#i know The Untamed was Ambiguous because of censorship
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is jgy different in the books than in the untamed? sorry if u haven’t read them im kind of just assuming u have even tho i haven’t lol but i was wondering if his characterization has any major differences like how wwx in novel vs untamed they sort of sanitize him and take away any culpability and honestly some of his edge. just curious if there’s any major differences in his characterization between the two
I'm not the best person to answer because I've only read the first two volumes of MDZS. Short answer: Yes, he is different, and in fact gets the reverse of WWX's treatment: Drama JGY is more overtly villainous than Novel JGY. However, IMO it's a little more complicated than that!
(Novel enjoyers, please chime in if I'm forgetting or misrepresenting anything.)
A lot of JGY fans greatly prefer the novel and feel that The Untamed did him dirty, because a lot of the show's plot changes that make WWX look better make JGY look worse. Jin Zixuan's death is the most glaring one: in the novel, WWX really does lose control of WN because he overestimates his abilities, and it's a tragic accident. JGY and SMS's implied involvement in the Massacre at Nightless City also doesn't happen in the novel; that, too, was a devastated WWX wreaking havoc and/or losing control. The novel also establishes that JGY is subject to abuse within Jinlintai, so there's an element of duress that one can read into his actions under JGS. Novel NMJ behaves more aggressively towards JGY than he does in the show, so his murder doesn't have the same tinge of malice. (The novel timeline also has JGY and LXC meeting before JGY and NMJ, all during Sunshot, so there's that.) Additionally, the novel tells us that JGY is genuinely a very good leader once he's Chief Cultivator and has implemented policies that have improved the lives of regular people and contributed to political stability. We're also told more about his childhood and his love for his mother, and we learn that his relationship with QS is a tragic love story (he doesn't know they're related until after she's pregnant) rather than something he went through with anyway. So in the novel, he's got a lot of positive things going for him that censorship didn't allow to carry over into the show for fear of having too much moral ambiguity.
HOWEVER!!!
The thing about the novel (and why I don't vibe with it as much) is that it's very much WWX's story, whereas The Untamed spends wayyyyy more time with its supporting cast. You might've noticed that I said the word "told" a lot in the above paragraph, because... well, that's what happens. We're told things about JGY, but we don't see him as much, especially since the novel is focused on the post-timeskip era with the stuff in the past coming through non-linear flashbacks. You don't get to see Meng Yao being Just A Little Guy very much before he becomes the Kitten Thinks About Nothing But Murder All Day meme. Now, you also don't hear dramatic music telegraphing HEY!!! HEY!! VILLAINY IS AFOOT!! HEY!!! every time JGY does literally anything, but you do have everything filtered through WWX's unreliable narrator monologue, and he is out there saying some truly wild shit. (You also get less Xiyao. Like, it's there if you want it to be, but The Untamed really went all-in on that.)
For me, the show works better, because I am a sucker for corruption arcs where you see glimpses of the character before they start the atrocities. Seeing him be Just A Little Guy making the saddest meow meow faces when people were mean to him kept me from totally losing sympathy for/interest in him once things start getting squicky, because I had evidence that he wasn't always like that. Meanwhile, JGY's first big scene in the novel is the confrontation with QS (which already makes my skin crawl and is somehow WORSE in novel form), and I was just like "wow, this guy sucks" even though I knew the story and all the extenuating circumstances already. For others, the novel works better, because "first impressions and society's opinion are unreliable" is a major theme, so the reverse reveal combined with the fact that he demonstrably tries to improve people's lives as a leader is less expected and more satisfying.
So yeah! JGY is different, but the ways in which he is different are due to storytelling methods as well as to plot changes!
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Hi Shan!
I hope you're doing well and thank you for all your metas and recs. They are always such a great read!
I have realised that I am quite anxious about currently airing shows not sticking the landing (IFYLITA mostly, I only seem to care about this one recently). You may have previously written about it(?), but which dramas (BL or otherwise), do you think have the most satisfying endings?
Oh, and bonus question, do you have an ending that you approve of, was really good and all, but you would never ever rewatch it because of *too many feels*?
Hey Kat! Thanks for the ask. I totally get the fear of a bad ending, it has soured many a drama experience, and sometimes it really does take you off guard. I feel like when most dramas end I'm just happy if the ending doesn't retroactively ruin anything, let alone it actually being meaningfully good. I had to think about this for a minute, but I do think there are some dramas where the ending is so good it actually enhances the overall story and watch experience.
First, a few that I would classify as having really lovely happy endings that feel very well-earned after lots of pain and strife
My Lovely Sam Soon
This drama is a classic from 2005, and it caught me off guard with how invested I got. It's a pretty standard romcom about a quirky "fat" (*stares into the camera*) woman who gets hired by a chaebol restaurant owner. They start out adversarial before eventually falling in love, with the hero working through his surprising feelings for this woman who does not fit his image of his ideal partner and the heroine overcoming her own body image and self-esteem issues. Sounds basic, right? But something about it just works. At the end, the heroine sings a love song to her beau with her terrible singing voice while he looks on adoringly, and something about it was just so touching that I actually burst into tears.
My Mister
One of my favorite endings of any drama ever. Our heroine Ji An has been through it, and via a platonic relationship with her older boss, she gets the support she needs to turn her life around. I spent half of this drama white knuckling in fear that they would try to turn the relationship romantic, but they stayed true to the purpose of this narrative. Instead of a romance, we end with the two of them running into each other on the street after a time skip. They meet eyes, he sees that she is happy and well and they just smile gently at each other. Perfection.
The Untamed
Possibly a controversial pick, given that this is significantly altered from the novel, which has a much better resolution to the romance. But given the constraints this adaptation was under and the need to keep the relationship ambiguous for censorship reasons, I think this show did a remarkable job of getting the romance across. This ending where they meet again on a hillside, Lan Wangji calls his name, Wei Wuxian turns and we see a smile slowly light his face up is absolutely beautiful and a very romantic note to leave us on.
This second group of endings are more bittersweet resolutions, but ones I thought really added to the poignancy of the stories and made the relationships feel all the more epic
Bad Buddy
Something that always surprises me about the way people talk about BBS is they often seem to...forget that the ending is actually really fucking sad? I guess because the couple is together and still happy with each other, folks overlook the deep melancholy of the circumstances under which they are able to maintain their relationship. So let me remind you! Pat and Pran are in a long distance relationship, they are still not out to anyone but their closest friends, and they are forced to put on a charade in front of their families so everyone can carry on pretending. They are still hiding, their family relationships are irreparably altered, and we know it's a constant strain on them. It's a perfect bittersweet note to drive home the serious sacrifices they are making in the name of filial piety even as they refuse to give each other up.
Crash Landing on You
Switzerland, the true MVP of this story. Se Ri and Jung Hyeok do not have the option of simply choosing one of their home countries to live in together, and both have obligations they cannot abandon at home. And so in the end they settle for being mostly apart, taking time together in neutral territory as often as they can manage. Is it enough? No, but it's better than moving on from each other.
Goblin
This story is a tragedy and it stuck to its guns on that while also finding a way to give the characters (and the viewers) some kind of happiness to hang onto. Shin is doomed to live forever and watch Eun Tak die over and over again, but at least he also gets to meet and be with her before each death. Him meeting her again in her second life, with the looming knowledge that he will outlive her again and be left alone, is a perfect combination of joyful and mournful, very appropriate for this story.
I Promised You the Moon
One of my favorite romance endings ever, because it does what the genre rarely allows in acknowledging that the couple may not, in fact, stay together forever, and that's okay. Oh-Aew decides to take Teh back because he wants to be with him and he hopes they may be better equipped to deal with their issues in the future, not because he feels confident things will not go wrong again. In fact, he directly acknowledges that they probably will. It's a very mature resolution and a fitting end to a coming of age story.
Someday or One Day
This time travel story ends with the leads deciding to break the loop they have been living in, sacrificing their romantic relationship in the process. It's a brave and selfless choice made to protect others, and the narrative rewards them by giving them some hope of another path to each other in the future. We leave them meeting again at a different time with a significant age gap and no memory of each other, and a hope that they will find a way to each other in this new reality.
These next two kind of stand on their own as unique, as I have not seen other dramas that pull off what their endings do
The Glory
The best thing about this drama is that it's a revenge story where the revenge is fully carried out, no one is given unearned redemption, and every character gets exactly what they deserve. That probably shouldn't be revelatory, but in my experience, it is! Asian dramas love to hand out unearned redemption to villainous characters, but this drama was simply Not. Having. It. It was such a satisfying watch.
Utsukushii Kare
The ending of this one pulled off the neat trick of reframing everything that came before it, flipping the perspective so that nothing about previous events actually changed, but our understanding of what it all meant was turned on its head. This is a difficult writing trick that requires deep understanding of your characters' psychology and full command of every detail of your story, and it was incredibly impressive. It instantly turned it into one of my all-time favorites.
Bonus question: Dramas with endings that were fantastic, but that made me never want to watch again because of the feels
I had to think on this one a bit because I actually really enjoy getting into my feelings over dramas and regularly torture myself by rewatching sad shit. But I did come up with two dramas that I probably won't ever watch again for different reasons: The Red Sleeve and Secret Love Affair. With TRS, it's rooted in a specific kind of pain that I found quite brutal as a viewer: the total denial of any moment of happy catharsis, which was an intentional and appropriate choice to underline its message. This is a love story that the heroine did not want or choose, and so she never gives in and embraces it, and neither can we. The show refuses to romanticize the concubine life and I respect it, but boy was it hard to watch.
With SLA, it's more a matter of the anxiety it provokes. That drama was, hands down, the most stressful watch experience of my life, even more than thrillers that are intentionally trying to stress me out! The romance is actually super compelling but you can't relax for a moment because everything is on a knife's edge. And the ending was not at all happy, but somehow still managed to feel like a breath of fresh air for both the heroine and us, because we finally escaped that confining dynamic she was trapped in. A perfect ending to a brilliant drama and also a watch experience I am not looking to repeat.
#bad buddy#crash landing on you#the untamed#goblin#the glory#utsukushii kare#i promised you the moon#someday or one day#drama recs#drama endings#thanks again for the ask!#i do love an excuse to ramble about my favorite dramas#shan answers#shan recommends
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I found your blog while watching for love's sake splendid drama and nice commentary from you I saw you watch chinese shows and I have a question am I dumb or because why are they so frustrating I don't know if it's because I'm used to japanese ones where there isn't much romance and this is how romance is written these days or is this a cultural thing because why every one of these I watch has such weird romantic relationships where this dude is breaking his back for her from day 1 and this dudette is out here acting like he's number 5 on her priority list?
yaassss Love for Love's Sake representation. I will never rest from reccing that drama 👏👏 you clearly are NOT dumb & have great taste 😘
for cdramas, my beloved, in my experience of watching in recent years is that there is such a wide breadth of genres & tones. There is just SO MUCH. Definitely chinese entertainment has its own tropes and way of portraying romance. And you either like or you don't. But there are many different flavors. If you feel like you were seeing the same dynamic repeatedly, it may have been bad luck.
If you prefer minimal romance, there are definitely options for that in cdramas! There are mystery/investigation dramas and wuxia martial arts dramas with little to no romance. Because of censorship the gay romances naturally are circumspect and light on the romance (see: The Untamed, Couple of Mirrors, Word of Honor, Spirealm, Guardian). Since you like Love for Love's Sake, I'd rec The Spirealm on Viki - also queer love story about a guy who enters a video game and the people he meets there become real to him; though warning it IS censored and that means the ending is more ambiguous. I can't promise you'll like it. (Semantic Error and Eighth Sense are my other 2 fav korean gay romances btw. )
There are also cdramas that do include romance but in terms of screen time the romance is like 30% of scenes and the plot & character arcs are 70% of scenes. Like in Blossoms in Adversity that I'm watching now, yeah there is most definitely romance but the FL/ML romance scenes compromise like 25% of the overall screen time. It's about way more than who she might marry.
But also in terms of cultural differences? hmm idk because I'm not chinese. I really should NOT speak like I understand their PoV. From an outsider's perspective, I have felt like there are many cdramas with overtly feminist themes - commentary about restrictions on women, the challenges of navigating through a society that can be unfair and entrenched with misogyny. (I joke and yet not that chinese entertainment seems to have 3 propaganda drums that it beats: nationalism/unification, anti-war, and feminism.) It's certainly a fact that many cdramas feature female characters that fall in love but they maintain other priorites & don't let themselves be subsumed in devotion to a man. They have romance & find love but "keep their eye on the prize."
My best guess (??) about this is that it's a rebellion against old cultural mores about women's role being subserviant to father then husband, when during imperial times a woman was expected to prioritze her husband and his family above her own wants, health, and happiness. (It was immoral to be jealous or not follow direction from the man.) Modern chinese screenwriters, both men and women, appear to be writing for an audience that will respect & support the idea of a woman who has her own agenda and maintains focus on her goals despite her love for the ML. Perhaps because this is viewed as moving away from "old thinking". idk.
I presume the target audience in china for romance dramas simply doesn't worry so much that the ML is getting loved enough & aren't as sensitive to thinking he might be at a disadvantage... They're aware society is already set up to his advatange & for much of history he would have all the power in the relationship. (He might bend now and be giving it his all, but the audience knows he can tap into more power & control at will. if she gives up control & her goals, it will be harder for her to recover & reclaim status/money/power compared to him. There are dramas I've seen that pretty much explicitly state that FL wants to earn her own status and money that is hers, thru her own efforts, not lent by him - not prestige or wealth that comes through him and thus could be taken away).
Personally I don't view this as unromantic, just the practical realities of existing in a patriarchal society. (cdramas can hit different imo because they can be blunt about how people operate based on self-interest & pettiness, the realities of classism, the ugliness of rumors, how judgmental people can be about appearances, how you can't always get justice when wronged. Reminds me of the Discworld books that were very frank about how the common people commonly are. It's not saying: this is how people should be; it's saying: this is how things are, the bitterness of life, but you can still find sweetness & meaning within it)
There's another aspect: some cdramas have male protagonists (e.g. Mysterious Lotus Casebook, Blood of Youth, League of Nobleman, Eternal Brotherhood) and some have female protagonists. If you're watching a female protagonist, as the protagonist her priorities & goals are the story driver. So her love interest will take a back seat to that even though it's a romance. He's a support role - his job in the story is to break his back for the protagonist. (A Journey to Love is an example where ML and FL share the protagonist role & you can see that in how things play out, how they each have separate priorities that don't get dropped for love.)
At the end of the day, there are plenty of cdrama romances where I ship it hard and feel a mutual love & devotion between the couple. My fav flavor is where both FL and ML have their own strengths and can be counted on to support each other. I'm not keeping score on who owes who, and neither are they.
But it's all not gonna to be to everyone's taste and that's fine. :) When it comes to international tv, if we enjoy content from other countries then it's our good luck. But if we don't...well, it wasn't made for us. That's ok.
#fandom meta#meta#emphasizing again that i really REALLY cannot speak for the people making cdramas or their target audience#i am just lucky as an international viewer to get to watch them#and clap along to the unhinged web novel adaptions yaaaaayyyyyy
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Well, ladypfenix seems to have blocked me, which is a shame because I adore her stuff about morality in MDZS and would love to read more from her. But before blocking me she reblogged my post and I just wanted to defend myself against some of the things I'm accused of.
For the record this is the post, which I can't reblog because of being blocked.
I keep saying things about what I personally like and people keep interpreting that as me saying that my preferences are objectively better or that I think gay stories are better when they're sexless and subtextual, which is not what I'm saying at all.
(And yeah I'm probably missing some context, but expecting everyone in a fandom to have read every post people make in order to Have All The Context is unrealistic. There are new people joining this fandom all the time with no context whatsoever and it'd be nice if they didn't immediately get attacked for daring to express an opinion.)
As for Wangxian, of course I don't prefer for them to be best friends instead of husbands. I have read many an E rated fanfic about them on Ao3. People accusing me of just wanting sanitized queer stories where nobody has sexual desire are missing the mark. But I do get turned off by things like their first kiss being nonconsensual. "I just couldn't help myself, I had to kiss the guy even though he didn't know who I was" is NOT what I'm looking for in a fictional love interest. The Lan Wangji of The Untamed seems like he wouldn't do that, so I was more drawn to him than the version in the novel.
And yeah, I do think book Wei Wuxian is pretty oblivious. He catches up fast once he realizes what's going on, but as evidenced by the fact that he tells Jiang Cheng that he and Lan Wangji are "just friends" when they're at Lotus Pier near the end of the story, he doesn't realize what's going on for quite a long time. Yeah, there are reasons for that, but again, it's not what I prefer in a romance. And the trope of one person being oblivious while the other is pining is one MXTX seems to like - I'm reading SVSSS now and Shen Qingqiu is similarly unaware of how Luo Binghe feels about him for most of the novel. (And even when he does realize it, I have some trouble buying that he's attracted to Luo Binghe in return.) (Obviously Shen Qingqiu LOVES Luo Binghe, but I've been reading him as gray-ace and I don't think I'm alone in that headcanon.)
Another trope she seems to like is one where the first time the couple has sex is painful for one of them, and I just really don't like that. This DOESN'T mean I think she's wrong to write it or that people who do like it are wrong to like it, just that it's not my thing!
I prefer it when fictional couples both want to kiss each other, and when they take their time and make sure nobody is hurting when they have sex (and use lube). Preferring those things doesn't make me anti-sex or anti-gay. But I was disappointed by those scenes when I read the book, while I wasn't expecting the show to give me any sex scenes at all, so it didn't disappoint me in that sense. (I was disappointed by the show's ending where they separate, but it was ambiguous enough not to bother me too much.)
Anyway. I think the show is remarkably good for how much they had to cut out of the book in order to fit the censorship guidelines, which makes me wonder how much better it could have been if they didn't have to adhere to those. But I do think there's a romance there and it's a romantic show. Subtext isn't text, true, but it's also not nothing. The people making the show clearly knew they were adapting a romance, and the relationship between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji is the heart of the show.
Anyone who thinks the part with "the feeling of sticking to the single log bridge is indeed not bad" isn't a romantic scene because they don't explicitly get together later... I just do not get that. (Some people have even pinpointed the part in the show where they are implied to get together - it's in episode 43 - and yeah it's not explicit, but it's there if you look for it.)
Anyway now that I'm blocked by half the fandom I'll go back to shutting up, at least until the next time I get it into my head to Have Opinions, which is clearly not allowed around here.
#mdzs#the untamed#book vs show fight fight fight#fandom drama#i can't seem to stop pissing people off in this fandom#which sucks because i just want to like the things i like and talk to other people who like those things#and instead i get people attacking me for saying what i like#and then i feel like shit for several days#whee!
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Your post about romance was so spot on and this is from someone who really likes reading romances some of the time. I just wish there were more books where friendships (which after all make up the majority of people's relationships!!) were given the same weight and importance as romance gets unthinkingly. Like, I want books or fic which show the development of two (or more) new friends *as the plot and main part of the book*, and the same thing for the progression of pre-established friendship.
Human relationships are varied and complex and interesting and limiting writing to mainly concerning romantic or dating ones is infuriating! I enjoy reading character driven stuff, which is why I like some romances but I really want to see similarly detailed deep studies of friendship. Friendships are so important, and romantic relationships do not supersede them. Obviously there is gendered bias against romance as a genre but that is not the only reason to be uninterested in romance damnit!
Sorry for ranting in your inbox about romance and thanks for the post
Hah thank and welcome. Very true!
Yeah, the problem is not just how ubiquitous romance is but the inevitability of it. So many people are so much in the habit of hanging their emotional investment on ‘couples getting together’ that not putting one in is a risk, as a creator, and the faint suggestion of a possibility that a romance might eventuate between two characters constitutes a promise that the audience will be outraged to see not followed through.
So making a story focus at all on a relationship between two people who are considered valid potential romantic partners means having to go through incredible backflips and contortions as a writer to get away with not pairing them up, or there will be outrage. There will be outrage anyway, but hopefully on a contained scale that doesn’t have people throwing your book away.
(The easiest way, of course, is to give one or both of them an alternate partner, but then you either have to build up that relationship as the central focus instead, because you aren’t allowed to love anyone that much and not be romantically involved or be romantically involved For Real with anyone but whoever you love most, or accept that you’ve plastered on a beard of some kind in a way that at this point makes your main duo look even more romantic to people who are looking for that in the first place, even if it lets you write a plot that doesn’t acknowledge this.)
This has contributed enormously to the cultural truism ‘men and women can’t be friends.’ They aren’t allowed to be. And this weird intense romantic pressure is now increasingly extending to same-sex friendships, and it’s like...it’s good that gay visibility and acceptance are growing! That’s great!
But it means that all relationships are increasingly exposed to this honestly fucked up set of expectations. That every single love of any intensity is romantic and probably sexual. That that’s the only love that’s real, or that really matters. With occasional exemptions carved out for parents.
And that’s cultural, I want to say. The inclusion of and an interest in the romantic lives of characters in fiction is definitely natural and practically inevitable, but the outsize role it occupies in our current media culture is abnormal and totally non-compulsory. The central role of romance in so much of narrative is just...a pattern, a narrative schema that currently holds sway, born of an assortment of historical accidents and trends, and I don’t think it’s a good one.
I think it would be better for us as a culture and all our individual relationships for that particular social construct to be broken down.
Because this cultural obsession with The Romance in media mirrors and continually recreates the obsession with The Romance in real life. You know how many people are making themselves miserable by either being in a relationship predicated on the need to have one, any one, rather than actual mutual affection, or about not having a love interest currently at any given moment?
Like, quite separately from the actual frustrated romantic feelings themselves, people feeling like they are less or failures or just...unfinished somehow, because they don’t have a romantic partner. It’s so harmful and absurd! We all know this!
And there are of course a lot of sociological factors that have led to that point as well, but it’s linked particularly closely I think to the atomization of modern society.
You’re not likely to retain any particular community for long--we move around so much over the course of our lives, anything you have is designed to be taken apart. School friends are only rarely retained after school, work friends are only until you get a new job, family is quite often something to be avoided or something you have to leave behind, and not usually an extended network anymore anyway.
We are always moving into new contexts, or knowing we might be moved, and holding onto relationships from one context into another is generally regarded as an unusual feat betokening particular, though not lionized, devotion, and leaning on these relationships ‘too much’ or pursuing them with ‘too much’ energy is regarded with deep suspicion.
This, too, is not particularly normal in the human experience. We are not psychologically designed for this level of impermanence. And we have developed very few structures as a culture thus far to make up for it, which is why the modern adult is so famously, dangerously lonely.
But we have all these social protocols for acquiring a person and holding onto them. A person who’s just yours, all yours, who it is promised will fulfill all those gaping needs all by themselves, and if they don’t it’s because you or they are wrong, and need either a different partner or fixing.
The fact that this is insane and not how romance works over 90% of the time is irrelevant to the dream of it, and the dream overwhelms and controls the reality. I agree that codependency is really fucking romantic, and having a kind and supportive mutual one is a lovely fantasy! It’s just...
A lot of harm eventuates from pursuing this fantasy in reality with a media-based conviction that it is 1) a reasonable thing to expect and 2) a necessary precondition for wellbeing and worthiness.
But we have poured so much cultural freight and need into this one single relationship format. At this point having need in any other direction is regarded as disordered and suspect and probably a misdirected application of sexual desire.
The law, too, has put a lot of energy into supporting the focus on seeking the romance as life goal, because the nuclear family is built on the codependent marriage, and capitalism likes the nuclear family very much. The nuclear family is extremely vulnerable to market pressures and bad at collective action, and tends to produce new tiny humans whose main social outlet has been within the school system, which is specifically structured to condition you to accept abusive workplace conditions as a normal precondition of existence, and not to attempt too much intimacy.
Ahem. Spiraled there. But! It’s all connected! Many of the privileges piled onto the institution of marriage were put there specifically because the nuclear family was considered desirable for the expansion of the economy. That’s clearly documented historical fact.
So yeah, the modern cultural obsession with the romance is a symptom of collective emotional disorder, and it chugs along at the expense of the more complex emotional support infrastructures most of us need and deserve.
It’s not just about me wanting representation, wanting an image in the narratives of my culture where I can see myself with the potential for happiness. Everyone needs this. We learn so much about how to be, how to relate to others, from media at this point, since the school system and other weird age-hierarchy stuff keeps us largely segregated from human society for a majority of our growing years and limits our exposure to live examples.
So the paucity of in-depth explorations of friendship, of mutual support, of widespread narrative acceptance that you can have a good life without a romance as its central support pillar, is harmful to people in general.
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It’s funny, I get frustrated about this periodically, when a piece of media lets me down, or even when I’m following along a funny piece of meta and then the punchline is ‘and the ace character is obviously in denial about how they’re already dating their favorite person’ or whatever.
(The meta is annoying on a surface level and distressing on a deeper level because it’s a threat; so many times a good platonic relationship will buckle under public pressure and it doesn’t matter how asexual, how uninterested in romance, how emphatically platonic the affection has been established as being, The Romance arrives in the next installment of the story because it’s what people expect. Which reinforces the general perception that any other love is illegitimate, lesser, and as soon as it’s meant to be taken seriously it has to be crammed into that one valid shape, and invalidates future insistences in the same mode.
Seriously people stop doing this, we long since reached the point where a character saying in words ‘I have no romantic interest in [person]’ is perceived as a glaring neon sign that they’re destined to get together and that does not do good things for fostering a culture of consent. Obviously people are in denial sometimes but it should not be understood to be the rule.)
But I don’t get upset about it until someone starts in with reasons I’m bad and wrong for not liking these norms.
Like, whatever, media does not cater to my needs, I’ll cope, but when people start trying to get in my head and make me not only responsible for my own discomfort that I’m managing thanks but dishonest and malevolent I...get upset. There’s history there, okay.
‘You don’t care about this ship because you’re homophobic’ ‘you don’t want a love interest in the sequel because you’re racist’ ‘you don’t like romance in stories because you’re a misogynist’ fucking stop.
And occasionally it’s like ‘i guess you have the right to feel that way but how dare you talk about it where other people might hear’ which...well, is particularly common and particularly ironic in the context of people hung up on gay representation.
If we as a society had a healthy relationship with romance, there wouldn’t be negative side effects to that crowd’s pursuit of their worthy goal of applying that schema in places it has been Forbidden, but as it is we don’t, and there are.
#aromanticism#romance#society#social constructs#i throw salt#on a related note#i know The Untamed was Ambiguous because of censorship#but i was still enjoying not being able to tell dammit#you can ALWAYS tell normally#and that's so boring#people complain less about getting fake foreshadowing about who the murderer was than about not knowing who's interested in who#and who has a real shot with their target#being forced to be ambiguous was making those actors bring their A game#so i still wish i could have watched it play out without spoilers#because it's SO RARE that you can't immediately tell which way a story intends itself to be read on that front#and it was such a nice change#and i have legitimately cried several times over the loss of the joy i was getting out of that relationship not being so fucking dull#because like it's still fun and well done and stuff but it's not INTERESTING#i didn't even realize how much i was missing that until i briefly had it and it was taken away#so now i get sad a lot when i think about it#and it sucks that the forms for including romance in our media are so formalized#that the only way to get that realistic unclear coalescence of emotional energies#is by writing a romance and being forced to lie about it#a nonny mouse#ask#hoc est meum
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hello! Maybe I am missing something but how in the world was the team able to film/release the WoH special episode? Most of the C-Dramas I have seen were either not happy ends (Guardian) or quite vague (Untamed) so to see an obvious happy ending was so refreshing. <3
hi! well, that’s a bit of a mystery tbh aksjsjjs
i mean. i think they were able to film the special episode because that was the ending that the woh crew had planned from the start. you can notice by all the changing lines and how the “official” ending is so abrupt and weird. the actor who plays the scorpion king even said that they had to go with that ambiguous ending, otherwise they couldn’t air the show so they were probably obligated to do That with ep 36 to fully pass the censorship.
now, how was youku able to release it anyways? that is truly a mystery to me because it technically defeats the purpose of the official ending?
censorship: sorry youku but wen kexing has to go
youku: sure, he has to go… TO THE MOUNTAIN WITH HIS MAN WHERE THEY’LL BE IMMORTAL HUSBANDS HELL YEAH 🌈🌈🌈🌈🥳🥳🥳🥳
and youku absolutely does not consider ep 36 ending the official one either? because they have bts videos of ep 37 on their youtube channel and even the woh concert trailer had zhou zishu and wen kexing saying things about living on the mountain together.
hell, our official fandom name is mountain people!
youku does not give a flying fuck and we love every moment of it but how are they able to get away with all of this? i wouldn’t know.
sorry ❤️💙
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So you’re done with The Untamed and want more, what now?
Reposting this since I’ve updated it with new info/links. Again, I entered the fandom via The Untamed so I’m by no means a MDZS expert, just tried my best gathering all the resources I can which I hope will help some new Untamed/MDZS fan out there. If you spot any errors, don’t yell at me, just let me know and I’ll correct it as best I can, especially for any future reposts.
READ THE NOVEL
Read the original web novel the show was based on: The Untamed (aka “CQL” or “Chen Qing Ling”) was adapted from the BL web novel, Mo Dao Zu Shi (aka ”MDZS” or Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation) by author Mo Xiang Tong Xiu (”MXTX”). Yes the novel came first, CQL is only an adaptation. In the novel, you get the uncensored romance of Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, where they are canonically married and living happily ever after. The novel goes full into R18 territory so please tread carefully.
All four volumes of the novel can be purchased from the original publishing site, JJWXC. The site’s in chinese but here’s a tutorial on how to navigate it and purchase the books: JJWXC Tutorial Link.
There’s also the option of purchasing the physical copies from Yesasia which might be easier but it’s also more expensive since they’re the middle man: Yesasia MDZS Link
It would be wonderful if you can support MXTX-laoshi by actually buying the books, especially since the cover art is so beautiful and the extra chapter volumes come with a lot of awesome extra goodies, but of course there’s also the option of reading the fan translations graciously provided by the Exiled Rebels Scanlations team at their site:
They translated all the novels including the bonus chapters in their own free time and are providing the fanslations for free so please give them some love for all their hard work.
WATCH THE ANIME (aka “Donghua” in Chinese)
Watch the anime based on the novel: The donghua was released before The Untamed. Two seasons are already available (23 eps total) with a third season in production and a special chibi version of the donghua in production as well. The Eng-subbed donghua can be seen using the WeTV app or on Youtube: YT MDZS Donghua Playlist
Grant it, the donghua is even more censored than The Untamed, but the donghua team still managed to sneak in some easter eggs (f.e. WangXian naked bathing scene in the cold springs from the novel...in The Untamed they were fully clothed) and more importantly, the animation is just gorgeous so it’s absolutely worth a watch despite the censorship.
READ THE MANGA (aka “Manhua” in Chinese)
Read the manhua which is ongoing and is being officially translated by WeComics, available on their app for free. Search under the name “Mo Dao Zu Shi”.
Unfortunately, the official translations are more than 20 chaps behind the raws and there have been complaints about the quality of the translations in the past, but I believe they’re starting to improve so since they’re official, it’s always better to support the official source.
The raw untranslated manhua can be found on the Kuaikanmanhua app. Other than being in Chinese, some of the chapters (f.e. the most recent ones) are behind a paywall, but here’s a tutorial on how to purchase the chapters, provided by @chiharuzushi on Twitter: Kuaikanmanhua Tutorial
The chapters are quite cheap...I purchase 1000 KK coins for 10 rmb ($0.14) and each chapter is only 68 KK coins so even if we end up with 500 chapters it’ll still be...er...quite cheap overall (don’t make me do the actual math). The most painful part is figuring out how to set up the Kuaikanmanhua account, but otherwise, if you can read Chinese or know enough of the story by now that you don’t really need to read the words, the manhua is definitely worth reading because it’s less censored than The Untamed and the donghua.
LISTEN TO THE AUDIO DRAMA
Listen to the audio drama, which is at this point the most faithful and LEAST censored adaptation of the novel we will probably ever get! Wei Ying’s voice actor in The Untamed is the voice actor for his audio drama counterpart. (Yes, almost everyone in The Untamed is dubbed by a voice actor, EXCEPT for Nie Huaisang. Ji Li, the actor for NHS, was the only one who used his own voice. Lan Zhan in The Untamed shares the same voice actor as his character in the donghua).
Each episode art of the audio drama is AMAZING. Google Translate works well on the site, you’d want to see the listeners’ comments cuz they’re just adorable and hilarious.
Official links on Maoer FM:
Season 1: Maoer FM S1 Link
Season 2: Maoer FM S2 Link
Season 3: Maoer FM S3 Link
The audio drama was supervised by MXTX-laoshi, the author of the novel, so a lot of love and care went into the production, and it shows. The audio drama is behind a paywall but I remember it’s relatively inexpensive. Here’s the tutorial on how to purchase the audio drama from the Maoer FM site: Maoer FM Tutorial Link
Ngl, it was tough at first navigating all that, Google translate helped, but once I figured it out, it was all so worth it because in addition to the MDZS, the site houses a lot of other wonderful audio dramas. There are also MDZS fan songs on the site that are near professional quality and oh so good.
Suibian Subs have kindly translated the episodes and their translations are available here: Suibian Subs MDZS Audio Drama
Show them some love too for translating the episodes, but please if you can, purchase the episodes so you can support the audio drama team which have done an amazing job.
There’s even a Japanese audio drama which the Chinese AD team helped spearhead, available on the MIMI FM app. Here’s a tutorial on how to purchase the eps (half of the first season is out): MIMI FM Tutorial
It’s in Japanese but just follow the pictures. I’m hoping that the Japanese audio drama will end up being the MOST uncensored version of MDZS since Japanese BL dramas are not afraid (and allowed) to go all the way to R18. XD
MORE THE UNTAMED CONTENT
Lastly, if you’re just thirsting for more Untamed content, there are two spin-off movies you can watch. The first one, The Living Dead, is kind of centered on Wen Ning and Sizhui post-CQL.
The second one, Fatal Journey, is focused on the Nie brothers, Nie Mingjue and Nie Huaisang, with a cameo by Jin Guangyao. It takes place prior to Wei Ying’s return from the dead.
Of the two movies, I definitely recommend Fatal Journey more. Both movies are available on the iQiyi app, which offers a one month free trial for first members. Each month afterwards for VIP is $6.99.
You can also go on the WeTV app for even more Untamed extras: WeTV put out a special edition cut of the show which tightened up the story AND features the original ending that was intended before censorship forced the production team to come up with the more ambiguous one we saw in its original run. It was a simple matter of rearranging certain scenes and getting rid of the separation part, but imho it really made all the difference to the ending.
There’s a ton of behind-the-scene cuteness that you can watch and also concerts with the cast in Thailand and Nanjing. VIP subscription to the WeTV app is $5.99/month and the Nanjing concert is for rent for 3 months at about the same price.
The show also put out two official soundtracks, one for the vocals and one for the score. Both are available on Amazon and iTunes. For Amazon though, you can search under “The Untamed” but they did this weird thing where the vocals one is listed as “The Untamed (Chinoiserie Music Album)” (wtf) while the score is just listed as “The Untamed (Original Soundtrack)”.
Finally, most of the male members of the cast took part in a fan meet and greet at the start of the show, before it became hugely popular. The entire meet and greet is available on youtube subbed: The Untamed Fan Meeting
That’s it for The Untamed and MDZS. If you end up liking the novel enough to want to read more by the same author, MXTX-laoshi has also written two other BL novels, The Scum Villain Self-Saving System (aka “SVSSS” or “Scum Villain”) and Heaven’s Official Blessing (aka “TGCF” after its Chinese title). Both have been fully translated by fans (but always try to buy the original if you have the means, as a way to support the author!):
SVSSS Translation: BC Novels Link
TGCF Translation chaps 1 - 24: Sakhyulations Link
TGCF Translation chaps 25 - End: Suika & Rynn Link
As with reading any BL novel (aka “danmei novel” for Chinese BL books), please heed the warnings and if it’s not your cup of tea, just exit out of the page and move on with your life. No big deal, right?
Anyway, hope all this info dump helps someone! If you’re brand spanking new to this fandom, welcome, and I’m so jealous of you! Would love to relive stepping into the world of MDZS/MXTX/danmei novels all over again since I feel like I’m already running out of stuff to read and I’m beginning to panic a little.
Happy watching/reading/listening!
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I’ve noticed that there are some who seem to think that the creators of Chén Qíng Lìng/The Untamed actually sat there and said “hey this story is cool but let’s take out all that gay nonsense and moral ambiguity, yuck!”
And I don’t know about anyone else but, having seen the behinds the scenes stuff and hearing what the director and the actors and others have said about it, and seeing how much everyone involved with the project cared so much about it, it is absolutely clear to me that this wasn’t the case at all. To me, it is clear that what actually happened was the creators sat there and said “this story is beautiful and I know it’s going to be a huge challenge because our creative hands are tied by the government, but I still want to try to bring this to life and share it with people”.
I admit that I watched it first, without any context, having no idea what I was getting into and maybe that has colored my view of it a little. (I have since read and loved the book and the donghua and Manhua). But do you know what my overall impression of it was after I finished the last episode?
Y’all, I was FULLY aware that I had just watched one of the most beautiful, heartrendingly breathtaking and poetic homosexual romances I’d ever seen in my life!
Chén Qíng Lìng/The Untamed isn’t what it is because of censorship. It is what it is in spite of it.
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So we all know that The Untamed is hella censored. And as disappointing as the lack of an on-screen kiss is, I’m actually kind of glad that the show had to work around censorship issues because they did a fantastic job of still showing that Wei Ying and Lan Zhan are a couple without showing that Wei Ying and Lan Zhan are a couple. And honestly there are a lot of things about how their relationship progresses in the novel that are kind of gross (Wei Ying will you PLEASE stop getting Lan Zhan drunk specifically to take advantage of him), and without the ability to show those things the live action version of their relationship flows much more smoothly, and much more sweetly than the novel’s.
But that also means its timeline is a lot more ambiguous.
Judging from the way everything was filmed, I think that they get together much sooner in the live action. But when, exactly? I need details. And so I’m going to try and break the timeline down based on the types of longing gazes they give each other. Buckle in, kiddos. We got some pining to analyze, and this ended up WAY longer than I intended.
First Meeting
We have Interest.
Who is this boy that notices the curse at a glance?
Oblivious Wei Ying. Why he lookin’ at me like that?
Get it together, Wangji.
And then Wei YIng opens his mouth again.
....Nvm.
Second Meeting
Lan Zhan softens, talks to his brother about the Lotus Pier disciples’ conundrum, gets permission to let them in. Only to find...
Oh, shit, it’s the narc. Play it cool!
Lan Zhan is Not Amused.
But then they fight. On equal footing. Each of them has been raised as a prodigy, been praised for his prowess and ability, has never met his match among his peers. And they fight on equal footing.
At this point, I don’t think Lan Zhan is fighting seriously. He doesn’t expect Wei Ying to be much of a challenge: he’s just trying to stop him from tromping off and doing whatever he wants. But Wei Ying manages to block him. Without unsheathing his sword.
Lan Zhan starts to get serious. Wei Ying is still holding him off with Suibian still in its sheath in his left hand.
Begrudging respect, despite himself. Which only amplifies his frustration.
Wei Ying is just straight-up having fun.
A bit of pettiness when Lan Zhan cuts the chord holding the bottles together. You won’t take me seriously? Fine. I’ll go for the thing you care about. (What, you thought Second Lord Lan was above such things? Please. Just because he doesn’t say it out loud...)
This boy is so angry. He’s angry that Wei Ying is breaking the rules, he’s angry that Wei Ying won’t take him seriously (nobody has ever not taken him seriously), he’s angry that the person that he’s angry at is the first person to give him a challenge, and he’s especially angry that he kind of likes him a little. Poor baby Lan Zhan with the makings of his first crush and it’s this asshole?
Is that a hint of Does he know? Because everything is from Wei Ying’s POV, we don’t get much insight into Lan Zhan’s inner workings, so we don’t know when he realizes he likes the boys, or at least that he doesn’t like the girls. Judging from his basic personality, I’d say Wei Ying is his first crush, and he isn’t exactly close to anyone his own age, but he at least has to know that he doesn’t care about girls the way other boys his age do. So when Wei Ying brings up all the girls that admire him from afar and says, “Such a pity...” is this a moment of panic that the boy who noticed the curse, the boy who can go toe-to-toe with him, has seen through to a part of him nobody else has seen?
Another moment of pettiness when he realizes he’s just being insulted. He takes that pent-up fury and frustration out on Wei Ying via the silencing spell when he is DONE listening to this bullshit.
This is when Wei Ying notices Lan Zhan as more than just an obstacle.
But Lan Zhan is back to his air of cold indifference, especially in front of his uncle and brother. He steps back from Wei Ying, refuses to even meet his eyes. Grips his sword tight enough to turn his knuckles white while he attempts to keep a grip on himself.
Which is probably the start of Wei YIng’s I need Lan Zhan to like me, so much, all the time.
Wei Ying shows his intelligence again, and Lan Zhan’s Interest is back immediately.
Stuff Happens
I’m gonna skip over a good bit of the Cloud Recesses arc, because mostly it’s more of the same: Wei YIng continues to be his adorable obnoxious self, and Lan Zhan continues to be mad about it.
I do want to make a quick aside about this moment, though:
omg look at that baby’s face i just wanna hold him
“No woman would want to marry you. You’ll be alone forever.”
“That’s fine.”
Again, we don’t get much insight into Lan Zhan’s mind. But at this point he’s been crushing on Wei Ying for a while now, and if we’re going by the novel’s canon of this society being extremely homophobic or the censors’ canon of homosexuality just not existing he’s got less than no hope of Wei Ying ever liking him back. If he didn’t know he was gay before Wei Ying showed up, he certainly does now. But even before that he was only ever close to his brother, could never relate to the other children, could never speak easily to anyone, and had probably screwed himself up to being alone a long time ago. His new feelings for Wei Ying just cemented his certainty and made him sadder about it.
It’s also possible that the Second Young Master is expected to marry and produce heirs. Both the novel and the show are a bit wishy-washy about that aspect of worldbuilding. (Jiang Cheng becomes the new sect leader not because he’s the best, but because he’s the old clan leader’s son, but nobody ever pressures him to produce heirs to the clan that he’s already had to rebuild from scratch?) But it’s possible that Lan Zhan grew up knowing he would be expected to produce more little Lans, and also knowing that he would never have a happy marriage. But if no woman wants to marry him, he has an out. Solitude is a better option.
A Few Months Later
Story progresses, more stuff happens, Lan Zhan continues to fall for Wei Ying and is mad about it, Wei Ying continues to be oblivious while needing all of Lan Zhan’s attention all the time. At this point I really don’t think Wei Ying’s feelings for Lan Zhan are in any way romantic, but he went from “extrovert adopting introvert” to “WE’RE GONNA BE BESTIES AND DO EVERYTHING TOGETHER AND HAVE SLEEPOVERS AND--” about as quickly as Lan Zhan begrudgingly allows him to. But gradually they do become closer -- it’s not long at all before their primary communication becomes a look and a nod -- until...
This is the moment that Like becomes Love. This is the moment when Lan Zhan’s heart does a little “!” and he’s lost. You can’t convince me otherwise.
Okay, so now that Lan Zhan’s In It, what about Wei Ying?
Searching for Yin Iron
I think at this point Wei Ying still isn’t thinking of him Like That. The thought hasn’t even crossed his mind. But maybe there’s a little seed that just got planted. It will be a very long time before it takes root.
The Cave
And now Lan Zhan is committed. Coming from him, giving the name of this song is a full-on fucking proposal.
And Wei Ying misses it.
Which Lan Zhan doesn’t know. Because he runs away before Wei Ying wakes up.
The Sunshot Campaign
I’m going to skip a lot of this because there isn’t much relationship development here -- the opposite, in fact -- but I’m going to make a quick note of a few key moments. ( @hunxi-guilai has written some AMAZING meta on their reunion and the scene where they fight again if you want to check that out.)
When Lan Zhan and Jiang Cheng find Wei Ying, Wei Ying immediately puts a wall up between himself and Lan Zhan. He does this because he doesn’t want Lan Zhan asking questions. He doesn’t realize that Lan Zhan probably takes it as rejection of his confession.
Lan Zhan says that’s fine, I wasn’t expecting anything from you anyway, but I still want to help you. Please let me help you. Their relationship is somewhat mended, but still rocky, because Wei Ying can’t let his guard down for fear of revealing his secret.
This means that Wei Ying has plenty of Longing Glances, but it’s hard to tell if they’re romantic or platonic, or when that shift happens. (Personally, I do tend to lean toward platonic more than other people, but at this point in the story it’s fairly subjective.)
Platonic regret?
Regret, worry, loneliness. The PTSD ain’t helping. At this point still platonic, IMO, but the longing is watering that seed.
Longing, fear. Motivations getting a bit hazy, but still leaning platonic?
Post-Sunshot
A frightening reminder that he needs to keep his distance or Lan Zhan will notice. He’s already come way too close to being found out.
I don’t think he’s quite ready to jump into Lan Zhan’s arms yet, but he definitely wants nothing more than to repair their relationship.
But that look is so fast it took me four tries to pause on it, before he remembers that he has to keep that wall up.
To outward appearances they’re friends again, but Wei Ying keeps holding him at arms length. But even so...
Lan Zhan, pay attention to me!
Lan Zhan, did you see? Did you see, Lan Zhan? Were you looking? Lan Zhan, did you see what I did?
Yes, dear, you’re very clever. You little shit.
Okay, it’s official. That boy has a crush.
But does he KNOW he has a crush? Dense motherfucker that he is, is he capable of that kind of introspection? Inquiring minds want to know! (My guess: no he does not.)
Either way, he can’t do anything about it. The wall has to come back up.
Right?
The Burial Mounds
[Skipping the “If I have to die” scene because Wei Ying’s too busy for self-realization.]
During his time in the Burial Mounds, Wei Ying gets a lot of time to think, and a lot of time to yearn. But I still think he doesn’t know exactly what he’s yearning for until this moment:
Up until then, he’s absolutely enjoying having Lan Zhan around, and hella amused by Lan Zhan and A-Yuan [not pictured: the exact moment Lan Zhan realizes he wants kids - gif from a post by @sarawatsaraleo], but for the most part it’s nothing out of the ordinary. Until here. A-Yuan asks if Lan Zhan is staying, and Wei Ying realizes just how much he wants Lan Zhan to stay.
The Battle
Everyone’s too preoccupied for self-reflection during the shitshow, but just because I like to suffer and I’m taking you all with me:
[Also, can we take a moment to appreciate Wang Yibo’s full body acting here? I know others have gone on about the way he hold himself throughout, but in this shot you can read the total and utter devastation in every single inch of him.]
Post-Resurrection
Yes, this is how playing a leaf works.
So we’ve got some definite pining here. He’s known he’s had a crush since the Burial mounds, but never had a chance to do anything about it (even if he’d thought to) and still doesn’t plan on it because him being alive just causes problems.
But Lan Zhan shows up anyway.
That boy’s in love. Look at them soft eyes.
Does he know how deep he’s fallen? Eh, probably not.
This time it’s Wei Ying’s heart that does a little “!”
Okay, now he knows.
(Probably.)
Lan Zhan still has no hope for them getting together, but hell if he’ll ever let anything happen to Wei Ying again.
Now becomes a matter of when the two of them actually communicate. Which we don’t get to see on-screen, but we can make some guesses.
...Not a great start.
The Search
We don’t know how long they spend at Cloud Recesses together, or how long they’re on the road, or what happens during that time that the audience doesn’t get to see. At this point this is pure speculation, but I’m inclined to say that it’s around this time that their relationship starts to develop into Something More. I don’t know whether it’s overt or subtle, or when it happens, or who makes the first move (my guess is Lan Zhan: he’s had more than a decade to ponder and plan and regret -- and grow up), but I’m pretty sure that by this scene
something has happened. I can’t point you to a specific, but it just feels like something has shifted between them. They’re on more equal ground, rather than Lan Zhan pining and chasing after Wei Ying. That could just be because of the time that’s passed, but I don’t think it is.
Something is definitely going on here. This isn’t just “We like each other.” If that were the case this much physical contact would have them be at least a little bit nervous/excited. As if Microexpression King Wang Yibo wouldn’t portray how momentous it would be to carry Wei Ying after sixteen years of pining. Instead, there’s initial shock on Wei Ying’s face as he’s being picked up, but then they both settle in. They’re both comfortable. They have a quiet conversation while Wei Ying’s face is tucked in against Lan Zhan’s neck. They’ve got to be at least starting to date now.
One Hour Later
Oh, they fawkin’.
The Next Day (I think? Idk.)
This scene throws me off some, because it seems like Lan Zhan’s panic is an “Oh no did I tell him I like him?!” panic. But my previous screenshot has me convinced that they’re already together at this point. So I think that this is more just “Did I make a fool of myself going on and on about how much I like him?” panic.
Koi Tower
Commitment.
They’ve been in love for years, they’ve been together for a while, but this is the moment that their relationship becomes Real. I know I joked earlier that Lan Zhan telling Wei YIng the name of “Wangxian” was the equivalent of a proposal coming from him, but this time it really is the equivalent of a proposal. This is the moment that tells Wei Ying, “I’m not just screwing around. I love you and I will stand by you even if the entire world is against us. [Which it is.]” Wei Ying even gives him an out, to which he gives a swift and decided No.
These dorks are engaged.
Cloud Recesses
[Obligatory shot of Wei Ying wearing Lan Zhan’s underwear. In front of Lan Zhan’s brother.]
The closest thing they’ll get to domestic bliss while still working through all their issues, both internal and external.
Post-Second Seige of the Burial Mounds
So we very intentionally don’t get to hear what Sect Leader Yao says (not that we want to hear anything he has to say). All we get is the reactions of Jiang Chang and the other sect leaders listening to him.
upset/angry Jiang Cheng
upset/saddened Nie Huaisang
giggling gossipy sect leaders
Soooooo I’m pretty sure the cat’s out of the bag when it comes to the nature of their relationship.
Lotus Pier
In the novel, at this point dense motherfucker Wei Ying has FINALLY figured out that he has feelings for Lan Zhan, but not that Lan Zhan likes him back. When they visit the ancestral hall, they bow twice and Wei Ying thinks, “Let this count as the first two bows [of the Chinese wedding ceremony]. We’ll have to make up the last bow later.”
In the live action, they bow three times.
They married.
___
masterpost
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List of Differences Between MDZS and CQL/Untamed
I haven’t seen a comprehensive list of differences between the Modao Zushi novel and Chengqingling/The Untamed. Someone in one of my Discord’s asked earlier today, and in reply, myself, Joythea, @floofz, HeadphonesGal, and mustache apologist compiled this list, based on what we remembered. I’ve reproduced that list here with permission of the people involved in the conversation. I’ve tried to include what happens in both the novel AND CQL for each item, but in general, the list was more written as, “here are things that happened in CQL that didn’t happen or happened differently in the novel,” with an eye toward explaining it to someone familiar with the novel but not with the live action adaptation.
Note that this contains...like...all the spoilers. Also, I am not an expert on either the novel or the live action, though I’m better acquainted with the second. As a group we did our best to make sure this was accurate, but I’ve transcribed and expanded it for posting and I can’t promise I haven’t made mistakes. PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I’M WRONG and I will amend it (that’s why I used a read more - so I can make changes without it getting all messed up by reblogs of different versions)!
General Concept/Overarching Differences:
Death, Fierce Corpses, and Puppets: Censorship means that none of the things they hunt in the Untamed are actually dead. Once, they’re even able to explicitly “free” a group of controlled puppets and they revert to being regular people. At times this means certain events are...extremely poorly...explained, such as what happens to Wen Ning, where it’s never explicitly said that he’s dead - it’s instead implied that Wen Ning was on the verge of death and that Wei Wuxian controlled him and was able to save him. However, though it’s never explicit that there are essentially zombies in CQL, it would be difficult to explain events by any other interpretation. Much like with homosexuality, they flirt as close to what the censors will allows as they can and allow a viewer to infer from there.
The Yin Iron: In the novel, there is no Yin Iron. Wen Ruohan’s motivation for his actions is simply more power and is entirely “human.” The Wen don’t do demonic cultivation. Xue Yang doesn’t have a piece of the Yin Iron, and his ancestor didn’t create it (obviously, since it doesn’t exist). In the novel, the “Founder of Demonic Cultivation” is clearly meant to be Wei Wuxian, whereas if the concept of “Modao Zushi” ever came up in the Untamed it would be ambiguous at best who was being referred to, since both Xue Yang’s ancestor and Wen Ruohan could theoretically deserve the title. Since there is no Yin Iron, many of the things ascribed to the Yin Iron obviously don’t happen, nor does it drive the plot in the “past,” nor does it play a part in the death of Xuanwu, nor is it what Wei Wuxian uses to craft the Stygian Tiger Amulet.
While this isn’t explicit, it seems (at least to me) like everyone is a few years older in CQL than they are in the novel. For example, in the novel, the Lectures start when the young cultivators are all 15 - 16 years old. That...doesn’t really fit with how they look in CQL? I personally think they’re more like 17 - 18 in CQL, and then events proceed from there. However, their ages aren’t stated in CQL canon so this is open to interpretation.
Technically, WangXian is subtext in the Untamed, by the slimmest of obfuscations. Seriously, it’s so borderline to being canon that calling it subtext is slightly ridiculous but since it’s never ACTUALLY explicit...I guess that makes it subtext. Also, ya know, there’s porn in the novel.
Characters and Characterizations:
Mo Xuanyu: Mo Xuanyu isn’t gay in the Untamed, unlike in the novel. In the novel, it’s said that Mo Xuanyu falls out of favor with the Jin clan because he’s made inappropriate sexual advances on Jin Guangyao. In the Untamed, the implication is that he made similar advances on Qin Su. In both, it’s also implied these weren’t the real reasons but it’s also never explained what actually did happen. Also, in the novel, he favors wearing thickly caked makeup to obscure his appearance (and subsequently Wei Wuxian does the same) whereas in CQL while makeup is mentioned he’s basically only ever shown or discussed as wearing a mask.
Wei Wuxian/Mo Xuanyu: In the novel, Mo Xuanyu sacrifices himself and Wei Wuxian takes over his body. However, in the Untamed, Wei Wuxian is more...reborn?...whole, in his own appearance (the logistics of this, or if he was ever dead, or where he was if he WAS dead, are never explained). He wears a mask because if he didn’t, everyone would (and ultimately does) recognize him.
Wei Wuxian: In the novel, doing demonic cultivation clearly twists Wei Wuxian and some of his actions are either accidental but still his fault, or intentional. For example, the torture of Wen Chao is intentional and brutal, and the loss of control of Wen Ning at Qiongqi Path is accidental but still his fault - a result of his hubris and poor decisions. In CQL, a second flute is played at Qiongqi pass and also when Wei Wuxian fights the cultivation clans outside the Nightless City - both of the major times when Wei Wuxian ostensibly loses control. Though Wei Wuxian himself thinks it’s his fault, it’s actually not - the person responsible is Su She - and Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji eventually learn this. However, CQL does still show Wei Wuxian being changed by the resentment. His temper is more volatile and his trust more limited; for example, he loses his temper with A-Yuan at one point, which doesn’t happen in the novel.
Lan Wangji: differences in Lan Wangji’s characterization are a little harder to quantify but in general in CQL he seems more open/expressive/comfortable in his own skin, and less prone to anger. For example, when he steals Wei Wuxian’s first kiss on Phoenix Mountain in the novel, he loses his temper and destroys an entire grove of trees. This...would not be in character for Lan Wangji in CQL (and of course they don’t kiss in CQL). However, putting it in definitive terms is complicated. For another difference, in the novel, Lan Wangji confronts the cultivation clans to protect Wei Wuxian, and thus is given 33 strikes with the discipline whip. In CQL, his actions are more ambivalent in Wei Wuxian’s defense...certainly, he doesn’t stand against everyone else in a pitch to save Wei Wuxian’s life...but he’s still explicit enough for Lan Qiren, who has him beaten 300 times with a stave. (the end result is still “covered in scars,” just different punishments.)
Jiang Yanli: Jiang Yanli’s role is expanded from the novel. She accompanies her brothers to the Lan clan Lectures, and she carries a sword, implying she’s a cultivator, though she never uses it. The back-and-forth related to her engagement to Jin Zixuan is also expanded. Furthermore, she’s with her brothers when they flee Lotus Pier, and at Wen Qing’s outpost when they are in hiding, for at least part of the time. (but not enough of it to be involved in the Golden Core transfer). The overall result is that she feels much less “fridged” in CQL than she did in the novel (or at least, that’s how it felt to me - obviously, some of these bullet points are subjective to varying extents).
Luo “Mianmian” Qingyang: In the novel, she’s a member of an independent cultivation sect and she’s first introduced during the Wen Clan indoctrination. In the Untamed, she’s a Jin clan disciple and she attends the Lan clan Lectures, and is shown to have a good relationship (friendship, not romantic) with Jin Zixuan. She later renounces her membership in the Jin clan when the clans turn against Wei Wuxian after the end of the Sunshot Campaign.
Wen Ruohan: In the novel, he’s just a badass mo-fo power hungry pain in the ass. In CQL he is a demonic cultivating megalomaniac who uses the Yin Iron to be, like, Comic Book Evil.
Wen Qing and Wen Ning: Unlike in the novel, where Wen Ning is introduced outside of Lotus Pier, and Wen Qing is introduced after Wen Ning needs a place to hide Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian, in the Untamed, Wen Qing and Wen Ning attend the Lan clan Lectures. Wen Qing is there under instructions from Wen Ruohan to seek the Yin Iron; he blackmails her by threatening Wen Ning. Furthermore, Wen Ning is unusually susceptible to spiritual influence as a result of an encounter with the Dafan Mountain Goddess/Fairy statue when he’s a child. The statue kills their parents and starts to drain him, but Wen Qing saves him. She’s not able to heal the damage to him, though, and it’s implied this is part of why it’s possible for Wei Wuxian to raise him using demonic cultivation. Wen Qing in particular has a much greater role in CQL, and she has a romantic subplot with Jiang Cheng. She bears a sword, and she’s also shown to do spellwork and influence people using acupuncture needles.
Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen: In the novel, we first meet them at Yi City, when their story is already tragic. In CQL, they are introduced right after the Lan Lectures, and are therefore older.
Xue Yang: As with Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen, he is introduced earlier in CQL than in the novel. In CQL, he also possesses a piece of the Yin Iron that he manages to keep hidden and a secret despite multiple attempts by different parties to obtain it (it’s hinted at times that he’s in cahoots with Wei Wuxian, but this is just a character smear). His ancestor created the Yin Iron, and he’s known to be an expert on demonic cultivation.
Meng Yao/Jin Guangyao: Meng Yao is introduced much earlier in CQL than he is in the novel, as we see him when the Nie cultivators are welcomed to the Lan lectures (and we’re shown upfront and immediately that Lan Xichen treats him more respectfully than most others do). In the novel, we don’t find out much about the evil things he’s done until Wei Wuxian does Empathy on Nie Mingjue’s head; in CQL, more of that is shown “on screen” as it occurs. For example, he’s shown conspiring with Xue Yang in the Unclean Realm, and right after that is when Nie Mingjue catches him slaughtering another officer (which none of the other characters know about). He also saves Nie Mingjue’s life during that scene, painting him as morally ambiguous and complicated from a very early point. We also “see” as it happens the incident in right after the fall of Nightless City, where Nie Mingjue goes to kill Meng Yao and is prevented by Lan Xichen, and there are more explicit indications that he’s manipulating Jin Guangshan and is involved in the plot to turn everyone against Wei Wuxian.
Ouyang Zizhen: Ouyang Zizhen appears only briefly in the novel, during the Yi City arc. In CQL he has a much expanded role and is a pretty much perpetual fourth to Jin Ling, Lan Sizhui, and Lan Jingyi (especially post Yi City). He’s present most of the times they meet, and involved in Jin Ling’s confrontation with Wen Ning, and is present at the Second Siege of the Burial Mounds, where he intervenes with his father on behalf of Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji. And he’s one of the best beans.
Sequence of Events:
In the novel, when Wei Wuxian awakes at Mo Manor, the Lan clan disciples come and they find an evil left arm that kills and possesses people. In CQL, they find a sword that does the same. This leads to changes throughout the plot in what, exactly, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian are searching for. In the novel, they pursue the pieces of Nie Mingjue’s body to various sites. In CQL, they instead are led to the same sequence of places by a sword spirit which turns out to be Baxia.
When Mo Xuanyu raises Wei Wuxian in the novel, Wei Wuxian has three curse scars representing three people that need to die: Madam Mo, Mo Ziyuan, and...one of the servants I think? In CQL, Wei Wuxian has a fourth cut that represents a fourth person he must kill: Jin Guangyao.
Because the risen dead don’t exist in the Untamed, the Dafan Mountain Goddess/Fairy statue incident plays out a little different. For example, Wei Wuxian doesn’t figure out what’s happened by observing graves, he figures it out by seeing “spirit grass.” However, the outcomes are essentially the same from a plot point of view.
In CQL, the extended flashback to the lectures starts right after Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian meet (right after Wen Ning is summoned and then flees). I don’t remember exactly how the timeline/intermingling of narratives from different points in times is structured in the novel but I know it’s different. They spend far longer in the “present” before going to the past, and jump back and forth a bit more too.
In CQL, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji have an early bonding period during the lectures (the lectures over all get more attention/time than in the novel) when they are drawn into a cave in the backhills that they enter through the cold spring. Within, there’s a guqin and a bunch of rabbits and the...spiritual embodiment?...of Lan Yi, who is introduced as the first female leader of the Lan Clan, a close friend of Baoshen Sanren, and the creator of the Chord Assassination Technique. Lan Yi acquaints them with the existence of the Yin Iron. Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji also engage in a symbolic hand-fasting during this scene. In the show, this is where the bunnies come from; Wei Wuxian doesn’t capture them and bring them as “presents” like he does in the novel.
In CQL, between the Lectures and the Sunshot Campaign, Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng, and Nie Huaisang do some night hunting together. Among other things, during this time they meet Xue Yang, Xiao Xingchen, and Song Lan, when Xue Yang slaughters the Chang clan. This obviously has major implications for the role and age of these characters in CQL versus in the novel, when none of the three are met until Yi City. This time spent night-hunting is also when the flower spirit mini-side plot takes place, but it doesn’t get much screen time and isn’t as prominent as in the novel, nor is the entire “Wei Wuxian woos her where no one else did” thing a feature of the show. Also, they encounter the Dafan Mountain Goddess at this time.
The Wen Clan attacks Cloud Recesses in the novel because of perceived improprieties, and Lan Wangji is injured while trying to protect the library. Lan Xichen disappears, and Clan Leader Lan is killed. In CQL, Clan Leader Lan is already dead at this point and Lan Xichen is in charge of the clan (while it’s never explicit, it’s implied that the age gap between Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji, and between Nie Mingjue and Nie Huaisang, is greater in the show than it is in the novel). When Wen Xu attacks, they hide in the cave where Lan Yi appeared to Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, but the disciples who aren’t members of the Lan specifically can’t enter, so Wen Xu begins to massacre them. To prevent that, Lan Wangji emerges, and that’s when his leg is broken. (Su She is also prominent in this scene in CQL, but he’s not in the novel.)
During the Indoctrinations, in CQL it’s shown that Wei Wuxian is afraid of dogs after Wen Chao locks him in a dungeon room with one. This also serves as bonding time with Wen Ning, who helps Wei Wuxian with medicine that Wen Qing has provided. This scene doesn’t take place in the novel; in the novel Wei Wuxian’s fear of dogs is almost entirely shown through his interactions with Fairy.
Also during the Indoctrinations in CQL, there’s a lot of friction between Wen Chao and Wen Qing because Wen Qing keeps trying to help the prisoners in small ways. In the novel, Wen Qing hasn’t been introduced at this point in the story.
Wei Wuxian’s Death: In the novel, Wei Wuxian retreats to the Burial Mounds, the clans unite against him, storm the Burial Mounds, and kill him - Jiang Cheng gets credit for the kill, but in actuality, Wei Wuxian's own resentment-controlled undead tear him apart when his magic backfires. (see this comment for more info) In the Untamed, after a battle outside the Nightless City, Wei Wuxian realizes how wrong everything has gone, destroys the Stygian Tiger amulet, and throws himself from the mountain. Despite a “tease” that Jiang Cheng stabbed him, it’s later shown that no, Wei Wuxian’s death was suicide despite Lan Wangji trying to save him and Jiang Cheng deciding not to stab him.
Wen Chao’s Death: While it’s implied in CQL that Wei Wuxian has been tormenting Wen Chao, it’s nowhere near as explicit as in the novel. It’s loosely suggested in CQL that perhaps Wen Chao’s condition when Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji find him is the result of fear and self-neglect - basically that Wei Wuxian’s torment is causing Wen Chao to hallucinate frightening things. Instead of, you know, Wei Wuxian’s torment causing him to eat himself.
In the novel, Wei Wuxian is dead for 13 years. In CQL, he’s dead for 16 years.
Wei Wuxian’s resurrection: In the novel, because Wei Wuxian doesn’t look like himself, he doesn’t realize that Lan Wangji has recognized him because he played WangXian, so he engages in multiple behaviors to try to disgust and drive Lan Wangji away (all of which fail, of course, because Lan Wangji knows the truth). In CQL, because Wei Wuxian looks like himself, when he wakes up without his mask in Cloud Recesses he immediately knows that Lan Wangji has recognized him and there’s no further mystery in that regard (except for how Lan Wangji recognized him while he WAS masked, which is the same in both - because of the song). (Lan Xichen also subsequently recognizes him while he’s masked, at an earlier point than he does in the novel unless I’ve badly misremembered. Which is always possible).
The Yi City arc is quite different between the two. Honestly, I skip the most painful parts of the Yi City arc, including the entire flashback sequences, because I knew they’d fuck me up right good without being worth it, so I’m not able to go into depth here, but. Some examples include:
Because in CQL, Xiao Xingchen, Song Lan, and Xue Yang were introduced during the “past” timeline, they’re considerably older than in the novel.
Due to censorship, A-Qing is not a spirit as she is in the novel. Instead, she’s still alive but she’s had her tongue torn out and been blinded by Xue Yang. She ultimately sacrifices her life to help Wei Wuxian et al kill Xue Yang.
In CQL, it’s shown that Xiao Xingchen would leave a sweet on Xue Yang’s pillow every day, and when Xue Yang dies the last gifted sweet falls from his hand.
(if anyone reading this wants to help flesh it out please do chime in because I know it’s incomplete but I Cannot with that bit of the story.)
During the Second Siege of the Burial Mounds, in the novel, after Wei Wuxian paints himself with the lure talismans, he and Lan Wangji are on the verge of being overpowered when the corpses of the Wen clan members that Wei Wuxian saved rise from the blood pool and help protect them. In CQL, the Wen clan members are hung by the Jin clan and left for the birds outside of the Nightless City, so they could never have been in the blood pool, even if such a thing would have made it past censors (which it never would have).
The novel contains pornographic content, including an illicit kiss that Lan Wangji steals from Wei Wuxian during the Phoenix Mountain hunt, and actual sex, with their first time being before the confrontation at Guanyin Temple.
During the Guanyin temple confrontation, in the novel there’s extensive discussion of Jin Guangyao’s childhood in the brothel, including information about his mother and why he spared Sisi as opposed to all the other prostitutes. Further, it’s explicit that the Guanyin temple has been built on the site where that brothel used to stand and that the coffin Jin Guangyao is digging up is meant to contain his mother’s body. The entire temple is dedicated to her. In CQL a lot of this is simply not explained or left ambiguous.
In the novel, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian are married and return to Cloud Recesses. In CQL, they travel together for a time, part ways, and then are reunited. Lan Wangji becomes the Chief Cultivator, replacing Jin Guangyao.
...that’s everything we came up with. Alright, everyone, what’d we miss? :D
#mdzs#modaozushi#the untamed#untamed#chenqingling#resource#i don't even know how to tag this#i hope this is helpful and doesn't seem biased#obviously i have my preferences as do we all but I tried to just list what was different#without assigning value to one or the other#because i know i've wished for a list like this a time or two#if folks do suggest changes or additions#i will add them when i'm able#but make no promises of promptness#sorry
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A year of BL Love
I discovered BL for the first time this year, and boy what a year it was! I wanted to write up a quick and simple review of the shows that I watched just to finish off the year. So here goes! (Spoilers EVERYWHERE. So... be careful.)
Shows that I loved, will definitely rewatch in the future, and will skip very little of when I do:
The Untamed - beautiful story, beautiful production, all around worth every second of the 50 episodes. technically not a BL because of censorship, but still managed to portray the most beautiful love story I watched all year. Wang Yibo and Xiao Zhan deserve every second of the acclaim and praise they have received for this masterpiece! 10/10
Until We Meet Again - I love every couple in this series with all my heart! a lot of people felt it was slow but I honestly just thought it was a beautiful story full of love and heartache and friendship and just... uhg, everything. I will rewatch this one again and again and again. 10/10
Like In The Movies - this one was heartbreaking and hopeful and beautiful and tragic and sweet and just altogether perfect in every way. I need the sequel right now immediately please! 10/10
He’s Coming To Me - this one was so good?!! I don’t know how a show about a love story between a ghost that was murdered 20 years ago and a university student could be so perfect, but it was? the only thing that was a little iffy was the previous relationship between Met and Thun’s mom. this one is sweet and sad (Met is dead afterall) and has love and mystery and good side characters and friendships. yeah. just altogether great. 9/10
HIStory 3: Trapped - fascinating story (I want so many more BL’s that AREN’T set in high school/university please!) and great chemistry between both couples. the acting was fantastic and the storyline was compelling. I truly love this show except for the fact that we’re not getting that sequel they were hinting at and that makes me SAD because it makes the ending hurt so much even if it was a hopeful one. 9/10
HIStory 2: Crossing the Line - cute story, amazing actors, wonderful side characters, just all around great! the only reason it’s not getting a perfect score is because I feel very OLD when watching highschool storylines. it makes the intimate scenes... awkward. even if the actors are adults. 9/10
Where Your Eyes Linger - loved the storyline, loved the chemistry and dynamics of the couple, the ending was rushed and left me wanting so much more, but since it was one of the first Korean BL’s to ever be produced it was wonderful. 8/10
Cherry Magic - I love Adachi and Kurosawa with all my heart! this show was so good. so so good! the only reason I’m not giving it a higher rating is because Tsuge and Minato’s storyline gives me so much secondhand embarrassment ALL THE TIME! but they’re still so cute despite that, so it’s not horrible. Rokkaku and Fujisaki are SO CUTE and the perfect side characters. basically this show is perfect (except for the second hand embarrassment) and the fact that we never got a proper kiss. like... I don’t need skinship in every BL show I watch, but that last second cutaway in the end was just... frustrating. 8/10
Theory of Love - OffGun have my whole heart and are 80% of the reason I love this show so much. but also I really liked the story line and the way Third and Kai’s relationship progressed throughout the show. it had a perfect resolution for all the couples (including the teacher/student ‘couple’ which I usually HATE) and was definitely a stand out from all the multitude of ‘university’ shows out there. 8/10
3 Will Be Free - this was was so interesting and lovely and tragic and I loved every single second of it... up until the last ten minutes. I almost put it lower just because of the ending. we deserved a happy, loving bisexual polyship d*mn it! but I’ll definitely rewatch it again. and stop right before the end when I do. 8/10
Because of You 2020 - ridiculous nonsense that I will gladly watch again! really there is no justifying this one being in my top list because it is NONSENSE but it makes me happy and that’s all that matters. all three couples are adorable and the last scene makes me smile so much! 8/10
Shows that I liked and will probably watch again, but will be skipping a lot of parts when I do:
My Engineer - this show should be in my top list. but I HATE BohnDuen so much. so so much. and they are the main couple. so because of them when I rewatch this show (which I have several times now) I have to skip 60% of it because I really really hate them. so much. but the other three couples make up for it - especially RamKing who GIVE ME LIFE - so it’s at the top of my ‘not the top’ list. 7/10
Mr. Heart - this one was cute, but I felt like the couple was very... lop-sided. Sang Ha was almost obsessed with Jin Won before they ever even properly met and that gave me a weird feeling. their relationship was cute by the end, but... idk. and the whole side story with Sang Ha and the debt collectors was... odd. I felt like it was a very serious storyline that they did not take seriously at all. very off-putting. but altogether the show was cute enough, and short enough, to deserve a rewatch. 6/10
Why R U - I just... did not like SaifahZon. like... at all. Zon’s character annoyed me, their dynamic was... off, and Zon’s sister makes me so mad I can’t watch her at all. I adore FighterTutor (they are one of my favorite couples which is why this show is still getting such a high rating) and I have rewatched their part of the show 3 times now. but the rest, including the THREE other side couples (seriously? 5 couples in one show? why? it’s too f*cking much!)... no. no thank you. 6/10
Roommates The Series - it was cute, and did very well on a VERY low budget and a very limited cast because they filmed during the pandemic (or after the worst of it was over in their country at least). the side female characters were great (a rarity in BL’s for sure!) and there was a few really great scenes that I loved. altogether a bit of a lackluster show compared to others, but definitely worth at least one watch. 6/10
Tharntype - I know how problematic this show is, alright? but it’s fictional, and sometimes people like things in their fictional stories that they HATE in real life... all the very serious consent issues for one. that being said, if I had been watching the show as it aired I probably would have given up on it by, like, episode 2. as it was I knew everything that happened before I ever started watching and that gave me the freedom to appreciate the storyline for what it would become at the end. I love MewGulf and the way they portrayed Tharn and Type. I thought Tar’s storyline was interesting and heartbreaking and he is a precious bean that I want to protect with all my heart. however, a big factor in this series not making it into my top list is the handling of Lhong and the ending of his story. you want me to feel sorry for that monster? are you kidding me?!! he should have been locked up in prison for the rest of his life, not had Tharn’s brother come APOLOGIZE to him as if he was the one who was wronged. if that hadn’t happened, despite all the problematic things in this show, I would probably have put this in my top list. 6/10
Wish You - this one had SO MUCH POTENTIEL. the storyline was unique, the ‘twist’ reveal was interesting, and the main characters had a lot of chemistry. and everything was RUSHED RUSHED RUSHED! this show needed at LEAST 5-6 more episodes. there was no time to develop the relationship between In Soo and Sang Yi, and I wanted them to so badly! there was no time to deal with the ‘twist’ and the fallout that happened from it. everything just happened and then you moved on, and then more things happened and you moved on. uhg. despite all that I’m putting this one a little higher because the actors, writing, and production value were very good. but gosh do I wish there was so much more of it. the wasted potential is painful. 6/10
The Effect - wow. this one was... not what I was expecting. be cautious of watching this because it could be VERY triggering. but the acting was PHENOMENAL! I think they took a very dark and serious subject and portrayed it with a lot of care. one of the best things about it was Shin’s friends reaction to his trauma and how carefully and kindly they helped him heal. beautiful to watch! the only reason this is not getting a higher rating is because that ending was INFURIATING! absolutely unforgivable for them to leave it so ambiguous like that. Shin deserved to have a clear and obvious happy ending. not... whatever the hell that was. 6/10
Love By Chance - AePete are precious and adorable and I love them. But Ae’s possessiveness in the later episodes really bothers me, the fact that Perth was 17 when they were filming really bothers me, and once AePete get together halfway through the show it’s like they just get dropped to focus on TinCan which is a couple I can’t stand even a little. and don’t even get me STARTED on Techno and Kengkla. just... just don’t. that whole ‘relationship’ is 85% of the reason I refuse to watch the sequel. altogether, I probably WON’T watch this one again, but I probably would at least have watched the AePete and TumTar (yes, I liked them leave me alone about it) storylines if Perth wasn’t so young, so I’m still giving it a 5/10
Together With Me - MaxTul are fire both on and off screen and I love them with all my heart, but I hated, like, 95% of the show that wasn’t strictly about them. teacher/student storyline? gross. couple with a huge age-gap that ends up being super toxic and emotionally destroying a sweet and lovely character? thanks, I HATE IT. yet another BL portraying the girlfriend as a conniving b*tch so that we’re okay with one half of the main couple being a cheater while they figure out their sexuality crisis? ew ew and more ew. honestly if it wasn’t for the fact that they had two fantastic side female characters (again, such a rarity in BL’s!) and the pure intense chemistry between KornKnock this show probably would have been put even lower. 5/10
Dark Blue Kiss - I can’t stand PeteKao? like... why do so many people love them so much? Pete is SO JEALOUS ALL THE TIME! I just want to smack him! and he’s also completely not understanding of Kao’s fear of coming out. he basically spent the entire show sabotaging his own relationship and then blaming it all on Kao! uhg. no. just no. but I love SunMork with all my heart and wanted them to have so much more development and screen time. it would have made the final scene with them so much better if they had just had TIME to really show their relationship and how it grew, instead of just getting them together and deciding that was good enough. I’ll watch their part again I’m sure, but only their part. 5/10
Shows that were very subpar - I may rewatch some of these for a specific couple but only if I’m really bored and feel like skipping 80% of the show:
#MyDay - I know there’s a lot of people that really like this one. but... oof. the writing was so bad. so so bad! the pacing of the show was weird, there were some major moments that needed a LOT more attention, and some minor moments that got way more screen time than they needed. things were just... awkward all the time when they weren’t meant to be. and again, we have a character that needed to go TO PRISON but ended up being forgiven in the end. just... no. I’m honestly only putting this show as high as I am because the chemistry between Ace and Sky was fantastic. but that wasn’t enough to save this trainwreck. I might watch the sequel for them. maybe. but also maybe not. 4/10
Quaranthings - this one had so much potential but was honestly just so subpar in the end. I really just don’t even have much to say about it. it’s worth watching, I guess. but put it at the bottom of your list, after you’ve watched all the better stuff. 4/10
YYY (and the 3 special eps) - look... weird shows are just not my thing. I love Lay and his portrayal of Punn, Nott was okay as the lead character, but the side characters and storylines were... bizarre. I get that it was supposed to be a parody of other BL’s and their tropes... but honestly I like tropes. and this show was just... too bizarre. especially the three special episodes. in fact... I’m just now remembering I never watched the 3rd one. oops. 4/10
En of Love - This was such a mix and match of good and bad. I didn’t like Tossara AT ALL. Gun pressured Bar into that relationship, including flat out blackmailing him with his necklace to force him to go out with him! they may have been happy in the end, but Bar was CLEARLY uncomfortable with Gun’s advances for most of the first three episodes and it really grossed me out. I kind of liked Mark and Vee together, but the issue with Mark’s girlfriend was frustrating and their whole relationship was just a little bit toxic. and I actually liked Neua and Pra-Ram... AFTER they let us know that Pra-Ram was a legal adult. I hated their relationship up until they had the birthday party because I thought Pra was 17. I’m still a little iffy about a very experienced third year student in university dating a very inexperienced high school student. but at least it wasn’t ILLEGAL. oof. 4/10
HIStory 1: Obsessed/Stay Away from Me/My Hero - My Hero and Stay Away From Me were cute enough although I’ll probably never rewatch them, but Obsessed was toxic and horrible and gross in all senses of the word. -4 for that one which puts the whole series at a 3/10
Tien Bromance - y’all this one is... I don’t even know how to describe it. weird. bizarre. confusing. badly written. strangely acted. (the acting wasn’t bad... it was just... strange.) I watched the special episodes first and thought it was just a cute little domestic family drama with some strange moments. then I watched the rest. and the fact that the first episode started off with a ghost possessing and killing like 8 people while they were on vacation at a lake was the least weird thing that happened. 3/10
Craving You - no. the storyline makes no sense. why are a popular cake baker and an upcoming musician partnering together? why? it doesn’t make any sense! And one of the lead actors is just SO BLAND. I think he was going for ‘quiet and sad’ but just ended up with ‘emotionless and boring’. the most compelling part of the show was the side character dealing with the unexplored feelings that he had for his first love that were denied to him by a homophobic family and how those feelings are now interfering with his current relationship. the rest was pointless and bland. 3/10
My Gear and Your Gown - I liked this one SO MUCH for the first 3-4 episodes. then is went downhill and FAST. Pai and Itt had no chemistry for the last 8 episodes. they spend the whole show angry at each other and then we’re just supposed to accept them getting together in the end because Itt confessed his feelings. like... that’s not enough! the best part of the show was PureFolk. Pure finally believing in love again because he met the ray of sunshine and sweetness that is Folk? yes please! but even their storyline was not fantastic because it got rushed and pushed aside in the end to focus on Pai and Itt breaking up AGAIN and having to deal with the issue of homophobic parents for all of one episode. the last episode was so pointless! there was no reason to shoehorn in that last little bit of drama. none. 3/10
Oxygen - uhg. I do not understand why so many people liked this one so much. Solo’s feelings for Gui were UNHEALTHY. he became obsessed with him over one tiny act of kindness! that’s... that’s not love. that is a broken young boy desperately seeking out love and forcing it onto someone because he doesn’t know what it’s supposed to be like. and the side story with the fujoshi barista and her brother and the doctors was creepy and weird. the only good part of this show was PhuKao but they got about 3 minutes of screen time per episode. I would watch a sequel with them in a heart beat, but leave everyone else out of it! 2/10
Shows I’m currently watching but haven’t finished airing yet so my rating may change:
Manner of Death - this show is EVERYTHING! the murder mystery, the suspense, the suspicion, the CHEMISTRY! I have no idea what’s going on or who I trust or don’t trust (except for Dr. Bunn and Sorn, they are precious rays of sunshine!) but I love every second of it. MaxTul are FIRE and I am so so happy to get to watch them in a story like this! 10/10
Ingredients - this show is EVERYTHING! and yes, I just said that about MoD, but this one is on the complete opposite side of the ‘everything’ spectrum and I love it with all my heart. Win and Tops are SO. FREAKING. CUTE! their pining for each other for eighteen d*mn episodes was so beautiful and sweet and infuriating! their love for each other as friends above all else is precious and perfect! and now that they’re actually together my heart just bursts every time I see them. I think the series only has 1 or 2 episodes left and I am DEVESTATED because I want 20 more! 10/10
TonhonChonlatee - I watched the first two episodes then stopped. I’ve been ‘watching’ the rest via people’s reactions to new episodes online. I get that Tonhon’s homophobia and toxic masculinity is supposed to be awful and is a major plot point in the show... but I don’t want to f*cking WATCH it! I’m hoping we’re getting to a point in the show where he’s calming the f*ck down and starting to learn better and BE better. I want to watch this show. but I can’t watch THAT. 3/10
Color Rush - this one has started off fantastically! the story is interesting and the characters are compelling already. but... I can tell you right now that it’s going to go the way of all the other Korean BL’s that came out this year. it’s not going to have enough time. AT ALL. it’s going to be rushed, I just know it. I applaud Korea for getting into BL’s in the first place and for giving us such interesting storylines and characters to watch, but these 10 minute, 8 episode shows are KILLING me with want of better development! 7/10
Well dang! That was... a lot! lol! Sorry for making such a long post, but BL’s have been such a huge part of my life this year I really just wanted to get my thoughts and feelings about everything out. I was originally going to make a part of the post be about my favorite (and not favorite) couples, but I’m going to end this here and put the couples in their own post.
My ask box is always open to discuss any and all shows on this list. You agree with my faves and want someone to talk to about them, hit me up! You disagree with my not-faves and want to tell me why... let me hear your opinion. You have suggestions for shows that I definitely should have watched by now but have somehow looked over... give them to me! I’ve got a whole new year to fill with beautiful couples and interesting stories!
#bl drama#bl dramas#thai bl#korean bl#pinoy bl#taiwan bl#asianlgbtqdramas#asian dramas#long post#sorry... sort of
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Lan Wangji (mostly, his love)
LAN ZHAN! I read somewhere that this was said 102 times by Wei Wuxian in The Untamed. It feels like an understatement, cause I’ve watched the show so many times now I could hear ‘Lan Zhan’ being called in my sleep...
My first time watching the drama, I was full on Team Xianxian. I mean, who would not be? He’s the central character of the story, he’s the first thing you see within the first few seconds of episode 1, and who could resist his sunflower aura? I was not into Lan Wangji at all. I remember this clearly because I just found an old Instagram story in my Archive on the day I first watched this show: a screenshot of Wangji’s face in episode 3 and my caption was: ‘OMG how could Wei sunshine fall in love with this dry and boring man?’. And just like how Wangji eventually swallowed all of the statements he had made about the young Wei Wuxian (’I don’t touch other people’, ‘We’re not close’, etc.), I am not the same person on that fateful day tuning in the first episode on Netflix. I am now Team Hanguang-Jun through and through!
What I’ve been enjoying so much these days is watching random earlier/later episodes just to compare how Wangji’s attitude changed toward Wei Wuxian over 16 years-ish. It’s probably so obvious for everyone that he definitely falls in love first, even when the drama purposely made their early relationship a lot more intense comparing to the novel i.e. showing Wei Wuxian somewhat feeling the same way about Wangji in his first life, with the constant flirting and mutual pining (don’t even get me started...). Now that I kinda understand what the character is like, it makes a lot of sense the way he processed his feelings for Wuxian in his youth. I wonder how different he would have reacted without the push from the best brother/wingman in the cultivation world - Lan Xichen. Sure, Jiang Cheng had a lot to say about this too, but mostly out of a slight envy (I reckon) over Wuxian’s new subject of desire. But Lan Xichen sees through his brother, and has been pretty much WangXian fanclub admin since day 1. I don’t have a brother, but man, I wish Lan Xichen could be mine.
In my humble opinion, the fact that we were given 3 versions of Wei Wuxian throughout the series kinda gifts us 3 versions of Lan Wangji too in a way - the straight face, the confused heart, and the national boyfriend/husband. Considering the number of times I rewatched the latter half of the series i.e. episode 33 onward, I just want to write down all of my thoughts about the national boyfriend/husband Lan Wangji, and not just because that version seems to have the most lines comparing to the other two.
There are several details that were not explained much in the series (although shown on screen) so I have to read from the novel later on. But oh my god, the stuff I found... I never realized that the scene before Lan Wangji went to Mo’s manor where his guqin was playing behind him standing on the balcony referred to how he used Inquiry to find Wuxian. What Jiang Cheng said to him about having gone to a lot of places for 16 years and searching for someone completely went over my head in the first watch, and imagine how I scratched my brain revisiting that part. That plus ‘oh I’ve never seen you at a cultivation conference before’ in episode 41 - my goodness, because he was spending ALL of his time LOOKING FOR Wei Wuxian.
Another thing I hope would have been addressed in the series was the hot iron mark on his chest. I thought the story of him drinking wine and giving himself a mark identical to Wuxian’s was the prime work of a broken heart. He must have thought about their conversation in Xuanwu cave, about the mark staying on his skin forever and how Wuxian was convinced Mianmian would never forget him. Was that how Wangji was making a point of never forgetting Wei Wuxian? If that scene made into the drama, I would have thought Wangji’s character song Buwang to be play in the background. The lyrics fit the situation so much.
Personally, everything from episode 33 onward was perfection for me, finally getting to see Wangji embrace his feelings and ACT ON THEM toward the romance-blind idiot Wei Wuxian (yes, he totally is). All the caring touches and details played out so astonishingly. One of my favourite (which doesn’t seem to be a popular one since I have not seen many gifs of it on Tumblr) was when, after interrogating Huaisang, Wangji comfortably moved over the other side of the table and picked up Wuxian’s left leg to CLEAN THE EVIL SPELL - think of the level of intimacy this act is! Although that came after the romantic piggyback under the moonlight, I thought that speaks volume for someone who doesn’t even physically interact with his family members, and serves as a great follow-up right after he, again comfortably, pulled up Wuxian’s trousers to check his leg.
What I thought was always presented so beautifully is every time Wangji serves Wuxian liquor. The way he carefully picks up his sleeve, prepares the cup (I know they’re probably not called ‘cups’ but I can’t find another word), pours the liquor and slides it over to his partner is so well demonstrated and shows how much he wants to properly take care of Wuxian. Would you put so much effort in such a tiny mundane act if you’re not doing it for the most important person in your life?
In a way, I feel like everything he does is making up for what he could not do the past 16 years, including remembering so many tiny details and keeping all sort of Wuxian-related things. My favourite Wangji keepsake moment, despite being a very short one, is the butterfly talisman at Yunping City which he gave to Wuxian to rescue Wen Ning. I don’t know why that moment makes me really really happy, probably because that was one of the earliest items Wangji could have kept hold of from Wuxian’s. That tells us how way long before he was developing feelings toward this little rebel. Not to mention, we did see Wangji even use this very talisman in episode 11 when he encountered Wen Chao on his way back to Cloud Recesses.
Yes, the ‘I knew he was Wei Ying all along’ while having all the swords pointed at you is highly pivotal as it’s basically the censored version of ‘I love you’. BUT, the moment all leading cultivators of all major and minor clans ran to Burial Mounds just to witness Lan Wangji standing proudly without flinch on the other side with Wei Wuxian makes me appreciate that whole arc a lot more than the big revelation in the last 3 episodes. Wangji ignoring his own Grand Master, Wuxian once again standing against every single person in the cultivation world but with so much confidence this time around - to me, is beyond satisfying. I love this arc so much so I wrote a separate piece about episode 44-45 - if you’re interested in more of my random thoughts, feel free to have a read here.
Thinking about all this, I’m absolutely in awe of how protective national boyfriend Wangji is to Wei Wuxian even before knowing he lost his golden core. They either have insanely accurate GPS, or just really good telepathy. Wangji’s constant attention to his partner (without having to verbally find out where he is) blows my mind every time. Remember how proud Wei Wuxian was having Lan Wangji come out just in time to fight Xue Yang at Coffin Town? That’s how much Wangji’s love and trust empowers Wuxian and makes him so so so secured, even when everyone was walking around in the fog hiding from the most notorious killer and his puppets.
The one detail that pushed me over the edge completely (thanks a lot Lan Xichen) was the story of Wangji’s mom. Oh my god, baby Wangji sitting in the snow really messes with my head. I cannot believe it took 40 something episodes for us to learn about Wangji’s emotionally damaged upbringing and what shapes him into a stubborn lovebird as we know today. It adds A LOT more context and sadness to his famous phrase ‘bring a man back to Cloud Recesses and hide him’, as well as Lan Qiren’s statement ‘have you not learned from your father’s lesson’. I revisit the ‘bring back and hide him’ scene with a completely new perspective and can sense Wangji’s pain and confusion that Xichen described. The desperation in that statement of Wangji was a lot heavier in my eyes now that I understand the back story. If I were Wei Wuxian listening to all of that from Lan Xichen, I would probably have a meltdown right there at the doorsteps of the Silence Room.
Now we all know the source of inspiration of the infamous ‘I want to bring a man to Cloud Recesses. Bring him back and hide him’ in episode 25:
So after all of Xichen’s effort in telling Wuxian how Wangji actually feels about him through the tear-jerker story about their parents, Wei Wuxian STILL asked Lan Wangji WHY he was willing to seal Bichen and his own spiritual power so that Jin Guangyao would not hurt him. This dense man, of course, brought up the guilt card i.e. ‘Oh you don’t owe me anything’. I mean COME ON NOW YILING PATRIARCH! CAN YOU ACTUALLY BE THAT OBLIVIOUS WHEN IT COMES TO THE MAN THAT TOOK 300 LASHES ON HIS BACK FOR PROTECTING YOUR LEGACY?
I know it went the other way in the novel, where the big confession happened. Maybe a bite from Fairy could do you some good, or just talk to Lan Xichen some more and then you can start appreciating your soulmate the way he deserves.
The silver lining after being deprived of an epic love confession is everything that happened in episode 50. It might have not been spelling-it-out clear as in ‘I love you’ ‘I love you too’ because of the government censorship, but it’s easily the most obvious yet emotional type of ending the production team has worked to hard to deliver. If you are still having trouble processing the allegedly ‘ambiguous’ finale, I can help with that - here. Just a heads up: it’s a happy ending.
Good to know Wei Wuxian has the rest of his life making up to Lan Wangji. Everyday means everyday, because Wangji deserves THAT much!
#wei wuxian#wei ying#lan zhan#lan wangji#hanguang jun#the untamed#mo dao zu shi#chen qing ling#gusu lan#character analysis#thoughts#yiling patriarch#yiling laozu#xiao zhan#wang yibo#lan xichen
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Same anon is current watching The Untamed.
"I can even kneel down to you 😏"
This 👀scene 👀 They didn't even worried to not make it so ambiguous because you can tell from how Lan Zhan looks at Wei Wuxian that he was speaking in not a platonic way at all 👀 where I am, and first of all where is the famous censorship, this is not a bromance at all, not even queerbaiting. The scenes between Wei Wu Xian and Lan Zhan are really unequivocal.
And I am glad to see that Lan Zhan has an older brother who supports him (even though poor Lan Zhan tries to repress his true feelings). This is very important, we all deserve such a supportive big brother
yesssss anon!!!! GOD that library scene really is something else asfksijxvs
(and i don't know if you were the same anon asking about censorship in the show but) yes exactly!! the relationship isn't framed as a bromance, and they're literally not baiting anything because the romance is right there on screen!! also welcome to the lan xichen appreciation club lmao the man is an angel who can do no wrong and his relationship with lan wangji is just so freaking sweet 🥰🥰🥰
#i'm now sat here *vibrating* thinking about all the wei wuxian/lan wangji scenes you've got coming up 🤭🤭#thanks so much for the ask!#answered#anon watches the untamed
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So I’ve been sitting with The Untamed for, uh, a few days now, and since I am of the opinion that this is a show that has been tragically under-discussed on this website (she said, sobbing), a few thoughts:
1. The last ten minutes aside, I really do think the show is better than the book? The show incorporates the JC/WWX of it all (the most important relationship???????????) so much more cleanly and prominently, and it really makes that final temple sequence sing in a way it doesn’t in the book. Plus by having WWX/LWJ already be in a soulmate-level relationship before WWX dies, it turns the two of them into such a beautiful constant throughout--the entire time, you know that whatever drama hits them with, the two of them will never waver, which is really lovely! (I also cannot pretend that the XY/XXC/SL triangle of tragedy did anything for me, but I did like that they were established well in the show so that by the time we hit Yi City, we know who they are and don’t require a massive infodump.)
2. That having been said... one thing I preferred about the book was that it let WWX be a lot messier. I'm not certain if this is a censorship thing or not (heroes must act heroically! villains are the only source of evil!), but in the book WWX was allowed to fuck up. Epically. When JZX died, it was unambiguously WWX’s fault--he was the one who lost control of WN, it was his aggressive emotions that bubbled over, even though he didn’t want them to, and it was because of him that JZX was killed. At the final big battle, WWX killed people, not only because they were literally having a conference to decide how to kill him, but because he was angry and that anger translated into real violence. In the show, though, the most brutal parts of those episodes are explicitly because of JGY/SS’s interference. I don’t love that, frankly. I like that book!WWX is flawed, that his mistakes are real, that he lashes out in really terrible ways. (And that actually goes for LWJ as well--in the show, he’s punished for siding with WWX, but in the book, he’s punished for attacking Lan Clan disciples in his attempt to protect WWX.) I like that when book!WWX feels bad, you know that he has concrete things to feel bad about! In the show, you really could just pat him on the back and say ‘no, dear, it wasn’t your fault!’ but in the book that is only partly true, and I like that ambiguity. Between MDZS and TCGF (which I am currently on book 2 of), I get the feeling that MXTX is really out here raging against the idea of any kind of organized hierarchies, because in her books those only create unhealthy power dynamics and ugly groupthink scenarios, and even the people standing against them get implicated because by opposing, they enter into a relationship with that very thing that destroys everything it touches. I think it’s telling that MDZS doesn’t end with WWX burning down the whole cultivating society, which he frankly would be justified in doing, but in quietly sneaking out and living adjacent to it. Only by disengaging can peace be achieved. It’s a fitting conclusion to such a despairing worldview.
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When I started reading the book of MZDS last night, I thought, wow, even with the censorship, the show is much gayer than the book. So far. But I’ve read all the way up to the first flashback, and I think that’s not exactly right:
the book is, at this point, gayer than the show The Untamed. But the show is more romantic than the book.
In the show, Wei Wuxian’s constantly stealing pining glances at Lan Wangji, from the first moment that the latter appears. He’s trying very hard not to be seen, but the implication - though nothing’s spelled out - of why he’s avoiding detection, is that it has something, somehow, to do with all of those FEELINGS on his face. (These glances don’t appear at all in the book.)
In the show, when Lan Wangji recognizes the song Wei Wuxian plays and grasps his wrist, and when Wei Wuxian in response to this drops his flute and holds onto Lan Wangji’s wrist in turn, they both stare at each other like they’re the ONLY (other) PERSON IN THE WORLD. Everything else comes to a stop: and though we don’t have any idea what the story there is yet, there is clearly a TON OF EMOTION, of SIGNIFICANCE, etc., to this reunion.
Whereas in the book! Wei Wuxian thinks of Lan Wangji as someone he’d ‘studied with... went on adventures, and fought together... their relationship wasn’t exactly bad, but it wasn’t that good either.’ In the book - a horrible betrayal, coming from show canon ;) - Wei Wuxian doesn’t hold onto Lan Wangji because he NEVER WANTS TO LET GO OF HIM AGAIN, but so that he doesn’t follow Wen Ning into the forest!, and figure out that Wei Wuxian is the feared Yiling Patriarch!
(I think that Lan Wangji already knows, but then again, I already more-or-less know the story.)
So in the show, despite all the censorship which means that this PINING and EMOTION is - not spoken out loud, but isn’t acting still a huge part of the text in TV? It’s more subjective to ‘read’ than written words, of course, but anyway... the relationship is actually a lot stronger at this point in time: Wei Wuxian’s emotional world has to a large extent revolved around Lan Wangji, for a long time before his death and resurrection. So their reunion is just so much more.
In the book, on the other hand, Wei Wuxian sees both Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng as threats and opponents. In actual fact Lan Wangji protects Wei Wuxian from Jiang Cheng, in both book and show, but... in the book Lan Wangji drags Wei Wuxian back to the Cloud Recesses over his protests, and keeps him there despite his attempts to escape. I very much prefer the show version, where Wei Wuxian seems happy and relieved (although surprised) to wake up in the Cloud Recesses!
(... which isn’t to say the book version is worse, because how much and what sort of conflicts one prefers between the main characters of a romance is, after all, a matter of taste, and I can imagine that if one loved the book first, the show would likely disappoint!).
But going back to the ‘book is gayer’ thing.
In the book, Mo Xuanyu explicitly, canonically, was gay. (‘A cutsleeve.’ Whatever term you wanna use.) This seems to have contributed to the fact that he was abused by his relatives so much that he first went crazy and then felt the need to go so far as to kill himself to get revenge.
And then, when Wei Wuxian wakes up in Mo Xuanyu’s body! He’s less than thrilled about Mo Xuanyu having been a cutsleeve, having died wearing makeup... and he uses the supposed fact of his homosexuality to try to get both Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji to leave him alone, let him go, etc., to try to evade recognition (and its consequences) as the Yiling Patriarch.
(In the show, when Wei Wuxian sees Lan Wangji’s scars at the Cold Springs, it’s because he was looking for Lan Wangji... to talk, to connect. Or maybe he was going to the Cold Springs and their rabbits and memory for comfort, it’s never stated out loud. Whereas in the book, he’s going to the Cold Springs to try to steal Lan Wangji’s jade token of passage so he can escape the Cloud Recesses! And he uses the fact that everyone thinks he’s gay to pretend that he was just trying to ‘peek,’ instead! Both book and show have a noticeable bit of focus on Wei Wuxian staring transfixed at Lan Wangji’s beauty... but in the book there’s explicit unambiguous text about gayness, that’s supposedly not how Wei Wuxian feels; whereas in the show, the text is inherently more ambiguous, but it’s saying something about yearning, closeness, etc.
It’s a lovely little microcosm of this contrast.)
AND SO.
I actually think that a guy (who doesn’t yet know he’s into men) (this would be Wei Wuxian) using the combination of his supposed gayness and his opponents’ homophobia against them, and for his own aims - or trying and failing to use it, in the case where his opponent is Lan Wangji, who unknown to him is ALSO GAY, and eventually they’re gonna get together but not for a while... could be an interesting story! It’s not really what I want from a romance, but even there, as part of the opening moves, it could be a good beat.
But it’s a very different story from ~they love each other,~ and their relationship is ~mysteriously fraught.~
And it’s fascinating how different ‘the story’ can be between versions that keep so many of the same scenes and even beats! When the motivations are different, for example, even though most of ‘what happens’ is the same... and it’s fascinating, specifically, how much (in different versions of a gay romance story) being explicitly gay and being explicitly? whatever that even means? romantic can be disjoint things.
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opinion on the term bl?
uhhhhhh…very complicated. I might have written a whole rant post before on the topic on this blog on an empty stomach so it was most likely not very nuanced (I think it was about people saying that The Untamed didn’t count as BL).
buckle in, this got suuuper long
tbh i first came into contact with the term in the early 2000s and since the internet didn’t play any role at my age then, the only context I had were magazines (here in Europe) and manga publications.
I knew that BL was a whole genre in Manga and that it featured gay romance and that fans / content creators would refer to themselves at fujoshi. Now, at that time I was only figuring out that I was bi, didn’t know any Japanese and didn’t have any friends with cultural ties to Japan.
So based on the magazines I read, I started to believe that “Fujoshi” literally meant “Rotten Girl” because of the taboo of same-sex relationships and the tantalizing sense of the forbidden that comes with it.
While I read some BL manga (couldn’t tell you the titles anymore), I never referred to myself as a Fujoshi or being into BL because both terms seemed to apply only to Japanese people and the sense of “the forbidden” in regards to same-sex relationships didn’t fit to my reality (having been to a same-sex marriage with my family at age 8 etc) and also felt demeaning to me.
After learning Japanese and living in Japan I didn’t really question my aversion to the terms, since I did have access to the internet now but didn’t think of fact-checking everything I had “learned” pre-internet (I think it is important to note here that the magazines weren’t the highest in quality in terms of journalistic prowess nor scientific in any way. They were just short entertaining articles, aimed at teenagers like me, trying to profit from the still ongoing wave of japanese pop culture in the west) and my only experience with both bl content and real life fujoshi wasn’t that positive:
My feelings on BL and fujoshi culture were heavily influenced by
- the wave of very sad and traumatizing gay movies in Japan that most of the time ended in double suicides of the main characters
- rape storylines getting romanticized in manga
- pretty heavily stereotyped gay characters in main stream tv series that were only there for comedic relief
- the Fujoshi I knew back then being weirded out by the thought of same-sex relationships between women and basing their thought on gay men solely on the content they consumed
- not finding the hailed “subversion of traditional gender roles” or discussion thereof in the BL my friends consumed.
- my gay friends in japan having very frustrating encounters with fujoshi who started to treat them like an open air circus and not making them feel supported in real life
- people around me making judgments based on attractiveness on whether gay people should get supported, while the hint of a celebrity being gay was weaponized against them
now, this pretty much sums up, why I tended to have negative thoughts on the subject and felt more sympathetic to the push from some people in the queer community in japan to please retire terms like “uke” and “seme” when talking about real people.
since then, i didn’t intervene when other female friends in japan would use the term for themselves, because it still was a term coined in japan and those people were actually supportive of queer people so i didn’t see how me being preachy about it just because of my experience and not calling myself a fujoshi or fan of bl would be of any help and/or called for.
jump to 2018/2019 and i started to read more papers about it on a whim because i started to watch Crossing The Line and for the first time in a long while I was in a fandom again where people called the genre “BL” and themselves fujoshi/fudanshi.
I came to know that what I assumed the origin story of the term “Fujoshi” to be had been misreported (shocker) by the magazines back in my youth and that apparently the term was also widely used in Thailand, Taiwan and Mainland China. especially the knowledge that apparently TERFs were behind a pushback of the term made me reevaluate my opinion.
Since I have really no insight into Chinese or Thai culture it is not on me to judge whether it is appropriate for people there to use BL as a genre signifier etc and from all I have read, in some cases it is really about finding a way of creating and distributing queer content in a place that is not lgbtqi+ friendly or use it as means of finding expressions for one’s own sexuality etc.
Obv. there are genre conventions I will get annoyed about and criticize (all female characters are evil etc) but those things are also not BL exclusive so there’s not much sense in condemning a whole genre that at least tries to push some conventions.
With the Internet and a global push for more lgbtqi+ rights there is now definitely a strong symbiotic relationship between queer content and real life social changes. so being harder on queer content (in general) because it isn’t perfect doesn’t make anything better for queer people.
nowadays there has been some wonderful content in japan with a push for real life legal changes as well, taiwan has the marriage for all and thailand is also pushing for a civil union for everyone.
especially in the case of mainland china with strict censorship rules i will congratulate anyone who tries to sneak some ambiguity in. it saddens me that the rules are as strict and that there are even more hardships for lgbtqi+ people in real life but i would never say that not creating any content that could be interpreted as queer should be favoured over trying to do something, regardless of how lacking the result might seem.
The reason why I ranted about BL as a genre term recently was mostly directed at western fans with no cultural ties to any of the aforementioned cultures, but i definitely didn’t stress that enough in my previous post.
Since I still don’t call myself a fujoshi or being into the BL genre I am suspicious of western fans calling themselves as such. because i project my own experience and knowledge on them and there are people out there who definitely emphasize the cheeky “rotten” side of themselves while not knowing (like past me) where the term comes from and that it does’t have to do with any “forbidden fruit”. i assume a certain laziness when straight people will try and convince me that they are allies to me, because they consume BL series, but will still call me “the man” in the relationship etc.
There can definitely be a need for a similar outlet that allows people to write about gender roles, sexualities etc in a similar way but very often the argument of “it is female empowerment to be into BL” is just warping the origin story of the term into an excuse for homophobic statements. I see the term get applied to western shows as well (when there isn’t a need for using a Japanese term, especially not when there’s a missing understanding of its origin) and actual mlm shows in asia being dismissed just because it doesn’t fit the BL genre conventions (point and example: people in the west discounting The Untamed as mlm content because they weren’t explicit about it; What Did You Eat Yesterday getting dismissed because of similar reasons and the diversion from presumed age and beauty standards of BL as a genre). That way western fans made BL feel quite restrictive and not interchangeable with mlm anymore, which just confounds me.
in the end it also comes down to scope: someone writing fanfiction, producing small indie series cannot really be harmful even when they content might seem so. so regardless of what the genre entails it is important to put everything in perspective and whether this is the hill someone wants to die on, instead of leaving space for artistic expression, cultural differences and celebrating the steps into a more loving world for all.
tl;dr: I feel many emotions; there’s always space to learn more and I am grateful to everyone who made posts about the racism in criticizing the terms “Fujoshi” / “BL”; I don’t use the term myself, but only feel wary when westerners use it; personally I prefer to use mlm or wlw as content describers but I am also not 100% satisfied with that as well
ask me my opinion on ______
#ctlyuejie writes#ask game#ctlyuejie rants#long post#lovely mutuals are lovely#this is mostly to sort my own thoughts#thank you for the ask and sorry for the word vomit
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