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agendratum · 3 years

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ok so

as usual after finishing an arc of mdzs my head is full, many thoughts. so let’s talk about the guanyin temple confrontation.

first thing that i kept paying attention to were actually the changes made in order to turn it into live-action. so in cql they had to make the gray-gray characters, the “there are no good or bad guys, just people and their circumstances” characters (unless you’re jgs, than yeah you’re a bad guy and everyone agrees on that actually) into slightly more black and white characters. by the end of cql we are lured into this fake sense of security, “haha, we know who the bad guy is!” (then a year passes and here you are, now a jgy apologist), by the end of mdzs, you just know that, well, decisions were made, unfortunate decisions, by many different people.

cql had to make wwx into a bit nicer version of himself. the good protagonist couldn’t lose control and accidentally kill a bunch of people, and then kill another bunch of people fully willingly, cause his sister just died and that was the last connection he had to the idea that something still matters in this world. no, out protagonist should be... like a little bit nicer than that. so they lifted some of that responsibility for atrocities off him, but they couldn’t just evaporate it, could they? they had to put it somewhere. they put it on jgy. after all he’s the big bad in the end of the story, well, the only surviving person from all people that could be considered big bads, he’s the one that “did every terrible deed imaginable”. he could take that responsibility, they had to make his grayness into a slightly darker shade anyway.

i am actually kinda surprised by how different my reaction to jgy was in mdzs. obviously, there is a year difference between me watching cql and me reading this part of mdzs, and over that year i changed my opinion on jgy 5 thousand times and joined the camp “actually meng yao deserves all the best things in the world”, but anyway. when i was watching cql i was like, oh my god, can someone just kill him already, before he does something bad again, before more bullcrap comes out of his mouth, and also stop yelling at this kid about all the “valid” reasons to why you killed his dad. in mdzs my reaction to jgy’s confessions was like, “huh. he has a point”.

now don’t get me wrong there, some shitty things were done, but the thing is, the things he did really made sense from his point of view, from this position and life experience he really had no other way to go. i especially was convinced by his reasoning to why he couldn’t cancel his engagement with qin su. not only he would suffer from this story, because he already went through so much to make this marriage possible, but also qin su’s parents and herself would most likely suffer, their public image would be destroyed, only jgs wouldn’t lose anything. and you could feel the hatred and bitterness he felt towards his father talking about this, and everyone in the temple could agree with that, because he “just forgot he made another child”, he didn’t even notice.

another interesting detail for me was lxc saying, “it’s not that i didn’t know that you did some of these things, it’s that i thought you had a good reason for doing them”. so yeah, a reminder, lxc isn’t blind and he isn’t an idiot. he trusted a person he thought he knew better than anyone else, and he believed in this person. the problem, i think, is that “a good reason” is different for lxc and for jgy. lxc would understand a righteous reason, doing something for the greater good. working for wen ruohan? that was explainable. they all were fighting in a war, fighting for the better, brighter future, and meng yao’s contribution to that future was immeasurable. what if he killed some people there? he had a good reason in lxc’s eyes. but meng yao had other good reasons in his life, some of these reasons lxc never had to deal with in his life. survival, for example, is one of them. meng yao’s early years were very different from lxc’s. not to say that lxc’s life was easy, but it was never truly unstable. meng yao had to learn how to survive in a world where no one wanted him. he lived with one dream, promised to him by his mother, a future where he wouldn’t have to suffer anymore, where he wouldn’t have to smile at people he hated, please every one of their desires so they wouldn’t harm him. and then he entered this life promised to him and he still had to survive, but now in a luxurious man-eats-man world of lanling jin.

meng yao’s life really was this unstoppable ball of snow rolling down the mountain, and every decision he made just made the ball bigger and it would just roll faster. there is even a moment where jgy accuses lxc of being naive. lxc isn’t really naive, of course, it was said in the heat of the moment, but it is a fact that lxc was never kicked down a staircase, never had to crawl back up, and the thing is, at the bottom of the staircase, there are other good reasons to do things.

and in a way lxc understood that jgy in his position really didn’t have any other choices, he just couldn’t find peace in this mindset. he kept repeated through that part, “and yet, and yet, you shouldn’t have done that, you should have...” and he never said what exactly jgy should have done. because lxc doesn’t know. jgy doesn’t know. no one knows. what choices were better? how could he fix all that and still survive? in a way, lxc saying that reminded me of wangxian farewell in the burial mounds. when lwj asks, “you really indent to keep going like this?” and wwx, who wished, who longed for another solution, for some way out, asked him, “what else can i do? what method can i choose to resolve this, not use this technique and still protect people i want to protect?” and lwj didn’t have an answer. lxc didn’t have an answer either.

another amazing thing about guanyin temple confrontation, is that it’s very heavily wwx’s pov. most on the novel is his pov of course, but there were a loot of his thoughts in this arc. and he was rather understanding towards jgy. not in a way “i agree with every reasoning behind every decision you made” but in a way “i understand that you had your reasons, but all of them will become irrelevant really soon, they already are, because the crowd will only remember you as a son of a whore who did every terrible deed imaginable, and all the good deeds will be forgotten”

now his thoughts on nhs, or who he suspected nhs to be, were way less nice. especially compared to live action, nhs didn’t make such an impression on me as he made through wwx’s thought process in the end of guanyin temple arc. of course, wwx is no sect leader yao, he is not the one to jump to conclusions, he just noticed that if you put some facts together, they actually start making a lot of sense, and formed a full picture. but he didn’t have any proof, so he kept it mostly to himself. yet he still thought for a moment about nhs as someone who didn’t care about collateral damage that much, who was ready to sacrifice lives of juniors, sect leaders, anyone, if it would add to jgy’s kill count and make his fall and destruction even more disastrous. not that those are not the things that happened in live action, but you know, when wwx put it all together like that in one paragraph, i really felt it. like, oof, dude it’s ROUGH. and not even jgy’s death was enough, as nhs basically admitted to stealing meng shi’s body and planning to repay jgy for what he did to nmj’s body. yikes

i mean i still support nhs in everything he does, but yikes

also side note, glad that the dead cats situation finally became clear for me. this whole year i was so confused about who left all these dead cats for juniors to find. i thought maybe xue yang did?? to lure wwx?? so apparently it was also nhs. good to know.

another detail, probably the last one my brain can generate for now, that pained me a great deal was my poor child jin ling. i already cried about some things related to him and this arc, but there was another little one in the very end here, after jgy died. jin ling realised, that there were now three people, wwx, wn and jgy, his little uncle, that were responsible for his parents’ death. people he had every right and reason to hate. all three of them. and yet he couldn’t hate any of them. he couldn’t avenge his parents, that died so long ago he couldn’t remember them, because all three people responsible for what happened, had something, some reasons, some circumstances, that made them really not the bad guys in jin ling’s life. and they all cared about him, protected him. how could he hate them? how could he not? and in this way this poor child repeats, unfortunately, his uncle’s curse. to have someone he wants to hate so much but just simply can’t. it warms my heart at least that jin ling has a much better support system than jc had when he had to live through that experience. so there is hope.

#not rereading this #ok that's a lit i'll for sure reread this later #lie*#yana reads mdzs #and writes long long long metas #meta #the untamed

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lady-of-the-lotus · 4 years

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Xue Yang’s Costumes

On my millionth Xue Yang rewatch, I noticed something interesting about Xue Yang’s costuming. And only on my millionth rewatch, because my usual observations on costuming is just “Oooh, pretty!” and plus the show jumps around in time. Not sure how it all holds together, but the basic idea makes sense.

In his initial introductions, he’s wearing all black, with some gold trim, a gold leaf headpiece, and mostly black robes with some black and gray inner robes (only really seen in bts photos; a shame). He commits some of his worst crimes in this outfit, slaughtering the entire Chang Clan and some rando cultivators we don't care about.

Terrorizing the women Jiggy used to kill his dad is up there in show’s most disturbing moments that went way overboard why Jiggy why, and his all-black costume reflects that. Not even a hint of a softening greenish-goldish underobe like he wears in Jiggy's torture chamber. The black fits his character at that moment in the timeline.

For the NMJ decapitation, he’s wearing mostly dark colors, with two thick dark gray accents, and the gold leaf headpiece. There's a hint of his future changes via a greenish inner robe just visible in a quick shot and the greenish tinge to the gray bands on his robe. The colors are lighter here depending on your screen, BUT it's NMJ's Empathy, and not to be trusted. His inner robe is different, and the other robe has a pinkish tinge? Chalking it up to the disordered Empathy and moving on.)

He’s booted out of the Jin sometime after this, and is found by Xiao Xingchen and A-Qing. He’s wearing all black again, with hints of gold trim. He’s switched to a more elaborate silver scorpion-like headpiece, as if having distanced himself from the gold-headpieced Wen/Jin even before being kicked out. I wonder if he saw the writing on the wall with the Jin, or if he swapped it out after he left (it’s unclear if Jiggy had him beaten, or just kicked out and his enemies found him).

After living with his new family Xiao Xingchen and A-Qing for a bit of time, he’s in head-to-toe gray. He’s still a Bad Guy™, but in addition to having Xiao Xingchen kill many innocent villagers, he’s also starting to develop Actual Human Feelings Of The Non-Murderous Variety. (The duality of Man.) This is the outfit he robs the grocer in helps Xiao Xingchen shop in, has the Bonfire Soft Look in, and has XXC kill the villagers in. Still with the silver headpiece, and that inner robe is still the gold-trimmed black one, as he hasn’t let go of his old ways entirely.

By the time Song Lan shows up, and Xue Yang’s been living happily and peacefully in Yi City without murdering anyone for a while (going by the novel, which the Viki captions don't contradict), and he’s dressed mostly in green. I know it was likely chosen because no other major character wears non-minty Jiang green, but green is the color of life and the opposite of black in that respect (by Western standards anyway, which the show was clearly influenced by in dressing Xue Yang and WWX in black). His inner robe is olive green. He’s as soft here as he’ll ever be. Silver headpiece is still there and tbh I miss the understated gold leaf.

And then of course it all goes to hell, and the next time we see him he’s disguised as Xiao Xingchen, yet still wearing his signature colors despite only appearing in them once before shhh green is XY’s color. He’s no longer-straight up Bad in his old I Am Divorced From This Miserable World And Murder Is Fun So Why Not? way. And he's still Not A Good Person but his entire life is now devoted to bringing Xiao Xingchen back—a display of devotion (platonic, romantic, or selfish; take your pick)—and goodness (for him—this is clearly Not An Actual Good Thing To Do... though honestly repairing XXC's soul isn't all that bad if he's willing to then set him at rest and not explore the creepy The Dead Obey agenda.) Reflecting this, he’s wearing a lot of the greenest green we’ve seen him in yet, with a thin dark gray outer robe trimmed with the old gold he can't fully give up.

His hair is simple, no headpiece, either because he’s impersonating Xiao Xingchen or because he's evolved past the need for fancy hairdos or because he’s waiting for XXC to come back and braid his hair (let me have my headcanon). This is the outfit he dies in, struggling for one last look at the candy. (I’m still unclear on if he was involved in luring WWX to Yi City to pick his brain in CQL, or if he was wandering around as Xiao Xingchen full time and bumped into WWX, or what. Makes for sense for him to draw WWX and the others to Yi City than NHS in CQL).

Side note, green is totally his color and he has an underrated fashion sense. I’d love to see him, Jiang Cheng, and Lan Xichen on Project Runway

Bonus Wang Haoxuan: Put your collarbones away, gurl! This isn't a nightclub.

#i might be off on some of the timeline #he's really got great style #more pizazz than wwx's wonderfully muted and classy wardrobe #more understated than JC's killer closet #with more bite than lcx's elegant blue and white collection #I'm picturing xy getting measured at the tailor's and having to make dumb small talk #headcanon that xxc used to fix xy's hair #and he wears it in only a simple knot since his death #waiting for xxc to come back and arrange it for him again #the untamed #untamed meta #the untamed costumes #xue yang #mao dao zu shi #mdzs live action #mdzs #xy #murder baby

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inessencedevided · 4 years

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Once you're done with the entire show, could you maybe do sorting for all the characters? I usually know the house for each character, but I have literally no idea with The Untamed. WWX for example I can equally see him as a Gryffindor, Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff and my brain hurts trying to decide.

First of all: I'm so so sorry anon! This took ages to answer! I hope you're still out there to read this! I started answering ages ago and then trailed off because I had to think about it. So here goes:

Thank you so much for this opening! I LOVE sorting non-HP characters into Hogwarts houses!! And for some of these, I’ve already done so in my head ages ago :D

Disclaimer: I’m mostly going off live action canon here, but will make some comments about the novel from time to time.

Disclaimer 2: Obviously, these are extremely subjective. If anyone disagrees, I would love to hear your counter arguments! I love discussing these things!

Wei Wuxian

GRYFFINDOR!

I know you said you weren’t sure but in my book, he’s a textbook Gryffindor. I’m not saying he doesn’t have Hufflepuff or Raveclaw traits (his sense of justice and his “out of the box thinking” kinda genius come to mind), but those aren’t the main drive of his actions imo. WWX follows his confiction and he often does so without even considering a second option or a compromise, especially before his death. And he is not afraid of deviating from the law or societal expectations to do so. This alone could also make him a Slytherin. The reason I wouldn’t place him there is the way he acts very much in the open. He doesn’t try to bring about change by quietly working in the background. He openly calls people out on their bullshit, even when it is clearly to his disadvantage and might just come back to bite him in the ass. Imo, WWX is a brilliant example of how a gryffindor might be driven to doing some very questionable shit given the "right" circumstances.

Lan Wangji

Now, he’s a different story. I have a lot more problems sorting him, maybe because he is not our point of view character. And he's the reason why it took me so long to answer this ask. My conclusion might be controversial, so let me work up to it. Slytherin? His most slytherin trait, imo, is his determination and drive, which I think stems, among other things, from a desire to prove himself. However, I believe his main reasons for this were family loyalty and (somewhat headcanon territory) the rejection he must have felt at his parents absence. And I don't see him as cunning either, as that always carries a certain level of deceitful intent, even if it's not malicious. And deceitful? That's one thing lwj certainly isn't. So, Slytherin is not a good fit for him. Ravenclaw maybe? He is certainly very intelligent, but that intelligence is more due to his studious nature and his focus, imo. And wisdom and out-of-the-box-thinking are not traits I would associate him with, especially in his younger years. So gryffindor then? He is certainly brave in many ways. He is enduring and stubborn, both gryffindor traits. But he also someone who takes his time to arrive at decisions, unless he is under extreme emotional duress (losing his mother or the love of his live). His bravery, to me, seems to be deeply rooted in his deep deep devotion. He goes through extreme, long lasting pain for the few people he holds close to his heart. In the end it all comes down to his heart, his loyalties, his devotion. Ironically, even more so in the book than in cql. And that loyalty, that steadfastness, that devotion is extremely hufflepuff.

So here you go:

HUFFLEPUFF! (There is no yellow:/)

(And now I really wanna write that AU :D on first glance, lwj would make such an unusual hufflepuff, with his cold and aloof behaviour. I want to play with this idea now!)

Lan Xichen

HUFFLEPUFF!

Aaaahhh! Now I really like the idea of the twin jades of hufflepuff. :D and Lan Xichen is a bit more obvious right? He certainly has the intelligence of a ravenclaw, but his defining characteristics are his devotion to his duty, his kindness, his fairness and his willingness to carefully consider all sides. A hufflepuff to boot. No wonder, I love him so much.

(And now I can't help but imagine lan Xichen, welcoming his little brother at the hufflepuff table, beaming with pride. And later, making sure that they eat at least 1 meal per day together because he knows his brother doesn't make friends easily, even in a house as theirs. Until there's a certain rebellious and bright eyed gryffindor, with a penchant for DADA ...)

Jiang Cheng

He, too, gave me a hard time sorting him. Ravenclaw, I discarded immediately. Gryffindor came next. He's definitely brave in his own way. Going on after the devastating loss of his entire family is brave beyond anything I can imagine, but his motivation why he did it, I believe, was a mixture of family loyalty and his competitiveness and drive to prove himself worthy. Thise are hufflepuff and Slytherin traits, respectively. I would tip the scale towards the latter, simply because his inner conflict is so defined by his feelings of inferiority, his feelings of never living up to his parents expectations. He's in that weird place of being both extremely privileged and emotionally neglected. It reminds me of Draco, come to think of it. So, my favourite angry grape, I'll place in ...

SLYTHERIN!

(He's even rockin' the snake aesthetic already :D)

Jiang Yanli

With her association with cooking and motherly love she seems to be a rather obvious hufflepuff. She is certainly brave, too, enduring her family's near destruction and moving on, or standing in front of her adoptive brother and defending his place in her family and in society. But again, it's very much tied to the people she loves. So yeah,

HUFFLEPUFF!

Nie Mingjue

The jock to end all jocks and still he's got a heart of gold. He's kinda the cliche gryffindor and I can't find a reason to not place him there. So *head barely touches him*

GRYFFINDOR!

Nie Huaisang

SLYTHERIN!

If the twist at the end didn't happen, I'd have placed him in Ravenclaw, as it is, he is such a quintessential Slytherin and also, just ... my favourite kind, especially in cql, where he just fuvjs off to paint his fans and leaves others to do the heavy lifting. He got what he wanted, revenge for his beloved older brother. It reminds me a bit of Horace Slughorn (minus the people collecting). He doesn't want to be at the top. He just wants a comfortable enough life and the possibility to reach his very specific and not at all mainstream goals. A legend. (In mdzs, where he becomes chief cultivator, he's still a Slytherin, albeit a slightly less interesting one.)

Wen Qing

Now, she is another hard one. Another fiercely loyal person (although that's a common trait in mdzs/cql), she also had to show incredible resourcefulness to survive and still stick to her principles throughout her life. But to mention that she invented and su subsequently performed the first core transfer in history. (In the book, it is specifically mentioned that the essay on this subject was written by her). In short, this woman is s genius in her field and forward thinking and incentive. All of those are textbook Ravenclaw traits. So, with her we have ...

RAVENCLAW!

Wen Ning

Puh, he is hard. I know, with his timid behaviour and gentle nature, hufflepuff comes to mind BUT ... he strikes me as a neville. As in, his bravery lies in the fact that his own insecurities hinder him constantly and yet he overcomes them every day in a hundred small ways. He is brave precisely because he is afraid of so many things. And, like Neville, when his sense if right and wrong demands it, he takes a stand. His rescue of wwx and jc extremely dangerous circumstances and the core reveal come to mind. So, even though he probably argues with the hat to place him in hufflepuff, I'll place him in ...

GRYFFINDOR!

Jin Guangyao

SLYTHERIN!

Do I have to explain this?

Luo Qingyang

I know, she's a much more minor character than the others but I love her and this is my post, so she's in it. Do i have to say it? I hate to be the "Gryffindors ftw!!!"-one (as a proud snake), but yeah, Nie Mingjue was goddamn right when he said that she's got more backbone than half the cultivation world combined. My queen snapped and removed herself from the narrative and I love her for it!

GRYFFINDOR!

Let's get to the juniors:

Lan Sizhui

Now, maybe the hufflepuff does run in his family because I do think he belongs there, too. His defining characteristics are shown to be kindness, fairness and filial piety, even though he also has a mischievous streak and does not shy away from confrontation when he thinks his warranted (politely defending "Mo Xuanyu" in front of the Mo clan comes to mind). So yeah

HUFFLEPUFF!

Lan Jingyi

His brash and outgoing nature would make him a good gryffindor fit, certainly. However, the trait I associate with him the most is his nonconformity and that in a sect where that is highly unusual. He might not be as much of a social butterfly as Luba, but he still reminds me more of the kind of eccentricity associated with ...

RAVENCLAW!

Jin Ling

Now he's hard. Maybe because he postures a lot though that's something that's true for a lot of these characters. He tries to imitate his uncle but has non of the trauma to back it up, though he is an orphan and,in his position, probably pretty lonely which leads to the kind of breakdown we see him having over his confrontation with the person who killed his parents and he can't even really blame and so he just... crumbles. And non of that really helps me in my search for a house for him. I don't really see him as a Slytherin because while he loves to posture and play his privileges, he mostly crumbles under pressure and I don't think there's conviction behind it. He's certainly not sly either. Rabenclaw? Nah. I see neither outstanding amounts of eccentricity or wisdom. Gryffindor? Maybe. He's certainly impulsive. And he displayed bravery both in Yi City and even more so in the Guanyin temple where he had to face the fact that one of his uncles, the men who raised him, would kill him to achieve his goals. Still, what left the biggest impression on me was how, after his own world had just completely changed, he send his dog away because wwx would fear him. And how he then tried to get his uncle to talk to wwx. So I'd tentatively go with

HUFFLEPUFF!

Ouyang Zizhen

Another hard one because we don't know him very well in canon. But what we do know is that he is very emotional (passionate one might say) and has no qualms going against his father in a fit of teenage rebellion. I love him for it but that's not that much to go on. Both of these point to gryffindor however, so that's where he goes. :D

GRYFFINDOR!

So ... that's where I'll leave it. I know I missed the Yi city arc but it's getting late and I'm tired. 😅 If anyone wants to add them, feel free!

Congrats of you've made it this far down! :D

Please, do come and discuss these with me!

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fatalism-and-villainy · 4 years

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Do you recommend the Untamed novel? I found only one English translation but I haven't watched the show yet but it all seems so interesting. Which should I read watch/read first in your opinion?

Apologies for not getting to this sooner! Tumblr has been hiding inbox notifications if I don’t click on them soon enough, which might contribute to my forgetting, but it’s my own brain functioning recently that is probably mostly to blame :/

Anyway! It’s hard to say if I would broad-scale “recommend” something given how different people’s preferences are, and I don’t know what you personally are into. I will also say that my impression of the novel likely does not give it justice, since I read it in translation and thus very likely missed nuance; I also read it after I watched The Untamed, so my impression of the world was already filtered through CQL’s visuals and the actors’ performances, and thus I can’t speak very well to how it holds up on its own.

However, the novel definitely has considerably more worldbuilding and a bit more in the way of character backstories (particularly for its main antagonist), and some of the punchiest supernatural imagery from the novel wasn’t adapted into The Untamed (mostly for censorship concerns). Its themes are the main draw of the author’s writing, I think - it’s got some really compelling commentary on class prejudice and disposability, the conditionality of good reputation, the limits of revenge and punitive justice, and the unreliability of rumour and popular narrative.

If you’re the kind of person who’s into the physicality of death, then I imagine the necromancy aspect would appeal as well (I know this is part of the draw for Novy @coldwind-shiningstars :P ).

Also, Wei Wuxian (both in the novel and CQL) is, I will say, also such a fascinating protagonist - I was telling Novy the other day that I’ve never seen a character quite like him before. He’s got so many seemingly diametrically opposed sides to him, managing to be both extremely buoyant and overflowing with energy and vivacity as well as chilling and terrifying, without ever seeming out of character.

The place the novel doesn’t quite work for me - and why I’ve been reluctant to revisit it - is how the romance is developed. MXTX is very fond of intense, passionate, long-suffering devotion on the part of her love interests, which I get, but for me, MDZS doesn’t do a good enough job of justifying why Lan Wangji would fall in love with Wei Wuxian and be willing to commit an unthinkable social transgression for him. Their relationship is less close than in the show, they share fewer significant moments together early on, and young Wei Wuxian displays very few qualities that I can see Lan Wangji admiring.

The portrayal of queerness in general also doesn’t quite gel with me; the story is set in a world with considerable homophobia and societal backlash for being gay, and yet I also detect an implication (probably embedded in its narrative form itself) that gay relationships are something of a default assumption for how things should develop. (Think the kind of assumption you see in some fanfics where it’s taken for granted that certain characters are gay and that this requires little questioning or reorientation of one’s place, and is not really connected to any kind of identity development.) I’ve also talked before about how queerness in MDZS isn’t really based in much of a personal identity development separate from the main characters’ romance itself - Wei Wuxian doesn’t do much introspection about his sexual identity outside of his feelings for Lan Wangji. It’s perfectly valid as a writing choice, but it’s not the kind of thing that’s as likely to interest me.

(There’s also lots of kink and some dubcon stuff going on with novel!wangxian, which I know some people don’t like, but I actually really like that aspect of their relationship and it’s one of the things about their portrayal in the novel that I do carry over into my headcanon universe lol.)

That said, I know there are plenty of queer people who do enjoy and relate to the development of novel!wangxian! And I certainly see what the author was going for in relating the queer love story to the central themes of reputation, conformity, societal approval, etc. - central to Lan Wangji’s character, for example, is his struggle to reconcile his reputation as a paragon of morality with his feelings towards Wei Wuxian, and Wei Wuxian’s status as a social outcast is enriched and supplemented by his being queer. And I’ve seen people really connect with how entrenched in heteronormativity Wei Wuxian initially is. So, it really depends on what you’re looking for there.

Of course, there are also people who are more into the family stuff than the romance, and there is lots of juicy family drama in both versions of the story. It really exemplifies “every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Lots of intense, complicated sibling relationships (and parentified eldest siblings) and commentary on the generational cycle of abuse.

So what The Untamed specifically has going for it, for me, is a more developed friendship between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji from the beginning. I just prefer my romances to be a bit more developed, and have a bit more reciprocity of feeling, and the show really does a good job of building up their importance to each other. It also has teenage Wei Wuxian displaying a lot of values that Lan Wangji appreciates, which makes Lan Wangji’s feelings seem more believable to me.

The show also displays some genuinely fantastic acting - the amount of life the actors bring to the characters, and the way they make them their own through little quirks and body language, is super impressive to me. I’ve also said before that I appreciate that the show gives me more of a sense of place - the novel is not as concerned with being evocative when it comes to location, and I think getting that from the show helps ground me in the world and emotional dynamics of the story a bit better. There’s a refrain that the show flattens or dilutes the themes or moral greyness of the novel, but frankly I think a lot of that is exaggerated or oversimplified; the show imo still has most of the themes of the novel, if they’re a bit more subtle or executed a bit differently. Certainly there’s adaptational changes I don’t agree with, but I think the show still manage to be plenty morally gray and present a number of complicated political situations where there’s really no right answer.

So as to which one you should watch first - I watched the show first, and I think that that contributed to my enthusiasm in reading the novel, since I already had the emotional context for the characters that allowed me to appreciate the writing more. (Especially since I might have found the romance tedious without the context of my preferred CQL!wangxian to frame it with.) But I might actually recommend starting with the novel, simply because a lot of the worldbuilding and plot points are a bit confusing on the first watch of the show (there’s a common joke that the first two episodes make no sense), whereas the novel has plenty of exposition that explains a bit more to the reader (particularly in convoluted sequences like Yi City).

I hope that’s helpful anon!

#'tis a long post #anonymous #replies #i am flattered that you are consulting my opinion #untaming #mdzs #the untamed #cql #Anonymous

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yiling · 4 years

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Give us a 3 for general, a 5 for ships, a 3 for story, and a 5 for fic!

Okay, 3-5-3-5 it is!

3. Manhua, donghua, novel, live-action, or audio drama?

Ah, I’m one of those plebs who didn’t know anything about the genre until CQL got big. I’ve read bits and pieces of the novel mostly for point of comparison, but I’ve yet to sit down and read it the whole way through. I’ve also made an attempt at watching the donghua but I...really don’t like the art style OTL

5. Platonic OTPs/BROTPs? Rarepairs? OT3+s?

Wow this question encompasses a lot. Here goes:

-Platonic OTPs: I love Wei Wuxian and Wen Qing’s relationship and while I’m not actually adverse to it as a romantic pairing, I’m way more interested in them as friends and allies and partners in crime, the bonds of loyalty and debt between them. (The words “thank you and I’m sorry” still crush my heart tbqh)

I also am really curious about Lan Sizhui and Wen Ning’s post canon relationship! I think there’s some really interesting stuff you could explore with their familial connection. Them traveling together feels so right and I’m really glad that’s where canon leaves them. I’m mad that their spinoff movie apparently sucked lol

Others: The Yunmeng Siblings in all their dysfunction. Whatever the hell was going on between Meng Yao and Nie Huaisang. Xiao Xingchen and A-Qing. The WWX+JC+NHS one brain cell trio. All the juniors’ friendships.

-Rarepairs: HAHA TOO MANY. The niche rarepairs in this fandom are top quality. I’ve been making noise about Xue Yang/Wei Wuxian recently because I still cannot believe that it’s a rarepair! Like, Xue Yang is flirting with everything in him in every scene they have in CQL, and the fact that they’re narrative parallels with each other is like...*chef’s kiss*. The fandom should be all over that shit

By far my rarest rarepair, though, is Wei Wuxian/Xiao Xingchen. There are three works on the archive for it, and two are in languages I don’t speak :’’’)))). I’d be fine with this one as a platonic pairing too tbh? But I just think they’d be sweet together. @veilchenjaeger wrote this banging post about why they’d get along really well and I’m quietly appropriating it as a ship manifesto.

Others: Jiggy/Xue Yang, WWX/NHS, Song Lan/Wen Ning, SL/LXC, LWJ/Jiang Cheng but it sucks and they don’t like each other, WQ/WWX sometimes, WQ/JYL

-OT3+: You should know this because I never shut up about it, but I fucking love Songxuexiao in all their component pairings and especially as a threesome. They’re just really screwed up and awful and fun, and I love seeing people in the fandom either find new ways for them to ruin each other, or wonderfully, impossibly finagle ways for them all to end up together and happy.

I was also running my mouth about it earlier, but I’m fascinated by the idea of a Songxiao+Wangxian foursome. It would be very poignant and poetic and also really hot. This is something I’m a little surprised isn’t more popular, especially in CQL where they all get to meet while everyone is alive, but foursomes are hard to write lmao, too many limbs to coordinate

Others: 3zun. Wangningxian. LWJ/MXY/WWX.

3. You can bring one character back to life, but you must pick someone else to die in their place. Would you do it? How would this affect the story?

Man this one is ambiguous. Can I pick someone who already dies during the plot, or does it have to be someone who lives? I’d definitely do it, mostly because I think certain characters got...really shafted, so here’s some thoughts.

Going with a strict interpretation of “die in their place”, as in, “literally dies where the other character does”, I would uh. Kill Song Lan and have A-Qing be the one who survives Yi City :’’’)))))). Sorry daozhang, but not enough girls live through the plot! It would be sad as hell, but I wouldn’t mind it if the implication is that Songxiao are together in death, and I really love the idea of A-Qing as a sentient fierce corpse tagging along with the juniors. (There is an excellent fic with this premise). A-Qing is the most human of the Yi City characters, and I think she has the best chance to be happy even with all she was put through. I think having her live would be kind of bittersweet and hopeful, honestly.

Here’s an even hotter take: keep Wen Qing alive but kill Wen Yuan. THIS ONE IS ALMOST TOO AWFUL BUT LIKE...idk! The fact that Wen Qing dies is truly some bullshit and I love her relationship with WWX well enough that I’m almost willing to sacrifice poor Sizhui just to see her reaction when he comes back. I’m not 100% on board with this one, because, you know, I really love Sizhui, and I think he has tremendous thematic importance. I think a lot of things wouldn’t work as well without him. But I love Wen Qing a lot, and I really wanna see her live :((((

Look, could I just kill Sect Leader Yao? Then I can resurrect whoever :V

5. Recommend a fanfic!! Can be yours or someone else’s.

Already recced Small Medium Large (3.5k, A-Qing and juniors) up top, but it’s really fun and good, so I’ll rec it again. A-Qing gets to live and terrorize asshole sect leaders, it’s wonderful

Devil on a Bed of Bones (9k, WWX/XY) is a stellar example of my favorite rarepair and you should absolutely read it, it should get more attention! Love some banter interspersed with creeping horror.

(and uh...I’m still pretty proud of pass the time (2.7k, A-Qing and Xue Yang) so you can read that if you like my stuff)

#sorry this took so long i had stuff to do #mdzs #cql #the untamed #mo dao zu shi #mine #asks #anon

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razberryyum · 5 years

Video

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)

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