#meanwhile fang duobing is like “stop treating me like a kid. i'm a man and i can stab too”

[beneaththebrim]

on ep 21 of 《莲花楼》 and having such "what do you mean this isn't dangai???" thoughts

cuz that's the thing about censorship, people working under it have to create a language that can fly under the radar, but as a result, works that weren't even trying to fly under the radar but happen to use that same language can get recast in the eyes of the audience

like, there are plenty of cultures and time periods where a certain sort of straight masculinity got constructed around being free and not tied down by married life. works with intentional queer subtext can use that construction to get things past the censors, but works that use that trope played straight [haha] then feel queer in themselves to anyone who's used to reading that kind of subtext

[disclaimer that i haven't read the book or know much about authorial intent re: the show, and it's quite possible that they were doing certain things on purpose to corner the fujoshi market while also being able to say "what do you mean homoerotic, this is a straight show for the straights"]

but it's just so funny to me that a big part of all three main characters' arcs is just, running away from women lol

like with li lianhua, whenever a woman proposes intimate relations with him both he and fang duobing spit out their drinks it seems so absurd. when it comes to qiao wanmian, you could read li lianhua as being heartbroken because he lost his childhood sweetheart whom he genuinely loved romantically. you could also read it as him being heartbroken over not being able to love her in the way she wanted him to, not being the heterosexual alloromantic family man qiao wanmian wanted him to be for her--this is also consistent with a lot of his angst around not being able to live up to the ideal hero so many people wanted him to be. so, a reader of queer subtext has a lot of ambiguity to play with, whether he's bi or gay or ace. super breedable fertile ground there

with di feisheng. you get the sense that he's definitely fucked jiao liqiao. emphasis on the past tense. or not even, idk, jiao liqiao has femcel energy, it would actually be kinda funny if di feisheng never actually fucked her lmaooo. and damn from his very intro we know who the person in his heart is. his admiration for li xiangyi is so palpable, you can't really even try to say that he hates him [if anyone's hate-fucking li lianhua it's xiao zijin]. jiao liqiao tries to undo his belt and he's like "ew stop." and then a bunch of people double cross him and he just can't stop hanging around li lianhua. he's such an abused pitbull who got rehomed i love him.

and fang duobing is so funny. he starts off running away from princess marriage [understandable tbh, who wants to be stuck in the imperial court] but then at every juncture he assumes li lianhua is perving on women?? his reaction to girl palace is "ew gross!" there's a region of the brain called "awareness of the existence of homosexuality" that's been cut out of him. he is gay.