#rather than yibo

[leatherbookmark]

yesterday i found out woodz was in uniq... huh...

[rainbowsky]

#uniq disbanded# is currently trending on Weibo because it is the band's 10 year debut anniversary, and Yixuan posted a message that sounded like a goodbye.

There is always a time to meet and there will always be a time to meet again UNIQ

Seungyoun posted on his Instagram as well, in celebration of the group's debut and his own 10th debut anniversary. Translation under the cut.

Thank you to everyone who has loved me for the past 10 years. Thanks to the many people who have helped me come this far.

I will continue to achieve it steadily and slowly in the future.

Rather than feeling that it is far and difficult since my debut, I was able to accept it as an experience and grow because everyone who has planted positivity and love has been with me.

I will not be impatient now and in the future, but will look broadly, and walk with you all feeling the cool breeze.

My pride, Moodz, my precious colleagues, my loving family, my supportive friends, thank you so much.

I love you so much and thank you.

Don't get sick, stay healthy, feel small happiness, and live together.

Lastly, Uniq members, Yixuan, Wenhan, Yibo, Sungjoo ❤️

Happy 10th anniversary. Thank you for congratulating me. I love you. ❤️

[accio-victuuri]

i am late in sharing this post that became popular days ago, it contains quotable quotes from wyb. he is know to be a man of a few words, but when he does speak his mind, expect the impact. 💥

"I want to say, don’t pursue something blindly, if you purely like it, then just persist and stick to it purely."

"I am actually not a particularly argumentative person, but I am a competitive person. Some things actually don’t matter. Many people may take everything seriously, but for me, I just put myself first in the things I want to fight for."

"I also thought it was quite funny, but it was just a matter of truthfully speaking what was in my heart at that time, without any detours. In ten or twenty years, I may have changed, but at the moment, this is still Wang Yibo"

"I have learned a lot about life through movies, for example: people should adapt to the environment rather than the environment adapting to people, and to achieve perfection in anything is art."

"I don’t want to lose, but I also don’t let myself get addicted to victory. I know how to control myself."

“I prefer not to compete with others for things, what’s yours is yours what’s mine is mine. but if something belongs to me and you insist on getting it, then i’ll fight with you.”

“I like to be exposed to new things, and I also hope to stick to it as much as possible, but sometimes my hobbies may change quickly. For example, I was still enjoying golf, but suddenly I started playing tennis again. There is no way to change a hobby. To practice and improve all the time, maybe study in time periods. So I think I have many hobbies, but I am not good at them. But I just like so many hobbies, which make your life richer and more interesting, and can keep you in a relatively good state in your spare time, including your mental state. Well, exercise is very good"

"Actually, i’ve always been mentally preparing for the day when i will be “not popular”, maybe i’ll go open a shop and sell motorcycles, maybe i’ll open a dance training class, and dance until the day i can’t dance"

"I just want to do things according to my beliefs and never regret it."

[porcupine-girl]

The BJYX Store!

Ok, it wasn’t a whole BJYX store, but it did have a BJYX section! It was an idol store, whose existence I was tipped off to by @marlo-noni. This mall (Shanghai Joy City) had two idol stores in addition to a million anime/donghua/etc stores–I’ll make separate posts for all the non-bjyx merch I saw (and bought). Both idol stores were 75% kpop but with Cpop/Cdrama sections if you looked around.

And this one had an actual shelf that was not labeled Xiao Zhan or Wang Yibo or both, but actually labeled 博君一肖 bjyxszd!

It wasn’t huge, but the fact that it’s still there five years after the Untamed aired speaks volumes about how mainstream this is.

See more under the cut!

Yes, there was a full-size (well, not quite as tall as he really is) XZ cutout next to it. :)

It had a lot of stuff that was just XZ or just WYB–photo cards (which seem VERY popular, they were like 50% of the content of both idol stores), standees, pins, etc–but also actual BJYX merchandise! Mostly fanart-based, some of which I'd seen before. This stuff was definitely not officially licensed by either of them (which makes me wonder if anything in this store besides the K-pop CDs was actually officially licensed?)

Two sets of wedding-themed fanart standees:

Also this kind of ugly/awkward pin of them... kissing? Ish?

This store (I wish I'd taken more photos of the whole store, tbh) had a ton of these double-sided posters/banners about 6"x18" for all the different idols, and in addition to individual ones for XZ and WYB they had a whole bunch of BJYX ones. They were on the shelves with the other banners, rather than in the BJYX section. I wound up buying three���the first photo is one side of each, the second photo is the other (not sure which is "front" and "back").

I'm honestly not sure what "Doll's Fate" is about on that third one. Tagging in the BJYX experts: @rainbowsky @accio-victuuri @wwx-lwj-ai-ni @bjyxobsessed any of you know what that's referring to?

The other idol store in Shanghai Joy City wasn't as explicit about the BJYX, but they did have a whole shelf just for the two of them, separate from all the other Cpop people:

All the merch was just one boy or the other, though, I couldn't find anything with both on one item, let alone explicitly shippy.

For the record, I scoured three malls in Beijing (SoShow, Xidan Joy City, and Chaoyang Joy City) and while I found various other cool merch, I could not find any dedicated idol stores in any of them. Although I will admit I didn't have time to go through Chaoyang JC as thoroughly as the others – these malls are all huge, like 8-11 stories!

Bonus #1: This eyeglasses kiosk that was right outside the bjyx store knew exactly what it was doing:

Bonus #2: Can you believe they just happened to be playing Wu Ming when I was browsing the BJYX merch? It's not surprising that they were playing music by the idols they sold, but the fact that they just happened to play one of Yibo's songs in the 15 or so minutes I was there was amazing.

[thirtysixsavefiles]

Got tagged by @thehoardofthegreatdragon :D love a chance to look at some stats

Rules: Go to your (current/main) AO3 account and find the following:

What ratings do you write most of your fics under?

Explicit (91), then Teen (88), and then Mature trailing at (23).

What are your top three fandoms?

I mean. None of these are current, but in terms of number of works:

Borderlands (88)

MDZS (34)

The Untamed RPF (27)

Wordcount tells the same story in a slightly different order:

The Untamed RPF (317,285)

Borderlands (254,858)

MDZS (150,735)

What is the top character you write about?

Handsome Jack blows everyone else out of the water at (70) lmao

What are your top three pairings?

Again just reflecting the weight of history here:

Handsome Jack/Rhys (Borderlands) (65)

Wang Yibo/Xiao Zhan (The Untamed RPF) (26)

Timothy Lawrence/Wilhelm (Borderlands) (14)

What are the top three additional tags?

I'm not any kind of consistent or thorough tagger, so these more often represent the exceptions rather than the rule:

Established Relationship (20)

Fluff (12)

Alternate Universe (10)

I think we're suffering from lack of aggregation on that last one — there's no way I've written only 10 AUs 😂

Does any of this surprise you?

It's interesting how heavily Borderlands weights everything, even years later, but I did spend a good two and half years writing there so I guess that's to be expected. Also I can tell just by checking my most recent works that I haven't been using the Alternate Universe tag consistently so there's that mystery solved. 😅

Tagging: @scootsaboot, @no-birdstofly, @vgreysoncellars, @mobydickering @callmearcturus and anyone else who wants to do this, do it and say I tagged you. :D

[zhansww]

[all photos © yibo-official]

It’s been almost exactly three years by now since we first saw dd, wearing the eyefunny necklace. The photo on the left is from August 17th 2020 (rehearsing for his Dragon Fist performance) and the photo on the right is from Aug. 19th (recording a DDU episode). I still think, given the timing, that it was likely his husband’s birthday present for him that year. And a pretty smart present at that imo cuz it kind of shut up all the speculation around the gucci ox-head necklace — which we’ve seen dd wear for 14 months and the last time (around his wrist) in a sdoc3 recording on Aug. 12th.

There was more let’s call it indisputable evidence of it being gg’s present when it came to that gucci necklace — which led dd to mostly hide the necklace under his clothes rather than wear it openly. But when it comes to the eyefunny necklace, we really have nothing substantial to go on. Anyone who already believes that ggdd are together will also believe this was gifted to dd by gg, given its constant presence on him, but do we have any proof to actually support that theory? Not really. Some fans might mention the sunflower rumor (even though the flower pendant was a daisy) and the “lonely star” lyrics to explain the flower and star pendants but that’s easy enough to dismiss. I see this as a positive, though, cuz it means dd doesn’t actually need to hide the eyefunny necklace. But also, Yibo being Yibo, he made it kinda obvious who gave him the necklace when he replaced the star and flower pendants with the bone pendant in November 2020, which he has stuck to ever since.

Of course, the bone could also have a meaning to Yibo which I know nothing about but pretty much the only thing I can immediately connect it with is that time gg called dd gouzaizai (and maybe also the time dd’s co-star got asked if he gets to call dd gouzaizai and he said “no. I’m not XZ”) and the possibility that that nickname — as well as the person who gave him said nickname — bears enough significance in dd’s private life to make him wear that pendant frequently for this long. But still, at the same time, this one moment can be seen as such a weak argument that there isn't much of a case for the theory "the eyefunny necklace was a present from gg" which in turn means dd doesn't have to hide this necklace. And he doesn't, not really.

I'm aware none of this is new btw (and this is def not the first time I've been emo about it). Just seeing a glimpse of that chain around dd's neck never fails to warm my heart. I saw someone refer to it as soft collar once which I have not been able to forget lol. But me, I really do see it as a sort of "replacement" for his wedding ring for now. Like, he unfortunately can't publicly wear the ring gg gave him but he can and does still show who he belongs to by constantly wearing this necklace. Also, seeing how downright unhappy ggdd have looked in the last months, this necklace keeps reminding me that no matter how tough things get for them for whatever reason... they are devoted enough to each other to get through it (and hopefully soon). At least, I believe so.

[zhongwans]

You guys must have seen that article from Vox that was filled with misinformation about ZZH's case written by someone called Aja Romano.

The article was very hostile towards Junzhe CP fans, which is actually not that strange knowing how RPS fandoms are seen, but since Romano herself was part of RPS fandoms and even believes that Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo are in a secret relatonship, you've got to wonder where all the hostility is coming from. It's also very interesting that she never once showed any interest in WOH ever since it aired, but then suddenly appears and writes a scathing article about Junzhe CP fans a full year later, even regurgitating anti talking points from weibo beat by beat. So when I first read it I suspected that it wasn't written by a passerby journalist, but rather by someone who was very familiar with the WOH fandom and specifically with Junzhe CP fans. Someone who was keeping an eye on the fandom's conversations. And also possibly, someone who has something against us or ZZH and GJ.

On June 2022, an article that was published on The China Story finally laid out the facts about ZZH's case: that he wasn't banned by the CN government, that CAPA wasn't a government entity and therefore had absolutely no right to issue a boycott, that ZZH was the victim of a vicious smear campain that must have taken millions to fund. After the horrible articles Aja Romano wrote for Vox, it was a welcome relief.

Well now some amazing people over on twitter found out that Aja Romano actually emailed the editors of The China Story, asking to retract the article. It's the ONLY article that contains the truth about his case, and has all the facts that Li Xuezheng himself stated. And she asked for it to be taken down.

She claimed that the article was filled with misinformation, even though the article was based only on facts that were verified during the time Li Xuezheng was active. Aja insisted that ZZH was banned by the government, even though that was debunked three times, twice by the NRTA and once by the MCT. Since when did a chronically online waste of space and human equivalent of watery diarrhea like Aja Romano have more say about ZZH's case than the literal Chinese government?

Like what you like, ship what you ship. Mind your own fucking business. There's no rule saying you must stuck your rancid dick in other fandoms just to enjoy your own.

Full post about Aja Romano's email here:

[poorlittleyaoyao]

I think part of the threatening to summon lwj with jin king thing is partly like. wwx is HORRIBLE at reading people. like he’s charming. he draws people in. he’s extremely clever and brilliant. but I, personally, think he’s an idiot when it comes to reading people!

almost every wangxian interpretation I’ve ever seen has some iteration of ‘wwx can read lwj while lwj seems expressionless’ and I am always FLOORED how people got that from any of the media. the person who can read lwj is his brother! not wei at the time of my death the man who hated me and my demonic cultivation most was non other than hanguang jun wuxian. not wei lan zhan has a crush on mianmiam wuxian. not wei I couldn’t admit to myself I wanted to sleep with lwj until after I died and got resurrected and we’re all being held hostage wuxian.

fic writers out here are like ‘wwx understands lwj best!’ meanwhile xichen is over here on his fourth cup of ‘insert number of days’ since lwj has been irrational about the cultivation world’s number 1 criminal now that wen ruohan is dead’ coffee like

Am I a fucking joke to you

ANON YOU ARE CORRECT ON ALL POINTS IMO. The very first thing that made me go "ohhhh, I don't think I like this" reading the novel was when LWJ showed up and WWX was genuinely convinced that LWJ despised him and was going to kill him. Like. What? I totally get not realizing the depth or nature of his feelings! But no discernible emotional attachment on WWX's part? They're not even friends? This makes LWJ forcibly dragging WWX back to Cloud Recesses extremely sketchy. What am I even doing here?

And the thing is, I could see WWX's obliviousness being used effectively! LWJ is the one who invited him to Jinlintai for Jin Ling's ceremony, after all; from what I can tell, it's entirely reasonable for WWX in the novel to think LWJ lured him deliberately into the Qiongqi Pass ambush. WWX could've approached LWJ with a mixture of distrust and hostility on the grounds that LWJ tried to kill him in his past life (deceitfully via a gesture of friendship, no less!), and been utterly bewildered by LWJ's behavior towards him for that reason. His feelings for LWJ then change and grow because he's learning more about what the hell happened with the political plot.

Instead, we just get Wei Wuxian, The Jianghu's Most Tediously Oblivious Man, and his aloof love interest who exclusively shows affection while he is drunk or while WWX is incapacitated/unconscious/whatever and won't remember, and both of them replace Gay Chicken with communication.

I can see "WWX can read LWJ like a book" for the drama specifically. Wang Yibo does an excellent job of conveying interiority so something different is always going on underneath LWJ's stoic expressions. The "you must like Mianmian!" stuff in CQL always read to me as WWX teasing LWJ knowing full well there was no truth to it (though still not getting who LWJ did have a crush on). And since the two of them are good friends in that canon (with WWX's protestations that they are TOTALLY not friends, LWJ is so BORING!! coming off as tsundere behavior rather than his honest assessment of the situation), of course they'd understand each other!

BUT EVEN THEN. EVEN THEN! LXC can read him best. LXC can read him even when LWJ demonstrates his own tsundere behavior. LXC knows his didi better than anyone else and does everything he can for LWJ's happiness and safety, and in exchange he gets kicked to the curb at the lowest point in his life. Maybe the insistence that WWX is the only person who can understand him is so ppl don't have to think about that last part too much.

[malsperanza]

I don't want to fall too far into the debate about whether danmei/gay romantic stories are aimed at a straight female audience, and whether that's appropriative and exploitive,* but the erotic allure of sexual ambiguity is part of the mix.

Someone posted a clip of Marlon Brando in a sweaty T shirt in A Streetcar Named Desire, which reminded me of this iconic scene from On the Waterfront. Brando was always sex on wheels onscreen, unadulterated charisma, and also known as one of Hollywood's biggest bi male stars (along with Cary Grant, Tony Curtis, and Errol Flynn). The difference with Brando is in how he used his unique mix of hypermasculine body and effeminate manner to intensify his effects.

This scene is famous because Eva Marie Saint dropped her glove by accident and Brando picked it up and improvised using it - pure Actor's Studio technique - and she kept going too. From a performance pov, it's fascinating to see them both playing the scene and the characters while also reading and responding to each other's cues in the improv, giving the scene an extra level of uncertainty, anxiety, and instability.

But from a romance pov, the through line of the scene is this: man is trying to hit on shy woman and is trying (ineptly) to be gentle about it while still signaling his attraction. Woman, although shy, is trying to signal that she's not saying no. The man takes the woman's glove but doesn't return it to her - instead he puts it on. This is within the trope called "indirect kiss" but it's also, crucially, more than that. This burly, testosterone-driven man (he's a thug and a boxer) briefly reveals a feminine aspect. It's not a female disguise - that is, it's not cross-dressing. It's his own hidden self becoming temporarily visible. The two are, briefly, sharing a female body. Eva Marie Saint ends the moment by taking the aggressive male role: she pulls the glove off Brando's unresisting hand because the scene is about to end and she can't leave it there.

This scene gets taught in acting classes as an example of pure mastery of improv by both actors and of the Actors Studio style of naturalism in acting. But it's also a moment in which Brando uses his own genderswitching identity to maximum effect.

The result is that the uncertainty and anxiety of the scene are converted, for a moment, into pure erotic power.

And this idea is what some of the very charismatic actors in danmei dramas do - they draw on the play of gender ambiguity to heighten the sense of shared body, complex attraction, and open identity. I'm thinking here of Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo in The Untamed, or Zhang Zhehan and Gong Jun in Word of Honor. And the thing that makes good danmei so effective is when you get two actors who are equally willing to go there, and are in sync. (I don't think Eva Marie Saint gets enough credit for the glove scene, where she picked up and perfectly responded to every one of Brando's cues on the fly.)

I think it happens so rarely in Hollywood or most European filmmaking because western actors are so uncomfortable acknowledging that gender is a spectrum not a binary. Heath Ledger is maybe one exception. But no one did it as well as Brando. Once you see it, you see it in all his performances - where he was often cast in hypermasculine roles and subverted them every time.

In Streetcar Named Desire - written by a gay playwright who made gay identity a subtext (or text) throughout his work - Brando's sexual presence onscreen is unmatched. (Paul Newman did a version of it in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, but not at the same level.)

--

*Yes, yes, and also no, no, and also It's Complicated.

[rainbowsky]

I can't help it, I have to critique this.

Disclaimer: I'm about to rip this logo to shreds. If that's is going to offend you, don't read on. Especially don't read on and then get pissed off at me, because you will only have yourself to blame. 😅

I also want to start off by saying that this has absolutely nothing to do with who designed it (or didn't design it), or who it was designed for. I love GG and DD, but ultimately my reaction to this logo design has absolutely nothing to do with either of them.

I have to say it couldn't be more disappointed with this logo. I feel that it fails on every level. Here are a few of the reasons why:

It is devoid of any personality. I guess I've been spoiled by the cool panther logo that we have known and loved, but I would have preferred to see something with more street style to it. Something with more individuality - something connected to Yibo and his aesthetic. This doesn't scream 'Yibo' to me. It just looks very conservative, like something designed for a brand (which it was, I guess). That's not to say the illustration isn't well done, because it is, and it does do a decent job of bringing in some automobile elements into the snakehead design (the geometric scales, the flames under the eye), but no matter how well illustrated something is, it's not going to make a good logo just because it's pretty. Logo design is actually a complex process that requires a lot of skill and experience, and a solid background in communications and design. Being able to draw well is only a very small part of that skillset. In fact, there are some outstanding communication designers who can't draw very well at all.

It fails as a logo design. The number one thing any logo needs to do is communicate. This doesn't communicate anything at all. It doesn't even immediately read as a snake. In fact there's really very little snake-ish about it, and all of the coolest elements of a snake - its long winding body, its forked tongue, its glassy eyes - none of those features are incorporated here. It also doesn't read as an 85, it could be an 89. Terrible - a truly inexcusable error. For a racing logo, there's really nothing speedy or fast being communicated here at all. The snake looks like it's about to fall asleep. Even the kinetic energy that could have been communicated through the position of the snake's tail is wrong. The tail is pointing in the opposite direction it should be, and the snake does not look like it's moving forward, it looks like it's draped over the logo, exhausted, and like the entire snake is maybe 5" long.

The designer doesn't seem to have respected the spirit of the original design. They should have used that original design as a starting point and built upon it rather than go in their own direction and then paste what they did on top of the existing logo. As a result the overall look is disjointed and unharmonious. It just doesn't crackle with the exciting energy that comes from a well-designed, well-balanced, aesthetically strong logo design.

I really can't stand it. Yes, the snake itself is beautifully illustrated, and the illustrator is talented, but they have failed as a logo designer in this particular case.

I love the idea of the snake being incorporated into a racing logo, but everything that makes a snake cool, everything that makes a snake well aligned with a racing brand, everything that conveys speed and energy is just completely lacking here.

Just to give you an example of some more dynamic snake logos, here are a few just from Google image search (and I'll put the Evisu one here again so you can compare). I'm not saying that I love these designs, but they are much more energetic and dynamic than this logo:

And I find this one pretty inspiring simply because it gives me ideas about creating a snake with a tire tread underbelly, which would be so cool.

And if you look at the classic Ford Shelby logo, compare that with the Evisu one you can see how much more dynamic and unique and distinctive and exciting the snake is in this one, even though its position is more static and it's not as smoothly rendered. It has style.

There's a part of me that feels a little bit bad for ripping into Yibo's new logo, but I'm angry on his behalf, because I feel like he deserves a lot better than this.

And all the designer would have needed to do to make this a more exciting logo and one that communicates what it needs to communicate is to make the snake head a little bit smaller so it's not blocking the number 5, give it a more dynamic pose where its mouth is open and its fangs are showing and its tongue is sticking out, and expand its body so that its body is visible behind - or even winding around - the numbers, and where you can see the curls of its body, and its tail is facing in the correct direction to make the snake look like it's moving forward.

Edit: here's what I mean:

I still don't feel that the illustration style is compatible with the original logo design, but I could overlook it if it was actually making any effort at all at communicating a racing theme.

Just my two cents. It's possible I will warm up to it more when I see it on the car. Placement and context can make a big difference.

I think it's cool that Yibo wants to use that green bamboo snake for a logo, I just wish it had been better designed.

Edit: more on this here.

[accio-victuuri]

i pulled some early reviews of FPU, related to yibo and his character yang zhen. 👮‍♂️

i chose the ones on the top of the FPU page on weibo to share. credit weibo accounts/bloggers/media etc who watched the premiere and reviewed.

beware or spoilers!!!!

二火山:

The most outstanding thing about the whole film is the sniper Yang Zhen played by Wang Yibo. He has a complete character arc. After watching it, you will not feel that the sentence "I want to maintain world peace" in the trailer is half-hearted. The resolute look in his eyes as soon as he appears makes people have a deep impression. Only later did I learn that Yang Zhen chose to become a peacekeeping policeman in order to complete the unfinished business of his father who died in the line of duty. This is also a kind of inheritance.

This character is full of passion, not afraid of danger, and always regards the lives of civilian children as more important than his own. Looking at the previous roles of Lei Yu and Wei Ruolai, Wang Yibo's characters have a firm sense of mission and belief. I think this is why the director took a fancy to him. In the movie, Yang Zhen encountered danger many times without fear, and was even willing to sacrifice himself for a just cause. He created this righteous, brave and witty image in a very three-dimensional way, making people feel immersed in it. It is difficult not to feel deep respect for the peacekeeping police.

Among them are several scenes that left a deep impression: due to punishment, Yang Zhen got up immediately after doing push-ups and ran to catch up with the team's car, even if he was panting at the extreme state; He mistook him for a child and did not fire, causing his teammates to be injured and feeling guilty; especially when he was shooting at the enemy sniper, the rain kept making his eyes wet, but he was still able to aim hard and consider the wind before finally hitting the target with one shot.

水片

Wang Yibo's casting is particularly successful and outstanding, and according to the chronological sequence, this film is Wang Yibo's first film to enter the film industry. The performance is sincere and not sloppy, and the clues of his growth trajectory are particularly touching, especially in the setting of his deceased father. And with the support of producer Liu Weiqiang, the screen narrative is compact and intense, and the film is full of texture.

啵塞東東

In fact, rather than saying that Yang Zhen is an "impulsive" player, I think he is too upright and kind. (Slight spoiler warning for the next sentence) (It's harmless, don't call the police). He doesn't defend himself when the captain scolds him. It's not like he doesn't shoot. He just didn't want to hurt the child (so when he entered the house and found it was not a child, he said nonchalantly, "It turns out it's not a child").

Wang Yibo was responsible for almost 80% of the action scenes. The parkour rainy night sniper scene was frightening to watch, but they were all very beautiful action scenes, and Yang Zhen's brave young character was something that only he could play. He also looks particularly good in the peacekeeping uniform. He is very tall and handsome.

轻抚油箱85_杨震版

The plot and rhythm are very tight, basically one scene after another, like the last heavy rain, the loss of life, the sacrifice of comrades, the hard-won peace that can only be temporary, are all It happened in this hour and a half. The scenes actually focus more on the portrayal of group portraits. In addition to the peacekeeping team, more focus is placed on the refugees who have lost the envelope of peace.

Action scenes still account for a large proportion. Jumping from high buildings, falling into water, and gunfight scenes are all enough to satisfy the action movie audience. The few literary scenes and daily scenes have a little bit of the flavor of the training camp in the sky, very humorous, and overall ups and downs. there is urgency and slowness. I really like the cooperation and tacit understanding when the team fights.

Next, let’s talk about Yang Zhen. He appeared twice, once for an arm-wrestling event in the early stage and once when he walked into the dormitory on the phone. At that time, a sentence came to my mind: The show is coming. On the big screen, Yang Zhen is wild, occasionally confused, and young enough. Compared with Major Lei Yu, Lei Yu is more mature, more confident, and has clearer goals. It is also because he is young enough that he has the appearance of a newborn calf (I'm sorry, Teacher Wang Yibo didn't mean to scold me by saying you are a calf). He is not afraid of the fierceness of a tiger, and Yang Zhen's "wildness" also comes from this fierceness, which transcends bravery and is a kind of justice that is more inclined to life.

In terms of acting, it can be said that Wang Yibo's performance is still at a high level. Those who go to the cinema for Wang Yibo can rest assured that his eye movements and micro-expressions are still smooth, but the scary thing is that this smooth flow happens. Three years ago, when you went to watch this movie, you would know where Mr. Ye, who was nominated for the Golden Rooster, and Wei Ruolai, who was in the CCTV came from. Every role he played in the past was involved in it, and he became every role in the future with it. flesh and blood.

The lines are as good as ever, whether it's in English or a dialogue in a literary drama, my ears are always happy when I watch his works.

Revisiting the movie three years ago, I have the illusion of peeking into Wang Yibo during the Yang Zhen period, but it is also very romantic and I have not missed Yang Zhen. From this movie, I can conclude that you can always trust Wang Yibo when it comes to acting.

陆支羽

In my opinion, Wang Yibo is very suitable for the role of sniper Yang Zhen. There were two life-and-death collective battle scenes. The first time he risked his life to chase the murderer, and the latter time he didn't fire for fear of accidentally injuring a child, both of which almost resulted in serious consequences. At the same time, the dedication and sincerity of the character Yang Zhen is very three-dimensionally portrayed. From this, he gradually becomes more and more aware of the importance of team spirit and grows into a better peacekeeping policeman.

[fierrochase-falafel]

CQL music analysis part 1: Local homosexual lunatic over-analyses people singing (with spoilers)

The Untamed has 2 albums, one of which contains all the songs with vocals they had recorded for the show. While I recommend all of them, a few favourites of mine being Bu Wang (for Lan Wangji) and Woodland (for Wen Qing), I'd like to focus on the fact that only 2 of them are in the show: the classic Wu Ji and Yi Nan Ping.

It's interesting that Yi Nan Ping is the only song other than Wu Ji, the literal wangxian song, to actually appear in the show.

Considering the main characters of the show are Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, it makes sense that their joint song Wu Ji is the most well-known; especially when you add the fact that it appears at the end of every CQL episode. It also appears several times in the middle of the show (especially episode 50, where they played it about 5 times just to make it really sink in how close wangxian are). On the album it has a Xiao Zhan only edition, a Wang Yibo only edition, a chorus edition with both Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo, and a Bibi Zhou edition- it's very clear that this is a song made up of Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, whether by themselves or together they are singing to and about each other.

Yi Nan Ping, however, is labelled on the album as [Interlude], as opposed to the [Theme] of Wu Ji. It's 4th from the bottom of the album. The song is recognised as Jiang Yanli's song at large by fans, which makes sense because it's heard when Jiang Yanli is onscreen, but I am going to speculate as to why it was not labelled directly as Jiang Yanli's song despite it clearly reflecting her character. The only 2 vocal tracks being Wu Ji and Yi Nan Ping was very deliberate to reflect Wei Wuxian's closest relationships. The show centers around him ultimately, it's largely in his point of view and so we hear vocal tracks in moments where he feels the most intense. For Wu Ji, it shows his relationship with Lan Wangji quite clearly, as one of his closest relationships.

My theory with Yi Nan Ping is that the reason it's not labelled Jiang Yanli's song is because it represents the bond of the Yunmeng trio itself rather than just Jiang Yanli. Jiang Yanli's loving and caring nature is presented as that which brings the 3 of them together- when she first brings her brothers back from the Yunmeng woods, consistently when she gives them lotus and pork rib soup, when she dies to protect Wei Wuxian. The lotus and pork rib soup is kinda like a motif representing when they were kids and could just play with each other, and come back to drink her soup that tastes like home. None of the actors for the characters sing in this song, the song is more like a sisterly blanket Yanli has for all of them where it represents their bond together rather than their own voices. One could also intepret it as Jiang Yanli singing, and that bringing all 3 of them together. I think it says a lot about her that she doesn't have an individual song named as being for her, but the songs she is involved in uplift the ones she loves and it becomes 'their song' rather than 'her song'.

Wu Ji, compared to Yi Nan Ping, has both the voices of Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji in abundance. Focusing on the chorus version, even if Wang Yibo says less individual lines (which is quite in character for Lan Wangji), his presence in the song is always felt. When I listen to Wu Ji, it's like Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are two halves of one tiger tally, the song incomplete without each other's voices pulling through. Wu Ji requires that which Yi Nan Ping doesn't: in the sense of the characters having to mutually acknowledge and be open about their feelings, singing them out loudly to the world together. Considering Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng's relationship is frought with hidden feelings and miscommunication, Jiang Yanli's open love being what brings them together makes perfect sense- it's notable that the former 2 are only open with each other when they're forced to be at last in Guanyin temple (Wei Wuxian wouldn't have voluntarily told Jiang Cheng about the golden core operation, and Jiang Cheng never actually ended up telling Wei Wuxian why he ran away in the first place, resulting in his core loss). Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji though come clean within their first conversation after Wei Wuxian's resurrection, and have always put the effort to understand the other's position on important matters. In CQL, they're always as open about their feelings as they can manage from the get-go. Personally, I feel this sets up a dichotomy between Wei Wuxian's 2 closest relationships- that with the Jiang siblings and that with Lan Wangji.

Furthermore, where Yi Nan Ping reminisces about the past consistently (the most notable refrain in the chorus being, 'Can you still hear someone calling out “A-Xian”?', using the first online translation I could find by radishtears), Wu Ji reminisces vaguely about the past but always comes back to looking to the future (repeating, 'Why not soar high and free as a bird with the winds and waves, and sing this one song together to the world?', courtesy the genius lyrics translation). Yi Nan Ping is always a soft, comforting echo representing Wei Wuxian's past with the Jiang siblings and Wu Ji boldly looks to his future with Lan Wangji. They represent very different relationships and carry different connotations to a current Wei Wuxian, but they are the most important relationships to him to the point that they have vocal tracks directly present in the web series.

[lily-blue]

Secrets written in crimson ink

☆ characters: best friend (red)!yibo & protester (gray)!you & vigilante (red)!xiao zhan ☆ genre: dystopian au inspired by this story ☆ warnings: blood, violence and death ☆ request: 77. from this prompt list ☆ summary: when you get separated from that one person you actually care about, it doesn’t matter how dangerous it is to be associated with people who don’t fit into any categories of your society; especially because you have already crossed that bridge when you befriended Yibo ☆ words: 2,4k ☆ dedicated to: @dat-town ♥ ☆ taglist: @soobin-chois

There had been a time when you had felt indifferent about the gray tattoo on the back of your hand. However, you had grown to hate it like most people did as you had slowly learned what the color really meant for your future.

The Korean society you had born into was divided into two segments based on social class: there was the top ten percent of people who had enough money to feed cities for years if they ever pleased - although, they never did -, people with a golden mark on their skin; then, there were the rest who struggled to provide for their own family, people like you who had gray lines tattooed on their skin since they had been born. As a child, you hadn’t understood the concept of money and the importance of connections, but as you had grown older, you had slowly realized that certain individuals - regardless of how smart, pretty or talented they were - weren’t worthy of education, well-paying jobs, or any Golden’s time for that matter.

You had become a protester when the university you had applied to had rejected you for the fourth time while people with less talent had gotten the green light right in front of your eyes for no sane reason other than the tattoo on the back of their hand. You hated them for taking away what should have been rightfully yours. You hated that you had to serve spoiled brats for barely any money while they could spend hundreds of thousands of won a night at the bar you worked at. You hated everything and everyone.

Except for your skinny cat, Boram, and your only friend, Wang Yibo.

Admittedly, you had never really cared about those people who were suffering like you. But you were drawn to the cause, you craved positive change, so if one more protester could add to the strength of those groups that openly rebelled, you wanted to be there. You would have rather gotten yourself killed than lived a sad and miserable life in poverty like your parents had done before they died.

As a woman, you were expected to be pretty and obedient all the time, even when you were from a poor household, therefore you had to put on loose clothes, a hoodie, and a mask that hid two thirds of your face when you joined the mass who protested against the new tax law that favored the Goldens. Screaming from the top of your lungs with a banner in your hands, you encouraged your best friend to be a bit less stiff and a lot louder, teasing him for his bored, lowkey sour facial expression between your demands until…

Until someone shot a gun and the governor’s body fell on the ground, hence all hell broke loose right in front of your eyes.

You reached out for Yibo desperately, but the two of you barely reached the main street, three guards caught up to you and two of them dragged him away while the third one pushed you on the ground and hit you with the buttstock of his gun. Groaning from pain, all you could think about was your pacifist best friend who would have been at home if only you had sat this protest out like he had asked you to; your tears mixed with your blood and your saliva as you crawled in the direction he had disappeared to.

You survived that day because of a masked person who dragged you to an alley, then left you once they made sure your head injury wasn’t fatal. You stayed there, scared but restless until the neighborhood quieted down and you stopped panicking because of made up scenarios.

You used a part of your worn clothes as bandage, then wandered around the streets for hours to find someone, anyone who could have helped you get your best friend back. But everyone was either hiding or pretended to be clueless; they avoided your eyes like you were bad news. Maybe, you were.

What good knowing you did to Yibo after all? The answer, unsaid albeit obvious, left a bitter taste in your mouth.

Those who were willing to give you a chance and actually listened to your pleas all told you the same: your friend was lucky if he had already died. You should have prayed he was dead.

You weren’t ready to let go of the man’s arm who was the nth person that night who refused to entertain your delusions about saving your friend. Pale fingers holding onto the textile with tooth and nail, you clung to him until he pushed you by your shoulder and you fell on your ass. You hissed, but quickly got back on your feet and launched at him just to be pulled back by a firm grip on your wrist.

You looked down at the unfamiliar, gloved hand, then raised your head and stared at the man who deliberately made the SKZ member slip through your fingers.

‘Do you have any idea how hard it was to find one of those guys? Do you?’ You screamed at him, angry, before you pulled your arm out of his hand and turned towards him with your entire body.

You had no idea why this person let you swore at him for long minutes out of frustration. You were even more confused when he told you he would bring your friend back to you if you promised to not be in the way. There were dozens of questions in your head by the time you lost your staring contest on purpose and asked him to save Yibo.

A rational part of you knew you shouldn’t have followed a masked stranger to his hideout or what not on your own, but guilt was eating up your sanity second by second, so you didn’t care. You stayed in the underground building he took you to, and stayed up all night while you were waiting for him to come back. Time passed differently without natural light.

You made the stranger’s bed twice while you were alone with your thoughts. You broke down four or five times while you walked from one room to another, rearranging broken cups and plates just to do something. Then, when the front door finally opened with a loud thud, you let out a soundless shriek, horrified because of the amount of blood you saw not only on Yibo, but the stranger as well.

‘The first-aid kit’s in the bathroom. Quickly!’ The stranger, whose name you had never even asked, groaned out in a strained voice, pulling you out of your mind and urging you to finally be more useful.

By the time you got back from the bathroom, your best friend was lying on his back and the man who had saved him hovered over the wound on his side. You gulped back the acid bile in your throat, then sat on the edge of the bed to disinfect and dress his injuries.

Yibo stayed unconscious for two days that you either spent by his side or with your savior, trying to break down his walls and get to know him just a little better because of the glimpse you had caught at the tattoo on the back of his hand when you had tended to his wounds, too. Your mind was filled with questions: where was he from; what was his real reason for saving your friend; did he know that just like in his case, Yibo’s tattoo wasn’t gold nor was it gray; how did he find him so fast; how did he get him out of wherever they had locked him up?

In the end, you only got two answers, but you cherished them both.

His name was Xiao Zhan and he had come to Korea a year ago from China.

‘Where are we?’ You heard Yibo’s raspy voice on the second night. You were sipping on the lukewarm veggie soup you had made for dinner when you snapped your head in his direction and put the chipped bowl on the floor with the speed of lightning.

You crawled next to his bed and took his hand in yours, fighting back your tears of relief.

‘Somewhere safe,’ you whispered, fondling his soft skin with your thumb while you leaned close enough to bring his hand up to your cheek. You leaned into the touch, unable to take your eyes off his face when he made a poor attempt at sitting up. ‘Hey, easy! I promise, they can’t find us here,’ you said, this time, a little firmer.

Yibo narrowed his eyes with skepticism, but let you be when you reached for your bowl and fed him the rest of your dinner. You had prepared enough for three that night, too, but you didn’t want to leave his side just to grab another portion from the kitchen.

You weren’t too fond of the silence that embraced you two, but you liked the fact that he was eating, so you settled for it. You kept your eyes on his face the whole time and tried to soothe both of your nerves with your softest smiles. However, the small, unconscious twitches in the corner of his mouth were reminders of the wounds his ragged clothes were hiding. And you wanted… you needed to know what had happened to him that no one seemed to be willing to tell you. These lingering secrets made you antsy.

‘What did they do to you?’ You asked when the monotone sound of the metal spoon clinking to porcelain started to get too loud.

Yibo didn’t answer.

‘How did he…’ save you was what you couldn’t utter because of your friend’s fierce gaze that made you choke on your own saliva. You had to gulp even before his cold words bit into your flesh.

‘Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to,’ he hissed, a clear sign that he considered the discussion unworthy of his energy. He did this often, but usually when it was about small, insignificant matters. It was new: his determination to keep something so big from you when you two had grown close after you had figured out his family’s biggest secret by chance.

‘Who says I don’t?’ You retorted with a pout, resisting the urge to link your arms in front of your chest because the half-empty bowl was still in your hand.

‘Believe me, you don’t,’ Yibo asserted, although his gaze softened a little the moment his eyes met and he noticed the worry in your chocolate brown orbs. He sighed and urged you to lift another spoonful of soup in front of his mouth. ‘How do you know him?’ He asked after a bigger gulp, pointing towards the doorless frame with his head.

‘I don’t, not really,’ you admitted, trying not to see too much into the palpable tension that followed your statement. So what if you hadn’t known him? He had saved Yibo and treated you well despite those walls that clearly guarded his soul. You believed it when you said you were safe at his underground hideout.

You were chewing on your cheeks from the inside, poking the wet flesh repeatedly with your tongue while you were trying to come up with a good reason why you had put your life in a stranger’s hands when you should have gone home as soon as the guards had disappeared from the scene - a reason more rational and acceptable than how you didn’t want to picture your life without Yibo -, but the longer your thoughts wandered, the harder it got to not think about the moment you had seen him being dragged away.

‘I’m sorry,’ you mumbled while you put the empty bowl on the ground with your slightly shaking hands. ‘It was my fault. I should have listened to you when you…’

‘You should have, but you don’t have to feel sorry. You aren’t responsible for my decisions,’ your friend cut you off, reaching out to your chin to lift it up gently and make you look him in the eyes. He shot a lopsided smile at you, then wiped off that stray tear drop that ran down your cheek. 

Someone cleared his throat behind your back.

‘Change his boundages and pack your stuff, petal. We leave in an hour,’ Xiao Zhan stated, his words confusing you immediately. You knitted your brows as you pulled away from Yibo and looked at the man from above your shoulder.

‘You said we’ll go separate ways once he’s awake,’ you reminded him of your conversation from before he had left to save him.

You were so lost in your memories, trying to find that one moment that could have changed the man’s mind that you didn’t notice those glances the two of them exchanged soundlessly. Xiao Zhan did, however, gain your attention when he scoffed and shrugged.

‘Things have changed. You have one hour to get him ready,’ he claimed, turning his back on you two and leaving the room before you could have asked at least one from your million questions.

Admittedly, you didn’t know what he was talking about, but you assumed, since you couldn’t remember telling him anything that could have changed his mind, it had something to do with what neither of the boys told you about Yibo’s escape. You weren’t oblivious. Xiao Zhan had the same, red tattoo on the back of his hand that your best friend had. That could have easily been another potential reason behind his sudden change at heart.

You took a deep breath and prepared yourself for the unknown. They were both hard to crack, but you doubted Yibo would have put you in danger on purpose if their secrets could have cost your life. And you knew, the further you got from the capital, the better it was for your best friend, so you should have concentrated on that first.

Therefore, you cleaned the boy’s bandages, fixed his clothes and fed him with some of Xiao Zhan’s organic painkillers. You made sure Yibo’s backpack was lighter than yours and that he was ready by the time you needed to leave since despite his cold glances, he didn’t protest when the man said he would lead the way.

Of course, you were dying to know where you were heading. You were also curious whether Yibo knew your savior or he gave him the silent treatment because he was hurting. Yet, your questions needed to wait, because the moment you left the hideout in your hoodie and mask, your survival depended on your obedience. You couldn’t annoy them for those answers until you left the city. There were too many guards out there, looking for shady people they could punish for everything unfortunate that had ever happened to the Goldens.

the end.

[ephemeralgalaxies]

NONONO OK SO IT'S THIS SCREENCAP RIGHT HERE

THIS HERE HURTS SO MUCH

Because it's not even WWX actually saying this, but as Lan Zhan walks away all stoic and poised after being told (despite searching and worrying over WWX for THREE MONTHS) that WWX's disappearance and current well-being/cultivation type is none of his concern bc he's "an outsider" and that only the people of Yunmeng should deal with this, as Wei Ying watches him leave, knowing full well that he's just hurt him so much (ofc he probably still doesn't understand the full extent of his actions), Wen Chao is on the floor begging for his life. It's the fact that before this, WWX doesn't dare let himself even look at LWJ as he delivers that final:

THE WAY LAN WANGJI DOES LOOK AT HIM, TRYING TO GET HIS ATTENTION FOR A BEAT BEFORE REALIZING IT'S POINTLESS

LIKE HE BREAKS MY HEART WITH THIS. (wang yibo, you absolute blessing on earth, you are incredible for this).

But the fact that once LWJ has finally disappeared from view, finally left the screen, WWX allows himself to look back and oh god, what has he done. Wei Wuxian knows this is to protect LWJ, to keep him from "befriending evil", but also to protect himself from LWJ inevitably rejecting him and this new form of cultivation. From the idea that LWJ would think so little of him if he knew that WWX no longer had a golden core, that he couldn't do "righteous cultivation" rather than just a youth acting out. He can't bare to be left behind again... so why not at least have some control over it?

THAT LITTLE SIGH HE GIVES TOO (forgive me, I cannot make gifs for the life of me but it's like right between these two screenshots)

Like, I know that it's technically Wen Chao saying "forgive me," but the placement of his line is just,,, *chef's kiss* perfectly lining up with this focus on Wei Wuxian, I love the idea that it's reflecting his own inner thoughts as he lets LWJ walk away.

LIKE THIS HIT HIM SO HARD.

Watching his face slowly contort in this clip as he thinks back on what WWX said, seeing how he goes from this almost vulnerable "kicked puppy" look to this:

And then as he thinks over it and accepts that Wei Ying no longer considers him a close companion (if he ever did, if this wasn't all just a bit of fun to pass the time), he turns back into this openly hurt look where he realizes he's probably just lost Wei Ying without ever having him in the first place:

(THAT TINY OPENING OF HIS MOUTH AS HE TRIES TO COMPOSE HIMSELF)

I'm dead. I'm actually sobbing. This reunion scene will never cease to destroy me.

[peanutbutteresque]

salut, bonjour, guten dag, ciao!

get to know me and le château of my mind (っ˘ڡ˘)っ♨

⍣ i never get caffeinated even after drinking two cups of coffee in less than 10 minutes time gap (i feel like i can pull five cups of coffee in a day and still feel nothing, haven’t tried it yet but i’m pretty confident). it is probably because i have been having lattes, not that tiny yet deadly shots of espresso or proper drip coffee. i normally have one instant coffee and low-calorie sweetener dissolve in small amount of hot water, then put some ice cubes, and at last, pour the pricey-but-hard-to-resist oat milk on it cause we need to balance that less than a dollar grinded coffee with a five dollars milk. believe me, this simple recipe creates a decent typa coffee. it does taste so good and addicting but it doesn’t kick in, i need something stronger which means more acidity and bitterness that i don’t think my tummy is ready for a level up yet. i’m saying this all as if i’m in a person who needs a specific dose of caffeine per day to get their busy business life done lol wrong person *cough cough*. but no, i adore coffee and its caffeine on behalf of dopamine and antioxidant. i also do have a very special coffee buddy whom i cherish the most. we have paired our lattes with an interesting range of food, we went from cakes/cookies to instant noodles. we literally have everything with our lattes. i wish we can go out more and do cafes hopping to explore all the coffee recipes that exist. anyway, y’all better drink water more than coffee, we can’t deny the fact that it’s 100000 times healthier and more important than that colored drinks. 

⍣ i am an aries, yup, “the leader” of all the signs, the hard to get, the dominating, the chaser, the independent, mr/ms. confident, the headstrong type of personality, and the list goes on. frankly, i don’t always feel like i own those natures, it feels like i lean more toward the soft and emotional kind of aries. i can be as indecisive as a libra, sometimes confidence doesn’t seem to be my strong suit, i can’t always say what’s on my mind like most of the aries i know seem to be really good at, i tend to put myself on other’s shoes, i think too much than i act, there were numbers of argument i lost because i chose to breakdown and cry rather than defense myself, i can be as gossipy as gemini. just like many aries, i do have a perfection side but it often leads to me being angry and depressed about it. they said, aries is the type of person who is strong and reliable, i might seen as one with my appearance and how i am in my daily life. can’t deny the fact that people see me as a joker, i always make them laugh in any occasion with or without a purpose. i often wonder, am i doing it because they expect me to do so or is there even a possibility that i am a natural joker? hate to break it to you, i don’t think so, it is true that deep down, i am a wreck, i am lost, i am scared, i do not know what to do. the future i once had a clear vision of seems blurry right now. i need someone to wake up the real sleeping aries in me, she must know how to face a situation like this with such grace and poise. anyway, sorry for turning this into a journal but it will eventually just so you know ;)

⍣ let’s get into the real business, i will use this space to post reviews about movies and tv shows (mostly on netflix and disney+) have watched that leave strong impressions on me. it actually will be rewritten from the reviews i have done on my instagram. most of them posted in close friends, and please note that i have a really really small circle, that’s why i’m planning to re-post them on this platform so it will be more accessible. since i am a full-time fangirl, i will also be liking, re-blogging and might be posting everything about my favorite artists, be it holywood peeps, kpop or cpop idols (mostly wang yibo and xiao zhan)!! 

thank you for coming to my ted talk. please check out my blog regularly for the new updates! take care my loves and be happy! see you latte(r)! <3

[liu-yu-xin]

Im putting this out here as the worst timeline possible event. For ME: sm is trying to sell off some of their subsidiary companies and they sell label v to yuehua . I would quite honestly rather wayv be bought by bts and being broken up for parts and start making ed sheeran forever 21 h&m music than see them get absorbed into the same company as wang yibo