#one time we were watching nirvana in fire and I was like.

[trifoliate-undergrowth]

cracking up at the saloon sound effect of a guy doing a perfectly enunciated "Yahoo!" when Jed wakes up after passing out at 58 minutes in its so awkward. is this meant to be the sound of a guy having sex. is this what it sounds like. it sounds like the guy doing this sound effect just found out his favorite restaurant was going to shut down and then they were like alright go record something that sounds excited and he was like "... yahooo? :/ can I go home now I'm very sad" and they were like "sure. that works."

[convenientalias]

Why Nirvana in Fire Wins at Revenge Story with Identity Porn

Nirvana in Fire was my first ever cdrama that was a revenge story with identity porn. Since then, I've seen many other dramas along similar lines. A League of Nobleman. Blood of Youth. City of Streamer. Fighting for Love. Legend of Anle. Long Ballad. Princess Weiyoung. Rise of Phoenixes. Sword Dynasty. Weaving a Tale of Love. Word of Honor. Some of them are quite good but none of them really hit the same way. So, apart from the fact that it was the first one I ever watched, I thought I'd made a brief list of reasons why I think Nirvana in Fire is the best.

Lin Shu's Identity

I just appreciate that when shit went down and Lin Shu's whole family and army and many of his friends were killed and he became a man on the run, he was a full-grown man (okay, still pretty young, but definitely not a child) with his own life and even an army position.

A lot of these identity porn dramas will have their MCs meeting ppl for the first time in many years, in disguise, but they only knew these ppl when they were children. Childhood friends are great and all that, but can they hit as hard as the complicated, fleshed out relationships that Lin Shu had and lost? He had a friendship of many years with Jingyan. He had an engagement and a longstanding friendship with Nihuang. He has friends from the army, younger cousins playing the role of "we don't even understand what happened back then and maybe that's better", older friends and relations who he actually knew as an adult.

Simultaneously, his past identity increases the threat of discovery for Lin Shu. He's a known factor to many, many people in the capital. Yes, they think he's dead. But small things like a hazelnut allergy or his mannerisms or his previous friendships with people are still memorable enough that even with a completely different face, if he's not careful, he might give himself away. He's not infiltrating a group of strangers or people who only knew him as a kid. He's infiltrating a group of people who were close to him for many, many years of his life.

HOWEVER. Lin Shu's identity is not so important that everyone in the capital is still obsessed with him twelve years later (with some exceptions). This isn't Mysterious Lotus Casebook where we're all still pining for Li Xiangyi, because...

2. The Chiyan Case Wasn't Even About Lin Shu?? (Also, No One Cares About That Ancient History Anymore (Jingyan, Sit Down))

The Chiyan case wasn't about the Lin family at all, really.

No one specifically wanted Lin Shu dead or had a big grudge against his dad or anything. It's all about power, military and political. For some conspirators, it was just about getting a leg up in court. But mostly, it was about Prince Qi, the previous crown prince. The Lin family just happened to be friends with him and ended up in an uncomfortable (highly murderable and frameable) position.

Lin Shu may mourn his family, but for the majority of the show, he doesn't talk about it. He doesn't talk about his mother and his family back at the capital either committing suicide or being killed indiscriminately. He only mentions his father's name a handful of times in the whole show. Lin Shu's drive is that his father's ARMY was killed, tens of thousands of men. That's the weight on Lin Shu's shoulders: the death of all these innocent men because they were in the way. The Chiyan Case; the Chiyan Massacre. The denouement of Lin Shu's victory (not to give too many spoilers) is not just his father's name being cleared of a treason charge. It's when there's finally a memorial put up for the Chiyan Army, with memorial tablets that he can publicly visit to pay respects.

Why does this make it a better revenge story with identity porn? A couple reasons. First, Lin Shu is very much the center of the story and has very personal beef, but he treats himself like a tool and his objective isn't about himself or familial connections (they're part of it but they're not everything). He doesn't even know all the people he's avenging. That's fine; he'll still carry that weight. I just think it's neat.

Second, the fact that the Lin family (and the whole Chiyan Army) were really just collateral damage for getting rid of Prince Qi really emphasizes just how careless the current regime is of the value of human life.

Third, as Meng Zhi says when Lin Shu comes to the capital, everyone at court is busy with their own little power struggles and no one has time to care about Lin Shu or protect him. Lin Shu's like yeah that's fine :) I'm not anyone's focus anymore and the Lin family has been swept under the rug like we never existed :) and no one even talks about the Chiyan case anymore for fear of being accuse of treason :) that's all okay because I'm about TO MAKE THIS EVERYONE'S PROBLEM ANYWAY and honestly the fact that everyone's trying their hardest to forget will just make them more oblivious when I come to fuck them up.

3. All Of This is Whose Fault, Again?

That's right, folks, we're in a show that knows that when shit goes down at court and your family gets framed for treason and the emperor orders them executed, sure, you can blame the conspirators who framed them all you want, but also, YOU KIND OF DO HAVE TO BLAME THE EMPEROR.

People have said enough about how great this is on a thematic level of accountability but seriously I've seen so many shows dodge this. ~It's not the emperor's fault bc he was misled by these conspirators~ or ~the emperor is only a puppet emperor, if he actually had power instead of this evil person, he would put everything right.~ Or, if they dare to blame the emperor, maybe he's just an evil emperor and was bad all along. NIF says yeah, he was lied to on many levels. There was a whole complicated conspiracy going on and many people to blame. But he could have taken things slower. He could have required better evidence. He could have trusted people who had supported him for many years, at least enough to listen to their side of the story BEFORE KILLING THEM. And why didn't he? It's not because he's an idiot. It's because he's an emperor, and emperors don't like seeing other people gain enough power to even potentially become a threat. It's because he wasn't looking for the truth, he was looking for an excuse to kill. And he's not unusually evil for that; this kind of callousness towards murder and grasping for power at all costs is more the norm at court than any kind of honor or morality.

The Emperor's a nice guy sometimes! He used to fly kites with Lin Shu when he was young! His sons give him a headache, but honestly, relatable, they'd give you a headache too! He likes Consort Jing and honestly, who wouldn't! And he killed one of his sons, one of his closest friends, and an entire army, and he would do it again without hesitation. He's not especially evil. Being an emperor is bad enough.

4. Other Bad Guys

It's worth mentioning that Lin Shu's opponents are not stupid.

Xie Yu and Xia Jiang, Prince Yu and the Crown Prince, even the Empress and Noble Consort Yue: They aren't all geniuses, but they aren't idiots flailing around in spite. They're pretty smart, and if Lin Shu wants to take them down, he has to be smarter.

It's also worth mentioning that this is not one of those shows where the protagonist happens to take down his opponents mostly by standing still and just defending himself when they lash out at him. This seems like an obvious thing in a revenge drama, but the number of times I've seen the opposite, the protagonist swearing revenge and then just struggling with self preservation.... but no. Lin Shu has A Plan. He is going to be proactive and actually take his enemies down. Admittedly he will do this by revealing their past misdeeds but this isn't a case of "the misdeeds will just happen to pop up". This is a case of "I will actively unearth skeletons from where you threw them in a well in an abandoned manor".

TO SUM UP

Without going into the things that make Nirvana in Fire a great show in general (great acting, good pacing and plotting, good costuming, and so on and so forth) I think the main things that make it hit for me as a revenge story with identity porn are 1) letting the MC's past identity be that of a grown man who actually had a life (more connections to the past, but also more to lose and more danger in the present as a result), 2) the fact that the offense that the MC is avenging wasn't even like a personal thing to the offenders (bc! it's fucking infuriating!), 3) the fact that the drama is willing to face the root of the problem (the problem is both corruption at court and the fact that the highest arbiter is flawed, not just individual conspirators), 4) the supply of multiple good antagonists, and 5) LETTING THE MC ACTUALLY, ACTIVELY PURSUE REVENGE AND THAT'S THE MAIN PLOT AND WE AREN'T SPENDING MOST OF OUR SCREENTIME ON SIDEPLOTS AND ROMANCE OR MERE SELF PRESERVATION. These may not seem like large things but my friends, you would be surprised how many revenge dramas I've watched at this point that can't do them.

ok I'm done ranting. Feel like most of this is actually stating the obvious but I'm just in a mood and had to get it out. (...also possibly I've been let down by some revenge dramas lately but I won't get into it. it's okay. we can't all be Nirvana in Fire; only Nirvana in Fire can be Nirvana in Fire.)

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 山河令/Word of Honor.

Word of Honor is a 2021 adaptation of a novel by priest that tells the story of two beautiful murderers, their three kids, and their collective attempts to ignore the fetchquest madness that has taken over the rest of the jianghu.

Look, you know what Word of Honor is. Doing a rec for this is like doing my rec for Nirvana in Fire -- I am not introducing you to a new concept. Even if you haven't watched it, you've probably osmosed enough through the rest of Tumblr to have an opinion on it. At this point, if you haven't seen Word of Honor, I'm assuming it's for one of two reasons: either you haven't gotten around to it yet, or you haven't been sufficiently moved by what you've seen fandom do with it.

So I'm going to give you five reasons to watch the show, and they're probably not going to be the reasons you've seen already. Not to say that the other reasons are bad, but you've heard them already, right? What I've got for you are five somewhat more unexpected reasons that may just convince the fence-sitters that this nut-flavored morass of toxic relationships is worth your time.

1. No matter how gay you think it is, it's gayer

Okay, sure, you've probably been given the impression that this show is real gay. But I don't know if you know how gay it is. This show is so gay that we still haven't seen many of the other BL-flavored shows filmed around the same time period or since, because Chinese censorship gay-panicked and locked them all away before they could air, because Word of Honor was just too gay.

Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing (L-R above) are in love. The story does not make sense if they're not. There is no story if they're not. Everything else in the show is set dressing to this incredible adventure story of two horrible people who fall for one another.

Oh yeah, did I mention that they're both bad guys? One's a fascist toddler-murderer and the other's a cannibal mob boss. These two deserve one another, in every possible sense of that phrase. In any other property, they'd be the villains -- and even here, they're still kind of the villains! It's just that the heroes are worse.

What's more, their two actors absolutely understood the assignment. They got the memo. They read the book. No one ever had to sit them down midway through shooting and explain their dynamic. They had it from the table read. When given creative freedom, they chose to double down and make the gay shit even gayer.

But the actors weren't the only ones who knew what they were doing! Everybody working on the production was pretty much in full-on Let's Make A BL mode. There are no gay accidents here. It's so gay that it's actually gayer than the version that aired. If you can do a little lip-reading (though beware of spoilers in those links), you can get at the original filmed version, which had a number of lines that were too homo and/or sexual for Chinese television.

No, they don't kiss. They don't have to. This is the TV version of the tweet about, what's gayer, gay sex or whatever these two have going on? The answer is, whatever these two have going on.

It's so gay that they're not the only gays. No, I'm not going to tell you who the other gays are, in part because spoilers. But trust me, they're there. Lesbians too! And a bisexual elderly polycule! And one pair of hets that we love love love, and most other heterosexuals are creepy and gross. And if that's not an accurate representation of how the world looks to queer people, I don't know what to tell you.

2. Go nuts!

You are not prepared for the product placement.

Word of Honor started off having a budget, so they went ahead and started spending that budget in the way you do when you're making a TV show. Unfortunately, circumstances changed, and their budget became much less, which meant they couldn't keep making that TV show unless they got more dollars. But where to get a sponsor for a fairly low-profile wuxia BL property?

Enter our hero: Wolong Nuts.

I have seen actors do bumper ads in costume for products from their various sponsors, and I have seen actors do bumper ads in character for the same. But the feeling of seeing a modern product diegetically hawked mid-scene by ancient fantasy characters is like none other.

Something like 40% of Word of Honor's total budget came from this nut sponsorship. And here the thing: It worked! It sold nuts! Hell, I’d buy them if they were sold anywhere near me; I like nuts in general, and nuts that support the queers in particular.

I'm including this as a selling point because, come on, it's funny as hell. But it's also a good place to warn you that Word of Honor has what we're politely going to call a spotty use of its funds. Some things, like everyone's outfits and the score, are lavish and beautiful. Other things, like some of the sets and a lot of the CG, are janky and sad. Crowd scenes are thirty humans and a bunch of Blender assets. I've never seen so many fake plastic trees together in one place before. There's a lot of visible hairnets. Like, a lot.

The show was originally planned as being 45 episodes long. It wound up being 36 + a tiny epilogue. That's a huge cut! I’ll say to its credit that you mostly can’t feel the seams; the production team did a heroic job killing their darlings (in many senses) while keeping the narrative coherent. If you know about the original vision, though, you can identify pretty quickly where the excised material should have been. Don’t be surprised when the last two episodes in particular smack you like a hit-and-run.

They blew a truly unwise amount of the budget on costumes in general, and Wen Kexing's costumes in particular, and thank goodness. (@canary3d-obsessed has done a noble job of cataloging everyone's wardrobes, and some of the details are just stunning.) See that red outfit he's wearing there, with the elaborate, delicate embroidery? That apparently took two people literal months to hand-sew. It's a terrible use of limited funds, and I am living for it. Even when Wen Kexing looks awful, he looks stunning -- especially when you put him side by side with Zhou Zishu, who is wearing the jianghu equivalent of slutty yoga pants and a thrift-store dollar-bin t-shirt that says IT'S WINE O'CLOCK SOMEWHERE.

So if, while you’re watching, you’re ever disappointed by the quality of the production in front of you, just console yourself by thinking: That’s nut money, baby.

3. The ghosts (and everyone else) doing the mosts

This is a show that somehow managed to accumulate a tremendous supporting cast of actual grown-ass adults, then had the wisdom to make them play a wide variety of balls-to-the-wall bonkers roles.

You can't throw a rock in a crowd scene without hitting a dozen actors with resumes as long as their arms, who have been acting since before you were born. Apparently they poached a couple veteran film and stage actors from other contemporaneous productions and had them come over to film bit parts on their days off. If you see a character played by an older actor who's getting more lines and face time than you think their character strictly deserves relative to their importance to the plot, and you're like, hm, I wonder if this older actor has a career that includes roles in several dozen other shows and/or stage productions, the answer is yes.

I've seen the tone of the show described as melodramatic, but I don't think that's quite it -- it's more operatic. People speak to the middle distance and play to the back row. Several actors have the body language and line delivery that makes it seem like they're always about three words away from breaking into song. Several of my favorites are downright camp. It's magnificent.

Statistically, everyone in this show is a bad guy. There are the respectable people who don't mean to be bad guys, but wind up being bad guys anyway because they support bullshit systems. There are the morally grey folk who are willing to become bad guys because they think they'll be the good guys when all is said and done. And there are the bad guys who know they're bad guys and are going to chew every piece of scenery in the vicinity about it, so watch out.

My favorite collection of scene-stealing weirdos is probably the clutch of freaks that make up the ghosts of Ghost Valley. They're not actual ghosts -- this is not a supernatural show. They are instead living people who call themselves ghosts because they've found themselves on the margins of society for one reason or another, and have created their own little society! With hookers! And blackjack! And also a little murder, as a treat!

These ghosts are so extra that they actually have a Top Ten List, where all the ones that have code names and specific costumes hang out. How do you get on the Top Ten List? By killing one or more of the people already on it, of course! I told you these guys are villains! They're not even the only villains! They're not even the only villain organization! It's wall-to-wall bad guys around here! And oh my goodness, the actors are clearly having a ball with it.

When the screenwriter came to adapt Faraway Wanderers (the novel) into Word of Honor, she realized that there weren't a whole lot of ladies in the book -- so she invented/adapted some for the show and made most of them sinister! (In fact, if you watch Legend of Fei -- and you should watch Legend of Fei -- you can see a lot of the inspiration for said ladies.) Some of the female characters in the show were men in the book, while others weren't even in the book at all. They all feel organic, though, and not like someone was trying to get Strong Female Character Points. It's the good representation you get when there's a lot of representation, so nobody has to be The Girl, and all the girls can just be people.

...Alas that another casualty of the budget cuts is that several of the lady characters did not get to live up to their full ass-kicking potential. But that potential is still there! The badassery may be implicit instead of explicit, but you don't doubt that many of these women would eat your heart at the slightest provocation, and you would thank them while they were doing it.

This show is perfect food if you're the kind of viewer liable to get sucked up into the worlds of villains, NPCs, bit parts, optional side characters, and other narratives going on outside the main storyline. Because there's a lot going on outside the main storyline. I mean, that's kind of the running joke of the whole novel, that there's this whole complicated political plot happening, and yet our dudes are over here studiously trying to not know what the hell is going on. Obviously that's harder to preserve in a show, but it's still a key feature of the narrative. Most of the Big Power Play What-Not is always happening a few towns over from where the main party is at any given moment. I know people who've watched the drama several times and still can't explain whatever's happening with all that. That's fine. You roll with it for the sake of everything else.

So! Do you like gazing upon delightful character actors and having imagination adventures about the unexplored workings of a bunch of tantalizingly mysterious and often very sexy weirdos? Great! This will keep you busy for a good long while.

4. The juciest pining in the jianghu

I said I wasn't going to tell you about all the gay shit going on here, and I'm not. What I do want to cover, however, is how much gay shit isn't going on here -- and by that I mean just how much of the show's gay longing is unrequited. If you like it when the boy yearns for the other boy, friend, you will feast well tonight.

You have likely already, through fandom, been alerted to the existence of the biggest gremlin in the land and an understandable number of people's favorite character, immortal grandpa Ye Baiyi. What may not have been conveyed, however, is just how tragically gay this bitch is. The ultra-condensed, scrubbed-for-spoilers version of his backstory is that he was in love with a guy who got injured because of him, so he decided to stay and live on a mountain with that guy and the guy's wife and coparent their son with them, all the while never once telling the guy how he felt.

This is not me with slash goggles on. This is canon. Well, okay, the "in love with" part is only confirmed in the book, but Huang Youming, Ye Baiyi's equally gremlin-like actor, has also clearly done the reading and understands how to break your heart with it. Ugh, it's so good.

Shidifuckers, rejoice! Zhou Zishu has Han Ying, his devoted little dumpling who would -- and does -- do anything for him. Back in Zhou Zishu's regrettable (but very fashionable) fascist days, he had a bunch of little underlings; one of them was Han Ying, who still works for the same evil empire. Problem is, Han Ying isn't evil. He was never loyal to his job; he was always just loyal to Zhou Zishu. It's cute the way Wen Kexing hisses like a cat upon meeting Han Ying and immediately identifying him as a rival for Zhou Zishu's affections. If you like OTPs that occasionally roll in a service-top third, please consider that adorable muffin boy up there.

And speaking of quitting your job, have you ever had the problem where you had to orchestrate your own death to get away from your toxic boss who won't stop sexually harassing you, and that motherfucker still expects you to show up for your shift next weekend? Meet Prince Jin, who has refused to accept Zhou Zishu's resignation letter with extreme prejudice.

Zhou Zishu isn't even the only ex he's mad he drove off! But that's just a namedrop in the show; see my bonus selling point for instructions on how to get into that whole gay-ass story. [insert obligatory "Prince Jin is not Helian Yi" disclaimer here]

...Nope, uh-uh, we're not going to get into what's going on with Scorpy. Suffice it to say, this is one of those cases where the show can't outright call a thing gay (though uhhhh it sure can imply a lot of it!), but it can set up an unspoken Gay Bad Idea as a direct, textual parallel with a canon Straight Bad Idea and be like, see? see? Anyway, daddy's boy there has deliciously terrible taste. This is the one that'll have you screaming crying throwing up etc.

And then there's this handsome jackass, who isn't doing the pining, but is the unfortunately heterosexual object of the often confused and misdirected longings of his friends. About the first thing you know about Rong Xuan is that he died before the series begins, so you only see him in a few flashbacks. The precious few times you do, though, you're treated to scenes of him holding court among his besties (many of whom are the spectacularly cast younger versions of major older male characters) while they all wrestle with varying degrees of homo longing for his cocky dreamboat self. You ever wanted to fuck a straight guy so bad you got both him and his wife killed about it? Because somebody in this drama sure has!

I sense you think I'm making this all up, that I'm just a fujoshi looking at the world through rainbow-colored glasses and telling you about her favorite slash pairings. Friend, I am not. Okay, I am being a little cheeky about the last one, but I swear that everything else I have listed in this selling point is about as textual as the show could make it, if not outright straight (ha ha) from the books.

(I have a whole separate theory about how priest herself is a real-life queer, based on how basically everyone in her works is either queer-coded or a token straight who's on thin ice, but that's a subject for a completely different Tumblr post no one's ever going to read, so save us both the time and imagine I already wrote it.)

I cannot stress to you enough how much this show knew what it was doing with the queer stuff. I love how amazingly toxic so much of it is, too, because one of the big themes of the show is that secrets will destroy you and everyone you love. If you have gay longing in a society that forces you to hide that gay longing, yeah, you're going to be extra-vulnerable to making some shitty decisions because of it! You're either going to suffocate yourself by keeping silent, or you're going to open yourself to intimate partner abuse you can't reveal to anyone else, or you're going to do some murders about it! Or some combination of the three! Either way, it's not good!

Also, tell your partner about your chronic health conditions, whether they be Can't Remember My Past, Would Eat A Guy If I Had The Opportunity, Stuck Some Nails In My Chest And Am Now Dying And Also Can't Get A Boner, or Whoops Took The Nails Out Of My Chest And Still Can't Get A Boner. Oh, and tell your partner if you're about to run off and go confront your dangerous ex. And absolutely tell your partner if you're about to fake your own death. Just ... learn to have conversations with the people who love you, okay? Avoid huge amounts of narrative suffering with this one weird trick!

5. Putting his whole Zhang Zhehussy into it

See, Gong Jun (playing Wen Kexing) is not what I'd call a great actor. This is more of a case where you take a guy, you cast him as a character whose motivation can be summed up as "I want to fuck that man in half," and then you cast opposite him a man that the guy in question clearly actually wants to fuck in half. And you let the magic work.

Zhang Zhehan (playing Zhou Zishu), however, legitimately knocks it entirely out of the park. Whenever the camera's on him, it's hard to take your eyes off him. He holds his own in a sea of veteran actors. He can do comedy and tragedy with equal panache. It's lucky he's such a beautiful crier, because Zhou Zishu cries so much. I have never seen someone more perfectly portray the mood of "in love and absolutely furious about it."

As the story goes, when he auditioned, he actually wanted to play Wen Kexing -- but the director told him, look, while you'd be great at that, I can find another Wen Kexing, but I'm never going to find another Zhou Zishu.

Zhou Zishu is bad man who has done terrible things and resigned himself to suffering to atone for his crimes, and he is so mad to find himself at the end of his life suddenly having a reason to keep living. Zhang Zhehan does a pitch-perfect tsundere right up to the point where he breaks. I'm not going to call it an understated performance, because nothing in this show is understated, but it is often times subtle and always complex, and fuck does he have a good crazy grin.

One of the first things you find out about Zhou Zishu is that he's got just a couple years left to live, over which time all his senses are going to deteriorate. In fact, they've already started going. And as the show goes on, you can watch Zhang Zhehan play it so you can tell when he's missed something he should otherwise have picked up on, reacting to noises and touches a split-second late. It's a testament to what a thoughtful job Zhang Zhehan's doing, keeping track of how much of Zhou Zishu has already slipped away.

There are, if you've read the book, legitimate complaints to be made about the adaptation's interpretation of Zhou Zishu's character, and I get that. But you can't say that Zhang Zhehan isn't pulling off exactly what he means to here. I say this too as someone who loves the novel: I think it works. Given the constraints of Chinese television in particular and cinematic adaptations in general, the show made the right choices when it came to figuring out what were the more filmable, actable options, and Zhang Zhehan plays every one of those choices within an inch of his life.

Also did I mention he's like the most beautiful man to ever exist? Holy crap. You're going to be so mad about what they do to his face for the first several episodes.

Don't worry, it washes off eventually.

caveat: Kind of a bummer!

You may have been warned that this one's got a sad ending. Well ... yes and no. On the "no" side of things, there's a "secret" mini-episode 37 that rolls back one of the major points of tragedy. (It's also clearly the first version that got shot, and then they shuffled around and redubbed some material to make the aired end of episode 36.)

But oh man, not all of them. Plenty of characters we love do not make it to the end. Like ... kind of a shockingly large number. Some are dispatched offscreen, some have tragic onscreen deaths, some are probably dead given the circumstances we last see them in, and a couple aren't dead yet but are almost certainly going to be soon.

(It's also kind of a meta-bummer! I mean, I don't recommend falling down the rabbit hole of what happened with Zhang Zhehan's career after the show aired, but tl;dr, it's not great.)

So yeah, it's not an outright pain simulator, and if you've got the mettle for Nirvana in Fire or Guardian, you should be okay here. But hoo boy, don't just blunder on in expecting a cheerful romp from start to finish, because ... yeah. I said it before: This is a story about a bunch of bad guys. Bad guys don't live long lives, nor do the good people who get tangled up in their shit. Just be prepared!

bonus selling point: black and white husbands

Okay, I will tell you who one of the other pairs of gays is. You'll see the two of them show up near the tail end of the show, and then you'll decide you want to know more about what their whole deal is, and then you'll read Qi Ye, which is a novel entirely about gay pining, and then it'll be all over for you.

Ready to wander this way?

There's a number of ways to watch this one! Viki, Netflix, YouTube, and Amazon Prime all have you covered -- but Viki's the only one that has the epilogue at the ready, so I'd go there if you can.

And I get it, if you're enough of an aging hipster that you don't want to play in the same sandbox everybody else is playing in. Believe me, I understand that impulse on a visceral level. After all, this is not a small fandom -- 7718 works on AO3 (at time of writing) isn't Untamed levels of content, but it's nothing to sneeze at. Maybe you want to leave this one for a little while longer, until the hubbub dies down a bit more and people's attention is redirected by a different gay and shiny thing. That's valid. I get it.

But if you do, I still encourage you to get around to it someday. For all its flaws -- and yeah, it's got flaws -- it's a good, solid story that makes you feel lots of feelings about some fascinating characters in some beautiful costumes, running around being real queer (and okay, occasionally straight) to beautiful music. This, to me, is television.

Fun fact! There is also a Japanese dub, if you feel like taking it at that speed, and the guy who voices Zhou Zishu is the voice of Kaworu from Evangelion, and the guy who voices Wen Kexing is the voice of Victor Nikiforov from Yuri on Ice. See what I mean???

I'm telling you, everybody ships it.

[martiandmichelle]

Memories. . . Those that you have and those to be made!

I'll start with the former, but I hope you'll read all of this for a teaser of those to be made, a story others will tell.

As for the photo, I'll (Marti) take you back some 9 years ago. My husband at the time, Daniel, and I were part of a supper club, one of those things where you rotate dinner at friends' houses. We were a part of one with five other couples, so 12 of us in total. This picture was taken before one of those dinners at our house. Yeah, I was showing off, at Daniel's request. Seems the dinner before this one at someone else's house my boobs became a subject of conversation. Daniel loved hearing others talk about my tits so he was going to make sure the subject came up again.

And so it did, even before we had the appetizers. This time it didn't take long for one of the wives to say something like "C'mon Marti, show them to us!" Never one to be shy about my body - and with Daniel's smiling consent and the help of one of our male visitors to unzip me from the back - my dress, very slowly at least until my breasts were fully exposed then much quicker the rest of the way! - the little black dress came off leaving me wearing only my black thong and black heels my J-cup tits bared to them all, my nipples growing and hardening as they stared at my breasts.

I was two of the ladies who asked first to feel them. I replied "Absolutely!" As they felt me up they commented on the tits' size and weight and length of the nipples (which were still growing) until one asked with a lot of hope in her eyes if she could suck the one she held. "Please!" was my response this time. I know I moaned with pleasure when the nipple first entered her mouth which encouraged the other lady to as if she could suck the one she held, too.

As I've said so many times in my 15 years of sex blogging, nothing sets me on fire like have my nipples sucked simultaneously by two people so I began to lose myself to my sexual needs, place and time becoming foggy to me as all that mattered was what was happening to my tits. I remember Daniel saying I should feed them and them exclaiming "You can lactate!?" And so I did - a lot! Everyone else soon got their turn drinking from my milk fountains and I felt hands slip under my panties with comments about how fucking wet I was. Someone pulled my panties down and I guess my body was waiting for that because I had a fabulous orgasm and let loose a squirt that surprised everybody, much to their delight.

I knew what was happening to me but I had reached such a sexual nirvana that everything became almost dreamlike. I know they guys fucked me and I know my pussy was eaten - a lot! - and I know I squirted and squirted and the milk spewed, but it seemed almost like I was watching it on a porn movie.

It wasn't until the next morning after everybody left and our dinner was never cooked that I was back to my full senses. Daniel told me how proud he was of me and that it had been decided that our "dinner club" was going to start meeting every other WEEK instead of the usual every other month. I was delighted!

The next day I got a call from one of the couples to come to "dinner" at their house which I did. After the two of them spent the entire night until the morning using my body (and sometimes letting Daniel watch and listen via cell phone) they told me of their marital problems and that I was curing them when they shared me together.

It's true, sex can get one into a lot of trouble but it can also heal a lot of wounds!

--------------

I mentioned something about a teaser of memories to be made. I'm not going to say much because it doesn't involve me but someone else you've met here. She's been mostly in the background but is on the verge of becoming a huge star for Mountain Media (our sex studio). For now I'll let you guess who it is, and she'd better tell her story soon for soon she'll be so busy as to not have the time!

Stay tuned. . .

Marti

[fandomnerd9602]

Company

WandaNat x Nerd!Reader (High School AU)

For @darthrue

You were best friends with the hottest couple at Avengers High: Wanda Maximoff and Natasha Romanoff. They were the most popular cheerleader and track athlete respectively and yet they considered you to be their closest friend.

Everyone thought it was odd. Cheerleaders associating with a lowly nerd like yourself. But you didn't care and neither did they.

You loved talking with them for hours on end. They'd tell you about some of their latest fun couple activities and small day-cations. You'd tell them all about your latest breakthrough in the scientifc realm or about your favorite fandom. Somehow they both had the same look of adoration for you in their eyes as they watched you explain the difference between Hawking and Harry Potter.

You went to conventions with them. Wanda and Natasha were both Slytherins while you were a Hufflepuff. Some would call it a bad combo but yet here the three of you were, having the time of your life.

Everything seemed normal for a while and then you started to notice something: Wanda and Natasha started talking among themselves more frequently, they'd share sideways glances at you but it was always talking. You didn't think much of it, lovers talking that's all.

Then one night, you got a text from Wanda asking for you to meet her and Natasha over at the Romanoff household. You quickly went over there.

You were greeted by a smirking Yelena, Nat's sister and pain in her ass.

"Hey (Y/N)" the blonde said, barely holding in a laugh. "The two are up in Natasha's room."

"Thanks Lena!" you began making your way upstairs.

"Good luck!" Yelena called back. Good luck? Whatever that meant.

You approached Natasha's door and knocked. Wanda quickly opened it up, wearing only one of Natasha's oversized sweaters, and pulled you in.

"Where's the fire?" you laugh. Natasha looks at you from the king sized bed.

"Thanks for coming by, (Y/N)" Natasha smiles as she slinks up to you.

"Have we ever told you how much we love you?" Wanda asks, gently caressing your hand. A common thing for her to do.

"I love you both too. " you shrug. "I wouldn't be hanging out with my two best friends if i didn't."

"No. I mean we love you" Natasha's hands slip around your neck. "Wanda and I are absolutely in love with you"

"But I thought-"

"We're still together, malysh" Wanda explains, "but we want you to join us."

"Just three people in love with one another." Natasha bats her eyes.

"So a throuple?" you ask confused. The girls only nod their heads.

"You're sweet, caring, and so unbelievably hot" Wanda purrs.

"But I'm a nerd, you're both cheerleaders and-" Natasha quiets you with a kiss.

"You are more than a label" Natasha whispers, "you are smart and loving. Exactly what we're looking for."

"So what do you say malyshka, will you join us?" Wanda looks at you with pleading eyes.

You didn't even hesitate, "yes. I love you both so much. I can't imagine going another day without either of you!"

The two girls laugh as they both embrace you and kiss you, it felt like pure nirvana. "Good" Natasha finally answers as she locks the door behind you, "you're not going anywhere else tonight."

First Wanda kissed you and then Natasha. After that it kind of blurred out into love and ecstasy.

The fellow students and peers can say all they want but when you, Wanda and Natasha walk to lunch together, or you cheer for them during games and cheer leading meetings, or they cheer you on during a scientific decathlon, you know you're home. You still go to conventions together and do movie marathons. The only difference is how Wanda and Nat snuggle into your sides now and pepper you with kisses. What else can be said? Three is a company.

[baoshan-sanren]

best cdramas I’ve watched since the last one of these posts in 2023 (and some I’m still looking forward to seeing)

A League of Nobleman (watch on WeTV VIP | watch on AppleTV | watch on Viki | watch on bilibili | watch on YouTube) Adapted from the novel "The Mystery of Zhang Guo" (张公案) by Da Feng Gua Guo (大风刮过) starring Jing BoRan, Song WeiLong, Hong Yao, Guo Cheng and Wang Duo. Definitely gay, but in like a very focused, we-have-a-mystery-to-solve way. Loved the acting and the plot; cannot believe people actually gave Song Weilong shit for his acting in this drama. He was aMAzing. The downside is that the editing grew progressively sloppier as the drama progressed, and although majority of the visuals were very satisfying, I never realized how crappy the quality of the light was until I tried gifing some of the scenes. The upside is Jing BoRan holding kittens. Enough Said. 7/10

The Blood of Youth (watch on Viki | watch on YouTube) Adapted from the novel "Shao Nian Ge Xing" (少年歌行) by Zhou Mu Nan (周木楠) starring Li HongYi, Liu XueYi and Ao RuiPeng. Love this goddamn drama. I adopted the entire cast within the first 3 episodes and then I spent the next 37 terrified that half of them would get killed off. There’s def some major character death in this drama my chickens, so keep that in mind (and not a canonical death either, from what I understand). Anyway, this is my fave genre by far so I’m never really picky, but this drama is exhilarating and gorgeous from beginning to end. Highly recommend. 9/10

New Life Begins (watch on iQIYI | watch on Viki | watch on YouTube) Adapted from the web novel "Qing Chuan Ri Chang" (清穿日常) by Duo Mu Mu Duo (多木木多) starring Bai JingTing and Tian XiWei. Just sweet and fluffy. The plot is easy and devoid of complexities, but very satisfying nonetheless. The acting is definitely on another level. The entire cast has bonkers chemistry, and it’s about time someone made good use of Bai Jingting’s comedy potential. One of the top 5 easy viewing dramas on my rewatch list.  8/10

The Legendary Life of Queen Lau (watch on Viki | watch on YouTube) Adapted from the web novel "Huang Hou Liu Hei Pang" (皇后刘黑胖) by Ge Yang (戈鞅) starring Li JiaQi and Li HongYi. Loved this. Although it doesn’t shy away from difficult subjects, this is basically a comedy from beginning to end. Not gonna lie, I mainly gave this a go for Li Hongyi, but it’s hard to even notice him when Li Jiaqi is in the room. There’s no shame in being overshadowed by superior talent :) 7/10

(yeah, after all this, I rewatched Nirvana In Fire again)

Under the Microscope (watch on Apple TV | watch on Bilibili | watch on iQIYI VIP | watch on Viki) Adapted from the novel "Xian Wei Jing Xia De Da Ming" (显微镜下的大明) by Ma Bo Yong (马伯庸) starring Zhang RuoYun and Wang Yang. Continuously impressed by Zhang RuoYun’s skills. This drama is 90% grit and tension. Drool-worthy visuals. Interesting plot. Sound mixing that gives me a Mo Ran style boner. Make your friends watch it and they will hate you. 9/10

Till The End of The Moon (watch on YouTube | watch on Apple TV | watch on Viki) Adapted from the web novel "Hei Yue Guang Na Wen BE Ju Ben" (黑月光拿稳BE剧本) by Teng Luo Wei Zhi (藤萝为枝). Starring Luo Yunxi and Bai Lu. This was so breathtakingly gorgeous. The chemistry between the actors, the visuals, the special effects, the costumes, everything is stunning in this drama. The romance is by no means original, but still manages to draw you in. Absolutely worth watching at least once. 8/10

Still waiting on:

Immortality - based on danmei novel The Husky and His White Cat Shizun by 肉包不吃肉 starring Chen Feiyu and Luo Yunxi (you can think I’m a clown but you’d be wrong bc I’m a wholeass circus)

Winner Is King - based on the danmei novel Sha Po Lang by Priest starring Tan Jianci and Chen Zheyuan

Step By Step Lotus - based on historical novel Return to Ming Dynasty as Prince by 月关 starring Zhang Binbin and Luo Yunxi

Eternal Faith - based on danmei novel Heaven Official’s Blessing by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu starring Zhai Xiaowen and Zhang Linghe

Joy Of Life Season 2 - based on wuxia novel of the same name by 猫腻 starring Zhang Ruoyun and Li Qin

Story of Kunning Palace - based on the novel 坤宁 by 时镜 starring Bai Lu and Zhang LingHe

Flying Phoenix - based on danmei novel of the same name by 風弄 starring Dai Jingyao and Shu Yaxin

The Story of the Bat - based on danmei novel Bat by Feng Nong starring Mao Zijun and Zhang Yao

The Longest Promise - based on xianxia novel Zhu Yan by 沧月 starring Xiao Zhan, Ren Min, and Zhang Yunlong

Mysterious Lotus Casebook - based on wuxia novel 吉祥纹莲花楼 by Teng Ping 藤萍 starring Cheng Yi and Zeng ShunXi

Follow Your Heart - historical drama starring Song Yi and Luo Yunxi 

The Thirteen-Hongs in Canton - historical drama starring Zhu Yawen and Yu Haoming

White Cat Legend - based on manhua of the same name starring Ding Yuxi and Zhou Qi

[boyakishantriage]

"... I'm scared."

The woman looked down. Taking a deep breath, the beaten soldiers staring at their human commander.

"Didn't you hear me. I'm scared, we're on a planet where the odds are so stacked against us it's frankly a joke. We're going to do in this battle, we can all feel it. So run."

They stared watching as she shakes.

"did you hear me. We're going to die. Why aren't you scared. Run. There's no tactic, I'm scared and I'm running."

No response, the aliens were scared. But they didn't run.

"I'm scared. I'm scared, because this is the greatest possible loss we can lose. We win, or we die. I'm scared, that everything I taught is useless, we're against hundreds of humans and- it's not working is it. It's obvious right? It's an act, and this is meant to be the part where i say a terrible plan, that will fail. And you all lose. But. You all know me too well."

The human laughs, a singular screaming laugh.

"I will leave today. There are no more lessons, you haven't finish. But I'm leaving. I'm supposed to gain trust, give you plans that shouldn't work. And yet. They do. But this time, I quit. I'm leaving you all. To die."

The voice echoed.

"and today. We fight."

"as warriors."

"peace is a lie."

"and I ask you."

"to run."

The human's voice, the memories of every moment before this. As she laughs. Chuckles within the crowd.

"When I came here. The first time. I lead you, to victory. I laughed, and one of you asked. What's so funny. And now, you get it. The world hates people like us. Orgin, Human, Mesa, Quazar. Doesn't matter. People like us, they hate us. Because we're monsters, heroes. Saviours, selfless, selfish. We fight for us, for them. For everyone. And no one."

A new speech, pure improv to the group of fighters.

"So run. Go home, forget this happened. And you don't. I can stand here, tell you every reason, every plan, everything they will do. And you, will not listen. Because you're crazy. Crazy enough to bomb the enemy, metres above them. Crazy enough, to be beaten to a bloody pulp, and laugh at the face of death. Crazy enough to stand with a unprofessional, insane woman who is paid to betray you all. And that's exactly, what I want. I'm proud. A group of civilians now trained into a force, that can fight God. Who's ready to die??"

The rallying call roared from the hills.

"WHO'S SCARED OUT THEIR MIND??"

The shouts roared louder.

"WHO'S READY TO FIGHT ANYWAYS???"

The roar.

"WHO DOESN'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK THEY'RE DOING?!"

"WE DO!"

"DOES IT MATTER?"

"NO!"

"SO WHAT WILL WE DO?"

"WE FIGHT!"

"WHO?"

"WHO KNOWS!"

"WHERE!"

"NOT HERE!"

"ARE YOU SCARED??"

"YES!"

"WELL? LET'S GO!!!"

"CHARGE!"

The deafening roar of a planet, transports, ships, three species in a full frontal assault against the largest military group to crush a planet, ships evading fire, weaving as they ran suicide routes and everything in between.

A suicidal attack run, something that in history has never worked. With strong flanks, a death valley formation and hundreds of thousands of ships aimed to strike the planetary force down.

"and it worked. The planet Nirvana won, at the cost of the entirety of the invading force now joining their asteroid field. So I ask you, Grand leader of the coalition. Do you really think I'm just some dumb insane Terran, who survives FOUR intergalactic wars, or do you understand the art of deception yet?"

Cocking the revolver, she pulls the pin.

"I hereby crown the leader of the Alien Federation Coalition whatever. As guilty of corruption, destruction and subdigaton of multiple sentient civilizations and for being a cunt."

BANG

[adventure-showdown]

What is your favourite Doctor Who story?

ROUND 1 MASTERPOST

synopses and propaganda under the cut

The Book of the War

Synopsis

The Great Houses: Immovable. Implacable. Unchanging. Old enough to pass themselves off as immortal, arrogant enough to claim ultimate authority over the Spiral Politic.

The Enemy: Not so much an army as a hostile new kind of history. So ambitious it can re-write worlds, so complex that even calling it by its name seems to underestimate it.

Faction Paradox: Renegades, ritualists, saboteurs and subterfugers, the criminal-cult to end all criminal-cults, happy to be caught in the crossfire and ready to take whatever's needed from the wreckage… assuming the other powers leave behind a universe that's habitable.

The War: A fifty-year-old dispute over the two most valuable territories in existence: "cause" and "effect."

Marking the first five decades of the conflict, THE BOOK OF THE WAR is an A to Z of a self-contained continuum and a complete guide to the Spiral Politic, from the beginning of recordable time to the fall of humanity. Part story, part history and part puzzle-box, this is a chronicle of protocol and paranoia in a War where the historians win as many battles as the soldiers and the greatest victory of all is to hold on to your own past…

Propaganda

Is it about Dr Who? I mean, sort of. Arguably. You could say the Doctor is present in it. Somewhat. Not by name tho because that would be illegal. But definitely there are uh. well. there's definitely stuff in it that's DWesque. It's Dr Who Adjacent. It's Dr Whoish. Strong Dr Who vibes. (@eighthdoctor )

Experimental sci-fantasy that defined the Time War and started a whole series of its own. (anonymous)

This Town Will Never Let Us Go

Synopsis

From up here you can see it all, hear it all, taste most of it and feel the rest when the electric lights and the satellite signals prickle against your skin. The town, from midnight to six, marked out in headlights and the flash-fire of a culture in War-time. Séance-messages written in the patterns of the road signs, and ghost-transmissions scrambled into the background noise of the traffic. Animal scent-signals from the fried food stands. All describing something, buried under the tarmac and the street-geometry.

Down there, a girl in a fake-bone mask is working on a ritual to bring it to the surface. A popular performing artiste with a navel stud and serious identity problems is finding herself stalked — literally — by her own image. An ambulance crewman is about to find his own way of getting involved in the War.

And bringing them all together, in one neat little urban mythology, there's Faction Paradox - part cult, part subculture, part pop phenomenon, and part criminal syndicate, either watching-without-being-seen or simply not existing at all (at least until someone invents it). Assuming they're not wholly imaginary, the archons of the Faction seem like the only ones who know what this town really is - what every town really is — and what's bound to happen when it wakes up.

Propaganda no propaganda submitted

Of the City of the Saved…

Synopsis

For Humanity, the War is over...

We all remember Resurrection Day. Even now, three centuries later, we cannot forget that awakening: our bewilderment, our terror and our joy. Each of us had experienced death, imagining ourselves bound for oblivion, Heaven or Nirvana, according to taste. Instead, we found, each member of the many human species — from tool-wielding australopithecines to posthuman philosopher-gods — had been harvested, gathered here by the Founders’ unfathomable technologies.

Reborn in our countless immortal bodies, we were given the freedom of the City of the Saved. A single conurbation as broad as a spiral galaxy, she has been our sanctuary from the ravages of the War. That monstrous conflict between inhuman cultures cannot touch us here: we live our afterlives beyond the end of time, in perfect safety.

We may be certain, therefore, that these rumours of a murder (the brutal stabbing of a City Councillor, no less!) are nothing more than lurid fabrications. The supposition that the murder weapon is missing, or that it could have been — as hysterical conjecture has claimed — a "potent weapon", capable of injuring a Citizen within the haven of the City, is equally absurd. The idea that a guerrilla war has already begun in one of our less harmonious enclaves need not be dignified with refutation.

Please go about your business, Citizens, as normal. We are perfectly safe, here in the City. Humanity has never been safer.

Propaganda  no propaganda submitted

Doctor Who and Shada (fan novelisation)

Synopsis

The Doctor and Romana visit Professor Chronotis, a retired Time Lord living at Cambridge University. The Professor wants to return an ancient and very powerful book to Gallifrey - but the book has gone missing.

Skagra, an evil scientist, steals the book and the Professor's mind - and also takes Romana and the TARDIS.

In order to stop Skagra, the Doctor must discover the secrets of a notorious Time Lord criminal, and a long forgotten prison called Shada...

Propaganda

The first ever adaption of Shada and one of the only fan novelisations (anonymous)

Harvest of Time

Synopsis

After billions of years of imprisonment, the vicious Sild have broken out of confinement. From a ruined world at the end of time, they make preparations to conquer the past, with the ultimate goal of rewriting history. But to achieve their aims they will need to enslave an intellect greater than their own...

On Earth, UNIT is called in to investigate a mysterious incident on a North Sea drilling platform. The Doctor believes something is afoot, and no sooner has the investigation begun when something even stranger takes hold: The Brigadier is starting to forget about UNIT's highest-profile prisoner. And he is not alone in his amnesia.

As the Sild invasion begins, the Doctor faces a terrible dilemma. To save the universe, he must save his arch-nemesis... The Master.

Propaganda

An amazing 3rd Doctor story that feels very much like the typical Delgado!Master stories of the time! Featuring: UNIT, Original Characters, a poster with the Master’s face on it stating to remeber him, and more! (anonymous)

[leasstories]

The Nirvana Unplugged:

Eddie x Gn!reader

No Trigger Warning, a little bit of angst I guess ?

December 16th 1993,

You and Eddie have been dating for 3 years now. You both met at a Dio concert and have been inseparable ever since. You’re currently both living in Chicago. You share a small one bedroom apartment. You’re working at the record store just around the corner while Eddie and Corroded Coffin are trying to make it big.

As every evening at 6:30pm, you finally arrive home right after closing the store and Eddie is already home and waiting for you. When you come into the apartment, you can hear Eddie jamming on Sweetheart. You recognize the song he is strumming as Hollywood Black from Dio’s latest album. You take your shoes off, wash your hands and quietly join Eddie in the living room as not to disturb him, which failed because as soon as Eddie sees you, he put his guitar down and get up to kiss you on the lips. You kiss him back before slumping on the couch.

“Baby?” You ask shyly.

“Yeah Swetheart ?” Eddie answers while sitting next to you on the couch.

“There is the MTV Unplugged tonight and I was wondering if… maybe we could… I don’t know, watch it?” You ask hesitantly.

“Since when do you watch MTV?” Eddie asks, laughing.

You hide that Eddie’s comment hurt you and keep going.

“Okay I usually don’t watch MTV, but tonight they invited my current favorite band…” You say, hoping to convince Eddie.

“They invited Rage Against the Machine?” Eddie asks, baffled.

“Eddie my current favorite band is… actually not a metal band…”

Eddie looks at you like you grew a second head. “And you want to make me listen to some trendy crap?” Eddie asks, he doesn’t really seems opened to discover the band.

“Eddie, something can be both popular and good!” You say, hurt by Eddie’s assumptions. “Besides, you hate when someone judges your music tastes but right now you’re doing the exact same thing to me” you answer, both irritated and hurt. Eddie has the decency to look sorry, he even places a small kiss on your temple as an apology.

“What’s the name’s band?” Eddie asks you, mainly to show you that he cares about you and your interests.

“Nirvana…” you hesitantly answer.

Eddie suddenly gets up from the couch and shakes his head. “Nope, nope. Nope”.

You get up as well. “Eddie… you didn’t even give them a listen and you’re judging them…”

“I judge them because to have the hype they have it means they are fucking conformists! Besides to be on MTV it would mean they are doing those pop music craps we hear every time we turn the radio on.”

You let out a huge sigh of frustration. “Eddie… They are a rock band Eddie! A punk rock band on MTV !”

“If they are on MTV it means they conform so they can’t be that punk rock. Besides, artists with their fame obviously do this for money, and that is not my vision of music” Eddie argues.

“So you’re telling me that if you make it big you’ll only do music for money?” You retort back.

“No! Never ! But I would never accept a contract with MTV !” Eddie fires back at you.

“Stop being a hypocrite Eddie ! Just listen to one of their goddamn songs before judging! They didn’t even want to be famous! They were from the underground scene at first !” You say, getting even more passionate in your argumentation.

“Baby, with all respect due, in a year, when everyone will forget about them, including you, you’ll look back at this conversation and you’ll be like : you were right Eddie, I was just listening to them because they were popular”

“No I won’t Eddie! Because I genuinely like what they do ! You should know better than anyone else that I don’t listen to music for the fame of the artists.” You say, frustrated.

“Or because they are your new celebrity crushes. Maybe your ‘metalhead phase’ is over. In Two weeks you’re gonna leave me for a punk rock wannabe rockstar dressing like Nirvana’s members !” Eddie says, feeling really insecure at the moment.

Your facial expression soften. “Eddie… first of all I still love metal music… second of all you’re not a phase… I thought we were past that… I love you. For who you are. Not only because I love metalheads. But because I like your personality, because I like who you are inside as well.” You tell him earnestly.

When Eddie doesn’t answer you keep going. “Please, I ask you to listen before judging them…” you say while rummaging into your bag.

“Sweetheart… we both know I won’t like it so why losing both our times. Watch your thing if you want. I'll go out with the boys"

“Please Eddie” you borderline beg. “I want you to listen before making your mind on if you go out with the boys or watch the Unplugged with me…”

Eddie let out a huge sigh. “Baby… I love you but I’m convinced their music is gonna be those kind of crap I hear on the radio when I go to stores or when I was selling weed at parties in high school. It’s not my type of music.. and I didn’t know it was yours”

“Eddie I can swear to you that it’s not Pop music! I hate pop music” You say while finally finding the Bleach album in your bag. “And their first album is the best! Please Eddie… I discovered them at the record store not on some crappy radio station. Trust me…”

Eddie ends up caving in. “I give you one song to convince me.”

You almost jump up and down and run to the CD player, you put the CD in and put it on the seventh track: Negative Creep.

Kurt and Krist’s first strums echo in the apartment, Eddie is positively surprised by what he is hearing, at half of the song you can even spot him head-banging and play the air guitar. You smile when you spot your boyfriend being so entranced by the music that he forgot his preconceived ideas about Nirvana. When the song ends, you look at Eddie hopeful.

“That was pretty sick” Eddie ends up saying. “I understand why you love them, they are not some pop crap…” Eddie admits.

“Told ya!” You proudly say. “You should trust me Eds, I work in a record store after all.”

Eddie kisses the crown of your head “I’m sorry for doubting your excellent musical taste my darling” Eddie says in a theatrical voice.

“Does that mean you’re gonna watch the Unplugged with me?” You hopefully ask.

Eddie hugs you from behind and says in your ear “I will make an effort to watch the insufferable channel that is MTV to watch it with you”. Once he’s done with his statement, Eddie kisses your cheek and then your neck before turning you around so you face him. As soon as you’re face to face, you lean in and kiss Eddie’s lips. “Thank you kind sir, for sharing this moment with me.” You say before sitting on the couch together.

An hour later, you and Eddie are watching Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged, not knowing that you’re watching what will be one of Nirvana’s last concert. You don’t know yet that this performance will be considered one of the greatest performance in the history of Rock music but you and Eddie both praised the concert. When you saw the stage you were so excited and told Eddie how bold of a move it was to create a setting resembling a funeral, especially for a rock concert. You were surprised when members of a group named Meat Puppet came on stage with them. And you were a bit disappointed when they didn’t do an encore, but Eddie reminded you that after all, they are not-conformist at all. Eddie even told you he was so happy and baffled they decided to be non-conformist on MTV. According to him, this band will have a huge and long-lasting impact on the rock n roll scene. Eddie even told you that if they ever had a concert in a Chicago, he’ll come with you.

At the end of the concert, after turning the TV off, you told Eddie how they didn’t play most of their hits. Even before seeing what the critics had to say, you and Eddie both agreed that this performance wouldn’t be forgotten, and you were right.

[thelaithlyworm]

C-drama wot I've been watching lately

I've been on a Chen Xiao kick since watching The Ingenious One and Viki has been very kind about scratching that itch.

Dream of Splendor

This is based on an opera set in the Song Dynasty about a clever courtesan helping her friend out of an abusive marriage with some clever tricks, and the drama is, like, the continuing adventures of Zhao Pan-er and her friend, plus a nice butcher-lady whose husband had the bad taste to divorce her.

It's got a solid line in adventures and hijinks and a lot of social commentary about what it's like to exist in a lower social class where the law is explicitly written against you. I rejoiced in Zhao Pan-er's cleverness and valour even as the system she struggled with made me overpoweringly angry. And this isn't the Song Dynasty, but enough of those problems were intensely familiar. It's skewed very het, but the love interests are well-drawn and nobody's eclipsing anybody's identity or skills when they get together. Why They Fell For Each Other feels believable, as does, They're Going To Have A Happy Ending. People are *complicated* -- Chen Xiao's character, the love interest, works a job where torturing suspects is part of a day's work, and he doesn't like it but he doesn't quit, either; there's a character who's a colossal ass for two-thirds of the story but he and Zhao Pan-er become friends and really solid business partners; corrupt ministers continue to be corrupt and prosper... we've carved out a bit of happiness for characters we care about, but society hasn't improved a whole lot by the end.

And it's beautiful. There's a lot of art-work floating around, and some of the scenes seem to have been drawn specifically from paintings of the period. Various characters are virtuosos in various ways and display their skills -- down to cutting fish or tofu! It's amazing. 10/10 would reommend.

Being A Hero

I saw Wang Yibo's face advertising this and got the impression it would be very clean-cut and idealistic which I wasn't in the mood for at the time, and moved on. Boy Was I Wrong. It's set on the border where drug-smuggling is a huge issue and, while the forces of law and order do tend to be on the side of angels, there's a lot of issues with overlapping identities and complicated relationships. Wang Yibo is a young police officer. Chen Xiao is his childhood friend who disappeared three years ago after his father was killed and has now come back, thigh-deep in sin. And it's complicated. And various other characters have complicated relationships, there are ploys and counter-ploys and a constantly shifting landscape. Wang Yibo is very upright; Chen Xiao is a sad wet cat and their bromance is lovely. It has a huuuuge cast and I had some moments where I was squinting at the screen trying to remember who was who, but I'd say that's my shitty facial recognition at play, not a flaw in the writing. Special props to two actors I'm more familiar with as Marquis Yan and Xie Yu from Nirvana in Fire. They have amazing parts and they are so good, they act their parts so well my guys.

It's gritty, and hot, and violent, and sympathetic, and going on my rewatch list.

[amandagaelic]

NINE PEOPLE I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW BETTER

Tagged by @disappearinginq. <3

LAST SONG? - Well, right now I'm listening to Nirvana's Heart-Shaped Box. What can I say. My Gen-X heart beats strong.

FAVORITE COLOR? - Blue. The darker the better.

CURRENTLY WATCHING? - Under the Bridge, 9-1-1, Tracker, Will Trent, Fire Country (even though it makes me shake my head like every. single. episode.), We Were the Lucky Ones, and just finished Fallout. Oh! And Jericho. Just started watching that with a friend. Yeah, yeah, I know I'm like 20 years late.

LAST MOVIE? - Land of Bad with two of the Hemsworth Bros. And...it actually wasn't that bad.

SWEET/SPICY/SAVORY? - Savory. All the way. Sweet seems to be a really specific flavor, like there's only sweet, no nuance to it. Savory starts getting into smoky, spices (not just hot spice), etc. >>I'm going to have to agree with @disappearinginq on this one.

RELATIONSHIP STATUS? - Happily married for going on 24 years.

CURRENT OBSESSIONS? - Early Gray tea (or Latte) with lavender and oat milk. Empress Gin with Elderflower Tonic. Re-reading favorite fanfic. WWII novels. Finding time with my daughter (who is about to graduate HS and go off to college and good lord imma miss her). Planning trips. Making iTunes Playlists. Finding time to write and then not writing. Do not ask me why. I just.....

LAST THING YOU GOOGLED? - Vintage clothing stores in Lawrence, KS

It's been so long since I've been on here, I don't know that I still know 9 people. But I'll give it a go, none-the-less....

@thethistlegirl, @lord-owlsnake, @nativestarwrites, @ellyyyyyyyyyy, @impossiblepluto, @21forestglades, @thisgameissonintendo, @anguishmacgyver, @waitingforthestarstofall Obviously, only if you feel like it.

[hennythejetsmith]

Woodford 12/30

It isn't a lack of truth; I overthink entirely too much, but level with me..this isn't the first time & very similar circumstances & I'm not sure if this is some universal test? Karmic retribution for my past mistakes, maybe this is nothing at all, but if that were the case, then why am I up at 5:53 on a Saturday morning deep in a glass of whisky untangling the infinite hypotheticals...? Surely, this pusillanimous state I'm in, the endless synapses firing off that are slowly drowning in the double oak barrel reserve being forced down my throat for the fear of any unpleasant crossroad because I LOATHE the lows .. potential for them anyhow. Happy New Years Eve Eve

Christmas was good. We spent time with her family to which I discovered that crime, specifically shoplifting, was decriminalized in New York? The jury is still deliberating this no pun intended. In all seriousness, it was a beautiful experience. I remember when my Grandamommy's house was once teeming with love. Granted, we didn't have nearly as many members, that's not to say my mother's house isn't overabundant in love, but I lost track of the amount of people & being quizzed 5 minutes on Aunt Dina & Cousin Madelyn & who has on the orange top with black bottom versus who has on black top with orange bottom can somewhat paint the picture for the swaths of individuals. Uncle Shawn's a good guy. Eagles fan or not, I could talk sports & shoot the shit with him until the last grain of sand fell from my hourglass, as long as some cowboys fans were there hah

I'm going to try therapy soon. I wonder how Kurt felt, or was that just a fleeting thought. The most recent still of he playing a guitar juxtapose a girl wearing something of a tie dye Nirvana shirt with the bold print "Disrespectful" stamped across the screen shot through my mind like a comet. I'm not sure it would've mattered to him at this point of his life had he still been with us. Fathering his daughter seemed to be of utmost importance to him prior to his death, why should we believe that would change? My focus is similar, despite my vice to the brown stuff, I want to nurture & grow all my relationships. Maybe therapy is the answer for me. One office turned me down & another didn't respond. The third said they couldn't help while they offered a suggestion, so maybe they did help after all. We'll see, I hope. As I sit here at 6:13, contemplating what's next... I know I'm going to keep reading. My father would appreciate that. Oh, Update on my Pop Pop, he is doing better from last I spoke with Aunt Pat & my dad. I wish I wasn't under the weather so I could see him.

What was the root cause of the Civil War? That is the new point of contention for the internet discourse among troglodytes, or at least one of them. I'm just glad it isn't "if he invites you on a date, should you split the bill if he asks" because i'm tired. WE are not a monolith either, but damn! Well, who am I to judge, I find joy in watching minecraft videos from time to time & my humor is so broken... I cannot be the first to cast a stone or call the kettle black.

I'm not sure if i'm drunk or it does feel good to write like this. I used to be a poet, you know? if you take some time & scroll, you'll see. That's if anyone else is actually reading this. Or, & I sometimes feel like these little rants are for me to look back over, maybe you should scroll down, yourself, writer & see what you've done. Give yourself a bit of a jolt that you need. Lil prognostication here. Put it together 2024.. all of it. Make the people around you proud. Whoever isn't around, wish them the same. No need to say fuck em, that mantra is adopted by one too many & we

see how the world is turning out now, don't we. Genocides are filmed with no definite end in sight. Whether it be for something like this: a laptop to type my first world problems on or the direct attempt at the erasure of a Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.. we've lost sight of Humanitarianism. I know, these are the hot button topics, but what happens when they turn cold? What happens when the news cycle filters in a new story that captivates the audiences across the world? Are we to forget the atrocities that occurred under our watchful eye. This needs its own section(see here for the reason of break midsentence). Are we doomed to these primitive ways of conflict resolution? I'd hope not, otherwise dystopian novelists have some explaining to do & why were they not picking lotto tickets instead of shaping the landscape for my future? How selfish of me...so many other people in desolate corners of the world, with little to no hope of survival & here we are.. what type of Chai would you like, sir? Pathetic. Even though a chai latte sounds nice, from your local coffeeshop, because its f*** the Bucks, it just confirms this whole disconnect from the rest of the world. That isn't to say that I don't face my own issues as a Black man, but I could rant less...I could do a bit more for other people...being denied from a therapist really frustrated me while people gave birth & lost their newborn because one group of people, backed by an empire, decided that they were not important enough to live.

I pocket these thoughts...because...well I don't know... Jigglypuff

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 莲花楼/Mysterious Lotus Casebook

Mysterious Lotus Casebook is a 2023 drama about a beautiful twunk who just wants to die of his chronic illness in peace, except that neither the dumbass purebred dog of a man who has decided they're best friends now nor the jock begging him for a rematch are going to let him go without a fight (in the latter's case, literally).

Also they ride around in a magical bamboopunk RV.

I have referred to it elsewhere as "the CW presents: Nirvana in Fire," and I stand by that assessment. (I orginally called it Tiger Beat Nirvana in Fire, before realizing that Kids These Days will not get that reference. Shout out to the other elder millennials in the audience!)

There's been a lot of English-speaking fandom buzz about this show, to the point where if you're in these circles, I'm sure you've heard about it before. I know I had by the time I started watching -- which left me largely unprepared for the actual viewing experience, because the parts of the show that fans talk about are not a representative sample of the show itself.

This drama can be a good time. It's fun to watch. It has some hilarious beats and also some emotional moments. It spent its not-huge budget very smartly, and as such is generally quite lovely to look at. As my League of Nobleman rec will attest, I appreciate raw materials, and this is a show that has some fascinating raw materials.

(Or some materials that need to get rawed, take your pick.) (Also, it's not my fault they didn't do a dramatically lit Fang Duobing shot so I could round out the trio here.)

You'll find some people out there who've gone real hard for this show, doing some deep analyses and getting really emotional over it. I don't want my gentle ribbing to give the impression that those silly fans are delusionally talking like the show's a five-star restaurant when it's really just a fast food joint. Not so! There's a reason it's captivated a whole lot of people! And in case you might be one of those, allow me to give you five reasons you should consider watching it.

1. This bitch

The main character, Li Lianhua/Li Xiangyi is probably 50% of the show's appeal all by himself. He's fascinating. He's gender. He's fashion. He's been afflicted with a substance we called "bitch poison" the whole time we were watching. He has many emotions. He cries a lot. He coughs up blood every other episode. Cheng Yi is putting his whole lianhuassy into this performance, and it shows.

I made the Nirvana in Fire comparison earlier, and I stand by it for a lot of reasons, but the truth is that he's actually much more Opposite Day Mei Changsu: Li Lianhua wants all this stuff to fuck off and leave him alone forever. He is not seeking vengeance, nor does he particularly want to Do Schemes, but Circumstances keep dragging him back into the thick of all this nonsense he thought he left behind when he (mostly) died ten years ago.

The thing is, he used to be a real dick back when he was a kid. And I mean a real dick. He was a dick to his chronically insecure adoptive older brother. He was a dick to his girlfriend with the personality of wet tissue paper. He was a dick to the handsome loser who liked his girlfriend. He was a dick to his followers. He was basically just a cocky little shithead who thought he was the best at everything -- and he actually was the best at everything, which just made it worse.

Li Xiangyi used to think everything (especially himself) was sooooo important, and now that life has massively kicked his ass, Li Lianhua had come around to the position that nothing is actually that important, so let's just all chill and grow vegetables. He doesn't want a rematch. He doesn't want to retake his rightful place as the head of anything. He just wants to pay his respects to the dead before he joins them.

Now will everybody please just stop moving into his house.

2. goof-ass jianghu nonsense (affectionate)

As I mentioned earlier, everything I'd seen about the show on Tumblr had still left me absolutely unprepared for what a silly ride it is. Because it's silly. Hoo boy, is it silly. My wife dubbed it "lace front Phoenix Wright," just to give you a metric for how silly we're talking. Ace Detective Fang Duobing never cross-examined a parrot, but I feel he came close.

This show has some serious goof-ass jianghu nonsense -- you know, the sort of stuff that's impossible and ridiculous, except everybody’s going to treat it like it's just a normal part of existence. Here's a short and certainly inexhaustive list:

mind-controlling bugs

other bugs that control the mind-controlling bugs

ex-conjoined twins

a grown-ass man who can compress himself into bitchy third-grader

grave-robbing societies with secret brag language

so much nonconsensual qi-blocking performed by poking people in the boobs, that can't be safe, everybody wear thicker shirts

magical crossdressing powers

a bad guy who looks like this

a princess who can get abducted and sex-trafficked and, like, nobody really notices? huh.

healing childhood paralysis by the power of believing in yourself

a ... hallucination pit? what was that, anyway?

so. many. mechanisms.

the equivalent of the "he's only mostly dead" business from the Princess Bride

a gradually lethal bookshelf

the strange amnesia everyone suffers from where a dude can cover maybe 30% of his face and render himself immediately unrecognizable to long-time friends and associates

The thing is: I think this goof-ass jianghu nonsense is a legitimate selling point. I found it so fun. I turned off my need for show elements to obey little things like the laws of physics, and I had a good time. It can be a very funny drama, in part because it knows how silly a lot of its shit is, and it chooses to go full speed ahead with a sincere heart. If you are down for some shounen absurdity, you are in for a treat.

However:

2.2. goof-ass jianghu nonsense (derogatory)

I'm granting myself a sub-point here, because this is an important qualifier for the previous point.

I'm going to assume, based on what I've seen from fan responses, that many of the people who really like this show actually don't like the goof-ass jianghu nonsense. They are here for the BL vibes (after all, there are three cute boys who alll have some intense emotions about one another), and therefore downplay all the parts that aren't that. I want to make it clear that this is not a bad thing to do. There are many, many properties where I myself fixate on a single element and toss the rest into the sea. No judgment here.

However, since this is a post written to convine you to watch something, I want to make it clear what you're going to get if you dive in. If you're one of those people who skips scenes and/or entire episodes when your ship of choice isn't onscreen, you're probably going to be doing that a lot here. (I mean, I can't imagine doing this, but Tumblr has taught me that fandom is a rich tapestry.) The bones are good, but the connective tissue can be questionable.

The main thing I wish I'd known before starting is that the mysteries are not the selling point. They are the celery that gets the cute boy peanut butter to your mouth. You, the viewer, absolutely cannot solve them; you're never given enough context or information to keep up with the detective lads, much less get ahead of them. Everyone does everything in the most convoluted way possible, to the point of comic absurdity. Finding out whodunnit is rarely that satisfying, because too often the culprit is Jianghu Steve, You Know, That Guy Over There With The Superpower The Characters All Know About But You'd Never Heard Of Before Thirty Seconds Ago.

The goof-ass jianghu nonsense feels like the place where the show I see fans talking about least lines up with the show that actually exists. And I think that's a shame, because I think the show that actually exists is actually a good time! It's just, you know ... silly.

3. Whenever Di Feisheng's not onscreen, all the other characters should be asking, 'Where's Di Feisheng?

This drama gets sold like it's the adventures of three guys together. (Hell, I kind of did it myself in the intro.) This is not the case. This is the tale of two guys who do most of the plot stuff near one another, and their occasional third, Di Feisheng.

This is a 40-episode series and I swear this guy's onscreen for maybe 15% of the time -- and for half of that, he's just off doing his own thing anyway. He disappears entirely for huge chunks of the series, which is a crime, because he is my absolute favorite.

He is the rare grumpy himbo. He doesn't just have resting bitchface, he has bitchface for all occasions. He somehow has bitchface even during the rare moments he actually smiles. He's got a whole traumatic backstory, but the traumatic backstory is not the reason for the bitchface. He's Just Like That.

(Important to note that the actor himself only slightly has a resting bitchface. Xiao Shunyao can look normal and indeed quite pleasant. He has simply leaned into it real hard for this grouch.)

The one -- one -- reason I can accept his being gone for so ding-dang much of the show is how often he re-emerges with perfect, hilarious timing. Thank goodness the show realizes how much comedic potential his character has, because his unexpected entrances are some of the best laugh-out-loud moments of the series. If the show had taken Di Feisheng as seriously as Di Feisheng takes himself, he would have been unbearable. As it is, he's an unmitigated delight.

While you losers were being heterosexual, he studied the blade.

He makes the perfect foil for both Fang Duobing, who's the human equivalent of a puppy trying to gnaw an elephant to death, and Li Lianhua, who just wants to be excused from this narrative. Di Feisheng and Fang Duobing are basically two dogs fighting over their favorite toy, and their favorite toy is Li Lianhua, who really wishes he weren't. Some of the most compelling and fun moments of the series are when these three losers are all together.

And these three losers are barely all together.

This show is Not Danmei. It's so Not Danmei that I had a tremendously difficult time while making this post finding either official images or screencaps with even two of them in frame at the same time, much less all three. It is, however, a Danmei Starter Kit. I mean, the tag on AO3 has, at present, 742 works in it (283 in English). That's just since July! There are years-old c-drama shows that have a fraction of that fan output! And I'm willing to bet a big reason why is how little the very intense boys with ridiculously compelling interpersonal dynamics actually interact onscreen.

But, I hear you asking, why would less of what the fans want equal more fan goo? Well, friends, that's exactly what the fan goo is for: filling in the blanks. And this here show has a lot of blanks. Look, I've made a very scientific diagram (that many people seem to agree with) about how this all works:

The Hump of Compelling Mediocrity is the place where the amount of stuff worth thinking about far outpaces what the show actually contains of said stuff textually. It is the ideal location for imagination adventures.

Di Feisheng and Li Lianhua's relationship in particular lives right in the middle of that hump, what with the huge gaps in their backstory and all. They are a pair made entirely of unanswered questions. What the hell is going on there? What's their whole history, beyond the big fight? Why are they like this about one another? The show refuses to say. Whatever you imagine, you're correct. Now go tell AO3 about it.

interlude: God's perfect dipshit

I feel like I'm engaging in Fang Duobing erasure in the rest of this post, since he's not at the tip of any of the points I'm making, so I'm going to add a picture of him here, because I love him and want to pinch his perfect little cheeks.

You know what I am shocked by? How the MLC/DMBJ reincarnation fics apparently have not taken hold yet. I give it another two months.

4. IT HAS A DOG

FOX SPIRIT, MY SWEET BABY

'You mean the dog gets a whole selling point to himself' yes the dog gets a whole selling point to himself, because he is a very good dog and a very good boy (and his actor is a very good girl)

Apparently he has a whole backstory in the novel that never gets included in the drama, including an explanation of why he's named "Fox Spirit," if you feel like going and reading up on that.

Sadly, Fox Spirit is in the show even less than Di Feisheng is, and that is a crime, because he could have solved all these silly human mysteries in thirty minutes flat, Wishbone-style.

Dogs are so good.

5. One bad, bad girl

Do you like an unhinged villainess? Someone who's been sucking down Crazy Juice since beat one? Because oh boy, this show's got one of those for you.

Jiao Liqiao wants two things: to rule the world, and to make Di Feisheng her pretty little housewife. And whomst among us does not understand these two impulses?

She's not even the Big Bad! She's mostly just Di Feisheng's personal nightmare. She is the type of woman for whom the phrase "he's just not that into you" was coined. You've got everyone around her telling her, honey, I don't even think I've ever seen him look at a pair of breasts, while she's already planned their whole wedding menu and reserved the venue.

She has spent the last ten years of Di Feisheng's extended vacation making sure she's the one who's actually in charge, functioning as the point person for all the other evil schemes going on. Instead of handing over the reins upon her himbo boss' return, she's just going to keep doing what she's good at. As long as he keeps doing exactly what she wants him to do, she's gonna let him do it. If he gets out of line, well, there's always Plan B (the B stands for Breaking all of his tendons and making the world's surliest RealDoll).

I love the fact that she's so obviously evil, and he can't see it. To a certain point, it's not his fault -- everyone who serves under him is pretty obviously evil, so that doesn't make her special. But she's real evil even above and beyond that, and his dumb ass can't stop thinking about Li Lianhua long enough to notice any of the hundred or so knives she's aimed right at his back. He's so uninterested in her constant advances that he doesn't register how wanting to fuck someone and wanting to overthrow someone are not mutually exclusive desires.

(Was I bothered throughout most of the series by how her lipstick should be a little more crimson and a little less coral? Yes, but I'm not going to hold it against her. She's busy doing evil stuff. She'll get over to the nearest Jianghu Sephora and restock one of these days.)

While the show occasionally sidelines or straight-up forgets about a lot of its supporting characters for several episodes at a time, it never forgets to check in on what Jiao Liqiao's up to. Claws out, hair done, she is at all times a constant glorious, scenery-chewing menace with excellent taste in terrible men. Absolute legend.

Bonus: These two sluts

They don't get to be a full point because they're not nearly in the show enough, but just look at them. This is peak male character design. Slutty undone hair and slutty bare forearms, be still my bisexual heart.

Going to give it a try?

iQiyi's got you exclusively, baby.

Have I sounded a little defensive in this rec? Yeah, probably. It's just that I know there's a big and pretty intense fandom out there for this already, and I feel like a jerk coming in and being like "sure, it's fun!" when people are posting about how it made them cry for weeks. I want to be clear that that's not a bad reaction to have, while at the same time also being clear that that's not the reaction I had.

I might not even have written this rec, had I not been nudged to -- not because I don't think it's worth watching (I clearly do!), but because I don't know how much help it needs from the likes of me. There are plenty of other evangelists out there that'll give much more enthusiastic recommendations (like this one).

But the truth is that not every show has to be a heartbreaking work of staggering genius to everyone. I watched the show, and I liked it, and I had a normal time.

I also think there's something to the way I watched it, which was: one episode per day, schedule permitting, such that it took nearly two months for me to finish it. (And before you think I singled MLC out for this, this is actually how I watch most c-dramas.) I bet binging it is a way different experience, one where what rises more readily to the top is the tragic throughline of Li Lianhua's whole deal. If you're inclined to skip things not immediately germane to your points of interest, this is definitely the show to take at a solid run.

I actually paused in the middle of making this rec and made the one for the Blood of Youth, because the two invite comparisons: jianghu tales with chronically ill protagonists, some imperial bullshit going on, pretty boys with swords being weird about one another. Mysterious Lotus Casebook did not grab me as hard as the Blood of Youth, because MLC went for a more understated take on all its nonsense, instead of shooting completely over the top, which is how I prefer my nonsense (as the record will show). If you take your silliness with a subtler flavor, this could be the perfect thing for you.

Maybe you'll wind up being one of those people who gets their whole insides totally ripped out by this drama! But even if you don't, you're probably going to have a good time watching it anyway. And really, what more can you ask for from a show than that?

Peace, nerds.

[vegaseatsass]

Queen Seondeok spoilers below

Ok exorcising this post from my head before it gets lost in the brain attic instead of articulated. Truly will be of interest to me and only me but I want to SAY THESE WORDS and have a way to reread them months from now. So I don't actually know what the feeling on Nirvana in Fire 2 was in my current fandom circles, but back when I watched everyone was like "meh it's fine but it's no Nirvana in Fire 1" and that is kind of how I feel about the last 10ish episodes of Queen Seondeok after Mishil leaves. Like it's still a really gripping and compelling show but suddenly everyone is a LITTLE stupider and I'm spending a LITTLE more time yelling at the tv screen because all these previously brilliant strategists are taking years to figure out what I, a plebeian, have put together from anvilicious context clues. Suddenly the politics of our heroes are a LITTLE sketchier and we're getting what feels like a LITTLE too much nationalism for my taste*. That's all fine, it's just a drop in quality of writing, still interested to see where this all goes, but the real thing I hated was eps 52-57ish where Bidam...

...went from a delight of a character to an uncomplicatedly manipulative bastard who kept feeling sorry for himself that his grotesque attempts at controlling the object of his obsession were destroying her trust and affection for him. But it wasn't just a consistent personality switch, it was this confusing dynamic where he would be a smirky piece of shit in one scene, then the next he'd be earnestly crying and begging for attention. He would be doing dumb shit that fucked over his queen and nation one scene, then characters would comment on his selfless one-sided love a scene later (the comparisons to Seolwon, who truly did love his evil wife with zero attempts at owning her: I was flabbergasted!). It sucked because he's my fav dude in the show you see! What was the point of him wishing after Munno died to learn to be good at Deokman's side, what was the point of him telling Mishil he'd love in his own way, what was the point of Deokman comforting him beautifully over his mom only for him to choose her over Deokman, are we really going the determinism route where he can't escape his own evil blood? But I tried to make sense of it, like "hey, don't make this already morally flexible guy responsible for corralling all the most toxic people in your court and expect him to come out in one piece, my queen." "Okay, he always just wanted parents and now that he 'knows' his mom who left him on the floor as a baby 'loved him' he has to follow her evil plans after death." (I understood this to be the textual justification but I kinda hated it because he def didn't come across as if he was trying to do his evil filial duty but as if he was trying to follow his evil unfilial dick.) "Well, if Deokman is the hilt for his feral blade or whatever and now she's queen and has to be cold and distant, maybe he's just back in Hwarang tournament mode, causing problems in a desperate bid for attention, rather than because he ACTUALLY BELIEVES destroying Yushin is the path to 'winning' Deokman." I was compelled by a combination of these reasons, but I still missed old Bidam! I missed when he got to be cunning and vaguely amoral and Deokman would go, no we're not going to poison the entire fortress, BUT your idea gives ME an idea! (Instead of like "oh he just went and poisoned the entire fortress w/o me, pinned it on Yushin, and left me to pick up the pieces then cried when I yelled at him for it.")

However!!! Somewhere around ep 57 (sorry I don't have the specific number, we were binging), his personality... switches back?!?!?! Suddenly it's like no time has passed between Mishil's death and this moment, suddenly he is the Bidam Deokman and the audience know and love. Glad to have him back! LOVE that Deokman decided to prioritize keeping him over punishing him for the fuckery of the past bunch of episodes, that is a fun and consistent character choice. But!! I still feel like the writers did not do enough to justify or acknowledge his 5ish episodes of pure fuckery. He didn't just try to knock Yushin out of favor, he failed to stave off the Baekje invasion when they had everything they needed to get the leg up on them. That is something neither Deokman or his mom would have forgiven so easily! And hey maybe Deokman doesn't blame him because the entire court was agitating to bring Yushin down and ignore his information, but it was very frustrating to watch Bidam fuck up that bad for that many episodes in ways that almost wiped out their army and got who knows how many civilians killed, and never be held even verbally accountable. All to try to control Deokman into wanting him, while the narrative kept telling us he just has a selfless crush and some unrelated "manipulative DNA" issues. Well anyway!!! I solved it for myself!!! By deciding!!!!!! He is possessed by Mishil's ghost for those episodes!!! HAHA

It's perfect because everything fucked he was doing was consistent w/ her style of strategy (and it is genuinely more sympathetic to me to try to destroy Yushin for power than for "love"), and it means all the atonal Jekyll moments of earnestness he has in between the fuckery are just actual Bidam coming up for air before his mom's ghost takes the reins again.

More importantly it's perfect because I needed more of a motivation for my absurd time travel fuck-it fic concept (where Deokman travels back to the moment as a trainee where Mishil tells her to take off her clothes, is like, YES MA'AM!!, and then proceeds to seduce her utterly) than "Deokman is sad Mishil is dead and wishes she was around to help hone her as a ruler." Well, ha ha! Now when Deokman gazes into the abyss of the time vortex at the end of her life (don't spoil meeeee for the very last 3 episodes, but I'm p worried that's coming up any minute), and tells the time gods that she wants her shot at a do-over instead of passing into the next life, it won't just be so she can make Mishil love her more than she loves Silla, so Mishil takes her deal to come home w/ her during her coup, it won't just be to try to save Cheonmyeong and Sohwa's lives and get more time with them, it will also be to avert or at least get the leg up on a disastrous surprise war for her country.

This also means if any fuckery does happen w/ Bidam in the remaining three episodes lol I can justify it as "oh well trust was broken between them in 52-57 but if Deokman had exorcised Mishil's ghost - or better yet averted her death with irresistible sex - that never would have happened, and Bidam would get a happy ending too, which she very much wants." I am going to tag this in case I never write the fic, in case another person one day watches this 2009 drama, gets obsessed with Deokman and Mishil's relationship, and also cares overly much about Bidam's character consistency, but I apologize to everyone else who checks the tag, for being such a niche weirdo with tunnel vision. Oh a post about fan favorite Bidam! No it's actually about my Mishil/Deokman agenda... I just think it would be fun for trainee!Deokman to be like "oh, my lady, oh! I'll take off my clothes but now you're going to have another secret to control me with! But I simply can't resist you~~" and like, not actually dispel Mishil's correct suspicions that she was working for the princess at that point, but dangle this delicious opportunity before Mishil to at least compromise that loyal bond w/ sex, all whilst Deokman works to be sexy and mesmerizing enough to compromise Mishil's loyalty to her own dreams. I am prob not talented enough a writer to pull this off ANYWAY lmao, but I think it would be FUN!!! * This was about the Deokman vs. the Gaya plot and that was well worth sticking it out for imo, but my god I got nervous when she was stamping her feet about them not appreciating her enough for the rights she doled out. I guess I was used to Deokman being in the moral right, so I didn't trust that they were doing a storyline where she still had more growing to do. But they did and it kind of ruled imo. EDIT: WE JUST WATCHED EPISODE 60 AND SURE ENOUGH THERE'S MORE BIDAM FUCKERY!!! LOLLLL it's not his fault this time though :( more fodder for Deokman to want a time travel do-over

[officialvoiceofgenerationx]

Get To Know Me!

I was born in 1969. My parents were both born in 1947. They were never happy together and only got married because my mom was pregnant. My dad went to Vietnam when I was a baby.

I grew up in a very small town. We were working poor and there was some violence in the house - not much more than was normal at the time. I was a latchkey kid, watched a lot of TV, did a lot of vandalism and shoplifting. I did really bad at school, mainly because I didn't care. I was what was called an "art fag", and got bullied pretty much constantly.

I started drinking when I was 15, and was showing signs of severe alcoholism within a year or so. I started experiencing episodes of major depression around then. I got into punk rock and what was called "college rock" - Husker Du, the Replacements, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, REM, Sonic Youth, some of the DC hardcore stuff, but not Straightedge, which I thought was idiotic, Butthole Surfers, Pussy Galore, Gaye Bykers On Acid, Bongwater. I was into Nirvana, like everybody, but more into the female grunge bands and riot grrrl - Babes In Toyland, 7 Year Bitch, Bikini Kill, Team Dresch.

My alcoholism and depression got worse in the 90's. I can honestly say Cobain's suicide kept me alive - I had a shotgun but I thought that if I used it, people would think I was copying him, an idea I found disgusting. I got clean/sober in 1998.

I was in an abusive relationship when I got sober. She tried to physically abuse me, but I could defend myself against physical violence. I could not defend myself against mental and emotional abuse. We broke up repeatedly - for the last time in 2001. I was in a few relationships after that, some of which were less toxic than others. I decided to quit the relationship shitshow after my kid was born in 2009.

Parental responsibilities, work, chronic depression and the struggle to keep a roof over my head took up a decade or so.

Now I find myself in my 50's. My kid just started high school. I'm buying a house. I have two cats and I make art every day. I'm in a noisey free improv band. My job sucks.

The world I grew up in was a nightmare, but it was nowhere near as bad as the world today. Reagan was happy to have gays and junkies die of AIDS, but the GOP today is waging war on the LGBTQ+ community, on POC and on the poor. The Democrats make nicer promises, but they aren't actually doing shit.

I am disgusted by violence, greed, injustice, bigotry and I am also the most nihilistic asshole I know. I want everyone to be happy and I also want everything I see to be destroyed by fire. I am the embodiment of Generation X. I am the poster child for my fucked-over generation, insulted, written off and forgotten. I'm being totally sincere and this is also a fucking joke. I don't have any hope of making any difference, but I might be able to entertain myself.

I very much want to reach my cohort. I want to remind Gen X that there was a time when we were riled up about something. We cared about something. We were loud and vulgar and we weren't afraid to break shit.

We can't make the world a better place. We are way too broken for that. Maybe our kids can do better. But before they can make a better world, this one has to be destroyed. That's what I'm on about. I want to break shit. I want to get revenge. I want to tear down the rotten fucking world, so my kid can have something better. I don't mind dying - shit, I never really wanted to live in the first place.

And the idea of a bunch of broken, middle-aged grungepunk slackers rioting in the streets is pretty funny.

Anyway. Nobody else stepped up to be the Official Voice of Generation X, so it might as well be me.

[itisjustfei]

Day 12: favourite tv series

Hehe, I'M REALLY GOING TO BE SO FUCKING LOUD!!!

As an opening, I think i mentioned somewhere that I'm a whore for entertainment (though in questionably slump for past few years). Dan sebelum ini ada kaya tren nyebutin the thing to get to know me, jadi inget kan tuh, pas banget yah.

Ok here it is. I'll mention one i have strong feeling to. No specific list.

Secret Love (2013)

No one can convince me to hate about how generic and how cliche the plot is, mainly because ofc I liked the actors who portrayed the protagonist but also because THE CHEMISTRY, and I liked how it make me feel!!! I wish I can watch from the first time again.

Though, It is quite problematic, if I reckon. But every sk drama I watch in that time were mostly problematic, so yeah, what choice do I have (lies).

I still remember the one scene that so right in the feel, (spoiler alert) ketika mereka mau first time, dan si cowo ini nyium luka bakar cewenya, wah, I watched it many years ago, but it's still get me every time.

Goblin (2016)

OFC I'M GONNA MENTION THEY HERE. Ini tuh beneran ada semuanya, angst nya ada, romance nya ada, komedinya ada. Gw masih inget gmana gila nya gw ama series ini, mana kan gw emang suka dilf, and hell they're so effin gorgeous here. I'M GONNA MENTION ABOUT THEIR CHEMISTRY OFC, not only the protagonist, but the whole cast were so perfect for each other, no miss on that part, nothing feel awkward it kinda hit home, I still rewatch the part when they made me laugh so much.

Nirvana in Fire (2015)

Jujur, gw ga suka tipe2 yang bikin gue harus mikir, karena brow otak ini tidak begitu pintar en smart to go through people scheme, but this one?? Hell I love every second of it. Unfortunately , I can't feel a much of a chemistry going, but it is still a masterpiece on plot alone, i don't feel amiss in it. Nah, mulai dari series ini gue mulai mengecambah ke series cina, well mainly period costume drama.

Sebenernya ada sekuel nya dan katanya lebih oke lagi, but I am still enamored by this Mei Changsu and Prince Jing, so leave me alone.

Joy of Life (2019)

It might gonna surpass nirvana in fire if only they're airing all the trilogy, betul, ini series terbagi menjadi 3 bagian dan yang baru tayang baru yang pertamanya aja. Meski begitu gw tidak menyesal (sedikit sebetulnya) karena emang SESERU ITU, hell I don't remember when the last time I was genuinely laugh, a big one by a scene, because it was so unexpectedly funny I crieeed, ofc there's moment too where I cried in tender and sad moments. Again, this far, the plot is soo smooth, didn't feel any amiss, but I can't judge as whole, because again, I'M STILL WAITING FOR THE NEXT SEQUEL BECAUSE THE ENDING WAS LITERALLY A HANGED ONE (and pls tell me when I gonna get the rest????!!!!???)

Word of Honor (2021)

Well, we know how strict that country about bl, but much to my surprise, they're pushing the limits with this series, the gesture, the words, the look, the eyes, omg I can going for long on why they make this sooo obviously gay, but couldn't quite going there it made me on the edge many times! (Like other non canon bl ships I'm currently invested). And one point more they're all pretty ((chefs kiss)). My favorite part were when Wen Kexing deliberately making a fit on everything, my silly clown.

Dele (2018)

This is an episodic format of a series, I wish they're putting more than 8 episodes. They're not yet exploring the main protagonist. I even need to read the book I literally SALVAGED after 3 years watching the last episode (cr book 2). I'm so in love with the main protagonist, I put his name in my pseudonym, I WISH HE WERE MY REAL HUSBAND (i still am). I can't quite explain it, but holy shit I'm in love. Still dooo.

Daredevil (2015)

It's dark dark and dark, if you watched it, you'll understand what I meant, but he's so cute like cuuuuuutttteeeeeee (tempeleng aja gw) series west genre ini itu gmna ya, plot makin kesini tuh bukan ngeberesin konflik-konflik yg udah tapi malah jadi makin runyam, but I think that's the charm with it, you bared with anticipation, curious of what kind a mess they could make, an even worse after another. Btw sampe postan ini dibuat, belum nonton S3 karena gw denial.

Hannibal (2013)

I think I watched it in it's running through S2, so like, around 2014? Seperti biasa gw nemu di lepi si aa, ya gw tonton. Most of the time I don't get what are they saying, ketinggian otak gw kaga nyampe dah, tapi I'm there not for that but for Mads and Mads only (then for hannigram in S3). And I kinda liked the every 'cruel beauty' they show. My favorite part ofc like everyone were the confession. I still played that part once in a while.

The Mandalorian (2019)

My utmost comfort series, it's so so slooow but I don't hate it, gw baca dimana kalo series ini tuh genrenya family dan gw setujuuuuu, karena despite the dystopian future they depicted, it is a family genre, I'm sooooffffffftttt for Grogu and Din, they're so insufferable sometimes I don't get it why I'm having soft spot for them.