As I have let my Netflix account wither into not being renewed so I can spend my money on my Japanese animes instead I have not finished the show at all. I didn't not even get like a third of the way through. Long tv shows are long. Long books are also long but at easier to manage. So I am going to be starting on reading that. In part because wow a ship I like am actually really into and which isn't pinging my dysphoria. So far what I can say is that I am extremely fond of Wei Wuxian and, in particular, his irritatingly stick around and attempt to socialize method of becoming friends with Lan Zhan. "I am a serious business boy of serious business. I know only the Lan codes and serious business. I do not FEEL or need FRIENDS," while Wuxian gets up to his fifteenth stupid scheme of the day in the name of getting some reaction out of that man other than "Write your standards peacefully or I will literally shut your mouth. Again." This is good dynamic. Best ship dynamic. Well not best. BUT IT IS UP THERE.
Ok. Got through the opening bit with the Mo family in the novel. I'm very happy that like a lot of this stuff is explained. I was often very baffled at things happening in the show due to a lack of familiarity with Chinese fantasy. So it was nice seeing like a paragraph that was nothing but an explanation to what is up with the hand thing.
So, there's a tumblr post somewhere that I'm too lazy to dig up, which posited the idea of Nie Huaisang doing a post-canon Mo Xuanyu to resurrect his brother. I love pain and I love Nie Huaisang and I love Nie Mingjue and I really love pain, so first I wrote this 2k NMJ pov fic (featuring lan xichen), and then I just could NOT shake the idea, and I have Thoughts about Nie Huaisang and anhedonia, and then I wrote a 2.4k NHS pov fic, which actually comes before the other one, but shhh. Also, general suicide tw for both of those, because it's kind of central to the premise. And I feel weirdly strange about leaving those two formally linked on ao3, so I'm not positive that I'll leave them that way, but they're written around the same very specific idea, so they're linked for now, at least.
I just finished episode 46 and I would like to say that the best part might be Wen Ning. Wen Ning: *rips Jiang Cheng a new one* Also Wen Ning: *very diffidently asks Lan Zhan if he would pleasepleaseplease not tell Wei Ying he spilled the beans about the golden core.* Wen Ning: the cinnamon roll concealing a bitter pill. I mean, he doesn't just tell Jiang Cheng. *He makes Jiang Cheng draw the sword* Then tells him off in detail. More fic needs to show this with Wen Ning. He is not shy about telling you when you really did fuck up. (unless maybe you're Wei Wuxian, in which case he is the most awkward turtle duck.) There also needs to be more Wen Ning centric stories. Also: Wei Wuxian, adorably oblivious. I also liked that Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji were being obviously trying to solve the darn case, to the point where they had to pick apart the evidence, because it seemed too obvious. (Meanwhile, the other cultivators were applying for the next lynch mob.)
Look okay I love Wei Wuxian and I identify very strongly with his big bisexual disaster energy but I would die for Wen Ning I wanna wrap him up and feed him soup and tea and give him all the best things because he is the MOST adorable precious baby boy and whenever anything happens to him I wanna kill everyone in the room and then myself Also I freaking LOVED that scene with him going for JC. Go get him baby I got yo flower
I love this Wen Ning & Lan Sizhui video. (I loved Untamed: The Living Dead. Specifically I love Wen Ning having an Inner Asshole and needing to overcome him, to the accompaniment of Metal Chords of Character Development. Also the chain weapons. And Wen Ning being the sweetest Lone Stranger to Lone Stranger into a town.)
!!! Is there an actual episode/scene this footage came from with WN and LS fighting red dude? Is this from the special edition I keep hearing about but idk if is on YouTube?
Most of it is from the spinoff movie featuring Wen Ning, Untamed: The Living Dead! It has some really great moments of dialog being secretly snarky or not so secretly snarky, and refusing to be called uncle (I think?) because that would make him sound old. And the aforementioned Character Development Arc Metal Chords. here: https://www.viki.com/movies/36846c-the-living-dead
Sometimes Jiang Cheng is such a disaster that you just gotta meme about it. Let's call this spoilers for The Untamed through the end of the flashback just to be safe, though I'd estimate that the level of spoileriness is very low. Spoiler: lorge image
Xue Yang is not constantly driven by guilt and low self esteem to do things that will leave him feeling even worse about himself and more guilty. He’s a different kind of dumpster fire. Much more dangerous, but less complicated.
It’s probably for the best that gossip is forbidden, not that that’s likely to stop it. But what would people even be saying about Lan Wangji’s taste after he went all in on the Yiling Patriarch, then Mo Xuanyu??? Who turns out to also be the Yiling Patriarch????? Like, I can only imagine that he’s taking a trip to the library in the morning, and everyone in the Cloud Recesses is this close to performing a variation on the Bonjour song from Beauty and the Beast, rules be damned.
There is a fanfic I would like more if a) it wasn't an au where Jiang Cheng was raising Wen Yuan. Because I do not trust him with the radish boy. And b) the writer wasn't writing all whump and mostly no comfort. And finally c) did not do the "wen ning rips jc up one side and down the other in a suitably relentless fashion.
