Me: *talking About How Wei Wuxian Should Have Just Accepted Help And Not Do Everything On His Own And

WORD OF HONOR: PRESENTING THE ROMANCE THROUGH TRADITIONAL WUXIA TROPES.

There is a reason why to the Chinese audience, WenZhou's relationship is indisputably romantic. It's because there are very specific visual cues used to show romance in wuxia, and WOH uses the exact same visual language on WenZhou. These tropes are blatantly recognizable from the wuxia/guzhuang dramas we all grew up watching.

1. Fated meeting in a peach blossom forest.

Although in this case, fate has a name and it is Wen Kexing.

2. Sucking poison from the other's shoulder.

Worth mentioning that in the book, the wound was on Zhou Zishu's arm. The drama deliberately took it up a notch and chose the more tropey version.

3. When the disguise (usually the female lead disguised as a man) is removed, the love interest can't stop staring.

Later on (ep 13) there is a scene where Zhou Zishu is trying on a fake beard that looks exactly like the ones female leads use to disguise themselves.

4. Spinning together in mid-air during a fight, the love interest's hands on the other's waist. Slow motion. Eyes firmly locked together.

Usually male lead saving the female lead. For example, there is a very similar scene between Yang Guo and Xiao Longnv from Condor Heroes. In fact, if you've seen it, you'll recognize similarities between the visual cues used for the two couples.

5. Martial siblings falling in love.

Yes, this is a common thing in wuxia. And no, it is not incest, nor does it make the dynamic any less romantic. What the hell. Martial siblings are often coded as romantic in wuxia, and there are actual examples in the show itself: Wen Kexing's parents were shixiong/shimei and Gao Xiaolian eventually married her shixiong, Deng Kuan.

6. One of them getting kidnapped (usually the female lead) by their sect/family and the love interest swooping in dramatically to save them.

And yes, riding on the same horse.

7. One of them is from an evil/unorthodox sect and it causes problems for the couple. The person is hailed as a villain and the other one challenges all of jianghu to stand by their beloved.

Their confrontation with Ye Baiyi is also a good example: Zhou Zishu defending Wen Kexing despite him being the Ghost Valley Master and choosing to die with him instead letting Ye Baiyi kill him alone. Going against the jianghu is a common trial for lovers in wuxia. Yang Guo and Xiao Longnv went through something similar as well.

8. The male lead fixing the female lead's hair and putting a hairpin on it. Then she looks at her reflection on bronze mirror. This usually happens the morning after the wedding night

This is a very blatant romance trope in guzhuang, so much that I instinctively went "they got married??" when I first saw it. A lot of us were surprised this even made it in. They even had a lingering shot of Zhou Zishu smiling at a bronze mirror!

9. Falling off a cliff together, or one falling and the other jumping in immediately to save them.

WOH gave us both versions. The first one was before they found Senior Long (which also gave us another common trope: the couple spending time in a cave while the other is injured/knocked out) and the cliff scene in the latter episodes where Zhou Zishu jumps in after Wen Kexing.

10. Dual Cultivation to save/heal the other.

Know who else cultivated in a cold place and also ended up as immortal lovers after going through trials and tribulations for each other? Yang Guo and Xiao Longnv again! (Yes, I am a big fan of Condor Heroes) arguably the most famous couple in wuxia. If you've seen the wucai bros reaction series, they all clapped and said "It's just like in Condor Heroes! They are immortal lovers!"

There is honestly a lot more, depending on how detailed you want to get. The point is that it wasn't just the flirting, the hugs, or the poetry. Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu's relationship itself was presented in the visual language of traditional wuxia romance, but this time in a love story between two men. WenZhou was written in the language of love.

Hi take my quiz please

pick some shit and I'll tell you why I like you

 i like doing small things when it makes the other person happy

*walking around between my mutuals desks* hi how are we doing over here? you guys need anything? *leans down and peeks at your posts* oh youre doing a great job with that picture! awesome job colouring :) is he a character from the cartoon you like? ohhh its called anime? well he looks so cool you did an awesome job.

that scene in cql where they are all making lanterns and lwj looks so soft simply sitting there making the lantern refusing wwx's help because he has always made them alone..when he looks at the rabbit wwx drew for him ...when he looks at wwx while he is saying his wish aloud in slow realisation and unbridled longing with his lips parting ..bro the design the direction the acting in that scene..thats cinema thats romance

My ancestors, watching me dump an entire stick of cinnamon, two cloves, an allspice berry, and a generous grating of nutmeg into my tea, sweetened with white sugar and loaded with cream, while I sit in my clean warm house surrounded by books, 25+ outfits for different occasions, and 6 pairs of shoes, in a building heated so well I have the windows open in mid-autumn:

Our daughter prospers. We are proud of her. She has never labored in a field but knows riches we could not have imagined.

We all laugh at the "Everyone is Jin Ling's Uncle" thing but can we actually talk about how the Yunmeng sibs and their various marriages/murders almost single handedly ruined the line of succession for like every sect. Jin Ling is technically the heir to two sects because Jiang Cheng refuses to get married, except that isn't really practical but who else? Wei Ying technically would be heir if he was re-acknowledged except OH WAIT he's marrying a fucking Lan, and his only kid is freaking Lan Sizhui who is, that's right you guessed it, technically in line to be leader of Gusu Lan because once again, Lan Xichen didn't have his own damn heir! And that's not even touching that he is A WEN! Which isn't public knowledge but can we talk about the fact Wei Wuxian fucked up so bad (or good??) his actions somehow led to a WEN being in line to be sect leader of GUSU LAN??? And maybe technically Yunmeng Jiang. And maybe the Wen sect if it ever somehow came back. So that's three. Best boy Lan Sizhui could pretty much lead any sect he wanted. And then there's the dumpster fire of the Nie clan line of succesion, which I think ends somewhere around Nie Mingjue's decapitated head. You can't really blame the Jiang trio for that but Nie Huaisang is definitely like two steps away from doing some weird shit like misusing that Lan Xichen was the sworn brother of the sect leader. Just throw them into the pot as well so he doesn't have to deal with it. Absolutely obsessed with the fact one of the main plot tools of period pieces has just been ripped to smithereens because almost all the dudes refuse to fuck any women.

Coming from a country with very heavily censored literature and media, and therefore has to resort to media from other regions for some form of representation and validity, I have to say it’s genuinely upsetting how some non-Chinese danmei/bl show fans are reacting to the news about censorship.

If your entire conversation about censorship in C media is centered around your inability to read your favorite book or your favorite donghua ship not holding hands for as long as you want, then honestly you are an entitled person who should consider keeping your opinions to yourself. By making this conversation about games, danmei and donghua and/or live action adaptations of those novel you are opting to shift focus from queer kids who actually live in China, now losing a form of representation and maybe being pushed further back into the closet or even lgbtq+ activists whose projects might lose traction and resources due to the heavy censorship.

You can be upset about your games, books and shows, this is not saying that it’s a bad thing. But to make a nation wide attempt at silencing queer voices about a couple of web novels and TV shows is to completely undermine the true scale of censorship laws and the effect it will have on the country’s queer community.

I’m rewatching Joy of Life because binge watching isn’t the best way to notice details, and I’m on ep40 at the part where Yan Bingyun and Fan Xian are arguing about the plan and I have two things:

1. I 💚💚 that Bingyun already believes in Fan Xian enough that he’s completely blasé about demanding that Fan Xian change his plan to kill Shen Zhong, to capturing him instead.  He’s just like “well you can just change it no big”.  And Fan Xian’s “do you think I’m a god???” is perfect lol

2. When Bingyun starts spiraling into “we should be ready to die for our country… the mission is more important than our lives”, I swear Fan Xian wants to burst out with “the emperor told me that if all else fails I have to come home alive”, but instead falls back on pretending to be selfish.  Because how is Fan Xian supposed tell that to Bingyun, who has been a prisoner undergoing torture for months, and only ended being imprisoned because Chen Pingping valued Fan Xian’s life more than his… And that, actually, even though Chen Pingping and the emperor said that they wanted Bingyun back, at baseline they still don’t care either way, as long as Fan Xian comes back.

No wonder Fan Xian would rather be misunderstood.