#so does lu guang

[tinierboo]

Absolutely adore getting to learn about actual culture and language through my silly hyperfixations <33

Link Click, internet slang, and Chinese culture

On the Chinese internet, there's a nickname for Link Click called Shiguang Daidaoren, meaning "the blade-bringers of time" instead of "the managers of time," the original title. Calling something "blade" is Chinese internet slang for something being angsty; whether it be derivative content or the originals themselves. Another meme is that Link Click isn't zhiyu (治愈，healing), which it is tagged as on Bilibili, but zhiyu (致郁，causing depression).

Link Click, especially its first season, is a deeply emotional and sentimental show. And it's a shame that so much of it gets not so much lost in literal, linguistic translation as much as it does in cultural, contextual translation. Many people can understand Emma's pain of being away from her parents in a new city, working a difficult job. But watching the scrolling comments on Bilibili, you get the cultural context of it -- the massive migration patterns within China from rural to urban, the children growing up and having to shed their local fangyan (方言) or, less formally, tuhua (土话)("speech of the locations" and "old-fashioned words," respectively) in exchange for Beijing Mandarin. This massive nation, nearly twice the population of Europe and only about 6% smaller in terms of area, is so diverse as to have created (what is close to) an immigrant experience for its citizens entirely within its borders. You visit your parents on Chunjie (春节）, lunar/Chinese new year, on packed trains during the largest singular human migration event on Earth, annually. And when you get home, you are faced with something different from the cities you now live in -- everything from the buildings to the furniture to the clothes they wear. I hadn't realized how deeply I missed the gaudy, garish mianao (棉袄，coats) and mianbei (棉被，cotton blankets) until I saw familiar shades of too-bright burgundy in the hands of Emma's parents. The concept of this original-home, laojia (老家, old-home) is so strongly baked into our lives that every time I meet another Chinese person, I cannot but help but ask them 你老家哪儿啊? Where is your original-home? And even though I know nothing about Chinese geography, every time I hear the answer, a little piece slots into place nonetheless.

In slang, if something made you cry or otherwise feel an emotion you weren't expecting to feel, you refer to it as pofang (破防，breaking defences). And maybe it says something that an expression of human emotion is viewed as a failure in some defences, but that's introspection for another time. Watching on Bilibili, with its hundreds of comments scrolling by "My defences have been breached" and sobbing onomatopoeia, people in the comments saying that they miss their mothers and fathers -- I, too, miss my family. When Cheng Xiaoshi, in Chen Xiao's body, tried to speak his host body's local variation and came up with butchered dongbeihua (东北话, words of the east-north), I nearly fell out of my chair. It was the sound of home, of my grandmother telling us to hush around noon because our neighbours were napping and my grandfather showing me how to play spider solitaire.

Cheng Xiaoshi's breakdown in episode 5 hits hard for its vulnerability. "I'm scared of the dark" has the same literal meaning as "我怕黑," sure, but there is something devastatingly childlike in that three-syllable declaration of fear. Where English so often derives meaning from complexity, from winding metaphors and beautiful prose, Chinese can derive breathtaking meaning from less breath than it takes to say the word analogy. 我怕黑 is stripped of any grown-up pretenses of control or dignity. It is the barest this statement can be: I. Scared. Darkness.

And what he says following, too. 我害怕一个人. Longer yet no less potent. Alone, or lonely, has many translations in Chinese. 孤独. 寂寞. 孤单. 单独. Many more synonyms for all the different ways you can be lonely. But 一个人 is, once again, an almost child-like way of saying it. Before you have the vocabulary to express these complex emotions, 一个人 is a perfectly working expression. Translating it character-by-character, it means one singular person. It is something you say when you've been left behind. When you've been made to face everything by yourself. When the world is so, so, big, and you are just one singular person, with no companions to stand with you.

And, ah, Li Tianxi's Chinese nickname, 小希. It is the last character of her full name, with a "little" shoved right in front. It is an affectionate way to call someone younger than you. It is different from Xixi, its English rendition, because a repetition of the last character is a more generalized, affectionate nickname, whereas diminutives are almost always reserved for someone younger than you, when used in real life. The diminutive says don't be scared. I'm here now. I'll handle it.

There are endless details in Link Click that make everything about it seem a little bit more like home. The word 面馆 which means something a little, subtly different than "restaurant" or "noodles shop," a difference lost without the context of the phrase 下馆子 and the way adults say it with the gladness of once-children who only ate meat on new years. The "honorifics" as English calls them, to me more of just -- ingrained parts of someone's name. Within the snap of Mandarin syllables there is meaning and memory in every character. Jie, mei, di, ge, lao, da, xiao -- they are more than their literal meanings. They are a relationship, a promise.

Perhaps I am overthinking this, awkwardly Chinese as I am: too localized to be considered first-generation, too stubbornly attached to relate to second-generation. Maybe these linguistic subtleties only exist and matter in my mind, a writer of both languages (though I must say, my Chinese prose leaves… much to be desired) with a knack for pedantics. Regardless, I hope other Chinese fans of this show share this feeling. And surely, other people will, too. All the rural children who left home to pursue higher education and opportunities in faraway cities; the raised-in-poverty who spent their childhoods dreaming of buying their family new coats; the speakers of languages long since abandoned by their childhood friends. What a delight it is to see yourself in stories, neither exception nor abnormality but a norm. What a joy it is to be one of one point four billion.

[doublxpresso]

Face-off

Part 2 - Qiao Ling & Cheng Xiaoshi

page 9 - 10

page 7 - 8 < . > page 11 - 12

main post

[wrathyforest]

where the Future meets the Past

[sillyof1987]

something ive been seeing lately with the link click fanbase people treating lu guang like hes an awful deceiving person & awful for going back in time over & over again to save cheng xiaoshi.. but did we forget season 2? 😭 cheng xiaoshi would do the same given the same circumstances.. stop making it one sided!!!!!

[bithcisweartogod]

despite the fact that we sorta know lu guang’s main motivation now there’s still SO MUCH about him that’s ??? does he not have parents? why does he leave the original timeline so easily, as if cheng xiaoshi and others were the only things holding him there? like - your EXISTENCE gets completelly ERASED from the original timeline, yet he still chooses to do so over and over. where did he get his diving abilities from? he was a newcomer in the uni where cheng xiaoshi was studying - where did he come from? he had a nice apartment (or so it seems) - why did he SO EASILY decide to move in with cheng xiaoshi (gayass) ? why does he write his notes IN LATIN of all languages? and yeah, how old that guy even is,, i really really hope at least some of these questions get answered in yingdu arc, because it’s been three whole seasons and lu guang still is a sort of walking question mark

[90108s]

_glitch (x) (id under the cut)

[START I.D.: A digital drawing of Lu Guang from Link Click. He is shown in the side view and has his hand where he has his watch in his pocket. His left eye is blue and he is wearing a blank expression on his face. There are glitches all over him making him appear slightly distorted. The bottom of his white shirt and his other hand are covered in red. There is an image of a clock that reads 12:05 that is superimposed on him. Above him writes, “PAST OR FUTURE, LET THEM BE,” with the second half filled with typographical errors and scribbled over with a red line. The background is black. END I.D.]

[veifei]

my silly theory upon seeing the ep4 pv is that lu guang is going to faint like a damsel in distress at the sheer overwhelm of all the changes to the timeline and vein showing up is the nail is the coffin 💀

[shizukais]

It seems everything is changing. If death cannot be avoided, then it might be better to face it now.

[dragonselkie]

NEW YINGDU ARC TEASER OMG OMG

[falling-star-cygnus]

this is just simply NOT the same man, excuse me

[namelessprayers]

there was a significant lull in the timeline, a shard of painstakingly frail peace amongst the sway of countless things that threatened to tear them apart. within this period, some distant and far off way into both future and past of timeline after timeline, lu guang woke up and found himself in a most dire circumstance; for once in his many lives, he wasn't going to live long enough to see cheng xiaoshi die first.

this much was evident as he looked himself in the mirror and realized he was steadily decaying, dying, all signs of life draining from his eyes like the hammer of judgement relayed upon him by the weight of his sins and hypocrisy.

a part of lu guang spoke reason. he wasn't allowed to give up now. what was another selfish deed of defying death, yet again, to someone who'd already done it a hundred times over?

another part of lu guang was relieved, whilst also tinged with guilt for that very emotion. this was a sort of freedom, wasn't it?

maybe this was the ultimate solution to all of it as well. if cheng xiaoshi had no arms to die in, perhaps he would never die at all. though it was a flawed and foolish notion, to lu guang, it almost seemed logical; the perfect trade between him and the universe in its forever unflinching tirade of time.

then, somewhere hidden in places even cheng xiaoshi could no longer get to, lu guang was secretly afraid. what would it mean to die in pursuit of a life with cheng xiaoshi? would it be failing? would it be worse than if the cycle just continued indefinitely? would it be so bad to keep hoping, however hopelessly, instead of ending all hope by simply dying? he didn't want to leave cheng xiaoshi behind, despite the fact that lu guang broke promises and lied like it was only natural, he still wanted to keep staying as he'd once sworn to.

and after everything, after death itself, lu guang had stayed. so shouldn't he stay again? shouldn't he stay true to what he said in every timeline from the very beginning? it was only fair to cheng xiaoshi when most of lu guang's existence in this timeline was not.

there was a muffled crash from the kitchen. it was probably cheng xiaoshi on account of lu guang not putting the cups in the right place, never mind that he thought he did because he was thinking of previous timelines. it really wasn't lu guang's place to concern himself with what happened to the attempts prior, but he couldn't help carrying over old sentiments and erased memories.

it was only right, lu guang decided as he stared down his own dying reflection, that he was made of many pieces mistakenly borrowed which were finally flaking off and killing him as it should've done from the very start.

perhaps, he really didn't mind dying, but knowing cheng xiaoshi, it was equal to abandonment, absolute and permanent. now that little inconvenience, lu guang did mind quite a bit.

with exasperation towards his own indecisive plans, lu guang resolved apologetically to the universe and timeline that this would not be the end. it was still too early, for him and cheng xiaoshi both, to quit; and when had lu guang ever made compromises for cheng xiaoshi's sake? for them, it was always everything he could give. a dying man wouldn't stop lu guang, and just because he was the dying man in this case, why would he stop now?

======

"i'm dying." lu guang said, about a week after he realized but a month since the decay really started, because he could be honest when he wanted to be. plus, this was important and cheng xiaoshi deserved to know this much. "it's like... cancer." however, lu guang never told whole truths anymore, as it just wasn't a possibility in his situation.

for his omission of countless things, he'd one day say sorry to cheng xiaoshi, but for the moment, lu guang was too occupied in trying to save them to properly consider voicing the amendments for a clear conscience. besides, morals were just finnicky rules to bend.

"dying?" responded cheng xiaoshi, half late in incredulity and uncertainty, concern seeping through like plaster for lu guang's non existent wounds. "are you sure?" cheng xiaoshi asked politely, before standing face to face with lu guang so that he could immaturely tap on his shoulders and check that his senses were still intact. lu guang withheld a snort, cancelling it out with a wry comment.

"are you saying i don't know what dying feels like?" he scolded, in a tone that suggested the thought to be ironically backhanded, which it was for the most part while knowing the history of the recipient. cheng xiaoshi's petulant frown prompted fairer clarification. "i feel that the line between living and dying shouldn't be that hard to distinguish."

as lu guang stated his objectively correct view on the subject, cheng xiaoshi's hands roamed from top to bottom as though the impromptu full body inspection was of the utmost importance and diligence. he stopped and backed away after poking the bridge of lu guang's nose for an unnecessary amount of time.

"i don't believe you." cheng xiaoshi declared with crossed arms and a lethal eye filled with determination. however, the inflection was severely off from his usual smugness, like he was only waiting for lu guang to refute him. they both picked up on this, so cheng xiaoshi added more for extra emphasis. "you look pretty alive to me."

"sure. it doesn't change the truth of me dying." blandly returned lu guang, undeterred by cheng xiaoshi's unwillingness to believe him. denial was a significant stage of grief; lu guang would know it better than anyone else, thought perhaps not as well as he knew bargaining.

"then?" asked cheng xiaoshi, looking at lu guang like the answer would appear right there in the air between them. lu guang wished he could tell him anything was that straightforward, but time just loved throwing them for a loop. "if it's like cancer, there'll be a cure, right?"

at that, lu guang knitted his brows together with worry.

"since when was there a cure for cancer?" lu guang questioned, with a serious kind of edge to it, because wouldn't it be crazy if he dived back so many times that fundamental planetary facts had been completely altered? no, it really wouldn't. it would only be something to both marvel and fuss over on top of everything else that lu guang was already getting headaches over.

"there isn't..." a confused expression parsed across cheng xiaoshi's face, his stare turning suspicious for a fleeting second before he righted himself and trailed back into surety, "there's no cure yet, but people will find one just like we'll find a cure for you."

clocks were so much louder ever since lu guang first dived back and stuck around instead of returning to his former timeline. they were all hollow without cheng xiaoshi, and cheng xiaoshi always managed to be the loudest presence even when he was silent, even more than the tick of a clock as lu guang was decaying with each passing second.

lu guang had already resolved to staying alive, but it was tiring to be constantly dying and living at the same time. he just wanted a day to spend with cheng xiaoshi, preferably on repeat, where he didn't have to worry about either of them standing up and dying all of a sudden.

"i'm tired, i'm dying." lu guang felt the shift of atmosphere immediately, because for once, he'd pretty much said the whole and absolute truth in its entirety. surely the universe could reward him a break for this one bit of progress? "can we pause for one day before we sort this out?"

"you're..." cheng xiaoshi gave lu guang a critical glance and clicked his tongue like when he got stuck on a stupid mobile puzzle game. "well, you think you're dying, and you want to wait to figure out how to stop dying?" he laughed soundlessly, barely mimicking the sincerity of his usual self. "lu guang, i can't tell if you're really bad at being funny or you're actually dying and it's messing with you're ability to think."

with a latent sense of exhaustion, lu guang lamented their idiocy and ignorance. neither of them had written a will, and although there was no point to it, lu guang wondered if everything could've been avoided if they just did a joint will with a clause that said 'don't you dare go back in time and get stuck trying to keep me alive'.

then he looked at cheng xiaoshi and knew, inexplicably knew without a doubt, that it was only lu guang who would be foolish enough to pull such a stunt. he closed his eyes and sighed.

"cheng xiaoshi," lu guang said, because it felt like the only words he was ever good at saying, "let's go on a date."

======

they were going somewhere. to a place. that wasn't what really mattered, it never was, in the end.

(cheng xiaoshi died anywhere as long as lu guang was there to see it)

"i don't get it. did you actually say you were dying as a way to confess... because that's a terrible confession... also how does that even work..."

lu guang took a deep breath.

everything might be bad but at least cheng xiaoshi would never run out of his penchant for indirectly confronting the truth.

"yes. i assumed that if you pitied me enough you would indulge me." it didn't help that all of lu guang's lies were starting to pile up into what looked like precariously stacked shards of glass.

"that's..." cheng xiaoshi narrowed his eyes and glared at the pavement, "weird."

then cheng xiaoshi did his own sort of weird thing despite all of lu guang's recent weirdness. he stopped and laced their fingers together, smiling something so soft that lu guang could feel his heart get a dozen steps closer to stopping in just a fraction of the moment.

cheng xiaoshi tugged him along about three times slower than before. it was nice, and it was always the truth when it came to this.

(cheng xiaoshi was the only truth in lu guang's self destructed reality)

"i would've indulged you anyway."

======

it was a very subtle and beautiful and still moment. early in the bright morning when the light caught in lu guang's eyes and the oxygen could no longer be felt trickling in or out of his lungs. he wasn't dead but he was dying, imminently, and here he was laying in bed with cheng xiaoshi instead of doing anything to actively prevent it.

what was lu guang supposed to do? he had never been honest with anything, even when he loved something. it was funny maybe. it was expected, perhaps.

lu guang didn't know, but the sun was warm where it bathed cheng xiaoshi's hair in a golden colour, and where cheng xiaoshi lay on lu guang managed to be warmer still. lu guang was not at all an ounce of the truth, but he combed through cheng xiaoshi's hair regardless with the care that a romantic might have; a romantic that wasn't dying and was honestly, transparently, achingly in love. only one of those things might've applied to lu guang.

he could tell this was it, sooner rather than later, because these were the thoughts that only a dead man could have. hysterical, incoherent, nonsensical; lu guang just wanted to stay where he could not in timelines that he was never supposed to fit.

incredulously, lu guang picked up the calm humming from cheng xiaoshi, some familiar lullaby from another timeline or the same one or an abandoned and decaying one. they were all the same, as of now, converged under the weight of lu guang's sins and soon to occur death. lu guang reasoned as only an insane person would, that he'd stolen each of his lives from himself, and that this was only the correct cost to pay.

if lu guang was to bear the best of it, here, right now, with cheng xiaoshi in his arms, then he would have to bear the burden of it too. he was scared though. he really didn't want to die.

but that wasn't the truth either;

the truth was that lu guang could picture cheng xiaoshi alone, and that was wrong, and it would all be lu guang's fault. meanwhile, the other option was to keep doing this forever, fighting to keep them both alive, with cheng xiaoshi still dying wherever lu guang tried to take them next. what running could be done from such invisible forces? what other strings could lu guang pull? there was nothing, and it was still his own fault because he got them here-

"lu guang." cheng xiaoshi stared at him wearing an indecipherable look. "you're crying." after stating it, cheng xiaoshi simply used the back of his knuckles to graze beneath lu guang's eyes. "lu guang."

"cheng xiaoshi." lu guang whispered, and he kept crying, because it really felt like he was dying.

(there were no better last words lu guang could give if it was the end)

[spilledstars1234]

studio lan WHAT IS THIS

they just casually drop this on twitter with no context except for "summer begins"

LIKE... WHAT??? WHY ARE THEY IN A FOREST?? IS THIS THEM AS KIDS??? DID CXS AND LG SOMEHOW MEET AS KIDS AND DIDNT REALIZE??? IS THIS SOME POTENTIAL BACKSTORY STUFF FOR LATER???

OR-

OR IS LU GUANG DEAD HERE INSTEAD OF BEING PEACEFULLY ASLEEP??? SO IS THIS NOT JUST A CUTE LITTLE ART THEN??? LIKE IS THIS ACTUALLY LU GUANG'S CORPSE OR AM I JUST INTERPRETING THIS WRONG-

but considering that this is Link Click and also considering the fact that this show does NOT know happiness, what IF???? AUGHH GJSHK OML LET THEM BE HAPPY STUDIO LAN PLS-

*stressful overthinking begins*

[hiwari-47]

Just rewatched YE1, gonna rewatch ss1 and ss2 later on to double check though

I might be delusional but

Do Lu Guang’s pupils just get slitter the more he uses his ability? ‘Cause it’s pretty round when he received Cheng Xiaoshi’s ability, before he uses his ability but in the OP and ED (and when he uses his ability) they’re thin long slits

Ability transfer

After dive

Before and after ability use

(Gonna have to update this in the next reblog ‘cause i didn’t realize there’s a 10 images limit for mobile, lol)

[raddestrose]

YO

I just realized now i’ve finished all that’s out Link Clickwise

I CAN NOW FIND HEARTBREAKING SPOTIFY PLAYLISTS

yaaayyy

[weirdocat83]

I was just reading a link click fanfic where CXS was breaking down bc trauma of seeing your best friend almost die and I couldn’t help but imagine Lu guang in the same position because to him, CXS ACTUALLY DIED. So I thought it’d be a great prompt for a 5+1 fanfic or something. Like, 5 times Lu Guang broke down bc CXS died (not that CXS knows that) and 1 time CXS broke down bc LG almost died. Idk I think it’d be fun especially if Lu guang ends up taking a page out of CXS’s book when calming CXS down

[timetravellingtelepath]

Xia Fei is so childish, expressive and OTT that he reminds me of Cheng Xiaoshi. In other circumstances those two would get on stupidly well (and I totally get it CXS, guy in the fancy trench coat is (ironically £37 I.e. extremely poor) rich).

I'm loving this guy and feel terrible for him (I swear they said he was a freshman... Meaning he could be as young as 18/19 🫥. The baby spy is being swindled by time travelling and supernatural psychopaths 😭).