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franniebanana · 3 years

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CQL Rewatch - Episode 3

I just love their outfits here, and since I didn’t comment on that in the last episode, I wanted to say it here. I love the whole color palette they used for Lotus Pier. The donghua goes heavy on the purple and black, but I really love how they incorporate lavender and teal and other blues. It’s just very pretty and soft and relaxing. Such a nice place. I keep having a debate with myself about where I’d rather live. I think I’d be more comfortable in the Cloud Recesses, but I’d never be able to deal with all those rules!

Ah, yes, everyone’s favorite peacock. He played this part so perfectly: just this pillar of grace and poise, except when he’s around Jiang Yanli, and he just becomes butter hahaha. I like his son a lot better than him, but he and Wei Wuxian have some great scenes together, and it’s fun to see him grow alongside everyone else. He’s not just a mindless clan member who does everything he’s supposed to. He’ll stand up and fight for justice too.

It’s easy to forget (myself included in this) that Jiang Yanli is the oldest of the three of them, especially in this show. She’s so much smaller, so soft-spoken; she isn’t going to be the next leader, because that’s Jiang Cheng, being the male heir. But this is one of those scenes where she really is the big sister. Wei Wuxian is fighting with her fiancé’s retinue, Jiang Cheng is just trying to stay out of it and be polite, so she has to step in and put an end to it. I love when Jiang Yanli gets some screen time and lines, and isn’t serving soup. Don’t get me wrong—I like seeing her take care of them, but it’s more mothering than being a big sister. I think the moments when she’s standing up for her brothers and for herself are really special. You can’t blame Jiang Cheng or Wei Wuxian for loving their shijie so much.

Gotta love Wei Wuxian taking every opportunity to throw some shade at Jin Zixuan. I love all of it, and I eat it up—I am the target audience for snarky Wei Wuxian. And at this point, Jin Zixuan just ignores him—good on him. He keeps that up for all of a few days.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO

YOU FORGOT THE INVITATION!

Sorry, but the first time I watched this, I wondered why there was this big close-up of something with “Lan Clan of Gusu” written on it. I’m a dummy, okay?

Omg they translated ge-ge as “buddy.”

Okay, but here we go! Shut out of the Cloud Recesses. Also, where did they change? I kept thinking they changed at the tavern, but when they left, they were wearing their same Jiang Clan clothes. So, somewhere along the way, they put on their pretty white robes. I’ve got nothing else to say here, because we’re about to see another great entrance from Lan Wangji.

I love how his entrance is accompanied by the guqin. His presence is so ethereal, so otherworldly, yet he’s so grounded as a character. He turns everyone’s heads, including Wei Wuxian’s. I love that Wang Yibo is in reality shorter than Xiao Zhan, so they gave him platform boots to make them more even. But the height and stature gives the relationship a whole different dynamic.

Anyone who knows me knows I love my yaoi/BL. I could go on and on about my favorites, but I won’t do that here. There’s one thing I don’t like about it, and it’s that you can always tell who the top and bottom is just by how they look (sometimes artists subvert this, which I love!). The donghua for MDZS does this (I haven’t read the manhua, but I have seen some screenshots, and I think it also does)—Lan Wangji is so much bigger than Wei Wuxian. And while it’s aesthetically pleasing, it just bugs me, okay? I like the idea of Wangxian being roughly the same size and height—I don’t really know why, I just do. Also I definitely headcanon them both as switches at this point.

I don’t think Lan Wangji would have given Wei Wuxian the time of day if he hadn’t heard this. He’s already impressed that Wei Wuxian picked up on the weird stuff/wicked sorcery going on—he’s made a mental note of him. I’m sure he’s a little disappointed that Wei Wuxian immediately gets on his nerves, but he still pauses before leaving.

Lan Wangji is never going to be a fast friend—he’s not going to be anyone’s best friend right away. You need to gain his trust and that does not happen overnight. Though the setting is anything but realistic, their relationship and the steps it goes through are incredibly realistic. They grow together—they grow on each other (it’s not as if Wei Wuxian really cares about Lan Wangji at first either—think of how many times he calls him a fuddy-duddy. I think his main goal for quite some time is to get on Lan Wangji’s nerves and tease him. Wei Wuxian is used to charming his way in and out of things, but he can’t do that with Lan Wangji).

Yibo’s piercings! That’s it. That’s why I took this screenshot. But, weirdly, I always look at stuff like that.

He has such a swagger here, going up the steps, but I think it’s really just Xiao Zhan trying to climb the stairs without tripping on his costume. XD

It’s funny how surprised Wei Wuxian is to have the silencing spell used on him, even though he had been put under it earlier that day. Frankly, I don’t blame Lan Wangji. Wei Wuxian hit him with a bit of a sucker punch there, implying that the girls only liked him for how he looks and that they’d be disappointed by his demeanor.

It’s such a popular trope (enemies to lovers), but I don’t think that makes it inherently bad or less effective as a storytelling device. On the contrary, when done well, it can make or break a story. As I said earlier, their relationship is very realistic, yet has enough fiction to make it fun. I watch these early scenes with a big old grin on my face, and I’ve seen this one probably around four times now, maybe more (I keep watching the Special Edition for all that wangxian goodness).

Okay, let’s watch as Wei Wuxian digs his hole deeper and deeper. The look on Lan Qiren’s face this entire time is priceless. Like, who is this miscreant who just barged in here, telling me how he is breaking all the rules and expecting me to feel bad for him? Meanwhile, Lan Xichen, with a smile: I won’t blame you for breaking the rules, but let my brother who hates you decided your punishment, okay? Thanks!

Peak comedy before it gets all serious again.

She’s so gorgeous!

But I’ll be frank with you all, I don’t like that they expanded Wen Qing’s role in this way. She was one of my favorites in the book, but shoehorning her and Wen Ning into the Cloud Recesses kind of drives me nuts. And then the stuff with Jiang Cheng, while kind of cute, just doesn’t really hit right with me, and I don’t think it was executed well at all after a certain point—but I’ll babble about that when the time comes. So, while I appreciate expanding female roles, I didn’t really care for this bit in the Cloud Recesses. I would have been fine with them adding scenes of what she was up to with the Wen Clan—that would have been really cool, actually, because we don’t get to see much of anything other than the Nightless City. And maybe I’m biased because I quite enjoyed the archery contest stuff in the book that they kind of piecemealed in the show.

It sounds like I’m just whining about this show, but I actually really enjoy it.

I like this moment between the twin jades. We don’t get a ton of these and this one is particularly quiet and peaceful. The contrast between them and Jiang Cheng/Wei Wuxian is so stark—the twin jades are so formal and a little stiff, while the twin prides are off the wall, hitting and teasing each other—but this doesn’t make either one less caring than the other. What’s obvious from this scene is how much both of them care about each other: Lan Wangji wants to do what he can to help, because he knows how much pressure is on Xichen, and Xichen is just worried about his younger brother. Even though you don’t find this out until later, you can tell that the two boys had to grow up very fast. Neither one had much of a childhood, and I think Lan Xichen does take on a bit of a father role to Lan Wangji as well.

Other episodes: 1 | 2 |

#cql rewatch #lan wangji #wei wuxian #wangxian #lan xichen #jiang cheng #jiang yanli #jin zixuan #wen qing #cql #the untamed #mdzs #mo dao zu shi

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skymoonandstardust · 6 years

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Office Hero Part 4

AN: The Last part :( thank you all of you for loving this series and leaving scads of wonderful comments <3 I loved writing this and I'm kind of sad to see it go. . .

The revelation of Clark Kent’s secret identity shook your world and changed how you saw . . .well, pretty much everything—especially him. It was going on a week now since you discovered his secret and so far you’d managed to keep it to yourself, act normal and not let anyone least of all him have any idea that you knew. You still hadn’t gotten used to the fact that you were working in the same building as the man of steel, that you knew him, that you counted him as a friend. It was too wild to be true. You’d think that this discovery would be enough for you and spell the end of it. You’d go back to being a normal reporter, slowly get used to the idea that Clark Kent who’s desk you passed every day on your way into work doubled as a hero, and that would be it.

. . . but there was no rest for the wicked and no time off for an investigative journalist.

As soon as you’d solved the mystery of the man of steel and the mild-mannered reporter you immediacy set yourself on another track, that of his friend Diana prince and the billionaire playboy himself Bruce Wayne. They were both inexplicably high on the danger scale and (at least in Diana’s case) had a clear friendship with Clark—there had to be something up with them, just like there had been with him and your reporter’s inquisitive instinct wouldn’t let you rest till you’d cracked them too.

It only made sense to you that if Clark was secretly a flying cape wearing hero then the other two had to have a similar day (or would it be night?) job so you started monitoring both of them. Bruce Wayne was easy, being the rich, famous, playboy that he was, you just payed closer attention to all his photos, speeches and appearances --- and more importantly, his disappearances and cancelations. The trouble there was sorting through the white noise to find the really relevant stuff, which was made doubly hard because of the massive amounts of info you got on him every day and the fact you still sort of had to look over everything since you didn’t know what might turn out to be the key you needed to unlock the truth in his darkness.

You weren’t ashamed to say that you’d often asked some of your friends and coworkers to help you sort through it all. There were times you asked them or keep an eye out for anything Wayne related for you when you had to go out for a story or were too busy to do it yourself.

You made a file for Bruce and wrote your data down in a notebook jut like you had for Clark. His got full surprisingly fast.

Meanwhile the one’s you’d made for Diana were nearly empty.

It was much harder to get information on her. On top of the fact that she wasn’t as well monitored as Bruce, only the most basic facts were known about her life, nothing more nothing less. Still, it would have seemed above board over all if, when you started digging-- Her past hadn’t turned out to be little know and sketchy. It seemed like she had just popped into the face of the earth one day and just started living her life. It had taken you asking for help or information from other reporters, even ones from other papers and calling in a few favors to learn more. . . but it only made things more confusing. Ultimately the trail led you to a historical societies archive’s were you spent the day going back in time through pictures, looking at centuries worth of photos in an attempt to find her or any of her ancestors.

You found her alright.

A thrill had gone through you when you’d first found Diana standing In one of the photos, followed immediately by a burst of confusion and excitement when you realized that the photo was taken too long ago and she looked too old (exactly as old as she did now as a matter of fact. . .) for it to be her. For a second you wondered if it was her mother or maybe a grandmother but no, when you looked at the names written in the bottom corner of the page hers was written there in a faded spidery script and they looked exactly the same in every way; there was no piecemeal genetic inheritance that you usually see—no “they have the same eyes” or “the chins looks the same”.

No, they had to be the same person.

Trying to stifle your exactment and crush the urge to go tell the world you kept digging, going further and further back and finding her in more and more photos. In every single one she looked the same, like she hadn’t aged a day even though the date written down on the back or the corer, the clothes she and the other people in the photo wore, and the changing style of the pictures themselves all said differently.

Finally, you got all the way back to the nineteen forties, and found a few more photos of her before the trial suddenly went ice cold and froze to nothing in front of you.

That was it.

No more pictures, no more appearances after that—and still she looked exactly like she did the day you saw her walk through the daily planet’s glass doors.

You left the building that day with more questions then answers.

Billionaires and nurses weren’t the only ones you were keeping track of and monitoring. You also kept an eye on anything and everything having to do with heroes or the justice league. Hey, maybe if you couldn’t figure it out one way then you could figure it out the opposite way, attach the hero to the secret identity instead of the secret identity to the hero. . .

Whatever would work.

Two days after your trip to the historical society you were sitting at your desk at work, actually working although more then half the office was stopped in their tracks, all clustered around the nearest Tv as the news channel played the latest battle of the justice league live as they faced off against a small army (for what was it, The second time this month?) Just a minute before you’d seen Clark do his usual disappearing act, running out of the office when everyone’s back was turned and no one was looking, so, you knew, he could be change into superman and fly off to join the battle. At the sight a smile that bordered on a knowing smirk flashed across your face before you got back to writing.

Three minutes later and you let yourself take a quick break to look up yourself and watch from your desk as the arrival of superman was announced by the blonde pretty female newscaster. Just as you were about to look away the tv changed as they showed Wonder Woman Standing her ground as a hail of bullets sparked harmlessly off her famous bracelets.

The second you saw her you knew it was the same face you’d been searching for and staring at in pictures for hours. It was the same Person Clark had brought into the office and introduced to everyone.

Wonder Woman was Diana Prince.

It was almost too easy to spot once you knew what you were looking for. The only difference was the change in outfit, the tiara and that fact that her hair was down instead of the ponytail it was in when you first saw her or tied up in a bun on the back of her head. The whole thing seemed about as ridiculous and as likely to work as Clark’s stupid glasses and the appearing, disappearing forehead curl . . .yet somehow, they both worked. You guessed it went to show how caught up in themselves, stupid and blind people at large could be, that a pair of glasses and a change of hairstyle was enough to fool them and keep them from seeing the hero in front of them.

Everything clicked into place and it all made sense. Of course she would stay the same in all those photos--- if Diana Prince really was wonder woman she’d be an amazon, an immortal. It would explain why she seemed to appear out of the blue one day. . . she actually had. Her words came back to you, drifting through your head once more. . .

“It’s a small island near Greece in the Aegean Sea. . .”

And the amazons were said to live in an mystical island near Greece hidden and protected from the outside world

The giddiness of your second triumph thrummed In your veins, causing a wide smile to spread on your face, directed at empty air. You’d met Wonder Woman, you’d met a literal goddess—well not really but technically. . .as close as you were going to get. Laughter bubbled up in you, light and euphoric and you could barely keep it in, but you had to. if you let it out everyone would be wondering just what you found so funny and amusing when there was a battle going on right now, when the justice league were fighting together at this very moment. With a small force of will you swallowed the laugh and tried to concentrate on something normal and serious to keep it from coming back up, scaling your throat to escape into the empty waiting air.

Two mysteries solved, One left to go. . .

Fittingly, it was at night that you discovered the truth behind Bruce Wayne, Billionaire Playboy. About four days after you connected Diana Prince to Wonder Woman you were at home, working late on a piece due the next day when a voice from the darkness of your shadowed hallway made you nearly jump out of your skin “Doing more research?” The deep gravelly voice sent shivers through you as you recognized it instantly.

You were in trouble—deep deep trouble.

That was the only explanation, the only reason he’d be here since he hardly ever came to Metropolis – lord knew he had enough trouble to solve in his own city. Somehow, he’d found out about your research, all your discoveries and had come here for you. Almost certainly to threaten you , possibly to destroy everything you’d gotten on him and the other two heroes. At least you knew he wasn’t the killing type, you’d learned that much from your research and years of watching him fight and stop crime.

Nonetheless you found yourself having to speak over a pounding heart as you found courage from somewhere and answered the voice from the shadows. “Sorry to disappoint, but no. It’s for work.”

Batman stepped out of the blackness and you could have worn that for half a second his lips had been just he slightest twitch up. . .that was probably as close as he ever came to a smile “You have been doing a lot of research lately, haven’t you—into Bruce Wayne, Diana prince, and especially your coworker Clark Kent.”

“Don’t you mean you and two other members of the league?” The words were out before you even realized it and as soon as they were you wanted to bite your tongue off, to sew your mouth shut so you’d never speak again—anything to keep from saying something so provoking and stupid. It was too late, the words were out now and there was no taking them back so you could only continue on. You pulled up a picture of Bruce Wayne and turned your computer to face him, so he could see “That is you isn’t it?” The face under the mask was inscrutable as ever. You may as well have tried getting a reaction out of stone “Maybe. What I want to know is what you know—about the people you’ve been looking into.” You scoffed and turned the laptop back to you “Please. You already know it all—why else would you be here? You just want me to corroborate it so you can be sure that everything I wrote is the truth. It is.”

Your words did seem to surprise him, but the emotion only flickered there for half a second before there wasn’t a trace it had ever been there—it may as well have been an illusion of light and shadow. “Humor me.” You sighed and closed the picture before putting your laptop aside and locking eyes with him again “Alright. . ..” so you told him as briefly, concisely and accurately as you could everything that had happened, everything you’d found out from start to finish including all the hard proof you’d been able to get on all of them— only leaving out the minor detail of your power obviously.

When the last of your lingering words faded slowly from the air emotion once again seeped through the cracks of his (literal) mask as he nodded once approvingly, a (small) smile on his face “Impressive.” Of all the thing’s you’d been expecting to hear that was the last thing you thought he would say.

Batman lowered his hood, showing the features of Bruce Wayne exactly as you suspected “How would you like to Join the Justice League?”

You were completely and utterly stunned. You couldn’t believe you might have actually heard him right—never in your wildest dreams did you ever imagine that this was what he was here for, to offer you an opportunity to join the Justice League. . .but here you were. “b-but I can’t. I can’t fight, I don’t have any training-- and I don’t have any powers.”

Bruce smirked “Don’t You?”

Your heart went right up your throat before sinking all the way to your stomach “W-what?”

“You’ve told me everything except what made you look into Clark Kent, or how you knew to look into me and Diana. Diana makes some sense because to you there was a clear connection between her and Kent- -they knew each other, but you didn’t know Clark knew me—in fact, he told you the opposite. So how did you know?”

Against your will your eyes flicked up to the black ten hovering above him and he caught their movement, his eyes lifting in an attempt to see what you were seeing. . . except he couldn’t. Words and sentences choked your throat. . .too few, too many, and you couldn’t get any of them out. You inhaled and let it out in a great big whooshing breath that shook the words loose inside you “I- I can see numbers—over people’s heads. They tell me how dangerous someone is. It’s usually on a scale of one to ten. . . but thanks to Clark I’ve run into one or two of you who broke the scale.”

The same crooked almost boyish grin that you’d seen directed at a few near swooning girls at the planet reappeared, making him seem years younger and much happier, much nicer. It was hard to believe that smile could belong to someone as serious, cold and direct as the batman. . . which was exactly the point of course. “I thought It was something like that” The grin grew wider “Still say you’re not fit to join the league? That power could come in useful-- And you’re smart, smart enough to connect the dots between me Clark, Diana to our alter egos ---and get enough evidence to prove it. That’s just the kind of skills the league needs. As for training, don’t worry about it. We’ll take care of that if you decide to join. It would take time, don’t’ get me wrong, but you could do it--- you’d be able to hold your own next to the rest of us. So what do you say, do you want to join the justice league?”

The forevers: @casownsmyass @docharleythegeekqueen @imadeangirl-butimsamcurious@his-paradox @l4life @fangirl-who-dreams @sarciaczekk @esoltis280 @theresnofandomforthis @laramitk @dragonangel-funandfire @a-sea-of-fandoms @thatbasicnerd4life @scarlettsoldier @cassiopeia-barrow

The office heroes: @scionofthestars @suz-123 @aquabrie @sneakingthroughyourgifs @theresnofandomforthis @bbparker @iclaudsworld @purpledolphin-f @luv-what-you-do @coltcas

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