#but to me most of all llh (llh not lxy) & fxb are Equals. the show goes to such great pains to establish them as equals

[hualianisms]

i love how fanghua are so danmei coded. fang duobing as the protective nianxia ml whose life was so monumentally changed and shaped by a shifu he met only once when he was younger but whose small act of kindness moved him so deeply that he spent most of his life trying to get stronger, working hard to finally be able to catch up to and be worthy of that glorious shifu that he so admired.

except he finally meets that shifu again years later as an adult and he's finally caught up to him but now their positions are reversed - li lianhua is now the sickly one, and fallen from grace; fdb is now the (physically) stronger one, the young hero, and he becomes friends with and falls for llh who he now no. longer wants to be the disciple of. instead, he now wants to protect and care for li lianhua like one protects and cares for a lover.

#mysterious lotus casebook #fanghua #fang duobing #li lianhua #莲花楼 #huafang is also danmei coded. incidentally huafang is the most popular mlc ship on lofter by far #either way they are so danmei coded so GAY coded #llh obviously reciprocates; the most obvious evidence is in the deleted scenes in the scripts; so many lines abt how much fxb means to llh #anyway ik i simplified what llh and fdb are to each other in my prev posts but that post was just to explain to western fans who said they #didnt pick up on fanghua romantic hints/coding. but ofc their rs def has layers and complexities #but to me most of all llh (llh not lxy) & fxb are Equals. the show goes to such great pains to establish them as equals #it doesn't have to be romantic no one has to ship them we all have our own preferences #but at the very least theyre literally canonically best friends #in the show they very explicitly are & acknowledge each other as equals. best friends. zhiji. *equals*!! #anyway i love how they reject and transcend social hierarchies to form their own unique relationship on their own terms #their real rs is something that cant be easily defined but the two of them have chosen the word zhiji for it