#untamed rewatch liveblog

[dommingjeffsatur]

oughhhh, he is so good with the kids, he doesn't set unreasonable expectations, he only asks them to do their best and even remembers to add that they shouldn't force themselves to do more than they should. remind me to write more about this later

[yiling]

Untamed rewatch Episode 18

Or, my sister and I give each other significant looks whenever golden cores are mentioned and my mom suspects nothing

-netflix why do you want me to think that’s a chicken. that’s a whole live ringneck pheasant. do you think i don’t know what one is?

-SONG LAAAAAAAAAAAAN

-ohhhh the way poor zichen trembles when they ask him what happened...

-i always wonder why song lan went to the temple alone that time...how might have things gone different if xingchen had been with him?

-love wwx gently making fun of his suicidal sibling. like, he’s trying to cheer jiang cheng up and give him some hope, and he’s also in a good mood because he found a way to save his brother. but, knowing about the golden core reveal, he’s also trying to disguise his own apprehension. hiding everything under his playful persona like before, but it’s more feigned than ever.

-hey wwx says yanli and wen ning were hanging out. would’ve liked to see that

-wwx and wq’s relationship is so interesting. I love that she already had the sleeping powder with her. they must’ve gotten thick as thieves during this whole little interlude. the inherent intimacy of trying to save someone else’s life together, and also they’re the only one in on this huge lie you’re building together

-“can you hide the truth the rest of your life” well he did! he successfully took it to the grave, it’s not HIS fault he got woken back up!

-my sister also pointed out that wei wuxian probably wasn’t expecting his life to be much longer! i don’t think he really expected to walk away from the golden core transfer, and i wouldn’t be surprised if he had been passively suicidal this whole time. 

-wwx drugging yanli is legitimately incredibly awful. it’s in character and I understand why he does it but. it’s fucked up. it’s fucked up!

-they found the cutest child in the world to be baby wwx huh

-Ah yanli really started calling him a-xian from the moment she met him huh ;_;

-god this flashback is just unspeakably cute

-wwx thinks his sister will be angry with him when she realizes what happened, but jc disagrees and says she never would. it’s interesting, because i think wwx is always expecting, in the back of his mind, for people to be angry at him, even those who have shown him unconditional love like shijie (it’s the abuse). on the other hand...I think jyl should get to be angry about this, tbh. 

-I want to know whether yanli and song lan talked on the way to lanling. and whether she was angry. and what song lan thought then about sacrifices made for a loved one without their knowledge or consent :) and how he’s participating in one :)

-ah song lan’s surprise when they bow to him is so adorable, sir I love you

-oooof song lan asking them to pass a message to xingchen and not being able to get the words out hits so, so different. I remember the first time we watched this my sister and I thought it was funny because we were like “AWW SONG LAN WANTS THEM TO TELL XINGCHEN HE LOVES HIM BUT HE’S EMBARRASSED.” but knowing what passed between them...how could song lan convey the weight of his regret in a few words, through an acquaintance?

 -“none of them cherishes their own lives” as usual wq is the only one with common sense. also fits with what i was saying about wei wuxian, but he doesn’t have a monopoly on suicidality here. unfortunately.

-this random MEANWHILE IN SUNSHOT interlude is funny, but lwj stepping on the wen flag is so spicy

-wwx telling jc not to be so reckless next time really hits difference too. there cannot be a next time for either of them.

-It’s so obvious this is wq when you know what to look for lol

[veliseraptor]

so rewatching the scene with xue yang at the unclean realm for reasons and noticing the truly excellent background faces he is making through this entire scene while other people are talking

[tiptoe39]

This little game of one-upsmanship is cute, and it’s the only possible way these two know how to flirt. When your primary personality trait is being abrasive, even when you try to make nice it’s gonna come out angry.

They would make a very spicy couple, I think. She would know just what to say to get under his skin, and he would have no choice but to fly into a rage. And then the sex would be super hot.

[elvencantation]

aaaaand then it became jiang cheng’s motto. except instead of ‘awkward’ we have ‘angry and insecure’

[vulcansmirk]

gggGGGOD BABY JIANG CHENG LOVES WEN QING SO MUCH THEY DESERVED SO MUCH BETTER

[seekingthestars]

sarah watches the untamed: liveblogging adventures, part seventeen episodes 31, 32, + 33

(aka: everything hurts.)

okay i’ve had snacks and put in eye drops so let’s see if we can make it through the rest of flashback before my eyes revolt!!

episode 31:

i don’t think i’ve mentioned it before but i like however it is they do zixuan’s hair, with the little braid-thingie on the top in the middle, it’s nice n_n

the lotus look so pretty in their Burial Mounds home!!!!

look seriously wuxian in the Burial Mounds with the remnants of the Wen clan (especially lil Yuan) is just so cute, he’s so relaxed, having fun with his lotus, wwx is a GOOD BOY.

WANGJI’S LETTER IS SO SHORT HAHAHA idk why but i am amused

okay first of all the scene with Yanli and Zixuan and Baby Jin Ling is adorable and Yanli looks so happy, but also i verbally squeaked out “OH MY GOD” like four times at this face HE LOOKS SO HAPPY, IS THIS THE FIRST TIME WE’VE EVER SEEN HIM SMILE SO BIG? OMG T_______T

lol at these people gossiping and basically being like ��uh Zixuan wouldn’t let the celebration be anything less than over-the-top grand” HE IS A PROUD PAPA :’D

ohhhh Wuxian made a special special present for baby Jin Ling!!

uh oh spooky music :(

HOLY SHIT AT WEN NING GRABBING THAT ARROW OUT OF THIN AIR 

but OF COURSE IT HAS TO BE UPPITY JIN THE ASS ugh i wish he would go away

oh dang baby wen ning snapped into Feisty Attack Mode :o

UPPITY JIN, GIVE THE BRACELET BACK >.<

THANK YOU FOR TELLING YOUR UPPITY COUSIN TO SHUT UP, ZIXUAN!!!!!!!!!!!

zixun smashed the bracelet wuxian worked on for a MONTH and i audibly gasped he is an ASSHOLE and he deserves this stupid curse

WEN NING WHAT NO

ohmygodohmygodohmygodwhatnonononononono

yanli being so devastated makes this hurt even more i’m sad

all of this hurts so much, i was not prepared for this much pain, i’m SAD

i’m so distressed

omg no everybody went

first wuxian gets his family taken away, then becomes an outcast that everyone hates, then gets his found family taken away from him too, i’m so depressed about everything, this turned so bad so fast ;nnnnnnnn;

and i keep thinking about how happy zixuan was (i took scrEEN SHOTS OF HIS HAPPY FACE) and how excited wuxian was to meet his nephew and i’m so SAD, my eyes are watering ;n;

okay guess we’ll move forward to what will be yet more pain, i’m sure ;; episode 32:

have i mentioned that this hurts bc everything about this h u r t s

wwx alone in the forest crying and hallucinating yanli and being tormented by voices hurts

look i gotta find my joy where i can and i think it’s funny that all these people are talking so bad about wwx but can’t freaking tell he’s standing right behind them but also them saying wen ning and wen qing have been burned to ashes makes it STILL SAD

xichen’s little head shake when jin clan leader scattered wen ning and wen qing’s ashes and everyone starts chanting ‘great’ ;;;; 

oh my god i HATE THIS GUY “even if you were attacked first and zixun had every intent to kill you, you shouldn’t have been brutal and killed someone back! murder is okay but only when we do it!” like dude. DUDE. YOU SUCK.

honestly shout out to wuxian for calling this freaking dude out on his hypocrisy and being like “oh so y’all can kill me whenever you want, but i can’t defend myself? cool story bro, you’re a dick.”

tbh i don’t remember who this guy is, just some minor clan leader or something, but he irritates me so much i hope he dies somewhere >.>

wx crying and laughing at the same time hurts

meng yao smiling when jin clan leader says they can’t let wx leave alive gives me mild chills, why is squish like this, he keeps doing little things that make me nervous

the way the spooky black smoke/spirits (?) don’t attack jiang cheng/his clan ;; i don’t care what anyone says, wx is good boy at heart ;; (also love how they’re like ‘quick huddle together like penguins!! they’re not attacking us? cool let’s just....stay in huddle. no need to break huddle and help anyone else. stay in huddle. huddle good.’)

wangji!

wangji pleading for him to stop, MY HEART IS GOING TO BREAK

oh god yanli no no no, go back no no no

there’s...another flute player??? oh NO

it’s honestly impressive that xichen can fight in that thick overcoat with the super sleeves and he’s so fluid while fighting too (we distract from the sad in any way we can okay thx)

YANLI NOOOOOOOO NO NO NO NOOOOOOOOOOO

fyi it’s hard to read subtitles through your literal actual tears

i’m in pain okay episode 33:

haha ha   ha...     ha................................

i would like a refund back to times when this show didn’t make me cry, please

WUXIAN??? coughing up blood?? DD:

wangji is distraught and so am i

“Lan Zhan. Let me go.” it hurts, this entire scene hurts

honestly the way wangji calls “Wei Ying” and the distraught look on his face just...have i mentioned that everything hurts

okay we’re flashing back to the future now, please let me see sizhui, i need his cute face and healing energy bc i have endured SO MUCH PAIN IN THE LAST COUPLE EPISODES thanks

wangji looks so different without his hair up in the little bun thing on top of his head, not bad different but so different!!!! he’s so pretty ;n;

wangji’s unconditional “yes I believe you” ;AAAAAA; <3

BUNNIES!!!!!!!!!!!

oh hello shirtless wangji

SIZHUI MY SWEET ANGEL CHILD every time i see sizhui on screen, i just kinda coo softly at him in my head, i love him

wangji’s hair piece is SO ELABORATE in the present with the front and back/side pieces, i keep staring at it

wuxian and sizhui chit chat time!!

XUE YANG ohhhh they’ve got an idea

sizhui’s lil baby smile at wuxian when wx’s like “heehee finally i won’t be controlled by all these rules!!!” oh sizhui, thank you for your healing energy

wangji and wuxian are so pretty i keep getting distracted and missing part of the subtitles so then i gotta rewind constantly i am a MESS

WUXIAN BEING SO OFFENDED OVER HOW BAD AND INACCURATE THE PORTRAITS OF THE YILING PATRIARCH ARE HAHAHAHAHA 

hi jin ling!

“he learned all of his father/uncle’s defects and none of his mother’s strengths” HAHAHAHA

i shouldn’t laugh but the FACES WUXIAN MADE when the pupper showed up XDDDDD also Fairy is such a cute pupper omg!!!!!!!

[emmareadsmdzs]

Okay I just switched to the viki translation and OH MY GOD does this make a big difference. Netflix translates wwx’s keeping within 2 meters talisman as “bonding” or “binding”. Viki translates it as “no clothes” or “robe sharing”. I’m glad I have this extra insight

[foxstens]

my professional review of the untamed: it good

[gaywatch]

Btw I finally started my Untamed rewatch and am liveblogging a good bit of it on the sideblog.

[neuxue]

Hi Lia, I want to thank you for this blog. I read it episode by episode as I watched 'The Untamed' for the second time, and it was SO helpful. The first time round, I was clinging to the plot by my fingernails for much of the time - due to reliance on subtitles and the multiplicity of names - and needed to watch it again to appreciate it properly. Second time through with you at my shoulder, I picked up SO much more, and can't thank you enough. It's been like having a friend to discuss it with

You are very welcome! I’m glad you found it helpful (to be fair, I also feel like I need to rewatch it to appreciate it properly, if only because oh man some things sure hit different in hindsight!). But yeah, jumping into a new genre does often come with a bit of a learning curve - honestly, liveblogging was probably a large part of what helped me keep things vaguely straight in my head (insert obligatory ‘nothing in this story is straight’ joke here). It’s like taking notes, but more fun!

[gingersnapwolves]

Please do a live blog when you watch word of honour as well 😆😆😆

Well, I’ll probably do something of a liveblog, but not the way I’m doing Shadow and Bone. I can really only do that for shows that are shorter, because I usually end up watching them twice in order to do a liveblog, especially if it’s a show that I’m watching with my wife (which is about 75% of the shows I watch) because I hate typing on my phone and she wouldn’t appreciate me constantly switching windows to jot down my thoughts. So when I’m doing a detailed liveblog like I’m doing for SaB, it’s almost always on a rewatch, and it’s hardly ever a show longer than 10-12 episodes.

I’ll probably liveblog it in the way I did The Untamed and The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty, with periodic posts about where I am and what my thoughts are. ^_^

[yiling]

Untamed rewatch Episode 20

Wei Wuxian is back, and would like Jiang Cheng and Lan Zhan to know that he’s completely, totally fine, and not torturing people to death to cope or something

-my mom says wen chao is really good at looking crazy lmao

-I GASPED WHEN WWX SHOWED UP WITH THE FLUTE HE’S SO HOT

-god I love this music it’s so eerie and evocative

-the way it’s shown that jiaojiao and wen chao are being tormented by the spirits of people whose deaths they were responsible for...that’s so spicy. shout out to wei wuxian and his deeply twisted, horrific, but powerful sense of justice lmao.

-the scene where lwj and jc investigate all the dead wen cultivators is nice and spooky. I love the horror aspects of this show

-my sister pointed out that when someone tells jc that a woman hanged herself inside the office, he might’ve reacted as he did because he thought it was wen qing :(

-my mom complained about Netflix not translating the seal script on the talismans but my understanding is that it’s not language, as such

-oh I forgot about jiang cheng’s conversation with wen qing here. this is gonna hurt.

-“you have saved me after all” she has more than you know, jiang cheng

-hearing her very deliberately call him sect leader jiang is such a punch in the gut, both cause it’s a reminder of the fact that this man’s whole family is dead now, and because she’s drawing attention to the political situation that means he can’t reasonably help her. I think at this time in his life, jiang cheng really might’ve done everything in his power to protect her and her family, but that’s a narrow window of time, defined by the unstable situation of sunshot, his inexperience as sect leader, and the fact that he’s lost so much. once wei wuxian comes back, I think jiang cheng steps more fully into his role as sect leader, until the idea of protecting the wens is unthinkable.

-“you can save me but you can’t save them all” fuck this hurts so bad looking forward. another way jiang cheng is shown up by his brother - wei wuxian did manage to save wen qing’s family. but it didn’t and couldn’t last, just as she predicted. 

-“he bled from all the holes of his head” is such a cool and gross thing to say lol

-okay again wen zhuliu is funnier on a rewatch. he hates this so much.

-the problem with the soundtrack here is that you sometimes can’t tell whether the flute is meant to be diegetic or not

-god the slowly ratcheting tension of wwx’s entrance... *chef’s kiss*

-when he starts playing, the background fades into the burial mounds for a few moments, and wei wuxian just smiiiiiles...fucking superb you funky little necromancer.

-love this random ghost lady we never see again

-oh boy. oh man. the first time I watched this show I spent episodes 14-19 yelling variations on HUG YOUR SIBLING GODDAMN IT, so when we got The Hug I broke. I think I may have actually cried.

-oh god, an arrangement of the lotus pier theme plays during The Hug

-just as wwx reaches up (slowly, uncertainly) to return the embrace, jiang cheng pulls away

-“how could I have been in the burial mounds? no one can survive that place” that’s as close as you’re going to get to a cry for help huh

-wei wuxian is so much...stiffer, less relaxed. his movements are more controlled, his gestures less expansive than they were pre-burial mounds. he does a little bit of the brat act when lwj talks to him but it looks artificial. he smiles earnestly when jiang cheng talks to him, but it doesn’t last long.

-“as for my temperament, I’m in control of my own mind” famous last words, my dude

-this argument is. oof.

-I’m not clear that it would’ve helped, I don’t think wwx trusted him enough, but if lwj could have just said “I care about you and I want you to be okay, I don’t think you’re in a good place” in so many words...Mm. But he would have to be a very different character. lan zhan is so defined by what he can’t say, what he doesn’t know how to say, and what he does say that gets misinterpreted because he’s expressing himself through the prism of the inflexible rules he was taught. concern on lan wangji looks too much like disapproval for poor neurotic wei wuxian to take it gracefully, and they both suffer for it!

-like, what’s happening here is that to lan zhan, wei wuxian is visibly Not Okay and is using resentful energy, which is fucked up, and jiang cheng is too thrilled over having his shixiong back to really notice. so he points out that resentful energy is really dangerous for the person who uses it, because he’s afraid for wei wuxian. and wei wuxian, on a hair trigger because he just barely survived three months of torture and sensitized to anything that even looks like disapproval by his shitty adoptive parents, interprets this as an insult - how dare you think I can’t handle this? how dare you see I can’t handle this, how dare you see that I’m suffering? and so he gets nasty and cutting, and lan zhan, who i’m absolutely sure doesn’t understand why wei wuxian is angry with him, gets angry right back. and wei wuxian says the most cruel thing he can: “this is an internal measure of yunmeng jiang, it’s none of your concern.” or, the way he’s intending it: i don’t care about your opinion and i don’t care about you. 

-and lan zhan, unable to deal with it anymore, walks out, which we know he does when he’s angry, to go turn the words over in his head. this...honestly gives me autistic lwj feels. he’s trying so, so hard to reach out to wwx when that’s a really hard thing for him to do! he has a hard time relating to people! and he gets rebuffed in a way that makes it clear he’s failed to be a friend like he was trying to be and he doesn’t even know why. (which is not just on him, wwx is Not being forthcoming) and that sure is..an experience. which i have had.

-(i’m also imagining he picked up this method of handling his anger from xichen, personally. just walk away, wangji. don’t fight, no matter how much someone hurts you, no matter how wrong it feels :’)

-lwj’s expression when he listens to them killing wen chao reminds me of the rain scene ._. 

-yanli as a medic feels kind of stereotypical but she’d be good at it

-the way yanli’s face changes when she hears wwx’s voice...i kind of haven’t liked her performance (mostly, i think, because she’s been given so little to do) but this little moment...wow

-my mom really wants to know what happened in the burial mounds! we had a conversation about dizi (wwx’s flute) vs xiao (lxc’s flute) also because. i looked it up lol. I might make a meta post since there’s some interesting details

[veliseraptor]

so this time around this line really hit me because like. I mean, I know I’ve been writing a lot (in fic) about Jiang Cheng’s Super Complicated Wei Wuxian Feelings, and how he struggles with the fact that he still loves Wei Wuxian even when he would really not like to, and here it’s like - he’s both saying why don’t I? why can’t I? 

and like, okay, I don’t know what the line actually says not in translation, but based on this subtitle (and on Netflix, it’s the same), it’s not just “don’t I have the right to hate you?” but “why am I not able to hate you?”

and just. ouch.

[tiptoe39]

but it isn’t as easy as all that.

This question just brings up all the frustration that’s still eating Lan Wangji alive, and he stalks off without answering. Was that the reaction Lan Xichen was going for? (A moment ago, he’s taken note of how tightly Lan Wangji is clutching his sword.)

Either way, his stalking off in itself is an answer. And Lan Xichen knows it means something is about to change for his brother, and probably in a good way.

That is the face of a man who has poked the bear in just the right spot. He may even be a little excited for the change and growth that Lan Wangji is about to experience, painful though it will be.