This "In Blossom" fanart was requested by @yletylyf as part of the "Cdrama Gotcha for Gaza" (@cdrama-action)! The prompt requested to show pan yue's suffering fashionista side, so I chose my favorite outfit of his!
prompt: anything Pan Yue! Maybe highlighting his fashion sense, or his dramatic flair, or how he suffers so beautifully. (I don't have a preference between graphic, vid, or art, creator's choice!). Alternatively, just anything In Blossom for fanart.
In Blossom visual analysis (ep. 1-7): How to film a gothic romance
Although I'm not completely convinced about some of the writing choices of In Blossom, I absolutely LOVE the show's production design and cinematography. @mademoiselle-red wrote a great post about how main character Pan Yue fits the gothic romantic lead archetype, and those gothic elements are not only present in the script but also in the show's visual storytelling.
Lighting
A key element of gothic romance is its atmosphere of mystery and suspense.
Something I really like about In Blossom is that despite its dark subject matter, many of its scenes take place during the day. One of the show's main themes is that appearances can be misleading and the cinematography often plays with that notion by linking light to deception and darkness to truth. Note how many of the emotionally honest beats of Yang Caiwei and Pan Yue's relationship happen at night (e.g., their couple escapades at the Li Residence, Ghost Market, and Life and Death gambling house) while fakery, corruption, and evildoing happen in the day. It's with this subversion of our expectations for light that the show creates an unsettling atmosphere.
And these lighting choices also help set up Pan Yue as a classic gothic romance anti-hero, someone the female lead, Yang Caiwei, fears but still finds herself drawn to.
Look at how Pan Yue is lit when shot through Yang Caiwei's subjective point of view. The strong use of light creates a lot of contrast--through her eyes, he is a mixture of light and dark, his morality as inscrutable as his shadowy figure.
Camera Angles and Shot Sizes
The show's use of low angles and close-ups further reinforces the idea that Pan Yue is unpredictable and even dangerous.
In cinematography, low-angle shots tend to make the subject look more powerful and menacing, and the show uses this technique to great effect.
Even in the intimacy of close-up shots, we can sense the threat emanating from Pan Yue. He’s always shot just a smidgeon too close for comfort.
For example, look at how much Liu Xueyi's face fills the frame in an early "romantic" scene. The shot feels almost claustrophobic as if he's so single-minded about his goals that he has no choice but to dominate the frame (and Yang Caiwei). It's an unnerving moment despite the soft words coming out of his mouth.
Side Note: I live for Pan Yue's (vampiric) long shots. The production design team was smart for dressing the character in dark clothes with such a sleek cut and drape--he looks like a sexy bat.
The Nosferatu references in Yang Caiwei's tomb are also perfect.
Composition and Framing
And finally, like any good gothic romance, In Blossom illustrates how love can drive one to despair and even madness.
Because of this, my FAVORITE scene of the show has to be the introduction of Shangguan Zhi. Her obsessive pursuit of beauty in hopes of seducing Pan Yue has left her a shell of a human being, and the scene's composition perfectly encapsulates this with how it focuses on the elegant lines of her body--not her face or personhood.
Shangguan Zhi is trapped by her delusional fantasy of a life with Pan Yue--see how she's boxed in by the vertical lines of the screen panel she admires--and the show regularly uses architectural lines to show how her desperation has trapped Yang Caiwei as well.
be honest with me. would anybody be willing to read any SVSSS x reader stuff (or, just SVSSS with reader fanfics in general?) like please i'm being so deadass right now. i am very willing to write, it's just that i have no clue if anyone would want to read that???
i know that the people in this fandom don't necessarily have any x or & readers, but i'm sad and pathetic and have a weird emotional attachment to the characters. like hear me out guys.
i present to you all a few ideas i have:
1. reader transmigrates into SVSSS and decides, fuck it, let's become a counselor/therapist/emotional support service pal. half of the conflicts in the novel would've been prevented if therapy, communication, and simple observation existed! mu qingfan, give me a chance!! i promise this will lower the qi deviation rates by at least 50%.
liu qingge? alright, let's work on learning identifying your feelings better and not respond via violence to every situation. shen jiu? hey, hey, it's okay to be vulnerable! no- please don't go self projecting yourself onto an innocent 14 year old. luo binghe? *pulls out 5 different documents* heavens, where do we even start? like, gods forbid any of them have a proper support system, or at least be able to express their feelings and deal with them in a healthy manner!
2. liu qingge x reader where he gradually stops painfully pining and gets the love that he deserves. he gets his pretty face cupped gently and kisses all over it. that's it. that's the fic idea.
3. bingge, the original luo binghe, gets sent back in time.. all the way back to right when his mother died. he believes that he's been given a chance to re-enact his revenge, play it smart all the way from the start and have an upper hand now that he has to relive this! however, that quickly changes when this random fucking person (aka, reader) just wont stop bothering him?? what the hell do they want??? (for this one, i'm not sure if reader should be a transmigrator who believes they're in SVSSS instead of PIDW and is unaware of the whole bingge thing, or just some npc that proves him wrong about kindness).
4. SVSSS hater (or someone who just has a very complicated relationship with it!) reader transmigrates into it after tweeting "stupid author, stupid novels". they then proceed to accidentally collect two husbands they were so actively against before. ugh! now that i'm here, i guess i'll try to help out with their relationship and give my advice so that they won't have so much conflict, ones that were super frustrating to even hear about!! shen qingqiu, that dense ass guy and unhealthily codependent luo binghe! wait, what? what do you mean they both want me to be part of their marriage now??
sincerely, very much inspired by this tweet (reader most likely isn't going to be an anti, though);
low-key might combine the first and fourth fanfic idea? will make reader gender neutral (or even male!) though. but overall idk. idk if people will even wanna see that at all, man. ok please give thoughts. or not lol
(10-11-23 edit: i'm currently writing the bingge one rn!)
some basic background notes on lu ten's weapon, scars, and why I chose the name for him that I did!!!!! This stuff is mostly for myself as i've said before (so I'm not super inconsistent when I write stuff for it hdfndkjn) but I know some of you like this nutty au lol
(article on Liu Ju (Crown Prince Wei))
(samurai champloo fight scene with Sara to see a yari in action **including the windmill rock attack i mentioned)