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ruanbaijie · 1 month

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I’ve been thinking a lot about KoD/ The Spirealm lately (no surprises there), and I think, after having watched the show two times and read the novel a couple of times, I have an inkling of a theory of what really happened in The Spirealm. And I don’t mean just the ending. I mean what was really going on throughout the entire show. Because when I was doing my rewatch, I noticed that beyond the obvious lines, this show is rife with foreshadowing.

So here’s my theory, with evidence picked out here and there from the show. Beware: this will get very long, and a lot of it might be overthinking on my part (as an INTJ, overthinking is my middle name). There will be spoilers for BOTH the novel and the show, so if you don’t want to be spoiled for either or for both, perhaps you might want to scroll on or save this post for another day.

But, if you’re absolutely curious and totally okay with spoilers… We shall press on.

When I finished the show for the first time, I went “oh god yet another open-ended cdrama ending”, and only had two theories for what that ending meant.

1. Everything had really happened, everyone that had been involved had really gone into the doors. When RNZ managed to cleanse the game, ~somehow~ time got rewound and events got rewritten, and everyone (including those who had died) went back to how they had been before encountering the games, memories wiped clean and all, except for LQS.

2. LQS had dreamed everything up in those few seconds between getting hit by the car and regaining consciousness. The games did not happen in reality at all.

The first one didn’t sit well with me, just because it seemed too damn unlikely. Even if we were to consider advanced technology and all, it just seemed too… far-fetched (for lack of a better word) for such a technology to completely rewind time and rewrite things, including the minds of everyone except LQS.

So I thought well okay maybe it’s Theory 2 which seemed more likely, LQS dreamed up everything and none of it had actually happened, and he spent the next 50 years remaking and rebuilding the entire Spirit Realm. And this theory pained me. Because it meant that after it all, LQS was still alone, and was a RNZ made up with data that LQS had input, who had never “experienced” what they had experienced together, really RNZ at all? Besides, how did LQS manage to dream the names and personalities of so many different people so accurately?

Which leads me to Theory 3, which is actually pretty close to what had really happened in the novel, and also kind of an offshoot of Theory 1, but with a but.

Now, circling back to Theory 1, it’s a chilling thought that something like this could happen in reality. But what if, what if, what we thought was reality reality is not actually reality? Could there be a technology that’s so great it could rewind time and rewrite events and minds… à la The Matrix?

And so, Theory 3, which is the one I strongly believe (with >95% conviction) is what really happened:

THE WHOLE SHOW IS DOOR 12.

My supporting evidence, split into a few sections:

The Forum Scene

More Individual Instances

Common Motifs

What Happened Outside the 12th Door? + Unanswered Questions

A Simple Chronological Diagram

Tidbits

EXHIBIT A: THE FORUM SCENE

This was a very quick cameo of Wu Qi scrolling on the forum and then proceeding to still impersonate as a college-going girl (after the crying baby arc). There was absolutely no reason for this scene to be there, which highlights just how important this little cameo discussing the 12th door is and what it could entail.

A summary of what this says (bolded parts added by myself for emphasis), as far as I can since some parts are blocked:

A Quick Deduction: The Rules of the 12th Door

Everyone says that the higher the level of the door, the closer to reality it gets. That means that the 12th door is extremely close to reality. In the 12th door, your entire world is exactly the same as the real world, and there might even be doors within doors.

The people who enter the 12th door will lose all memories, including those of their relationships, and will exist in the 12th door with the identity of “if they had lived till then without entering the doors”. An NPC will replace the “personality” of the person who enter the doors, and other than their appearance, their personality and identity will be very similar, and the progress rate will be very high. (This sentence is quite blocked out so I don’t really get it.)

Then, the two will meet. Because after waking in the 12th door, one will find themselves in the “1st door”, then meeting place will naturally be in the world of the doors.

After that, the condition to clear the game would be to, under such circumstances, go through the eleven doors all over again.

I know, it’s a forum post, and it was titled “deduction”, but this is exactly what the novel was revealed to be about, and it also explains a lot of the foreshadowing that I started seeing throughout the show.

EXHIBIT B: VARIOUS INDIVIDUAL INSTANCES

Right at the start of the show, even before entering his supposed 1st door, LQS is shown to already have very sharp hearing. If these additional abilities are gifted by the doors to selected people, then why does LQS already have it not just outside the doors, but also even before setting foot into one? Unless, he is not outside the doors, and he has already set foot into not just one, but in fact, several.

RNZ says this line when he is directing LQS to run from the wolf. This is not just a foreshadowing for RNZ’s identity as an NPC, but also hints that the people that RNZ has been “directing” till that point (think all those people in the villa, including the twins, Chen Fei, etc.) were also not “live people”, but NPCs.

After the 1st door, LQS returns to the real world, while still wearing the jacket he had put on in the door. It is later mentioned that only selected props from the doors can be brought out and back in for special uses to be figured out by the players themselves. So how can LQS return to the real world with the jacket, which is never mentioned to be one such prop?

Ah yes, the lovely RNZ fake death scene. It’s a huge piece of foreshadowing for RNZ’s identity, but it might be foreshadowing something more. I’ve wondered, since RNZ is an NPC, if he “died” in one of the doors, would he respawn somewhere else? This quote might be referring to that. But it also sounds very much like he’s hinting to LQS that what he thought was reality was also not reality at all.

In the penultimate episode, LQS, out and about after his accident, running first to the villa to see if RNZ and co. are still there, and then proceeding to question himself if his reality is really reality at all. I think it's at this point he starts to suspect that he's really still in the world of the doors.

The final pre-time leap scene: notice how LQS says find (寻找) the point where reality and virtual world meet, and not create (创造)? Which means that here, LQS has already realised that this reality is not reality at all, but he’s still in the world of the doors. Now, he has to find the point where reality and virtual world meet, i.e. the physical 12th door.

Post-time leap: “including the 12th door”. After spending 50 more years in the 12th door, LQS has finally found the physical 12th door, at the point where reality and virtual world meet.

And when he touches RNZ’s hand, he gets restored to his younger self, because he has solved and unlocked the 12th door and the 50 years that had passed have not really passed at all.

EXHIBIT C: COMMON MOTIFS

1. Kaleidoscopes

Of course, kaleidoscopes. The original intention was definitely as nod to the name of the novel, but they’ve been written into the plot in a different way. Also a clue to RNZ’s identity as an NPC, since the only other ones that have been shown to have kaleidoscopes are the NPCs/ door gods. But, the kaleidoscopes only appeared in the doors, but RNZ has been shown to have them outside the doors. Unless… you know the drill by now.

2. Corridors

In the first episode alone, not one, not two, but four hallways of doors are shown. The first is a straight corridor that starts off the entire show (with credits and all), the second is another straight corridor and is shown to be rotating clockwise, and the third and fourth are the one we’re most familiar with: the one with the doors facing one another like a cross-section of a kaleidoscope. Here’s my theory for each: the first one is the “real” one, the one that LQS walks to get to the 12th door. It starts off the entire show and hints that the entire show is the 12th door. The second one that rotates (see next point on this motif) is the one in the bootleg game that LQS plays in the PC bang. The fourth one is when LQS enters the door world within the 12th door.

Also, this could very well just be an artistic choice, but note how in the poster of the show, the doors are also shown not in the cross-sectional kaleidoscope format, but in a straight corridor.

3. Circularity

I don’t know how to summarise this motif because it’s a combination of a few, but this show has a lot of circles, things in rotation, clock imageries, and the idea of things being in reverse.

The clue that Gao Dawei gives LQS through the kid NPC, “Flower in the water, moon in the mirror” (水中花，镜中月) is actually a reversal of an actual Chinese idiom “Flower in the mirror, moon in the water” (镜中花，水中月), which means a mirage, something that is an illusion. While this is a huge analogy for the whole real world vs. door world theme, it’s also another instance of reversal or something flipped in the show.

Some other examples are the flipped clock in the 11th door, RNZ’s quote in the 11th door about ending at the beginning, and even in the lyrics of that painful song that plays whenever someone dies: “Please don’t rewind time again, for I’m afraid I will do anything regardless of the cost” (请别再倒数时间，我怕我会不顾一切). Now… this idea of circularity, of rewinding time, of going back to the beginning to end… sounds a lot like everything restarting again after LQS emerges from the “11th door” and finding himself in a car accident. Or maybe, just maybe, it also sounds a lot like going back to the first 11 doors to finish the 12th door, doesn’t it?

4. Repeated Phrases

Now these might REALLY just be me overthinking. But Wu Qi mentioned a couple of things in his monologue (side note: this show has some SERIOUSLY GOOD angsty monologues) that made me go… hang on a second. These mentions of “light”, “the meaning of friendship”, and “path” - they were all also brought up in previous conversations between LQS and RNZ. “Light” - so many times (another side note: I find it hilarious that Xia Zhiguang also has the same “light” character in his name, so whenever RNZ says that LQS “has light on him” I get sad at the foreshadowing but I also snicker a bit for Reasons). “The meaning of friendship” - when RNZ and LQS argue over accompanying TZZ into her 6th door.

“Path” - when RNZ and LQS walk under the umbrella in the rain doll arc and RNZ mentions (also foreshadowing) that “legs are longer than paths, and paths will always have an end”. Again, these might jolly well just be coincidences, but my overthinking brain says I think not. Because, if LQS is really still in the door world, then Wu Qi and everyone else around him are really NPCs, and then it makes sense for the system to throw these words that had popped up before, in situations where Wu Qi was never present, right back at him.

5. Premonitions

There are so many of these.

In episode 1, LQS already briefly “hears” the blades of the air vent of the room he had been trapped in with Gao Dawei, even though he’s still in the PC bang and the memory of that kidnapping is not at the forefront of his mind… unless it had already been triggered at some time shortly before that (i.e. in the “real” door whatever number it was when he had met the NPC that revealed the nature of the doors to him).

Just before LQS is hit by the car, he sees a door on the road, that is the same door as one of the two in the 11th door - the one that represents “illusory life”. How did LQS manage to conjure up the image of a door that only appears in his future? Unless, he has already seen the door before in the real 11th door.

BUT that being said, in the same flashes, he does also see the kaleidoscope cross-section style (seriously, I need a better name for this) of doors - the third hallway he sees in the first episode. This one, admittedly, I’m still trying to figure out, since technically, based on the theory I’m working out, at that point, he should not have yet actually stepped into the hallway.

LQS also encounters Li Dongyuan and Xiong Qi in the “real world” before he enters his “1st door”.

And also explains why he could dream the names and personalities of so many different people so accurately before actually meeting them “in real life” (that asshole in the hospital arc - I forgot his name -, Xiao Ke, Chen Fei, the twins, TZZ, Lu Yanxue), including the “real” owner of the villa.

This might also be me overthinking and just be the cast trolling, but the “actual” Spirit Realm game in the “real world” also seems to draw upon elements of what LQS had experienced in his 11 doors in the show, albeit in a more chibi form: from the door and Nanqiu and Toast and Chestnut on the front page, to the kaleidoscope and entering the door on the loading page, and the woman in the rain, Xiao Jiu, rain doll, nurse, and Zuozi characters on the game grid. If this was really the real world, was it really a coincidence that LQS had “dreamed” or “experienced” doors that had these very same elements? Or do we have cause and effect the other way round here, where the “reality” is actually drawing on what LQS had “dreamed” or “experienced” in the doors? I say, it’s no coincidence at all.

EXHIBIT D: WHAT HAPPENED OUTSIDE THE 12TH DOOR? + UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

Now, if the entire show is about the 12th door, then what happened in the real world? In doors 1-11? Well, it could be anything at this point.

Perhaps it’s something closer to the novel, where there’s nothing game-related about it at all, and people get pulled into the doors because they're about to die a sudden death, and the world of the doors is a "gift" for them to fight for that chance to continue living. The whole business is really just a supernatural thing, and the 12th door just happened to take on the setting of a virtual reality game.

Or, perhaps it’s really more like the show, where doors 1-11 happened exactly as they did (or close to) in the show, where LQS had to save the world from the nasty game that had been sullied by the capitalists in Piao Liang Guo (an analogy for the USA, if you haven’t yet realised), but he had to sacrifice his closest friend (read: bosom buddy) for the sake of the greater good.

Again, it could be anything. But I’d like to believe that it’s the latter. Because it goes exactly with the idea of circularity (see Common Motifs), of starting from the beginning again.

But, post that, after everything is said and done, does RNZ end up going to the real world? I really hope so, because I need my happy ending damn it. It was possible in the novel which was more supernatural-coded, so the idea of a door god stepping out of this supernatural door world and into the real one to live with his husband seems a bit more… probable. (I know we’re talking about fiction here but please hear me out it’s like the walrus vs. fairy thing.) But if RNZ is really just made up of data, how the heck does data step out from the virtual world and into the real one? Maybe LQS really does end up making a “body” for him in the real world and takes a few years (or decades) to code him from scratch? But that just kinda goes back to my 意难平 with Theory 2 - is this RNZ really RNZ? Not to mention, the pain of LQS being alone for decades and trying to make RNZ from scratch.

Another unanswered question: what the heck is with LQS’s evolving hairstyle and fashion throughout the show? Is it an analogy for LQS’s changing personality, that even TZZ’s director “friend” mentions in episode 62? Or does it symbolise something else? I really don’t know, at this point.

EXHIBIT E: A SIMPLE CHRONOLOGICAL DIAGRAM

If you’ve managed to read till here, MASSIVE kudos to you. And here’s a simple diagram that I drew on PPT just to illustrate this entire theory, because I was also confusing the heck out of myself and I needed to see it visually to make sense of it.

EXHIBIT F: TIDBITS

These don’t really support Theory 3, but I’m including them anyway because I find them… interesting.

There’s a Yuyu Hakusho book in LQS and Wu Qi’s apartment. Now I’m in no way familiar with that series (I only watched that one live action adaptation of it), but in that series, there also exists a Spirit World (霊界, Reikai), which (ahem Wiki copy and paste) is the world where sentient beings (humans and demons) go after they die; not the equivalent of heaven or hell, but a station in between worlds where a soul's fate is decided. Which sounds… a lot like the premise of the doors in the actual novel.

I also find it extremely punny that the drama changed LQS’s name to Ling Jiushi (凌久时). For one, the characters for Jiushi are the exact ones that mean “long time” - which reminds me of the final exchange that RNZ and LQS have in the show. Also, the fact that his surname is now Ling instead of Lin? Absolutely hilarious… once you realise that the Chinese slang for bottoms in a MLM pair is 0 (零)… pronounced exactly the same way as show!LQS’s surname. And, if you haven’t yet figured out the running thread through this entire damn long ass post by now: coincidence? I think not.

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samsspambox · 1 year

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Boo! Did I Scare you? - with the nxx

by someone who gets scared very easily

let's set the scene: someone standing by the corner of a wall, obstructed from the view. another person is coming! quick, get in position to pop out and scare them!

vyn - very unfazed outwardly. did flinch and took a step back, but what are you talking about? he was merely waiting for the person to pop out any moment. afraid, him? why would he be? oiger didn't snap their neck, they're not a threat and he wasn't surprised they were there lol

artem - full on jumps. probably let out a yelp but they're not sure? honestly, they almost missed their queue to scare him bc he's that good at sneaking around. 50% chance you made him drop his coffee. now he's sad, buy him a coffee :C

marius - very very very prolonged scream. a little high-pitched if we're being honest. even after seeing the culprit, he will keep screaming. congrats, you are now the center of attention for making Marius von Hagen scream

luke - one of two: he doesn't jump. he's acutely aware of his surroundings and will force himself to jump just to humor the person scaring him. no one catches luke 'hypervigilance' peace off guard enough to scare him. if, by some miracle, he was actually caught off guard? punch to the face guaranteed. they're gonna walk away feeling something regardless lolol

#sam rambles #tears of themis #artem wing #luke pearce #vyn richter #marius von hagen #zuo ran #mo yi #xia yan #lu jinghe #tears of themis headcanons #tears of themis hc #wow i haven't done this in a while! lolol

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actualbird · 6 months

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marius and his infodumping boyfriend

#tears of themis #this is a gif please wait for luke to ramble #mariluke #zak draws #marius infodumps right back btw. mostly abt art history. this is a mutual infodumping relationship #marius von hagen #luke pearce #tot luke #tot marius #lu jinghe #xia yan #marluke

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chimaeraonwards · 9 months

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if ivana popov had been there during the ice skates incident, would she have been child sized then?? like same age as conrad?? does this mean that conrad should be ivana's age now if elias' conscience matured at the same rate as the other concepts?? old man conrad???

#dimension 20 #mentopolis #conrad schintz #ivana popov #d20 #elias hodge #ramblings #alex song xia #brennan lee mulligan

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extraordinarilyextreme · 4 months

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queer rep in 《鸣龙少年》 The Hope (2023)

i just finished bingeing all 30 episodes last night and i thought i was over this, but i'm really not.

Yu Yang (禹洋) is a shy senior in Class 11 with a stammer. in ep. 5, we learn that due to health issues, he took an extended leave from school and thus had to repeat his second year, so he's a year older than his peers. his mother is well-meaning but overbearing, and he was made the target of quite egregious bullying before he joined Lei Ming's (雷鸣) class. throughout the show, we see him become more and more willing to voice his own opinions and set boundaries, esp. with his mother.

(a side point, but i absolutely adore how the show did not pathologize his stammer as a bad thing he had to be "cured" of; it's through unconditional acceptance and encouragement from the adults in his life and his friends that we see him naturally come out of his shell.)

unlike his four friends in Class 11, he doesn't seem to be embroiled in any of their tangled 感情线 / "love" lines, nor does he seem to have one at all—until ep. 21.

on new year's day, the Class 11 CPs are a mess. Jiang Qinglang (江晴朗) confesses to Cheng Yushan (程雨杉), leaving poor Bian Xiaoxiao (边晓晓) who likes JQL and Li Ran (李燃) who likes CYS behind.

so when the fireworks go off, JQL and CYS are togther, whereas BXX and LR are together—contrary to how the show has been pairing them thus far.

then we cut to YY, who is watching the fireworks alone, but about to text someone.

that's a name we haven't seen before! Wu Fan (吴凡), i wonder who that is?

importantly, we see him delete the "I" and instead wish this person "happy new year."

the entirety of ep. 21 was about confessions, crushes, dating/breaking up/moving on, and the innocent and pure feelings we experience in our 青春 / youth.

so it's truly not that big of a stretch for me to think that what YY may originally have been intending to write was “我喜欢你” / "I like you."

then, in ep. 24, Lei Ming takes his class on a trip to Qingbei University in Beijing. and it's there we finally learn who the mysterious WF is.

four years ago in 2015, an older student once stood up for the bullied YY and ended up with quite a nasty beating.

as YY quietly cleans his savior's injuries, they have a brief exchange:

Yu Yang: I'm sorry. Wu Fan: You haven't done anything wrong. What are you apologizing for? In the future, raise your voice when you speak and build up your muscles; I guarantee no one will dare to mistreat you. If that really doesn't work, let's enroll in the same university later on. In the future, I'll continue to protect you.

in the present (2019), YY is waiting outside WF's university. originally overjoyed to see WF, YY's expression drops when he sees his xuezhang with a girlfriend. nevertheless, this might be one of the only times in this entire show we see YY don such a sweet open-mouthed smile.

they grab milk tea together and catch up, reminiscing about their earlier years. unfortunately, whereas YY has never forgotten their first meeting, WF remarks that he would've forgotten about it entirely if not for YY mentioning it now.

then YY asks what will happen after WF graduates.

the camera cuts to a shot of the milk tea brand: 心意 / the intentions of my heart.

this milk tea shop is a recurring setting throughout this drama. it's where one of the main CPs (Li Ran & Yu Chengshan) had one of their earliest interactions in ep. 3, and it has consistently been romantically coded (e.g., a boy treating his crush to a cup of milk tea).

so, effectively, as WF tosses away his empty cup, that is also signaling the short lifespan of his current relationship.

finally, WF encourages YY. only...

Wu Fan: I promised my mom I'll return home to take the civil service exam. After I graduate next year, I'll immediately go back to Xingzhou.

and then, once again, as YY sadly watches WF walk away, the camera cuts to the milk tea cup in his own hands.

in the end, Yu Yang never got to express his 心意 for his xuezhang, and he can only keep it to himself.

but as their Chinese teacher Tan Xiaozhou (谭小舟) remarked earlier in ep. 21 during their class on love poems:

Love is not only in the present tense or future tense, but also in the past tense. Having loved before doesn't mean that the current love isn't real. Loving now doesn't mean you won't love again in the future. If you didn't obtain it, or you broke up—without longing, without resentment—silently remembering the beautiful parts—bidding "Take care" in a cool demeanor: this, also, is love. [...] To me, the most important thing about love is that I can respect your independent nature, protect your lonely soul, and defend your right not to love me.

and so concludes our Class 11 xuezhang's 感情线. for a gaokao-prep cdrama that aired on CCTV8, i honestly cannot believe we got any of this.

here are two more small instances of queer acknowledgment:

in ep. 13, school psychologist Sang Xia (桑夏) leads a lecture on sexual harassment: what it looks like, how to prevent it, how to keep yourself safe. right from the start, she emphasizes that boys can be victims as well—and also that harassment can occur between same-sex individuals.

in ep. 21, when the school runs amok with dating rumors among the teachers, Sang Xia questions why everyone defaults to thinking that it must be a male teacher confessing to a female teacher.

overall, i seriously cannot recommend this show enough. it tackles so many themes (e.g., the premature grief of losing a loved one to Alzheimer's; the importance of destigmatizing depression and mental health overall; the hugely significant role that family/home life has on students' ability to perform well in school; that parents are not infallible and can be controlling/manipulative/abusive, even if unintentionally; that SES so greatly impacts the trajectory of a student's life; how damaging bullying/cyberbullying can be; and that though society is rife with inequity and injustice, it is the responsibility of adults—as best as they can—to create a more just and safer world for all children), and in both a realistic and gently heartwarming way.

#the hope #鸣龙少年 #cdrama ramblings #the episodes on depression also hit especially hard for me #esp as someone who is training to be a psychologist #rly like how Sang Xia put it: psychologists are both teachers and doctors #this show really humanized these students and god i wish such compassion and empathy could always be extended to people with depression

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psychopomparia · 2 months

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I've seen people do this with Genshin, but if the NXX boys + Rosa were to play Honkai Star Rail, who would their main(s) be?

Also, which HSR charas is similar to the NXX team?

#ari rambles #im so curious #i need to know #tears of themis #rosa qiangwei #tot rosa #tot mc #artem wing #zuo ran #vyn richter #mo yi #marius von hagen #lu jinghe #luke pearce #xia yan #hsr #honkai star rail

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12am-motivation · 1 year

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*sweating* i can explain—

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teffiyx · 2 years

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chibi Luke redraw wieiwieie

#i guess this is the first post #hi hello im copying Hazel with rambling in the tags #haha slayy #please ive completely forgotten how to use tumblr #hoyoverse #mihoyo #tears of themis #fanart #luke pearce #xia yan

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mornwrites · 2 months

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TGCF / Heaven Official's Blessing Masterlist

⛥ Xie Lian. ⛥ ⛥ Mu Qing. ⛥ ⛥ Feng Xin. ⛥ ⛥ Wind Master. ⛥ ⛥ Jun Wu. ⛥ ⛥ Ling Wen. ⛥

⛥ Hua Cheng. / San Lang. ⛥ ⛥ He Xuan. / BlackWater. ⛥ ⛥ Qi Rong. / Green Lantern. ⛥ ⛥ Bai Wuxiang. / White Calamity. ⛥ ⛥ Yin Yue. ⛥

⛥ Xianle Trio. ⛥

Angsty Drabble 1.

⛥ Hualian. ⛥ ⛥ Xianle Quartet. ⛥

Other characters can be requested if they are not on here. If you'd like to be tagged for a specific character, please tell me. Reblogs + Likes appreciated.

#morns writing #morn writes #mornswriting #mornwrites #tgcf masterlist #tgcf #heaven officials blessing #heaven official's blessing #heaven officials blessing masterlist #heaven official's blessing masterlist #tian guan ci fu #tian guan ci fu masterlist #xie lian #xie lian writing #xia lian rambles #xianle trio

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xiapxls · 11 months

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*taps mic* Anyone here?

Hi. Sorry. I did not mean to be gone for over a year holy shit. I mean I haven’t really been gone, I’ve been here literally every day reading all your posts like usual, thinking about posting an update about 1-4 times a week every week ever since the bc ended in June last year.

Long story short, first work was kicking my ass, then work + working on my thesis was kicking my ass, then I graduated, then work was kicking my ass again, but slightly less this time, and then I had a ts4 crisis where I kinda wanted to delete all my saves and start all over again, but I also definitely didn’t want to delete all my saves. So that was fun.

I’m over that now, though, and I’m also on summer vacation. So I’ve been trying to get back into playing ts4 again, which has been kinda hard bc HSY made some changes to the life stage durations and then they added infants and suddenly I just don’t know how to play this game anymore? I’ve also completely forgotten how to play the game while taking pics and notes so that was also something that made it more difficult to come back.

But I did manage to play some SuperValerie today. I don’t know how long it’ll take to get a queue going again bc it’s been so long, but I just wanted to let you know I’m alive and well. And hopefully I’ll be back sometime soon.

#xia rambles

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kukuandkookie · 2 months

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Might copy and paste the text here later from my Twitter thread where I expressed why I enjoyed it, but I recently read My Little Poplar and ended up liking Bai Xinyu and Yu Fengcheng quite a bit!

Yu Fengcheng’s eventual regret was honestly written really well, and the relationship between the two leads has good chemistry. 👌

Even better is that it features Jian Suiying, who I also have gotten weirdly attached to???

Like objectively the book Jian Suiying comes from, In Love With an Idiot, has its flaws. Or rather, it employs tropes that really aren’t for everyone, which includes the main couple fighting constantly (so it’s basically fighting and then fucking and then fighting and then fucking and you get the idea), and it gets kind of overdramatic at times, as some very angsty-type stories can be—whether they’re from China (known as “dog blood” stories) or not.

I even found it a little silly that so many were so obsessed with Jian Suiying, and yet…

Here I am now, sliiiightly obsessed with him. 🤡😂

It’s just that! As I mentioned on my Twitter, he’s so unique for a shou/bottom/uke character!! Before he met Li Yu, he was always the top, and he’s sexually confident and pretty intelligent and ruthless and…well, temperamental. He does admittedly have a charm to him that works and I find it pretty amazing the author managed to predict that, since so many characters in her novels adore him BDMGIHSKD.

Even his red flags give him charm, because while he is problematic, the red flags make him an intriguing character. The author does a pretty good job at balancing the different aspects of him that make him technically infuriating and yet also compelling.

His charm is further boosted by the fact there’s actually a clip of one of his VAs just trying to cheer you up if you’re sad?? Like hello??? 🥺

It is no longer a surprise to me that Li Yu ended up so obsessed with Jian Suiying. 😆

Also I’ll note now the last image is actually by the My Little Poplar manhua artist while the others are from the manhua adaptation of Jian Suiying’s own novel! I like how the manhua artist draws him quite a bit since it feels so him. I’ve seen fan art and they sometimes feature him smaller and thus not domineering enough, even though they usually show him with the same hairstyle—which makes for a fun tangent on its own since danmei designs can be a bit “basic,” so when one specific design becomes a recognizable look for a character, I find it pretty cool.

In fact, one of my favourite details in My Little Poplar was watching Yu Fengcheng be very frustrated with how much Bai Xinyu looked up to Jian Suiying. 🤭

Also just seeing him show up always made me go “yay!” because it’s so fun getting to see him again, especially as part of his story aligns with My Little Poplar (as in the plots of both novels happen somewhat concurrently).

Similarly, the manhua adaptation, My Beloved Fool, has a really nice art style and I really like that the artist always lets Jian Suiying shine by really dressing him up. He and Shi Qi from Trap a Vicious Dog (another series I want to ramble about on why I’m enjoying it so far) are two manhua protagonists I know of who are like…confident smart corporate bosses that get stylish fits almost every manhua chapter, which is a nice detail ahaha.

My Beloved Fool has recently hit the heavy angst section of the novel so it’ll be depressing to follow for a while since you’ll just watch Li Yu fall apart as Jian Suiying suffers absolute hell. 😔

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Someone even uploaded the first season of the vomic version of the manhua on YouTube. 👀

Similarly, I’m really excited for the My Little Poplar manhua to get to all the good bits of the story there, since Bai Xinyu develops a lot as a character and I find Yu Fengcheng’s regret especially well done. But evidently it’ll take quite some time to get there; first we have to get past the military bullying alfndkfjjss.

Anyway the actual reason I started typing this out before I spiralled into another huge ramble asjakfl is that I found In Love With an Idiot and My Little Poplar audio dramas on YouTube!!

I’d heard some In Love With an Idiot audio clips from something that some fans had shared to YouTube before, but it sounds like those clips were from a completely different audio drama than the one I landed on. I’m especially excited about the My Little Poplar one. Even if it’s not extremely high quality (I think Bing Xing Xia Deng aka Inferior by Nature aka The Selfish Gene has admittedly spoiled me because it was so high quality 😆), it’s still fun hearing these characters come to life aurally.

Even more so since iirc I saw a Twitter post saying the My Little Poplar and In Love With an Idiot got taken down officially, so they may only be accessible via online reuploads right now. I can’t find the post to confirm, but if true, I’m glad someone preserved them. 🙏

Update: I did find the other version’s VAs of the In Love With an Idiot audio drama! Except it’s maybe a…sequel? Where a Li Yu of the past transmigrates 5 years into the future when Li Yu and Jian Suiying are a couple?? It’s on MaoEr FM…and it’s for free. 👁️

In fact, I could totally ramble about the Bing Xing Xia Deng audio drama—which I already have for a friend, so I can just copy and paste that long-ass (slightly more incoherent because it’s a lot of fangirling) wall of text here haha. I am currently very obsessed with that series too because it really is high quality and I like how it evolved the novel it’s adapting, but my friend is the expert on it so I feel a bit more shy about sharing my thoughts sometimes.

Welp that went on quite a number of tangents but yeah. I’ve enjoyed these novels and I’m very happy they got audio dramas and that they are still out there to be enjoyed after everything. 🥺💕

OH and final note but…the fun fact about the 188男团 aka 188 Group, which is the overall series Jian Suiying and Bai Xinyu belong to (so-called because it’s 10 novels that share a universe and all feature (scum) gongs of 188 cm) got sort of made into an “actual” 男团, aka a boy band/group! I found the couple (?) songs they released and some fan songs and it’s nice seeing them all “singing” together alfjskfjs.

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An English translation can be found here!

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An English translation can be found here!

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Me when I spy Jian Suiying, Li Yu, Yu Fengcheng, and Bai Xinyu especially in the MVs: 🥺

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