#overall I think some aspects of the lan sect and lan characters are very strong | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lotus-mirage · 4 years

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The Untamed episode 50 liveblog

Wow. D: I can’t believe I’m almost done with this. I will probably wind up at least watching some of the animated version, but for now this is the end! Aaahh

So Jin Guangyao didn’t make a move, then.

Focus is squarely on Nie Huaisang now. He did it on purpose then?

‘Didn’t have a clue’?

Okay, but was the rest of it him, too? He seems pretty shaken right now honestly.

He pushed the sword further in??? D:

Oh that’s a horrible confession to make. That he didn’t want to hurt Lan Xichen, I mean. That’s absolutely going to hurt the guy after Jin Guangyao finally passes.

It’d almost be kinder to tell him that he was using him too, frankly. Almost. I don’t know. Yikes.

Oh jeez that background shot of Jin Ling D,:

I keep forgetting he’s here watching this too yikes

Wait what’s he doing

How the heck did he do that???? He’s been bleeding out for at least a few minutes already!

Is he breaking the seal thing!?

Uh oh

Is he going to stay? It looks like he’s at least considering it.

???? I thought he wanted him to stay!?

Okay now these are the dramatics I was expecting from Nie Mingjue

Jin Ling D,:

Where’d he go? Is he still in there?

I still don’t know what to make of Nie Huaisang

Oh! Was he the last person he had to get revenge on?

Well there’s literally everyone else

:,( at Jiang Cheng just watching him

He’s leaving!? D:

How many child actors did they have for like one scene each??

Oh Nie Huaisang was holding the hat?

Wait is that blood

Not sure what he was feeling there. It was interesting though. Huh.

I’m D,: at this entire conversation with Jiang Cheng and Jin Ling. It’s so good.

Oh flashback?

Did he get himself caught on purpose!? D,:

Ahhhhhh

Hahaha was that an interrupted confession? It sure felt like one.

Ahhh Lan Sizhui :,D

Oh good they’re telling him

Ahhhhhhhhh

they’re hugging ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

‘Sad but thrilled’ is a good description

Hahaha this is fantastic

Okay the leg hug is a little awkward but the sentiment is nice

Ahhhhhh

Oh! They’re going back to Qishan together! Oh that’s so nice.

There is a lot of ‘person in black and person in white walking off together’ in this show

WAIT WAIT is he not going too!??

?????

WHAT

?????????????????

is this a flashback or a time skip what is happening

I mean very pretty but what

Okay these are new clothes so assumedly not a flashback

Good they didn’t split up

Oh I recognize this shot

Several of these shots actually - they’re used in either the opening or the ending I think

Oh good Nie Huaisang’s here too. We might actually be getting an explanation.

Okay that ‘Thou shall not befriend the devil’ was very threatening please clarify.

They laughed but I’m not sure if it was actually a joke

...okaaaay

Oh good they’re confirming it even without him

More or less

?? Okay what’s going on now. I’m on edge after that whole-

Shoot they are splitting up!?

??????

Okay so it’s not forever but??

Oh he’s playing the song!?

Thank goodness they’re implying it’s not for too long.

Wow is he in another outfit already?

That’s very pretty

?? What prompted the pause in music??

Okay he turned around was that them meeting back up?

Oh.

Oh thats the end. :,(

End notes:

Okay I had to do something but I am back half an hour later and watching the ending and it is giving me very strong emotions wow

Okay so.

First off: very good series - I was confused a whole lot but it made me feel things and I love it.

The ending was really well done, I think - there was a lot of ambiguity but it wrapped up enough of the emotional threads in a very effective manner.

Wow, uh. Hmmm. What to say.

Thoughts on characters/plot threads as I remember them:

I found that the strongest emotional thread of this show was probably the family/grief aspect. Mainly the family aspect, but the two were often combined. It showed up absolutely everywhere - it was both Wei Wuxian’s driving factor and in a way Jin Guangyao’s? Moreso the lack of it in the latter’s case. And a complicated issue with both (especially with their parents). On second thought this may hold true for a lot of the cast.

It did kind of feel like Wen Ruohan was kind of not a character and was just there to drive the war forward (and thus the characters and plot). Which is fine? But it leaves me feeling like the driving force behind the war was a little hollow, which is eh.

The Wen remnants were super compelling, though. That entire arc hit hard and made sense as a logical effect of the war.

I don’t really know how to feel about the post-timeskip stuff as a whole. On the one hand, I enjoyed myself a lot? It was great fun. On the other hand a lot of it contrasted sharply with the mass death at the end of the last arc.

The characters themselves were mostly pretty great (with the exceptions of, like, the Wen antagonists, some sect leaders, Su She and Jin Zixun).

I always have a hard time talking about main characters (in this case WWX and LWJ). I think it’s because we know so much about them that it’s hard to pick a single subject to talk about with them??

Anyway, they were really great. They had unique dynamics with each other and with all the other characters that evolved as they did. Neither were static characters and each step they took made sense?

Jiang Cheng is a very flawed character and he made me feel a lot and he’s my favorite. After a certain point he just had so many strong emotions, many of which conflicted each other and it was just entirely compelling and relatable. I feel like he is the strongest character outside of the main two + Jin Guangyao, although that may be my bias speaking.

Jin Guangyao. I totally forgot to think about story structure with him, frankly - didn’t see why he kept getting so much screen time and was constantly developing as well. I didn’t realize he was going to be a full-blown antagonist, let alone the antagonist, way past when I should have. He’s a sympathetic character, and the audience is reminded of this even as he does all these awful things. Yeah, he keeps finding himself in terrible situations but he also causes a lot of innocent casualties. I don’t totally know how to feel about him fully, but I think that’s the point.

Lan Xichen is also very flawed, but like. In a gentler way? I’m not sure we really see enough to know him as well as we could, but we do know that he’s trying and he cares, and sometimes that sucks for him.

Nie Huaisang is frankly a bit of an enigma. Unlike Jin Guangyao, he doesn’t exposit or drop masks where we can see him. I think he’s very interesting but maybe too underutilized in the majority of the series for me to say much else about him. I did really like the banter he had with Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian, though.

Not sure I have as much to say on the other characters. Oops.

Lan Sizhui! Best boy. I love him.

Wen Ning is also best boy. He’s adorable. And also terrifying sometimes.

Wen Qing was fantastic. I liked her character so much and was very sad to see her go.

I was very surprised by how much Jin Zixuan grew on me. Props to that.

Jin Ling was also great. I loved his interactions with basically everyone. Also I feel like with maybe the exception of maybe Lan Xichen the ending probably was the worst for him. Smack dab in the center of the family drama, if you can count multiple set-ups and murders that.

I kind of simultaneously wish Jiang Yanli was more and am kind of content with how she was? I mean some of her role is a little... overly-limited, but she’s still a fairly important aspect of the story and continuously makes her own decisions and the like.

Madame Yu was a more interesting character to me than her husband but was also much more antagonistic. It’s an interesting duality where I want to see more of her but also want her to not interact with the other characters much, which doesn’t make any sense.

Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan didn’t have much of an impact outside of the Coffin Town bit, but frankly that was painful enough that it’s fine!! It was well done and their situation was awful but that hurt enough already!

Xue Yang is a character. Very well-portrayed and I feel like the actor had a blast but I feel like he didn’t have a giant impact either? He was a cool and scary villain.

Overall, it was a great show with a lot of interesting characters! It was great at emotional storytelling, except for when there was whiplash. I loved the music and the costuming, and the actors were great. Some of the special effects were a little wacky (looking at Lan Xichen’s instrument and the Wens’ dog thing), but some of them were really cool (see: Wen Ning’s entrance into the temple). Sometimes the politics-talk grated my nerves a bit, but that may be mostly a personal preference thing. The fighting also took some getting used to, but was impressive in some areas.

The show made me feel a lot and I am still feeling both the mixed bittersweet feelings from the show and that oh-shoot-the-story’s-over hole-in-the-chest feeling right now, but I don’t know how else to talk about that.

It wasn’t perfect but I enjoyed it a lot and am very impressed by it.

Let me know if I missed anything - there’s a lot and I am totally open for discussion.

#the untamed #mdzs #untamed liveblog #my thoughts

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tonyglowheart · 5 years

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I Still Don’t Know if I Can Write an Actual Fic BUT here are some more thoughts (or stream-of-consciousness musings) on Sentinel/Guide AU CQL!WangXian:

The world is one in which Sentinels usually end up with some cultivation sect or another. Not all cultivators are Sentinels, and not all Sentinels end up cultivators - cultivators aren’t necessarily out there actively looking for Sentinels - but a lot of ‘em end up with the sects

Sentinels are a known concept but not necessarily codified into a separate hierarchy; it’s more of a concept of if you have the potential to be a Sentinel, then the actions and movements relating to cultivation would help you regulate yourself and your senses and not lose control or zone out? Idk I’m a bit hazy on this aspect but I know I don’t want Sentinels to be a Separate Thing. Maybe it’s even seen more as being born with a natural aptitude to high-level cultivation, since like if you’re high-level you can...probably do some cool things with your senses :’)

no you know what!!! I suddenly remembered vague bits of stories from my childhood and either Sun Wukong or some other deity in folkloric/mythological tradition having powers such as Very Good Sight and Very Good Hearing (there were much better names than this. google tells me Thousand Li Eyes and Wind Following Ear. Both of which sound familiar and also much better in Chinese. The idea being one of them can see very far and the other can hear very far away. So this works within the Sentinel/Guide structure!!)

cool so building on this, I guess this could be a Sentinel/Guide AU where Sentinel level is based off number of heightened senses? in that some have one of those powers, some have many, and the idea that you have more corresponds to the idea of higher levels of spiritual power/cultivation

Since I like the idea that Sentinels & Guides are sort of incorporated in and aren’t really codified out of the cultivation world, I guess “cultivation partner” could either be a Guide or just. someone’s cultivation partner lol

(the way I kind of see it working is, if there really is a separate term for Sentinels & Guides, it would be a translation of Sentinel & Guide, but some sort of old story about a now-mythologicalized couple sort of like the NiuLang ZhiNv (Cowheard & Weaver Girl) story, and they’d be described as/titled 仙人 or 道长 (cultivators) first but then like “oh, they are like [whatever story, sry I’m not going to make up fake mythology rn :’)]”

More specific to the characters:

Lan Wangji is a high-level Sentinel obv, and being raised in Gusu was both helpful to him in that Gusu has few things which would trigger zone-outs in Sentinels, but then conversely this would make it difficult for him after leaving Gusu because he hasn’t had as much practice getting overwhelmed?

you gotta be quiet, you can’t indiscriminately fight, you have a very rigid set schedule, the food is bland apparently, you can’t kill livestock in the Cloud Recesses, etc etc? Look I don’t want it to be created specifically for Sentinels because it amuses me too much that the Lan descendants really just Were That Extra, but also this sounds Perfect for a high-level Sentinel baby to grow up and not be overwhelmed with pain every two seconds

This lets them build up their spiritual energy and ability to like regulate themselves and their senses so when they DO go out in the wild, they maybe have a bit less issues than someone who just is thrown into the world with all of their senses online and suffering?

yes ofc downside is: then they don’t have practice dealing with Loud and Distracting and Overwhelming things. *evil smile*

This works for me in CQL because of all of the times young Lan Zhan is all zoning out and...usually it’s WWX who like grabs him gently by the arm or calls out and gets his attention

I guess also popular within the trope is there’s usually SOMETHING that brings Sentinels online. could be something traumatic? could be puberty? I want to give Lan Zhan some pain and also Much Power and I think there’s an idea of the earlier you come online the more powerful you tend to be (TEND to be this is correlation not causation) so I...lowkey like the idea that sometime after Madame Lan dies, Lan Zhan comes online when he’s still a tiny lil bb, because that thought causes me the most pain

just think of lil bb Lan Zhan kneeling in front of his mother’s house waiting for her to open the door and then suddenly he swoons, and Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen rush up all worried, they bring him to a more populated part of Cloud Recesses (and incidentally, louder, and also ppl are worried so it’s not as quiet as it usually might be bc people are somewhat frantic that Lan ErGongzi passed out like that) when Lan Zhan rouses he can’t stop crying, which is really out of character for him? and they do their best to console him and finally get out of him that everything is too loud and it’s overwhelming him, so they bring him back to Jingshi

points for Extra Pain in CQL because while Madame Lan’s residence was a different place in the novel (I think?) CQL just Went There and was like “yeah you know Lan Zhan’s Jingshi? his study and bedroom and like overall place of residence and solace? yeah that’s where our mom used to live, you know, the place Wangji knelt in front of in the snow waiting for her?” :’)

so I mean Wangji was precocious to begin with, but this puts extra points into his being a strong cultivator from an early age too :’)

When Wei Wuxian arrived into Wangji’s life it’s like those two lines from Burn from Hamilton where it’s like: “ You and your words flooded my senses / Your sentences left me defenseless / You built me palaces out of paragraphs” >:D

This is about as far as I got for now before running out of steam, so send post ig

#mdzs #the untamed #wangxian #wangxian sentinel guide au #mine #mxtx

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melancholicmelodies · 4 years

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7, 10, 15, 19

[ 7. If you could “borrow” one aspect of your muse and apply it to yourself or your own life, what would you borrow?

I think maybe I’d enjoy having his strength? He’s very capable physically and has a lot of resolve in that sense so I think I’d really like to be able to apply that to my own life.

10. What do you love about your muse?

I actually like that he’s someone who is a little hard to read at first until you really get to know him. Like you get to discover what he likes and who he is over time. He really inspired me when I first watched the Untamed too because here was this man with long hair and robes, playing a beautiful instrument, being elegant but he’s still seen and admired as someone who was strong and kind of a masculine icon. I don’t really allow myself, as a man, the space to be very feminine, but he made me feel like I could do that if that’s something I wanted to do so idk I just think he’s neat.

15. Would you like your muse as a person if you met them in real life?

I’d like to think so! I generally really enjoy being around more introverted people and I tend to vibe really well with people who are more on the quiet side anyway so I think we could end up being good friends actually.

19. If you had to judge your muse and sentence them to a “fair” fate, what would your judgement be? Would you punish them? Reward them? How?

Now THIS is my favorite question I think. I think Wei Wuxian is obviously a “grey” character when it comes to morals, but I think Lan Zhan could arguable be a grey character too. His whole life, he grew up following the rules of his sect, something that was very important to him, and later he feels as if sticking to his ways has failed both himself and Wei Ying, someone he was in love with. In response to this, the way he views what’s “good” and what’s “evil” has changed. Wei Ying has been a source of tragedy for some people and was even incredibly arrogant at one point in his life. Lan Zhan’s choice to continue to support him despite this is an act of love and mercy because it’s what he believes is the right thing to do. He knows that Wei Ying is more than just some demonic cultivator who seeks revenge. I can see people in his life feeling really betrayed by that. Overall, I think Lan Zhan is an incredibly loving, honest person who just wants to do the right thing and live with no regrets, and he stands by his principles to the best of his ability, even at the risk of disappointing his sect and ruining his reputation. I’m glad he has his happy ending with Wei Ying after so much heartbreak. I can see other people maybe not feeling the same way though- that he’s too much of a giver or that he should have always been by Wei Ying’s side, maybe he should have dropped Wei Ying completely, etc. but I love the guy. ]

#ooc #ask meme #anon

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