#coming to the end of my CQL gifs....

[starsxinxthexbluexsky]

The Untamed | Episode 36 [Drunk Lan Wangji And His Chickens]

⤳WangXian’s Favorite Scenes [19/∞]⬿

#the untamed #cql #theuntameddaily #the time lwj asked wwx to get married but he didn't understand #come to think of it lwj was doing some research on wedding offerings. why do you know about the chickens? #i'm sure that wouldn't be in the gusu rules... #like when you are ready to get married but you are widowed without getting married and 13/16 years later your almost-husband was alive #and you have to get drunk to be able to give him some fat chickens #but at the end of the day wwx is stupid and doesn't know #today i used a new filter for editing. i don't know if it's called that but 🤷‍♀️ #wangxian #wei wuxian #lan wangji #my gifs #mygifs.scene

[icarus-suraki]

favourite jgy moment in any mdzs adaptation? 🍵

Oh my gaw, why do you do this to me??? How do I choose???

Okay. Okay. There's so many of them, omg. And some aren't moments so much as relationships or an ongoing character aspect.

Okay. So. A Discord server I'm in is having an ongoing CQL (re)watch party, so CQL!JGY is right there in the front of my brain.

So this is less a single moment and more a repeated thing but when Zanjin Zhu does That Thing He Does With His Eyes--with or without the Small Smile (tm), it creates new neural pathways or something. IDK. I think it's the same response I get when I see an especially small kitten or something. (Big animated gif under cut)

This thing. The face-tilted-down, eyes-tiled-up, Princess Diana-pose thing. This particular example includes the Small Smile (tm). To say nothing of the dimples, of course. Like, I wanna put this poor, tired, little character in my pocket and feed him little snacks and let him take a fucking nap. I will hide him under my hat. This could probably be termed the "Poor Little Meow Meow response."

I know that's more an actor/acting/character depiction thing than a character thing but does that count?

A more character-specific favorite moment from the novel* is during the Sunshot Campaign after a battle when MY (I sort of mentally separate MY and JGY as two different "eras" of the character; don't know if that's common) comes across a baby that somehow survived the fighting and he scoops it up and soothes it and, if you've listened to the audio drama, it's really sweet and it's an element of the character that I think gets overlooked a lot.

I don't want to get into fandom discourse. I like to keep my head below the parapet when it comes to fandom discourse. But I do feel like you have to acknowledge the (apparent) contradictions in a character to appreciate the complexity of characterization (and the complexity of people in reality). So here's this character who ends up being pinned as The Big Bad for understandable reasons but who still loves and misses his mom a lot and will do things like rescue babies from a battlefield and sing them a little lullaby.

Also, memo to Jin Guangshan: Let him hold his nephew. Let him. Let him hold the baby. A lot of killing could have been avoided if you had just. Let. Him. Hold. The. Baby.

But no. In classic JGS fashion, he's gotta fuck everything.

*I think the rescue/lullaby scene is in the novel? If it's not, it's an AD-only scene but my point stands!!!

#invade my inbox #go for it #any topic #mdzs #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #meng yao #jin guangyao #my poor little meowyao

[fromaliminalspace]

For the gif makers ask meme... 14, 16, 34, and 48?

[ask meme link]

14. How long does it usually take you to make a set

for real, while technically i can make a gifset within a day or a few, i have a nasty tendency to procrastinate everything, literally everything, even stuff i actually enjoy. and when i do get around to actually making sth i overthink it. sometimes for months. yup. lbr overthinking (alongside chronic lack of spoons) is the main reason i create stuff so rarely and post it even rarer even if i have it finished for a while. i'm trying to improve, okay..? just gonna kick myself more often into calling things finished and posting them, i literally have dozens of gifset ideas waiting to be executed, several art wips (as well as finished pieces), two videoedit ideas, and quite a few k words of both fic and meta… the tricky part is just to get around to all of it

16. How long have you been making gifs

oof lemme see… in June 2020 i made my first gifs that weren't completely horrible cuz before that i was using merely a phone app for this with video editing software (this and this were made this way). and then in February 2021 i finally figured out what was missing from my PS and preventing me from editing gifs there and fixed it. so yeah, i've been relatively new to this, i guess..? though ngl the experience of very spontaneously making two videoedits before trying out proper gifing was a nice starting point

34. A set that took you a long time/was really hard but you’re really proud of how it came out

hm the stardust one is the first that came to mind even though it's more the case of "it didn't receive as much attention as most my other cql gifsets but i'm still quite fond of it" rather than it being particularly time/effort-consuming. not to mention that i'm hardly ever actually proud of anything i create but well, that's just my brain cockroaches messing stuff up. back on track, the WWX gifs in the trust parallel set were a pain to edit but eventually i ended up learning new tricks while groping my way around it so i'm not complaining

okay, if i were really to pick a gifset i'm proud of that'd be the ripples one, no doubts (gonna add the link once i actually finish and post it, i promise). it's the most advanced technically (don't even ask me how long i've been nitpicking it from all directions and how i'm still tempted to drop the current version in favor of approaching it from a whole new direction bc surely it can be done way way better if i just go nitpick it some more! ya know, the usual overthinking) and it's sth very personal to me thematically. the underlying meaning of it is too closely related to liminal spaces (or more like what i simplify as "liminal spaces" as i suspect my own understanding of this concept in general can differ quite a bit from that of other people) so putting it into actual words gets tricky. but this kinda comes with the territory so nothing unusual

48. How would you describe your giffing style

ugh honestly idek if i have one..? for real, i don't think there's anything about my gifs that makes them stand out much. at least there surely isn't anything that i deliberately make sure to integrate every single time (maybe i do unconsciously though, who knows). so i feel like it's more for others to judge ¯_(ツ)_/¯

what i can say is that when i do make gifsets i apparently tend to illustrate some narrative parallels or sth with them..? or just combine scenes with a quote that strikes me with fitting vibes. or both. also i like to have fun with the colors and lighting and use adjustment layers quite heavily (but gotta admit it's hardly an option to halfass this if i wanna my Yi City gifs to look vibrant and alive enough). i suppose alternative subtitles to all my cql sets are a feature of my so called style as well since i always translate them myself instead of going the easy way and copying any of the already existing ones. which is also fun! even if, well, adds to the amount of time and spoons i put into it but what can i say, it's a matter of habit by now

#Liam whispers into the void #the void whispers back to Liam #ebonykain #ask games #creativity #gifing #yeah i'm still (somewhat) alive here #me? replying to an ask game for once? more likely than you think #and than *i* think tbh #should do sth about the other ones as well actually but hopefully i'll do it sooner rather than later #also feeling like this came out longer than anyone would probably wanna see so sorry for that i got rambly #but this doesn't look long enough to warrant the long post tag. correct me if i'm wrong though #anyway thank you Ebony for sending the ask and prompting me to at least *think* in the creative direction! it's really appreciated💜 #ngl was considering posting this once i post the ripples gifset but knowing me this can get postponed for another year so NOPE #now or never #should finish that one as well though #upd: feels ironic to answer a gifmaking meme and not know how to properly add someone else's gif to the post #i thought it'd look right once i hit post but no. not enough at least #looks like i gotta settle at this cuz i can't think rn of how else to do it

[princenoctisaf]

#wei wuxian #lan wangji #xiao zhan #wang yibo #the untamed #cdrama #coming to the end of my CQL gifs.... #my edits #50

[accio-victuuri]

CPN : snow heart, skiing, voice messages & thinking of each other. 💛💌💭

This is my version of how various events connect to one of the most loved bxg candy. @untamedconnotations already talked about it before over here. I feel like everyone knows this already but I just need a play by play and to see if there are more clues. Again. This is CPN. ⛔️

PART I. DC Wrap party

Douluo Continent held their wrap party, 7/3/2019 and it gave way to one of people’s favorite video of GG. Xiao laoshi looking up the sky and watching some fireworks, celebrating with the cast and chilling. It’s like he’s still filming and is the main character when he was just being his normal self. Fans gave comments when this video started going around such as :

"He is lonelier than fireworks, with stars in his eyes"

“The final video after Douluo ends, Xiao Zhan looks at the smoke in the crowd fire. The surroundings were very lively and the fireworks were dazzling. But he seems to be an island. What was he thinking at that time? How much effort and hardship he has put in for his dream.”

and yes I must admit it was a sight to see. He looked like a mix of lonely, hopeful and content. but was he really ‘alone’ in this moment? Well here comes the important of our CPN : at some point, He looked at his phone— listened to a voice message + recorded one himself. All of these wrap up fireworks and stuff were happening at around 8:50 PM. If you watch the fancam, what makes it more endearing is how he smiled softly while using his phone. So it makes it more 👀.

(original video source of this GIF is here)

Who is he talking to???

Well, the same day, an episode of CQL was airing and they both posted about it. GG even tagged Web. Now look at the time, before the whole fireworks thing— Web already posted and he was at work too. Then, 20:54 minutes after the fireworks started, GG forwarded a post. Remember at this time, they don’t have ‘studios’ to do this kind of work for them. They had to do the interaction themselves. Yes they have an assistant but not a ‘team’ like they do now. So with this, It’s not a stretch to think that these two probably had a conversation going on. Did Web see GG tagged him and thought— well, let me send him something. Let me show zhan-ge what i’m up to now.

after this fireworks display and voice messages he continued on and made this heart gesture 👇🏼. This is the last part of the fancam.

Why did he do that, why a heart in particular?

The next part of this story might give us a clue.

PART II. Extreme Youth episode 9 ( Skiing )

On the other side is WYB at work ( 7/3 - 7/4 2019 ) and shooting an episode of EY. How do we know this? It was posted.

“Variety show "Extreme Youth" on the 3rd and 4th Jiangbei Sunac Park recording, guests include Cheng Xiao, Wang Luodan, Wang Yibo”

So, WYB was carving a heart made out of snow. Unprompted. There was no challenge or whatever that instructed him to make one. He was just there, minding his own business and making his masterpiece carefully. ❄️🤍

After that, he goes out of frame and the segment continues. People on the barrage/live comments were actually asking where is he. Some even commenting maybe he was still playing with that heart made of snow.

Where is he. What is he doing.

If you’re asking a clown, he took a photo of the heart and sent it to GG. We know WYB is someone who is particular with how he takes photos ( as evidenced below). So he probably stepped out, took his time to snap a photo and sent a message. If you add GG making that heart sign as well then what are the chances of these 2 people doing a 🤍 sign between a close span of time. Coincidence? Also, you have this video (1:26) where a staff was caught saying what sounds like “xz” in the segment after the skiing portion. Take it or leave it. This is not the first time each other’s name were caught in places where they shouldn’t be.

The master photographer Yibo everyone,

The episode is below if you wanna see. Not subbed tho.

Part III. Other Clues and connections

A. The Day after - 7/4/2019

GG posted a variety of photos and with selfies. What seems to be out of place is a Dog. Who is gouzaizai? Well. The same one who wears a bone necklace all the time. 🦴 Yibo also posted showing him skating and continuing on with his shoot.

B. Their wish to ski together & Bobo necklace

• This one is a CLUE. In this SINA interview at 6:19, they start talking about their plans to go skiing. How it started since last year, but then Bobo said he went skiing first and that he SENT A PICTURE. Does this confirm our speculations or what? At the very least, it confirms they send photos to each other of what they are doing. They have that communication open.

• GG said it himself in a separate interview. They both had plans to ski and hopefully if they have time, they will. Some long time fans even said it was not usual for GG to share things like this but he did.

• Another example was this interview ( same one with zgsg )

“what are your thoughts if a variety show arrange for both of you to ski together?”

xiao zhan & yibo: wah~ can!

yibo: i’ll teach him

xz: forget about it

yb: why not?

xz: you just know how to ski not long ago?

yb: then do you know ‘falling leaf’?

xiao zhan: is it just snowboarding?

yibo: yup. the most basic is “falling leafs”

xz: you already said it’s the most basic

yb: yup

xz: can can. no problem

translation source.

• Qeelin skiing necklace that GG wore during promotions and even after. I talked more about Qeelin here and it’s significance if you have no idea why it’s important.

In an episode of TTXS, he also said he wanted to Ski. Even last year, in his fanmeet Bobo mentioned wanting to ski even if it wasn’t one of the choices. Plus his not-really-a-selfie selfie this year. I can go on and on, it’s so obvious that it’s what they both want to do together. That if one is doing it, he’ll definitely tell the other. My CPN brain tells me this is not limited to skiing topics. They will send each other photos ( or videos ) of what they are doing.

C. Both of them likes making voice messages

We first see this in the Yibo’s 21st birthday video where Web is recording one. Yin zheng also once posted a voice message sent by WYB about his moto riding but what later deleted. He uses it himself instead of typing things out ( said in an interview ). I can’t find ones for GG except for that video and we have limited fancams of him actually using his phone post his CQL popularity. It’s just so personal, sending a voice message. I’m jealous. Lol. Photos and Video are one thing, but to have voice clips of your s/o is something else. I am happy with candies like this cause it shows how willing they are to stay connected. And to think it’s not just them talking about their day but imagine GG singing and sending it to WYB. Ah. 😭😭😭

Bonus: Fake rumor that GG was talking to someone on the phone, post Web’s moto accident. He was saying “be worthy of your heart”. Who knows if he was actually talking or he can also be recording a voice message right? 🎤

Yibo and his 🤍 fixation + GG following suit with that requires a whole different post altogether. However a few examples would be : heart shape @ loreal fanmeet, heart in the water @ summer surf shop, their own uniq finger heart sign for each other, GG’s valentines day drawing etc etc. It is a recurring theme.

PART IV. Conclusion

I have always been a believer of this CPN and this is really just for me to have it on my blog. I cannot NOT have this special candy discussed. At the end of the day, we’re all just speculating. Whether you believe they were talking to each other that night or that they are in a romantic relationship, I think it’s clear that there is/was something. No one can deny that. && BXGs will always be here for them.

Feel feel to reply here or reblog. React. Add your own thoughts. 📥

#Youtube #bjyx #yizhan #HAPPY FRIDAY EVERYONE #all of this is cpn

[rainbowsky]

Do we really need to always look back to CQL everytime we talk about Web & XZ? CQL is an old news. We have more interesting and much better contents now. Why bother to always go back to it?

Web has Louyang to look forward to. It looks great. The costumes, the visual, the detective-libe story looks so promising Let's not forget Being A Hero, a very challenging role for him. And of course SDOC4 where we can see Web looks so relax and happy aside from DDU.

XZ has Oath of Love and The Longest Promise to look forward to. These two are FAR FAR SUPERIOR and more recognized literature works than CQL. Read the novels and you'll see how amazing the romance in these 2 are. Easily the best romance stories (perfect) for XZ. Then ADLD which shows his amazing range as an actor. Very challenging since it's a stage play with a very long running time. We still have Ace of Troops too which we have no news about it.

Do we really need to go back when they themselves have move on? We need to move on too.

It's funny, I was just saying a lot of similar things to someone earlier today.

Although I'm not convinced that the novel of OOL is so much better than MDZS. Tastes are pretty subjective and it's hard to make claims like that in such a broad way. I've heard very mixed reviews of the book OOL is based on. A lot of people describe it as a very het, very cheezy melodramatic story. True, that sort of thing has a broad appeal, but I'm not the target market.

I haven't heard much about the story The Longest Promise is based on, but the same applies. These things are a matter of personal taste.

Having said that, I'm really looking forward to all of their new dramas and projects, and while I will likely skip some of the overtly propagandistic ones, I can't wait to see them perform in other roles. OOL is near the top of that list for me. I can't wait to see GG in that role.

To me, The Untamed is great not only because of GGDD, but also because it's just an excellent, excellent drama with an outstanding cast. I've watched it, in its entirety, 4 or 5 times, plus I watched the Special Edition (which I did not enjoy as much - it felt hacked apart). I am a fan of the show, make no mistake about it. I even own the official photo book. I know I will watch it again. I love the show.

But when it comes to fandom about the show - all the meta and gifs and fanart and discussions and, to a lesser degree, the BTS - my eyes glaze over a bit, I can't lie. I feel like I've seen it all before a thousand times - the fandom is oversaturated with all of this - and I'm just more interested in what GG and DD are up to now. They both have exciting things happening in the here and now.

The Untamed will always be special to GG and DD, and to BXG. I mean, that's a given. It's where all of this started for a lot of people, it's where GGDD had a chance to work together. It's a great show, and they both gave outstanding performances. It launched both of their careers into the stratosphere - no one can deny it (although some solos certainly try). As queer actors, this might very well be the only queer role they ever get a chance to play.

But it's also been 2 years since it aired. In the world of entertainment, 2 years might as well be 2 decades, and that's only a slight exaggeration. It's old news for a lot of people who saw it around the time it originally aired.

Of course, there are always new people discovering it and new people coming to the fandom, so there will always be turtles in particular for whom all of this is brand new and exciting. We are probably always going to see people bringing it up as though it's new. Because it's new for them.

I hope we can all try to empathize with their enthusiasm and try not to put too much of a damper on it. I do my best in this regard. I'm still happy to take asks about the show and the BTS (although my memory of some of those things is going to be rusty).

At the same time, I hope turtles - old or new - will at least try to branch out and experience some of the other material GG and DD have created, and try to support 'the whole, individual man' and not just the relationship between GGDD. There's a lot of content out there. If you can't find it in your region try some of the unofficial sites like Dramacool.

If you haven't seen The Wolf yet, you're missing out. If you haven't been watching SDOC, you're missing out. etc. etc.

However, as I've said many times - everyone gets to be a fan in whatever way works for them. If The Untamed is new for you and you want to enjoy it, enjoy! If it's old to you but you're still attached and don't want to move on from it, enjoy! If it's the only thing that interests you about GGDD, enjoy!

But please recognize as turtles that GG and DD will be moving forward in their careers, and they will talk about/feature the show less and less in their posts over time. They will emphasize new content and move on from The Untamed, at least in terms of what they highlight in interviews and social media. This isn't a 'suppression of the show', it's just time marching forward.

Recognize that a lot of the fans will be moving forward as well. There will inevitably be some people who are sick of talking about it, who find it old news, or who are more interested in other things. This isn't a 'conspiracy of silence', it's just time marching forward.

Don't let yourself feel threatened by any of that and behave in ways that disrupt the fandom when the show isn't highlighted in the way you expect it to be. Don't make up scary stories in your mind about what you fear might be 'the real' motive behind this. The simple truth is, not everything about them is going to be about that show, and that will only become more true as time marches forward.

And that applies both ways. Like I said, I hope those of us who have mostly moved on will try to be empathetic to those for whom the show is new. I hope we can all try to respect each other's approaches and not be warlike about it.

In the end, we all just love these two fools, and if we focus on what we have in common we might find any friction melts away.

Important note

Please don't take this as an invitation to hit up my inbox with anti-BXG hate, messages denigrating The Untamed or BXG, etc. etc. Anyone sending me such garbage will be insta-blocked. If you are anti-BXG and hate The Untamed, please don't follow my blog or engage with my inbox. Stay in your own lane.

#the untamed #fandom reflections #bxg perpectives #ask

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed, Episode 25, part one

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Stuff)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Holy crap, Episode 25! We’re halfway through! *Cue Bon Jovi*

Hunt Invitation

After taking a nice long break to watch Word of Honor pick lotus pods, Wei Wuxian and Jiang Yanli return to stressing over the shitshow that is the post-Sunshot cultivation world. Jin Zixuan has come to invite them to the Phoenix Mountain Hunt, with a special invitation from his mother to Jiang Yanli. Jiang Cheng reacts to this in a mature and reasonable manner, while Wei Wuxian...doesn't.

On the surface, Jiang Cheng has matured in recent months; much more than Wei Wuxian, with his secret burdens, has. But it's only on the surface, as we'll see later in the episode, when Jiang Cheng's insecurity will take the reins.

Jin Zixuan is adorably pleased by Jiang Yanli's acceptance of the invitation. Wei Wuxian is less pleased, but sort of tries to suck it up. 

Jin Zixuan kind of undercuts the romance of his errand by asking Wei Wuxian for the Yin tiger amulet as soon as Jiang Yanli is out of earshot. 

As always, Jin Zixuan makes an impression by being the best Jin currently in existence, but the Jins are terrible. JZX is working to advance his dad's ambitions, and as such he is currently Wei Wuxian's enemy.  

(more after the cut)

Opening Ceremonies

There's a bunch of cultivators arranged for the opening ceremony. Later someone will say that this is more than 5 thousand people. Ok, sure.

As I've said before, it's best to think of it like a theatre production and assume the other 4,900 people are offstage or, you know, painted on the backdrop.  

The young lead cultivators from the four main clans are standing together. Nie Huaisang is trying out some new body armor.

The clan leaders are seated up on the stage, along with Jin Furen and Jiang Yanli. Unfortunately Jin Furen doesn't seem to have a personal name that I can discover. Her title Fūrén ( 夫人)  means she's the primary wife of the head of the family, according to this excellent meta. 

So “Madame Jin” is a decent translation...if you're French?  I feel like instead of English subtitles including borrowed words from French (”Marquis” in NIH), Greek (”Water of Lethe” in WOH), and other European languages, we could try borrowing Chinese words instead. Jin Zixuan's mom is titled, not named, Jin Furen. Since we don’t know her actual name, I'll call her that and abbreviate it JFR.

Wei Wuxian's childishness continues at the opening of the hunt, as does Jiang Yanli's encouragement of his childishness. I know she's had a rough couple of years, and it's understandable to want to baby her little brother out of a sense of nostalgia. But it's not good for him, and she shouldn't do it; she should encourage him to be more mature, just as she does with Jiang Cheng.

War Crimes Contest

Jin Guangyao says they're going to have an archery competition, and they're going to liven it up by endangering some prisoners. These prisoners are Wens in Wen cultivator uniforms, meaning they're not the noncombatants that were being hunted down earlier. But they’re still helpless people in chains. 

There are three different reactions when the Wen prisoners are brought out.  All the Jins are pleased, or neutral. All of the Jiangs, including Wei Wuxian, are upset.

The Nies and the Lans, what we see of them, are a little shocked, but not obviously upset. Based on those reactions, it seems like this is a maneuver that in-world is considered shocking and cruel, but not necessarily unethical or immoral.  Shocking, cruel displays of power are pretty normal in this world; remember when Wen Chao lit a Lan cultivator on fire just to say hello, and nobody complained? 

This whole scenario, of course, has been designed to provoke Wei Wuxian. One major goal of this event, and the whole reason for wanting Wei Wuxian to come,  is to get the Yin Tiger amulet.  Making him lose his shit in front of 100 5000 cultivators is a good step toward compelling him to hand the amulet over.  

We see Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli both signaling Wei Wuxian to keep it together, and he takes a step back and tries to chill.  

Meanwhile, Jin Zixuan seems annoyed by all this, and goes to take a shot at it, making it clear from his demeanor that this is easy and JGY is making a show of nothing. 

He hovers in the air and makes a perfect shot, pleasing most of the crowd and impressing Jiang Yanli. 

Then his cousin Jin Zixun taunts the crowd, challenging anyone to do better.  This presents a bit of a problem for Wei Wuxian. For the sake of the Wen prisoners, Wei Wuxian should just take this taunting and let the contest end, if no-one else is willing to take a shot. But for the sake of the Jiang Clan’s status, and his continued control of the Yin Tiger amulet, he needs to put the Jins in their place.  

Every Day is Blindfold Day

This moral dilemma is resolved with an abrupt tonal shift, where the humanitarian concerns of all parties seem to vanish. Wei Wuxian flirts embarrassingly with Lan Wangji and then goes as far over the top in besting Jin Zixuan as it's possible to go.

The flirting hits differently, incidentally, when you edit Jiang Cheng's annoyed reaction out of it: 

Lan Wangji doesn't seem embarrassed by Wei Wuxian's request, despite it happening in front of 100 5000 of their fellow cultivators. He looks Wei Wuxian straight in the eye for longer than necessary before turning away; it’s not exactly stern disapproval. We’ll get very used to this look, in Wei Wuxian’s second life. 

Fortunately, Wei Wuxian carries a blindfold with him wherever he goes, (gifset here), and he is such a good cultivator he can hit 5 parallel targets simultaneously without even holding his bow straight or tightening the string.

(OP fixed the angle of the bow for this gif, which is why everyone is standing on a hill in the background).

Everyone is pleased by this shot except Jins Guangyao and Zixun; even the Jin cultivators are clapping, and Madame Jin is presumably this happy any time Jin Guangyao’s plans go wrong.

With that they start the hunt. Jin Zixun challenges Wei Wuxian to do the whole hunt blindfolded. Wei Wuxian agrees, but the censorship committee said no, apparently, so we don’t get to see that.

Flute Hunting

We do get to see Wei Wuxian luring monsters into his nets by being too sexy for his robe, too sexy for his robe, and playing the flute.  

We also get to see Jiang cultivators looking puzzled while random monster roars happen in the woods around them. We do not get to see any monsters, which is probably just as well.

Jiang Cheng is annoyed and concerned, muttering "I told you not to overdo it" which means he didn't, you know, tell Wei Wuxian NOT to do this, just not to do it quite so well. Jiang Cheng knows what Wei Wuxian’s abilities are and he is making use of him, as he should, but he doesn’t have the courage of his convictions. 

Tree Confession

Wei Wuxian sees Lan Wangji and starts to say hi, but then he has a desaturated flashback to Lan Xichen telling him to back off, so he stops himself.  But then Lan Wangji comes over to talk to him.

Lan Wangji starts off talking to him about his latest anti-resentment musical discoveries, and Wei Wuxian pushes back, even calling him Lan Wangji, but gently.  Wei Wuxian asks "who am I to you?" and Lan Wangji turns the question right back at him, then waits a looooooong time, eyes downcast, while Wei Wuxian thinks of a serious answer.

Wei Wuxian says "I used to treat you as my zhījǐ" --which, as we’ve discussed before, is variously translated soulmate, confidant, intimate friend--with a strong meaning of "the person who truly knows me." Lan Wangji says "I still am." Coming from Lan Wangji, who NEVER says how he feels about Wei Wuxian or about anything, really, this sounds a lot like a confession of love. 

It definitely takes the form, visually, of a love confession, as Lan Wangji speaks, then gazes at Wei Wuxian while he waits for a reply.  Wei Wuxian's reply is this:

I don't think Wei Wuxian is oblivious (I'm speaking strictly of CQL, not MZDS, as always with these posts; they are different works). I think he loves Lan Wangji back, and knows it. But Chenqing and everything it represents are between them.

Lan Wangji is quite literally NOT his zhījǐ any more, because he doesn't truly know Wei Wuxian right now. He loves him desperately, but he doesn't know about his core, and hasn't accepted his cultivation method.  So Wei Wuxian answers his confession by showing him Chenqing, effectively declining to accept his still-conditional love.

Snake Measuring

Next we get terrible hetero courtship in the form of Jin Zixuan finding snake discharge on the ground and talking to Jiang Yanli about comparative snake measuring. Seriously: that is the actual conversation that they are having.

Jin Zixuan boasts for a bit, and then awkwardly tries to ask Jiang Yanli on a date. When she turns him down he gets mad, because he's a typical heterosexual dude even though he's secretly a delightful person...very, very secretly. Jiang Yanli, for her part, can't string a fucking sentence together to save her life whenever he's around, so she's not helping their mutual understanding. 

Lan Wangji attempts to hold Wei Wuxian back from beating Jin Zixuan’s ass yet again, but eventually JYL wants to leave, JZX tells her to wait, and WWX intervenes. Why doesn't Jiang Yanli have a maid or Jiang cultivator with her while she's on a date, incidentally? These kids are confused about whether they're doing feudal patriarchy or whether they're doing modern social life.

Jin vs. Jiang

Wei Wuxian jumps in between Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan, which JZX objects to. Jin Zixuan has no fucking business objecting and Wei Wuxian is 100% right, at this point. As soon as WWX shows up JZX should hand her off to her Shidi, bow, and leave her the fuck alone. Instead, he draws his sword on Wei Wuxian, and kind of on Jiang Yanli since she's right behind Wei Wuxian.  Fortunately, Lan Wangji blocks him. 

This instantly blows up into a Jiang-Jin Clan conflict, with Jiang Cheng unfortunately absent since he let his unmarried sister go off in the woods alone with the son of the Cultivaton world's most famous lecher. It looks like it’s a personal conflict, but since Jin Zixuan already told Wei Wuxian directly that Jin Guangshan wants his amulet, any arguments between them are part of a larger power struggle. 

Cousin Jin Zixun comes running up to start shit. Wei Wuxian pretends--I am SURE he's pretending--not to know who he is. The dude hassles Wei Wuxian every time he sees him; Wei Wuxian is a troll, and right now CJXZ is butting in to something that doesn't concern him. Rather than argue, Wei Wuxian insults him by telling him he’s not memorable.

Jin Furen shows up with several maids and cultivator dudes in tow, which is the proper way for a highborn woman to wander around in the woods. She also brings Clan Leader Yao, because if it's Wei Wuxian Blaming Hours, Yao is going to be there.  

I initially found the deep friendship between superhot Yi Zuyuan and dumpy Jin Furen implausible, but then I remembered that my lifelong bestie is a smokin' hot redhead with impeccable fashion sense, while I am a roly-poly nerd.  Friends don’t always match. Also, Jin Furen's actress, Hu Xiaoting, looks like this: 

...so she is actually hot in real life. Not as hot as Zhang Jingtong (who plays Yu Ziyuan) but literally nobody is as hot as Zhang Jingtong. Don't @ me, you know I'm right.

This is a heck of a long scene, so we’ll pick it up in part two! 

Soundtrack: Livin’ on a Prayer by Bon Jovi

Writing prompt: Newly-divorced, cold-hearted CEO Yu Ziyuan buys an apartment next door to newly-divorced, warm-hearted pastry chef ...uhh let's call her Jin Dàngāo (蛋糕), sure. She can name her business after herself. 

They discover their daughter & son are in the same college class, and so they meet up over coffee....several times...trying to matchmake their hopeless, hapless kids, while bonding over their own terrible (former) taste in husbands. Who will Cupid strike first, the kids or the moms?

#the untamed #the untamed gifs #wangxian #restless rewatch the untamed #canary3d-original #my gifs

[wanyinxichen]

COLOURING TUTORIAL

@theoncomingchaos​ asked me how I do my Untamed/CQL colouring and so I’m going to do a quick little tutorial with a little bit more detail than some of the show your process stuff I’ve done in the past.

As always, the first thing you’re going to want is to make sure you have at least 720p copies of whatever you’re going to gif, 1080p is best if you can get it. It makes gifs look nicer and makes colouring things much, much easier.

So I go through my process and make my gif and I end up with my base gif. My first port at all times is to make a CURVES LAYER and use these two buttons on it:

When you click on the white drop marker you want to pick the WHITEST/LIGHTEST pixel on your gif - so mine was in their robes, around here:

Then for B you want to pick the BLACKEST/DARKEST pixel, which for this gifset was in Wei Wuxian’s hair:

This helps to do some colour adjustment on the gifs. You can then click on the curves layer and move it up or down to adjust the brighteness as you like - and here is what mine looked like!

The next thing I always do is put in a brightness/contrast layer - mostly because I like to lower the contrast here and then add it back later with a gradient layer and it helps add a little more brightness without it being too overwhelming as can happen with curves. There’s more about this particular process here.

Then I add my vibrance layer - sometimes this comes AFTER my selective colour layer, but this time I decided to do it beforehand. You need to be very careful when you add a vibrance layer because it can make faces very neon or very bright red - but if it does you can correct with with a selective colour layer or you can use the masking tool to edit over their faces. So I went in with mine and just bumped it up a little bit.

To also help with some of the contrast and the shading, I tend to add a gradient map layer. The colours can depend on what sort of gif I’m making - if I’m doing something thematic or want a gif to blend into the background I’ll match the colours to make the background blending easier. In this case I wanted a little bit more tone on their faces and a little bit on the grasses, so I decided to go with one of my favourites - a brown-> brown gradient map.

Now is my favourite part - my selective colour layer! This one I have no real “system” on - I just play around until I find colours that I like. Obviously, this particular scene has lots of greens in it, so that was my focus for this one, and then reds/yellows which tend to effect the faces and skintones on gifs primarily. Here is how all my layers turned out:

In this particular gifset I didn’t touch the Magentas nor the Blacks, but often I will - especially for gifs that have a lot more blues or if I am giffing my best boy Jiang Cheng, who obviously lends himself to a lot of purple. It’s all about playing around with the colours and finding what you like best. You can read more about using selective colour in this great tutorial.

If I’m happy with the gif I might stop there, but if I’m not I’ll either do more selective colour layers to play around with the colours or do something else. In this case I decided to add a colour balance layer to help with some of the things I didn’t particularly like - such as their faces and some of the background.

That led me to my final gif:

And the same colouring/PSD on other scenes (this is without my playing around with the colours and layers to make it fit better, of course):

Please let me know if you have any questions or want anything else explained!

#colouring tutorial #gif tutorial #photoshop tutorial #*edit

[veliseraptor]

top five smiling moments in The Untamed

answering this made me realize how many good smiles there are in this series. there are a lot of good smiles. feel bad for some of the extremely good ones I’m leaving out (including every time Wen Qing smiles in particular, she has the cutest smile and it doesn’t show up all that much).

but anyway here’s a selection of five personal faves

1. End of series Wei Wuxian.

Did I almost learn to gif to answer this ask because screen stills did not fully capture the degree to which this smile is perfect? Maybe. I’m just a little too lazy to do that (yet). Anyway!! I have gone on record as saying that I really like the fact that CQL ends the way it does and a big part of that is this shot here because it really is just...transcendent. The slow turn! And then his smile that grows all the way until his eyes scrunch shut and it just warms up his whole face and - yeah, it’s extremely quality. I can only imagine I’m getting the same warm-fuzzy feelings that Lan Wangji probably is at this point.

2. Xiao Xingchen’s little head-shake smile at Xue Yang.

Look, you knew there’d be Yi City on this list, and this smile is just - augh! I mean, all Xiao Xingchen’s little smiles are so cute but I’m particularly fond of his “you’re too muuuuuch” smiles at Xue Yang (and a-Qing!). I love watching them come easier and more often over the course of the flashback, too. And this one in specific is another one where I wish I could’ve gotten the gif because it comes with this little hitch of a laugh, too. And I don’t think this one specifically gets the little “you’re too muuuuch” head shaking, but it’s definitely kin to the one(s) that do. The warmth! The fondness! The sense of the potential for unbridled joy in this daozhang! It’s perfect and he’s wonderful.

3. Lan Wangji’s startled little smile at the rabbit lantern.

I thiiiink this is the first time we see Lan Wangji smile? And (like all his smiles) it is so, so, striking.

(I mean that about all his smiles. I knew I was going to have to put a Lan Wangji smile on here and the only trouble was deciding which one I was going to use.)

But yes! Just - his sheer delight, his surprised pleasure at seeing this lantern - with a bunny! for him! - is so much. And then of course how quickly he panics about it. But yeah, the way it warms up and softens his whole face and how much younger it makes him look...

Lan Wangji smiles are treasures each and every one of them but this one does stick out for the fact that it is the first real glimpse of him we really see of a different personality, and a warmth, behind the icy exterior.

4. Jiang Cheng smile-crying at his siblings in episode 20.

This is another one where I was like “I know I’m going to have to include a Jiang Cheng smile, I just know it, but which one am I going to do” and I had to land on this one because the way Jiang Cheng looks at his siblings breaks my heart every time and just his...yeah, smile-crying! He’s so happy here, he’s so relieved, everything is fine now and Wei Wuxian is home and they’re together again! Everything will be okay! Or at least significantly more okay than it was!

This is just the face of a kid who loves his family and wants them together and is just overwhelmed with feelings he cannot really express, while no one is looking at him. He just loves them both! So much! And it kills me. Baby. I love you.

5. Xue Yang’s absolutely stupid besotted little smile(s) looking at Xiao Xingchen.

yes I know he is dead in the first one, what of it, he’s going to be fine any minute now.

Anyway though!!! I feel like I could just say “Xue Yang’s smiles, all of them, from these to the most unhinged ones” but I hard moded myself about picking one specific mood of one, and...yeah. Just. look at that face! look at him!!!! having a whole feeling and he’s not putting on a face, nobody can see him, nobody knows, but there’s just this absolute...augh. Adoration, is the best word for it, I think. This is Xue Yang’s ‘you are the only (other) person who matters in the whole world!!!’ face and it absolutely murders me.

I just want to grab his face and be like “THAT FEELING, HOLD ONTO THAT FEELING AND DON’T BLOW THIS FOR YOURSELF” but it’s too late, he kind of already did, and this is why I’m always crying about Xue Yang.

BONUS MENTIONS TO:

every time Wen Qing smiles (as mentioned above)

Lan Wangji’s staircase smile

Lan Wangji’s drunk “I like rabbits” smile

Lan Xichen’s various ‘fuck you’ smiles

Jin Guangyao’s nervous dimple smile.

#ameliarating #conversating #so many good smiles #the sad queer cultivators show #top five meme #xue yang #wei wuxian #lan wangji #xiao xingchen #jiang cheng #a post full of treasures i love very much

[eirenical]

Things I can't survive: I just saw a gif of WWX learning that LSZ is Yuan and he touches his forehead ribbon while caressing his face and no one says anything cause he's his dad and I just can't..... it's too much. Had to share cause I haven't noticed it before.

OMG, nonny, I know EXACTLY the moment you’re talking about.  This beautiful moment right here:

And I’m just… I’m absolutely dying over the facial expressions going on here, so LIKE ALWAYS, I need to babble about it, OK?  OK.  ^_^

So, let’s zoom in a little… (and go behind a cut so I don’t kill everyone’s dashes… ;D)

ETA (2-18-21): *pokes up from under the pile of notifications she got buried in overnight* I see this post is making the rounds again... ;D  Since it is making the rounds again, I just want to put a disclaimer here that I should have done from the beginning but didn’t know enough to do at that point in my CQL fandom life. 

I am American and in no way of Chinese descent.  Since writing this post, I have done more reading and research into Chinese cultural traditions, written by members of the Chinese diaspora with much more understanding of their culture than I.  Based on that, I now feel it is more likely that Sizhui was taken into the Lan clan and raised BY the clan, not that he was personally adopted by either LWJ or WWX in the more Western sense of the term.  So, please, take the following interpretation with a grain of salt, and understand that the scene analysis you are about to read came ONLY from my personal take on the scene as a Westerner with very little cultural understanding.  Thank you.  ^_^

First, we have Wei Wuxian.  He’s just had a really emotional moment with Sizhui, then does what he does… backs off and makes it a joke.  “Aaaaah~~~! You’re really strong!  Just like someone taught by Hanguang-jun!”  Because he has difficulty accepting that someone could feel that strongly for him, that someone could have missed him that much.  But then Lan Wangji turns it right back around and reminds him that he taught Sizhui, too.  (”He’s both our son, silly!”)  And he’s right back in that emotional moment that he already couldn’t entirely process.  So he falls back on joking again.  And I’m going to skip adding the subtitles here because it’s all him joking and that’s not what caught my attention here.  It’s his face and his body language.

I mean… just look:

How slowly he moves in.  How he telegraphs every move he’s making.  How carefully he’s watching Sizhui’s face so he’ll knew if he’s crossing a boundary.

And how even when he does reach out to touch, he’s so gentle, so careful, so light with that touch.  Just like his shijie used to be with him.  His shijie… the closest thing he ever had to a mother figure.  She’s his model for interacting with a child.

But now let’s zoom in a little shall we?  Because they’re both taking AMAZING facial journeys here and I JUST CAN’T OK?

Wei Wuxian first…

Again, yeah, he’s joking, but look how serious that face is.  Look how intently he’s focused.  Look at that slight scrunch to his brows and the way he’s ever so slightly frowning.  And again, look how carefully he’s moving, so he can pull away at the slightest hint that his touch is unwelcome.  And why the side of the head, anyway?  Where he could accidentally (or otherwise) end up touching Sizhui’s ribbon?  He might, again, be modeling on Jiang Yanli’s preferred method of reassurance, but I think… I think he’s testing the waters.  I think this is his way of dealing with the fact that he can’t put what he’s thinking into words either.  This is him reaching out to Sizhui and telling him, in no uncertain terms… “I think of you as my son,” and asking Sizhui if he feels the same.

And just LOOK AT THIS NONSENSE HERE.  This is the face he makes when Sizhui accepts that touch, accepts Wei Wuxian’s hand making contact with his ribbon.  This is not the smile of a man who just successfully made a joke and praised himself by doing so.  It’s TOO MUCH for that.  This is the face of a man who just asked their long-lost child if he’s still their father… AND WAS TOLD “YES.”

And now Sizhui, because I’M NOT DONE YET…

As carefully as Wei Wuxian has been watching Sizhui, Sizhui is watching him just as closely.  He’s practically holding his breath.  He sees that hand coming.  He knows where it’s going.  And he has ample time to prevent it, to move away, if that’s what he wants to do.  But he doesn’t.  He doesn’t want that.  He still has that tangle of feelings banging around inside him: sad and happy and ecstatic and grief-stricken and disbelieving and so many other feelings all tangled up around each other and he doesn’t know what to do with all of it.  But he knows that Wei Wuxian knows what the headband means.  He knows that if he allows him to touch it, it’s as good as declaring them family.  And when he couldn’t put his feelings into words earlier, Hanguang-jun had told him, “Then don’t.”  But this?  This is clear.  This feeling doesn’t need to be put into words.  Just like that ecstatic hug they just shared, this is an action that speaks for itself, because all three of them will know what it means.

And then when Wei Wuxian’s hand makes contact, Sizhui leans right into it.  He drops his gaze because it’s too much.  He can’t look anymore.  He swallows hard, he closes his eyes, and he ducks his head, because he’s sitting right on the edge of crying here and he’s done enough of that already in the last five minutes, THANK YOU.  But this is it.  This is the moment.  This is acknowledgement.  “We haven’t seen each other in 16 years, but we’re still family… and we always were.”  And then he can look up again, because he can’t bear to look away for too long.

AND NOW I’M GONNA GO CRY IN A CORNER SOMEWHERE OVER THESE TWO AND HOW CAREFUL THEY ARE WITH EACH OTHER AND EACH OTHERS’ FEELINGS, OK?  OK.  TT^TT

#lan sizhui #wei wuxian #lan sizhui & wei wuxian #the untamed #the untamed meta #eirenical.meta #eirenical.gifs #long post #DON'T MIND ME #I'M JUST BABBLING AWAY AS USUAL #^_^ #seriously though #thank you nonny! #and i'm sorry this took so long #and for the record #i always welcome people barreling into my inbox to talk about these kinds of things #scene breakdowns #headcanons #you name it i'm game #just thought i'd put that out there #^_~ #Anonymous #conversations through replies

[admirableadmiranda]

The Founder of Diabolism Rebirth First: or the prologue

Oh we’re in for a journey just by the title alone. I should quickly note I will not be posting all of the text by any means or we would be dead of laughter by chapter three. Only the highlights!

Rebirth First:

"Wei Wuzhen is dead. Great people!"

We start off with the first of many, many names for our dear protagonist (I am at 13 and have only read up to chapter 15 on how many times his names change. Wei Wuzhen is probably the most common of all of them, as well as sounding closer to his name, but we will have fun with this.

"Who can be. His younger brother Jiang Chengyiyi annihilated the pro-family, with Yunmeng Jiang, Lanling Jinshi, Gusu Lanshi, Qinghe Nie's four families to take the lead, and his nest's "burial post" was a pot."

Ah! Here we meet our antagonist. His name usually comes though intact, but sometimes it get some fun additions. I am also amazed that half the sect names came through intact! Although the end of the paragraph had a little trouble there. XD Apparently WWX was buried in his own chamber pot.

"Where do you hear the news from the road map? Wei Wuzhen is not Jiang Cheng's killing, Jiang Cheng is only one of the main force of killing. It is Wei Wuyi's own practice of cultivating sorcerer who suffers from reflexion, and his ghosts will bite and eat, live alive. Crushed into a powder."

When I call him Wei W(hatever his name is this paragraph), I am not joking. This happens all the time! I believe my current record is four different names in three paragraphs. 

"Hey... I want to say that this is Wei Wu, who was also a very famous family in Xianmen. It was not without good deeds. How young is famous, how beautiful it is... How did he get to this step... ”

Third name in the prologue alone! Apparently he was an entire famous family on his own. Also at least the cultivation world right now remembers he’s a beauty. They will probably continue to remember. I will find out later.

One hundred and twenty towns and stone beasts were crushed on the top of the mass graves. The major families began frequent cultivating rituals, scrutinized and seized the scenes, and collected high-definition visions.

Ah, our in world heroes, readers! Instead of building statues to keep the resentment in the burial mounds, we have instead resorted to more murder on top of the murder we have already committed! Also apparently they were watching CQL or something while doing this, since they have stills and gifs of everything.

In the thirteenth year, it was still calm.

More and more people believe that, perhaps, the Yiling ancestors are really devastated.

Even if he had turned his hand over the clouds, he would eventually become the one that was overturned.

No one will be worshipped on the altar forever, and the legend is just a legend.

Indeed! While Wei Wuxian’s actions will remain a mystery to us this time, perhaps we may just find out what Wei Wu had intended to do. Or not! Either way, it will certainly be an adventure to behold.

Total different names collected for our protagonist: three.

Amount of times sex has randomly entered the plot during otherwise innocent scenes: zero

Amount of things Blue Forget Machine forgot about: zero.

#mdzs mtl #wei w(hatever his name is this paragraph)

[inessencedevided]

I was tagged by @sarawatsaraleo @nyx4 and @zanjinzhu thank you 🥰🥰🥰

From your creations, choose 4-6 gifs and do a split before and after adding your colouring! (Guess who did not read the precise instructions before doing this and ended up with more than six? Ahhh well … :D)

This was really fun! I already knew that the blue hue of cql is the bane of every giffers existence, but it was interesting seeing it laid out like this. :D Also, this made me realise how much I have improved my editing. Maybe not when it comes to the final product (because I feel like the quality of my colouring is all over the place), but at least I have gotten way more efficient. The number of completely unnecessary adjustment layers on some of my older gifs is astonishing. ^^

I have completely lost track of who already did this, so I’m just tagging people whose posts I can not currently remember having seen before ^^’ @suibianjie @wei-gege @lanwuxiann @purplexedhuman @cloudylotus @huigusu and (to not keep it entirely in one fandom ^^) @isabellaofparma and @mirroroferisedx (as always, no pressure and if you’ve done this already after all, feel free to tag me in the replies, so i can see it!) also @mylastbraincql because I saw your post saying that you want to be tagged in these posts :)

#tag game #my gifs

[fu-yao]

#showyourprocess

From planning to posting, share your process for making creative content!

To continue supporting content makers, this tag game is meant to show the entire process of making creative content: this can be for any creation.

RULES — When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag 5 people with a specific link to one of their creative works you’d like to see the process of. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours!

Thank you so much for tagging me @lan-xichens​, I’ll try my best to explain how I made this set from start to finish hehe ♡ and also a big thank you to @suibianjie​ @highwarlockkareena​ @nyx4​ @aheartfullofjolllly​ and you as well Kris for putting this all together! Content creators get a lot less recognition than they deserve for all the time they put into their content, so getting everyone to see the (sometimes excessive) process we all go through to put our content in our blog, I hope it creates a positive change!! 💖

1. Planning

The set in question was actually requested by someone so they could celebrate their friend’s birthday! At first I wasn’t entirely sure if I was going to be able to finish it on time (college is very hectic right now) but I was able to finish it three days before the deadline which was may 1st! ^-^

The first thing I did was decide what characters I wanted to use in the set, I first reached out to the person who requested the set if there were certain characters they wanted me to use but they said they didn’t know enough to really give me any directives outside of the quote. I decided, since the quote is applicable to the entirety of the show, that I would try to put in as many characters as possible.

Thus, of course, came the hunting for scenes. Those of you in the net discord surely know I came into the content help channel a few times to ask for certain scenes here and there, and eventually I had to download an additional 10 episodes to the back then 20 or so episodes I had in my CQL episodes folder.

As you can see I have 30 random episodes of CQL downloaded (slowly but surely getting to the point where I have all 50 episodes downloaded) and I think I ended up using scenes out of at least 20 of those episodes.

I planned out beforehand what characters I would use per gif. I knew obviously I would start out with Wangxian, them being the main characters of the show, and then would work my way down the list. The second gif consists of Nie Huaisang, Nie Mingjue, Jin Zixuan, Jiang Yanli, Wen Qing, and Wen Ning. They’re all family pairings, two being siblings and one being a married couple. The next gifset consists of the Yi City characters, then the fourth gif consists of the juniors, and the final gif has Jin Guangyao, Mianmian, Jiang Cheng, and Lan Xichen in it.

I have to admit though that when I had made the first four gifs I’d forgotten who I would put in the last gif and the when I thought about it the first time around I could only think of Lan Qiren and the very cursed Yaoyang ship 😭 it was only at dinner time that same day that I remembered I hadn’t put Jiang Cheng in my gifset yet and that’s when I thought of the other characters as well.

I had already made my first two gifs when I went to check Hanyi’s blog for layout inspo and eventually I decided I wanted to try a triangle-ish layout, which I doodled below. I eventually ended up changing the layout of the last gif in the final design. It was also the first time I would work with a triangle-ish layout so I was a bit nervous as I was scared it wasn’t going to work out...

2. Creating

I use Avisynth 2.5 and Adobe Photoshop 2021 (the paid version, unfortunately, I need it for school except I didn’t need it this year but I wanted it so I paid for it with my own money ouch) to make my gifsets! I always start out with trimming down all the scenes I’m going to use into three to five second videos and putting them through Avisynth. This time around I did it separately for each gif I made, simply because I needed so many scenes. I would include a screenshot of my “gif vids” and “temp” folders but I’ve already deleted all the videos, which is what I usually do immediately after a set is posted.

I’ll try my best explaining this gif by gif since each one had a different layout!

2.1 Wangxian

I think I had up to five different designs of this gif 😭 it started out with the gif on the left originally being more centered and the quote right smack in the center but somehow it felt a bit too... empty? I changed up the design and pulled the gif over to the right and put the two closeups on the left, the exact opposite of the gif I eventually ended up with. I switched things around one more time and saved the gif as you can see it right now, except I didn’t include the lines yet. It was only as I finished up my fourth gif that I decided this gif needed lines as well so I added them ^-^

2.2 Nie Huaisang, Nie Mingjue, Jin Zixuan, Jiang Yanli, Wen Qing, and Wen Ning

I got the inspiration for the font layout on this gif from this Wenzhou post! I hadn’t tried it before and when I did for this gif I was very happy with the way it turned out :D I wanted to portray that life is a pile of good and bad things, as the quote says, in CQL by mirroring these happy scenes side by side with the sad scenes

2.3 Yi CIty

My first time working with the triangle layout!! Putting in the lines and making sure they would line up with the second gif took me the longest of all actually  😭 I think once I got the line on the left in I just copy pasted it and flipped it horizontally so I didn’t have to fiddle around with angling it anymore :’) my original idea was to get a happy Song Lan scene and a sad A-Qing scene, but when I stumbled upon this A-Qing scene in ep38 I just had to put it in there because her smile is so precious 🥺 Xue Yang and Xiao Xingchen in the center are also supposed to be mirrored, with Xue Yang embodying the “bad things” and Xiao Xingchen the “good things” ! I also think the Yi City characters fit this part of the quote very well!!

2.4 The Juniors

Ah yes, the junior quartet!! :D I had this planned out from the very beginning, that I would include happy versus sad juniors in the “vice versa” part of the quote, and I think it worked out quite well! My first idea was to put the “vice versa” completely in the special font and have it typed out over the gifs like I did with the “vice” but as I typed out the “versa” I realized it had one letter too much to be able to do that 😭😭 it took me a while to come up with how I would position the “but” and “versa” and after some moving around I decided to just place them the way I did in the final gif! For the font, I duplicated the “vice” and added a stroke to the duplicate, then I changed the fill setting to 0% so I could slightly drag the duplicate away from the original layer to create the effect that’s in the gif — also, finding a scene in which Jin Ling smiles is really difficult.... he barely even smiles in the scene I ended up using :(

2.5 Jin Guangyao, Mianmian, Jiang Cheng, and Lan Xichen

The final gif!! I feel like this might come a little across as “I promise I didn’t forget these characters” because they’re a very odd quadruplet to put together, but they were the most important characters left to put in the set! I was thinking of putting Nie Mingjue in here together with Jin Guangyao and Lan Xichen, but I did feel he fit more with his brother up in the second gif. Mei @mylastbraincql​ cheered me on making this gif for which I was very grateful :D <3 the layout came to be after I googled “how to evenly split a rectangle in four” because I didn’t want a repeat layout in the set  (*/∇＼*)

2.6 Coloring

For the coloring I pretty much did all of the tweaking on the first gif and then copy pasted all of it onto the second, third, fourth, and fifth gif. This is usually the way I go about my coloring, I will always edit certain gifs if necessary but I don’t think I had to change the coloring much on any of these gifs? Maybe I added in a curve layer here and there, but nothing major! This is really one of my preferred coloring styles, even though I try to step outside of my comfort zones with other sets ^-^

3. Posting

I will always upload sets into my drafts and edit the caption in there as well, clicking on “preview post” a couple times to check everything looks good on my blog as well, before I post a set. However, this time, since there was a deadline and I finished before the deadline, I put this set in the queue so it would automatically post on the 1st of may! Knowing myself, I would’ve forgotten to do so </3

Whew that was... a lot 😭 did it make any sense? Probably not, but it was fun to ramble （ ´∀｀）

I’ll tag

@blinkplnk​ with this set !

@wuxien​ with this set !

@wendashanren​ with this set !

@wanyinxichen​ with this set !

@yibobibo​ with this set !

@mylastbraincql​ with this set !

@sugarbabywenkexing​ with this set !

@yiling-recesses​ with this set !

@jiancheng​ with this set !

Please feel totally free to ignore this if you’ve already been tagged and don’t want to do it again!! <3

#showyourprocess #tag game #this got so long i'm sorry ;-; #very curious to see everyone else's processes!! #thank you for the tag kris <3

[ohnobjyx]

I've seen so many sol0 fans or just people that have watched cql and cares for the cast, talking about how they feel that bjyx is something one sided and unrequited. some comments about how xz (in the later fan meetings) is kinda just patiently indulging yb but clearly was not v happy about it. Sometimes I do think xz is more reserved and seems to try to "tame" yb to be more discreet about their, whatever it is, thing but i don't particularly think he is cold? What do you think?

I know it may sound odd but is there some analysis about Xiao feelings towards Yibo? I mean this guy is head over heels for him, no doubt about that but I don’t really feel the same from Xiao? I mean I could be wrong since I’m new there and didn’t read a lot of analysis so if you have some can you link them please? Thank you! And I don’t ask this in a « wrong » way like I genuinely feel like there’s something but I don’t see the same feelings towards each other. Again, I could be wrong! 

Hi, anons. These asks has been sitting for the longest time in my inbox, so I decided to tackle them today (still writing two days later, I’ve desisted on creating a more organized post and I’m just dumping my thoughts here this time).

(It’s also that I’m frustrated about this, because these are two of the most polite ones, but I’ve also received others less well worded ones, that basically imply that there’s nothing from gg).

For the anon asking for some analysis, I’ll leave a link here to a post that basically sums up my own thoughts.

Disclaimer: as always, don’t take bjyx seriously. Pure speculation here.

Long post.

Before I start, I want to say that I shouldn’t be the one to convince you to anything. It’s never my intention to impart the “universal truth” or to be patronising. If any of you really feels that there’s nothing from gg, no matter what I say, you won’t be convinced by my post alone. And it’s alright to agree to disagree. Just keep it in mind.

I feel that what anons describe it’s something that often happens to new bxg. Dd’s so obvious, so painfully obvious that in comparison, gg is much more “discreet” (well, we had to learn to read Lan Wangji’s expressions, didn’t we? The same happens with gg’s gestures). I don’t agree with the idea of dismissing someone’s love just because they aren’t as obvious and as telling as their partner at first glance (gg’s songs and drawings aren’t as straightforward, but they are there for those who care to listen and see).

From my pov, I think it’s very very probable that they are together. So, that works both ways for me. I don’t think dd’s love unrequited. They take care of each other in ways that speak of a high level of trust, intimacy and chemistry (yes, I initially wrote that post for these asks). I’ve talked about subtle ways to display your love, because when you love someone it’s difficult to hide it, and gg has a hard time trying to hide for the cameras.

(I’m still thinking of Happy Camp, when dd hurt his neck with the necklace... gg’s reaction wasn’t controlled in the slightest, and the combination of worry and anger would be a interesting combo if gg indeed wasn’t anything to dd or if he hadn’t gifted him the necklace).

Gg often has a hard time controlling his reactions when dd is involved. He’s much more natural, a lot closer to how he really is instead of his very polite and soft public persona. He get a glimpse of him in the bts (I suppose they never expected CQL to be so popular, and didn’t thought that the bts would be so watched a year afterwards), and comparing how he is in the bts with dd to how he usually is in other interviews and events with other people is a very interesting exercise.

It’s true that gg in the interviews seemed to try to hold back dd, to the point that they both lied sometimes in the interviews... the effect they caused was contrary to what they wanted. Definitely. Because they tended to forget what they had lied about, and the “plot” had holes everywhere. Like gg reacting surprised to the possibility of dd starting a fashion brand. Twice. In the same day. Or the eggplant/carrots thing. Or the “I didn’t know you slept with the lights on, but I’m aware of your sleeping pattern” thing. Please note that these three plot holes were caused by gg (in the second case, I’m refering to carrots ofc).

About what the first anon says of “how xz (in the later fan meetings) is kinda just patiently indulging yb but clearly was not v happy about it”. It’s one thing that by then they’d have noticed that their cp had attracted a whole lot more attention that they had ever expected it to and a whole another thing to “indulge” someone (as if only dd wanted it and gg had nothing to say about it) and “not be very happy about it”. Gg might have tried, but even he couldn’t completely erase all of the little moments directed at dd (and you have to take into account that gg was actually sick in the last fan meeting in Nanjing, that’s bound to affect his mood too).

(There’s no one else when they look at each other. No wonder Wen Ning achieved such a third wheel look when they were filming the boat scene, I suppose it’s taken from real life).

How gg looks at dd and only smirks when dd looks up... well, gg still makes his best effort at being discreet...

And dd in this moment... well, what can one do when a man like gg looks at you like that? (dd.exe has stopped working. Please restart).

Source of the gifs: 仙娱

Last but not least, I’d like to talk a little about W/ibo Night, the main source of many people’s doubts. I’ve seen many analysis, from “poor puppy dd following gg around” (that’s... bs) to some better analysis that deserve to be taken into account.

W/ibo Night is an event organized by a state controlled social media platform. It’s one of the most observed events of the years, with potential future employers and coworkers, apart from the government, so it’s not just them, but everyone is very serious and controlled in their actions.

They obviously had agreed beforehand on how to behave in this one. While dd is very serious, he doesn’t seem angry or sad that gg isn’t looking his way. However, they both can’t help but look in each other’s direction (gg’s more discreet, but pay attention and you’ll see him side glancing at dd at least three times on stage) and the way dd turns just so he can have a look at gg is... 🤦

They tried so hard that it ended up getting the effect they wanted to avoid: when everybody else was greeting each other (friendly hadshakes, patting their backs, etc.) these two just stood there, a little awkwardly. It became obvious to most people that they were acting as if they were strangers.

I think (speculation here) that while they had agreed to act as if they didn’t know each other, gg was... off that night. His eyes were very bright (as if teary, so not in a good way) and his smiles were tense, so I’d say in a bad mood or maybe he was feeling under the weather. I think dd was worried, so that’s why he kept glancing at him (I’ve read about the rumours of why gg was like that, but I tend to dismiss them if there’s no proof).

For someone as polite as gg, to walk so obviously in front of dd when they were getting on stage (c-culture here: the one who walks in front has more seniority/authority, so gg always lets the other people walk in front of him as a sign of politeness and respect), speaks of a familiarity that exceeds that of coworkers. Dd’s actions need no more words: waiting for gg and letting him walk in front comes naturally to him.

Choosing fans (though at first, dd just looks at gg choose his). I don’t know if you remember, but gg chose “I can do it” and dd chose “I have it difficult” (as a way of saying “I can’t”). I think it was entirely a coincidence, because dd was looking at his gg choosing his fan, the one he had wanted at first was taken by another person, so he chose this one as “I couldn’t take the fan I wanted” and “it’s difficult for me to choose”.

However, look at the happy and surprised smile from gg when he notices that his fan and dd’s make a pair (similar to “yes” and “no”, gg had filmed an ad for the event in which he linked this two exact phrases as opposites). A sad spoiler: this is the only time he truly, spontaneously smiles at the event (and notice how dd’s face inmediately mirrors gg’s and how he tries to rein it in a second later). 

I couldn’t find a video, but just before leaving the stage, dd looks at gg again and shakes his fan. Without a single word, gg understands that dd is asking from where to leave the stage, and makes the slightest movement with his fan to point the way. I assure you, this level of 默契 (mo qi) is difficult to find even in established long time relationships.

Once they are seated, gg leaves for a second and tells dd “I’m leaving” and dd answers “okay”. There’d be no need for this interaction unless they’re still friends/couple.

This one broke my heart a little: dd had been sitting on a plastic bottle the whole time. Usually gg clears his seat when dd comes (Nanjing fan meeting, Tencent awards night), probably because he has noticed that dd doesn’t care that he’s sitting on things. Dd left earlier the event because of his schedule, and once gg came back from getting his w/ibo king award, he sits on dd’s seat. And notices the water bottle under him. Even his poker face can’t hide the sad fondness “aiyo this boy...”

Some say he sat in the seat next to dd’s, but there’s a video I can’t seem to find (the despair is real) of gg sitting on the water bottle, so it’s indeed dd’s seat.

Also, you may try to think this from your own perspective: when and why would you sit in another person’s seat in an event as important as this one? If I try to answer this from my pov, I’d say that first I’d need to know that that person wouldn’t mind me sitting there and/or knowing that this person isn’t going to come back to the event. In both cases, it requires communication and trust between these two people. Gg had to know that dd was leaving first (and why would dd tell gg if not because they chat about their work schedules?) and that dd wouldn’t mind once the fancams made it to social media. This is what I think, at least.

Okay, so here ends my post. I just exposed some of my thoughts on why I think yizhan is NOT one sided or unrequited. But of course, you’re allowed to disagree with me, anons, since we are all in the speculation ground here. Nonetheless, note that this is a yizhan/bjyx blog, which implies (at least for me) that there are feelings from both sides, so I may not interact further with one-sided yizhan/bjyx asks.

(BTW, I found a very complete post of moments where yizhan isn’t one sided here, so I decided not to elaborate on those moments in this post).

#yizhan #bjyx #not one sided #but I think people need to see that for themselves #I don't want to be a preacher here #so this is still my opinion

[teamsarawatshusband]

Day 22 - Show That Surprised Me

Okay, I know. I know, I know. I won’t shut up about this show, and it’s gotta be so annoying for you guys. 😔 But, honestly, it has been the only show so far that truly genuinely surprised me. So, I’m not even sorry.

CQL - The Untamed

Before you read on, you should know that this post has been perceived as very controversial. Please be aware that my post (under the readmore) was meant sarcastically. There is an edit below the original post that will explain further.

You wanna know how it surprised me? Because, you have no idea! The impertinence of this show! I tell ya!

I started out my BL fandom life very very very set to watch solely Thai shows. Oh, yes, you heard me. All those Korean and Japanese and whatnot shows that kept appearing in gifs on my dash... Ha, I laughed in their faces and scrolled on.

And then there were those gifs of CQL.

ALL OVER TUMBLR.

EVERYWHERE.

SO FUCKING ANNOYING!!! 🙄🙄🙄

Some stupid Chinese crap show with people who all had the same hair and the same weird dresses and WHY THE FUCK WAS IT EVERYWHERE????

And it just wouldn’t stop, omg. The gifs kept coming from all sorts of mutuals and what the hell was wrong with people?!

So I hated on the show. With a passion. Unwatched. Unknown. Because fuck if I ever strayed off my Thai BL course, ha!

And then there was this one post that had a freaking powerpoint presentation - embarrassing much? - of how CQL was the most confusing show ever, and how it had 50 fucking episodes - as if people have no lives. So WHY ON EARTH WATCH IT FFS?

And, then, the end of the powerpoint said that you get sucked into loving it, whether you want to or not. Haha, ridiculous. Idiotic. AS IF!

And then...

My stupid ass brain... was like...

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!!!!!

...

Yeah. And then I watched it. And couldn’t stop watching it. And fell in love with it. And had it ruin me for all other shows... Because I was so freaking set on hating it, and it made me love it more than anything else. 😭

No fair.

----- that’s the end of the original post ------

EDIT: Okay, since this post of mine has caused some controversy and came across as racist and sinophobic, I need to clarify:

1) I’m not deleting the post, because I’d rather have a civilized discussion about racism than deleting any traces of it and pretending it never happened. I strongly believe in learning from mistakes.

2) This post was written as sarcasm. I do not (and never did) actually believe that it’s a “crap show”, that the people in it “all had the same hair” and that they all wore “the same dresses”. I tried to mock-immitate the stereotypical western reaction of somebody who lacks any and all knowledge about a foreign culture.

3) I have nothing against non-Thai shows (I stuck to Thai shows, because I’m learning Thai and my brain finds it easier to learn a language if I fully submerge myself in it and don’t let myself get distracted by other languages)

4) I have replied in more detail about all of that in this post here.

5) Nevertheless, this post very apparently has caused discomfort and hurt and it is not up to me to decide whether the things I say come across as racist. As long as a single person feels that way, they were racist. Period. And I deeply and honestly apologize for that.

#30 day bl challenge #day 22 - show that surprised you #i wanted to hate it so so so much #removing the tags so it won't hurt anybody else

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 18, second part

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Stuff) (Previous Post)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Hey OP where’s the funny header gif for this post? Sorry, it was murdered by an angst demon and the framing of these shots.

My Found Family Came to Find Me

Continuing our flashback from last time, we see Baby Wei Ying up a tree, refusing to come down because he's afraid there are dogs. Eventually he falls out of the tree, like a dumbass a child, and Yanli tries but fails to catch him. 

Unlike his grownup counterpart, Baby Wei Ying doesn't pretend he's unhurt when he is hurt. I'd like to put the change at Yu Ziyuan's door, but actually he admits to being hurt during his Gusu summer - he mimics Lan Zhan's stoicism when they're getting beaten, but it doesn't come naturally to him, and he whines a lot afterwards. 

By the time of the Animatronic Dog incident, however, he's laughing off obvious injuries that have secret trauma behind them. By the time he comes back, coreless, from the burial mounds, he won't confide in anyone about his hurts any more, except possibly Wen Qing.

Yanli carries Wei Ying, in a sequence that will be echoed much later in his life when Lan Zhan carries him (gifset here). While they head back, she tells him that Jiang Cheng has a bad temper and to ignore whatever mean things he says. This will also be echoed in the future, when Wei Wuxian says it to Lan Zhan after their argument with Jiang Cheng in the shrine.

Yanli also explains that Jiang Cheng loved his dogs and that he's been very sad since Jiang Fengmian sent them away, demonstrating once again that Jiang Fengmian is a terrible father. Yanli says that Jiang Cheng will be happy to have a friend with him, though. This kind of makes Wei Wuxian's role in Jiang Cheng's life "replacement dog."

Jiang Cheng, after getting over this particular snit, got worried about Wei Wuxian and woke up Yanli to find him, and then went wandering around in the dark like a dumbass a child, and is banged up and crying when the other two find him. Yanli encourages him to apologize to Wei Wuxian and he does, which will not happen again until the very end of the show.  

They all smile and laugh together, as Wei Ying looks to Yanli to guide him through the insanity that his life has suddenly become. 

(more behind the cut!)

They head back to Lotus Pier in a sweet montage of walking and smiling together, with Jiang Cheng carrying the world's most beautiful candle holder with the world's most wind-resistant candle in it, to light their way back. Back in the present day for a brief moment, Jiang Cheng pretends to sleep and listens to his sister insisting that the three of them should always stay together, while a single tear rolls down the side of his face.

Soup is Love, Chapter 1 of 1000

Then we head to the past again. In Jiang Cheng & Wei Ying's now-shared room, Wei Ying sits on the bed trying to figure out how to deal with his grumpy new roommate.

Wei Ying is unsure what to do when confronted with pajama game this strong. Tiny Jiang Cheng is already a fashion king. 

Then he tells Jiang Cheng he's not going to narc him out to the clan leader, since it was his own fault that he hurt his leg. This is all Jiang Cheng needs to hear to decide Wei Ying is all right, and he says that he will help Wei Ying chase away dogs in the future.  In fact, Wei Wuxian will protect Jiang Cheng from punishment basically forever, while Jiang Cheng will continue to threaten Wei Wuxian with dogs...forever.

They shake hands on their new understanding and then jump up and down laughing, Wei Ying's leg being all better now, apparently.  When Yanli arrives (carrying a tray of...can you guess? I'll let you guess), they stop jumping. Wei Ying dives in to give Jiang Cheng a little tickle/embrace in an adorable moment that would have me saying "oh, my ovaries!" if I hadn't surgically sent my ovaries to hell a few years ago.

Yanli introduces Wei Ying to the emotional and gustatorial miracle that is her lotus and ribs soup. He hesitates a long time before tucking in because he's so unused to being fed.

Consent? I Don’t Even Know Her

The flashback wraps up with Yanli conked out on the table from the drugs in the incense burner, while Wei Wuxian, who is somehow unaffected despite sitting almost as close to the smoke as she was, checks on her. Jiang Cheng and his Uggs period-appropriate sock thingies get out of bed to come stand with Wei Wuxian, and have feelings about sending Yanli away after she JUST said she doesn't want to be parted from them.

Wei Wuxian: If she didn't want us to do this, she shouldn't have signed that blanket consent-to-medical-treatment form.   Jiang Cheng: Wen Qing made me sign one of those plus a durable power of attorney, is that bad?

This episode is all about people overriding each others' agency and making massively important decisions without the consent of the people who will be affected. But in a feudal context, it's not a violation, no matter how it feels to the person being controlled. In feudal life, your body belongs to your lord -- your sect leader, in the world of CQL. Jiang Yanli and Jiang Cheng's choices are overridden by their clan leader's final command to Wei Wuxian.  Wei Wuxian's core is arguably Jiang Fengmian's property--Wei Wuxian certainly sees it that way, just as his hand was Yu Ziyuan's to take if she wished.  

The brothers tenderly tuck Yanli into bed in the rolly cart and hand her off to Song Lan. They talk about how important it is to get her to Lanling and that she's probably going to be mad, as they thank Song Lan for helping them. 

Yanli listens while she sleeps and, in what is becoming a trademark Jiang move, lets a single tear roll down the side of her face. Jiang Cheng points out that Yanli never gets mad at Wei Wuxian and Wei Wuxian is like, true dat.

How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?

Song Lan is always so emotional about every damn thing, I love him. Here he's like OH GOD NO DON'T FORMALLY THANK ME! STOP!!!

Then he starts to ask Wei Wuxian to pass a message to Song Xingchen for him, but then decides not to say anything, making it super obvious that they fought and aren't together. 

Wei Wuxian reacts to this with confusion and distress, probably because he doesn't want to imagine ever having a breakup with his own soulmate. Which he soon will be having.  But possibly he's just upset that his OTP broke up.

After Song Lan takes off, Jiang Cheng gives Wen Qing a rude & perfunctory thank-you bow, turning away before she can return it. Wei Wuxian tells her not to take it to heart - basically everyone who deals with Jiang Cheng gets a version of the "ignore what he says" speech. She says she understands and that in his place she would have behaved worse, which is so totally not true.  

Then she asks Wei Wuxian if he's sure about the core transfer (not in so many words, because the script is being kind of being vague about it, without actually hiding what's happening). His reply pretty much encapsulates the whole Wei Wuxian experience.

Then he and Jiang Cheng walk off, with Jiang Cheng giving us a rear view that had me googling Wang Zhuocheng's fashion shoots to determine if that wagon he's draggin’ is really as delightful as this belt makes it look. Alas, there is not a wealth of photographic evidence for this research, as compared to, for example, photos of Xiao Zhan's outstanding ass.

Wen Qing and Wen Ning see them off, with Wen Qing wishing they valued their lives more. Although, what she and Wen Ning are doing is massive treason, so their lives will be pretty much forfeit if they're caught, so...

The Sunshot Campaign of Like 60 Dudes

Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng walk up the mountain for the whole beginning of the Sunshot campaign, which...okay. Maybe it's like Dunkirk or The Witcher where they intercut stuff that is happening in different timeframes, which is one of my least favorite new film style thingies.

You know, for a guy Wei Wuxian constantly calls "peacock," Jin Ziyuan really doesn't wear a lot of adornment; just some subtle metalwork on his belt with no dangly bits at all, and a single reasonably-sized hair crown. Compared to the extremely fancy Lan Wangji he's almost plain. We already know that Wei Wuxian is a massive hypocrite when it comes to his idea of a perfect boy, however.

So, this is the Lanling Jin army, which consists of literally 60 guys, including the ones on the stairs and Jin Zixuan and Douchebag Dad. How are they going to fight a war with this tiny group? Why do they have such a big plaza? Hasn't anybody on this production learned CGI cloning?

That’s better.

Nie Mingjue and his best bitch Baxia make quick work of the 4 Wen guys who were assigned to hold the Unclean Realm. 

Hello, Daddy Da-Ge!

Squeeee, it's Lan Wangji! He's taking back Cloud Recesses! Ooooohhh we've missed you Lan Wangji.

Look guys he's here! Look how beautiful he is. He's looking at the gate of cloud recesses and thinking thoughts that Lan Xichen or Wei Wuxian could probably see in his bewitching eyes if they were here to see him, which they aren't. But at least he is here!

....and now he's gone again. *cries*

Hares On The Mountains

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian continue roaming prettily around this pretty mountainside. The locations in this show are such eye candy. 

Young laddies they run like hares on the mountains Young laddies they run like hares on the mountains  Young laddies they run like hares on the mountains  If I was a young lass I’d soon go a hunting

Jiang Cheng starts to have doubts about the whole Baoshan Sanren thing. Wei Wuxian's reply pretty much encapsulates the whole Wei Wuxian experience.  

Then we have just the tenderest blindfolding scene, (more gifs here), which is fodder for your ChengXian dreams, if you have those.

Here's a good place for a sidebar about what is and isn't incest. Whee! In the CDrama context, relationships tend to be more clearly defined than in western media. The mechanism of confession & acceptance means that people either are or are not in a romantic relationship, with few grey areas. So a character can literally say "we grew up as brother and sister, but now we are dating" and when someone looks startled they just say "there's no blood relation" and everyone is like "cool cool" and that's the new definition of the relationship.

For a strong example of this, the extremely wonderful Go Ahead is about a contemporary family in which a girl and two boys, who are not blood relatives, are all raised together, and call each other brother and sister. When they become adults, they and everyone around them expect the girl (now a woman) to marry one of the two men who have been her brothers, while whichever one she doesn't choose will carry on as her sibling. It's treated as the most natural, logical thing in the world; the only question is whether she wants to make that transition, and with whom.

Looked at through this lens, Wei Wuxian's relationships with his adoptive siblings have just as much potential to turn into romances as his relationships with his friends do, and there's nothing creepy about it. As such you can expect my meta to always get into ChengXian moments without treating it as a wrong or forbidden love. Hopeless, of course, because Jiang Cheng is such a prick the power of WangXian is stronger, but that's a different matter.

What is wrong is wearing this fantastic hat & veil combination when the most fashionable person on the mountain is blindfolded and can't see it.

In the course of this blindfolded encounter with Wen Qing, Jiang Cheng gets to kneel before a powerful woman, be led along by a length of silk that's placed in his hand, and then knocked the fuck out and operated on. He'll wake up in a hotel room in a tub full of ice with "we took your kidney" written on the mirror in lipstick, and he'll love every minute of it.  

Soundtrack: 1. Still Fighting it, by Ben Folds 2. Hares on the Mountain, by Steeleye Span

Writing Prompt: The NEXT time somebody blindfolds Jiang Cheng

#fytheuntamed #the untamed #the untamed gifs #chengxian #cql #restless rewatch the untamed #canary3d-original #my gifs