#zishu answers

[zishu-arts]

walks into your askbox. hi. hi could i request,. could i perhaps request. could i ask for perhaps a little bit of vicage

lwk got carried away w this one

[sirenofthegreenbanks]

✨ 🔁

🔁: A fic you’ve re-read several times

one that comes spontaneously to mind (and we must act with swift spontanity; the choice would be too hard) is the parasol tree by chiiyo86, which is one of my favourite word of honor wenzhou longfics, and i've actually read it so often i feel like i'm transcendening from mere readership to looking behind the curtain now. i love it when a story opens it's way for me and i get to see what it looks like at the back of the tapestry, even if it happens at the cost of some of it's magic

✨: A fic you wish you could read again for the first time

oh whew, that really goes hand in hand with the first question! well chosen!

i really want to read a weapon in another's hand by kleine_kat all over again for the first time, including all it's prequels and sequels, if i may be so bold and cheat a little. it's essentially a series documenting post-canon adventures of 'two murder husbands', and it's creative and badass and bursting with ideas. everytime i reread the series (which i have indeed done very often. very often.) i find something new. this is one of these fics, or fic series(es?), that i adore from a technical standpoint, from one writer to another, for it's extensive and excellent research work. the world is so vast already even in A Weapon, but because of it's many OCs that each have their own fleshed-out backstories, motives, and storylines, and because wenzhou are travelling through place as well as time (the latter by way of growing older as immortals and seeing the world go by), the world is ever expanding around them

thank you for these excellent questions! i enjoyed chatting about some of my favourite, beloved fics from a seasoned rereader standpoint <3

send me an emoji for a fic rec!

[luckydragon10]

Number 48 for the ask game please

Oooh, yay, another ask for the ask game!

48. What’s the last fic you read? Do you recommend it?

NICE. Okay, I'm going to cheat, because it's still morning and I have already read two fics, both of which deserve recs. Plus, then I can cover two fandoms.

I recommend both of these, lemme just say that up front.

~~~

intrigue and intimacies - Word of Honor fandom, oneshot, rated Explicit Author: @fractured-ice

I literally JUST finished this wonderful oneshot. It's no secret that I love the HanWenZhou OT3. This is a pre-canon AU that explores a "what if" between Zhou Zishu and Han Ying, with Qin Jiuxiao acting as wingman. Actually, I say it's a oneshot, but it's the third part in a series now. However, it still stands alone quite nicely. In short, Han Ying and Zhou Zishu are still at the beginning of their relationship, and they find they need some alone time.

~~~

Drowning Like a Stone - KinnPorsche fandom, WIP ch 8/19, rated Teen Author: @nyxelestia

An exploration of post canon, focusing on Chay's experiences but also dovetailing into Big's experiences. It's DELICIOUS, really thoughtfully done. Great character explorations all around. Gyaaa, I really need to know what happens next.

~~~

Mmm, delicious fics.

Thanks for asking! Ask game questions.

[avagiftexchange]

AvA Gift Exchange (2024) UPDATE!

Alrighty!

All Giftees have been assigned a Gifter!

Over the course of the next 3 days (from Dec. 1st to Dec. 3rd) I will be messaging everyone with their Giftee's requests! Although I will also say that I am unfortunately working both Dec. 1st and Dec. 2nd, so sending out the prompts might extend into Dec. 4th. I will make a post if that ends up happening but I'm hoping I'll have enough time to do it in 3 days

-

Regardless, if you asked me to message you through email, make sure the keep your eyes peeled for a message from avagiftexchange@gmail.com

If you requested to message through Discord, expect a friend request from a discord account called AvAGiftExchange

Otherwise, if I've had previous dms with you on Discord using my Sammy account, then I'll just send you your prompts in there! 8D

-

As soon as you get your Secret person, you are allowed to start working on their gift!

You have until the week of Dec. 26th - Dec. 31th to work on your gift!

If you complete your gift early, please wait until the 26th, to post it!

That way we can have a big celebration and gift giving week!

If you are unable to complete your gift, please let me know before Dec. 15th

Note! If you do dropout, I can not guarantee you will be receiving a gift as it will be up to your Gifter to decide if they want to finish. Your dropped requests will then given to one of our backup artists to fulfill!

-

Now for something fun since someone suggested it

Here's the entire current list of participants for this gift exchange!

(In no particular order)

@mary-games-and-arts @itslilacokay @shamythelazypotato @berryicet @thevalleyoftriumph

@impulsive-fantasylander @stormbreaker101 @demontamerarts367 @catalystnick @fp-am

@donnietheterrapin @xxtinterxx @doomed-stickfigure-yuri @4swordsforthewin

@compressedrage @sticktopia @coulrozzgrub

@kikoqueenofrats @ginumo @hazardsk8r

@ghostrified @that-one-oddity @spacewasnotagoodidea @reptilia0freptiles @stiwnty

@kiaerinnn @indigovortex @ghost-cricket @rubtix-a-betz @amagicalmoonlight

@idkwhattoputheresooumm @manyminded @azzyiyay

@lunaautumnofficial @wowieeitsisa @kyte-tsc

@dexi-art @p1ctur3 @cyanvalour @hitbangs64 @r0tting-raspb3rry

@theslasher136 @st4rl1ghts0d4 @segafan13 @ailis-art @bonxy-theskechy02

@jetsartdump @guesspls @real-ink-demon @skyshadowo @nexusloaf

@tertium-of-chaos @tagetesxd @leafeyrune @echostarz123 @bee-natural8

@celestialaviva @oxceen @toon-melody @randomnesseva @ellathebirb

@running2reanimation @maechery @sticky-elie @echo-is-super-cool

@ninjagirlstar5 @asidecharecter @nolabuddy

@crystalartsandanimation @fireflyflarenight @three-bunnies-in-a-trenchcoat

@lakedo @zkylearnstherope @ornziy @theofficalrocketcorp @cindersnows

@alinnamaco @touhize @violetthunderstorm @thoughtsofjess @therealfunnystuffslol

@storgicdealer @ohhhsosleepy @jadeactuallysucks @apricity-2 @murderandjambalaya

@sticks-without-stones @just-an-average-fan @water-lemon-alex @dumbassfromhell @art-yeet

@wingittart @rainthesomething @ciromuffins @mogbomybb @eclipsefates

@ishika-star @rainbowfreakteen @silverflares @bittersweetbeet @bamboo9lordserf

@dollettodraws @boundlessjoy777 @sagafiery @goodjobyellowstickerstar

@f4n-im4t0r @sofoklesk @x-ke1kel-0 @centigreen

@gundilias @shinfiatvlol @sammy8d257 @zishu-arts

@octdl-lee @tamgerinee @crescynnt @natty-drawn12

The blogs listed below didn't work but were listed, if you are the persons who submitted an application and put these blogs down, can you please message me ASAP with a working Tumblr?

Otherwise, I will have to remove you from the gift exchange if I don't get an answer by Dec. 4th

87problems -> @pats-extra-problems

[mtkay13]

Two illustrations of the "are you sincere?" scene, TYK, chapter 65.

More words below! VERY VERY LONG POST AHEAD

It's probably one of the most famous scenes of the book, considering it's the closest to an actual, outspoken declaration of feelings. Funnily enough, my first reaction to the scene was that of frustration, since WenZhou get once again interrupted, and the running gag + horniness distracted me from everything else that was going on in that scene which I now consider to be truly incredible, imo.

Those two illustrations, but mainly the second one, mainly take from one small paragraph in particular, but I will elaborate a little bit on other parts as well. First, though, a translation of the scene:

[...] Wen Kexing raised his head, looked at him. The lamp's light softening Zhou Zishu's chiselled features shone through his eyes, and Wen Kexing was lost in thoughts— He felt like he and this man had known each other for such a long time. From the moment he'd noticed his shoulderblades, felt this rush of excitement, to when he'd started liking who Zhou Zishu was, when he'd thought——so this is the Commander of Tian Chuang. Suddenly, he'd felt as if he'd met his other self. Both of them, lone wolves caught in a hunter's trap, struggling for freedom to no avail, until they had resolved to coldly gnawing off their own legs in the end. He'd felt compelled to follow him around, watched him, until he suddenly realised—if Zhou Zishu could live like this, then surely, so could he? He thought, and thought, until he fell, fell deep until he couldn't climb out anymore. Wen Kexing absent-mindedly reached out to gently caress Zhou Zishu's face, only brushing him with his fingertips. He felt a slight chill from contact of Zhou Zishu's rough skin against his own palm littered with scars and callouses. All of a sudden, he blurted: "Don't die. Should you die and leave me behind, I would be so lonely..." Zhou Zishu grasped his wrist, but didn't shake him off. He smiled: "As long as there is the slightest chance for me to live, I won't die. My life is mine, my gong-fu is mine. The Heavens granted me this fate, and taking it back from me won't be that easy." Zhou Zishu's breath brushed against Wen Kexing's fingers. He squinted, then said, seemingly deep in thoughts: "Once upon a time, an owl knocked over the bowl of red water carried by a villager..." Zhou Zishu looked at him and, his expression unchanged, he gently asked the question he'd already asked before: "Why was the villager carrying a bowl of red water?" Wen Kexing's lips slowly stretched into a smile, and he answered: "Water is colourless, but should blood trickle into it, wouldn't it turn red?" Zhou Zishu still looked at him but remained quiet. As if Wen Kexing's spirits had suddenly returned to him, his faraway gaze coming back into focus.

"Ah-Xu, you should sleep with me once," Wen Kexing said, his eyes smiling up into crescent moons. "This way, we'll have each other in our hearts; so you won't die so easily, and neither will I. How does that sound?" His tone was playful, but Zhou Zishu didn't banter back; he merely watched Wen Kexing with an odd glint in his eyes, and after a moment, he asked: "Are you sincere?" Wen Kexing chuckled, leaned forward so that his breath was brushing against Zhou Zishu's lips: "Can't you tell, if I'm sincere or not?" Zhou Zishu faintly startled, before he replied in a low voice: "I... I really can't. I haven't seen much sincerity in my life, and can hardly discern it. So, are you?" Wen Kexing's fingers climbed up along the curve of Zhou Zishu's shoulder, and he tugged his bun loose. His black, silky hair cascaded down, at once making the hardened man appear a few shades more fragile. Wen Kexing's playful smile faded, and in a soft, yet deeply grounded voice, he said: "I am." He closed his eyes, and pressed his lips to Zhou Zishu's, finally lifting the heavy turmoil from his heart. Zhou Zishu slowly reached up, a long moment passing before he rested his hand upon Wen Kexing's shoulder, gripping his robes with his fingers. [...]

Phew that was a bit long but it felt necessary! TL by me.

Obviously, the second illustration is based on this passage:

"Wen Kexing's fingers climbed up along the curve of Zhou Zishu's shoulder, and he tugged his bun loose. His black, silky hair cascaded down, at once making the hardened man appear a few shades more fragile," which I have lost my mind about too many times to count. I feel like the contrast between this and the mention of Zhou Zishu's rough skin, and his assured words above, is very cool.

About the scene itself, while I guess it's mostly self-explanatory, I feel like mentioning what particularly touches me here:

I think that Wen Kexing's impression of Zhou Zishu, his freedom, "the way he lives", is really the core of what moved Wen Kexing in the first place. It is also echoing that scene, back in Dongting, when Wen Kexing watches Zhou Zishu lazily sitting in a restaurant, feeling what could be interpreted as resentment or envy when he sees how free he looks.

Wen Kexing unconsciously halted his steps. He stared at Zhou Zishu’s relaxed silhouette for a while, with no trace of an expression in his face or eyes. His heart swelled with some strange feeling—strange, in that it was no feeling at all. He felt as though this man was mocking him with this wordless posture; he who rushed around for one thing or another, who was burdened with so many cares, yet obstinately put on a devil-may-care persona. Zhou Xu—as carefree as duckweed, he thought, with a body like willow catkins. In all the world, with its boundless perspectives, where could you find someone who walked their path alone and never allowed anything to trouble them?

(TL by Lianzi)

Wen Kexing longs for him, to be like him, to be free like him; they both came to having to hurt themselves to be free of their shackles, but Zhou Zishu kept living freely afterwards.

By evoking the red water, the past he could never tell straightforwardly, I think that Wen Kexing is expressing how this past of him has been his shackles and how now, he wishes to follow along, to follow Zhou Zishu in his freedom.

And then, Zhou Zishu's words—they almost feel like his own confession, to me. Later, by the tree as well, his words refer to life, the will to live, and not being really direct, it sounds like his way of telling Wen Kexing, "I am serious about you." Wen Kexing was the first one to hold onto his life, to want for Zishu to live, and now Zishu follows along.

His words feel so powerful, and said so straightforwardly, baring himself to Wen Kexing like that, it makes so much sense for me to expect, finally, a proper confession from him as well, considering how each and every one of Wen Kexing's declarations have so far been over the top, jokey or deflected one way or another. Of course, I also think that Zishu does feel some form of insecurity, does need reassurance, and is gambling a lot here, but I guess... he's essentially worked to bare himself and expects the same in return.

ANYWAY. I think this is a gorgeous scene. I DO think, for balance, that the ending is a bit abrupt and that they would have deserved for Priest not to undermine the emotions right away—for that does take away from it a bit and distracts (calling back, once again, to the tired running gag of "oops they're interrupted). Not that the joke shouldn't have come up, but it could have waited a bit more.

But yeah! Thanks for reading!

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 山河令/Word of Honor.

Word of Honor is a 2021 adaptation of a novel by priest that tells the story of two beautiful murderers, their three kids, and their collective attempts to ignore the fetchquest madness that has taken over the rest of the jianghu.

Look, you know what Word of Honor is. Doing a rec for this is like doing my rec for Nirvana in Fire -- I am not introducing you to a new concept. Even if you haven't watched it, you've probably osmosed enough through the rest of Tumblr to have an opinion on it. At this point, if you haven't seen Word of Honor, I'm assuming it's for one of two reasons: either you haven't gotten around to it yet, or you haven't been sufficiently moved by what you've seen fandom do with it.

So I'm going to give you five reasons to watch the show, and they're probably not going to be the reasons you've seen already. Not to say that the other reasons are bad, but you've heard them already, right? What I've got for you are five somewhat more unexpected reasons that may just convince the fence-sitters that this nut-flavored morass of toxic relationships is worth your time.

1. No matter how gay you think it is, it's gayer

Okay, sure, you've probably been given the impression that this show is real gay. But I don't know if you know how gay it is. This show is so gay that we still haven't seen many of the other BL-flavored shows filmed around the same time period or since, because Chinese censorship gay-panicked and locked them all away before they could air, because Word of Honor was just too gay.

Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing (L-R above) are in love. The story does not make sense if they're not. There is no story if they're not. Everything else in the show is set dressing to this incredible adventure story of two horrible people who fall for one another.

Oh yeah, did I mention that they're both bad guys? One's a fascist toddler-murderer and the other's a cannibal mob boss. These two deserve one another, in every possible sense of that phrase. In any other property, they'd be the villains -- and even here, they're still kind of the villains! It's just that the heroes are worse.

What's more, their two actors absolutely understood the assignment. They got the memo. They read the book. No one ever had to sit them down midway through shooting and explain their dynamic. They had it from the table read. When given creative freedom, they chose to double down and make the gay shit even gayer.

But the actors weren't the only ones who knew what they were doing! Everybody working on the production was pretty much in full-on Let's Make A BL mode. There are no gay accidents here. It's so gay that it's actually gayer than the version that aired. If you can do a little lip-reading (though beware of spoilers in those links), you can get at the original filmed version, which had a number of lines that were too homo and/or sexual for Chinese television.

No, they don't kiss. They don't have to. This is the TV version of the tweet about, what's gayer, gay sex or whatever these two have going on? The answer is, whatever these two have going on.

It's so gay that they're not the only gays. No, I'm not going to tell you who the other gays are, in part because spoilers. But trust me, they're there. Lesbians too! And a bisexual elderly polycule! And one pair of hets that we love love love, and most other heterosexuals are creepy and gross. And if that's not an accurate representation of how the world looks to queer people, I don't know what to tell you.

2. Go nuts!

You are not prepared for the product placement.

Word of Honor started off having a budget, so they went ahead and started spending that budget in the way you do when you're making a TV show. Unfortunately, circumstances changed, and their budget became much less, which meant they couldn't keep making that TV show unless they got more dollars. But where to get a sponsor for a fairly low-profile wuxia BL property?

Enter our hero: Wolong Nuts.

I have seen actors do bumper ads in costume for products from their various sponsors, and I have seen actors do bumper ads in character for the same. But the feeling of seeing a modern product diegetically hawked mid-scene by ancient fantasy characters is like none other.

Something like 40% of Word of Honor's total budget came from this nut sponsorship. And here the thing: It worked! It sold nuts! Hell, I’d buy them if they were sold anywhere near me; I like nuts in general, and nuts that support the queers in particular.

I'm including this as a selling point because, come on, it's funny as hell. But it's also a good place to warn you that Word of Honor has what we're politely going to call a spotty use of its funds. Some things, like everyone's outfits and the score, are lavish and beautiful. Other things, like some of the sets and a lot of the CG, are janky and sad. Crowd scenes are thirty humans and a bunch of Blender assets. I've never seen so many fake plastic trees together in one place before. There's a lot of visible hairnets. Like, a lot.

The show was originally planned as being 45 episodes long. It wound up being 36 + a tiny epilogue. That's a huge cut! I’ll say to its credit that you mostly can’t feel the seams; the production team did a heroic job killing their darlings (in many senses) while keeping the narrative coherent. If you know about the original vision, though, you can identify pretty quickly where the excised material should have been. Don’t be surprised when the last two episodes in particular smack you like a hit-and-run.

They blew a truly unwise amount of the budget on costumes in general, and Wen Kexing's costumes in particular, and thank goodness. (@canary3d-obsessed has done a noble job of cataloging everyone's wardrobes, and some of the details are just stunning.) See that red outfit he's wearing there, with the elaborate, delicate embroidery? That apparently took two people literal months to hand-sew. It's a terrible use of limited funds, and I am living for it. Even when Wen Kexing looks awful, he looks stunning -- especially when you put him side by side with Zhou Zishu, who is wearing the jianghu equivalent of slutty yoga pants and a thrift-store dollar-bin t-shirt that says IT'S WINE O'CLOCK SOMEWHERE.

So if, while you’re watching, you’re ever disappointed by the quality of the production in front of you, just console yourself by thinking: That’s nut money, baby.

3. The ghosts (and everyone else) doing the mosts

This is a show that somehow managed to accumulate a tremendous supporting cast of actual grown-ass adults, then had the wisdom to make them play a wide variety of balls-to-the-wall bonkers roles.

You can't throw a rock in a crowd scene without hitting a dozen actors with resumes as long as their arms, who have been acting since before you were born. Apparently they poached a couple veteran film and stage actors from other contemporaneous productions and had them come over to film bit parts on their days off. If you see a character played by an older actor who's getting more lines and face time than you think their character strictly deserves relative to their importance to the plot, and you're like, hm, I wonder if this older actor has a career that includes roles in several dozen other shows and/or stage productions, the answer is yes.

I've seen the tone of the show described as melodramatic, but I don't think that's quite it -- it's more operatic. People speak to the middle distance and play to the back row. Several actors have the body language and line delivery that makes it seem like they're always about three words away from breaking into song. Several of my favorites are downright camp. It's magnificent.

Statistically, everyone in this show is a bad guy. There are the respectable people who don't mean to be bad guys, but wind up being bad guys anyway because they support bullshit systems. There are the morally grey folk who are willing to become bad guys because they think they'll be the good guys when all is said and done. And there are the bad guys who know they're bad guys and are going to chew every piece of scenery in the vicinity about it, so watch out.

My favorite collection of scene-stealing weirdos is probably the clutch of freaks that make up the ghosts of Ghost Valley. They're not actual ghosts -- this is not a supernatural show. They are instead living people who call themselves ghosts because they've found themselves on the margins of society for one reason or another, and have created their own little society! With hookers! And blackjack! And also a little murder, as a treat!

These ghosts are so extra that they actually have a Top Ten List, where all the ones that have code names and specific costumes hang out. How do you get on the Top Ten List? By killing one or more of the people already on it, of course! I told you these guys are villains! They're not even the only villains! They're not even the only villain organization! It's wall-to-wall bad guys around here! And oh my goodness, the actors are clearly having a ball with it.

When the screenwriter came to adapt Faraway Wanderers (the novel) into Word of Honor, she realized that there weren't a whole lot of ladies in the book -- so she invented/adapted some for the show and made most of them sinister! (In fact, if you watch Legend of Fei -- and you should watch Legend of Fei -- you can see a lot of the inspiration for said ladies.) Some of the female characters in the show were men in the book, while others weren't even in the book at all. They all feel organic, though, and not like someone was trying to get Strong Female Character Points. It's the good representation you get when there's a lot of representation, so nobody has to be The Girl, and all the girls can just be people.

...Alas that another casualty of the budget cuts is that several of the lady characters did not get to live up to their full ass-kicking potential. But that potential is still there! The badassery may be implicit instead of explicit, but you don't doubt that many of these women would eat your heart at the slightest provocation, and you would thank them while they were doing it.

This show is perfect food if you're the kind of viewer liable to get sucked up into the worlds of villains, NPCs, bit parts, optional side characters, and other narratives going on outside the main storyline. Because there's a lot going on outside the main storyline. I mean, that's kind of the running joke of the whole novel, that there's this whole complicated political plot happening, and yet our dudes are over here studiously trying to not know what the hell is going on. Obviously that's harder to preserve in a show, but it's still a key feature of the narrative. Most of the Big Power Play What-Not is always happening a few towns over from where the main party is at any given moment. I know people who've watched the drama several times and still can't explain whatever's happening with all that. That's fine. You roll with it for the sake of everything else.

So! Do you like gazing upon delightful character actors and having imagination adventures about the unexplored workings of a bunch of tantalizingly mysterious and often very sexy weirdos? Great! This will keep you busy for a good long while.

4. The juciest pining in the jianghu

I said I wasn't going to tell you about all the gay shit going on here, and I'm not. What I do want to cover, however, is how much gay shit isn't going on here -- and by that I mean just how much of the show's gay longing is unrequited. If you like it when the boy yearns for the other boy, friend, you will feast well tonight.

You have likely already, through fandom, been alerted to the existence of the biggest gremlin in the land and an understandable number of people's favorite character, immortal grandpa Ye Baiyi. What may not have been conveyed, however, is just how tragically gay this bitch is. The ultra-condensed, scrubbed-for-spoilers version of his backstory is that he was in love with a guy who got injured because of him, so he decided to stay and live on a mountain with that guy and the guy's wife and coparent their son with them, all the while never once telling the guy how he felt.

This is not me with slash goggles on. This is canon. Well, okay, the "in love with" part is only confirmed in the book, but Huang Youming, Ye Baiyi's equally gremlin-like actor, has also clearly done the reading and understands how to break your heart with it. Ugh, it's so good.

Shidifuckers, rejoice! Zhou Zishu has Han Ying, his devoted little dumpling who would -- and does -- do anything for him. Back in Zhou Zishu's regrettable (but very fashionable) fascist days, he had a bunch of little underlings; one of them was Han Ying, who still works for the same evil empire. Problem is, Han Ying isn't evil. He was never loyal to his job; he was always just loyal to Zhou Zishu. It's cute the way Wen Kexing hisses like a cat upon meeting Han Ying and immediately identifying him as a rival for Zhou Zishu's affections. If you like OTPs that occasionally roll in a service-top third, please consider that adorable muffin boy up there.

And speaking of quitting your job, have you ever had the problem where you had to orchestrate your own death to get away from your toxic boss who won't stop sexually harassing you, and that motherfucker still expects you to show up for your shift next weekend? Meet Prince Jin, who has refused to accept Zhou Zishu's resignation letter with extreme prejudice.

Zhou Zishu isn't even the only ex he's mad he drove off! But that's just a namedrop in the show; see my bonus selling point for instructions on how to get into that whole gay-ass story. [insert obligatory "Prince Jin is not Helian Yi" disclaimer here]

...Nope, uh-uh, we're not going to get into what's going on with Scorpy. Suffice it to say, this is one of those cases where the show can't outright call a thing gay (though uhhhh it sure can imply a lot of it!), but it can set up an unspoken Gay Bad Idea as a direct, textual parallel with a canon Straight Bad Idea and be like, see? see? Anyway, daddy's boy there has deliciously terrible taste. This is the one that'll have you screaming crying throwing up etc.

And then there's this handsome jackass, who isn't doing the pining, but is the unfortunately heterosexual object of the often confused and misdirected longings of his friends. About the first thing you know about Rong Xuan is that he died before the series begins, so you only see him in a few flashbacks. The precious few times you do, though, you're treated to scenes of him holding court among his besties (many of whom are the spectacularly cast younger versions of major older male characters) while they all wrestle with varying degrees of homo longing for his cocky dreamboat self. You ever wanted to fuck a straight guy so bad you got both him and his wife killed about it? Because somebody in this drama sure has!

I sense you think I'm making this all up, that I'm just a fujoshi looking at the world through rainbow-colored glasses and telling you about her favorite slash pairings. Friend, I am not. Okay, I am being a little cheeky about the last one, but I swear that everything else I have listed in this selling point is about as textual as the show could make it, if not outright straight (ha ha) from the books.

(I have a whole separate theory about how priest herself is a real-life queer, based on how basically everyone in her works is either queer-coded or a token straight who's on thin ice, but that's a subject for a completely different Tumblr post no one's ever going to read, so save us both the time and imagine I already wrote it.)

I cannot stress to you enough how much this show knew what it was doing with the queer stuff. I love how amazingly toxic so much of it is, too, because one of the big themes of the show is that secrets will destroy you and everyone you love. If you have gay longing in a society that forces you to hide that gay longing, yeah, you're going to be extra-vulnerable to making some shitty decisions because of it! You're either going to suffocate yourself by keeping silent, or you're going to open yourself to intimate partner abuse you can't reveal to anyone else, or you're going to do some murders about it! Or some combination of the three! Either way, it's not good!

Also, tell your partner about your chronic health conditions, whether they be Can't Remember My Past, Would Eat A Guy If I Had The Opportunity, Stuck Some Nails In My Chest And Am Now Dying And Also Can't Get A Boner, or Whoops Took The Nails Out Of My Chest And Still Can't Get A Boner. Oh, and tell your partner if you're about to run off and go confront your dangerous ex. And absolutely tell your partner if you're about to fake your own death. Just ... learn to have conversations with the people who love you, okay? Avoid huge amounts of narrative suffering with this one weird trick!

5. Putting his whole Zhang Zhehussy into it

See, Gong Jun (playing Wen Kexing) is not what I'd call a great actor. This is more of a case where you take a guy, you cast him as a character whose motivation can be summed up as "I want to fuck that man in half," and then you cast opposite him a man that the guy in question clearly actually wants to fuck in half. And you let the magic work.

Zhang Zhehan (playing Zhou Zishu), however, legitimately knocks it entirely out of the park. Whenever the camera's on him, it's hard to take your eyes off him. He holds his own in a sea of veteran actors. He can do comedy and tragedy with equal panache. It's lucky he's such a beautiful crier, because Zhou Zishu cries so much. I have never seen someone more perfectly portray the mood of "in love and absolutely furious about it."

As the story goes, when he auditioned, he actually wanted to play Wen Kexing -- but the director told him, look, while you'd be great at that, I can find another Wen Kexing, but I'm never going to find another Zhou Zishu.

Zhou Zishu is bad man who has done terrible things and resigned himself to suffering to atone for his crimes, and he is so mad to find himself at the end of his life suddenly having a reason to keep living. Zhang Zhehan does a pitch-perfect tsundere right up to the point where he breaks. I'm not going to call it an understated performance, because nothing in this show is understated, but it is often times subtle and always complex, and fuck does he have a good crazy grin.

One of the first things you find out about Zhou Zishu is that he's got just a couple years left to live, over which time all his senses are going to deteriorate. In fact, they've already started going. And as the show goes on, you can watch Zhang Zhehan play it so you can tell when he's missed something he should otherwise have picked up on, reacting to noises and touches a split-second late. It's a testament to what a thoughtful job Zhang Zhehan's doing, keeping track of how much of Zhou Zishu has already slipped away.

There are, if you've read the book, legitimate complaints to be made about the adaptation's interpretation of Zhou Zishu's character, and I get that. But you can't say that Zhang Zhehan isn't pulling off exactly what he means to here. I say this too as someone who loves the novel: I think it works. Given the constraints of Chinese television in particular and cinematic adaptations in general, the show made the right choices when it came to figuring out what were the more filmable, actable options, and Zhang Zhehan plays every one of those choices within an inch of his life.

Also did I mention he's like the most beautiful man to ever exist? Holy crap. You're going to be so mad about what they do to his face for the first several episodes.

Don't worry, it washes off eventually.

caveat: Kind of a bummer!

You may have been warned that this one's got a sad ending. Well ... yes and no. On the "no" side of things, there's a "secret" mini-episode 37 that rolls back one of the major points of tragedy. (It's also clearly the first version that got shot, and then they shuffled around and redubbed some material to make the aired end of episode 36.)

But oh man, not all of them. Plenty of characters we love do not make it to the end. Like ... kind of a shockingly large number. Some are dispatched offscreen, some have tragic onscreen deaths, some are probably dead given the circumstances we last see them in, and a couple aren't dead yet but are almost certainly going to be soon.

(It's also kind of a meta-bummer! I mean, I don't recommend falling down the rabbit hole of what happened with Zhang Zhehan's career after the show aired, but tl;dr, it's not great.)

So yeah, it's not an outright pain simulator, and if you've got the mettle for Nirvana in Fire or Guardian, you should be okay here. But hoo boy, don't just blunder on in expecting a cheerful romp from start to finish, because ... yeah. I said it before: This is a story about a bunch of bad guys. Bad guys don't live long lives, nor do the good people who get tangled up in their shit. Just be prepared!

bonus selling point: black and white husbands

Okay, I will tell you who one of the other pairs of gays is. You'll see the two of them show up near the tail end of the show, and then you'll decide you want to know more about what their whole deal is, and then you'll read Qi Ye, which is a novel entirely about gay pining, and then it'll be all over for you.

Ready to wander this way?

There's a number of ways to watch this one! Viki, Netflix, YouTube, and Amazon Prime all have you covered -- but Viki's the only one that has the epilogue at the ready, so I'd go there if you can.

And I get it, if you're enough of an aging hipster that you don't want to play in the same sandbox everybody else is playing in. Believe me, I understand that impulse on a visceral level. After all, this is not a small fandom -- 7718 works on AO3 (at time of writing) isn't Untamed levels of content, but it's nothing to sneeze at. Maybe you want to leave this one for a little while longer, until the hubbub dies down a bit more and people's attention is redirected by a different gay and shiny thing. That's valid. I get it.

But if you do, I still encourage you to get around to it someday. For all its flaws -- and yeah, it's got flaws -- it's a good, solid story that makes you feel lots of feelings about some fascinating characters in some beautiful costumes, running around being real queer (and okay, occasionally straight) to beautiful music. This, to me, is television.

Fun fact! There is also a Japanese dub, if you feel like taking it at that speed, and the guy who voices Zhou Zishu is the voice of Kaworu from Evangelion, and the guy who voices Wen Kexing is the voice of Victor Nikiforov from Yuri on Ice. See what I mean???

I'm telling you, everybody ships it.

[evilfarmin]

Helian Yi: yahoo answers my closest friend asked me what if he was a bug and I laughed at him bc I thought it was a joke and now he won't talk to me how bad did I fuck this up?

Zhou Zishu: to his face?

Wuxi: haha you fumbled this one bitch there is no recovering from that sucks to be you brb gonna go catch myself a bug wife

Wuxi choose your own adventure

[_🕷️_] [_🦊_]

[ultimateshixiongfuckertournament]

Noncanonicals Tournament Round 2, Match 4

Match 4 is between John 'Jack' Seward from Dracula (shizun/mentor: Abraham van Helsing) and Han Ying from Word of Honor (shizun/mentor: Zhou Zishu)

Propaganda under the cut! (Warning: Propaganda may include spoilers about the characters and their media)

John 'Jack' Seward:

Actual quotes from the letter in which John Seward introduce Van Helsing:

"I am in doubt, and so have done the best thing I know of. I have written to my old friend and master, Professor Van Helsing, of Amsterdam, who knows as much about obscure diseases as any one in the world. [...]

Van Helsing would, I know, do anything for me for a personal reason, so no matter on what ground he comes, we must accept his wishes. He is a seemingly arbitrary man, this is because he knows what he is talking about better than any one else. He is a philosopher and a metaphysician, and one of the most advanced scientists of his day, and he has, I believe, an absolutely open mind. This, with an iron nerve, a temper of the ice-brook, and indomitable resolution, self-command, and toleration exalted from virtues to blessings, and the kindliest and truest heart that beats, these form his equipment for the noble work that he is doing for mankind, work both in theory and practice, for his views are as wide as his all-embracing sympathy."

I feel like this speaks for itself tbqh.

Also, here's Van Helsing's answer to Seward's offscreen summons:

"When I received your letter I am already coming to you. By good fortune I can leave just at once, without wrong to any of those who have trusted me. Were fortune other, then it were bad for those who have trusted, for I come to my friend when he call me to aid those he holds dear. Tell your friend that when that time you suck from my wound so swiftly the poison of the gangrene from that knife that our other friend, too nervous, let slip, you did more for him when he wants my aids and you call for them than all his great fortune could do. But it is pleasure added to do for him, your friend, it is to you that I come.[...]"

The Gangrene Incident is never explained beyond this. Just. Jack sucked Van Helsing canon and real

Rest assured that they are like this from here to the end of the novel

--

See above; also, let's remember the fact that Jackie can apparently do a bang up Dutch accent to give full bodied performances mimicking his professor. Van H also implies that he and Jack are blood-married.

--

Even though they are mentor/student, Van Helsing strongly believes Jack is his equal in many ways and confides in him just for emotional stability. Stereotypically the mentor pushes the student outside of his comfort zone, but it is Jack who introduces the professor to everyone else in the story. Van Helsing tells another character that Jack helps alleviate his loneliness. He writes his "in case I die" memos to Jack specifically, because there is no one else who would understand him better.

Oh also Van Helsing has a running theme of barging into Jack's room unannounced, waking him up gently from his sleep, invading his personal space with little protest.

#you have to understand just how MUCH jack wants to fuck van helsing#so badly#he is constantly heart-eyes at van helsing even when he thinks van helsing might be a bit mad#like literally he writes about how GOOD van helsing would be at being a madman if he were to do so because he's the bestest at everything 😍#he and van helsing talk about the two of them being as one#they mirror the ultimate main couple in that - just as jon and mina write their 'if i should die' notes to each other -#van helsing writes his to JACK as the one whom he loves most#anyway in conclusion jack wants van helsing and his 'all encompassing sympathy' SO bad#and honestly i think getting some of that aged D might fix him#like not all of his problems because dear god man. but like. at least a few could be solved with a good solid dicking

#did we. or did we all not read jack asking van helsing to be his pet student AGAIN

#when it comes to mentorfucking#there's no greater mentorfucker than jack seward

Han Ying:

He idolized and was mentored by Zhou Zishu to the point of recruiting other young martial artists to revive ZZS’s dying sect and willing to die live happily ever after for it.

#han ying wants to fuck zhou zishu SO BAD#han ying#shizunfucker tournament

#my sweet ying'er wants to fuck zzs so bad he's gagging for it

#HAN YING HANDS DOWN#would have licked his boots if he asked

[romanceyourdemons]

anyways i love those episodes of word of honor where the xie wang subplot is like “maybe killing myself really is the answer,” the liu qianqiao subplot is like “maybe killing myself really is the answer,” the han ying subplot is like “maybe killing myself really is the answer,” and the zhou zishu subplot is like “lao wen if you undermine my parenting one more time you’re going to be sleeping on the couch. don’t you give me that look, i saw you telling chengling he could skip the rest of his training if he went to town for a bucket of red-and-white striped paint”

[aiyexayen]

🐇📚🦷🍬🪐🏜️🌸🎨🧩 ((((:

a feast of answers it is, then! 😌

🐇 ⇢ do you prefer writing original characters, reader inserts, or a mix of both?

though not frequently applicable, i prefer writing original characters. i come up with the odd one now and again (like some of my beloved queer siji disciples in my chengling fix it au). i don't believe i've ever done a reader insert! maybe someday.

📚 ⇢ what's the last thing you wrote down in your notes app?

i don't actually have a notes app but i do take notes in my personal discord server. the last fic related note i wrote was, "5 times wen kexing caught liu qianqiao + 1 time she caught him" and the beginnings of an outline to that end 🤭

🦷 ⇢ share some personal wisdom or a life hack you swear on

i assume this is meant to be writing-related, but my best hacks are actually, "just put a new chapstick in every location instead of trying to remember to take one around with you" and "put a bench/stool in the kitchen and bathroom, maybe even ones with wheels, you deserve to sit down while you do things"

writing advice? "write what fulfils you, when it fulfils you" -- need to stop everything and write a vent fic? do it. need to get out just an outline to an idea that grabbed your soul but never write or post it? do it. need to spend 3 months going feral writing a longfic that makes you happy and then leave it unfinished? Do It. need to write nothing but smutty pwp oneshots for your friends? you know you should just do it. need to stop writing for 2 years and then come back just to write some poetry for a rarepair in a fandom nobody's ever heard of? DO IT. as a hobby writer with no deadlines keeping food on my table, holding onto ownership of my agency around writing and only writing whatever i want and need whenever i want or need to--and the implied *don't* force myself to write things that hurt me or write when i can't--is what keeps writing healthy and joyous for me. and this isn't in conflict with fandom as community or participating in fic events, either--i write more prompt and gift fic than anything, tbh.

🍬 ⇢ post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character

i don't typically keep up with popular fandom characters and opinions. uh. oh, here's one for shl. i don't think canon zhou zishu makes a good dad figure for zhang chengling. i think he does his best to be chengling's shifu: a distinctly different relationship to a father-son one, especially for them, that he formed as a late-20-something with a mostly grown teenaged boy. and i don't think either of them would even think of disrespecting chengling's father's memory by trying to just replace him. i think wenzhou and chengling are found family in a more grounded and queerly expansive way, distinct from some nuclear ideal of parents-with-a-kid, and trying to force them into that relational tropey box does a serious disservice to the narrative and themes as they stand, to the character arcs as they stand, and feels like a weirdly unnecessary dismissal of the vast sprawling possibilities of human relationship.

but i mean, this is an opinion i hold in general about almost every fandom space so it's not new. i think characters are often much more (and sometimes much less) than "the mom of the trio" or "married with a kid" or anything else that tries to memeily-but-then-abruptly-seriously boil down characters to a single note, be it a gender role or a parental role or anything else. and sometimes the memes are funny, but often they transcend meme into serious character fanon and i bounce off it pretty quick.

🪐 ⇢ name three good things going on in your life right now

1, i am no longer living in a house i am allergic to

2, i am working on my solstice time playlist

3, i just got a package in the mail from a friend!

🏜️ ⇢ what's your favourite type of comment to receive on your work?

anything that points out a specific thing the commenter noticed or liked. whether it's one quote, one little detail, or a whole essay. it's that feeling of being seen and noticed that's delicious. but honestly i also love incoherent emotion and emojis too. there's so much to enjoy about comment variety.

🌸 ⇢ do you have any pets? if you do, post some pictures of them

chengling! my black cat!

🎨 ⇢ link your favourite piece of fanart and explain why you like it

i literally don't have a favourite. i love so fucking many fanarts, all of them equally for different reasons. i don't know how i would realistically answer this. i might make a fanart rec post sometime.

🧩 ⇢ what will make you click away from a fanfiction immediately?

finding one of my squicks that didn't make it into the tags to be filtered for (often i have squicks or unpreferences that aren't likely to be filterable via tags--like use of pet names that remind me of my ex, or other personal junk lol)

grammar/dialogue that is too difficult to parse is another. i'm not too picky about grammar or typos or anything normally, but like if i literally can't tell who's talking or what's happening at all, there's no real point keeping on reading. stuff like that.

i hope you enjoyed all this info lmao

ask game

[marilearnsmandarin]

Hello! I didn’t know who else to ask, but I had a question about a eunuch’s pronoun usage. In most media, the eunuch character in question uses 奴才, as is typical for one of his position. However, I was watching the donghua, and noticed he used 老奴 instead (the full sentence was “老奴去看看”). I’m unfamiliar with 老奴 as a pronoun and am particularly confused by the 老 part of it, since this eunuch isn’t old (though he may look that way). As far as I know, he is only in his early thirties by this point of the story, unless there is a departure from the novel in regard to his age.

Does 老奴 have a connotation associated with age? Or is it related to familiarity or something else?

(It’s fine if you can’t answer it, I know it’s a weirdly specific question).

I do not know, but perhaps one of my followers can answer...

Edit: tbh I should have paid more attention, but I had just woken up, saw a character I didn't know and thought "I don't know much about honorifics in ancient China, I'll just put it out there for someone who knows better than me". But actually it just seems to be a case of speaking about oneself in third person and using the 老 for familiarity as you said. It is not necessarily related to old age (thinking about Zhou Zishu calling Wen Kexing "Lao Wen" in Word of Honor now)

[zishu-arts]

Heya! Here's the request I was thinking of:

I was wondering if you could draw one of my stickfigure characters hanging out with Vic, Chosen, Dark and Second?

Her name is Magenta and she's a magenta-pink (#ea0090) hollowhead with aqua (#00ea9e) powers (like Second's - one consistent colour).

I see the other four as brothers in this AU. Magenta is like the cool older cousin to Second, a sister in chaos (but more sane) to Dark, a good friend (cough cough slowburn ship) to Chosen and the annoying scarcastic yet somehow down to earth friend to Vic. (A bit more detail to the slowburn ship thing: they're still in denial, but are chill about it and good friends. They have pretty similar life experiences and sometimes go "you too?!" over their trauma :'D)

I'd just like to have some art of them hanging out as, like- "the hollowheads", but I'm shit at drawing anatomy sooo

yea :D

I hope that wasn't too much of a dump- trying to give you enough information so you can have creative freedom ;v;

crikey that’s a lot of hollowheads

[sirenofthegreenbanks]

another one!! 🪳

recommend a great AU!

this took me too long to answer excuse mwah <3 sorry i couldnt resist asdhjash such a stupid joke

with you from dusk by katharija. WOH modern au, chronic pain, unspecified chronic illness, angst, trust issues, vulnerability, grief/mourning, sharing a bed, T. i literally just finished rereading it this morning! a brief glance at wenzhou's early days, but set in modern day. im very weak for conversations in the dark, after some guards have been lowered and possibilities to live your life a different way, a better way, seem tangible. there is also a sequel to this!

hunger by lastembers. WOH modern au, chronic pain, unspecified chronic illness, referenced cannibalism, canon-typical violence, domesticiation of a monster, M. also a fic i finished rereading the other day! what if wenzhou were neighbours, but wen kexing eats people? u know that im very into cannibalism as this metaphor for something else and as a stepping stone to experience real emotional intimacy! i also really like it when the very palpable sensation of hunger functions to talk about very related things, very visceral things, that can also be felt in the body.

there is a line here i particularly liked:

"Aren't you hungry?" Zhou Zishu asks. Wen Kexing is watching him like he's the most interesting thing in the world. "No," Wen Kexing says. Zhou Zishu knows its a lie. He thinks maybe Wen Kexing is always hungry.

oh, you're mine to take, i wanna hear the sounds you'll make by anonymous. MDZS modern au, genderbend wangxian, experimenting with gender, E. just quoting that one tumblr post from a while back: "dykes who want get fucked in the ass like gayboys." yep!!!

fish & wild geese by impossibletruths. MDZS modern au, wangxian, little forest AU, hunger as a metaphor for grief, farming as a metaphor for healing, food as a metaphor for love, T. lan wangji moves into his dead mother's house and tries to remember how it is to live. its been a while since i read this but i still remember how the grief felt like a fishbone stuck in my throat.

and you must keep your soul/ like a secret in your throat by athena_crickey. MDZS, The Untamed, modern au, modern cultivation, supernatural elements, vampires, culture clash, case fic, grief/mourning, complicated family dynamics, the weariness of being old and immortal, what it means to be alive, E. wei wuxian is an ancient vampire and lan wangji is a young (youngish) cultivator who seeks him out for a case. i particularly liked seeing glimpses of wei wuxian's earlier lives through fictional academical articles and reports at the end of each (i think it is each?) chapter, and sometimes through their conversations. i like it when there is a really old (really, really old) being there and through them, you are challenged to confront what being alive for such a long time does to a person, in what ways it reshapes them.

in the water grass, in the green by nerdzeword, twigofwillow. The Untamed, modern with magic, wangxian, angst, illness, curses, witches, river spirits, family, gardening, G. lan wangji's mother falls ill. he asks the wen witches across the street for help. this fic, too, has the theme of finding solace and comfort in cooking, food, and nature! i love lan wangji being this transcended being between a person and a river! there is also some anticipatory grief here and complex family dynamics; even though madam lan isnt dead, it is hard for lan wangji to reach her because she is not accepted by his family. he has feelings about that.

bug me bug me for fic recs!!!!

[chaotic-aro-incarnate]

I'm curious y'all,

In the case of Fem! WenZhou, do you feel that female!Wen Kexing would refer to herself as,

a) Wife. Because WKX calling himself wife is about his personality and teasing Zishu more than anything else, something that would not change if their genders were swapped

b) Husband. Because WKX calling himself wife is particularly a gender fuckery thing, with him using a female term for himself despite fulfilling several other traditionally masculine things (like being the leader of the ghosts and well, topping), so were his gender swapped, so would the way he fucks around with gender.

[bl-bracket]

7, 9 and 12 for the BL ask game! 💙!

7. Top 5 BL

oh gosh this so hard. In no particular order then:

The Sign. It's everything to me. I love shows that have buckwild premises. A show about detectives who are reincarnated mythical creatures and the main guy has visions of the future for some reason? I know some people felt like they focused too much on the other aspects of the show (like the detective stuff) but I honestly loved it and did not mind that it did that.

Word of Honor. It's my comfort show tbh. I got really into wuxia/xianxia after watching The Untamed but this is the one I have enjoyed the most. I love characters who are kinda evil. and like neither Wen Kexing or Zhou Zishu really go through a redemption arc but more of a domestication and retirement arc respectively.

My School President. In my humble opinion, this is like the quintessential teen romance drama of all time. It hit every metric for me and I love it so much. One of those dramas I wished I had growing up because it would have completely changed the directory of my baby queer journey if I had it. (23.5 is shaping up to be the wlw equivalent for me in this tbh. I wish the show came out in its current form in like 2016)

Manner of Death. Another just overall solid show that hits every bit for me. Iconic for how it like changed the course of the genre. It's only flaw in not going full acab at the end with Inspector M not quitting the police after seeing how corrupt it is (and also it's kinda mid take on abortion, but I'm not familiar enough with the general opinion on that in Thai culture in 2020, so I think Bun taking an even neutral stance on it was probably a big step?), but I can forgive it for how vehemently Bun remained acab despite being just a regular doctor.

My Tooth Your Love. Bai Lang is just like me fr fr. I know some people weren't a fan of the dentist setting but honestly, I don't really mind that. Bai Lang's struggles with his trauma felt so real to me and like I could really connect to it. This was my first Taiwanese BL and it was a great one for me to start with. It's only problem was trying to pair all the spares without enough time to do so, but I don't think that it subtracted anything from the main story.

9. Currently Watching

So I've been quite busy lately and haven't had a lot of time to watch stuff, but I did recently start watching The Spirealm, which I have been enjoying, even though I had to take a bit of a break, I'm planning on getting back into watching it in the next week or two! Not a BL, but I'm also watching 23.5! I'm a little behind because of being busy, but I'm also going to catch up on that one. I have several other dramas that I've only seen part of and will hopefully pick back up again soon, but these are the two I feel like I'm most focused on finishing up (unless I suddenly get a desire to watch another one of the dramas and end up bingeing it but we'll see)

12. Most rewatched BL

answered that here!

[mtkay13]

Back to the human world

I have many thoughts and feels regarding what happens after Zhou Zishu has come to rescue Wen Kexing ("gather his corpse") after the battle on Mt. Fengya.....

Zhou Zishu, healthier after having taken Da Wu's medicine for 3 months, now, has been tailing the scorpions for a while, too. Infiltrated them. He's the closest to his peak that he has been in years. And Wen Kexing, who is now free, unburdened, so close to dying... And they each have one question for each other.

"He [Zhou Zishu] looked at Wen Kexing in the eyes, and said : 'I'm asking you. Do you want to live?' Wen Kexing silently looked back at him for a long, long time, then answered : 'Will... will you leave me?'"

他看着温客行的眼睛道：“我问你，你想不想活？” 温客行沉默地看着他，良久良久，问道：“你……会走么？”

They will both live, and they will both stay. Wen Kexing is then brought back into the light, to the human world. The fragility in that scene, in the both of them. How I'm also convinced that when Wen Kexing sees Zhou Zishu arrive, fight, and then come to him, when he says his famous "There's a light on you" ('你身上有光') line, he pretty much falls in love all over again. How later, then, he tells Zhou Zishu how the one thing capable to defeat a ghost is the human heart... (Gu Xiang's, Zhou Zishu's, Zhang Chengling's, his own...) So much!! In that scene!!! I wish I can one day do way more than a few illustrations and concept arts. I wish I could do so much more to translate just how much I adore this ending (granted, what comes after is a bit rushed-- BUT! That leaves SO much space to imagine how then Zhou Zishu has taken care of Wen Kexing while he was recovering, and the following journey to Mt. Changming.... SO MUCH!! TO IMAGINE!! AND CREATE!!!) Here are a few additional designs :

What I imagine Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu look like at Mt Fengya. Wen Kexing, in his "dark red" Ghost Valley Master robes. The sword... actually isn't there, but I liked the look. And then, Zhou Zishu, disguised as a scorpion. He kinda looks like a sith, but I really like that haha. His cheeks and frame are fuller, because I consider that on top of having been taking the meds for 3 months now, he has also been preparing for the surgery (so he's been eating more and better).

Following an idea from Bichen, I imagine the tree Wen Kexing sits under to be a giant willow tree (among other willow trees). The scorpion confrontation happens while the sun is rising. Also, isn't it poetic that it is under a <willow tree> when Zhou "Xu"'s name means willow catkin? I just really like that.

That's it for now. I'm certainly not done with this whole passage, but... Yeah. So much to do!!! So little time!!!