#this had been a psa

[a-very-sparkly-nerd]

What some of y'all aren't understanding is that even if rayllum was never canon, things would still play out relatively the same. Rayla would still leave because her boys are all she has left and she needs to protect them. Callum would still do unspeakable things for her because first and foremost, more than they are romantic partners, they are each others' best friend and they love each other even if it isn't romantically.

[thefoldedbird]

The “all ADHD meds are basically meth” people can go take a long walk off a short cliff.

ALSO

All you fuckers in the “all ADHD meds are bad and don’t work except for the ones I take” crowd are also a bunch of monkey-wankers.

Different medication will work for different people. Some people spend YEARS trying to find what works for them. The goal is to share experiences NOT shame them.

Having to deal with the complexities of taking medication is bad enough. Nobody needs a bunch of chuckle-fucked clowns trying to shove a half-corked opinion down their throat to boot.

[foxflowershrine]

hey, small psa:

fictives are just people. you wouldn't walk up to a person you saw on the news once while they're having dinner and say "holy shit guys it's Jimothy Cumwomble, great job on stopping that armed robbery, sorry your brother died in the process". that would be completely socially unacceptable - you'd be butting in on their life, overstepping not just their boundaries but basic social decency, and bringing up potentially traumatic life events. it's rude, infantilizing, and potentially directly harmful. so why would you do the same to a fictive just because you know, or think you know, their source?

and that's not to say "never bring up a fictive's source to them", plenty of fictives enjoy talking about their sources! but there's a little thing called tact. you can ask whether they're okay with talking about it, or join in on a conversation where they already are, even just a "hey if you don't mind could we chat about your source" would go a long way. but suddenly changing the topic to their source not just without warning but by singling them out as "weird" or "interesting" and saying things about their source that would never be appropriate to say to a singlet about their past is not cool.

TLDR, a fictive existing in a public space is not an excuse to single them out, put a spotlight on them, and bring up potentially traumatic parts of their history just because you think their source is neat. have a little common sense about timing and approach, or just let them exist in peace.

[wyllaztopia]

2025 is coming so i let my friend @kayseeye [new agdt mod and assistant!!] clear agdt's askbox

as devastating as it was to see a bunch of creative remarks and asks go down the drain - let's be real, i won't have time to answer them with how linear the story is becoming for ease of access [goodbye 500 asks... though kacey took screenshots of drawings you guys sent in our inbox!!!]

hooowever, there's also another key reason we had to clear the inbox

[^ satire btw]

very long and convoluted psa/ramble about this matter ahead! but also slightly important and i encourage you to read it if you think about using agdt's inbox as a way to vent or share things about your irl troubles

some people treat the blog's inbox as a venting area

it doesn't really make me uncomfortable, it's just something i prefer not seeing. i don't like sharing or being shared personal information especially from an anon or a stranger

this doesn't go for just agdt - it goes for all blogs you interact with: please don't make yourself vulnerable to a stranger on the internet. you are putting yourself in a dangerous spot.

if you need escapism or help, turn to a professional or someone close - going to a stranger can go horribly wrong in two ways: you make them uncomfortable and subject them to a responsibility they never signed up for, or you let someone use your vulnerabilities and personal information against you.

i can probably count like 100 or so asks of people sharing something overly personal and asking for comfort. i don't hate it, i'm not mad, i'm just worried and i hope the people who send them become aware that they should not send those asks knowing that if they're answered, they could be answered publicly with everyone and their mama being able to see that vulnerable moment in that ask.

"just ignore them, wyll! besides, you didn't have any rules abt yo blog anyway, yo!"

nah, i'd win

can't exactly ignore them when it's been almost a year of young impressionable users over sharing to a stranger who answers asks publicly [along with the fact that i hardly see people talk about this matter when it comes to rp/ask blogs.] also so they don't do this to another askblog that has another impressionable youngin running it and publicizes asks that contain personal life info.

we don't add rules to asks on agdt because we can pick and choose which ones we answer. a set of rules isn't going to stop an asshole from breaking them so i'm not wasting my time trying to enforce one. and that's not what i'm trying to do in this post either. i'm putting this out there because i don't want people making the irrational decision of making their life and weakest moments accessible to people who want to use it against them.

i'm not trying to make a big deal out of this either. i can just skip or delete asks that i know i shouldn't answer or won't be able to. but that's my side of responsibility as someone with a platform. i want to make it clear that the audience that decides to interact with these kinds of blogs should be aware that just because you're behind a screen and concealed by an internet persona, that doesn't mean you're any safer from other people using your vulnerabilities against you.

[berry4heart]

"fiddleford can't be queer! he's from tennessee and it's the 70s!" the 70s, huh. the 70s that were the golden days of the gay cowboy magazine? those 70s?

[melmedarda]

Went into the Meljay tag for the first time today to see the most RANCID ass take calling Mel an abuser. Of course it was a Jayvik shipper, who no doubt refuses to see the truth that Viktor emotionally manipulated Jayce more than Mel ever did and used him. You all do NOT want to have this conversation with me, and I sure do not have the time to have it with you. With that being said, I am so serious when I say this. KEEP MEL'S NAME OUT OF YOUR MOUTH.

[mcflymemes]

don't apologize for reblogging memes when you've got memes sitting in your inbox. sometimes you just need a refresh! sometimes the ones you've got in your inbox aren't sparking any joy or any ideas! it's okay to reblog a new one! there's no time limit on memes. there are no requirements. this isn't a job where you have to answer five memes before you reblog a new list - reblog what you like, have fun, and make sure to send your mutuals some memes, too!!

[therealslimshakespeare]

Hello my darlings,

Ok so, workday and all this isn’t going to be as well thought out as I would like it to be. Go ahead and come for my phasing if need be but just try to read me as you always do, with the kindest intent.🥰

As creator of the content on this blog, the intellectual owner of all stories and characters therein 🤓 I have both the right and responsibility to moderate this blog as well. For that reason I’m making this post instead of answering every ask currently in my inbox. It’s not meant as a slight to your personal message and opinion if it goes unanswered, rather a way of being able to give all such a more heartfelt response.

Right here and now.

That ask…understandably raised a load of concern, caused bafflement and even, I surmise, hurt. When reading it I personally was more than a little unsure about reposting it at all due to some of it that was just plain…alarming? But I chose to. And I appreciate that all of yall have been kind enough to give me the benefit of the doubt for doing so…I did post it in hopes that I could shift this incessant comparison over and out for good. For some of the newcomers, perhaps this is a new phenomenon. But back in spring it was almost constant and it’s the opposite of what I’d like in regard to my OC’s. I had hopes it was done for. So I replied to this one, which was a bit of a throwback in general. I didn’t agree, but I replied in hopes of trying to refocus this whole viewpoint on the girls.

Didn’t really achieve that, tho. Or if I did, it certainly had the cost of making this space more than a little upset- understandably so. Which, while I love my OC’s- I love their readers even more, so I want to be loving and as good a guardian of this space’s wellbeing as I can.

And so, as moderator, I’m gonna go ahead and take that one down, it’s not adding much and it’s in fact hurting a good bit and maybe doing so will prevent others from feeling the same. Because, of course, I would never want to spread hurt, ever. I obviously, previously and repeatedly have disagreed with the sentiments expressed in that ask so in respect of how many indigenous fans my girl Lu has, we’re gonna exercise our moderating powers and take that one down.

Now, I know that doesn’t mean the discussion or sentiment is gone- just poof, all fixed! however, it’s the best I can do since I trust and hope that yall do understand my own position on this and that in reposting any ask I am by that action inherently publishing other’s opinions not necessarily reflective of my own.

Just wishing to steer all these discussions into kinder but also wise and aware channels.

Xoxo, I love you all. And remember- it takes guts to be gentle and kind 💋

[soulprompts]

hello it is i, your local tumblrarian, here to drink tea from her pumpkin mug and tell u the following important announcement: being on tumblr every single day is possibly not a great idea. let's use a metaphor here. it's like squeezing a lemon every day, but it's only got so much juice, you'll only end up getting frustrated and upset that the juice is no longer flowing. and then it's building up this habit of squeezing lemons every day, but then one day you're not around and you're worried, because what if the lemon had juice today? what if we missed the juicing opportunity?

but now let's sprinkle in the following notion: every once in a while, we step outside of the lemon juicer, and we go to the market to buy more lemons. the next day, we wake up, we go back to the juicer, and what do you know! the juice is flowing again!

gonna step back from the metaphor here to just explain a few things. we have all been in the situation of staring wretchedly at the computer screen, begging for a drop of inspiration. most of us are online each and every day. and that's okay! i'm the same! but maybe we need to refresh the cycle here, because i took a day to myself today, i consciously refused to go online until 6PM, and even that 24 hour break was enough to get some very exciting ideas going! and tomorrow i'll be writing more than i have in weeks!

we put too much pressure on ourselves to be here 24/7, and it's time that we just knocked that out and started treating writing as what it always was: a hobby. so go take a break. go out for a walk, go get lunch in a nice cafe, step away from the computer and just let yourself do something that isn't absorbed in writing or in your education/career.

[stoppingo1k]

operation veggie villain. herbert's summit lair was the very first room i made for cpj. everything except for the trees, rock, and some corn assets were drawn from scratch. i took special care to ensure this room was as accurate to the lair from the mission as possible, down to the exact placement and number of every corn cob and kernel. the ski villages are room edits i made, with the projector asset being stolen from the psa missions.

the psa hq rebuild phase 2 is an edit that required a good bit of drawing for the fixed screen structures and such. the deadline for this room was a single day because the team realized only last second they needed it iirc, so i really should've rushed the job, but i put so many little details in it because i kept being like, wait this would be so fun! i left the cracks in the wall where the desk initially broke through, patched up the broken wires with electrical tape, there's the closet half open to tease the epf of course, and i realize this was blocked by the ui in the end, but the crate in the corner holds various electronics, including parts of the popcorn bomb. lore-wise, in my head they were going to salvage the good parts of the machines. and of course we can't forget the little trashcan in the corner :] it holds the stuffing from the gift shop salon chair. i loved the idea that despite all of the popcorn and mess still around, they bothered to use the tiny trashcan

[mrpenguinpants]

Hypothetical question but are we still into windbreaker (nii satoru)? Y'all cool if I put my hyper fixation on center stage?

[pineapplefulfillseveryneed]

Sparks tour 2023

[blitzbuckz]

PERTAINING TO ANON DRAMA

I've been quiet about it for MONTHS, I tried to let it die out, I tried to be sincere about it. YES I HAVE BEEN GETTING ANON HATE FOR MONTHS, practically daily, and I'm aware of the person behind all those masks. you can lie but I can see through the disguises. ONTO THE POINT I can see that by trying to ignore everything it's only causing my mutuals discomfort so I'll FINALLY say my peace out in the open. YES I was traumatized over a mutual I'm no longer mutuals with. here's the thing though, PEOPLE FUCK UP people make mistakes ( we are all human ) and NO i'm not defending them, all I'm saying that it's ridiculous dragging out the past and wanting to inflict the same amount of pain I've dealt with.

I GET IT what they did was beyond harsh and that it keeps happening but YOU holding it against them isn't making things better either. It's like fighting FIRE with fire, its only going to create more fire. PUT A STOP TO IT let it go. No i'm not going to name the two individuals i'm thinking of because WE NEED TO LET THE PAST GO. either my past mutual is going to change for the better or they'll continue at it, IT'S NOT YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO WARN OTHERS. if people continue to get hurt by them - then as an adult community check on your friends! lend them your shoulders, help them move on, give them a listening ear bc - truthfully, that's what we desire the most. it happened to me and i'm moving on just fine. it took awhile, it wasn't easy, but my mutuals kept me sane and i've been recovering at a faster rate than I ever envisioned. BUT THIS CALLOUT OF BLOGS, ATTACKING, IS HIGHLY UNNECESSARY. if anything it's childish.

If someone is hurting you CONFINE ON OTHER PEOPLE it's okay and you're never a bother. there's no shortage of friends here. But for god's sake- LET VENDETTAS GO. and, foremost, stop going after my mutuals. I have finally said my part so please lets be civil and look after one another WITHOUT calling out blogs. it's not benefiting anyone.

that said, I will no longer talk about this subject as I wish for everyone to move on. we're here to roleplay fuckn horny demons not this melodramatic spaz!

[asphodeldreams]

i've seen so many people who are only just now reading the rvb fan guide for the first time and MAN i can only imagine what a feeling it must be. iread it so long ago... i have already memorized those ancient texts... can you IMAGINE getting to read "washed hands" for the first time again???? holy SHIT

[darckcarnival]

.

[finalfantasyx]

Yue Yao (because I need to scream about her awesomeness and the dangers of retconning), Yue Qing, and How NOT to Write Women - A Rant(TM) about Dashing Youth & The Blood of Youth

Spoilers ahead for Dashing Youth and The Blood of Youth if you have not seen either live action drama, since we haven't gotten there in the donghua yet. You have been duly warned. Now come scream with me. I've been wanting to scream about this for a while.

Okay, what the hell??? Prefacing this again with the fact that I watched Dashing Youth before TBOY and I'm just...floored? Yue Yao was so interesting. She was up against some major political issues where the repercussions of her choices and the choices made by the people around her would impact and probably, most likely, cause the deaths of thousands. She was dealing with a missing father who, for all they knew, could have been dead, a clingy sister-turned-annoying-character-trope, the fate of her people, and also the fate of all of Beili and Beique (I mean, seriously, you want to talk about Yi Wenjun being at fault for instigating the three-way war between Nanjue, Tianwaitian, and Beili, AND SHE WASN'T ACTUALLY AT FAULT ASIDE FROM NOT COMMUNICATING WITH HER HUSBAND BEFORE MAKING A HUGE DECISION THAT WOULD IMPACT THEM ALL and leaving her infant son in the house BY HIMSELF, PLEASE Yue Yao would have been directly responsible for all the deaths resulting from any move she made), all the while trying to find a way to do what was best for everyone AND getting to know the prodigy and dumbass with a heart that was Baili Dongjun, whose grandfather Baili Luochen helped Beili in the war with Beique that resulted in her people being killed and displaced to the unforgiving north.

/breathe

And oh, does she ever find a way. Baby girl decides to just DIY this whole shebang when she finds the natural-born martial arts prodigies with the special meridians or whatever the hell the drama said it was that set Baili Dongjun and Ye Dingzhi apart from alllll the other martial arts practitioners and just takes her sworn sister's identity, gets a makeover, and BAM joins the Jixia Academy...audition.

Not only that, but we see that she is more than her pretty clothes and her miss-fairy-in-a-carriage persona that we've seen up until this point in the drama. SHE CAN FIGHT! SHE CAN BEAT SOMEONE'S ASS! SHE CAN CHEAT AND GAMBLE! SHE STRAIGHT UP APPROACHES BAILI DONGJUN AND CHALLENGES HIM. SHE. APPROACHES. HIM. FIRST. Also it's really freakin' cute.

SHE STANDS UP FOR HERSELF AND HER TEAMMATES AND PROTECTS THEM. SHE SAVES BAILI DONGJUN'S TAIL. SHE'S GOT HER OWN WAY OF THINKING AND SHE'S FUNNY AS HELL. SHE SLAPS HIM CLEAN ACROSS THE FACE FOR GOING TO A BROTHEL.

We see her enter Jixia Academy, we see her train under Liu Yue (which I am still salty about because we could have used a lot more scenes of her and Liu Yue training and just being master/apprentice, see her having a hard time with really just using Liu Yue to stay near Baili Dongjun for her own/Beique's ends, especially with Liu Yue declaring that he doesn't care about her true identity, just that she is now his apprentice and that means that he's always on her side please Liu Yue was the best and he got fking nuked at the end, even if he got to retire from jianghu with Mo Xiaohei lol), WE SEE HER STRUGGLE. This entire time, Yue Yao is absolutely torn between a) doing what is best for her people, b) doing what is best for everyone and not causing the deaths of thousands, and c) not falling for the guy whose grandfather is a war hero because he killed her people.

Also the fact that this dumbass she is falling in love with has been pining after her miss-fairy-in-a-carriage persona for so long he has no clue she's right in front of him. Good job, Dongjun /pat pat

Let's play this out.

If Yue Yao a) does what is best for her people, which everyone thinks is reclaiming Beili, a warmer and far more fertile land, and creating better lives for themselves, that would incite another war and cause many, many deaths. Also, there's a very, very high possibility that Beique might lose anyway!

If Yue Yao b) does what is best for everyone and not cause another war and the deaths of thousands, she is condemning her own people to a harsh life in the cold, icy, desolate north.

If Yue Yao c) falls for the guy whose grandfather is a war hero because he killed her people, she will be seen as a traitor and will be turned on because they'll think she turned on them first, especially since she is basically their princess.

What's a girl to do.

SHE FREAKIN' OWNS UP TO IT AND COMES CLEAN with Baili Dongjun and her followers, Mo Qixuan and Zi Yuji. She does not lie to them and is up front about her vision and what she wants to do for her people and for herself, because they don't have to be mutually exclusive things. She follows her heart; she knows that while she wants a better life for her people, it cannot be found in a new war with Beili to settle old grudges and claim old land. She wants to find a new home for them.

Yue 👏 Yao 👏 is 👏 so 👏 great.

...Only for all of that buildup in the first half of the drama to go absolutely nowhere as her vision is never recognized. She returns to Tianwaitian only to be locked up for betraying Beique with zero timeline as to how long she was locked up for and how she actually got out of the cage. There were no repercussions for her escaping or leaving. In fact, as soon as she leaves Tianwaitian, Yue Yao's character basically stops caring for Beique, and she literally did not matter to the plot going forward. Her people in Tianwaitian never find a better home for themselves. They never get to leave the far north, never reclaim their old kingdom, and never get to rebuild, even before Ye Dingzhi establishes the Demon Sect. Ergo, even if we disregard the events of TBOY, Yue Yao still doesn't get to help her people and all of that development was useless.

Instead, after all that talk about wanting to find a better home and do better by her people, after all the character development and establishment, after all the scenes where we get to see that Yue Yao has a backbone and the fighting skills to prove it, she ends up as arm candy for Baili Dongjun for the next like seven years while the two of them remained unmarried. Um??????????

Why build up all that character and her skills and her relationships with Liu Yue, Baili Dongjun, her freakin' sister, and Mo Qixuan/Zi Yuji only for all of them to basically go kaput? Even with Baili Dongjun, most of the time, she's...just there. Just...looking pretty. Not doing anything.

No one waits seven years to get married, especially when they're in such close quarters like Yue Yao and Baili Dongjun were pre-war and during the war. This makes zero sense, and honestly just cheapens their already-sad relationship even more because it shows a lack of respect on his part. There's no denying that he does love her, but the respect, which is based off of the values of the people in their time, is not there, whether for her honor, virtue, or just the progression of their relationship. Seven years is a long time, especially in period Chinese dramas (and reality, back in those times) when two people are hanging out in an established relationship.

Yue Yao is displeased.

And then we come to the problem of her sister, Yue Qing, who has decided to play a self-insert victim and villain, somehow both at the same time by not actually being relevant to the plot and generally not actually being good at anything at all.

Her motivation: Yue Yao is her older sister, the one she has always looked up to, and she sucks at being the eldest princess and has essentially abandoned them to chase after the sweet, sweet tail that is Neo Hou in a period drama. Ergo, Yue Qing needs to leave Beique to find the other special person martial arts prodigy, Ye Dingzhi, and homegirl does her best to manipulate the hell out of this poor, traumatized kid in order to get him back to Beique and free her father so that they can march on Beili and reclaim their kingdom. He sees right through her though, and because there is no way in the eighteen levels of hell she can beat him in a fight, and she tries, she goes back to his doorway like a kicked puppy every time he throws her out because it's clear she has no idea what on earth she's doing except that she thinks she's all that and has every reason to condemn thousands of people to their deaths so that she can incite a new war for a better life for the people of Tianwaitian.

In the same way that Yue Yao was SO great in the first half of Dashing Youth, we do not give two shakes about Yue Qing and how she is barely even relevant to the plot, because if you stuck Mo Qixuan or Zi Yuji in there to manipulate this poor bastard, the result would have ended up the same way and she does not impact the story whatsoever.

And then Ye Dingzhi saves Yue Qing's life, and all of a sudden, she understands why her sister decided to go with Baili Dongjun instead of staying in Beique, according to the story lore. It also doesn't hurt that he's pretty and he's feeding her medicine and didn't just...let her die.

PFFFFFFFFFFT HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Yue Qing, the bar is on the floor. Also girl, you manipulated him and used him and he does not care for or about you. In fact, the only reason he saved your life was because he lashed out at you and almost killed you and felt guilty for it before he proceeded to throw you out again.

Because Ye Dingzhi is untouchable at this point, Yue Qing proceeds to then manipulate his wife, Yi Wenjun (which is another convoluted story point because she's already married and is a secondary consort to Xiao Ruojin who is an absolute monster in the actual worst way, which is why I did not feel a lick of empathy or sympathy for him in TBOY--I mean, he put her under using some drugs and it was HEAVILY IMPLIED that he gr@ped her while she was completely unconscious and everyone just kind of breezes over this plot point in the dramas), and sends her back to Tianqi by spreading false news of Xiao Yu being really, really sick (causing problems even at a young age, I see). Because of this, Ye Dingzhi is then manipulated into going to Beique to free Yue Qing and Yue Yao's father so that he can be number one in the world and take his wife back, blahhhh blah blah.

AND THEN THEIR FATHER DIES after a confrontation between him, Baili Dongjun, and Ye Dingzhi, and it's almost like Yue Qing and Yue Yao are pitting their respective special martial arts person against each other because they're both natural-born wumai which is NOT actually a thing, and I don't even understand what it is and do not care to actually translate this; IT'S SUPER DUMB.

And because the official leader of Beique, Yue Yao and Yue Qing's father, dies, Ye Dingzhi goes full demon mode and takes over the people of Tianwaitian and establishes the Demon Sect by uniting all 30-something sects in the outer regions of Beili, which was supposedly impossible until this point. He then begins the infamous three-way war between Beili, Nanjue, and Tianwaitian which Yi Wenjun then gets blamed for instigating.

UMMMM??? DOES THIS NOT SOUND FAMILIAR??? DO WE NOT ALSO KNOW OF A WOMAN WHO WAS SAID TO BE SO BEAUTIFUL THAT MEN WENT TO WAR FOR HER AND LAID SIEGE TO AN ENTIRE FREAKIN' CITY WHICH IS NOW A FAMOUS TRAGEDY? DID THE DIRECTORS OF THIS DRAMA WANT A CDRAMA VERSION?

(in case anyone is lost, the answer is Troy. It's Helen of Troy.)

Also, RUDE that her "instigating" this war is what she is known for, even in The Blood of Youth. Yi Wenjun gets blamed for this massive, awful historical event when the only thing she did was be manipulated by Yue Qing using her child. Like, what on earth /eye roll

It was also never talked about how she was coerced into this marriage by her father in TBOY (which we find out in DY) and that this was never something she wanted anyway. Also the gr@pe because that was completely unnecessary and again, breezed over by every single character in Dashing Youth, which, also, WHY did it have to happen that way? Xiao Yu's existence in TBOY could literally be explained by "marital duties" or "wedding night" or something even if the spouses hated each other, did y'all really have to sink to gr@pe????? Especially since I watch dramas for escapism and fantasy and not historical accuracy because of course this has happened probably many times over the course of history. I am angry.

We find out later that Yue Qing is locked up by Ye Dingzhi and then just dies via suicide in prison at the end of the three-way war while Yue Yao rides off into the sunset with Baili Dongjun in her fairy carriage, intent on marrying her at last after SEVEN AND A HALF YEARS TOGETHER, YES I DID THE FREAKING MATH (let me know if anyone needs an approximate timeline).

Following this trainwreck and what Dashing Youth has established, we get to the canon in The Blood of Youth, which takes place twelve years after the prequel. Now that the twelve-year pact between Tianwaitian and Beili where Ye Anshi, the son of Ye Dingzhi and Yi Wenjun, is a hostage in Beili is over, the story picks up where we see our heroes in the following places:

Baili Dongjun: Master of Xueyue City and a depressed drunk after (we learn later) mistakenly killing his wife because he was manipulated into doing so, making this the biggest regret of his life

Yue Yao: dead. Was dead before Tang Lian stepped foot into Xueyue City, and was dead because someone manipulated Baili Dongjun into thinking Yue Yao was Yue Qing and he kills her.

...wait what? But...but I thought Yue Qing died in the prison even before Baili Dongjun and Yue Yao got married in canon? I think we're told in TBOY that Yue Yao blocked an attack for her sister or died for her sister or something via her husband attacking her thinking she was her sister or I DON'T KNOW it's not really clear. The point is, the events of both dramas can't both be true or canon at the same time.

Aaaaaand we've hit one of the biggest retcon snags between the two dramas. Shifting the focus over to the problem with retcons, my first question is this: DY directors and producers, you guys had the perfect template and formula since The Blood of Youth exists and had such incredible ratings. Y'all already have a world and a story and storyline and characters to work with and are able to entirely and completely plan ahead. How did y'all come up with this dumpster fire???? And it's not even a good dumpster fire?? How could Yue Qing cause Yue Yao's death, which we are told is what happens in Baili Dongjun's dream in TBOY, if she's dead??

Other honorable problematic retcon mentions:

There's a specific voiceover at the end of DY telling us what happened to the main characters at the end of the war, and though in TBOY the story said that Lei Mengsha died fighting against Nanjue, we are shown that he and Xiao Ruofeng are both fine and victorious. WHAT???

In TBOY, we are told by Li Suwang of the Sword Heart Tomb that his daughter, Li Xinyue first met Lei Mengsha at the Sword Heart Tomb when he and his buddy his pal Baili Dongjun stopped by and convinced her to duel and then roam jianghu with them. We see that at the beginning of Dashing Youth, Lei Mengsha actually meets Baili Dongjun a LOT later in the narrative, and by then, Li Hanyi is already about five years old and Lei Mengsha and Li Xinyue have been married for A While.

Yin Luoxia and Yue Yao are shown to be sworn sisters who met and became extremely close even before the events of DY, even closer than Yue Qing and Yue Yao at their absolute tightest. Luoxia lives in Xueyue City in TBOY. She knows Baili Dongjun personally. THEY DID NOT INTERACT. SHE DIDN'T EVEN TALK ABOUT YUE YAO ONCE IN ALL THE SCREENTIME THAT SHE HAD.

Sikong Changfeng says in TBOY that Li Hanyi is four years younger than him, but started studying under their master first and this is also why she is the Second City Master and he is the Third. This is only half true; while Li Changsheng took Li Hanyi in as an apprentice, she was literally like five or six at the time. Nangong Chunshui then proceeded to take on Sikong Changfeng not long after, but Sikong Changfeng by then was already a teenager headed into his adult years. Like, he's at least eighteen when Dashing Youth starts.

Speaking of Sikong Changfeng, TBOY says that the healer Hua Jin is his shimei, his younger martial sister from their master, the number one healer in the world, Xin Baicao. DY shows us that they met the one time where Xin Baicao was told by Baili Dongjun's uncle (who was a top poison user and the two of them got into competitions all the time wink wink cough cough) to save Sikong Changfeng's life. Sikong Changfeng stayed in the Medicine Valley for something like six months, all the while studiously not learning medicine from Xin Baicao and instead focuses on his spearwork and fighting skills. Also, Hua Jin isn't in DY at all.

This one is less of a retcon issue and more of a gripe, Baili Dongjun was literal childhood friends and best buds with Ye Dingzhi. Wuxin/Ye Anshi would literally be the equivalent of his nephew/godson. Do we get to see them interact at all aside from like 5 seconds in DY???? No. We do not. WE WERE CHEATED.

Another gripe, Sikong Changfeng and Baili Dongjun were bros in Dashing Youth, and have been for many years (according to my math, it's 21 years between the beginning of Dashing Youth and The Blood of Youth) and did we get to see them actually interact in TBOY??? NO.

Oh, with all this talk of Sikong Changfeng, another gripe about HOW TO NOT WRITE WOMEN--Feng Qiuyu (who is she, you may ask???).

She is, my friends, the mother of Sikong Qianluo.

BUT DO WE REALLY KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT HER? No. WE BARELY REMEMBER HER NAME. SHE WAS LITERALLY WRITTEN INTO DASHING YOUTH SO THAT SIKONG CHANGFENG COULD MEET HER AND SIKONG QIANLUO COULD BE BORN. SHE WAS ON SCREEN FOR A MAX OF 5 MINUTES DURING THE DRAMA AND WAS NEVER REALLY SEEN OR TALKED ABOUT AGAIN EXCEPT FOR LIKE A MINUTE AT THE END. WE DON'T EVEN HAVE THE COURTESY OF KNOWING SHE DIED BEFORE TBOY; WE HAVE TO PUT IT TOGETHER USING CONTEXT CLUES.

I AM YELLING.

Man, I started this rant really just wanting to talk about how best girl Yue Yao was done super dirty by the producers/writers of DY, but the more I thought about it and analyzed and wrote it all down, the more I got to the underlying issue of just the less-than-lackluster way this already-awfully-written drama treated their women, the angrier I got.

All this to say, Dashing Youth does not write or treat their women very well and that, my dears, is bullshit.