonna discuss this part in detail because yeah. but. hmm i hate jin guangyao actually

and jin guangshan......

liveblogging to my friend i said “this is so fucked up” at LEAST 3 times

huge kudos that the tipping point of people turning against jgy is two women coming forward with their #metoo stories... wish the real world worked like that

anyway this was a tipping point for me too bc previously i’d been all like “jgy is very evil but i kinda sympathize bc i see why he did all this and why he would kill nmj” but now i’m just kind of filled with disgust? i still think he’s a very interesting and well-written villain but man i Do Not Like Him

(as opposed to xue yang who has done nothing right or sympathetic in his entire life and that makes him more fun because you’re not conflicted. he’s just evil! it’s great!)

i’m dying to know who’s leaking all this info about jgy though

EMOTIONAL ABOUT JIANG CHENG HOURS #2397274

the entirety of that scene. from the moment he enters the shrine. top notch

you can see how all of them have hurt each other so much and it’s just AAAAAA

wen ning!!!!!! bro he is the BEST

i actually lost it here. like what a god damn twist it makes TOTAL SENSE

THE REASON WHY WWX DID ALL OF THIS... THE REASON HE BECAME THE YILING PATRIARCH........ HIS SWORD........

i had been wondering for SO LONG what he was discussing with wen qing that one time and holy SHIT this entire scene just recontextualizes the hell out of it all and i’m just. man. fuck

i love how many lotuses they eat on the boat lol

again. gay rights

i’m still reeling a bit from these eps tbh

i can’t believe i’m gonna finish the series tomorrow...

[trensu]

Episode 10: The One with ANOTHER Moonlit Rooftop Moment

Still surrounded by dead bodies, guys. There is, unfortunately, an abundance of plot this time

But let’s slog through it BC OUR BOYS ARE WORTH IT

So right now we meet Xue Yang, Xiao Xingchen, and Song Lan

Love ya guys, but we’re not here for you today

(even tho xxc is the most beautiful elf prince of a boy i’ve ever seen; no wonder xy gets all obsessed with him and song lan falls in love)

(yes, song lan and xxc are in love, no i will not be taking comments)

Moving on!

Plot plot, xy and xxc have a sword fight, plot plot

Oooh, wait there is an itty bitty piece of WangXiantics here

Wwx uses his Magic Rope of Binding/Bonding to reel XY in like a fish and proceeds to yank him about while he tries to have a sword fight with xxc

(NO ONE’S ALLOWED TO HAVE ROMANTIC SWORD FIGHTS IN THE MOONLIGHT EXCEPT ME AND LWJ -- wwx, probably)

So he does this, and then throws a little grin at lwj and teases “lan zhan, are you still bored?”

Ahhh, wwx, you might as well have shouted: LAN ZHAN, DID YOU SEE WHAT I DID? WASN’T THAT CLEVER? ISN’T MY INVENTION USEFUL?? AREN’T YOU IMPRESSED???

It’s okay, we all got the message anyway

Except maybe lwj bc he is still a Disaster Gay™ even if he now knows he is In Love and Soulmate’d for Life

I’d like to pause a moment to let you all know that wwx has a HILARIOUS 'disgust' reaction to xy.

Xy is all captured and xxc is all CONFESS and xy is all yeah okay i killed all those guys and it was fun

Wwx’s face gets all twisted up like when you smell something rotten

AND THEN DOES A FULL-BODY TWITCH AWAY FROM XY LIKE HE’S TRYING NOT TO PHYSICALLY PUKE 

IT’S SO FREAKING FUNNY

I mean i shouldn’t laugh bc that’s probably a reasonable reaction to a unhinged killer saying that murder is just a fun hobby of his, BUT GOD, I HAD TO REWIND AND SEE THAT REACTION PLAY OUT TWICE, I WAS CRACKING UP

Anyway

Xy is all tied up and captured and everybody talks plot stuff (after introducing themselves and doing the whole “wow, you’re awesome,” and “no, no, you’re awesome” thing)

Xy laughs because he’s a murderous lunatic and wwx is like “what’s so funny asshole”

Wwx is def posturing here

I think he’s threatened bc they have similar sense of fashion

Like, hell no, this murderous bastard is not gonna steal MY look

HE’S GIVING BLACK ROBES A BAD RAP, I WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS!!

Lwj: Give us the Plot Device

Xy: idk what you’re talking about bro. I just came out here to have a good time and attack people right now

Wwx: lan zhan, don’t bother talking to him!!

Yeah, wwx is DEFINITELY feeling threatened lol

Like, omg why is lwj listening to this guy? Why did he get closer to him and start talking to him? LWJ HE’S NOT AS PRETTY AS ME!! I LOOK BETTER IN BLACK ROBES, LWJ, STOP LOOKING AT HIM

Wwx: i’ll search him, here hold my sword

Lwj: *pointedly does not reach for wwx’s sword*

None of this is a euphemism guys, get your minds out of the gutter

Wwx: right right, i can search him AND hold my sword at the same time, nbd nbd

Wwx: *proceeds to molest xy*

and in that moment, all of us suddenly wished to be a murderous lunatic

Xy: woah there, mr. handsy, people will talk!!

Wwx: bro, i am the KING of gay chicken, don’t try me

MEANWHILE, lwj is watching all this go down very intently

WHATCHA LOOKING AT LWJ

WHAT’S THE MATTER

R U JEALOUS RN??

‘Nooo, that’s supposed to ME under wwx’s sexy wandering hands’ --lwj, probably

we feel your pain, bro

So that’s the first wangxian moment of the episode

Lwj being jealous again

Altho to be fair, i mean, anybody would be miffed watching their soulmate feel up someone Not Them, right?

Right.

Plot plot plotty NHS and Meng Yao appear conveniently plotty plot plot

Xxc and SL get invited to Qinghe to witness Justice Get Served to XY

Xxc: yeah no, we’re not doing that. Clan politics not really our scene

Xxc: we prefer to be alone together and travel the world, right, boyfriend, i mean Song Lan?

SL: *is handsome and stoic*

Then wwx has a Same Hat moment

Wwx: OH, US TOO, ME AND LAN ZHAN DO THAT TOO

Lwj: you should give us your contact details 

Lwj: in case we need you.

Lwj: for stuff.

LOOK AT LWJ BEING ALL SOCIABLE

I’M SO PROUD OF YOU BB

(he really did ask them how to reach them tho)

Lwj rightfully saw xxc & SL and thought, now there’s a gay couple i can bond with

Then the group splits up with XXC and SL go their own way

I mention this because we get a shot of LWJ staring longingly at the pair of them as they walk off

You know why?

You all know why

IT’S BC HE’S DAYDREAMING OF HIM AND WWX DOING WHAT THEY DO

JUST TRAVELING TOGETHER AND PUTTING GOOD INTO THE WORLD

*SOBSOB*

And then WWX breaks the daydream with a simple “let’s go?” and lwj just turns around and follows him with barely a pause

BC HE LOVES WWX AND WILL GO ANYWHERE HE WANTS!!!! 

We arrive at the Unclean Realm for Plot Reasons

Plot plot, NMJ makes a Badass Entrance, jc & wwx fanboy over him, plot

More plot stuff

More non-wangxian stuff

So much non-wangxian stuff

Why, show, why

Foreshadowing Plot Stuff

AND WE’RE AT THE 30 MINUTE MARK OF THE EPISODE WHEN WE FINALLY GET A SUBSTANTIAL WANGXIAN SCENE

OH GOD, IT TOOK SO LONG

I ALMOST DIDN’T MAKE IT GUYS

BUT HERE I AM!!!

Okay, okay *deep breath* we’re good now

WWX IS ON A ROOF!!

RIGHT NEXT TO LWJ’S ROOM!!!

Bc he’s drunk and can’t find his way back to his own rooms so he thought sleeping on the roof was a good option?? JOIN A HELP GROUP, WWX

LWJ was peacefully meditating in his room and when there arose such a clatter that he had to grab bichen and was ready to cut a bitch

But just kidding! bc he hears wwx’s voice and immediately relaxes

Wwx: these roof tiles are much rougher than the ones in gusu, so rocky, so uncomfy

He says this as if it was done to purposely inconvenience him specifically

Again, he’s drunk here guys

But he’s a poetic drunk!!

Wwx: the world is a room, i’ll take the sky as my quilt and the ground as my bed

A very pretty way of saying I CAN’T FIND MY ROOM, GUESS I’LL SLEEP OUTSIDE

Wwx then shows us that he can’t drink properly from a jar of wine and just pours it into his mouth and sloshes half of it down his neck and on his clothes

Ooooh, but that’s a nice shot of his jawline

And oooh, his neck’s all glistening now

I APPROVE

I APPROVE VERY MUCH

And then ~THEIR SONG~ STARTS PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND as lwj exits his rooms and walks outside to see wwx lounging on the rooftop like a particularly handsome raccoon or smth

Wwx: lan zhan, i’ll sleep on your roof tonight *passes out drunk but in a ridiculously cute way*

FOR REAL, HE JUST SPRAWLS OUT ON THE ROOF AND THEN ~GENTLY~ LEANS HIS HEAD ON HIS HIS HAND AND DRIFTS OFF ANGELICALLY

STOP BEING SO CUTE WWX

LWJ: wei ying, i have to go

He says SOFTLY and with LOVE and then PROCEEDS TO ABANDON HIS SOULMATE TO GO OFF AND DO STUPID PLOT THINGS

But guys, it was still beautiful

He says that and EVERYTHING goes all slo-mo as he walks away

I mean, the shot of him walking away is done so that we can see wwx perched on the rooftop above him and lwj does that stately strut he has

And then the camera gives us a shot of wwx’s face as the WIND GENTLY RUSTLES HIS HAIR

STILL IN SLO MO

WITH ~THEIR SONG~

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Ugh gross, this beautiful scene is followed up by that wen chao 

Plot plot

Suddenly a wen vs. nie battle is happening

For Plot Reasons, blegh

Omg so many Dramatic Twirls everywhere

Okay, okay, unfortunately we gotta listen to Wen Chao for a moment to get a breadcrumb’s worth of wangxian here

Wc: hey, wwx, since you’re ~sooo~ interested in GusuLan stuff, let me tell you something

Wc: *proceeds to brag about his big brother destroying the cloud recesses*

(even the bad guys know wwx and lwj are obsessed with each other, YOU’RE NOT SUBTLE BOYS)

Wc: if lwj manages to make it home, he’s gonna find it in ruins!!

(seriously FUCK THIS GUY)

Wwx: *the most ferocious glare we’ve seen him do so far*

Looks like somebody just won first place in wwx’s shit list

Then more plot stuff happens, we see nmj and meng yao break up, blah blah blah

And that’s the end of ep10!!!

This was...so hard, guys. So difficult. A trial, even. I had to wait for an ENTIRE HALF-HOUR TO GET A SIGNIFICANT PIECE OF WANGXIAN PIE. 

I mean, yeah, i got to see xxc’s beautiful face, but GOD, AT WHAT COST??

Also, are you guys starting to notice a Thing about rooftops?

Because it’s there.

We’re def gonna have more Rooftop Moments

Stay tuned!

Return to Masterpost

[eyeslikefoxglove]

Episode 14 - WangXian are a (v soft) Battle Couple & Foxglove is hella mad

Hi! Welcome to episode 14. I should be studying. It’s day two of morning runs, so my soul has left my body already, send help. Yesterday I went to buy plants with my mum and got so excited I just whacked on a bunch of eyeshadow because I haven’t seen the outside in weeks, I’m also wearing makeup today, because I have nowhere to go, but I really need to finish this bb cream before it goes bad, so my parents are getting my full fresh faced “woke up like this and put on mascara” routine (which is a fucking lie because I’m wearing at least three blushes and two highlighters). I’m determined to get this bitch down in under five minutes so I can have another five to do eyeshadow, I have way too much eyeshadow to not wear it (I have way too much everything except maybe mascara and eyebrow stuff).

Yes, if y’all were wondering I am in fact a makeup magpie. ANYWAY BACK TO THE ACTUAL THING WE ALL CAME HERE FOR.

(Btw further down I discuss once again how shitty I think the Yunmeng sibs’ parents are if that causes an issue for you)

Ok ok ok, so I was talking with damnpoe-2187 here about how we found that sometimes WWX crossed from gremlin into asshole when he tried to get LWJ riled up. Like in the Cold Springs, putting our shippers hearts aside, that was a dick move and he should have stopped undressing the second LWJ went from annoyed to incredibly uncomfortable. I find this scene the complete opposite, a show of character development if you will. It is kind of similar in that they’re both hurt, and alone (although this time is much more serious) and there was some undressing going on; however WWX here behaves like a fool in love considerate person and knowing how uncomfortable LWJ already is tries to make it easier for him. They’re also super soft and I’m weak.

A brief interlude from my one track mind: That pond is full of corpses isn’t it? Or at least the remnants of the Murder Turtle’s meals I suppose. Damn right WWX should not have gone into the water with an open wound, but think no one should go swimming in there without a full hazmat suit tbh (I want to pump them full of antibiotics at this point ngl)

So I love this tiny montage (is it even a montage) of the, getting themselves ready to kill the Murder Turtle.

Teamwooooooork.

Listen, I have read a few fics in which their mind-meld stays in place due to reasons and I need me more of those.

Ok, turtles don’t work that way, but then again, giant murder snake-Trex-turtle so that’s low on my list of priorities. What’s not low is the fact that this guy is knee deep into pretty much a mass grave and I want to take a few showers just watching him.

Yeah, I know exactly what he’s smelling and suddenly I hope I don’t have meat for lunch today tbh.

The screaming sword has always been fucking creepy and does LWJ’s fist clench mean that he’s also hearing them?

BATTLE COUPLE! BATTLE COUPLE! BATTLE COUPLE!

So I know killing the thing took them something like six hours. And while it feels quite a long time in the show, I think that, if they cut the scene with idk, JC running towards Lotus Pier, then back to them, then back to JC, but now the sun is in a different position, back to them, but now the blood from LWJ’s hand has dripped down his arm; and so on a so forth it’d convey more clearly how long it took for the Murder Turtle to die. I know fuck all about cinematography tho so feel free to ignore all this if it is in fact an abomination.

Tiiiiiiny interlude here to say that Yiling Patriarch!WWX is probably one of my favourite character archetypes. He’s slightly creepy, slightly amoral (smiling while torturing and murdering bad guys is still amoral ok), more than a bit on the Dark Side, cocky, smirky, a bit of an asshole a BAMF, a rebel with cause and yet he will still do the right thing, not despite his nature, but because of it. He’s kind of like a Chipped Spike? But you know, he doesn’t need electroshock to behave.

I just want a fic where he’s this Dark Lord of Evil in everyone’s eyes however the ‘good guys’ take a break from trying to off him because a bigger threat just popped up and they have no choice but to ask for his help. He agrees, keeps being his charming self while also saving everyone’s asses, LWJ is smitten.

TL;DR: The Necromancer is hot. Oh and nobody dare deny LWJ has a Yiling Patriarch kink.

Oh my, this is the part when I always get teary eyed.

WUJI ON A CELLO? DO YOU WANT TO KILL ME?

“Why hasn’t Jiang Cheng shown up and rescued me yet?” THIS IS ALL THE PROOF I NEED THAT WWX IS THE BABY SIBLING.

“Lan Zhan sing me a song”

IT IS HAPPENING, STAY FUCKING CALM EVERYBODY (I’m crying)

That slideshow of their best moments set to WuJi is a masterpiece, and also, it kind of drives home the point of “how tf did we go from flirting during summer camp to this mess”?

(Btw if that’s YiBo humming he’s got one hell of a deep voice)

Ok ok ok, so this moment had me spitting up my tea the first time I watched it. Believe it or not my dumbass thought these people were actually serious with the censorship and we’d get scraps of their actual relationship. Lots of charged moments like in some other western tv shows I’ve seen when two dudes have chemistry but “they’re not gay”, no longing glances, no tender touches, no being unbelievably soft with each other; just you know, amped up, because if I’m not mistaken you can be arrested in China for “promoting the gay”. I mean, they changed the beginning when people insult MXY’s sexuality to insulting his mental health; no one would think “ah yes, the gays are good” when they hear it used as a slur, but they still erased it completely. One of the things I thought they’d fully take away was WangXian, I mean, the into/outro is named Wuji, which, you know, still a mishmash of their names, but not their ship name. It is such a significant part of the story with all the “what’s the song name? Figure it out yourself” that if something were going to give away that they’re married with a kid it would be that. I thought we’d get an artful fade to black BEFORE LWJ would say the name not after. And also, YiBo is enunciating it so clearly that, even with the sound muffled and the blurriness I, who don’t speak Chinese, can make out the two syllables. That’s deliberate, I can say “WangXian” loud and clear without moving my lips too much. At this point in time I must assume someone in charge of looking for censorship violations in the show is a fan and just ignored it.

Censorship person 1: dude, isn’t that a bit too gay, maybe you shouldn’t greenlight it.

Censorship person 2: shut the fuck up, sit here and watch.

*a full rundown of the whole of CQL later*

Censorship person 1: oh my god they’re so in love and they deserve to be happy.

Back to the commentary: I’m sorry but I have a mighty need of a WWX & Peacock friendship ok? This might be me just wanting WWX and LWJ to make other friends besides each other but I think that the Peacock is just bitchy enough to not take any of WWX’s bullshit.

And the Yunmeng bros timing for banter strikes yet again.

That’s terrible quality fake blood btw.

@ Yunmeng disciples: STOP SHOOTING FUCKING KITES PLEASE AND THANK YOU

Oooof even with a change of clothes our boy is still looking rough as hell.

MY LOVELY YUNMENG SIBS BEING SOFT AND HAPPY WITH EACH OTHER.

It hurts my soul that the second JFM starts praising WWX for surviving the Murder Turtle our boy’s knee-jerk reaction is to start praising JC in return. It is instinctive, how many times must this have happened for him to know his brother won’t even get scraps of praise? (Seriously fuck their parents)

It was going so well, I mean, JFM had a point warning him to not say things in anger. But I thought he was going to tell him that it is because sometimes he’ll hurt someone without wanting to, yet, this asshole decided to, once again, remind his kid he thinks he’s a failure.

And here comes Mme Yu who I can only assume had a servant posted at the door to warn her when WWX woke so she could throw some verbal abuse at him. I mean, she must have been missing it.

And JFM’s misogynistic bullshit strikes once again, because why defend ALL your kids when you can insult your wife.

(Every time someone berates WWX for “intervening” I want to scream. I mean, seeing this I can believe why the society as a whole thought genocide was a good idea.)

I love how they use their kids as props in their fight, I mean it’s not like they have feelings or anything. This woman is gaslight-y as hell too “you don’t love your kid because I gave birth to him”, you can’t tell me saying that in front of the son she’s supposed to love isn’t going to hurt him. And she knows it, I mean, besides the Wen attack I’ve never seen her hit the kids (although I very much doubt she hasn’t), so a good part of the abuse must be verbal. There’s no fucking way a person who regularly uses words that way won’t realise where she’s aiming those arrows. Which means to her (to both) the kids are collateral.

But FR, the barely-out-of-adolescence disaster bi necromancer PTSDing all over the place and living in a mass grave was a better parent than any of the current adults in this thing.

Which brings me to another point, Shijie is textbook “the oldest sibling is just another parent” and I’m making myself very angry.

[this is when I start frothing at the mouth and itching to write a modern-girl(and friends)-dropped-in-CQL because someone has to be a positive adult influence in these kids’ lives and it sure as shit ain’t the ones in the actual show.]

CAN WE STOP BRINGING PEOPLE’S DEAD PARENTS INTO THE FIGHT?

*deep breath*

I am going to feed JFM & Mme Yu each other’s spleens. Look, listen, look and listen, let’s first talk about how calmly they lay out the facts of their lives, one is only loved because he’s been brought up in the shadow of his dead parents, the other knows with certainty his father dislikes him and his mother uses him as leverage in marital disputes. When have these two not exploded their emotions all over the place? Fucking never. Yet here they are, talking about this bullshit like some bout of inconvenient weather. They’re used to it!

And now let’s talk about yet again siblings-are-just-extra-parents, with an added pile of WWX’s terrible self awareness that, to the man who brought him up, his worth is due to his dead parents. Again I’m extrapolating, but with the amount of times Mme Yu brings up his parents in such a negative light I refuse to believe JFM hasn’t made all the “you’re so much like your parents” comments to him every time WWX does something right. I mean, telling an orphan about their parents if they ask is a good thing, but WWX seems starved for stories about his them, which leads me to believe JFM refuses to talk about the topic except to make those little comments. What a fucking stellar way to give someone all the trauma if you ask me. May also explain a lot of WWX’s self worth issues if the biggest praise he’s ever heard is that he resembles dead people, yes, people who were loved, but they’re dead, and it doesn’t look like any adult has bothered to go and differentiate WWX from ZSSR&WCZ.

I’m just really mad, despite all the silly anecdotes I put in here my parents are fucking great at parenting, so I know what good parents should look like, and this ain’t it.

Ok, so I made myself angry and I don’t know if I should move onto the next episode now or wait till tomorrow but thanks for reading!

[inknose]

mdzs read diary part IV, the end

It’s inspiring how much self care wwx is gonna finally get now that his husband will go along with whatever he does, so he’s gotta look out for lwj’s well being if not his own. that is emphatically the STUFF

dragging my hands down I face as I read this, after all these chapters of getting up close and personal with ghouls bleeding from every orifice, slaying ancient beasts, rebelling against the entire cultivation world, the two of them are absolutely paralyzed by middle school crush sleepover math

chicken

he actually drew kissy doodles .... he....

IDK I THINK I JUST DOCUMENTED THIS PART CUZ I WAS STILL SCREAMING you cant expect me to have very useful things to say at this point

this is torture you are both so mushy you are so GONE

This part really stood out to me, it’s an attitude I feel like wwx implies with his inner narration a few times but most clearly says here: he’s not one for allowing himself to exaggerate how bad his circumstances are/could be even a little bit - he’s already lived through some extreme low points and found a way to keep going, so he never makes sweeping statements about what he couldn’t live without (Inner JingYi: you’re supposed to say you’d be lost without him here!!!) Instead he seems to accept as a given that being alive doesn’t guarantee him any pleasantness or joy at all, and as a result his feelings toward being in TRUE LOVE are surprisingly pragmatic, but also colored with such gratitude. There are a lot of things in the novel that struck me, like this, as being just a little to the left of familiar tropes/sentiments, and were more touching for it. Whether it be the influence of culture difference as opposed to what I’m used to reading in most western romance stories, or MXTX’s unique outlook, or a combination of both, it was really refreshing and made me pause over it. Not “I can’t imagine living without you” but “I could be living without you, but instead I get to be with you and I think that’s the best thing that could happen.”

ADJFDKFJ THE UST BEING SO STRONG THAT EVEN THE VILLAIN COMMENTS ON IT IN THE MIDDLE OF EXECUTING HIS EVIL PLANS IS ONE OF THOSE THINGS THAT WILL NEVER FAIL TO MAKE ME LAUGH MY ASS OFF. hes like god damn! here I thought I had problems

it was at this moment that I realized we were doing this Now... I’m still recovering. What a scene. I am so glad I saw the most incredible fanart soon afterwards, bc the fact that someone has already drawn a perfect comic of this part means I don’t have to

I love you so much, you are so annoying, you are perfect... I like how he’s been experiencing openly requited love for all of ten minutes but he’s already figured out how to weaponize it to piss people off

doing!!! his!!! job!!!!!

ahh... it’s a really good story. JGY is a great character. One of the most interesting differences for me between drama watching vs. novel reading experience is that without an actor to bat his vulnerable doe eyes at you and smile faintly with his cute dimples, the book does not go much out of its way to try to lull the reader into a false sense of security around him or *endear* him to you the way the show does. But just by seeing events through wei wuxian’s POV, its still enough to evoke pity or understanding towards him. The overall impression is a bit more detached though, there’s less emphasis on the spectacle of how he could manipulate everyone closest to him and more of a general feeling of resigned tragedy that everyones the worst on this bitch of an earth.

I CANNOT DEAL WITH YOU FOR EVEN ONE MORE SECOND!!!!

I clearly paused to take note of less and less parts at the end & the extras due to: a) too excited to reach the end b) too spicy to photograph and c) too sleepy cuz I kept reading in the middle of the night. but I absolutely took the time for Bro We Are Teens appreciation corner:

I’d absolutely read 40 more extra chapters of their monster-of-the-week field trip antics.

god... poor Jin Ling now basically has to deal with divorced parents that talk shit about each other to him whenever he is saying with one of them. except they are both his uncles. just a disasterhood of all uncles from start to finish. AUUUGH wei wuxian and jiang cheng have fucked me up completely, I dream of them reconciling but I also REFUSE to believe it would ever be easy. let me know if theres a fanfic that absolutely tortures you for decades before they hug

HAHAHA oh no this man ain’t making it to immortality thats for damn sure. HE’S JUST GONNA TRY AS HARD AS HE CAN HIS WHOLE LIFE NOT TO LOOK AT HIM BUT THEYRE *MARRIED* SDLKFJSF ohhhh it’s too funny, like... the mundane domestic family drama IN the fantastical swords and sorcery setting is what really ratchets up these things from amusing to fucking hilarious I think

aaaa the end... final random thoughts? No not final, I would like to please keep discussing at length and exhaustively, all the time please - CQL has gotta be one of the best TV adaptations I’ve seen. ANY adaptation of anything would be lucky to be so good!! reading the novel has just made me appreciate it even more.

- I don’t think I can do justice to what I find most fascinating about comparing the two versions briefly, to do that I need to get drunk and ramble at my friends for hours but... the condensed version is something like this. Really all the significant differences between the two versions (besides the ones which can be attributed to censorship and therefore aren’t worth discussing) are a side effect of the structure of how the story is told - there’s barely anything changed arbitrarily. Aside from having a cold opening, the drama sticks to a very linear version of the story, and I think for a TV show or film, that’s probably the best way to do it. We see everything, we get shocked and tricked and betrayed and surprised along with the characters, we feel the biggest impact at the climactic scenes having experienced all the build-up. The novel on the other hand is not only much more non-linear in WHEN we learn bits and pieces of information, but that information is also obfuscated under wei wuxian’s multiple layers of Unreliable Narratoritis, which are as follows: 1) difficulty remembering things because of personality/avoiding painful memories/actual memory loss, 2) No Homo Goggles still on, and 3) a wry sense of humor that makes the reader unsure of how much they can trust his attitude toward things, especially near the beginning. The experience of reading is a puzzle the reader has to mentally piece together through all of the above listed camouflage, and the puzzle itself is a three-sided mystery: One - How Bad of a guy was Wei WuXian really, and how exactly did all the bad stuff in his life go down; Two - wangxian epic pride & prejudice gambits; Three - political murder mystery. (I love stories like this btw... though I fully admit I’m glad I watched first this time bc it might have taken me a long time to tackle otherwise.) Because of this, where the drama wants to pull you in and submerge you in all the most potent emotional parts, the novel in direct contrast deliberately side-steps around these things and asks that you hurt yourself by filling in the blanks. In fact the more intense emotions and painful memories involved, whether it be his relationship with jiang yanli, his DEATH, the darkest days of war times etc, the more the novel evasively withholds details. I actually really like both styles of storytelling but each one is obviously way better suited to its medium. ANYWAY.... THATS BASICALLY WHERE MY BRAINS AT WHILE IM READING GAY SWORD WIZARD BOOKS

- The extras are so saturated with domestic married bliss that it’s a good thing I stopped taking pictures because I’d just take a picture of every page. this is too much for me to take... I did jump the gun a few times and read a few fanfics while I was still mid-read of the book (I tried to hold out but alas I am mortal) and at one point after finishing I was like “wow what fic was it in where lwj says something cute and wwx kisses him in public but they’re in the corner of the restaurant so no one really sees... OH NO WAIT that was actually in there.” and ... and that’s the LEAST OF IT... *stares into the distance* theyre married wow

- I ofc couldn’t help but see a few vague blogs beforehand so honestly I was braced for something like, wildly ooc for the sake of porn to happen in the extras... I definitely appreciate how the incense burner porn interludes could be uhhh a lot for many people and not my personal cup of tea in terms of smut however [here follows the words of a poisonous frog who has dwelt her whole life in the rainforests of BL] the concept is also surprisingly SWEET SDFLKJF like wwx sees lan wangji’s darkest mixed-up violent teenage fantasies and he’s just like aww babe you had a crush on me!! just... good for them

- I swear I’m not gonna rehash every cute married thing they do but wei wuxian grading papers in the tub........................rEALLY GOT ME

- I want to Draw - ok thats enough if I keep going I’ll just write “wei wuxian grading papers in the tub” seven more times probably

[mxdberries]

The juniours spend a lot of time in Lotus Pier when they're visiting Jin Ling. Somewhere along the way ZiZhen falls in love with Jiang Cheng and tries to court him. Jiang Cheng is freaked out by how many flowers and sappy love poems he's found in his rooms. It goes on so long than he knows it's not a joke, but who'd ever fall in love with *him*? (Meanwhile Jin Ling and the Lans try to act as matchmakers. They're very bad at it.)

$10 says they're also getting advice from local disaster gays: WangXian. Terrible advice lwj doesn't really say much (ha!) WWX on the other hand is like, look your best, act coquettish UwU cling to him, be shameless, etc. OYZZ is like I already played the love fool that ain't working. So instead they each give one solid piece of advice: Lan Wangji says actions speak as loudly as words while Wei Wuxian says to be upfront and clear with his words. But of course that's later, first the juniors think they can help Ouyang Zizhen all on their own.

The juniors barely got experience and most of it belongs to one person 😅 Jin Ling has only ever had marriage meetings, Lan Sizhui does polite but firm rejections not really focused on dating yet, Lan Jingyi has the most dating experience but he's never had to pursue someone like JC. After grilling JL for as much info as they can, LJY is like "give him flowers, everyone likes flowers, do that!" except JC's favorite flowers are lotuses and he's got a lot already. OYZZ still tries, but he over does it, JC thinks the flowers are nice (and a little weird that he has so many) but he can't stop sneezing from all the smells. JL tells OYZZ to chill with the flowers, this is where they try poetry and JL doesn't help with this one. The first poem made his ears burn, so sappy and flowery how can he say things like that - there was definitely a line complimenting how JC uses Zidan and how pretty the purple lightning makes him look. For a good deal of the poems he thinks WWX roped the juniors into doing a prank, but it keeps going, losing the overdone purple prose becoming more sincere. JC finally faces the truth...sorta. It's like wow, someone likes him...wtf is wrong with them? He's Jiang Cheng, he's a broken mess, who could love him?

Meanwhile OYZZ is reaching the end of his rope, he's not gonna get the guy at this rate. He's tried a lot of ridiculous advice: tripping in JC's vicinity hoping to be caught (sometimes he does most times he's on the ground as JC calls him clumsy), got too hot while sparring oh let's conveniently shed these robes and maybe go for a swim - maybe just maybe JC's eyes linger for a moment, seductively eating food, offering massages, just embarrassing himself. OYZZ looking jealous as Fairy gets pets from JC, saying a little too loudly "God I wish that was me." It's at this point he asks WangXian for advice.

After his talk with them, he changes his approach. He's been doing it with just attracting JC's attention in mind, he forgot himself in his actions, this time he wants to show he can support JC. There's still flowers just less of them, still poetry, he can't cook a full meal but he can make snacks for JC's breaks, keeps an eye in the local village & servants, offering help with the household affairs/paperwork. It's not that different from the things he does at home, sharing the weight of Lotus Pier between them (fuck I'm getting emotional about that). It's here in JC's study - working side by side - JC is snacking when OYZZ turns to look right at him, placing a hand on him.

"Sect Leader Jiang... Jiang Wanyin, I like you... romantically. Please let me officially pursue you."

JC's brain blanks, like what does he mean officially wait - all the courting gifts he knew were from one of JL's friends but he could never tell which, so it being OYZZ is a bit of a shock leaving JC to go "Oh. /Oh!/" and he thinks it wouldn't be so bad to try.

[obxfiles]

Why would you recommend the untamed to someone? I’ve seen all your posts and reblogs and I know you love it (I’m already intrigued and will watch it) but it’d be nice and fun if you could explain why you love it so much, because 1. I really want to know and 2. At least I love talking about things I love sooo I hope you don’t mind this ask 😬🥺

ooh okay i’m so bad at trying to put my thoughts into words but i’ll try my best. i’ll put it under a ‘read more’ because this going to be a long response, i feel. also let me just start by saying thank you. i love, love, love talking about what i love and sharing my loves with others; and i don’t always have people in my life to do that with. so it means so much to me that you’ve reached out like this and are asking me to do this. like, that just has made my day. also, please feel free to DM me if you’d like and we can talk more that way. alrighty, the rest is under the cut!

first of all, i was drawn to the trope. the kind of enemies to lovers (they’re not really enemies to lovers, but there’s still that kind of banter to it), banter and flirting trope that i am a huge sucker for. i knew nothing about it going into it, and when i learned that the wwx and lwj are canonically romantically involved and not just shipped by the fans of the show, that definitely caught my interest in a massive way. they are canonically soulmates and lovers. i decided to give it a shot and within the first few moments, i was completely immersed. some of the special effects come across a bit goofy but the cgi scenery is stunning and every scene looks and feels like a work of art. that’s something that really captured me.

then there’s the characters themselves. without giving too much away, let’s talk about them for a moment. wwx (wei wuxian) is every bit the playful, mischievous little monster who always has a smile on his face and is always ready to tease and make others smile. but his story is one of immense pain and suffering, and yet in spite of these things, he still smiles. in spite of his childhood, in spite of the people who raised him, in spite of so much pain he still smiles and giggles and flirts and teases. and the moment he sets his eyes on lwj (lan wangji), he’s pretty much completely smitten. he wants to befriend him and make him smile and have fun with him but lwj is so immersed in the rules of his clan that everything wwx is and does is so alien to him. but wwx is persistent. always smiling, always waving, always trying to do everything he can to get lwj’s attention on him and make him smile.

as for lwj, his brother says it best: he raised him very strictly, and wwj doesn’t have anyone besides him. his brother sees wwx as being good for him. he’s amused by wwx and thinks lwj having some like wwx around would do him some good. but imagine being lwj, in this very rigid society having known nothing else outside of rules and regulations and here comes this little gremlin to throw a wrench into it all; with his total lack of obedience and formality; however all at the same time still being your closest match both intellectually and when it comes to fighting. wwx catches his curiosity. there’s a point where they’re traveling together and lwj’s brother tells him he invited wwx along because he knew lwj wanted him to come along. all the while lwj still can barely make eye contact with wwx.

all the characters are extremely multifaceted. some will make you feel such genuine hatred and anger while at the same time, making you feel immense pity for the pain they’ve endured. the story that unfolds is so beautiful and you truly grow attached to these characters as you watch them fight and endure.

the love story itself is another huge point. i am a sucker for pining and kind of that pride and prejudice level of romance of secret gazes, soft touches, blushing cheeks, quickly turning away of gazes, stolen looks. it’s filled to the brim with those little moments. lwj is the very definition of Panic Gay and wwx is the very definition of confident gay (or bi). he isn’t afraid to strip out of his clothes without a care if lwj is right there, or pester him with flirting and teasing; all the while with lwj having a complete existential criss every single time lol also the soulmates aspect. at the heart of the story is the story of soulmates being reunited once again, years later. the story of how they first met, fell in love, came together, became tragically separated, and how they found each other once again. 

 the story of family is another huge point too. the brokenness of family and the relationship of wwx with his brother just guts me to my core. there’s such a conflict of both deep hatred and deep love. i don’t want to give much away about that, but it’s something i love deeply about the show.

lastly, the humor. this is a show that centers quite literally around death. there’s awfulness quite frequently. death, destruction. but there’s so many moments of such genuine humor and you’ll be crying one moment and laughing the next. it balances itself out so well like that. in so many ways it creates such balance. there’s fierce scenes of battle with blood and death and destruction and then beautiful scenes of nature and serenity and peacefulness. it’s like that with so many other aspects as well. it just all comes together in such a beautiful harmony. 

i’ve never found anything like this that has sparked something like this in me in such a profound way. and maybe my posts about it are a bit excessive and annoying to those who aren’t interested, but i haven’t been moved like this by something and i kind of want to metaphorically shout it from the rooftops and share it with literally everyone i can how beautiful and profound this story is. i really want to share it with so many out there and i do hope you take these things into consideration and do give it a chance. it’s a beautiful, beautiful story.

also, please feel free to DM me and we can talk more in depth and i can share some youtube videos with you that can help you test the waters a bit. thank you so much for reaching out and asking me about this  ♡

[llycaons]

ep27: I really hope xiao zhan modelled wwx's messy drinking off the donghua

ohh this one is called getting drunk. deep deep sigh

I never liked this trope and I wasn't a huge fan of it in cql. it just doesn't interest me that much. but it was funny and their little conversation was very sweet

in the novel you all know I *retches*

there were a couple of moments from the novel I was bummed weren't in cql. but I hope donghua lwj doesn't disappoint and go possessive belligerence on literally wwx's only other friend. he's been so good

wait we never had the scene where lwj said he wanted to bring wwx back to CR. we barely get any hint of what lwj was doing during that time. ugh they cut so much important stuff

anyway lwj insisting that xxc and sl will meet again is very nice

wwx going "lan zhan" all soft and then having to cough when smoke starts blowing in his face...help

no ozz huh? they said we are NOT animating another child. git outta here

the joss paper convo is unique to the donghua I think. the implication that lwj knew wwx was coming back so he never burned any. it's something

in many of these closeup scenes, it looks like wwx has blue eyes :(

why the fuck are they in yunmeng. aren't they going to break into jgy's house? infiltrate the jins??? they're going to a temple first??

why is fairy hurting little apple :( they are friends

wwx being really casually tactile with lwj is new. and the juniors being like wait. are they really gay we can't tell

a part of their dynamic in the novel I thought was fun was wwx doing something ridiculous or making something up and lwj immediately and wholeheartedly backing him up to everyone else's confusion because there's no way hgj would lie! they tricked a little kid like that it was kind of mean tbh but it was a very silly element of their relationship and it was nice to see here

lwj really uses that silence spell a lot huh. I do not like that spell :/

okay the flahback to the brothel! yeah I remember this. I think there was a substantial one where we learned about jgy though. I thought that cql was really missing that scene

one of the few criticisms I have of cql romance is that it's an insanely long amount of time to be deeply in love with someone and have a good sense that they care about you too and not do anything about it. and I think it still works because of the circumstances and who the characters are but I don't mind that wwx and lwj weren't super close in the flashbacks and only grew closer postres, I don't mind the tragectory being different, just think it was super one-sided and handled badly in a lot of ways in the book

here lwj's sudden change is a little jarring but I can see them growing closer and more comfortable with each other, and I like to see it. it's nice. I could see a love story here

kids reenacting sunshot is a good scene in every version but those children are so ugly. giant heads god bless

I'm pretty sure cql added the misogyny in this scene for a joke *knife emoji* but I can't remember the novel version at all so im unsure

this is fatphobic though

aww the wwx-kid got defeated bc it was many against one but lwj helped him up and accepted his gift as thanks. that's really sweet

I just like it when lwj is nice to kids!! he didn't have much interaction with little a-yuan in the beloathed 2nd season

the innkeeper is fun! I like having engaging and friendly background characters

jc being a terrifying leader who nobody can trust and who almost definitely kidnaps and tortures demonic cultivators is right from the book, I remember that

it's so funny because I've seen jc fans swear up and down that this isn't true and that you can't trust rumors and then, if that fails, insisting that killing demonic cultivators must be a good thing because demonic cultivation bad. no, really

I really like cql jc as a character, I think he's quite different, and think they cut these torture scenes for a reason, but anyone defending novel/donghua jc is honestly hilarious. you just can't argue with that

I remember this scene from the book! I think they were at lunch though. he called wwx "no money" instead of "no envy" iirc. would be nice to have a translator note, subs! that was funny!

'my surname is lan' scene doesn't do anything for me but this was a nice scene overall. lwj is so chill

and he did eat spicy but I think it was an accident

and here getting drunk was an accident too. better than wwx intentionally getting him drunk to interrogate him, but not as good as lwj drinking intentionally

why do you have a leaf in your mouth you young rascal

yeah this isn't the sequence of events in either the novel or the drama. it works though, no complaints

wwx reaffirming that wen ning and him have the future to look forward to is really lovely. I wish they had that sentiment in cql. and I liked how immediately after it panned to lwj's face

oh shit was that a flashback to wwx's death?

NOOO DON'T BE MEAN TO WEN NING

YESSS SHOES ON THE WRONG FEET

credit to the donghua, this is exactly how I envisioned drunk lwj when reading the novel. it's a funny image. he's imperious, righteous, stoic, serious. but everything he does is very silly. his shoes are on the wrong feet. he gestures with overdramatic flair. he grabs wwx's hands when he holds up the two fingers (novel accurate). he tries to give wwx his flute, old flower, and a toy he likes. he tries to go back to gusu immediately (sigh)

most of all he's very sincere. he's a lot more open when drunk

while the donghua and drama don't have a lot of drunk scenes in common, both are fairly accurate to the book events, however I think the donghua is more accurate to the tone of the novel and the character dynamics

I would have liked this a lot more if he was sober. I've said before I don't really enjoy drunk romance scenes because I think meaningful romance in a strong relationship has to be a concious choice made willingly and it's annoying to have a character reveal their ~deepest feelings~ that they would never act on while high or drunk (or in moments of high emotion, even)

wwx looked fairly creeped out by this ngl

okayy flashback to CR days! it would be kind of sweet but I really do not feel the appeal of a romance where it's like 'hehe he wants to catch me and punish me" like okay. more accurate to the book though ig

it's not that I have an issue with bdsm or kinky sex or gay people doing either obviously I just think it should handled with a lot more care than it is and I think anyone who argues those scenes aren't written fetishistically simply don't know anything about BL or how it treats gay men. it may be a lot better than other BL but like. it's still BL and it still uses those tropes and it's still mlm explicit material by and for primarily for cishet women. so

wwx NO don't give him more to drink he's going to be unbearable for even longer

OH SHIT YEAH the temple is a giant array! I remember I thought that was so cool in the book but it wasn't in the drama :(

I don't think they got attacked in the novel when lwj was drunk but in both the donghua and the drama they were like we gotta show how skilled lwj is even while drunk

wait oh my god I think I understand this scene. nhs's people want to find the array crux because that's jgy's mom. wwx knows this and drew a fake array crux, and also drew something that would let him track whoever stole it

I love knowing what's going on love and light

overall: not a bad drunk scene! funny and lighthearted, moved the plot along, though it had implied some unfortunate character traits it was nothing near the worst novel scenes of lwj carving porn into some stranger's wall, the licking each other, and lwj dragging wwx into the room tied up. the book hide and seek thing was annoying and infantile but otherwise not harmful I think. the second drunk scene is a lot worse and this one isn't over yet but I'm glad it wasn't that awful

pretty good, donghua team!

so I wasn't paying attention but it occurs to me that donghua wwx and lwj wear the same thing every episode - donghua wwx always wears gray and donghua lwj never wears blue, so the clothes may be the best bet to tell if the story a fanart is based on the donghua or the drama. because drama wwx wears a slightly greater range of different colors but usually black and never gray, and drama lwj ocasionally wears blue. also the yellow eyes, forehead ribbon, body types, and hairstyles