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olderthannetfic · 4 years

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Escapade Vid - The Untamed

I could say this was my attempt at meta on an underappreciated character and that's why I wanted to vid Wen Ning…

Nah, I just think he's hot.

Wen Ning has this adorable babyface and big eyes. Just my type. And then he got a goth makeover and became a creepy zombie, increasing his hotness by ten thousand times. The Living Dead was everything I wanted except for dubcon possession porn, and it both irritates and cracks me up to see how many people find it OOC and badly made. I agree the colors are an abomination though--but more on that later.

I like Wen Ning the best because 1. He's hot and 2. He's one of the most competent characters and compromises his morals the least. Mianmian might be one up on him given how her story turns out, but in a whole series of craven idiots, I like the suicidally moral characters, especially when they're competent.

And also JC. Because I like his face. (What? I never said my Untamed feels were deep.)

I wanted to make this vid last year, right after Escapade. I spent forever finding a song, and I'm glad I did it then because it was a nightmare. I can find love songs easily, but I don't really care about WN/WWX, nor would most love songs fit that. It's clearly one-sided, but WN is also clearly totally happy to follow him around forever. Happy love songs are out. Pining angst is out.

WN is also motivated by high ideals more than specific family feelings. WQ wants to protect her family. WN wants to repay his debts. WN is a shy doofus on the surface when we first see him, and he acts flustered around most of the older characters, but this is deceptive. I feel like the most revealing scene is when he pops up at Lotus Pier, ready to grab JC and take on his entire clan. In what universe was this a good idea? What is he even doing there? Why did it actually work???

I wanted a song that encapsulated WN's quiet stubbornness. The trouble is that like 99% of popular music is either about romance or about being a confident badass, and most of the confident badass music is "Fuck you, ex boyfriend, I'm stronger now". I did not want an ex boyfriend song. A bunch of other songs are macho, flexing dudes talking about how they'll win the sports competition. Obviously, that was out. There are a very few songs like Try Everything, but they're awfully perky for covering Wen Ning's entire story, including him getting, you know, gruesomely murdered.

I honestly can't remember how I found the song I picked. I was probably listening to Happy Hanukkah on endless repeat and saw it in the Youtube sidebar. (Look, it's a great song for all times of year. Shut up.) Matisyahu has many amazing songs that build and move in ways ideal for vids.

I then sat on this source/song combo for a year because, well, it sure was a year. But when we got close to Escapade, I realized I wanted to finish it for the con.

Clip choices:

I'm not going to include the full lyrics on their own since they're in English and on every lyrics site. Instead, I'm putting the relevant bits between my explanations of what I chose and why. A lot of it came together quickly. I knew I wanted to include cute WN moments, like him being bullied by kids, and they wouldn't fit in the main narrative, so I had to put them in the intro.

Feel like the world don't love you They only wanna push you away Some days people don't see you You feel like you're in the way

I had a lot of trouble with 'push you away' since, generally speaking, no one does push him away. However, this is a vid from Wen Ning's own perspective, so it felt like an acceptable match to use the part where Wen Qing tries to leave him behind as they go on a hunt. She's objectively correct to do so given what happens, but Wen Ning is clearly upset that she tried. He doesn't want to be protected, especially at the cost of other people's safety.

Today you feel as if everyone hates Pointing their fingers, looking at your mistakes You do good, but they want great No matter what you give they still wanna take

I was very clear from early on that I wanted to use 'mistakes' for what Wen Ning is actually upset about: ruining Jin Ling's life. Of course he feels super guilty about what he did, despite it not being his fault, but the specific fallout Wen Ning is going to care about is a kid's feelings, not the political drama. That gave me the idea for what to do with 'good' and 'great'. More than most characters in the series, WN is not impressed by the power structure or reputations--scared, yes, but not impressed. WN likes bringing people food, at little things that are quietly good, and their society does not value that. (Cf. everything about Jiang Yanli's betrothal before Jin Zixuan catches feelings.)

'No matter what you give' I used for a shot that is probably not going to read as anything in a convention vidshow. He's bruised up, so I was hoping it would read properly visually. The actual context of the shot is WN having been thrown in the dungeon for being a traitor to the Wen. And yet, when the Wen are defeated, does he get a pardon? Nope, ignominious death. It really didn't matter what he did: these factions are all thoroughly corrupt and the entire system is garbage. It's all power-hungry assholes and sanctimonious prisses ripe for manipulation. All that mattered was that he was a Wen, and the Wens were either on top or being exterminated.

Give your love and they throw it back You give your heart they go on attack When there's nothing left for you, Only thing that you can do, say

The next part is WWX being an ungrateful little bitch. He's understandably stressed, but it still cracks me up that he's all up in WN's face and WN is literally only there to help him. WN might feel an obligation, but WWX sure isn't earning it here.

'When there's nothing left' I wasn't sure about. WN hitting rock bottom is arguably when he gets killed or maybe when they're in the burial mounds, but that didn't work with my structure. I chose to put a montage here of all the times that WQ tells him to stay safe by ditching WWX. I sympathize with WQ, but as WN comments in one of these scenes, he's following their own family code that she taught him. WQ cares so much about protecting WN (and the rest of their little part of the clan, but let's be real, it's mostly about WN) that she's willing to collude with a mass murderer just to keep him safe. Maybe it's only because he's a younger sibling, but WN seems to see things a lot more clearly. I laugh every time he's like "Uh huh, uh huh" as she lectures, and then the next scene is him running off to do something dangerous again.

Today, today live like you wanna, Let yesterday burn and throw it in a fire, in a fire, in a fire, Fight like a warrior, Today, today live like you wanna, Let yesterday burn and throw it in a fire, in a fire, in a fire, Live like a warrior

For this round of the chorus, WN is burning his Wen clan membership in a fire, and the heroic thing is running away, living to fight another day. WN has no ego, nor would ego be helpful here.

Buuuut, equally, being an actual warrior means hurting people, and while he was literally mind controlled into murder, that still couldn't have happened if he hadn't been already involved in violence and fighting. Violence you regret is also part of this life, and so is accepting responsibility for your actions. (Sure, he's very literally not responsible here, but WN doesn't know that at the time and doesn't feel that even later.)

There's some things you should let go, They're only gonna pull you down, Just like weight on your shoulder They are only gonna make you drown

I swear The Untamed has the best casting for a variety of face types. I recognized everybody from the moment they appeared… Except for Su She. Whom I forgot entirely and couldn't recognize at all. Doh.

It wasn't till I was clipping the whole series for this vid that I realized that the reason Wen Ning gets possessed here is that he's the only one to notice Su She's plight and go to his aid right away. I think on first viewing, I read it as him just getting possessed before he could get in the air, but that's not what's happening at all. His dumb ass stayed behind to try to help someone. Seriously, fuck Su She. They live in a grotesquely shitty power structure, but WN responds in admirable ways, while Su She just whines that he's not on top.

We all swing high, we all swing low, We all got secrets people don't know We all got dreams we can't let go, We wanna be brave, don't be afraid

WN's secret is that he gets possessed so easily and why. WQ is refusing to tell WWX in this scene, but he has figured out something is up and gives her a talisman for WN, which shows up later in the plot to great emotional effect--though not in this vid, alas.

The butterfly reveal was one of the first things on my timeline as I recall. I have Many Feelings. Also, this is me, so yes, I totally ship them. >:D

WN and WQ showing up to accept responsibility is kind of a dumbass move, but it's definitely brave. I enjoy how WN just keeps barrelling through the plot in a way that should mean he's the cute woobie who dies early on to prove the world is bad… and that instead leads to him being one of the strongest fighters, making it through the series, and finding A-Yuan again. (Though, okay, he did that first thing also. Heh.)

I ended on Jin Ling because I was so struck on rewatch at how the juniors first meet Wen Ning.

I dimly recalled this fight, but it wasn't till I was clipping that I realized just how much focus each of them gets and how WN is literally strangling them and such. I just remembered him fighting people, not who. It's hilarious how quickly after this (in their timeline) we have doofus woobie WN being cute and them being like "He's my murder zombie! ♥"

For this chorus, I focused on that change. WN is rescuing them. "Yesterday" is their scared faces. Here, being a "warrior" is apologizing to JL. And maybe WN doesn't really owe an apology, but JL does deserve one. Almost no one in the series seems to give a shit about how JL is feeling.

And then my favorite scene with my two faves! WN is finally telling JC what he has probably wanted to for ages. WN is a wuss when it comes to himself, but he gets righteously pissed when someone else is being mistreated. The yesterday he's letting burn here is his promise to keep quiet… along with viciously burning down every bit of self perception and hubris JC ever had. Ouch!

Your heart is too heavy from things you carry a long time, Been up you been down, tired and you don't know why, But you're never gonna go back, you only live one life Let go, let go, let go, let go, let go, let go,

Bless the sequel movie for literally being entirely about Wen Ning's internal struggle. The way he breaks free of the bad guy's hold is by accepting the past and letting go of his guilt over things he can't change.

Today, today live like you wanna, Let yesterday burn and throw it in a fire, in a fire, in a fire, Fight like a warrior,

He's just so hot in this movie! This first chorus is him coming out of the hallucination, having beaten his self doubt and then beating on the villain.

Today, today live like you wanna, Let yesterday burn and throw it in a fire, in a fire, in a fire, Live like a warrior

Okay, in actual canon, JL mostly joined them because he was competing with LSZ like the bratty little asshole he is, but I wanted to highlight how JL got over himself enough to join the other juniors on team WN. Also, WN defends both him and LSZ in this scene in ways he couldn't back then.

Today, today live like you wanna, Let yesterday burn and throw it in a fire, in a fire, in a fire, Fight like a warrior,

This I wasn't planning on at all. As I was clipping the whole series, I was thinking that WN's possessed footage here wouldn't be narratively useful since he went and got taken over again, but when I rewatched for visually impressive stuff to use interstitially, I realized that--holy shit--he's defending Jin Ling in this scene. And he succeeds. I included both a shot of Jin Zixuan, which everyone caught in the vidshow, and a shot that nobody mentioned: Wen Ning's bloody fist after ripping JZX heart out to go with Wen Ning's bloody hand on the sword in the present as he struggles to keep it from Jin Ling. Here, fighting like a warrior means keeping the sword off of JL, even if WN can't defeat the spirit or resolve the entire situation himself.

ALSO I HAVE MANY FEELS ABOUT JC JUMPING IN FRONT OF JL.

Today, today live like you wanna, Let yesterday burn and throw it in a fire, in a fire, in a fire, Live like a warrior

Sometimes, WN is not that sweet. He traps this dude in a hell of his own making instead of letting him kill himself because Wen Ning can be a vindictive little bitch. And then he strides off into the matte painting sunset.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Other vidding notes:

I totally wanted to do something with Chinese characters, but there wasn't really space, and after much dictionary-searching and asking, it's clear that Chinese does not use morality metaphors involving a compass pointing true north. But that effort was not wasted since I needed a good font for my other vid.

Vidding The Living Dead turned out to be a pain. I had completely forgotten it was in another aspect ratio. The shots look much more beautiful before one crops them. That said, none of them are that beautiful because the entire film has this atrocious green color filter over it. It's like they're all wading through mud at all times. Ughhhhh. I spent so long trying to fix the color on that final scene to be at least a little pretty for my vid.

Still, the film had exactly the emotional tone I wanted. It very much skewers the fanon that WN is entirely the bashful wimp he appears to be on the surface when we first see him. It makes overt the change that we see over the series. It's also fundamentally different because it's a situation where WN is the senior person and in charge of someone. We've seen him babysit a small child, and we've seen him around the juniors with lots of people of his generation also there, but we've basically never seen him out from under WQ and WWX's thumbs. It's only natural that he's acting more authoritative here. His smackdown of the villain is very much in line with how he treats JC during the golden core reveal. WN is not a forgiving guy when he thinks someone has been selfish and awful.

Throughout this vid, there are shittons of color, speed, and motion effects. I don't normally use a lot, but it turned out to be a lot of fun this time. I should find another project to use effects on.

The vid:

Available on AO3.

#vidding #wen ning

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woobienation · 2 years

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The Intervention (1/2)

Summary: Belle leaves the country to study abroad, and Joseph drowns his heartbreak in whiskey. His family stages an intervention, and Joseph's domineering mother all but breathes fire when Belle attends. [Part 1 of 2]

Belle was asleep when the email arrived.

The phrase "NEED YOUR HELP" in the subject line and the unfamiliar sender address automatically routed it to the spam folder in her École Normale Supérieure de Lyon account.

Now because all of this mess (the almost overlooked email, the rebooked Air France flight home, the botched intervention, the angry tears and shouting, and the wreckage and redemption that followed) happened in the days before ubiquitous laptops in dorm rooms and smartphones tucked beneath pillowcases, Belle French rose, showered, dressed from her neatly packed suitcase, and left to turn in her final paper for LIF-4111: French and General Linguistics: Theories and Practices, completely unaware of the frantic, misspelled electronic message from Joseph’s oldest sister Mary.

Waiting for her in single-spaced, unadorned ASCII text, it read:

Subj: WE NEED YOUR HELP Date: 6/10/1999 9:10:05 Eastern Standard Time From: MaryChristi1978_aol.com To: [email protected] Belle, its mary. I’m so sorry i’ve been out of touch while you’ve been away at school but with the baby and everything i think you’ll understand. It’s joseph. He’s gotten really bad drinking like daddy does lately and they’re going to kick him out of seimnary unless we do something. Mama won’t help she thinks if she just ignores it everything will be okay (just like she does with daddy) but he’s no okay he hasn’t been okay since you left. We’re doing an intervention on him on Sunday june 13 at dinnertime 7pm with Father Matthew and we need you to be there if you canbe hom in time. I really really don’t think it will work without you. He talks about you when he's dunk. you have to come home. please/. Please please come. Mary

Belle doesn't see the email from Mary until after she bids a fond au revoir to her beloved academic advisor in the Department of Modern Languages at the université and enjoys a final midday meal of salmon en papillote at the stately and historic Brasserie Georges. (Here, her favorite waiter, Jean-Claude, offers her his most winning dimpled smile along with a jaunty “Bonne journée, Mademoiselle!” and a dry kiss upon the back of her hand. Belle offers him a gracious, pink-cheeked smile in return and a note upon her check: "Merci pour le plaisir.")

When she makes one final visit to the campus computer lab to clean out her university inbox before her evening flight home to the States, Belle almost overlooks the (1) beside her spam folder. Her attention is instead caught and held by an anticipated and characteristically exuberant message from her step-mother Goldi French (Subj: "We'll Be Seeing You SOON, "Word" Traveler! GET READY FOR SUNSHINE!!!!") and an enrollment confirmation for her final semester of literature courses at Middlebury College in Vermont. Her attention is also captured by (yes, still, even after these many, many months away from home studying abroad in France) the reawakened awful, aching disappointment of seeing absolutely nothing from her best friend and childhood neighbor, Joseph Macavoy. Not one word.

Not one single long-distance phone call.

Not the whole time she's been away.

These reminders of his absence from her life (and his apparent indifference to her absence from his) always make Belle's eyes burn and her throat constrict, as if sorrow were attempting to cauterize it shut. Blinking rapidly and swallowing painfully, she finally mouses over "Spam(1)" (although it is only because she is the type of meticulous young scholar who likes things tidy and sorted, and because everything is already folded, packed, and ready for departure in her empty dorm room, and because, after all, she has an hour of idle time before the taxi ride to the aéroport and her planned trip to the Florida Keys with her father Maurice and her stepmother Goldi. The unsettling contradiction between the mad rush to prepare for final exams and finish her end-of-term papers and this present void of things to do is what propels Belle's white cursor arrow to hover.

To pause.

To click.

To see.

Belle, its mary.

She reads Joseph's sister's email hungrily, straight through twice, her brow furrowed and her breath held. Color rises in her cheeks, and she leans closer to the boxy monitor screen.

He’s gotten really bad drinking like daddy does

Drinking? But that doesn't make a lick of sense!

Joseph hates alcohol. He always has, and Belle would be the best to know it because she has known him ever since before their school days, when all there was to do in the world was catch green katydids, build things out of sticks, dirt, and stones in the cool Vermont woods, and avoid the petty tyrannies of their respective families--his large and turbulent, hers small and smothering. Alcohol reminds Joseph of his father, Michael Macavoy, who always sits beached in that infernal sagging brown recliner chair, half-asleep, stomach swollen tight as a drum, lifting bottle after bottle of amber lager to his wet lips, his dark eyes glassy and bloodshot, his gray hair limp and uncombed, his fleshy cheeks flushed with drink. Alone, feared, and unloved.

Mr. Michael Macavoy would holler horrible, profane things at the family's small black and white television set, and also at his grim, contemptuous wife and his six young stair-step children, and sometimes even at tiny Belle, who looked out of place in the Macavoy's threadbare living room with her shiny shoes and tidy brown braids. And then Joseph would take her quickly by the hand and lead her out of the broken back screen door that never locked, letting it slam, down the dirt path, into the woods, far away from his rust-stained, double-wide manufactured home to whichever twiggy lean-to or teepee or tree fort was their favorite at the moment, saying, "C'mon, Belle. Let's start telling our story again. You start. You tell it best..."

they’re going to kick him out of seimnary unless we do something

Kick him out of seminary? Since when has Joseph--her Joseph--who never could keep a secret from her (or the confessional) to save his life, wanted to attend seminary and join the priesthood?

Yes, Joseph and Belle had both attended the same small, private Catholic school in Middlebury where itchy polyester plaid uniforms slightly obscured the differences between the 'haves' (Belle French) and the 'have-nots' (Joseph Macavoy and the five Macavoy sisters: Mary, Brigid, Therese, Agatha, and Hildegard, all on full scholarship), and, yes, he did believe in the saints and the Blessed Virgin and the Eucharist and the Holy Trinity just like she believes in the great virtues: Hope, Courage, Justice, and Love. But he had never wished to become a priest, never once whispered anything of the sort to her while they lay shoulder-to-shoulder on the decaying leaf floor of a tree fort, fingers entwined, telling their story, sharing secrets, staring up at the slivers of blue sky and sunlight through a sagging roof made of branches. When Belle left Middlebury College for a semester in France, Joseph was studying at the Community College of Vermont to become a school counselor. He wanted to help people, young people like himself with fathers who drank and yelled and mothers with pinched, sullen faces who hid the bottles and ignored the yelling and barked at the children, but he also wanted...

Belle stands up from her wheeled computer desk chair abruptly, knocking it backwards. It rolls to the center of the quiet room.

...but he had also wanted her.

She knows it, like she's always known and held tightly to the thread of 'their story'--inwardly, expertly, before it's even been told. Sometimes her plot twists appear like this, sudden, swift, like lightning in a summer sky, burned into the back of retinas, impossible to un-see. He's miserable. He's drinking. He wants her.

She reads through Mary's email one more time to be sure of the details. Sunday, June 13th. An evening intervention with the parish priest, Father Matthew. Mary wants her there. (It's likely Mama Macavoy would sooner see her in Hell, but Mama Macavoy thinks that's where everyone belongs save herself, so Mama Macavoy can well and truly stuff it. Belle isn't the least bit afraid of Joseph's watchful, dour mother, who glares at top buttons left undone and 'tarts' who wear 'face paint.') He talks about you when he's drunk.

There's still time to change her flight! Make it to Vermont by Sunday evening. Join the Macavoy family and Father Matthew at the crowded dinner table and tell Joseph that...

With a shaking hand, Belle bends over and closes her university email account, then jabs an unsteady finger to shut down the computer. Now she's grabbing her canvas satchel full of books off of the back of the chair in the center of the room and hurrying out of the quiet computer lab onto the sunburnt cobblestone streets of Lyon, back to her empty dorm room.

She's burning up to tell Joseph that she's angry at him.

Can you do that at an intervention?

Demand that somebody sit down and listen to how horribly, volcanically angry you are with them?

Belle begins the furious conversation in her head while charging down the street with her heavy satchel slapping against her hip, her sharp heels striking the uneven stones, faster and faster, around the corner, past the boulangerie, and up the steep concrete dorm stairs to where her suitcase and telephone are waiting.

"How dare you!" she thinks, breathing heavily.

"How dare you tell me right before I'm ready to embark on the biggest and most daring adventure of my life that you don't want me to go? And how dare you choose that moment, when there was literally no time left, right before Papa and Goldi brought the car around to drive me to the airport, that moment out of all of our thousands of moments together, to grab hold of me by the jacket sleeve, yank me towards you, wrap me tightly in your arms, and press your lips to my hair--when I had waited years for that kiss? Years of not knowing if you felt the same as I did. Years of not knowing if you were a saint or eunuch or, or, or--simply uninterested in the girl next door. And how dare you clutch me like that, whisper my name like that, breathe ragged breaths into my hair like that, and then startle away at the sound of Papa's car wheels on the gravel--then never write back, never come to the phone for my long distance calls, simply cease to exist. You ended our story! It feels as though you erased me, Joseph!"

Belle gains her dorm room door and struggles momentarily with the key and the doorknob. Inside, everything is as she left it.

"You erased me, Joseph! And I'll be damned if I let you obliterate yourself with drink before you explain yourself!"

She reaches for the corded telephone on her empty desk and stabs a finger at the buttons. The long distance number takes forever to punch in. Her father picks up on the third ring, clearing his throat: "French residence?"

"Papa!"

Belle explains everything once, in a jumble and impatiently, then asks for her stepmother Goldi to be put on the line when her father is too flustered and slow to take onboard the rapid change of plane tickets and plans that his daughter is requesting.

But Goldi is as good as her name: "Don't worry! I'll take care of everything, Bella-rina. Just get yourself to the airport before those red-eye flights take off and talk to the people at the ticket counter for your new tickets," her stepmother says, shushing Belle's father when he tries to interject. "I've been to an intervention or three in my younger years. Don't let your young man leave until you've had your say, dear, and whatever you do, don't let him lie to you. You know, I've always liked that Joseph. And I know he thinks the sun rises and sets with you. I really do think it should go well."

"I hope so, Goldi. And please tell Papa I'm sorry about our trip. I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Don't apologize, Bella-rina! Get yourself to the airport and dry out your young man. Show him the stern stuff I know you're made of. And Belle, my darling..."

Belle has twisted the phone cord anxiously around her fingers, and now she slowly exhales and lets it unwind. "Yes, Goldi?"

"Forgive me, but I saw the two of you in the driveway before your flight to France. An old lady knows a thing or two about the 'look of love,' and I'd say he's in it. Deep, deep down in it. Frankly, I'm surprised he didn't climb into the backseat after you and demand to be allowed to follow you to France."

Belle blinks back tears, realizing that's exactly what she wishes Joseph had done. Instead, he'd begged her to stay.

"In any case, Belle, when a man looks at you that way, you've got a great deal of power over him. Don't be afraid of it! Use it for his happiness; use it for yours. Give him a direction to go in, a battle to fight for you, a heart to win, and he's halfway to healed. It's a life without hope of relief that drives men and women to the bottle. Unless I'm greatly mistaken, you are his hope and relief."

"But then why did he cut me off after I left?" Belle interjects loudly. Her voice is high and wobbly, and it embarrasses her, even though it's only Goldi, who loves her unconditionally. "Why hasn't he once spoken to me? Where has he been all these months?"

"That, my dear, is exactly what you need to fly home and find out."

#joseph macavoy #mama macavoy #spoiler: the intervention is sex #wn: woobies #wn: beauties

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