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jiaoliqiao · 8 months

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“Shixiong. Long time no see.”

Mysterious Lotus Casebook 莲花楼 | Episode 33

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nutcasewithaknife · 3 months

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Going a little insane about how clever bringing in the question of Shan Gudao's cloud iron armour and Li Xiangyi's cloud iron sword is. It immediately dredges up such gut-punching parallels. On one hand there's Fang Duobing being lied to by Li Lianhua and well aware of it. Li Xiangyi's sword might have been the only thing that could kill Shan Gudao, and the doubt in Fang Duobing's mind grows heavier because it immediately raises the possibility that those lies are hiding something much more sinister than a man running from his past. And on the other hand, there is Li Xiangyi being lied to by Shan Gudao all those years ago and doubting him. Once again, doubting his shixiong implies the possibility of him doing terrible things like child murder for very unrighteous and selfish reasons.

And the choice to juxtapose these two betrayals of trust in the lead-up to the Li Xiangyi reveal!! The way Fang Duobing doubles down and demands honesty, while Li Xiangyi mostly took his shixiong at face value despite his misgivings. The way it dooms Li Lianhua to either lose Fang Duobing for good, or finally face the possibility that his shixiong was not the person he has let himself believe. The way Fang Duobing eventually chooses Li Lianhua as his lies were hurtful but never sinister, but Li Lianhua goes on to find out that Shan Gudao's betrayal is what doomed everything then and now.

#im pretty sure I'll disagree with myself on some points in a bit but had to scream this into the void first sigh #if i think too hard about betrayal and trust in mlc I'll combust #mysterious lotus casebook #lily's mlc rewatch #li lianhua #li xiangyi #fang duobing #shan gudao

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madamadragon · 3 months

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There was a post about a ship between Li Xiangyi and Shan Gudao and this is what i picture in my mind

Tell me i'm not the only one

(credit to the artists)

#mysterious lotus casebook #li xiangyi #li lianhua #cheng yi #shan gudao #the ship between them makes me crazy #shan gudao is obsessed with li xiangyi since they were young #and i think he wants to break him to keep him like jiao liqiao to di feisheng #shan gudao is a crazy moterfuker #and i want i fic about it #cdrama #mlc #chinese drama #di feisheng #fang duobing

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purplexedhuman · 8 months

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There's no need to go all out to defeat you.

Mysterious Lotus Casebook (莲花楼) Episode 39

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peridot-tears · 4 months

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NARRATIVE FOIL THIS NARRATIVE FOIL THAT HOW ABOUT DI FEISHENG AND SHAN GUDAO ARE NARRATIVE FOILS BECAUSE BOTH WERE MALADJUSTED KIDS WHOSE CARETAKERS WEREN'T GREAT AT CARETAKING THEM AND THEY GREW INTO MARTIAL ARTS ADDICTS WHO WERE DETERMINED TO BE THE BEST EXCEPT DI FEISHENG DESPITE LITERALLY BEING THE ONE RAISED IN A DEATH CULT STILL DEVELOPED THE MORAL COMPASS TO PLAY FAIR WITH LI XIANGYI AND SIGN A PEACE TREATY WHEREAS SHAN GUDAO'S DEEPLY-ROOTED INFERIORITY COMPLEX DROVE HIM TO JUST MANIPULATE EVERYONE INTO WARFARE INCLUDING HIS OWN BROTHER

#“caretaker” for di feisheng listen work with me here #di feisheng #li xiangyi #li lianhua #shan gudao #tears falling like peridots #mlc #mysterious lotus casebook #lhl #lian hua lou

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qpjianghu · 7 months

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If episode 30 of mysterious lotus casebook is like multiple stabs to the heart, episode 31 is like. A gentle wiping of the blood from your face, a tender caress of the knife as it's lovingly guided deeper and deeper into your soul until it pierces your very being. Because Fang Duobing finds Shan Gudao's box of knicknacks, and he and Li Lianhua share a smile -- Fang Duobing's beaming, Li Lianhua's soft, reminiscing. And they find the knife that Li Xiangyi meticulously crafted for his shixiong, but it's broken -- and Li Lianhua unthinkingly points out that he wasn't very good at making weapons, so it's his fault that the knife broke after a few uses. But Fang Duobing, sweet, smart Fang Duobing, says that's not right -- the knife was purposefully snapped. It's not Li Lianhua's fault.

And it just got me thinking about how Li Lianhua is so quick to blame himself for everything. The knife breaking was his fault -- but really it was Shan Gudao who broke it. Li Lianhua's shifu's death was his fault -- but really it was Shan Gudao, again. Shan Gudao, who Li Lianhua adored, respected, loved, and crafted his entire life around (we also learn that Li Xiangyi / Lianhua's love for candy came from Shan Gudao).

Then we see Li Xiangyi's name maliciously struck out at the bottom of Shan Gudao's box, and the moment of realization for Li Lianhua is just... I need to lie down for 7-10 business years or maybe forever

#i am chewing glass over him #it's sad li lianhua hours #mysterious lotus casebook #li lianhua #li xiangyi #fang duobing #shan gudao #mlc meta #sort of #I'm just ranting my feelings as I rewatch

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murderedbyhomework · 7 days

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So Li Xiangyi, and therefore Li Lianhua, canonically loves candy right, and not just any type of candy, it's those really cheap commonplace kind of candy, like the modern Chinese equivalent would be white rabbit candy. Has anyone considered if the reason why he likes candy so much is because as a kid on the streets, he probably never got to buy or eat candy like most other kids his age, until he got adopted? Okay, now imagine kid/teen Shan Gudao stealing candy from a store because he saw Li Xiangyi staring at the candy, and that being lxy's first conscious memory of getting to eat candy, and that type of candy always reminding him of his shixiong.

Fun bonus:

The taste of sugar removes any taste of blood from your mouth decently well especially if its the really strong sweetness from cheap candy (personal experience, I get nosebleeds), so it's perfectly plausible that Li Lianhua would just eat the type of candy he liked after bicha poison flareups and imagine that his shixiong was by his side and comforting him like when they were kids.

#mysterious lotus casebook #li lianhua #li xiangyi #lian hua lou #Shan Gudao #Daohua #Tw blood mention #雖說這帖文是說關於糖的，但是我覺得這還怪刀的嘞

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ruiconteur · 8 months

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mlc concert video + performance tracks

i've uploaded the files here! there are no english subtitles yet, nor will there be for the foreseeable future because i am not up to subbing a 2.5h concert right now. enjoy!

#mysterious lotus casebook #莲花楼 #cheng yi #li xiangyi #li lianhua #zeng shunxi #fang duobing #xiao shunyao #di feisheng #wang herun #jiao liqiao #chen duling #qiao wanmian #chen yihan #su xiaoyong #he gang #shan gudao #lhl #rui rambles

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travalerray · 2 months

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no I am not okay, I have Li Lianhua howling, "I searched for your body for ten years!" with reddened eyes over and over again stuck in my brain

#I think about their relationship often. Breaks my heart. Incoherent screeching is the only way I can express this #li lianhua #li xiangyi #shan gudao #mysterious lotus casebook #mlc #kk's rambles tag #the reveal of their ancestry.....LLH silent throughout......man.#''i never competed with you''

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lyselkatzfandomluvs · 8 months

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Mysterious Lotus Casebook 蓮花樓

2023.09.16 concert

The Queencard dance, this time in character costumes!!

MASTERPOST

#mysterious lotus casebook #蓮花樓 #li lianhua #di feisheng #fang duobing #jiao liqiao #qiao wanmian #su xiaoyong #shan gudao #mysterious lotus casebook concert #cdrama

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nutcasewithaknife · 1 month

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There's something about how Di Feisheng survives, spends a decade with the knowledge of Li Xiangyi's death, struggles to see the shape of a future without him, while Li Xiangyi does exactly the same for Shan Gudao. How Di Feisheng without Li Xiangyi would most likely have gone back to a joyless life of relentlessly pursuing power to survive, and how Li Xiangyi without Shan Gudao builds himself a new, peaceful existence that nevertheless leaves him as alone as before, that has only death after the relentless pursuit of correcting his incorrigible wrongs as best as he can. How Di Feisheng finds Li Xiangyi, alive but intent on dying, barely recognisable. How Li Xiangyi finds Shan Gudao alive, twisted beyond recognition, and is forced to face that he never really knew the man. How Di Feisheng slowly and surely comes to care for Li Lianhua, Li Xiangyi, whoever he is, while Li Xiangyi can only allow himself to feel grief and rage at Shan Gudao. In the end, Li Xiangyi must kill the one whose death he has spent a decade mourning, and Di Feisheng is left waiting for a match that will never come. When you build a life around one person, what else is left once they are gone? Do you leave the rest behind, or do you keep looking?

#making sgd-lxy and lxy-dfs parallels might just become a brand new hobby of mine #li xiangyi #li lianhua #di feisheng #shan gudao #mysterious lotus casebook #meta

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huafanghua · 1 month

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#fang duobing #li lianhua #shan gudao #蓮花樓 #mysterious lotus casebook

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ecoamerica · 2 months

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youtube

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

The American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 broadcast recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by active climate leaders. Watch to find out which finalist received the $50,000 grand prize! Hosted by Vanessa Hauc and featuring Bill McKibben and Katharine Hayhoe!

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bbcphile · 8 months

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Today, I’m crying about Li Xiangyi’s childhood, the way it taught him that losing meant he didn’t deserve to exist, and how that governed his response to the East Sea battle ten years earlier and to all the revelations at the end of the show.

Li Xiangyi obviously loves his shifu and shiniang, and they definitely loved him, too, given that his shifu wanted him to focus more on enjoying life and less on changing the world and obtaining victories, and given that his shifu sacrificed himself to try to save Xiangyi and his shiniang wanted to. So, his childhood with them definitely had more love, support, stability, and learning opportunities than his earlier life, which features such traumas as seeing his mom murdered in front of him, living on the streets starting at age 4, watching his older brother die in front of him and then forgetting his older brother existed, probably from traumatic amnesia/dissociation. That being said, though, his shiniang and shifu made some truly horrific decisions that caused some epic problems for both Li Xiangyi and Shan Gudao! It’s not just that they withheld incredibly important knowledge about Xiangyi’s early life and background from him (who his parents were, why they were murdered, that he had an older brother, the secret of his heritage)--although wow, that is a terrible way to raise a traumatized child–it’s also that they fostered competition instead of caring, both with the children they raised and between each other. I’m thinking in particular of the fact that, once shiniang and shifu separated, they each took a child (based on drawing lots) and had Xiangyi and Shan Gudao fight once a month to determine not just which kid was the better martial artist, but which adult was a better teacher, and, by extension, parent and person!

That last thing is just so infuriating and, frankly, abusive: it makes each kid think competition and winning is how affection is earned, and that any sort of mistake or loss or failure is the absolute end of the world, because you’re never just letting yourself down or not reaching your potential: you are proving that you don’t deserve their care and affection. It also taught Xiangyi that he was responsible for their caregiver’s happiness and reputation, and once you have that kind of overdeveloped sense of responsibility as a child, you carry it through into every aspect of your life, because you don’t know any other way of being. No wonder Xiangyi thought he carried the world on his shoulders: growing up, the mountain home/training center was his world–since it seems like he didn’t have interactions with anyone else until he left the mountain at age 15–so he had been carrying that belief for at least a decade without having seen any other models of ways to exist.

Also, we know Xiangyi thinks he owes his shiniang and shifu for having brought him into their family: having that added sense of debt makes everything so much worse, because he essentially thinks he owes his entire existence to them. It seems like Xiangyi felt like he had to win the competitions to prove he deserved to be there, but also to prove he deserved to exist.

For his early life, he only felt the positive side of this expectation, because he never lost, since his martial arts skills were so much stronger than Shan Gudao’s. He was unintentionally primed to assume the outcome was a foregone conclusion, because he didn’t have any real challengers. This also hammered home the idea that he was right about things, that he should call the shots, and that collaboration wasn’t really relevant to his life, since it wasn’t as if his shifu taught Xiangyi and Shan Gudao how to fight side by side to defeat other opponents. Losing seemed like something that happened to other people (namely, Shan Gudao), and given the emphasis his shifu and shiniang placed on the competitions, I imagine winning time after time was more than just an adrenaline rush; it was positive reinforcement that he deserved the good things that had come his way, had repaid the debt he owed his shiniang and shifu, and would continue to earn love, respect, a family, a home, and a right to exist.

But when he lost? When he had never had a model for what losing safely feels like? (When the only times he lost were when he lost deliberately to try to cheer up Shan Gudao, but was berated for it, and told it was shameful and wrong to throw a fight for any reason, so losing becomes even more associated with shame?) When losing wasn’t a way to learn, but a sign that he might lose his love, his family, his home? What happens when the scaffolding upholding his right to exist—his ability to win—comes crashing down?

Suicidal ideation. Because he lost not only the battle with Di Feisheng, but also his shixiong, his shixiong’s body, his fiancee, the lives of his men, his reputation, his new home (the Sigu sect), and being able-bodied. In short, he lost everything part of him always feared he’d lose and then some. So why would he think he still has a right to exist, after that? How could he believe someone telling him it wasn’t his fault, when all he has ever known is that the responsibility for everyone he cares for lies with him?

(I feel like it’s really telling that he didn’t go back to his shiniang’s or shifu’s home after everything went to hell; he said it was because he had been unfilial and couldn’t bear to go back after his shifu died, but it also seems like, given that he had lost everything else, he felt like he didn’t deserve the comfort, family, and home it represented, so staying away is his punishment.)

Given all this, it makes total sense that Li Lianhua wants so desperately to think of Li Xiangyi as dead: he can’t actually reconcile being alive and having failed. So he tries to create a new persona that doesn’t want to be the best in the jianghu or thrive on praise and responsibility, while he tries to correct what he thinks of as his mistakes, before he dies of Bicha poisoning.

He tries to live the life his shifu wanted for him, where he enjoys pleasures like wine, food, relaxation, and growing things instead of focusing on making a name for himself or winning, and he tries to stay away from people, attachments, and love, because you can’t lose them again if you don’t have them to begin with.

But of course, saying someone is a different person doesn’t make it so. He still wants to be the best–the best physician, the best at scheming, the best at detective work–because he still doesn’t actually know how to be any other way. So he still has the same problems as Li Xiangyi: he still withholds information and commands more than collaborates (it’s frankly amazing he works as well with Fang Duobing and Di Feisheng as he does), still has an overdeveloped sense of responsibility (he believes he has to be the one to save those he cares about and stop everyone else, whether Shan Gudao or the emperor), and at the end, is still suicidal (because now he thinks he’s responsible for the death of his shifu, for not seeing Shan Gudao’s plot, and probably in some warped way for the Nanyin situation once he learns the truth of his heritage, because the man has never met a situation he can’t take the blame for).

It doesn’t surprise me at all that Li Lianhua doesn’t fully get how much he means to Di Feisheng and Fang Duobing at the end, or that he thinks they just want their version of Li Xiangyi: he can’t imagine being loved and still having made a mistake.

#mysterious lotus casebook #mysterious lotus casebook meta #li xiangyi #li lianhua #tw: suicide #Shan Gudao #I had more to say about how LXY loses everything once and decides he deserves nothing #while Shan Gudao lost every day for a decade and decided he deserved everything #and how both maladaptive coping strategies are from the absurd competition they grew up with #but it was already too long #so it's going here #some day I will actually finish my fics and post them #but for now it's meta time

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where-the-water-flows · 10 days

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HEY NO WAIT

Shan gudao got "murdered", which led to Li Xiangyi going full "I will kill the Jinyuan alliance and everyone in it and burn it to ash and salt the earth on which they walk (etc etc)" and then going to dramatically break up / hate fuck / murder suicide Di Feisheng in the east sea.

but.

Shan gudao also murdered their shifu by telling him that Li Xiangyi was in danger....in the east sea...where he was because....Shan gudao.......got murdered....

like I know this timeline is nonsense but also. um. hey? the guy who got famously and notably publicly murdered shows up a month later and is like lol anyway and their shifu's just like seems legit! and did not ask any further questions I guess.

I know the reasonable answer is that Shan gudao was like 'no time to explain shidi's in danger oops ohhhh nooooo you're injured I can take your qi to save him haha whoopsy you're coughing blood now? gosh. oops. toodles.' but also. what the fuck.

#mysterious lotus casebook #li xiangyi #shan gudao #look maybe he never specifies the east sea bit #but like.#this really comes down to how fast does the jianghu rumour mill move I guess #and how tapped into it are people who live on a mountain in fuck ass nowhere #also to be clear; i might just be stupid! maybe this is all explained and i am forgetting #because i am at work and got like 4 hours sleep

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qpjianghu · 7 months

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Do u have any thoughts on the writing of Shan Gudao? I think earlier on in the series I was pretty excited that maybe Li Xiangyi really did , through his own hubris and difference in the way of seeing the world drove a wedge between him and his brother. Even after he was revealed to be alive I kinda wished he became ‘evil’ through a complex set of emotions and circumstances. I’m not saying SGD is completely 2D I just wonder if we could have had a more of a ‘Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian drifting apart (ie; not pure inferiority complex)’ style tragic slant. Li Xiangyi truly #did nothing wrong, but I kinda wish he was a little #more wrong.

Anyway, I’m sure SGD is still thematically very coherent, but is there anything you’d change/ponder changing about his storyline with LXY, or just your thoughts about this topic.

This is a great callout @lei-llustrations!! The short answer is that I agree, and if I had one criticism of the writing in Mysterious Lotus Casebook it would be this. Jiang Cheng is an excellent example of a protagonist foil with more internal complexity, and Shan Gudao is definitely very one-note. I wonder if part of it is the performance -- Jiang Cheng always projects this sort of buttoned-up rage, whereas Shan Gudao's jealousy presents itself as sadistic glee, which is just not as relatable (and believable) an emotion.

But at the end of the day I still enjoy the character of Shan Gudao as exactly what you said, OP -- a thematically coherent foil even if he's not a realistically coherent person. Because of MLC's overarching exploration of meta-narratives, I think his character works as a performance of villainy -- and maybe it even works better because it's so over-the-top and slightly divorced from reality. In fact, it's interesting to see the shift in the character of Li Lianhua after Shan Gudao's treachery is revealed, and specfically after Shan Gudao outs him as Li Xiangyi in front of all of Tianji Hall in episode 33: Li Lianhua suddenly transforms into the badass hero everyone imagines Li Xiangyi to be. You can actually literally see the change in his eyes from world-weary to steely when it happens:

(Cheng Yi, you are a marvel)

Or, I should say: When he decides to make that shift. Shan Gudao's grandiose display against Tianji Hall, and his specific call to arms against Li Lianhua, necessitates a turning point for LLH: Now that he's been exposed, will he once again take up the mantle of the heroic Sect Leader Li Xiangyi?

In this moment, he does, but by this point in the show we know that it's just a performance. However, at the end of the day, Li Lianhua still has a kind heart, so he reluctantly puts on the mask of the hero Li Xiangyi in order to save the people of Tianji Hall. As Shan Gudao pontificates about the show's MacGuffin, Li Lianhua agrees to stage the hero/villain performance with him. It even looks like he's literally stepping out onto a stage when he separates himself from the crowd to confront Shan Gudao and his army:

The scene is badass and triumphant... but it's also, on rewatch, devastating and tragic -- because it marks the moment where Li Lianhua seemingly becomes fatalistically trapped by the narrative he's been so desperately trying to escape. (And that's why I love love LOVE @redemption-revenge's post about Li Lianhua finally escaping the narrative at the end! Importantly in a "bonus" episode, which is... not a "literal" part of the show itself. ;)) Since Shan Gudao is performing as a paragon of villainy, Li Lianhua / Li Xiangyi must rise to meet him. (Yin and yang, in a sense.) And that's why Li Lianhua becomes so fixated on vanquishing Shan Gudao for the remainder of the show, though it feels quite out of character for him -- it's so like a prototypical hero. Shan Gudao's performance of villainy necessitates Li Lianhua's equal and opposite performance of heroism.

Which is so interesting and juicy!!!! because of Li Lianhua's series-long internal struggle trying to escape the hero narrative so many characters try to fit him into. (As @redemption-revenge also talked about here -- clearly we're brainrotting on the same wavelength lol.) In a weird way, I feel like the overall lack of nuance in Shan Gudao's performance of villainy actually allows for even more shades of grey in Li Lianhua's character. Not only does he have to reckon with in-world conflicts and consequences, but he's sort of engaging with the meta-narrative as well: can he escape the narrative that the other characters around him and also the show itself is trying to thrust upon him?

As a potentially controversial aside, this is why I actually loved the Nanyin royal blood reveal. It's so dumb and cheesy and predictable and part of the traditional hero narrative (maybe I'm looking at this through a very American "rags-to-riches" narrative lens, but bear with me here) -- but that's the point, according to the meta-narrative. Our reaction as viewers is also Li Lianhua's reaction. For Li Lianhua, this is the exact opposite of a gratifying, triumphant, and redemptive moment. I haven't gotten up to this in my rewatch yet, so I don't have have specific visuals in mind, but I do remember even from my first viewing the look of utter devastation and resignation of Li Lianhua's face in this scene. It marks the final nail in the coffin of Li Lianhua trying to escape the narrative. Like in epsiode 33 when his identity is finally revealed, Li Lianhua once again resigns himself to following the script of the traditional narrative, which is how/why he ends up heroically sacrificing himself for Fang Duobing and his family.

But anyway, back to Shan Gudao as an effective foil: In addition to serving a purpose for the meta-narrative, I also think Shan Gudao's one-dimensionality also works well with Li Lianhua's internal conflict regarding his feelings of guilt and self-blame. You're right, OP: I wish there was a bit more actual blame to lay on LXY -- though I think we can still blame him for being arrogant (to borrow the loaded iqiyi subtitle term) since he was clearly blind to his shixiong's real feelings, and blind to the feelings of those around him as well (including Qiao Wanmian). Though even if you take the track of Li Xiangyi truly never did anything wrong in his life ever (*heart emoji*), this makes his arc even more tragic. This is why I love him so freakin' much -- he feels less like a character and more like a real flesh-and-blood person. And the reason he feels so real is because he acts in ways that are often contradictory and self-sabotaging and illogical, because he's decidedly not following the traditional (heteronormative hero narrative) script. Even when there is a Grade-A villain right there in front of him to take all of the blame, Li Lianhua doesn't take the bait. He has a prime opportunity to look at Shan Gudao and come to the logical conclusion that he (LXY/LLH) actually did nothing wrong, that he's not to blame for any of the terrible things that have happened to him and to others in his name... but he doesn't take the out. He still refuses to forgive himself, he still internalizes all of the guilt, he is not suddenly "cured" from his trauma. He is so real for that, and it's gut-wrenching.

#thank you op I loved this question it got my brain a'churning #mysterious lotus casebook #li lianhua #li xiangyi #shan gudao #mlc meta #meta-narratives #storytelling

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mx-myth · 5 months

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Thinking about how everyone wears different colours in mlc and how they're all connected...

Li xiangyi wears red. Yes it means happiness and joy and luck (ignoring the wedding symbolism for now) but it is also the colour of blood. He wears this bright, bold colour and still ends up dying on that ship.

Di feisheng's main colours are, for the sake of simplicity, black and red. Red for lxy but it's always darker and more muted on him - there's more blood symbolism for him (based purely on his reputation in the jianghu) but also more wedding symbolism compared to lxy. Black, tragically enough, corresponds with the element of water - it was a pitch-black night when he fought lxy, on a black sea, on a black ship - and that even fits with the western idea of black being for death. But he also wears bolder colours - we've seen him in purple and blue, for example - and this parallels fang duobing's outfits. Inherently a lot of the characters obsessed with the past (jiao liqiao and shan gudao, to name some) wear bold colours while characters who have left it behind/who are looking towards the future wear lighter colours (more to be said about this) and I think this is dfs turning away from the last and towards that future.

Brilliant example of this is qiao wanmian. She wears lighter colours and she gets over lxy and but I think it's important that one of her most iconic outfits is pink. Yes we all know how she and dfs are foils - this is yet another element of that. Pink is white and red: white, for death, for lxy; red, for happiness and weddings, also for lxy. Learning to live with her grief was definitely a long and lengthy process but it also helps her become her own person - she lets go of lxy and eventually learns that she has her own power, that she's strong in her own right, that she doesn't have to rely on men. She leaves xiao zijin and becomes the new leader of the new sigu sect and, while it's likely last her time to become a legend in the jianghu, she's certainly an inspiring figure.

Opposite of this is jiao liqiao. She's firmly still chasing after the past - her desire for dfs to love her back, her one-sided love rivalry with lxy. Her red is wedding red for dfs but it's also a giant fuck you to lxy - look, I'm better than you, I've got his attention and you don't. It's still true to an extent in the present, since she believes it's still dfs' attention that li lianhua wants (it is not). A-mian lets go of lxy (with some help for llh) but jiao liqiao never lets go of dfs, even when he outright rejects her. She's chasing her ideal of dfs, not who he actually is.

(I'm not going to talk about shan gudao. Same colours as dfs but the evilness is boosted to 100. He wears black and red as the classic Evil Colour Combo.)

Then we have the con man himself, li lianhua. In this new life of his he wears lighter colours - some blue, some green, but an overwhelming amount of it is white. As the show progresses he loses the blue and green. Yes he's looking at the future now but it's in the manner as someone staring down the barrel of a gun. There's nothing to say here because llh has it all planned out. He's already started dressing for his own funeral.

Lastly, the one and only fang duobing. He wears lighter colours too (in fact, he and a-mian are the only two I'd truly describe as wearing pastels). It's fascinating to note that there was no distinction between blue and green (his main colours) in old China. The symbolism of it is while it's the colour representing east (hahahahaha) it's also the colour of spring. I will never stop with the fdb/spring symbolism - he brings new life, he brings a new beginning, life will always go on if there's spring. (Spring is also the season when peach trees bloom, and isn't that something.) An interesting note is that he never wears any of li xiangyi's signature red. He really does leave lxy behind because he accepts that he's gone, because he loves li lianhua.

#I know red and white are probably the colours with the most recognizable symbolism in Chinese media #That said other colours are. Hmm just as sad #THAT said. Wikipedia is being a nice resource on Chinese interpretations of colours #There are definitely more characters I could pull this on but I'll leave it here #mlc #mysterious lotus casebook #lian hua lou #li xiangyi #li lianhua #di feisheng #jiao liqiao #qiao wanmian #fang duobing #shan gudao #mlc brainrot is real

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ecoamerica · 2 months

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youtube

Watch the 2024 American Climate Leadership Awards for High School Students now: https://youtu.be/5C-bb9PoRLc

The recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by student climate leaders! Join Aishah-Nyeta Brown & Jerome Foster II and be inspired by student climate leaders as we recognize the High School Student finalists. Watch now to find out which student received the $25,000 grand prize and top recognition!

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