#there is no other choice. and the fact that if they didn’t get yibo then this project wouldn’t have been greenlit at all

[accio-victuuri]

da peng on casting wang yibo for one&only:

Q: In recent years, I have cooperated with many actors and directors. What are the criteria for casting?

DP: I think the most important thing is to be suitable. For example, "One & Only" tells a story about a young hip-hop dancer chasing his dream. I think Wang Yibo is very suitable. This is the selection criteria.

#wang yibo #imagine the first street dance themed movie in mainland china not being headlined by yibo #there is no other choice. and the fact that if they didn’t get yibo then this project wouldn’t have been greenlit at all #one and only #one and only movie #I AM SO EXCITED FOR THIS MOVIE AND DEVASTATED KNOWING IT WONT BE SCREENED WHERE IM FROM 💀💀💀💀

[teamsarawatshusband]

God, I wish Wang Yibo and Xiao Zhan weren’t continuously faced with having to make horrible choices.

It’s not fair that every choice they make will affect not only their careers but also their livelihood and well-being, as well that those of their families, friends and associates.

None of those choices happen out of genuine preference, personal ideology or patriotism. They happen because they have no other option.

The biggest part of their fanbase is Chinese, and most of this Chinese fanbase depends on what sources of information they can access despite the censorship of the Chinese government or due to the deliberate misinformation spread by it.

Those fans would never understand if Yibo chose to stay with the Nike brand in a political situation like this. The fact that they started boycotting him, simply for being a brand ambassador (who hadn’t said anything on the political issue at hand, neither pro nor contra) shows very clearly that he was given no choice but to cut ties with Nike.

And, even if Yibo or Xiao Zhan (or any other Chinese artists) tried to speak up, to educate their fans about what’s really going on, or didn’t care about losing a huge chunk of their fanbases by doing so little as remaining silent rather than siding with their government... it would still be the end of their careers, as well as a threat to the well-being of their families and friends. Anti-government actions aren’t tolerated in China. And the people in power have more than enough means to make sure of that. A Chinese artist can’t survive on the Chinese market and, at the same time, express anti-government attitudes. The works of artists that fall in disgrace with the government will never make it to the public eye, the artists themselves will be denied work and publicly shamed without a chance to explain their position.

It’s not a choice.

It’s sad that so many of their fans - both Chinese and international - aren’t aware of this.

I also have to get this off my chest, and I’m sorry if this offends somebody...

It’s so frustrating to see fans commenting on social media, trying to be supportive but phrasing it like, “Yibo has the right to have an unpopular opinion on this issue.” No, honey, that’s the entire point. He does not. There is one take on the issue that is accepted by the government and he is forced to present that as his opinion, whether it really is or not.

Also, I have seen lots of people state that there is no evidence for what’s really happening in Xinjiang because China won’t allow international investigations. And, yes, China indeed does not allow investigations, so I understand where that is coming from.

However, THERE IS EVIDENCE. There are first person reports from people who have escaped the “re-education” camps. There are medical reports of women who have escaped that confirm the mass-rape and mass-sterilization. There are reports from investigators who went in undercover. There are videos. There are satellite pictures showing how the camps have grown and still continue to grow. And all this evidence is coming from various sources from all over the world. This isn’t one country scheming against China. This is the entire world, all countries individually and independently from each other investigating the issue and all of them coming to the same result. It IS genocide.

So, please, stop saying it’s not clear what’s going on. It is very clear.

But it’s also not Yibo’s fault, and it’s not in his power to change it. Not unless he is willing to risk all the jobs, the financial security and ... basically the life as it is... of himself, all the people he has ever worked with and all the people who have personal connections to him or his family.

So, what we can do for Yibo is to send positive messages on the Chinese platforms, point out that we understand that the situation is complicated, that we know that he is a good person, that we are aware it’s a difficult choice to make and that we know that he did not want any of it to happen. Let him know that we understand the vast consequences of his and his team’s actions in this and the pressure that this brings. Do not get any more specific than this, keep it cryptic enough to get across support but don’t give any room in your words for people who try to interpret his fans’ attitude as anti-government.

As international fans, because we’re not at risk, we can share the political and human-rights-related information on Chinese social media platforms - but if you chose to do this, do NOT EVER do it in relation to Yibo or Nike! Anything anti-government you state on a Chinese platform while mentioning Yibo will fall back on him and he’s going to be the one to suffer the consequences.

If you do want to share human rights info on Chinese social media, get a non-fandom-related account, react to political discussions that have nothing to do with fandom, and do it by uploading pictures (links won’t work because they usually get censored and most international news resources are blocked in China), and still expect your account to be deleted as a result, obviously.

#yizhan #wang yibo #xiao zhan #this is 227 all over again #yibo had no choice in this

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 06 (first part)

(Masterpost)(Episode 05)

Warning: This contains spoilers for All 50 Episodes

Bad Boys Bad Boys What You Gonna Do

Nie Huasang’s brought his nuts, and someone’s brought wine, so the boys are drinking in Wei Wuxian’s guest house. Finally he gets to drink some of the Emperor’s Smile wine that he’s been doing all those product placements for.

Boys, get a bowl or something for your shells, were you raised in a barn?

Wei Wuxian hits on waxes poetic about the wine, and Jiang Cheng tells him to shut up. 

Wang Zhuocheng’s raw-fish-eating face may have failed him, but his drunk faces do not disappoint.

Wei Wuxian teases Jiang Cheng about his list of standards for a chick: She should have natural beauty, be virtuous and caring, from a good family, not too talkative, with a gentle voice, and not too capable. Also she should not spend too much money. Drunken running ensues.

Cue Maple Leaf Rag by Scott Joplin

(more behind the cut)

Much of the fandom has decided this list is a good fit for Nie Huaisang himself, and it sorta is. But he is both talkative and unvirtuous, what with all the current sneakiness, and all the eventual murders. 

This also definitely doesn't fit Wen Qing because she's capable as hell.  

This list is, however, a 100% a match for Jiang Yanli. Not in a weird, Jin Guangyao way--a lot of men want to marry a woman like their sister.  In a gender-divided and generation-divided society, a man’s sister might be the only woman he’s ever known well. Jiang Cheng adores Yanli and she’s his ideal model of a woman, as opposed to his mother, who...isnt.  

All these robes and talismans over the door do nothing to stop Lan Wangji from strolling in.  

Okay so - Lan Wangji is the senior disciple of the Lan Clan, yea? There is no way that patrolling the guest area is in any way his job. He is just walking around here at night specifically to see what Wei Wuxian is doing.

I already did a gifpost of the boys and their totally nonsexual horseplay, over here. I’ll just add, for sad factor, that Jiang Cheng is play-choking Wei Wuxian when they’re all on the bed, and later in the running-and-crying episode he is gonna for-real choke him. Foreshadowing! or maybe just coincidence!

One fun thread running through the young-cultivators episodes is that Nie Huaisang is legit terrified of Lan Wangji while also having a major aesthetic crush on him. Look at how flustered he is here, trying to act sober while also checking him out. 

Lan Wangji is shocked and visibly upset - what are you guys doing? This is not his busting face, this is, for a moment, his vulnerable and disillusioned face. He is super not used to what normal people are like. 

Wei Wuxian doesn't lie or otherwise try to get off the hook, which has got to have Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang grinding their teeth in frustration. He invites Lan Wangji to join them for a drink. LWJ cites a the “no drinking on campus” rule and WWX tries to convince him to chill. 

Then we have this lovely coordinated faint by the boys, to get out of going to get punished. Nie Huaisang has been practicing fainting in front of a mirror just in case he ever needs a skill like that in the future. 

Wei Wuxian keeps trying to turn this into a date. Eventually Lan Wangji is so upset he admits he can’t take all three of them by himself. 

Then the boys run away fake-barfing and Wei Wuxian hits Lan Wangji with a talisman. 

Steal His Agency That’s What You’re Gonna Do

What Wei Wuxian does to Lan Wanji here is definitely wrong. But it's not entirely a disaster.  It allows some crucial information to be shared between them, and it results in Wei Wuxian getting the utter shit beat out of him and never doing this again. I mean, he continues to mind-control his enemies and their eventual corpses, but he doesn't intentionally violate a friend or ally's autonomy in the future. Uhh not counting that whole golden core surgery-without-consent situation. And probably some other situations I’ve forgotten. He improves slightly, okay? 

It’s important to note, incidentally, that the Lan rules about drinking and other “vices” should not be viewed through a Christian lens. The Lans are neither puritans nor ascetics (look at their clothes, furniture, and jewelry, for starters). Being drunk is forbidden probably because it’s a loss of self-control. 

Speaking of self-control, mad props to Wang Yibo for being able to have zero physical reaction to fingers snapping in his face.

Drunk Lan Wangji

Under duress, Lan Wangji knocks back a cup of wine and promptly passes most of the way out. 

Wei Wuxian puts Lan Wangji into bed not unkindly, but pretty much like a sack of potatoes. Compare this to how tenderly he handles Lan Wangji the next time he’s drunk. 

WWX tells LWJ to call him Wei Gege, and giggles. Is this a term of endearment in this context? So far the various boys are calling each other -xiong, not -ge or gege.  In Western media, men calling each other “bro” is basically saying “no homo,” but brotherhood and sisterhood in C-Drama is often a way of indicating stronger love than friendship, without saying whether it's sexual or not. 

They finally start to have a conversation, and when Lan Wangji explains that no-one can touch his headband except, etc etc, Wei Wuxian stops trying to touch it. So at least he's not a handsy bastard in addition to all his other faults. 

Wei Wuxian tells Lan Wangji that his clan is boring and women won't want to marry him. Lan Wangji says that's fine. On one level this is the show acknowledging that he's gay, but I think he's responding in a gender-neutral way; he doesn't want to marry anyone. Marriage, from his perspective, is the literal worst. 

We don't know how he felt about his father, but he definitely loved his mother deeply, and she had a profoundly unhappy marriage, in which her husband did not provide companionship and her children were taken from her.

A note about all that: The dynamics of heterosexual marriages in The Untamed are not based on contemporary companionate marriage. Sex and reproduction is a wife's job in this world, and giving a gentry woman the option to choose her husband is radical. Wei Wuxian is the only one who dares say that Jiang Yanli should have a choice when Jin Guangshan casually tries to give her to his son in front of everyone.  

OP made this today but will totally reuse it when episode 23 rolls around

So Lan Wangji’s parents' marriage was extremely problematic but not necessarily for the reasons it would be in contemporary terms. Having signed on to marry Lan Dad, Mom would have expected to live together and get laid regularly (important for health, in some traditional views, regardless of love/no love) and to have the company of her children. Instead, she was isolated. Lan Dad wanted to have it both ways and so even though he loved her and apparently hooked up with her sometimes, he didn't do his duty by her. She didn't love him but she did her duty. 

Wei Wuxian continues to not get it, calling Lan Wangji dull and babbling about Lan Wangji’s parents until he realizes that LWJ is an orphan like him. 

A nice shift happens here. Once the penny drops, Wei Wuxian doesn't ask a single additional question - he just sees - by reading Lan Wangji’s face - what the deal is, and shares his own story to show he understands. 

This is the first time Wei Wuxian mentions being chased by dogs, which is kind of a big deal, because why was he left all alone when his parents died? 

Why didn't anyone take him in before Jiang Fengmian found him? How isolated are independent cultivators in this world? 

Tea Time

Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen are having tea, and the Lan Clan is so uptight they don't touch each other's teacups. I don't know what this thing is called so I'm going to call it a tea speculum. 

Lan Qiren is back from the cultivation conference and says the red crack plague is happening over in Qinghe where the Nie clan lives.  Lan Xichen fills him in on the water demon, specifically saying Wei Wuxian figured out the connection to the red crack dudes, and explaining who WWX is, as if Lan QIren hadn't already thrown stuff at him and threatened to eventually kill him. 

Fun fact that I just noticed this week so didn't make it into earlier posts: In Episode 46, when Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian are in the Jiang ancestral hall, WWX says he was often punished to kneel there, and LWJ said that they heard about this in Gusu.  

So when WWX came to Gusu he already had a reputation as a troublemaker, and the Lan brothers were aware of it.   

Busted and Beaten

A Lan snitch comes in to say that Wei Wuxian has successfully corrupted Lan Wangji, which really shouldn’t cause as much surprise as it does.

“Wei Wuxian got drunk”

“Lan Wangji got drunk”

Lan Xichen takes a moment to consider carefully whether Wei Wuxian is a good friend for his little brother and whether perhaps he was too hasty in throwing them together. Ha ha ha no he doesn’t. 

On the punishment porch, Lan Xichen tries to lecture Lan Wangji in a calm way, but Lan Qiren wants to beat him and Lan Wangji wants to get beat. Wei Wuxian can’t understand why Lan Wangji doesn’t let him take the blame for the drinking. 

Lan Qiren goes way the fuck overboard with this punishment because he's angry--losing control and losing his sense of proportion--and Lan Xichen is shocked. The drone camera watching from above is also shocked.  

Lan Qiren has a few (very few) redeeming qualities, but his extreme rigidity and chronic resentment of anyone he perceives as bad are serious problems. His nephews are both struggling with complex moral quandaries as they get older, and he is absolutely no help to them in resolving their conflicts.

This is definitely...a style of parenting & teaching, but you can see how poorly it works, with Lan Wangji straight up saying “fuck it” after many years of conformity.  Lan Xichen is devoted to the middle path and tries to be obedient. But he is actually not walking anywhere near the middle path, as he gets pulled into colluding with a murderer at the same time as getting dragged onto his brother’s carnival ride. These men need parenting that isn’t so, uh, fucking stupid. (Yes, grown adults still need good parenting; watch Go Ahead if you doubt me) 

Wei Wuxian initially yells and falls down when he gets hit, but then he sees Lan Wangji is taking the beating without any reaction and he tries to do the same. 

Aftermath

Jiang Yanli gently lectures the boys, blaming Jiang Cheng for Wei Wuxian's drinking.  Jesus Christ, he's the younger sibling, could you just NOT, Yanli?  

Both boys ask Yanli not to tell their parents. The boys bicker about who's at fault and then Wei Wuxian shifts to baby voice and starts whining to Yanli about the pain. 

Yanli tells him to suck it up, and says after school she'll -- ok and I know this will be a surprise for everyone -- make soup for them. The boys immediately get back on the same team, which is team Please Put Meat In the Soup.

There's a nice character building moment for Wei Wuxian here. When he sees Lan Xichen he initially turns away to avoid running into him, but then he adults-up and goes to face him and greet him, giving him a half of a bow because of the pain, the pain. Rather than complaining about his punishment he meekly asks if he's broken another rule. 

Lan Xichen tells him that he did wrong but that Lan Qiren’s punishment was too harsh, and then in what is one of my favorite Lan Xichen moments, invites Wei Wuxian to use the cold spring to heal, but doesn't invite Jiang Cheng to go with him even though Jiang Cheng also was beaten. Lan Xichen, Matchmaker Auntie Extraordinaire. 

Then he answers Wei Wuxian’s question about his mom by saying she was just like Wei Wuxian and drove Lan Qiran up the wall. Jiang Cheng's reaction to that is really sweet. He does enjoy Wei Wuxian at the same time as being constantly irritated by him. 

Lan Xichen does his patented “breaking off in the middle of saying something and leaving out a chunk of the story” maneuver, although this time he doesn't include a flute solo. 

OP is mildly obsessed with Xuan Lu’s shoulders in this outfit. Also Yanli has an interesting sword, that's got some wood carving similar to Subian, but without the organic look, which OP only noticed because of screen capping Xuan Lu’s shoulders.  

Club Ruohan

Wen Qing continues to be pretty and slightly evil at this stage, sending magic fire notes to her boss using this talisman that is definitely floating in the air and not just hanging from a string. 

Wen Ruohan is in the mosh pit with his zombie groupies while he reads Wen Qing’s extremely vague status update and says "it all makes sense." 

Reach out and touch faith

Soundtrack

Maple Leaf Rag by Scott Joplin Personal Jesus by Depeche Mode

Writing Prompt

How did Wei Wuxian’s parents die?

Admin Notes

I’m going to start spacing out my “first part” and “second part” posts by a few days.  I’ll update this post to link up the second part once I post it, and my masterpost is always up to date. 

Also: if you want more of my original content but don’t want to follow my whole blog (not following is fine!), I keep a pinboard of fun stuff at the top of my blog. I try to post original content at least once a week.

Continued in the second part later this week!

#fytheuntamed #wangxian #the untamed #cql #the untamed gifs #the untamed meta #my gifs #restless rewatch the untamed #restless rewatch #canary3d #the untamed spoilers

[franniebanana]

CQL Rewatch - Episode 7

Their first vow together. So nice! I actually do like the parallels here between Lan Yi and Wei Wuxian, and Baoshan Sanren and Lan Wangji: you have one set being reckless and untamed (I said it) and the other set trying to restore order. It’s kind of funny that the ancestors are switched, though. So here we have Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji vowing to bring all the Yin Iron pieces back to the cold spring pond to neutralize them, and of course Lan Wangji’s first reaction is, “None of your business.” It’s cute how Lan Yi takes Wei Wuxian’s side and has a sense of pride for her close friend’s disciple. I think he’s an honorary Lan in her eyes.

And then Lan Yi gives them a warning to not make the same mistakes she made. Wei Wuxian’s like, “Yep, got it, I promise.” But we all know from the beginning that this obviously doesn’t go well for him, since he dies in the first five minutes of the series. He will go on to make some questionable decisions, most of which are driven by his emotions, which are often not in check. Side note: I love this series, but I don’t like how they took a great grey character like Wei Wuxian and turned him into a character where many of the things that went wrong were caused by other people.

Another side note. That fucking Yin Iron fell on the guqin so many times, and it didn’t dent it at all. Is the guqin made out of iron too? I thought it was wood. If I did that to my violin, I guarantee you the violin would not fare very well.

Forever a favorite moment. It was great enough that they were tied together by Lan Wangji’s headband, but even better that Wei Wuxian fell on him. So great—such a tease to the audience. And this is as close as we get to the scene in the book when Lan Wangji uses the body binding spell to keep Wei Wuxian on top of him all night (ooh, my heart skipped a beat when I read that).

Also, taking the screenshot, I noticed you can see the impression of the little metal piece from Lan Wangji’s headband. Little things like that interest me for some reason. I wonder if it bothered Wang Yibo—did it press too hard on his forehead? I remember him saying he’d get tan lines from the headband.

I love this little smirk he does. A moment when Wei Wuxian’s gift to gab really pays off. Instead of letting Lan Wangji talk and explain the situation, Wei Wuxian keeps speaking, lying about what they were doing. I’d like to think he does it in part to protect Lan Wangji and to stop him from breaking any of his clan rules, but likely it’s another chance for him to prove himself as someone Lan Wangji can trust. And I take Lan Wangji’s little acknowledgement of him there as his silent “thank you.” It says a lot, I think, that Wei Wuxian is willing to lie to Jiang Cheng in order to protect the Lan Clan’s secrets.

I’m sorry, but every time I hear Nie Huaisang say, “You were gone a whole day and night,” my mind immediately goes to the gutter—like the implication is that they were doing something inappropriate during that time. I keep expecting a sex joke, only to remind myself that this was on Chinese television and that would, of course, not happen. Jiang Cheng says a similar thing (and my mind goes the same way that time too), but in that case, canon book Jiang Cheng does later accuse them of having a more-than-friendly relationship, and he does not say it in a nice way.

Also, throughout the scene that precedes this, where Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are discussing what to do next with Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen, it really feels like wangxian just want to go on a buddy road trip together, and they are so disappointed when they are turned down. Oh, I didn’t screencap it, but Lan Wangji has the saddest sad face at the end.

I think Lan Wangji is a little impressed here but he doesn’t want to admit it. Wei Wuxian has a great gift to come up with ridiculous stories and lies at the drop of a hat. I love that Wei Wuxian doesn’t have to come up with a scary snake story when he could have just told Nie Huaisang what he’d already told Jiang Cheng and Wen Qing, but he does anyway. Mad respect.

This also kind of amuses me because Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji can never really have a moment alone. They keep getting interrupted by other people when I think they just want to talk about what they experienced. Instead we just have all these shared glances. Nothing like a big fat secret to get close to each other, right?

Omfg Jiang Cheng is so jealous! I thought maybe I was imagining it or just projecting my own ideas onto him, but NO—he is jealous! He’s all like, “If you like Lan Wangji so much, why don’t you marry him?” I mean, that basically happened. I’ve gone on about this before, but I love the tension between Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji, and the fact that it continues even after Wei Wuxian dies makes it even better. Jiang Cheng is so stubborn and continues to hold a grudge against Lan Wangji, and it bothers the fuck out of him that there’s someone out there devoted to Wei Wuxian, by whom Jiang Cheng feels so betrayed.

And, I mean, by this point, it’s already started. As soon as they get to the Cloud Recesses, Wei Wuxian starts paying more attention to Lan Wangji than he does to either Jiang Cheng or Jiang Yanli. And Jiang Cheng likes to say, “You’re worrying my sister, you’re hurting my sister” when he really means, “You’re worrying me.” His stupid pride gets in the way of having a good relationship with Wei Wuxian. And I don’t think Wei Wuxian would ever put Lan Wangji above Jiang Cheng, who he considers his family—at least not at this point. It’s not until the second half that things switch, and really, even then, in the CQL-verse, the two are probably equal in Wei Wuxian’s mind. He backs off from Jiang Cheng due to Jiang Cheng’s attitude toward him.

Okay, Jiang Cheng’s jealousy aside, I love how steadfast and supportive Wei Wuxian is of him. As soon as he catches on that Jiang Cheng is jealous, he immediately starts trash-talking the Cloud Recesses and talking up Lotus Pier. It’s very cute, very sweet. He’s a good brother to him, really.

Now who’s jealous? Just kidding. I love his wistful expression here, as he watches them go off. Anyone who’s read the book knows that Lan Wangji does get jealous at times and certainly frustrated with Wei Wuxian’s coquettish behavior. I would say he is more longing at this moment, maybe even wanting to get closer to Wei Wuxian, without really understanding why himself. There’s such an isolation to his world: even though he’s surrounded by other disciples, he doesn’t have any friends. He’s maybe regretting how quickly he refused to the invitation to Lotus Pier. I think, on the one hand, Lan Wangji has found one person in this world who not only shares a secret with him, but who has similar goals—on the other hand, his code of ethics are all over the place. His heart and mind are conflicted: he wants to get closer, but he doesn’t want to make the wrong decision. To his Gusu Lan Clan mind, Wei Wuxian is all wrong, but his heart says otherwise. And I’m not saying he loves him already—but he is already seeing a kindred spirit in Wei Wuxian, someone who he can rely on, someone he can trust, someone who has his back, even if it means bending a few rules. And in a relationship, you have nothing if you don’t have trust.

I never noticed that they were communicating telepathically here. Or something. I dunno. I guess it’s not that clear.

Also if it feels like I’m ignoring all these parts with the Wen Clan, it’s because I am. I mean, not really, but this is all the Yin Iron stuff that I don’t really care about. And I’m not in the Xue Yang fan club either, so I’m not going to spend time on him until he’s actually in it in Yueyang (possibly) and Yi City. Actually, confession: I’ve never watched the Yi City flashback episodes. I read it, so I know it, but I never watched it hahaha. I will this time around. I made that pact with myself.

AWWW, HE SMILED!!!

Ahem, excuse me. This is too fucking cute, though. The rabbit lantern that Wei Wuxian drew just for him, his cute baby smile, and the Wei Wuxian pointing it out with a grin. Cuteness overload—my heart can’t take it.

But I also had a sad thought that if Wei Wuxian hadn’t come over, Lan Wangji would be sitting here alone. He’d make his lantern all on his own, send it off into the sky, say his own prayer to himself, and never hear Wei Wuxian’s, which likely sends Lan Wangji over the edge with his feelings. Everything he thought about Wei Wuxian was true, and maybe it’s okay to like him, maybe it’s okay to consider him a friend, maybe it’s okay to trust him that way.

Just a shot that I liked. Enjoy.

I feel so bad for Jiang Yanli here. I also feel bad for Jin Zixuan, even though he’s a complete dick. I understand how they both feel here—to be tied to someone you don’t know, from the time you were small children is incredibly unfair in my eyes. That being said, I know this still happens in other parts of the world, and it’s implied that it’s common in our CQL/MDZS world (which would make sense, of course). I like the feeling of siding with Wei Wuxian, wanting to come to Jiang Yanli’s defense and protect her honor, while also still having an understanding of how Jin Zixuan must feel about the whole thing. His choice has been completely taken away. And he’s, what, 17 here? What 17-year-old boy wants to be reminded constantly about how he’s already engaged? It’s not typically a young man’s dream to settle down and get married—not that it can’t be! But the implication here, with all the girls tittering about it, is that they’re all excited about marriage, and he wants nothing to do with it. Of course, Jiang Yanli isn’t either. I think she really just wants to get to know him and spend time with him, before even thinking about marrying him.

Ah, a momentous occasion: the first time Lan Wangji tries to stop Wei Wuxian from getting himself into trouble (not counting the first time they met, when he was literally trying to police him while breaking Cloud Recesses rules). I like this shot, because you have Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji on either side of Wei Wuxian, and Jiang Yanli in the front, literally putting her body between him and Jin Zixuan (actually this parallels her final scene). It kind of shows the depths of their relationships (or at least what the director wants to show us). You have Lan Wangji, who grabs onto Wei Wuxian to try to stop him from further brawling; Jiang Cheng, who stands beside him, but isn’t really involved otherwise—standoffish, in a way; and then Jiang Yanli, who physically gets in the way. She’s the quintessential big sister. And I’m not saying Jiang Cheng doesn’t care—he does, but I think his first thought always has to do with the honor of the Jiang Clan and, while he’s standing beside Wei Wuxian, it’s almost as if he doesn’t want to show any involvement with this brawl, because that would look bad.

Ah, the old dudes meeting, while Jiang Cheng stands off to the side awkwardly, wondering if he should be there or not. At the outset, this meeting to decide their children’s future seemed kind of bad, but it actually turned out nice, with them agreeing to call off the engagement. Very progressive, I thought.

Two things I learned in this scene: Wei Wuxian doesn’t want to marry a woman and he doesn’t want to leave the Cloud Recesses yet (TL: he doesn’t want to leave Lan Wangji). He seriously looks so disappointed when she says they’re going home soon.

This feels like a mixture of “I’m worried about you” and “I don’t want to be left out.” We already know at this point that Wei Wuxian doesn’t want to leave the Cloud Recesses (more that he doesn’t want to leave Lan Wangji, because he doesn’t like all of the rules, obviously). He also is very interested in what’s happening with the Yin Iron, as he has also vowed to protect it with Lan Wangji. He is very perceptive—he knows something is happening, that Lan Wangji is going to go off on his own, and he wants to go with. It’s kind of hard to say if this is more out of duty or his adventurous spirit, but either way, he wants to help Lan Wangji.

“After his leave, things will be as quiet here as before.”

Look at how sad he is! The only person he considers a friend has just left, and at this point, he doesn’t know if he’ll ever see him again. It’s possible, sure, but then only at clan gatherings, and that’s if Wei Wuxian and Lang Wangji even happen to attend the same one. I believe we know from the book that Lan Wangji doesn’t typically attend gatherings (when he’s older), he often skips them. And Wei Wuxian isn’t necessarily important enough to even be invited, so he would have to be a guest of Jiang Cheng. Obviously we all know that they do go to gatherings and see each other again, but this is what I’d be thinking if I were Lan Wangji, okay? Like, when am I going to see him again? Will I ever see him again?

I leave you with a wholesome picture of Wei Wuxian and a rabbit. Also adorable that he contemplates bringing the bunnies back to Lotus Pier, but doesn’t because Lan Wangji might get lonely. MY HEART!

Other episodes: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |

#wangxian #wei wuxian #lan wangji #jiang cheng #jiang yanli #jin zixuan #cql #the untamed #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #wwx #lwj #cql rewatch

[life-rewritten]

SPOOKY SEASON! An ode to Mo Dao Zu Shi: one of the best BL story created!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!! One last Halloween post and it's about one of my favourite pieces of media in the world of BL, romance, and supernatural stories. Roll your eyes because once again I'm talking about Mo Dao Zu Shi (The grandmaster of demonic cultivation) I mean already with the demons, and cultivation is already hinting why this is Halloween themed, and trust me MDZ has much more than that: from zombies to ghosts, to magical instruments and weapons, and we love our fantasy cultivation sects and clans. Anyhoo, I am here to write a fun post another verdict/review on each of the adaptations available so far for MDZ, yeh you heard me I've listened, read and watched all versions of this masterpiece, and I'm here to tell you to go and do the same for Halloween. Also in case, you haven't heard MTX (the author of MDZ) has another show on its way TODAY! And that's the magnificent, the excellent and incredible Heaven's Official Blessing after marathoning MDZ do that too. 

As always with my verdicts: we have ratings: From 1 to 5 (1 being least excited to watch, 5 being most,) how excited am I to delve into these again? 

Country: China Genre: Danmei, Supernatural, Action, Fantasy, Romance, Comedy, BL, Horror,

1.The Book

We begin with the one that started it all. The reason for my devotion and love for this world, for Wei Wuxian and Lan Wang Ji. My heart hasn't stopped loving this book experience. And at first, it wasn't easy to understand all the logic and terms needed to know for this world of cultivation and sects and clans, and magical skills. But once I got the hang of it (maybe after reading it three times I wonder how I had time to do this by the way), this is a book that I keep on returning to, crying to, and just breaking down into a mess too. This book is the most original source for the love story of Wangxian and to be honest its a masterpiece. Now onto the pros and cons, I guess about this adaptation.

Pro: 

First, I would say that this is the most non censored version of MDZ, meaning China couldn't mute the romance or delete scenes because it's the original written story. The romance between Wangxian stands out and makes your heart go through a lot of emotions, from frustration at Wei  Wuxian not realising how he feels for Wang Ji, to pain because of Wang Ji's perceived unrequited feelings for so long, to happiness when they're just together, to confusion at some drunk scenes and then to all-out shock as the story reveals its self to the villains, the background of Weiying's death and more. 

The introduction to all these characters, all of them have a role in the story, all of them are important to keep an eye on, and they all grow and develop throughout the story as we find out more about their circumstances and their own perspective on Wei Wuxian.

Cons but not actual cons

The book is longggggg. The first time I read it I wondered when we would finally get a resolution or hint that Wei Wuxian finally understands what he's been feeling for sooo long, but it took forever and to be honest even though this is a con to me, it also is a positive for those who love slowwwww burns, and slow reveal to the background and development of Wangxians feelings for each other. There are many missions although essential to the world-building and the actual plot/mystery that at first seem so useless and not needed, but they are there for a purpose, and they do help us find out more clues about what's been going on and why Wei Wuxian was brought back from the dead. 

The book is the most non censored version of MDZ, and so there are many questionable moments/questions about Non-consent that occur during moments when Wangxian are drunk. Honestly, these scenes are so weird to me, because they hold so much truth and revelations to Wangji's feelings for Weiying. After all, he's drunk and the most authentic version of himself. There are so many moments (like stealing chickens or showing him the bunnies) that make you just want to cry at his love Weiying and the pain he had to endure when he thought he was never coming back. Still, at the same time, there are many moments where you're like oh wow that escalated, and you feel just a tad discomfort at the idea of the non-con. But like I said these scenes are required for these two to really like give into what they've both been trying to push away or ignore, and it's nice to see how Weiying reacts to his feelings becoming uncontrollable and more prominent. 

There are some moments in the book where things seem vague or unexplained (which the other sources did their own thing with), some characters who are mentioned but not really given enough detail, some plot details where it's not fully understood. However, I do think that because the book is already so long, the most critical information needed was there and the reveal of the mysteries were all done well. I think though that it's better to see how it materialises visually hence the other media adaptations. 

Ratings: 4/5 -It's not easy to pick up the book and read, but I have so much fun returning to it and laughing along with Wei Wuxian's thoughts and ideas about Wang Ji.

2.The Manhua

I was so shook when I found out MDZ has a manhua. Mostly because China wouldn't really make it easy for the book adaptation to be honestly portrayed visually. But the manga shocked me, it is censored, but the writers and the artists are all so obsessed with this book and this couple that despite having to remove or edit some scenes, they draw some additional scenes and post it online so that international fans can still get to see these moments visually. That is incredible, and I'm so grateful that we have a team of people who respect and love the piece as much as the fans do. 

Pros: 

With any graphic novel/manga the art of MDZ is fantastic to see, the characters are brought to life with colour and also the inclusion of chibi drawings to make a moment incredibly cute or funny. Weiying is very naughty, so a chibi drawing of him makes us see him like how he's acting a child. I enjoy the manhua of MDZ so much, and I love how they drew each of the characters and the world. 

Cons but not really cons: 

I think, however, there are better visual sources for MDZ available that is more detailed in terms of characters and includes more information about the world-building. The plot also has to be condensed as well because you can't draw everything from the book. The manhua is also still in the works so, its a very slow upload and it will take years for it to be completed. But this is understandable, and I can't wait to read the full completed copy. If you hate reading and can't stand words, I think the manhua version is for you!

Ratings: 3.5/5 -It’s the waiting that lowered the ratings for me and the fact that I prefer other sources but I’m so grateful for the manhua. 

3.The Show

The one that brought international fans like swarms to this story. Untamed shocked all of us in the BL community as the first time we heard about it, sure it was nice to see that Yibo was cast as Wang Ji, but even then his acting wasn't that profound or praised so we didn't care, and Zhan also seemed like an interesting choice for out Weiying. I think there were an outrage and confusion when we heard this was going to be censored and a bromance. It felt like it made no sense because there's no way really to edit the relationship and love of Wangxian, so people went into the show resentful and worried. But after 20 episodes, the anger, worry and upset were erased. Untamed is a masterpiece, and it blows my mind how censored it is but still not really censored? It deletes the questionable moments in the book but adds the essential parts even where we get to see Wang Ji's feelings (Though obviously not mentioned as feelings but respect). We get to watch Weiying realise how much he cherishes whatever he has with Wang Ji and how much he misunderstood the latter, and how much Wang Ji cared for him. The show as Netflix says is not about just friends. Still, it emphasises the connection between these two using subtext clues and symbolisms, and visual metaphors to make sure the audience knows that these two are soulmates and are meant for each other. Here are the other pros and cons of the show:

Pros:

The acting is incredible, like so good and I can't think of two people who were more suited for Wangxian, Yibo shocked me as Wang Ji because although I knew him (because of Kpop), I didn't really think he would pull of stoic but still vulnerable Wang Ji. He was good at showing the emotions of love and longing that has been connected with Wang Ji. Zhan was an excellent Wuxian, he made me smile, he made laugh, he made me so happy because of his mischievous aura, but he also played serious and emotional and resentful Wuxian well as well. I keep crying every time I see the death scene in the show because it's just so done well.The directors and producers who didn't care about hiding the relationship between these two, they still wanted to be respectful to the writer and the source, and they still wanted to show as much as possible that these two loved each other. For that, I'm so grateful and they did a brilliant job with what they could. The character arcs and development and depth; Its the way they took the other characters from the book and fleshed them out giving each of them more depth, more understanding, more dimensionality and more story connecting to our plot, and it broke my heart how much I loved everyone in this show. The actors all performed so well, and some gave me goosebumps at how well they portrayed their characters  (Xue Yang!!) like stunning and just a great cast.The storyline was also written in an innovative way, the flashbacks were first shown to the audience, how Wangxian became Wangxian and so the audience felt every single hurt and pain that Wang Ji was feeling. We understood why he acted the way he did. The flashbacks also provided plot structure to the mystery and the actual plot of the show, it left clues, and we watched the villains become villains (secretly), we saw how some characters grew. Each of the arcs in the book was told in a way that it flowed together and made sense. Due to this way of structuring the plot the show became so much more profound in the way it messed with our emotions, every death mattered, and every character had their own story and importance to the audience. 

Cons:

The censorship. I've praised how they overcame it, but it's still there, the ending of the show was done this way because of censorship and to be honest I still think everyone should read the book because there are moments where the romance of Wangxian is fun and memorable to see (the confession scene whilst it was done okay in the show because of censorship it doesn't hold as much oomph as it did in the book. Mainly because the events that happened before it was already so filled with angst and drama and the results of the confession Wangxian clinging onto each other despite being in danger is a must-see, the censorship is annoying because it shouldn't be there, it's something that whilst it did help with some stuff, it still feels like an insult to the piece, and it still doesn't sit well with me that China censors their BL. So its a con.

Ratings 5/5  I think I could spend so much time breaking down why Untamed is a masterpiece BL show, but all I can say is despite 50 episodes (longgg) it is worth the time and effort and if you watch BL, go see it. 

4.The Audio

The audio for the MDZ is like my favourite thing in the world. I love Chinese audiobook dramas; it's an incredible experience to listen to. With MDZ, this is what the show would be if it wasn't censored. The actors for the audio drama are amazing, and I love them so much. The audio drama is three seasons with some extra scenes and it's incredible if you don't want to read the book, then just watch and listen to the audio drama because its the same story but its brought to life by the acting and storytelling. Also though there are some scenes removed, I think the audio drama is the next uncensored gem of MDZ that shows Wangxian's romance the best way possible. I squeal, and I laugh, and again I cry at every single moment; their first kiss, the inn scene, the confession (i spend time pausing it just to cry at how good it is) and more. I just love it, and I prefer it to reading the book. Other pros and cons:

Pros:

 The story is structured and told properly, follows all the arcs and events in the book and brings them life by voice acting, and the music is incredible. It's nice to listen to and hear Weiying's thoughts and to also listen to an audible version of the book. The audio drama has all the pros from the book as well.

Cons: 

Nothing much to say about the cons. It is not easy to attain the audio drama in English subs, its hard to download and store it, but once you overcome that it's great. I think the audio drama is the most difficult to obtain.

Ratings: My favourite adaptation  5/5

5.The Donghua

Lastly, we have the Donghua or the anime version of MDZ.  What can I say about this, its brilliant, masterpiece, it's gorgeous. If you think the art for the manhua is good, the donghua takes it to a different level. The visuals are stunning, the animation is breath-taking, and the story is again following Untamed ways of censoring the story but making sure it doesn't remove the romantic connotations and symbolism to Wangxian. The donghua also follows Untameds way of starting with flashbacks to explain what happened to Weiying before it started. I have nothing else to say about how great this is. It's the same thing I've been saying about all these adaptations. The donghua though is the best visual masterpiece for MDZ, in my opinion. 

Pros; 

Packed full with symbolism and clues to the plot, it's detailed so well for the storyline and its an excellent way to tell this story. The music and ost for the donghua are also beautiful and gets me emotional each time I hear it.

Cons: 

Censorship. That's it, that's what it always is. For me, I think the donghua is the most censored version of MDZ? Or maybe I just feel that way despite the subtext clues; I do feel irritated at the censorship in the donghua.  Let's pray Heaven's official blessing overcomes that.

Ratings: 3.8/5 - I love it so much because of the visuals but apart from that I prefer other sources for MDZ. Still the best donghua that exists. 

So here you have in an in-depth and messy conversation about one of my favourite media pieces to existing right now in BL. I think I will never stop singing praises at MXT for creating this story and I think there's nothing else I rather do than just spend times when I need a distraction watching, listening or reading this story again and again. What about you all.  What do you feel about MDZ? What pros and cons do you have for each adaptation? Which is your favourite. And have you been able to get any rest when we know that Heaven's official blessing is out TODAY!! Let me know your thoughts. Happy Halloween, Enjoy it.

#mo dao zu shi #the untamed #mdzs #wrpup #FVete #october #halloween #wei ying #wei wuxain #lan wangji #mdzs donghua #wwx #lwj #chen qing ling #cql #bl series #danmei

[fishylife]

Street Dance of China, Season 4, Episode 7

- The figures make a return!!! I love them, they are so cute.

- Anyway, it’s cute that each of the teams have kind of a common room to chill. Helps with the team atmosphere, I think.

- Yixing playing the flute/pipe that has a gourd at the top. I recall seeing a video where he’s played it before, so the production crew probably got it so that he could show off a bit.

- The fact that Han Geng’s having a cooking class is just reaffirming my beliefs that Han Geng would be the best captain to have if I was a contestant. They have the most fun.

- Yibo is so super serious though. While the other teams are chilling, he’s already thinking of his redemption plan. I’ll be honest, it feels....a little too tense. As a captain, I think he needs to take time for his team to relax and regroup.

- My boy Yixing recruited my boy MT-Pop T_T He gave him the Baymax to accompany when he’s feeling lonely because apparently MT-Pop said that he missed home often T_T Also Yixing was watching for MT-Pop’s expression except he was emotionless and Poppin’C was like no, don’t worry, he’s always like this XD I thought that Baymax suited MT-Pop too because he likes monsters so I think it’s not a reach to guess that he likes superheroes and comics and cool characters. Also, like Baymax, MT-Pop is also friend-shaped. Anyway, I wonder if he was feeling emotional here because he missed home ;_;

- Yixing gave Momo the CUTEST cat lamp T_T

- In the captain interview, Momo asked Yixing if his stomach was alright. I saw in some behind-the-scenes photos that Yixing had a bad stomach that day, so I guess that was why he was so disappointed with his performance. I’d initially thought it was his back problems (because he was shown getting some back massages/chiropractic stuff done to his waist in other behind-the-scenes footage), but I think the back/waist stuff is something that’s been going on for a longer time.

- Lmao Nelson being like “I know girls, they love that cute stuff” XD And he noted how Momo seemed more comfortable with Yixing. To be fair, he’s onto something, I am girl and I love cute stuff and dudes that make me smile. (Though in the end, Momo chose Yibo)

- I thought it was cute that Momo was talking through the wall to MT-Pop, asking if he’d already chosen his team. I love the friendships between the dancer contestants v.v

- Yixing gave copies of his Lit physical album to the Gogo Brothers...all of the fans who couldn’t get their hands on a copy are gonna be mad haha.

- Yixing’s team tried to surprise Gogo Brothers when they joined their team ^^;;

- This is as wild as Yixing is going to go lol. He was waving the scarves being all “WOOHOO!!”

- Yixing and Han Geng’s teams shouting for Bozi across however many rooms made me laugh XD Especially because Bozi is such a stoic dude.

- Yixing’s relief at having recruited Bozi. As we know, he doesn’t have much confidence in recruiting dancers.

- When Bunta and Henry had their interview they were being all “HEYYY MY GUY!!!!” Very buddy-buddy. And then Henry to his team was like “I’ve never talked to Bunta.” The art of faking it gets you far.

- For the contestants who get to choose between two or more captains, they get an extra blind box with a little doll in it. I wonder what that is. It’s so cute, I want one v.v (I love dolls)

- The rejection on Han Geng’s face XD Is this the first time he’s been outplayed?

- In addition to getting everyone on his team to sign the card, Yixing also asked Rei from Gogo Brothers to come with him to recruit Bunta, and it worked in the end.

- Yixing turning the party into a concert being like “MAKE SOME NOISE!!!”

- Not gonna lie, the performances aren’t the best, probably because they’re just for funsies anyway. It doesn’t bother me that much though, at least they look like they’re having fun. As a wise man once said, fun must be always.

- OMG YES YIXING. He went full memery on this XD

- There’s so much going on here. The song they danced to was a famous song by Xiaohudui (a Taiwanese boyband). When questioned about their choice of music, Yixing was like “yeah, we’re an international boyband!” We know Yixing is super serious so the fact that they did this cheesy stuff is supremely surprising but also SUPER AWESOME. The other captains were like “you were too serious!” but the reason why this worked was because they were serious tbh. As Psy once said, dress classy, dance cheesy. Anyway, I’m a fan. Look at how fabulous they are.

- Yibo’s team danced to the Huluwa song. Look at Liangliang’s hair lol.

- You can’t see this very well but Bouboo carried Yibo away in a fireman’s hold.

- So this is how Han Geng’s gonna play it, huh

- There’s just A LOT going on here

- Henry getting lessons from Xiaoji on how to have swag (ft. Xiao Jie as the teaching assistant).

- Yixing kept being like “ge, watch the expression!!”

- You can tell who did and didn’t get their hair done just by looking at who is wearing the headphones properly. Also, I used to be super whatever about cat ear headphones, but now I am so down for them. I want a pair of cat ear headphones even though I never use headphones (prefer earphones).

- Ok this is cute. Xiao Jie is trying to explain the passage to Bouboo in English, but Xiao Jie’s English is a bit limited. At this part he was trying to explain a watermelon to Bouboo and was like “it’s an apple but it’s bigger and it’s green.” Han Geng and Yibo are just having a ball. Look at how big Yibo is laughing? Boy never laughs like that.

- Somehow Bouboo understood Xiao Jie’s English, and then Bouboo was like “your English is very Chinese” which prompted another round of laughs. He would know, he’s probably been around a lot of Chinese people trying to speak English to him.

- Yo, Rochka’s Mandarin pronunciation is REALLY good. He’s really good at replicating the tones.

- Henry, San’er, and Rochka turned their final answer into a song XD

- Yixing tried to game the system lol. Instead of reciting the whole passage, he picked the easiest words. It wasn’t totally perfect, but his method allowed the players to focus on key words instead of memorizing the small details and preposition words. Smartest catboi (y)

- We already knew Henry was good at piano (I know he has at least RCM Level 10, probably has his ARCT too), but he’s also appropriately showy about it.

- OMG ROCHKA SINGING 月亮代表我的心 (ft. Henry harmonizing)

- Now Boris!

- Of course this mf had to whip out the violin.

- Okay so I kept seeing that clip of Yixing dancing to the sexy dance with Ibuki and Qiao Zhi and I had no idea what it was from. NOW I KNOW.

- Henry is SO MEAN he keeps bullying C-Lil and telling him that if he doesn’t do well he has to go home. STOP BULLYING HIM!!!

- The captains keep roping in team members to do the dances with them haha.

- Waiwai was saying how she’s never seen Bozi and Qiao Zhi smile while breaking and yet they look like they’re having a ball learning the sexy dance.

- Yibo did some magic tricks. Something I’ve noticed is that Yibo is actually quite good at public speaking. He makes very few mistakes, barely uses any filler words. Anyway, his first magic trick didn’t quite work, but the rest of them did (y) 

- Han Geng performed a dance that he said he learned when he was very young. I remember when he was still doing stuff regularly with Super Junior, people would ask him to show off the ethnic dances that he’d studied. This performance was exactly that, plus some added shenaniganery at the end.

- I really liked Ma Xiaolong and Rochka’s performances. Ma Xiaolong is such a good singer? Like it’s not just the skill, but he has creativity when he sings. As for Rochka, his performance was just so much fun. He was a good singer too but he also brings such charisma.

- Really sorry to hear about Zyko’s sister :( I can’t be mad, he needs to go home. He looked so down too when he was calling Han Geng. All the best to his family :(  I did really love Zyko on the show. He was so open minded and so easygoing. All the best v.v

- I’m glad that the other contestants got to see him off (AC, Ibuki, Rochka, Ma Xiaolong). Rochka looked so sad. He strikes me as a sympathetic guy, so I don’t doubt that he was troubled by the news too.

- Not gonna lie, the news about Zyko kind of brought my mood down. It’s not that the show is “ruined,” it’s just the idea of his sister being so seriously hurt that’s hard swallow for me. I can’t believe how Zyko must be feeling. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still going to watch the rest of the show, I guess the news was just a stark reminder that we live in the real world. 

#thinking out loud #cvariety #street dance of china #screencaps

[sanstropfremir]

it’s the episode 8 review!!! how many episodes is this show supposed to even be?

the stages from the episode feel like such a grab bag.... i still don’t understand why they didn’t put all the skill stages together, and then did the normal two episodes of the third round. i guess it makes sense that they didn’t want to have six stages in one episode and then three in the other two, but eh. 

feeling kinda average on these as a whole, there’s a lot of good elements going on here but probably because of my own preferences (i don’t listen to ballads or blackpink) none of them really hit all the buttons. hopefully this will be a shorter review because i'm only going to do a quick rundown of the vocal stages; i dont really have that much to say about them because they are (intentionally) not very stage picture focused. i'll do the normal stage breakdowns for the other two though, even though i won’t rank them because we still need to see the other four!

vocal stages

sf9 + tbz + ikon

not much to say here other than wow, that’s RED. glad to see some more specific use of spotlighting and i always love when they light things on fire. i do wish they had fill lit with a brighter amber so we could actually get a bit more detail on their faces, especially because there’s six of them. i appreciated the simple blocking and only using one of the ‘stages,’ this stage didn’t need to be anything complicated and it wasn’t. i don’t love spinning camera shots because they make me a bit ill, and i'll forgive the constant cutting because it's a vocal stage and there isn’t any other real movement that we should be paying attention to. not my favourite of the two, i found it visually a bit too repetitive and complex at the same time. always love a crushed velvet suit though, so bonus points for that.

atz + skz + btob

i was braced for the worst and i dont know what kind of miracle happened but it was listenable! like i said, not a ballad fan but i could listen to eunkwang all day. i love a good plinth for a ballad stage, they’re one of my favourite devices in kpop design and i especially love it with a good groundlevel fog. glad they kept it black and white for the first half of the stage, it was in line with the blooming flower projections, and it made a very clear colour arc. they kept the visuals clean and simple with very little blocking at all, a very smart choice for this stage. not sure why they decided it would be the chanel time stage, which i disapprove of because i don’t like chanel, but i do love eunkwang’s shirt with the cameo buttons and the massive turnback cuffs, very 17th and also 19th century. i know they never do it because they dont read on stage normally but yes absolutely more thin chain pendant chokers on men, thank you! i also liked that there was emphasis on a more traditional lighting scheme, there weren't any crazy concert effects, just some good directional beam spotlights and the rear stacks in the climax. 

third round stages

ikon

costume

the first look for them is definitely my fabourite of theirs so far. there’s enough variation in the jackets that the base layer of tshirt and jeans don’t look too repetitive. and i do love a good statement jacket. my favourite is probably donghyuk’s because i'm a sucker for fringe always.

i don’t like the backup dancers costumes, but given the way i’ve reacted to every other all black outfit for this entire show i don’t think anyone was surprised about that. these ones particularly irk me because they’re very matte; there's pretty much no texture or pattern differentials to define the shape of the limb, which makes them disappear when theyre all grouped together (mostly on the women). i think they probably were intending to make a statement/emphasis on the hands because of the sleeve cutoff point, but there were so many arm movements that were just totally missed because the costumes were just black voids. most egregious parts are here, with the female dancers up center. i can barely tell what the movements are unless i’m paying specific attention to them because there's so many black shapes. maybe it was the point for it to be an indiscernable writhing mass, but it wasn’t my vibe.

don’t love this styling on lisa. i hate peeptoe shoes in general but peeptoe boots are the worst offenders. they make you look like you have duck feet, no matter who you are. especially with a flat cutout like that. a universally unflattering shoe, and i would know, i worked in a shoe store for two years. this whole look is just pg-13 rihanna cfda awards 2014 and really nobody should try to run up against rihanna.

also i have to mention this because it’s actually really bothering me, but lisa’s backup dancers are serving very allgemeine ss looks and i do not like it. generally when we see ‘military’ uniforms in kpop theyre usually modelled off older styles (pre wwii) of western uniforms that usually aren’t in circulation, and they’re usually non-matching and embellished in ways that are deliberately not military. i know logically that it's a budget constraint+they’re backup dancers+current trend thing but the clean lines with only button detailing and the all black and that specific harness shape? it hit my brain the wrong way. i mean, technically those uniforms are designer because hugo boss did them, but the uh..... girlboss move didn’t land for me.

this is my PERSONAL OPINION please for the love of all that is holy do not come yelling at me about this. it’s all under a cut, you chose to read the post.

set

very glad to see some busy kitschy sets! this is a massive build, since there’s essentially three full sets here: the temple, the jungle, and the first tiny room. and all of them are very heavily decorated. 

the starting room is just five walls on casters (wheels), that have been set into place with the cameraman and ikon inside at the start, and then once they exit the walls can be easily struck and rolled off set. simple, smart, and convenient!

i missed it the first couple times around but glitching out the projections in the temple for a split second was a neat little trick.

the silver and polygonal nature of the tiger/panther/cat(?) head is a bit disconnected from the gold and the aesthetic of the rest of the stage for me. the difference between the original room set and the jungle tracks, but the cat head isnt able to make the same leap for me. i'm also not a fan of mixing metals so maybe that’s why.

the tiger/panther/cat(?) head is a fun physical transitional device; i'm a big fan of tunnels and small transitory spaces like that and if they’re well dressed like this one they do so much for establishing place and mood.

i'm very sure i’ve seen this style of polygonal animal head with laser eyes before....i cannot for the life of me remember where or for what. i know wang yibo did a panther stage for sdc3 that had a human formation panther with green laser eyes, i wonder if i'm just crossing wires.

OH nevermind it’s because it looks like the witcher medallion. wires were definitely crossed.

lighting

using purple/teal lighting for the jungle was a smart choice because purple is the direct compliment to the gold and also is much more flattering on humans than green. green is one of the colours that humans can see the most variations in, so when something is green when it's not supposed to be (like human skin), we register that very quickly and associate it with unease and sickness. you know how old fluorescent lights have that greenish tinge that kinda makes you feel ill? it's your cone cells and your brain recognizing that you’re looking at things that are not supposed to be green.

very clean colour arc, i love to see it.

sound

it’s.....fine? i don’t listen to blackpink and have no opinions on their music other than it's not my type. i dont really know what the thematic connection to the visuals is, which is not strictly necessary in a lot of cases, but i don’t particularly care for the conflation of ‘savage’ and a (presumably) precolonial religion that’s assembled from stereotypes of real colonized cultures. you can come at me about how ‘it's not that deep’ all you want but i am here specifically doing an in depth analysis, and i gotta point it out. i'm not here to pass judgement on you if you didn’t realize or don’t care or whatever, i'm just saying that it's important to consume content with a critical eye. what you do with that information is your own personal choice, but you should be aware of it at least. 

staging

they took a big risk eating popcorn right before singing, and we definitely got some residual mouth noises of them trying to clean out their teeth. eating on stage is difficult in general because you have to make sure it's not going to dry out the performers mouths, because they dont have access to water and it takes WAY longer to chew and swallow something than you would expect. there’s a LOT of testing that goes into making stage food and guaranteed it’s not made out of what it looks like or what its supposed to be; i worked on a production of amadeus were we did literal weeks of testing amalgams of different desserts to make sure that salieri could actually eat the ones onstage without totally drying him out, because fun fact about that show, salieri doesnt leave stage like, at all, so there was no way to get him water. poor bloke.

i thought the blocking of this was really smart. the long take from the ‘normal’ room and transition into the jungle was super slick, even if that weird circle the camera did while pointed up at the ceiling was unnecessary and pointless.

bobby’s ‘acting’ was extremely funny and that’s the only way people are allowed to act surprised now. edvard munsch scream style only.

the pacing is a bit off and this time it wasn’t mnet’s editing that fucked it up. as fun as it is to have a feature, clearly she wasn’t allowed within proximity of the rest of them for covid or other yg related reasons, but it made for some extremely long transitions, especially the one out of her verse. it kills the momentum of the stage in that beat, even though they manage to pick it up after.

this is a very simple little narrative arc that’s easy to follow and doesn’t require any extra explaining. which is exactly the kind of arc that groups should be doing at this stage in the game. this is a good formic step up for ikon!

i thought the turning off of the monitor at the end was fun and a good callback to them watching the videos at the beginning of the stage. a nice clean way to make it circular.

skz

costume

FINALLY something different on the skz boys! these were mostly fun eboy looks for them, and i like it on the basis that it's not the same as the last set of costumes.

bang chan out there with his thigh OUT and a (fake) bridge piercing? LOVE to see it. great work.

(copy-paste every thing i’ve said about backup dancers wearing all black)

the backup dancers that were dressed as bystanders/extras were great! they should have kept that with all of them because it would have given a little more shape to the choreography and establishing what function the backup dancers were supposed to have.

set

that is meant to be a giant rice cooker on stage, right? i think so because it's a god’s menu mashup? if that's not a rice cooker i have NO idea what its supposed to be

there’s only two large setpieces here, which was a smart way to go. i LOVE the subway car doubling as the truck, even if the truck itself makes no narrative sense. what a fun way to double the use of a single big piece. you’ll be able to see the way it moves in the full cam but it splits down the centre and there entrance doors at the back with attached stairs that bang chan and the dancers use to climb up.

lighting

not a whole lot happening here. i like the cool white leds in the subway car and the contrast with the more warm tones of the outside, which is good atmospheric establishment, but i can't discern a visible arc. 

not a fan of these projections; they’re in line with what we’ve seen from skz so far, which is: extremely literal. i dont think they’re that distracting, but they’re not to my personal taste. they really should have kept the comic panel theme that they did for changbin’s first verse, because that was inventive and fun to watch! and a great atmospheric indicator! i would love to see a bit more experimental projection use but it's hard when they don’t have a lot of time to build these stages and the lighting team is definitely working remotely.

sound

i love that they made the choice to do some actual talking, it’s a good gimmick and it works for the deadpool/comic book/fourth wall break theme, but australian accents take me the fuck out i am so sorry i cannot listen to either felix or bang chan speak english without laughing uncontrollably. 

i don’t like this arrangement but i'm not surprised about that, given my predilections. i'm also tired of skz shouting STRAY KIDS in every performance they do. i know on music shows it's probably more relevant and yea producers tags are a thing but we’ve been watching this show for nearly two months at this point. we know who you are, you can stop yelling. be more creative with it!

staging

my biggest issue with this stage is that it doesn’t have a payoff. there is an arc here: they’re stealing the truck, but why are they stealing the truck? who are they stealing it from? who are they fighting against? it's kind of important in a stage where the theme is stealing and fighting someone that you tell us who that is. in both of ateez’s previous stages were they were both stealing (rhythm ta) and fighting (wonderland), they made sure to show us who the villain was. there needs to be tension for a big blowup climax to actually pay off. whether it be against a a balloon arm kraken or a fascist government. this stage could have reached that next step if they’d just done a little bit more exposition. 

there were a lot of fun choreo moments here, and this is probably my favourite choreo of theirs so far. i thought the whole first bit in the subway car was excellent and a very fun play on those viral videos that we used to see roll around every so often of dancers doing routines in subway cars.

did it need the guns? not in the slightest. more on this point later. i could talk more about weapons and weight here, but i’ve done that several times already.

like with the tbz game of thrones stages, theyre relying a little too much on the audience's preconceptions of the source material in order to carry the theme. the guns are there because deadpool likes guns, but they don’t actually use the guns for anything? the most we get of the stealing segment is felix and the safe, which admittedly is a great bit with him leaping over and under the ‘laser’ lines (theyre likely led strips). because comic books are by nature procedural and deeply tied to narrative, it's unsatisfying when there’s no tension and no payoff.

HOW did we manage to get two stages that are blackpink covers with remote/tv static gimmick and durags? i know the slot machine of kpop tropes is not very big but surely the probability of hitting triple sevens on this one was pretty low. i’m pretty meh on both of these stages overall. skz was unsatisfying but i loved the choreo in the subway bit so that bumped it up a little ahead of ikon’s in my personal preferences, but i'm reserving my actual rankings for next week. assuming we get the other four stages next week and they dont do something stupid and only show two. which they very well might. i’ve stopped trying to understand why mnet does things the way that they do. 

as always the ask box is open, drop your comments/questions/personal opinions, i love to hear ‘em! but don’t be rude just because some of this is touchier subject material.

#kingdom #ateez #btob #ikon #sf9 #the boyz #stray kids #military uniforms are a weird one and i always find it a bit....(squiggly face emoji) when they get used in kpop stages #everybody is one of the exceptions because its used as a direct critique #but this is a very personal opinion as someone who has done a lot of historical research on military uniforms in particular #so im hyperaware of that kind of thing #be cool about this one people please and thank you! #im so glad this came in under 3k #kingdom review #kpop analysis #text #ive had to write a lot of deeply critical art practice analysis in the last week and i would like to sleep

[stellahibernis]

Lan Wangji: Armored in Silk and Lace

AKA Lan Wangji’s costumes in the Untamed, part 3/9

Today it’s time to discuss the outfit that’s definitely in contention for the title of Most Extra™. As usual, I’ll talk of the costume both in terms of what it consists of and how it ties to what’s going on in the plot.

Lan Wangji wears this outfit during the evil summer school in episodes 11 to 14, and is furious for about 90 % of the time. He also confesses his love, only for Wei Wuxian to pass out without actually hearing it, so things are going just great for him all in all.

The Costume

This was a fun one to analyze, because it looks fairly simple at a first glance, the silhouette is much like his first outfit, but when you start to really look at it, you’ll spot a lot of detail going on. Also for some reason getting good screencaps of this one was a nightmare, but I think you’ll get the gist even with what I got.

This outfit is notable for a couple of reasons; it’s his first completely white outfit (excluding the forehead ribbon and waist ornament, those are the same as always), his other fully white outfit is the next one. It’s also the first time there’s no cloud embroidery anywhere, the other time is the outfit he wears when they go to the temple in the end. I’ll talk of the in-universe reasons in the context section, but the fully white look is a very wise choice also from the costuming perspective.

As you can see above, the silhouette is once more a formal one, with the wide sleeves and the robe falling freely over sash. The color is pure white, as opposed to Nie Huaisang’s off-white in comparison, but you might go back and look at the first outfit for example, and notice the white here seems warmer than in any of his other white outfits. Usually, while the white fabric in LWJ’s costumes is always pure white rather than a tint of any kind, it takes a little of the blue hue from the inner robes. It obviously doesn’t happen here, and the fabrics used are also somewhat less shiny than in his other costumes, which helps it reflect the warm tones back (as opposed to the next, also all white outfit, which is made of shinier fabrics).

From costuming perspective the choice makes sense, because this outfit is worn outdoors under sunlight, in Qishan with its reddish light, and in the cave in firelight, all of which are environments where the full white works at least as well (natural sunlight) or better (Qishan and the cave) than with the blue underlayer. The textures of the fabric also look great especially in the dim light of the cave.

Now let’s get to the details! The most obvious thing is of course the lace overlay on the outer robe which is not only gorgeous, but a relevant factor in consideration whether this is the Most Extra™ outfit. I also love the texture of the fabric on the lapels and sleeve ends, with the same fabric also used in the layer below. In the title I called this outfit his armor, and it is so for him psychologically, which I’ll talk about later, but it’s also reflected in the very structured cut of the second robe, which has much starker pleating than his outfits usually do. There’s also a bit of lace in the panel on the front, and the sash is similarly criss-crossed as it was with his previous blue outfit.

I had to settle for a screencap of him crouching to get even a half decent look of the bottom of his robes, because mostly you can’t see half of the detailing. First, there is the panel of lace that continues all the way down in front, and you can also see the pressed pleating. Also, if you look at his right knee (resting on the ground), you can see yet another fabric that has a sort of circular texture going on (may have to zoom in on this one), again something that you’re likely to miss on the screen, but must have been great for Wang Yibo to know that every bit of the costume was as elaborate as LWJ’s should be.

And finally, my favorite detail and the one that in my book yields the title Most Extra™ for this outfit, the boots! Sorry about the awkward cropping, I didn’t want to have the leg wound visible, since that’s potentially a less than great surprise in a costume post, and this was pretty much the only scene where you could get a good look at the boots.

I mentioned in part 1 that it's a hell of a power move from the Lan Sect to have white boots in general, but look at these. Boots made of white brocade? Truly incredible, and obviously used here since we get a good look at them by virtue of LWJ’s leg wound. Once again I applaud the costuming department for commitment.

The Context

LWJ is back in white, which broadly means that he feels drawn to his duty to his sect more keenly, and in this case I’d argue it’s mixed with mourning for the burned Cloud Recesses and the loss of his home, hence the all white outfit. He’s also terribly vulnerable and alone when we first see him in Qishan, he’s escorted in by the Wens rather than arriving with an entourage like the others, he’s been questioned and beaten for who knows how long by that point, he’s injured and has to use his spiritual energy just to walk upright, and he’s worried about his family. Of course, he’s not going to let the Wens see it’s getting to him, and his outfit is one of the few things he can control, so he does, to a degree at least.

The lack of cloud embroidery might in-universe be because he was not allowed to have it, considering the embroidery acts as a talisman that can protect the wearer from some forms of harm (remember how in episode one the puppets didn’t like them).

They may be made of silk and lace, but his robes are his armor right then, the very formality and how impeccable they are despite everything is giving out the signal that even in these circumstances he’s still the Second Jade of Lan. It’s costing him though, and he again has drawn a wall around himself and doesn’t spare a glance at the others, including WWX, he’s laser focused on Wen Chao with all the fury he has. Of course, the day ends absolutely miserably with them having to relinquish their swords just to add insult to injury, and giving him even less things he has control over. (This is not a weapon design post, but Bichen is really pretty.)

There is a huge difference in the way he now interacts with WWX compared to where they left off in Qinghe, even taking into account that LWJ didn’t actually let WWX see quite how much he’d softened toward him, but now the barrier is fully up again, and WWX is doing his best to batter it down once more. He can of course see it’s different compared to how their early interactions were, now LWJ isn’t annoyed at him but just ignores him, likely at least partly out of necessity because he has no energy for anything else, but also because he’s so aware of representing his sect in this dangerous time, and he can’t afford to be distracted. WWX of course finds out only later what has happened since their parting, and then understands better why LWJ behaved as he did.

Of course, LWJ might be on his last legs and tied by his duty, but the fact he cares about WWX hasn’t changed, and while he can ignore both the questioning and the antics, he won’t just stand by and let him be hurt. This, of course, is a mutual feeling for the two of them, as we see later during the walk toward the cave. In fact, they’re on something of a mirrored journey right here, having to think of their duties toward their sects, but when push comes to shove, they will always help each other.

When they're left behind in the cave there is a brief lull in the push and pull conflict going on in both their hearts, and for a bit they can just focus on surviving together. WWX pulling LWJ’s ribbon off is a neat symbol for it, as if removing the duty for a bit, and the conversation following is fully personal even though their worry for their families is there at the back of their minds at all times.

There’s also the only moment of peace for LWJ while wearing this outfit; when he falls asleep and WWX gently covers him with his robes, and later in the morning puts his ribbon back on. LWJ really had no defence against falling in love with WWX, when assaulted both by the fact WWX isn’t at all bothered by the icy aloofness he portrays, and the casual caring acts.

After the relatively calm night it’s back to no fun times to be had, with WWX nearly dying in the aftermath of the battle. Here we get perhaps the most pointed example of how LWJ is at this point in his life pulled into two directions. He sings the song he composed and named after the two of them to WWX, even saying the name aloud and practically confessing to his feelings, and then leaving without waiting for WWX to wake up when they’re saved, because he knows that since he can, he needs to return to his family and see what they can salvage of their home. A “fun” thing for him to contemplate, by the way, is whether things would have gone differently when they reunited in episode 20 if he’d stayed at least to see WWX back awake. Who knows.

Next time we’ll have another fully white outfit and LWJ not having a particularly good time wearing it. Hopefully there’ll be plenty of scenes from which to get good screencaps, it feels like struggling with both the angst and difficulty of capturing should be too much to ask. 😅

(You can find the rest of this series via “lwj costume series” tag below, or through my blog contents page. I’d link for ease of access but the links make it disappear from tags, so. 😒)

#the untamed #cql #the untamed meta #cql meta #lan wangji #costume design #lwj costume series #cql rambles

[girllovescomic]

An analysis of our OTP as we go toward the end

With the help of Karen Ly (Twitter), I found this post on Weibo and Google translated it.  I think this really encapsulate what I think of both characters

After watching the 60~63 episodes, my dissatisfaction with the plot has calmed down a bit, not only because the appearance of the king in these episodes is too high (this is the main reason, it is really love every frame of every line) , Also because the behavior logic of most characters can be explained. I think the Hulan episode of 58~59 broke so badly because the changes in Helan Zhen couldn't convince me at all. It was not like he could do it.

Let me talk about Xiao Qi first. Since the battle of Neem Hayama, I have been thinking about his return. I know it will be good, but it is better than I imagined again. Has Xiao Qi changed? Yes, it is not. Xiao Qi is a person with extremely strong inner world and self-awareness. He has gone all the way from the Cambrian to an extremely human minister. No matter how the outside world changes, he can hardly shake his self-constructed spiritual world. He knew exactly what he wanted along the way. He was a hero with the world in mind. Power and status were never the goals he pursued, but the means to help him achieve his ideals, so neither threat nor temptation would let him shake. This is why Wang Lin said that he always looked at people accurately, but he misunderstood Xiao Qi. After all, this son-in-law is not a mortal. From the time when he entered Beijing to be the king to the Lianyu Mountain Incident, Xiao Qi's attitude towards the royal family and the nobles of the Manchu clan was always neither humble nor overbearing, courteous and courteous. After being aware of the emperor’s scruples about his merits, he took the initiative to resign. . He is always smart, sober and restrained. After the return, he did not accept the order twice, and the face of the king did not worship the palace with the sword. He was arrogant and domineering, watching the world, just like the two of the past restraint and forbearance. But when Xiao Qi, who had restrained his modesty at the beginning, could ever afford these nobles? Today, he just didn't hesitate to hide his contempt and anger, for the sake of the dead Ning Shuo soldier, and for his ideals and beliefs. Xiao Qi is a person who has always acted in accordance with his inner rules, and this has never changed. In the past, he thought that by being close to the center of power, he could better realize the ideal of guarding his family and protecting the country and allowing the people to live and work in peace. After Xie Shouzheng's corruption incident and close talks with Zilong, he has realized that the corruption of the court and the family is a chronic disease. It is difficult to heal, so the meaning of retreat was born. Xiao Qi before Lian Yushan should be struggling. Although returning to Ningshuo was far away from the power struggle, he could only keep one side of the country safe and farther away from his great cause. The tragedy of Mt. Neem changed everything. The moment God of War, Xiao Qi, looked hollow and confused. In addition to his extremely overdrawn body, there was probably a collapse of faith and despair of the country and court he tried to protect.

The next few episodes are completely depressive. Xiao Qi is silent. In a one-man show with almost no lines, he cried silently. He galloped in the wilderness, he looked up at the sky in the courtyard, he was by the river. Pressing his forehead lightly against the horse, he grieves, angers, reflects, reconstructs his will, and strengthens his determination to revenge. The accumulated power reaches people's hearts through the screen. With such a layer upon layer of progressive paving, the outbreak after the return is extremely hearty. Xiao Qi came back, and he couldn't get through according to your rules in the past, so just follow my rules and see if any of you has the ability to stop me.

Similarly, the scenes after the return were progressive. When they were refused entry into Ningshuo City, they lowered their stance, were polite and courteous, and had a sincere attitude. When they saw Ningshuo soldiers swearing allegiance to the death, it was hard to hide their excitement. The voice choked for a while, this was the first emotional vent since Neem Yushan suppressed Yin Ren. When I saw Wyen (I love this scene very much, I repeatedly brushed it), the short conversation undercurrents surged and was extremely wonderful. Xiao Qi's eyes staring at Wyan were a little bit probing at first (want to see how many shadows there were in Wyan in the past), and gradually became cold (are you here to welcome me or stop me), and then became threatening and provocative ( Who will do it this time, is it you, Su Yibo), mentioning that Guanglie and Soldier Ningshuo are uncontrollable anger (this is the second emotional vent), and then return to calm, the disappointment and steel The same unchangeable will is chilling. I always felt that Liu Duanduan's interpretation was a bit too much, but this scene was also excellent, and the process of Wyan's inner anxiety, hesitation, and final break was very complete.

This period of entering the city was another highlight moment, and the whole confrontation was relaxed, and it was repeated several times. Personally, my favorite is the body language of the king in this scene, which is really domineering every time he raises his hand and turns around. Hearing the order to accept the order, he slightly leaned over to help the grandmother who was about to kneel down, stepped forward slowly, stopped sideways, and took the order, resolutely and beyond doubt. A few actions have made people see the aggressive attitude of King Yuzhang after his return. He just wants to clearly tell the emperor and these officials that his patience has been exhausted, and he will not leave them half face or give them any more. They stayed a little bit of retreat until the truth was found out and the real murderer came to the rescue. After Ma San arrived, he seemed to be holding a low posture, but in fact he was always in front of him. The connotation of his words is that Xiao Qi led soldiers to threaten the monarchy, committing chaos (you bring 100,000 soldiers, I will agree to anything you want), and put yourself in morals The commanding heights place Xiao Qi unrighteous, thereby confuses the public and avoids Xiao Qi's questioning of Lian Yushan. The confrontation was pushed to the apex when he said "Fight against me until King Yu Zhang is satisfied". At this time, Xiao Qi still looked directly at Ma San, his eyes were not evasive, but he took a deep breath that was hardly noticeable. , Looked up slightly, he was suspicious and inquiring about Ma San, and the anger at him for putting himself here was expressed vividly and vividly in this slight look up. After Wang Su quickly handed everyone a step and got a promise that he could self-check the truth, he took the opportunity to give in, bowed his head, and the confrontation ended. The rhythm of the subtleties is too good.

Talking about entering the hall in white, all the restraints in the front have been pave the way for the most heartfelt lift. As he approached the throne step by step, he was like an angry lion, showing the air of a king. Ma San was forced by such a momentum, his eyes were evasive, and his inner fear was self-evident. Here is an interruption of Wyan's eyes, which are worship, shock, and loss. He probably realized that he would never be able to surpass Xiao Qi. Then, it came to the monologue on Xiaoqi Hall. This paragraph kicked me to the bottom of the pit and never wanted to come out again. This third emotional catharsis directly pushed the contradictions to the peak. The anger, grief, and contempt for the nobles since Mt. Neem poured out like a rainbow, and finally received a meaningful look in front of the throne. At that time, he was as dangerous as a black panther waiting for an opportunity.

Should such Xiao Qi be proclaimed emperor? There are many voices on the Internet questioning that Xiao Qi’s retreat is the "heart of the Father" and the collapse of human design. I think this is a simple and rude categorization in the Internet age. The term "personal design" is even more annoying. How can the complexity of human nature be summed up with a simple facial makeup? Everything needs to be viewed in the context of an era. Monarchs and ministers are the head of the five Confucian ethics. The usurpation of the king and the killing of the emperor must be a shame in the history books. Even big ambitious people like Cao Cao have scruples. Need to hold the emperor to make the princes. The founding emperors who have changed dynasties in the past have all found various so-called apocalypses and signs to prove that the previous dynasties are exhausted. For Xiao Qi, a hero who takes the responsibility of defending his family and the country and has the world in his heart, he should not be easy to make such a choice. This is not the so-called Father's Heart, nor loyalty, but is restricted by the value system of that era. Of course, Xiao Qi is by no means a pedantic person, otherwise there would be no such thing as instigating many feudal vassals to ask for the gift of nine tins. The key is to see what he ultimately wants to achieve. For a person like him who follows his inner rules, I am curious how Zhou Yiwei will perform and convince us of his final choice.

Let's talk about Awu. Although I still feel that many details of the plot cannot withstand scrutiny, the direction of the character Awu is generally logical. First of all, Awu is not an ordinary woman. She has independent self-awareness and values. The love between her and Xiao Qi is based on the mutual attraction of two independent personalities. The other party. Such a woman naturally has a bigger pattern. She understands Xiao Qi's ideals. She was born in a family and was perfectly protected since she was a child. She didn't realize the taste of betrayal until she was involved in her father's plot and trade as a pawn. I think a drama review I watched before is very well written, to the effect that Awu’s noble spiritual world makes her not disdain to participate in the conspiracy, or even hate those who hurt her (such as Su Jin’er, more It is disgust, that she is a poor person). She hated her for the first time when she thought that He Lanzhen killed Xiao Qi. Xiao Qi is her bottom line, so she will do everything she can to die with him. Regarding the queen mother, after guessing that the emperor's uncle was murdered by her, Awu kept alienating her; after returning to Beijing, she felt compassionate when she saw the tragedy of the queen mother. This is also very controversial on the Internet, but after all, the layout of Neem Hayama has not been fully investigated, and it is understandable to have pity for the aunt who watched him grow up. (Of course, I didn't convince myself too much. There were still omissions in the plot. Ordinarily, she and Xiao Qi should be able to see the role of the queen mother). To Ma San, she was shocked to a large extent. After all, she grew up with her childhood sweetheart. She probably couldn't believe that he had become like this. She chose not to tell Xiao Qi not because she wanted to let Ma San go, but because she didn't think about what the consequences of this incident would be, and how this consequence would affect Xiao Qi and the situation in the world. So I don’t think that the hostess is overwhelmed by the heart of the Virgin. Her response to these people is different, and the way of coping is also considered according to different situations. Regarding the truth about Neem Yushan, she did have a disagreement with Xiao Qi. In the play, she mentioned letting go twice, one was when she went to Beijing to talk at home after returning to the government, hoping that Xiao Qi would not kill more after finding out the truth; Bian, asked Xiao Qi if he could put aside the things in front of him and live his own life. Two times, Xiao Qi didn't agree, he never gave her a promise that she couldn't make (here again). I think it is reasonable to think this way from the perspective of Auntie. First of all, she could not fully understand Xiao Qi’s brotherhood of life and death towards Ning Shuo’s soldiers. Second, she could not fully understand Xiao Qi’s pain and hatred unless he had personally experienced the affairs of Yushan. (On this matter, probably only Hu Yao Understand the king, please refer to See the eyes of the king and Hu Yao reuniting). So I think that although Ah Wu can understand Xiao Qi's ideals of the world on a large scale, he does not fully understand Xiao Qi's will and determination to revenge. She is afraid of the prospect of the rain coming, she is afraid of losing Xiao Qi, and also afraid that Xiao Qi will go on the road of murdering the king for revenge, and even more afraid of the bloody wind that will follow, which change of dynasty in history It didn't come by walking on the sea of ​​blood. However, this disagreement does not mean that the love between 57 has faded. In fact, their lives have been more deeply blended together (Auntie said, you are the most important person in my life; Xiao Qi said, to you never change). Auntie chose to stand with Xiao Qi on key matters. For example, when she entered Beijing, she refused to help Wang Yu persuade Xiao Qi, and followed Xiao Qi twice to bow down. (Here I want to emphasize the background of the times and not follow the rule of the monarch Ceremony is to pretend to be a big deal). He loves her, so he understands and tolerates her care for the family to the greatest extent; she loves him, even if she does not fully understand, she will respect his choice. This is the love between adults without blood.

Other characters who have the same acting online include the prime minister who is always conscientious in his career, and the queen mother who has hysteria to get up and pull his enemies into the water, finally wakes up to the elder brother who is firm in his career, and even the black line of love and brains, Ma San, their wonderful makes My resentment for the first episode of Hulan has fallen, and I moved a small bench to wait for the last 5 episodes...

#Analysis #characters #monarch industry #the rebel princess #Zhou Yi Wei #Zhang Ziyi

[phoenixrisesoncemore]

But Whose Deontology?

The Untamed: three-fifths mark

OK, @thearrogantemu​ I finally had a chance to look at a non-work screen for long enough to watch some more Untamed; through episode 30 now! Oh boy. Spoilers for anyone who isn’t this far yet below the cut:

I feel like this show didn’t exactly *hide* that it was interested in poking holes in everyone’s moral system, but it did spend a lot of time... not distracting us, really, but using the other assorted comical, tender, and otherwise emotional aspects of the show to deepen our investment in these characters’ lives and choices before it started really making its moves. I suspect it wouldn’t have had the same effect otherwise.

The long run up is a pacing I’m quite the fan of from almost three decades of JRPGs that start out as light-hearted adventures about teenage angst only to turn into philosophical ruminations on God and the nature of the universe (see my favorite example: Xenogears). Even The Lord of the Rings does something... similar, albeit not intentionally on the part of the author. It’s actually one of my favorite “tropes” in storytelling: the tone shift—the moment the light-hearted and comfortingly simple reveals itself to be something much wider and deeper and which will leave you unsettled in its wake.(1)

I’m really quite impressed with Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo. Xiao Zhan manages to believably play the process of aging from arrogant and ornery but innocent and lovable “student” in Cloud Recesses, to the (still arrogant and ornery but lovable) rebellious “hero” during the Wen indoctrination, to the (still arrogant but lovable) young man forced to grow up too fast when his adoptive parents are killed, to the Master of Demonic Cultivation and head of The World’s Most Wholesome Farming Co-op (why cultivate only demons when you can cultivate turnips, too!?).(2) And he manages to play it all as believably the same character, always deeply expressive but also somehow... authentic... even when he is putting on a show: his play-acted irresponsible argumentativeness with Wen Qing; his self-infantilization whenever he wants Yanli to mother him. The latter would be laughable if we were to take it as entirely straight-faced—he knows he is playing childish, and he knows that she knows, even if he does legitimately want to be mothered. Jiang Cheng on the other hand seems to never handle the reality of Wei Wuxian as well as Wei Wuxian handles the reality of Jiang Cheng...

I understand there was some criticism of Yibo’s perceived lack of expressiveness when the show first came out, but I think he’s doing a fantastic job portraying a deeply stoic character whose emotional turmoil is buried under mountains of learned and self-enforced composure. It’s not like he’s missing beats; he’s responding, it’s just subtle. He’s responsible for two of my favorite moments so far: when he first smiles ever so slightly when he sees the lantern Wuxian has made him with the rabbit drawing(3) and the scene of him kneeling in the snow as punishment. I don’t know if it’s the lighting or the fact that it’s one of the few times he’s not carrying tension in his eyebrows, but he looks SO YOUNG in that shot. Honestly, he looks more AT PEACE in that shot than I think he does at almost any other time in the show so far. It feels to me like, in that moment, he has no regrets either about what he did nor about the fact that he should have to atone for it. Like he has internalized some sense that both things are right and can exist in tension. The weird effect of this growth next to Wei Wuxian’s feels like watching one of the two grow older (Wuxian) while the other grows younger (Wangji).

Now, I’m a sucker for every last story where two highly disparate-seeming people move from from some variation of dislike (either on the part of one or both) to friendship to, sometimes, something more (no, no BL here, none at all *looks the other way*). Certainly Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji have very different personalities. Wei Wuxian has little regard for rules, authority, tradition, taboos, or social etiquette: he uses Lan Wangji’s ming(4) almost as soon as he meets him! The way he interacts with objects and spaces (and personal space!) shows his lack of reverence/respect for the people and things others expect him to have reverence for. He has no problem questioning what everyone else seems to see as obvious up to the point of outright suggesting the use of dark magic. Because...well, why not?? Because “they said so?”

It’s not that he doesn’t KNOW the rules. Another of my absolute favorite moments is during the Wen indoctrination when Wei Wuxian starts reciting not the Wen clan principles, but the Lan clan principles! Sure, he lacks the expected respect for sources of authority be they personal or ideological, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t KNOW them. He’s obviously naturally talented, gifted, a fast learner, curious, but also—and crucially—he has a very strong moral compass! He does not tolerate bullies, especially when they turn their attention to the vulnerable, like Wen Chao.(5) Yanli notes that their father always favors those with moral integrity and who does he favor? Wei Wuxian.

And this is where he and Lan Wangji are more alike than Wangji initially thinks, and why I love that moment, just after they release the lanterns, when you see, just for a second, the surprise on his face at the content of Wei Wuxian’s prayer: that he always be able to “stand with justice and live with no regrets.” It is, I imagine, the moment when it really hits Wangji that this rebel he finds himself irrationally attracted to truly is *good* despite the fact that he shows no outward signs of respecting the same sources of moral authority Wangji does.

So what is the main difference? Where the rules come from. Who makes the rules? Both of them are pretty sure they know.

Lan Wangji gets his moment to present his source just after their rooftop duel when he catches Wei Wuxian drinking: the Lan Clan principles chiseled right into stone. All 3000 of them. Interestingly, even though Wei Wuxian can and does memorize the code and seems perfectly happy with the notion of moral principles in general, I’ll wager a guess that he is confused by the very idea that a moral code would be so strict and unchanging and inflexible that it could be chiseled into stone *in the first place* or that it would *need to be memorized*. Surely you’d just...”know?” Besides, morality is too contextual to treat this way surely?

As a CLH (Confirmed Lifelong Heretic) my sympathies admittedly lie more with Wei Wuxian than Lan Wangji. It’s not that traditional codes of ethics and conduct are bad things. These are the things that provide stability across entire cultures and peoples. If they’re written in stone, at least that means they’re something everyone has a greater chance of pointing to and agreeing on.(7) And just as Lan Wangji has to learn that there are moral codes that aren’t written in stone and that individual minds can have very clear senses of right and wrong outside of group structures, Wei Wuxian has to learn to temper his arrogance—that his actions, for however right he *thinks* they are, can and do have consequences he would not intend for those he loves, as when he stops himself from calling to Wangji during the hunt. I have a feeling he’s going to be learning more...

Then there’s that whole conversation from ep. 29 as Lan Wangji prepares to leave the burial mounds which is just full of whammies (set, naturally, against the exceedingly domestic reality of the community as a whole and their exceedingly sweet interactions with a-Yuan). Wei Wuxian says: “But let yourself be the judge of what is right and what is wrong, leave others’ comments aside, and care little about gain and loss. What I should do. I know it very well. I believe that I’ll be able to control it well.” And then there’s that moment where you can actually feel Lan Wangji’s heart drop into the pit of his stomach as he presses his eyes closed.

This is the reverse of the moment when Wangji directed Wuxian’s attention to the list of Lan clan principles, so solid they are written in stone.(8)

Then there is that wonderful bit about their respective paths—Lan Wangji’s path vs. Wei Wuxian’s path: the wide avenue vs the one-log bridge. I assume this is a literal translation of the Mandarin. Is it an idiom? If so, I may mangle its meaning terribly and for that I am sorry. But it seems to me that a wide avenue is safe, easy, populated; a single-log bridge is comparatively dangerous and only one person can walk it. Which seems a pretty good metaphor for the differences in whose rule-book each of the leads chooses. Not to mention, with my Western ears, it sounds a WHOLE lot like a “straight and narrow path.” Interesting then, that it is The Master of Demonic Cultivation who is choosing it, while Lan Wangji—with his brightness and discipline and clarity—is following the “easy” way.

So, there it is: whose deontology is the right one? How do you choose?

It’s the epistemological aspect of the question of ethics that Newbigin gets right in that quote I posted the other day. Honestly, I disagree with a great deal (like, a lot) of what Newbigin says in that book, and I think he spends far too much time running himself in ever tighter Calvinist circles, (not to mention I have little interest in missiology and am highly skeptical of evangelism). But! I appreciate that he does, at least, recognize the danger of believing we have insulated ourselves completely from uncertainty or of expecting that certainty is even a thing possible to achieve.

But where do we choose to anchor our axioms? And why? Whose deontology is the right deontology? The rules written on parchment and stone? Or the rules written on our souls? Remembering, of course, that both are fallible. 16 years in the future, will the two leads have changed their minds at all?

And now with any luck, I’ll have a free weekend in which to watch the last 20 episodes, assuming no one wants me to do adult things like house cleaning or completing design projects people are paying me for.(10)

Like how Tolkien switches register from the low and comedic to the high and romantic but you’re fully aware it’s all really part of the same story and suddenly, bam!, you recognize that those aspects of life are somehow not able to be disentangled.

OMG is this an intentional play on “cultivation”? Sometimes I can’t tell what might be getting lost in translation, and I’m certainly too ignorant of Chinese culture, mythology, and folklore to really appreciate everything happening in this show, not least of which due to the language barrier.

He is, interestingly, far more moved by it than the drawing Wuxian does of *him* two episodes beforehand—is this merely the result of the progression of their relationship? This is post-cold springs after all.

That took some research to understand!

The main “vulnerable” character that he never seems to swoop in to save is Meng Yao and I wonder if it’s because he can sense something “off” about him. I felt bad for Meng Yao at first but he always put me on edge. Honestly, is there anyone who trusts Meng Yao as far as they can throw him? *looks at Elrond* OK, anyone except Elrond?(6)

Honestly, before I started watching this I saw that one of the characters was being referred to as Elrond and I wondered, going into it, if I’d know which character it was, and then Lan Xichen walked in and I was like “oh, yeah, obviously!” Seriously, what is it about him? Is it his physical appearance? The way he holds himself? His outfit? His pattern of speaking? How is this person so obviously coded “Elrond?”

Except they don’t really. That’s never how it works.

And interestingly, when looking at his name: “Wei Ying,  Ying is his 名, meaning, baby; Wuxian is his 字, it comes from an ancient prose “喜乐无羡赏,忿怒无羡刑”, which means when you’re delighted don’t reward without restraint,  when you’re angry don’t punish without restraint. Wuxian here means exercise your power reasonably.”(9)

The richness of the world in this show really appeals to me as does the carefully choreographed costume design, productions design, and cinematography (seriously, everyone needs to dress like this all the time; end of story; I have spoken). There have been some amazing shots that I can only assume are drone footage that have been ADRed?

20 years in and adulthood still sucks. 0 of 5 stars. Would not recommend.

#the untamed #mo dao zu shi #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #mzds #tolkien #yes tolkien gets a namedrop too #he's like the linchpin of my brain

[razberryyum]

The Untamed/陈情令 Rewatch, Episode 13, Part 1 of 2

(spoilers for everything MDZS/Untamed)

[covers MDZS chapters 52, 53 and 54]

WangXian meter: 🐰🐰🐰+🐰🐰+🐰🐰+🐰🐰+🐰🐰+🐰🐰🐰+🐰🐰🐰+🐰🐰+🐰🐰+🐰+🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰

(Each WangXian scene automatically gets one 🐰 even if they’re just thinking of each other; one scene can earn up to five 🐰 depending on the intensity of WangXian-ness. Each scene is separated by an “+”. In rare instances, certain WangXian scenes are so full of WangXian love that they warrant more than five 🐰...the last scene of this episode is a prime example of such an instance)

The last 10 minutes of this episode, starting from this moment, is probably one of the most giffed, vidded, screencapped, blogged, reblogged, tweeted, retweeted, etc scene in the entire show, so there’s really not much more I could say about it that hasn’t already been stated and echoed by many, many others. Suffice it to say I absolutely love it: I love how the scene was constructed and performed, and I am still amazed that it exists at all. It is perfect, adorable, hilarious, and simply precious. Even though it is still a few degrees tamer than its novel counterpart (I’ll get into that in the second part of the post), the scene still managed to fully capture the spirit of the original. It really is so damn perfect, thanks in large part to Lan Zhan’s sublime reactions. Seriously from now on, under “gay panic” they should just show Lan Zhan’s face while Wei Ying is taking off his clothes:

Strangely enough, this disrobing moment always reminds me of a WangXian scene that occurs much later, during Wei Ying’s second lifetime, which was left out of The Untamed because...well, there really is no bromance way to interpret it. It’s the scene in Lotus Pier when Wei Ying is up in the tree looking down at Lan Zhan, and he thinks, “if he catches me, I’ll....” For some reason, whenever I watch this moment, I instantly think of that scene, except in this case, I always imagine Lan Zhan thinking, “If he takes off his clothes, I’ll....” The sentiments and circumstances between the two scenes are hardly related, and yet I feel a similarity between them because in both instances, figuratively speaking, the person directly affected—Lan Zhan in this case while in the Lotus Pier scenario it’s Wei Ying—seems to be standing at the edge of an emotional precipice, and a little nudge is all it’ll take for them to fall right over and become overtaken by the emotions they were feeling. For the later Lotus Pier scene, Lan Zhan does catch Wei Ying, and I think that’s when he realizes his feelings for Lan Zhan. Whereas with this moment, I don’t know what would’ve happened if Wei Ying had successfully taken off all his clothes in front of Lan Zhan, but I feel that Lan Zhan was deathly afraid to find out himself, hence, his overreaction.

~~~

I love that Wei Ying pulled that stunt because he figured Lan Zhan was such a prim and proper fuddy-duddy that the idea of being naked or seeing someone else naked would've been enough to shock him into spitting up his bad blood. While that isn’t an unreasonable assumption, it doesn’t quite hold water since we’ve been seeing how Lan Zhan is around Wei Ying all this time and had been privy to his point of view leading up to this moment. As a result, I feel like there’s two realities going on at the same time: what Wei Ying thinks is happening and what Lan Zhan is actually experiencing, which is sheer panic because he already had feelings for Wei Ying but has been more or less keeping a tight control over his emotions. With Wei Ying’s in advertent act of temptation, his control was quickly slipping away. It’s no wonder he became so overwhelmed that he vomited up all that blood; it's like an anime’s equivalent of a nosebleed.  

Wang Yibo really hit it out of the park with his performance in this entire scene: I was truly impressed with how he so capably brought to life the spectrum of tumultuous feelings Lan Zhan was experiencing. While Xiao Zhan has plenty of opportunities to emote due to the nature of Wei Wuxian’s character, Wang Yibo naturally has the shorter end of the stick due to Lan Zhan’s stoic nature, so most of his emoting is usually restricted to just his eyes. As a result, chances for him to fully break out of that restrained façade is rather rare, and I think he really relished the opportunity, taking full advantage of it and gave it his all in the limited capacity that he was able to without getting out of character. His reactions really ran the gamut of emotions: there was pain (due to his injury), shock, confusion, indignation, the aforementioned panic...erm...vomiting, then gratitude, jealousy, displeasure, hope, annoyance, and finally sadness about Cloud Recesses and his family. No wonder he fell asleep shortly after, he must’ve been exhausted from emoting alone.

I think it's a significant point that Wei Ying mentions that Lan Zhan has never spoken to him as much as he had in the cave since I believe it is here that Lan Zhan has finally, truly fallen in love with Wei Ying. That’s part of the reason why he opened up to him much more than he has ever done with anyone else except for Big Brother Xichen. I’ll hold off on talking more about this until the next episode but I would definitely consider the Xuanwu cave as a landmark event in their relationship, especially for Lan Zhan. In the novel, he actually starts crying in front of Wei Ying because of what happened to his home and his family. Here in the show, while he did get teary-eyed talking about Cloud Recesses...

...he still obviously held back, not letting his tears actually fall.  At first I thought it was a shame that Team CQL made that change from the book since it was such a heart-breaking yet sweet moment, but since my initial viewing of this episode I’ve learned to really appreciate that choice. It means that the only times Lan Zhan has ever really cried was because of Wei Wuxian.  That’s just so utterly beautiful it makes me emotional.    

Still, the fact that Lan Zhan had such a moment of vulnerability in front of Wei Ying was a strong indication of how much their relationship has deepened. Even during their journey to the Xuanwu cave, there were a number of small yet significant moments that further illustrated the steady growth of their bond. As usual, they were constantly focused on each other, always aware of what was happening to the other person so that they could offer support. In addition to offering Lan Zhan a piggyback ride and then asking Wen Qing to slow down the procession for his sake, Wei Ying was generally just so attentive to Lan Zhan, bringing him water during their rest stop, which actually earned him a rare smile...

...and then when they got moving again, Wei Ying was right by Lan Zhan’s side to help him.

Even if Wei Ying’s attentiveness can be attributed to his considerate nature, what adds meaning to their interaction is Lan Zhan’s behavior in return, since he’s constantly going against his known reticent nature by exhibiting his concern for Wei Ying, such as when he worriedly calls out Wei Ying’s name after Wen Chao kicks him over the ledge:

It’s like once again, seeing Wei Ying endangered, Lan Zhan forgets all caution and his surroundings and just zeroes in on Wei Ying.  Even though he was seriously injured, he still raced down those ropes to the bottom of the cave so that he could help Wei Ying.  

Not to mention, while they were distracting the Xuanwu so that the others can escape, Lan Zhan pretty much sacrificed himself to protect Wei Ying, thereby worsening his leg injury.  

 Interestingly, in the original version of that scene, Lan Zhan actually got caught in the jaws of the Xuanwu so Wei Ying had to jump in to rescue him, which resulted in him carrying Lan Zhan on his back. In other words, Wei Ying did actually end up giving Lan Zhan a piggyback ride after all. I’m not quite sure why Team CQL decided to omit that detail. If it’s a censorship issue, carrying an injured person on one’s back seems a reasonable enough thing to do...and it’s not like there wasn’t a piggyback ride later on. If it’s a strength issue on the actors’ part, if Wang Yibo can manage to carry Xiao Zhan, I’m sure Xiao Zhan could have done the same to him, especially since he has a few inches of height on WYB. I really can’t figure out why they omitted the piggyback ride in the drama. Strangely enough, the donghua also left out the piggyback ride as well. Again, considering what they kept in the scene (Wei Ying is half-naked, Lan Zhan touches the brand on his bare chest), it is rather puzzling why a relatively harmless piggyback ride didn’t make the cut.

Continued in Part 2...posted

#The Untamed #陈情令 #spoilers #WangXian #Untamed Rewatch #Mo Dao Zu Shi #CQL #MDZS #魔道祖师 #Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation #Wei Ying Wei Wuxian #Lan Zhan Lan Wangji #Xuanwu Cave

[razberryyum]

The Guanyin Temple Event: another essay

(spoilers for episode 47 - 50 and the novel. All novel excerpts taken from the wonderful translations provided by Team Exiled Rebels Scanlations)

I didn’t read the Mo Dao Zu Shi novel until I was about a dozen episodes into The Untamed, but once I did, there were two events that I was most looking forward to seeing depicted on-screen: the Phoenix Mountain Hunt and the climax at the Guanyin Temple. The main reason for my heightened anticipation was because they were both critical and awesome events in the novel and also because I couldn’t wait to see how Team CQL was going to work around the blatant WangXian-ness present in them. Since I already wrote at length about the Phoenix Mountain Hunt, I won’t delve into that topic again, but suffice it to say I was quite pleased at what the drama team came up with in place of the blindfolded make-out session between Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian.  

For the Guanyin Temple event, I knew Team CQL had their work cut out for them because it wasn’t just a kiss they had to work around, but a whole ton of WangXian moments since that’s pretty much when Wei Wuxian, our completely awesome and lovable but dense AF protagonist, finally finds out that Lan Wangji has been in love with him for like…forever…and they acknowledge their feelings for each other (in front of family and foes no less). From the moment WWX finds out about Lan Zhan’s love for him until the end of the Guanyin Temple incident, it’s so loaded with WangXian cuteness that I almost died laughing while reading those passages: for me, at times their lovey-doveyness actually crossed into cringe-territory. Not that they didn’t earn the right to be completely corney, mushy puppies in love, but I still had to cover my eyes, shake my head and turn away in embarrassment a few times. I mean, I was literally suffering from a diabetic attack during some of those scenes.  

Of course I didn’t expect mushiness to that level in the show…there’s still censorship to consider after all…but I was hoping for a ghost of what happened in the novel so that once again the spirit of their love confession can still be captured on the show. Or at the very least, I was hoping for some Easter eggs that would let us know that the production team understands our pain and wishes they could’ve given us all the WangXian love too.  

Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be any of that. In fact, with much regret, I have to say that in terms of WangXian quotient, I was a rather disappointed in CQL’s adaptation of the Guanyin Temple event.  

It almost felt like in the end, Team CQL couldn’t really come up with anything to replace the abundance of WangXian love we were given in the novel, so they chose to just completely avoid any hints of it altogether. If I’m going to be honest, LWJ even seemed grumpy most of the time. I don’t blame Wang Yibo’s performance for this at all (I will never blame him for anything LWJ…he has given us such an amazing LWJ that he is blameless forever in my book. Same goes for Xiao Zhan and his WWX), I’m sure that’s the direction he was given, which makes me really scratch my head in perplexity. To jump ahead a little, a good example of this is during the scene where LWJ is protecting WWX from Fairy. In the novel, we had this exchange during that moment: (from chapter 101):

Wei WuXian, “Hug me!”

Lan WangJi, “I am hugging you!”

Wei WuXian, again, “Hug me tight!”

Lan WangJi, also, “I am hugging you tight!”

Whereas in the drama, we didn’t really have any dialogue and Lan Zhan didn’t even look too pleased about having to protect Wei Ying from the fluffy puppy. In fact, I was actually a bit bummed when he raised his arm to protect WWX: they started out with Wei Ying clinging to Lan Zhan’s body but raising his arm like that actually caused Wei Ying to move away from him, making their interaction less intimate.

Then there was that pivotal moment in the courtyard of the temple in the beginning, where WWX was being held hostage by Jin Guangyao and his guqin string: that was a scene I was especially looking forward to since that’s when Wei Ying blurts out the line that he’s always wanted to sleep with LWJ, which pretty much sets off his confession of love and devotion afterwards. I was extremely curious what dialogue Team CQL would put in place of something as blatant as that. I was hoping for something along the lines of “no matter what, you will always be my 知己” from WWX, which would’ve served as another callback to what they said on Phoenix Mountain and what they were thinking about during that snowy evening on Cloud Recesses. Just something poignant yet meaningful to capture all the love WWX has for Lan Zhan. Sadly, all we got was forgiveness from WWX about what happened during Nightless City, which, as heartfelt as the words were uttered (WWX saying it all teary-eyed got me all teary-eyed as well), they still felt almost a little unnecessary at that point. Especially since we already got that pardon when Lan Zhan was drunk and Wei Ying was telling him all of it was not his fault. Sure, Lan Zhan’s sober this time around and I did sense all the emotions in their expressions, but in terms of what was actually being said, as a replacement for “Lan Zhan! Lan WangJi! HanGuang-Jun! Back then, I-I really wanted to sleep with you!”? I’m sorry, it fell wayyyy short.  

I also didn’t like the fact that once they were inside the temple, sitting side by side, the dialogue was changed to the following:

Where’s the love in that?? Again, it’s not like I was expecting anything hot and heavy like it was in the book (from chapter 100):

Wei WuXian couldn’t let out another sound. Amidst the darkness, Lan WangJi had already embraced him tightly, stopping him with his lips.

Lan WangJi’s breaths were short and disordered. His hoarse voice whispered beside Wei WuXian’s ear, “… fancy you…”

Wei WuXian hugged him tight, “Yes!”

Lan WangJi, “… love you, want you…”

Wei WuXian raised his voice, “Yes!”

Lan WangJi, “Cannot leave you… do not want anyone but you… it cannot be anyone but you!”

But maybe just a little more affection?  In the book, there was so much love going on between WWX and LWJ at Guanyin Temple that even Jin Guangyao was nice enough to step aside and give them some alone time to talk out their feelings. Big bro Lan Xichen and Jin Ling also made sure to sit away from them so that they could hug and kiss it out. The show actually kept the seating arrangement intact, which I guess was meant as a nod to the fans, but I would’ve rather they kept the sentiments instead.  

Not that Guanyin Temple was completely devoid of WangXian moments, thankfully, we did get the following little touches:

But if you read the novel, I have to believe you’d agree with me just a bit that all of that was hardly comparable to the source material. I don’t know if Team CQL decided to change things this way so that the ending with LWJ deciding to separate from WWX (although temporarily) would make more sense, or if the censorship monster finally got to them; either way, I wish they had been just a little more…creative and generous, I guess? It pains me to say that since it sounds like I’m being rather ungrateful—they have given us so much already—but Guanyin Temple was just so important to WWX and LWJ’s relationship, I can’t help but wish it was…better? At least in terms of WangXian.  

Not to mention, strangely, there seemed to be more technical problems with the Guanyin Temple episodes than with any other consecutive batch of eps prior to them. The issues ran the gamut of bad production choices: awkward pacing (I love Wen Ning and it was cool seeming him possessed by Baxia, but it felt like it took him at least half an hour to get from the courtyard to actually inside the damn temple), very obvious editing errors (one moment WWX has his hand on LWJ’s hand, the next he doesn’t, and then he does again), clunky scene transitions, bad sound editing/mixing (why are we hearing the flute on top of Wei Ying’s whistling and the melodies aren’t even the same?), and if I’m going to be honest, the fight choreography and scene set up were kind of mediocre too.  It felt like only the actors were bringing their A-game during those scenes while the production team was already getting ready for the wrap party since the show was going to be over soon. I mean, look at this, where the hell was A-Yao running off to?  

Why couldn’t they show his death? It was so much better and creepier in the novel. Or is he even dead? Did they keep that open-ended too just in case they want to bring him back for the movie? And will LXC even get his sword back???

I know I sound rather negative, and I actually debated for a while on even sharing my feelings because I hate being so critical of this show that gave me so much joy for the most part. I also didn’t want to bum anyone out with my criticisms, however, even though I love, I can never love blindly, so I just have to get all the griping out of my system.  

On the bright side, despite being disappointed by the WangXian quotient and the technical shortcomings of these eps, I was quite pleased by some of the changes Team CQL made from the novel which, imho, I thought were actual improvements from the source material (sorry, MXTX-laozi!). First of all, I really appreciated the closure we got between Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying. I LOVED that the two Yunmeng brothers got to talk things out and really reconciled. I especially loved this look JC had as he watched WWX play his flute:

As if he was both proud and relieved that WWX found a way to be strong again even without his golden core. We didn’t get such a sweet moment in the book. There actually wasn’t much interaction between them after Wei Ying told JC to just forget about the past; in fact, there seemed to still be some residual bad feelings which made me think the Yunmeng brothers weren’t really ever going to be ok again.  WWX definitely didn’t wipe away JC’s tears or even touch him. That affectionate exchange we were given in the drama was just so precious and needed after all the pain both of them have been through, and it made me feel so much happier and reassured about their relationship. I’m glad that in both versions JC didn’t tell WWX what actually happened the day he was taken by the Wen Sect: it would’ve been just yet another heartache to burden Wei Ying who obviously was ready to move on with his new life. That little consideration made me love Jiang Cheng so much more.  

Another improvement was the resolution between Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao. I tried really hard not to ship big bro and A-Yao, but dammit, the show pretty much forced me to, especially towards the end with their last scenes together.  Before I say anything else, I must really commend Liu Haikuan and Zhu Zanjin, the actors who brought LXC and JGY to life respectively: they really delivered during their scenes in Guanyin Temple. Zhu Zanjin is always on the verge of overacting and sometimes actually crosses the line, but all of his choices really worked for me within those scenes. I completely felt the hurt and anger from JGY when he thought LXC never trusted him, just as much as I felt the same emotions from LXC when his A-Yao revealed his true colors.  They made my heart hurt for both of them and wish for a happy ending for them, which is just crazy because JGY is not a good person. As WWX pointed out, JGY really is a lot like Xue Yang, but he probably didn’t realize just how alike they are: they’re both technically monsters but still somehow capable of love…or a twisted form of it at least that passed for normal for them. One of my favorite pieces of dialogue in the entire novel was actually JGY’s (chapter 108):

“In this life, I’ve lied countless times, killed countless times. Like you said, I killed my father, my brother, my wife, my son, my teacher, my friend—of all the evil in the world, what haven’t I done?!” He took in a breath, rasping, “But I’ve never even thought of harming you!”

That moved me so much, and I actually teared up when JGY uttered basically those same words in the show because I believed he meant them, it wasn’t just a ploy to manipulate LXC again. And then, at the very last minute when JGY was about to pull LXC into the coffin so that the two of them could die together, in the book, JGY just suddenly pushed LXC away. I loved that in the show, we are shown LXC’s acceptance to the fate JGY intended for them…

…and that is why he pushes his second brother away. It was enough for him to know LXC didn’t regard him the same way that Nie Mingjue did after all, that he did genuinely care for JGY all these years. Although JGY probably didn’t deserve such satisfaction before his death considering all the people he‘s killed and harmed (except for Jin Guangshan…that asshole deserved everything he got…I’d count that as a PLUS on JGY’s karma scale, even if that was his dad), I still couldn‘t help feeling a bit happy that he attained it. I can‘t help it, JGY reminds me of a Puss-in-boots half of the time.

Finally, as heart-breaking as it was, I appreciated how much more affected Wei Ying was by the revelation that he had just been an unwitting pawn and victim in JGY’s schemes all this time. In the novel, the truth seemed to mostly rolled off his back, probably because he was too busy cuddling with LWJ to even care anymore, but in The Untamed, WWX seemed downright devastated. I have to say, Xiao Zhan really has mastered the laughing-while-crying combo-hit so damn well that he never fails to make my eyes well up every time he delivers that killer move.  

I really felt his pain and anger at how much he suffered because of what JGY and Su She did, and how wronged he was by them, even if JGY tried to partially lay the blame on him and Jiang Cheng. What made JGY’s words especially hurtful was the modicum of truth to them, because WWX was being incendiary and arrogant during that time, and JC really didn’t have his back at all. He definitely never stood up for him like Shijie did at Phoenix Mountain. Again, I should hate JGY for hurting them with such painful truths and hell, I should hate him solely for all that he has done to WWX, whether it was purposeful or happenstance, but I simply don’t. I might feel differently if Wei Ying wasn’t given a second chance at life and happiness, but thankfully he was and that does make all difference in the world. I don’t even hate Su She…I just think he’s really pathetic and I’m glad he died the way he did.

So, do all of these positive factors balance out what I thought were definite missteps in the drama’s version of what happened at Guanyin Temple? If we had another 10 episodes of Wei Ying and Lan Zhan interactions to look forward to, the answer would probably be yes. OR, if we were given a bona fide, neat as a bow, unquestionably happy ending for them, the answer would also be yes. However, because this was the last couple of episodes we would ever get in the series before its conclusion and the ending was not quite as neat as I wish it would’ve been, then the answer is, sadly, no. I feel we were simply deprived too much of WangXian–I think they spent half the time just spectating at what was going on–and therefore for me, the execution of the Guanyin Temple events by Team CQL unfortunately leaned more on the side of being a disappointment overall.  

Thank you once again for reading my second thesis. I have no idea if I will ever be able to earn my doctorate in MDZS/The Untamed, but I will continue to work hard at it. At the very least, I hope all this blabbering has granted me the privilege of being a somewhat worthy disciple-in-training.  

#The Untamed #陈情令 #CQL #WangXian #Guanyin Temple #spoilers #Mo Dao Zu Shi #MDZS #Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation #Wei Ying Wei Wuxian #Lan Zhan Lan Wangji #Lan Xichen #Jin Guangyao #XiYao #Jiang Cheng #Yunmeng bros #Wen Ning #Jin Ling #Fairy #Su She #long post

[razberryyum]

The Untamed/陈情令 Rewatch, Episode 6, Part 1 of 2

(spoilers for everything MDZS/Untamed and a little for Princess Weiyoung)

[covers MDZS chapter 18 and a bit of chaps 56 and 66]

WangXian meter: 🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰

(a 🐰 is earned every time there is a WangXian scene or even when they’re just thinking of each other…there’s so much Wangxian-ness in this episode, one post couldn’t contain all of it)

Team CQL went rogue for the two major events featured in this episode—the Cloud Recesses drinking incident and the WangXian bathing scene—and really, bless them and their ancestors for that decision. Not only did the changes provide Wei Ying and Lan Zhan with additional bonding time, but they actually had significant bearing on future events.

Originally in the novel, Lan Zhan didn’t actually partake in the drinking incident that got Wei Ying punished: some nameless disciples, Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng were the ones who actually took part in those activities. Lan Zhan only found their drunk asses the next morning and dragged Wei Ying off for disciplinary action (although, from the way the scene was described in the book, it actually seemed like he was more angry at Wei Ying for looking at porn, lol). However, for the live action, that entire scenario was transformed into Lan Zhan actually getting drunk for the first time, albeit against his will. Of course it would have been better if he willingly joined in, but at that point in time, that would have been illogical, not to mention completely out of character for him, so even though Wei Ying sort of did Lan Zhan wrong, there was probably no other way he could have gotten him to share a drink with him otherwise.

I am especially grateful for this change because that is the moment when my eyes were finally open to Wang Yibo’s talents as an actor and I started to really appreciate his performance. Prior to this episode, I was actually wondering if he was playing stoicism so well because that’s really all he was capable of doing, but then, when he dropped that rigid façade and gave us a charmingly adorable drunk Lan Zhan, I realized that everything that came before were indeed acting choices, that he was definitely able to do more than that. Not to mention, he also had pretty good comedic timing. I started to look at him in an entirely new light after watching this episode, and the rest is, as they say, history.

Upon revisiting this episode last night, I finally realized something that I never thought of before, and I feel actually pretty stupid for not even making the connection until now.  During the Koi tower scenes in the present, when Wei Ying as the paperman was eavesdropping on Jin Guangyao and his wife’s conversation, I couldn’t figure out how JGY was able to put Qin Su under his control the way he did, but in watching this episode again, it finally came to me: he probably used a modified version of the charm that Wei Ying used on Lan Zhan in here. After all, JGY was one of the many people who raided the Burial Mounds and took over the Yiling Patriarch’s possessions after his death, so it would make sense for him to discover this particular memento as well. When I first watched this episode, I was mainly just impressed by how powerful the charm is that it would be able to put someone like Lan Zhan under its spell, considering he’s not just some lay person, but rather someone who already had a pretty high level of cultivation by then. I simply saw it as yet another indicator of just how talented and powerful Wei Ying was even at that young age. But now, thinking that Team CQL may have laid the groundwork for something that was going to happen so much later just makes me so much more impressed with their planning.

Of course I could simply be overthinking this whole thing and JGY’s magical powers could just be his own magical powers, or something common to the cultivation world that my dumb brain just overlooked, but for those few seconds when I thought I came upon a fascinating connection, I was quite proud of myself, so allow me to coast on that sense of euphoria just a little while more.

Bonding and other cuteness

Of course I loved every single moment of the Drunk!Lan Zhan sequence, starting with that tiny little flirtatious gesture by Wei Ying. Seriously, how CUTE is that?? Makes me smile every time I see it, and I’ve rewound that little moment numerous times. How anyone can be resistant to Wei Wuxian’s charms I can never understand, but clearly Lan Zhan was still holding out on him. I’m glad that Team CQL chose this incident to reveal the nature of the Gusu Lan head ribbon since it directly led to Wei Ying’s bonding moment with Lan Zhan. Even though the other man was still generally cold to him, it was really sweet that Wei Ying still felt comfortable enough to share the precious memory of his parents with him.

It’s a real shame that Lan Zhan didn’t remember any of it the next day, but I did take comfort in the fact that he still knelt by Wei Ying like a united front to receive Uncle Lan’s wrath and punishment. I’m sure most of that was motivated by his own pride and sense of righteousness, but I still found it touching, especially with how much Wei Ying was defending Lan Zhan so that he would be spared the disciplinary action. Wei Ying was much less protective in the novel during that scene–he was mostly indignant–even  though he was still the one to blame for Lan Zhan’s involvement in the whole incident by basically tricking him into breaking curfew. I love that even though Team CQL changed the drinking incident, they still managed to maintain the spirit of its novel counterpart, much like they did with the Phoenix Mountain Hunt.

And then of course there was this:

Which was obviously a treat for our imaginations to get our creative juices flowing so that we can imagine on our own what might have taken place during the night that led to Wei Wuxian waking up in his half-dressed state. For this gift, I am eternally grateful to the production team.

Jiang Cheng Has Fun For Once

I was actually surprised that Jiang Cheng would join in on the drinking party because up until then he had spent most of his time basically disapproving everything Wei Ying did while also seemingly in a constant state of worry that he would embarrass their sect. Imbibing alcohol was clearly a violation of Gusu Lan rules so it’s kind of amazing that Jiang Cheng willingly join in on such an act of rebellion. Nie Huaisang, on other hand, I totally expected to be a part of the shenanigans…I would’ve expected nothing less from him…but Jiang Cheng was a pleasant surprise. I really enjoyed seeing him let loose like that, especially since we got to find out what he looked for in a mate.

The sad thing is Wen Qing actually fit all of his requirements for a wife, except for that family one, which i in the end, proved to be the most important one after all since it became the deal-breaker, dooming their relationship before it even got a chance to get started.

Another rather sad aspect of seeing Jiang Cheng so at ease and acting like a total goofball is that this really would be the only time we would ever see him this way.  His time at Cloud Recesses was probably the most enjoyable and carefree for him. I doubt he was ever able to enjoy himself the same way again. It actually makes me wonder if he EVER was able to have fun, period, during the last 16 years. Just thinking about what he’s gone through makes me wish I could give him a great big hug. 

Reason #10 for Why I love Big Bro Lan Xichen

His amused reaction to hearing about Wei Ying’s transgression:

…which was immediately followed by his “oh shit” response to hearing his little bro was also involved.

Big Bro Xichen is just too adorable, AND HE DESERVES ALL THE LOVE IN THE WORLD DAMMIT.

Uncle Lan is One Mean Mofo

Seriously, what’s with Lan Qiren’s obsession with the number 300? I really need to know if there’s some significance to that number since it’s featured in BOTH of the major disciplinary incidents in the show that were carried out by Uncle Lan.  For this first outing, those rulers looked downright brutal; it’s a utter miracle that Wei Ying and Lan Zhan were even able to survive being beat 300 times with that medieval torture device. At the very least their spines should’ve been broken, paralyzing them for the rest of their lives. In the novel they were only caned 100 times, which is still a lot but it’s still a somewhat grounded enough number that I could believe they would be able to heal from their injuries. But 300? They should be maimed. I’ve noticed that with chinese dramas though: they tend to be excessive when it comes to inflicting punishment. I actually stopped watching a show once because the main character was being beaten repeatedly in the stomach (Princess Weiyoung) while being held prisoner. That particular character should not have survived that beating…at the very least he would’ve needed his nutrients to be delivered by IV for the rest of his life (even though IVs didn’t exist yet) because there was no way his stomach was ever going to work again after that. I was almost offended by how ignorant the screenwriters were about basic anatomical and biological functions so I decided to just stop watching (well, the fact that I wasn’t that into the show anyway probably contributed to my decision as well) Of course the 300 floggings weren’t enough to discourage me from continuing forward with The Untamed, but it did throw me out of the show for a good moment because I couldn’t get over how ridiculous that number was.  Uncle Lan really has a sadistic streak in him

Not to mention, he was also surprisingly tactless. He had just learned about Wei Wuxian’s mom from big bro Xichen and I couldn’t believe that he would just throw that info at the Wei Ying in such a careless way, only to shut him down when the poor guy desperately asked for more details about his mom. Uncle Lan had to know enough about Wei Ying’s background to understand how sensitive he would be in regards to his deceased parents, so I was actually taken aback by how heartless Uncle Lan was being during that scene, so much so that for a while after, I really wasn’t feeling much love towards him. Although, now that I think about it, love is probably a misnomer any way since I doubt I would ever love Uncle Lan nor can I even say I ever actually liked him–he’s too much of a fuddy-duddy for my tastes. It’s more like I just accept his existence, appreciate his importance to the Lan brothers, and I find his disapproval of Wei Ying kind of amusing. But in that moment, I definitely did straight out dislike him for being such a cold SOB, especially towards Wei Wuxian.

To be continued in Part 2…(posted)

#The Untamed #陈情令 #spoilers #WangXian #Untamed Rewatch #Mo Dao Zu Shi #CQL #MDZS #魔道祖师 #Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation #Founder of Diabolism #Wei Ying Wei Wuxian #Lan Zhan Lan Wangji #Jiang Cheng #ChengQing #Lan Xichen #Lan Qiren #Nie Huaisang #Jin GuangYao #Qin Su