straw-beret - Tumblr blog

straw-beret · 8 months

Text

Qiao Ling and thoughts with flower symbolism, spoilers for both seasons

(take a shot every time I say parallel and symbolism)

with so many visuals of Qiao Ling shown with red eyes, it really makes me think that she'll be taken advantage of in s2. Whether it’s being possessed again, or a death plot device, I hate to say it, but she is the boys' strongest and weakest link

-she knows them extremely well (that Red Eyes took advantage of as we already saw in s2ep1 with the lie)

-she knows the ins and outs of the case, being around capt. xiao from the start

-she could very well best Cheng Xiaoshi in a fight or at least evenly match. When they were first taught, she seemed to have a better grasp than CXS (in the special eps!)

-proximity, she's always close to them

-the visuals in the op are too much for me to NOT raise an eyebrow. the last frame looks as if she turns her back on cxs falling. In a sense for betrayal, it seems unlikely that there's a second layer to Qiao Ling at this point-- we know she’s trustworthy, but I think the plot has more to come for her. She’s playing more of a role this season and I always get suspicious when characters are suddenly given more spotlight. the visuals in question:

This also brings meee to another point! The moment I saw her flower was the Hyacinth I was like "oh, okay," but then the s1 finale hit and I was like "Oh... ohhh. Ohhhhh.... oh no..."

If you're not familiar with the legend of Hyacinth from Greek mythology.. the parallels will start paralelling. TLDR;

-apollo fell in love with a mortal, hyacinth, who dies tragically. there are two endings to the story:

-one where apollo kills hyacinth on accident, when they were passing a discus to eachother. hyacinth thinks he can catch it, but fails to estimate apollo's strength, and dies of a head injury

-and another where zephyrus, god of the west wind, is jealous of apollo because he fancied hyacinth, so he pushes the discus with the wind into hyacinth, killing him.

-apollo tries everything, anything he can do to bring hyacinth back to life. in the end, apollo turns hyacinth’s soul into flowers (or, hyacinths), refusing to give him to death.

-BOTH of these endings reminded me all too much of our current situation and what we know right now.

-the former: not saying lg/cxs represent one or the other of apollo/hyacinth specifically, but how their situation now is made from a series of missteps and overzealousness even, by cxs and possibly lg’s past actions if the timetravelling!lg theory is true; a series of accidents that lead to tragedy when hyacinth oversteps

-the latter; where the two are with eachother, but someone has to come and fuck it up. see: the li siblings; the red eyes is fascinated w/ cxs. i think it's important that Zephyrus kills hyacinth because he couldn't have him. Almost like red eyes going crazy for cxs, obsessed w his power and shit

-ugh here’s the kicker though, hyacinths also symbolize rebirth. Apollo refused to give Hyacinth’s soul to Hades, just like how LG has (possibly) refused to give up and see CXS die in an alternate timeline, deciding to restart(?).

Back to my part one including Qiao Ling: overall, hyacinths possess a wide array of meanings, and can be color dependent, ranging from “forgive me, i’m sorry”, to jealousy, to sincerity, joy, and rebirth

The question is; why is this QL’s flower? Maybe it’s symbolism of the situation as a whole, maybe an indicator of something more underneath.

Specifically, red hyacinths represent play, or a more playful kind of love. On a surface level for her character, it can represent her joyful demeanor and dedication, especially to her 2 closest friends. At the same time, mixed with the other meanings of the hyacinth, this can even parallel to the person who possessed her- enamored with CXS to no end, twistedly playful and possessive.

Perhaps it’s symbolism for forgiveness- for what has already happened, or maybe even for what is to come, if she falls into possession again. We have yet to see Qiao Ling’s inner thoughts on the matter, and how she feels about being used to nearly kill LG.

still yet, stay tuned link clickers! anyway's here's cxs doing the fortnite dance to lift your spirits.

end notes

-Apologies if this was dreadfully obvious or smth but I just wanted to put this out there

-how many of you were familiar with the story of hyacinth and apollo?

#i love feeling vindicated by theories #the claw machines and the pacman and now the flowers....#it's all coming together #but i hope QL doesn't die or get hurt :'(

33 notes · View notes

straw-beret · 8 months

Text

what's up with the pacman machine in the link click opening?

well friends, I'm about to cobble together some information that is so irrelevant to the main plot!!

(also: i came up with this theory prior to episode 11 coming out, but when it did, it only really solidified it for me).

more under the cut :) and spoilers for the most recent episode of link click (episode 11 season 2)

if you know me from my most recent link click post, you'll know i am unnaturally obsessed with the claw machines of the season 2 opening.

But wait, what's that third machine in the middle? The yellow-ish one that's sort of dimly lit?

it's a fucking pacman arcade machine.

a pacman arcade machine that doesn't appear in the show itself.

being me, i had to go on the most unnecessary deep dive into what the hell the relevancy of this pacman machine could be. it's jammed between two of the claw machines in the intro but mysteriously absent in the episode itself. and while i don't have an explanation for THAT (if anyone has an idea, pls lmk!!), i do have some info on the game.

when you start up a game of pacman, this is the general visual you're going to get:

In my opinion, the most important thing to note is the colours of the ghosts. Notice we've got three in that box: blue, pink, and orange. And outside we have red. Do these colours happen to remind you of anything— or rather, anyone?

that's right. the link clickers are the ghosts in Pacman.

All jokes aside, I do think there's at least a bit of merit in this observation. Because red— i.e. qiao ling, is isolated from the power users.

(pink could be either of the Li twins, for convenience's sake i'm just going to assume it's Tianxi for one bit of speculation i'll explain later).

Why isolate one of the three original mains from the other two, and instead have a new character take her place?

Because, as I speculated before in my claw machine theory, qiao ling is not safe!!! in both the claw machines and Pacman, the symbol/motif associated with Qiao Ling has been positioned on the outside of the box.

Now, a character being in the box doesn't guarantee safety, you'll know this especially if you've seen the most recent ep (s2e11) and the trailer for ep12. However, it does provide something of a line of defence— i.e. the box is sort of a symbol for the fact that CXS, LG and LTX are power users.

Qiao Ling was the very first person to get possessed by red eyes, she is the most 'vulnerable' of the OG 3 in that sense. aside from her martial arts realness, she can't defend herself on a supernatural level. she no way of teleporting out of a fight like CXS or seeing into the future to predict her opponent's moves like LG could.

qiao ling, as a normie, is isolated from the power users and thus more at risk to being harmed by the enemy. For the ghosts, it's Pacman, and for the link clickers, it's this motherfucker:

crustlord of the century Qian Jin.

I think pacman is supposed to symbolise him on account of 1. the yellow eyes and 2. the fact that he's out to get basically every single one of the ghosts:

CXS

LTX

Hence why this theory works a lot better with LTX as the pink ghost instead of LTC— Tianxi betrayed QJ, and the one thing he hates most is betrayal.

I feel as though the AI patterns of the Pacman ghosts sort of align with this too:

"Each of the four ghosts has their own unique artificial intelligence (A.I.), or "personality": Blinky (Red) gives direct chase to Pac-Man; Pinky (pink) and Inky (blue) try to position themselves in front of Pac-Man, usually by cornering him; and Clyde (orange) will switch between chasing Pac-Man and fleeing from him"

"Each ghost's name gives a hint to its strategy for tracking down Pac-Man: Blinky always chases Pac-Man, Pinky tries to get ahead of him, Inky uses a more complicated strategy to zero in on him, and Clyde alternates between chasing him and running away."

^^ those two quotes are from the Pacman wikipedia page, a robust source indeed. in the first quote I put the colours of the ghosts in bold and by their proper names for reference.

If we assume Pacman is QJ and Red ghost is QL, and we remember how she bitch slapped QJ in episode 3 season 2:

I'd say that at the very least the AI behaviour + QL's actions are somewhat correlated. And i'd say that the AI behaviour of the other ghosts lines up with their respective characters, LG being strategic and CXS being a bit more chaotic in his approach. As for Xixi, well, we kind of haven't seen enough of her to say.

but "via," i hear you say, "Li Tianxi got fucking murk'd in episode 11, AND she's the one with red eyes! why isn't she the red ghost, and not qiao ling?"

I see you and I hear you. Both QL and LTX have associations with both red and pink, and in fact upon first coming up with this theory i thought LTX was the red ghost as well. But considering the placement of the Pacman machine (between the claw machines+around the rabbits, see my previous post for details on the stuffed rabbits and their relevancy) as well as official art and in-show costuming, I figured that it made more narrative sense (and theory sense) for QL to be the red ghost. Plus she's just more heavily associated with red than either of the Li twins, who are costumed in more light pastels

for reference, I put TC both in and out of drag above^^ and in his xixi cosplay, he wears almost entirely pink.

back to the theory. Qiao Ling's ghost is on the outside; and the stuffed rabbits that I'm almost positive symbolise her are piled on the outside of the claw machines. Surely this isn't a coincidence, right?

this all comes back to my theory that Qiao Ling, as the outsider of the group, the only one without powers, and the last to be informed of all the supernatural happenings, is going to meet a certain fate either by the end of s2 or around the start of s3. And I think the show has tried to set it up from the start.

Although Qiao Ling didn't become incredibly plot significant until I'd say about halfway through S1, we saw a few glimpses of her that were framed to highlight her vulnerability. Off the top of my head, I can definitely think of the horror-movie esque way s1e3 opened, where a strange man, later revealed to be Chen Xiao, approaches her from behind after appearing in a dark alley. Plus there is of course, her possession by LTC in s1e11. So from the get-go, she is framed as the odd one out of the main 3, and the most at risk.

then we get to the intro of s2, with the stuffed rabbits and the pacman machine, and it starts to come together, as stupid as that may sound. the writers are foreshadowing that something is gonna happen to Qiao Ling, and given the way everything connects, I'm of the opinion it could be death, or possibly grave injury.

that's all i've really got to say! curious as to what others might think of this, because it's all founded on the colours of a fckin Pacman game lol.

having seen the e12 trailer for s2 and qiao ling looking like she was gaining a power, I wonder how the finale is going to play out and if it will fit with the visuals and symbolism in the intro. oh well, we'll see!

also good LORD these posts take a long time to make!! let me know what you think, and also if you've got any clue as to why the Pacman machine appears in the intro but not the episode. Maybe IP reasons, although i don't see why they'd end up including it at all in the intro if copyright or IP was a concern. anyways, that's all!

#link click #shiguang dailiren #shiguang daili ren #link click season 2 #link click theory #link click s2 #qiao ling #lu guang #cheng xiaoshi #时光代理人 #link click spoilers #sgdlr spoilers #theory #speculation

23 notes · View notes

straw-beret · 8 months

Text

The significance of the claw machines in the opening of season 2

This is the first theory I've ever really posted or even MADE, and I haven't seen anyone else address it so apologies if I'm just repeating what someone else has already said; but yeah, these are just some observations I made recently, and they mostly have to do with the the intro to season 2 and how that potentially relates to the future of a rather significant main character.

More under the cut! And spoilers for season 2, if you haven't already guessed.

Every week I tune in to watch Link Click with my friends, and only at episode 10, i.e. a week ago, did i notice that in the opening, all the stuffed animals surrounding the claw machines are bunny rabbits.

It's a bit hard to see on account of the dim lighting, but I assure you that every single plush on the outside of those claw machines (and inside, at least in this shot) is a bunny rabbit. You can check the OP out on youtube if you want as well, if you want to confirm.

At first I thought, "Maybe the animators were just trying to save money on the budget!" But then I remembered that in the very next shot, we see other stuffed animal models that aren't rabbits:

This is the interior of one of the claw machines, presumably the one from episodes 4-5, and we can see 3D models of plushies such as bears and cats, alongside the rabbits of the outside.

And even in episodes 4-5, which are conversely animated in 2D, we can see there are a variety of other animals in each of the claw machines. And although the outlines aren't the clearest, it's still easy to discern they aren't ALL the same plushies as in the machine Tianxi is focused on:

From left to right as seen in the second image, I'll call each claw machine CM1, 2, and 3.

In CM2, we can see there's many different animals, majority with tails. I had a theory that they might be related to the animals of the Chinese zodiac, but you can't see them too clearly, so I'm not too sure.

CM3 isn't clear either, but the plushes/toys are definitely different to the other ones. On close inspection, I think there are bears and rabbits, but coloured red and white instead of pink, brown and greys/whites, like in CM1.

So clearly they didn't just have just one bunny plush model they had to reuse, and they put in the effort of hand drawing different plushies in the other claw machines. Plus, the budget for the intro must have been enormous— they weren't exactly pinching pennies. So why pile ONLY rabbits on the outside of the claw machines in the intro?

My theory is that it has something to do with my beloved Qiao Ling.

From the very first episode season 1, the show has set up a recurring rabbit motif in relation to Qiao Ling. We see this first in her phone case:

I put in a second photo of her phone for reference, and that one is from season 2, either episode 9 or 10.

So, bunny ears on the phone case. Big deal, probably just a fun piece of visual storytelling to add to her character— maybe she's into 'meng' culture. She's about the age to be into it, right?

Well, let's look at the chibi spinoff, Daily Life in Lighttime!

I don't think it's at the end of every episode this animal segment appears, but after the main events of each episode, we get to see the main characters as animals, doing animal things. Pretty straightforward— LG is a cat, CXS is a dog, and QL is a rabbit. Another thing connecting QL with the motif of rabbits.

In the official art by INPLICK, who did the character designs for the show, Qiao Ling is also commonly depicted with rabbits/a rabbit motif, and the boys with their respective animals as well.

On top of that, we know the show is set in 2021. Based on her character profiles, we know Qiao Ling is 22 years old, making her birth year 1999 (March 16th, if anyone cares). This makes her, you guessed it, year of the Rabbit!

So, let's tie this back to the claw machines. We've got a character who is established in show and in official art to be associated with rabbits, and we've got an abundance of rabbit plushes on the outside of the claw machines. Link Click is always very intentional with their imagery and mise en scene, this isn't an accident. So, what exactly does this mean?

My theory is that Qiao Ling will come to play a very significant role in the finale and upcoming season 3.

Initially, when me and my friend discussed this (shout out to Lara if you're reading this); we figured it might just be another reference to how Qiao Ling is metaphorically on the outside of the supernatural happenings. She is the only main character without powers, she didn't know what CXS and LG were doing with the photos, she was the first of the mains to get possessed by red eyes, who we now know are a wombo combo of Li Tianxi and Li Tianchen. But why go to such lengths to compound on something we already know?

So then I started to wonder, maybe it means she is less protected than the others? After all, she was the first to get possessed, she is the only one without any supernatural powers. I thought it might mean imminent doom for Qiao Ling— which would suck, because (and this is especially applicable if you've seen the most recent episode, i.e. s2e11) Link Click is not the best when it comes to leaving female characters alive!!!!!

It adds up— the animals on the inside of the claw machine are "safe", metaphorically and literally. They are protected by the glass (and also the impossibility of winning anything from a claw machine). But on the outside, they are up for grabs, easy to be destroyed or harmed. The claw machine ensures safety, and when you're outside the machine, nothing is guaranteed. So when we see the inside of the claw machine in the shot of that pink cat plush, i.e. the second image in this post, we see that there aren't as many rabbits in the claw machine, meaning less safety for QL.

(also if you want to strengthen that argument, that stuffed cat that liu lan and li tianxi won from the claw machine was torn apart by li fan when they got home).

((and even in the est. shot where we do see rabbits on the inside, there are much less than on the outside.))

So, Qiao Ling the outsider in this situation, who has as far as we know no powers and not much of a clue as to the supernatural happenings (and who let's be real only became plot significant recently, as much as i love her), her animal is on the outside of the claw machines. Simple.

And then the trailer for the finale of s2 dropped, and we got this lovely frame:

My friend and I thought it might be Qiao Ling's powers awakening, some others think it might be Tianxi transferring her powers to Qiao Ling. However, if you watch the rest of the trailer, you'll notice that Qiao Ling is left entirely defenseless, just sitting by Tianxi's body.

While the rest of the fight is presumably happening. These characters have guns and tasers! Why is she turning her back on them when she has no natural defenses of her own (save for those sick martial arts skills)?

Especially because Qian Jin, who has been established to want to harm QL and even rigged up a god damn BOMB to set off for when she and CXS went to retrieve LG:

Is on the scene with a gun!

I think that something bad is going to happen to Qiao Ling, the "outsider", either in the finale or in season 3. Could be death, could be a major injury, but whatever it is, it will have been foreshadowed through the stuffed rabbits and the claw machines.

kudos if you read this much lol i'm not sure if i structured my arguments well but i got really into this theory. and maybe i might make a post about the symbolism of the pacman machine in the intro as well? idk. lmk what you think!! i'd love to know if there's anything i'm missing or if there are any other interpretations to glean from this :)

#link click #shiguang dailiren #link click season 2 #link click theory #shiguang daili ren #cheng xiaoshi #qiao ling #lu guang #link click spoilers #sgdlr #sgdlr spoilers #时光代理人 #fan theory #theory #speculation

21 notes · View notes