The Guanyin Temple Confession Is Maybe My Favorite Scene Of Any Piece Of Media I've Ever Consumed Because

Something about the whole "Eming is born of Hua Cheng's desire to live and Rouye is born of Xie Lian's desire to die," and then how Xie Lian wears funeral colours and Hua Cheng wears wedding colours. God oriented towards death and stillness and self-denial. Ghost oriented towards life and hope and happiness.

OH MY FREAKING GOD, THAT'S SO GOOD

noé and his other grumpy cat

One thing I hold dear to my heart is the idea that by the time He Xuan comes on the scene, Hua Cheng is already several hundred years old and Xianle is long since fallen—but he still speaks with a “Xianle accent.” It’s not hard to understand—if anything it just sounds a bit archaic or overly formal—and there’s only a few things he says that would make He Xuan (and Yin Yu) pause and ask him to repeat what he said slowly please, but sometimes he’ll use a phrase that’s not in the regular lexicon anymore and only Xie Lian will light up and immediately get it.

(alternatively, Xie Lian’s accent is all but gone, Feng Xin’s is faint, and Mu Qing swears his is gone but it’s the “thickest” of the three—it’s bc when he’s alone, he still hums and sings the songs his mother would sing him and unconsciously retains it.)

Today on quiet, understated TGCF moments that nevertheless wreck me every single time:

As [Qi Rong] spoke he leaned back into that ornate chair, lifted his feet and rested his boots on the shoulders of that stone statue, treating it as a footstool.

Xie Lian was still holding Hua Cheng’s arm, and, feeling him take a slight step forwards, pulled him back. But he felt pulling him wasn’t enough, and so on the palm of his hand again traced a single word: “thank you”.

The quiet, gentle gratitude here, the understanding, just undoes me. Xie Lian pulls him back but doesn’t trace out ‘wait’ or ‘stop’ or ‘careful’. Nor does he trace out any version or abbreviation of his usual ‘it’s okay’ or ‘it’s not that bad’ or ‘it really doesn’t matter’.

Instead, he says thank you. And in that word is not just the thanks itself but the acknowledgement of what Hua Cheng is doing. It’s Xie Lian–who didn’t understand Hua Cheng’s fury at the scorpion-tailed snake that bit him, or at himself for wounding him–conveying in a word that he knows why Hua Cheng is stepping forward, why Hua Cheng is angry. 

And for once he doesn’t dismiss it. He brushes off so many things with a smile and an it’s okay, it’s not that bad, but here? Here, he says thank you. And in doing so, implicitly allows that there is something to thank Hua Cheng for, and thus that there is something here that, on some level, hurts. And that even if he is holding Hua Cheng back from truly avenging or protecting him, he is accepting the gesture. 

It’s thank you for stepping forward to defend rather than all the times people have stepped forward towards Xie Lian to attack. It’s thank you for seeing this as an offence rather than joining in the ridicule. It’s thank you for… feeling, on Xie Lian’s behalf, things Xie Lian doesn’t allow himself to feel, and thus letting him have that moment of something like catharsis, that moment of seeing someone else’s horror or anger at what has been done to him, rather than hiding it all behind a gentle smile.

It’s thank you for a gesture that feels like Hua Cheng’s defence of General Hua in the cave. It’s thank you for a gesture that feels like a bamboo hat in the rain.

And all of this is leaving aside the fact that he’s technically also, with that word, tracing out half of his own name onto Hua Cheng’s palm.

decided to draw that one scene from tgcf book 3 (also im new to tumblr so not sure how it works yet) I hope u enjoy!

SPOILERS FOR BOOK THREE BELOW

“The waters were freezing and the air was likewise, yet Xie Lian's whole body burned. The moment they surfaced, Xie Lian wanted to turn his head away, but the cloud of black smoke was still swarming above and watching with predatory attention. When it saw someone emerge, it immediately locked on and flashed forward. Xie Lian only slightly turned his head away, but Hua Cheng's hand cradled his head and pressed him back into place. Their lips hadn't separated for a second before they were pressed tightly together once more.

Xie Lian's lips were aching and numb from the kiss, and he felt as if he was about to lose all sense of

himself. If this were anyone else, he would've long since stabbed them with his sword-but it just had to be Hua Cheng! He was so completely at a loss as to how to respond that tears threatened to fall.

Just then, beyond Hua Cheng's face, he saw thousands upon millions of silver butterflies break through the water beside them.”

hes gonna get ur lying ass

so the biting scene was kinda wtf ridiculous to me at first but then i let it spin like a rotisserie chicken in my mind for a bit and like.

lan zhan is exceptionally powerful and hardworking and highly observant and has spent his whole life crafting himself into the perfect member of his clan, which means among other things suppressing all his emotions, and he really struggles with verbal communication and just people in general. and then in the span of like a week or two, he is powerless to stop his home from being burned down, is physically injured, then forced to leave his father on his deathbed to go be used as a human shield by the evil fucks who caused all this, while his brother is gone and may or may not be in danger himself. and then on top of all that, he is stuck in a cave without his weapons with a monster and his crush (not his crush bc he can’t have those types of feelings), who also happens to be the most annoying person in the universe who has been openly and inappropriately flirting with various women AND himself and then saving the women AND himself and just keeps being a yappy little shit and grabs his very personal sacred headband and won’t fucking shut the fuck up and is half naked on top of all that, and lan zhan isn’t able to communicate his feelings in the best of times and is currently too weak to even punch him in his obnoxious pretty face so of course he’s just gonna bites you bites you bites you bites you bites you bites you bites you bites you

i get it, babe. you’re so valid.

Yan Wushi as well be like:

i do really adore the tgcf/mdzs top dynamic of "i love this extremely traumatized man so im going to follow him around and enable him to do whatever he wants"

Watching the mummy 1999 for shits and giggles, thought it'd be fun to bitch abt the inaccurate hieroglyphs now that I know smth abt all that. Disappointed and disgusted to find out that they hired an egyptologist consultant and the hieroglyphs are actually well done. Night ruined