That’s It That’s The Show

I think Batman is genuinely thrown any time someone he dates as Brucie Wayne is legitimately attracted to him because he’s acquired such a reputation among women as Gotham’s Most Prolific Beard that if a woman asks him out he assumes she’s a lesbian trying to keep the media from outing her.

I don’t have a canon basis for this I just think it’s neat.

Siblings

Me to my brother: *waving a straw. Wingardium leviosa!

My brother: what do you expect me to do?

Me: fly bitch fly.

Nicky and Joe from The Old Guard is the ultimate gay Enamies to lovers couple.

From killing each other in the crusades, and for about 100 years after that, to loving hitmen/soldier husbands in the movie. If anyone wants to write fanfics I’m here for it.

(I want to read a book about them! Like how the hell did Andy get them to stop killing each other and how did their relationship start?)

wait, So we're not crazy???

No!

Tang Yi and Shao Fei soulmate au

A short Drabble based of my other two part soulmate AU for Jack and ZhaoZi.

Tang Yi never gave much thought to his soulmate words. There was always something more pressing in his life, such as looking after Hong Ye, managing the business, of working on his cooking. After Mr Tang gave him a home he simply didn’t bother with the idea of a soulmate. He had all the happiness that he needed.

But then Mr Tang died and he found himself stuck in a hospital bed recovering from a nearly fatal bullet wound to the chest. At first he was so consumed with his grieving emotions and thoughts of revenge that he hadn’t really noticed the man come through the door. The doctor at his bedside had glanced up at the visitor before leaving the room, his departure making Tang Yi adress the man. He was young, probably around his age, with short cut black hair and a expressive face. His eyes were red rimmed and it was clear he had been crying. For a moment Tang Yi wondered why the man had been crying before he recalled the other body. The female officer had also been murdered with Mr Tang. She must have been close to this young officer.

“Do you know who shot you?”

The question caught Tang Yi by surprise and he felt the scribble on his forearm heat up. Refusing to think about the consequences of the reaction of his words, he schooled his face into a calm expression.

“No” he stated clearly. He watched as the officer’s eyes widened as his hand flew to the back of his neck. But before he could speak the hospital doors flew open and a small guy poked his head through.

“Shao Fei”, he called as the officer turned around. “The boss wants you to head back to the station. Says they need help going through Tang’s files”.

Shao Fei groaned and turned back to glare at Tang Yi. “I know that you know who shot you, no matter what you say”, he said stubbornly. Tang Yi was just noticing how big Shao Fei’ ears were. (He’s on a lot of medication. Sue him) “I promise you that I will figure out the truth and bring the people responsible to justice”, Shao Fei continued. Tang Yi tilted his head in challenge, meeting Shao Fei’s gaze. “Let’s hope you get there first then”, he muttered just loud enough for the other to hear. The pissed off expression Shao Fei gave him almost made him snort. The guy just looked too ridiculous with his monkey ears. As Shao Fei left the room, Tang Yi was left considering their encounter and hoping that he would not have to deal with such a loud impulsive officer again.

Unfortunately, Shao Fei didn’t get the same idea.

For four years the officer pursued him. The guy seemed to pop up everywhere and it was getting on Tang Yi’s nerve. He was too busy trying to turn the company legal to pay attention to the stubborn policeman. Every occurrence consisted of Shao Fei asking questions and Tang Yi responding with cool dismissals and negative answers. He half wondered, whenever he gave Shao Fei a thought, why the officer even bothered? He would even turn up when off work! He had to admire his persistence.

As time drew on, Tang Yi started finding benefits to Shao Fei’s chase. Leaving anonymous tips at the station about a secret meeting between him and various other gang leaders was a easy way to get his enemies arrested. Besides, Jack’s descriptions of Shao Fei’s face every time he realised that Tang Yi was not there were too good to be true.

The officer was the best to tease. His face was so expressive that Tang Yi just couldn’t help annoying him just for the reaction. Cuffing him to the elevator with his own handcuffs was by far the funniest. Shao Fei had looked so frustrated and angry that Tang Yi has to fight back a grin. But despite this teasing and the continued persistence Shao Fei, neither men discussed the subject of soulmates.

That is until they were kidnapped and hiding on some mountain side.

It was Shao Fei who broached it first. He was quietly watching the fire Tang Yi had made when he spoke. “Did your words ever react?” He asked. The question surprised Tang Ti who paused his action of poking the flames and turned to face the other. Shao Fei looked tired and his face had a slight vulnerability that Tang Yi had never seen before. He was not meeting his gaze, eyes fixed on the fire in front of him and Tang Yi could see the blood on his sleeve where his tie was wrapped around the wound.

“It’s just”, Shao Fei continued after a minute of Tang Yi not responding. “When mine heated up, it caught me by surprise. Its on the back of my neck so I never really paid attention to it. It was a complete refusal anyway”. Shao Fei shifted, voice becoming sad. His shirt collar moved and Tang Yi could just about see the neat word ‘No’ inscribed at the base of his neck. Tang Yi didn’t say anything. After a few minutes Shao Fei headed inside the shelter, leaving Tang Yi with his thoughts.

The first time Tang Yi felt the urge to kiss Shao Fei was when he was looking for his lighter. He was so afraid that he had lost it somewhere on that mountain that when Shao Fei turned up with the lighter in hand, Tang Yi was shocked by the sudden urge to kiss the other senseless arising in his chest. As he always did, he ignored the feeling and thanked the other.

However, the more his ignored his feelings, the more they seemed to rise. It was particularly bad when the puppy like officer invited himself to stay over under the excuse of ‘protecting’ Tang Yi. Especially since the self sacrificing idiot kept on getting himself injured for him. Although, his flustered expression when Tang Yi gave him a back massage was hilarious.

But then Shao Fei got shot protecting Hong Ye and Tang Yi was consumed by a sudden fear of losing the annoying policeman. He hadn’t even realised that he had began to care for him until the threat of losing him was too much. Every time he returned to the hospital, he was struck by feelings of care and admiration for the man in the bed. At first he ignored the feelings until Shao Fei would look up and greet him with a smile that Tang Yi couldn’t help but return.

So when Shao Fei asked him to walk with him up to the hospital roof, Tang Yi happily agreed. Watching Shao Fei overlook the city and drink in the fresh air left a warm smile on his face. When Shao Fei turned around and pulled him into a kiss, Tang Yi responded before he could even think things through, kissing back with so much hunger that it caught Shao Fei by surprise.

As they finally pulled away, Shao Fei rested his forehead against Tang Yi’s. “I have been pursuing you for four years Tang Yi”, he grinned. “Can I assume that this is an answer to my confession?” Tang Yi smiled at Shao Fei’s proud puppy like expression. “Yes”, he answered. “I accept your confession”. Shao Fei laughed triumphantly before pulling him in for another kiss.

A.C.E Lucky Aesthetics pt1

I was watching Ace’s mv Lucky, looking for images I could use in my art, and I slowed it down to 0.25% speed.

If you’ve ever watched the mv then you know how amazing it is. The colour, the editing, the band. All so cool and pretty. But when I slowed it down I got to fully see all the cool editing that they use. So I thought I would share with you some of the aesthetics images I got.

Junhee looking stunning and killing us with the lack of buttons on that shirt. He’s so talented.

Donghun is a ‘classy girl’. Those images are so aesthetically pleasing and the pink lighting looks so pretty on him.

It won’t let me add any more pics so there is going to be a part 2. Feel free to use these images if you want.

“Bentacles” I choked.

rb if you love benihana hargreeves and his bentacles

If Ateez are the pirates. TXT are the fairies. SKZ are the lost boys. And Enhypen are the vampires.

It’s just a giant neverland au.

Daomu Biji Watcher’s Guide, May 2024

A few new entries have been popping up lately, and I’m always hopeful new fans will stumble into the pits and never leave so I thought I’d paste up a rough map.

(Obviously the best watching order, like the best reading order of Discworld or the Aubrey-Maturin books, is ‘whatever first comes to your hand’ but for the people who don’t like that…)

tl;dr:

Daomu Biji is a series about tomb raiding. Think Indiana Jones or Lara Croft but much, much longer. The protagonist Wu Xie is deeply in love with BFF1 Zhang Qiling, a hundred-year-old cryptid, and BFF2 Wang Pangzi, who was stolen in a raid from another book series. It’s comic, tragic, horrific, zany, prone to musings on life, love, desire, attachment, and has many, many piss jokes. (‘Journey to the West but modern’ is maybe the other comparison I’d make.)

Notes:

– This guide is not talking about “quality”. All of the adaptations have their own strengths and weaknesses and tone can vary a great deal, which is to say, if one of them doesn’t suit you it’s likely something else will.

– Wacky endings, and plot threads that disappear unfinished and get picked up a long time later, are as inherent to the franchise as the piss jokes.

– It’s common for the dramas to introduce characters and subplots a lot earlier than the books do. Sometimes we’ll see a character introduced ‘for the first time’ on multiple occasions and strangely familiar scenes. I’ll try to point out the biggest continuity clashes as I go.

The Soft Entry:

There are a few movies that are entertaining as standalones but will introduce various characters and background. I would recommend:

Escape from the Monstrous Snake + Mystery/Grave of the Abyss – two monster movies featuring Hei Xiazi, a supporting character. He’s a pragmatical mercenary who’s going blind in kind of a weird way, and goofy as hell when he isn’t tiptoeing over a vast abyss of existential dread. So many fun action scenes.

Time Raiders (2015) – so there are some textual clues that late in his career Wu Xie wrote this story as a memory-jogger for an amnesiac friend. The plot is a freewheeling wild ride which doesn’t directly match any book plot but introduces some major characters and how they relate to each other. It’s colourful and fast-moving. Enjoy, enjoy.

Conjuring Curse and Misty Creed are… theoretically set late in the series even if the actors look about twelve. Both work as stand-alone adventures, though Misty Creed is maybe a little deep in the lore. Again, colourful and fast-moving.

The Chronological Order

You could honestly start with most of these – they tend to come with a ‘what has gone before’ at the start or a newbie character that things get explained to. The only one I wouldn’t start with is Heavenly Palace in the Clouds, which is lovely but also the second half of a set and things won’t make sense if you haven’t seen Lost Tomb 2 first.

Lost Tomb 1 – a highly digestible 10-12 episode version of the Seven Star Lu Palace arc, ie. Baby’s First Adventure. Introduces A-Ning, Xie Yuchen, and Huo Xiuxiu early and a couple of og characters for Wu Xie to talk to instead of monologuing to himself. The restaurant scene at the end was raided from a later arc and you’ll see it again in Ultimate Note. A book character, Da Kui, was cut which is a small problem because how he died is a minor plot point discussed in Lost Tomb 2. 

Lost Tomb 2 – covers Raging Sea, Hidden Sands (underwater tomb) and Qinling God-Tree (weird bronze tree in the mountains) plus a whole lotta side stories and original content exploring the world and foreshadowing later plots. Mooostly in continuity with Lost Tomb 1 (see Da Kui above) and made as a set with Heavenly Palace in the Clouds – they share resources and a lot of actors, and some threads begun here are finished in Heavenly Palace.

Heavenly Palace in the Clouds – covers the Mt Changbai arc, a journey up a mountain to find a very old, very grand tomb. This was made so close to Lost Tomb 2 that LT2 borrows shots from Heavenly Palace and not the other way around, which is fascinating because it pointedly contradicts the last five episodes of LT2. It also brings forward some plotlines originally from the Tamutuo and Zhang Family Old Pavilion arcs (San-shu’s past in the underwater tomb, and the Huo Family videotapes) dragging some characters on-screen and forcing them to talk about their feelings, which they would clearly rather die than do. Given those plot-tweaks and the early, deliberate continuity clash, I’m tempted to call this a Canon Parallel Universe. Got some interestingly chewy character dynamics and luverly, luverly set design.

Mystic Nine – This is a prequel about Zhang Qishan – Fo-ye – and his peers, but later dramas expect us to know who Fo-ye was so I’m sticking it here. Kinda… picaresque? Lots of action scenes and Republican-era flavour and various factions jostling for power – kinda feels like an old-school wuxia story, only set in the 1930s with all that glorious Republican-era styling. Has some unfortunate cut scenes – the details of how Fo-ye recovered at his family’s house don’t make a lot of sense in the aired version, and there are a couple of missing fights in the penultimate episode. Shrug. Still a lot of fun. Comes with four side movies about supporting characters.

Ultimate Note – Covers the Tamutuo arc (a trip through the jungle) and two-thirds of the Zhang Family Old Pavilion arc (investigating Zhang Qiling’s past is like kicking a hornet’s nest). Very, very flirty and has some zippy-zip action choreography. Politely ignores Lost Tomb 1–Heavenly Palace continuity (Xie Yuchen is, once more, introduced for the first time, now with a romantically coded friendship arc) and brings in a lot of cameos from Mystic Nine and Sand Sea, which it was filmed after. Kinda tiptoes around parts of the book plot, which I suspect would be hard for anyone to film, re: Fo-ye’s actions in the 1960s. Fair warning, this ends on a cliffhanger. This is also where the Xinyue Restaurant scene appears again – two cakes!

Tibetan Sea Flower – If Tibetan Sea Flower ever airs, it will go here.

Sand Sea – Based on the Sand Sea novel. After Tibetan Sea Flower, Wu Xie goes into a bit of a decline and makes that the world’s problem. We the audience, plus Li Cu and Liang Wan, EDIT: a lovely doctor, are pretty much dropped in media res into a number of ancient conspiracies and complicated plots coming to a head in the manner of a boil. It’s weird; it’s messy; it’s mad fun. Like Mystic Nine, has a lot of factions jostling for power and colourful jianghu characters. We will, once more, see the Xinyue Restaurant scene. Also has some side movies.

Time Raiders – The textual hints that suggest Wu Xie wrote this, suggest he wrote it around Sand Sea-era, when his life was a bit complicated. I’m putting it after Sand Sea because I believe it caps a conversation that, ah, doesn’t quite make it into the drama. But notionally this is where it should go. Ah…. at one point, someone tells a story about an ancient ruler, King Mu of Zhou, who sought immortality from the Queen of the West in Tamutuo. The longer book conversation suggests that a) King Mu of Zhou engineered a “trap” for someone like Wu Xie to fall into in the future, and b) that Iron Mask Scholar, a villain from Lost Tomb 1, was an alias that King Mu of Zhou used in the Warring States Era. Which makes some of Iron Mask Scholar’s appearances in Time Raiders… interesting.

Reunion: Sound of Providence – sometimes known as Reboot. Having peaked in badassery in Sand Sea, Wu Xie has to consider what his life is going to be now, and also, he would like to track down a missing family member. So this was tweaked to make it more accessible to new viewers (so some parts of the back-story are not mentioned or conflated for simplicity) and that mostly works but I did find watching this first and then picking up the earlier dramas a bit of a mindscrew. Zhu Yilong is, however, a powerful draw and the rest of the cast sparkles. Probably best to think of Season 1 as two short seasons jammed together, which is to say, once the Warehouse 11 arc starts there are a number of characters who won’t reappear until Season 2. It’s a fun arc even so. Season 2 ends with a badass action scene and then a big party, which I think is a great way to end a story.

Escape from the Monstrous Snake, Mystery/Grave of the Abyss, Conjuring Curse, Misty Creed – these are all theoretically set around or after Reboot-era, though they can certainly be watched as stand-alones.

[ENGSUB] Wuliang | HERE | Pass: wuliang