#beloved hobo-xu...

[antique-forvalaka]

Because i was craving a portable zishu...

[trashwarden]

Happy (late) 4th SHL anniversary!!

Done for DeeDee for Candy Hearts Exchange

[esorxy]

word of honor ep31 is something else entirely

they get intercepted on their rescue mission and just as the assassin people were about to rush forward and start stabbing, guess who appears spinning out of nowhere to save his beloved one true soulmate its wkx wearing hot red robes with sexy red eyeshadow, who boomerangs his little paper fan and slices their throats all in one go, does another little spin for dramatic flavour and slowly flutters down like an autumn leaf in the wind, successfully making the most replayed segment of the episode 🍃

and then everything he says from this moment on is like "fuck you, im better than you, eat shit" and DPJ is like "yeah ur cool and all but you're only one person" as if he didnt just kill half your men in one swipe while flying. anyway then zzs is like "who said hes alone" and steps out of his little carriage looking like hes about to die. like bro!! you cant even stand chill tf out. wkx comes over and holds his boyfriend and gets full on whiplash from switching too fast between (1) gazing lovingly at zzs and (2) murderous stares assassin gvng.

then like 3000 ghosts come out from the forest looking for a nice fight with 20 men, half of whom are dead, and the rest of them just dip like nope not today

they all kneel for our favourite gays and then wkx kneels as well and zzs, who still looks like hes abt to collapse and die, is like "fuck yeah im still influential" and awkwardly pats wkx's head like hes some overgrown puppy, which is not entirely inaccurate ykwim

so our power couple gets like 20 more kids for the price of none, and head back to god knows where to meet 😱 some more gays😱 one of them is a healer and the other looks like asian robert sean leonard so... whats new 😮‍💨

wkx finds some time to wipe off his eyeshadow and everyone is ready to die for zzs suddenly, and wkx goes from 🥺 "a-xu is gonna live??" to walking back into ghost valley in the blink of an eye without even changing clothes. scorpion king is also there 😱😱 i didnt even know they were working together cos i skipped all of the boring old people scenes. the twinks face off in some intense power play conversation where everyone wants to top, wkx has a mid life crisis in his pajamas featuring genocide and suicide but then hes like but SOMEONE taught me to live love laugh aka im in love, finishing off a killer episode that fully lives up to the drama part of chinese drama. my man needs to be locked up. in a mental hospital.

bonus: zzs in ep32, freshly injured from having metal hooks stabbed through his shoulders, is like "noooo little girl don't you know i need alcohol to live???" huge announcement everyone youve dedicated your lives to following an alcoholic 🤦

twink healer is like "bro u cant even taste shit" and james wilson is like "remember when u wanted me to find u a cute gf... but turns out... (ur gay)"

omg i wanted to stop, but like the dramatic clown ass scenes just keep coming what can a girl do 🤷

so zzs goes back to serving face (not that he ever really stopped) and he overhears that wkx is about to be forced off a cliff 😱. so flutters into this 50v1 fight with about 2% of the dramatic flair that wkx has, steps up to kiss him except they cant cos censorship, and is like "me n u against the world babe." 🤦

yby comes too cos this drama is tiresome and neverending, and wkx is like "im tired, kill me 🫠", which is so relatable, but then he puts up a damn good fight before falling off the cliff from one tiny needle through the heart. zzs also jumps after him and everyone is like 😱 even though they can literally fly.

but hes dead (not rly) so zzs burns his corpse by kicking a lamp at it and sits at the cliff to reminisce the good old times when he was a hobo and wkx followed him around like a clingy wife. he relapses into alcoholism and pulls all his nails out aaaand this is just romeo and juliet with gay and dramatic flair 😮‍💨

when do they stop serving face honestly like im fed up 🤦

[fourseasonsfigs]

Light on You - Word of Honor x EZ Studio Official Set 1 (Good Sword)

There were actually two different official Word of Honor fan fig manufacturers back in the day - Tofu, which I blogged about previously and which is more commonly known, and EZ Studio.

The EZ Studio figs were, as I understand it, fairly unpopular in the beginning, and certainly always remained less popular than the Tofu figs.

The heavily stylized art and the marketing seemed to have been the main reasons. Perhaps these just didn't resonate with the Chinese public.

To no one's surprise, they resonated just fine with me. In fact, I actually love these. I enjoy that they look a little different than the rest of my figs, I love Lao Wen's stylized look in particular (his hair, the eyes - gorgeous) and the ombre shading on the costumes is just lovely.

Which is not to say these figs are perfect by any means. I wish each individual set (there are three) was completely specialized instead of re-using the base molding - there's no reason for A-Xu to have his robes drooping off his shoulder in every single fig set, for instance - but I also am not that picky of a buyer where this most beloved TV show is concerned. As long as the fig looks good and makes me happy, it works for me.

A-Xu arrived with all kinds of cool things! We have his straw hat, complete with some errant peach blossoms, and Baiyi at it's bendiest. A-Xu is not, as one might expect, in his hobo disguise (which surely was a strike against it from the more discerning fans), but does have the disguise scar across his face. As much as I, like Lao Wen, vastly prefer A-Xu in his non-disguised form, I would actually have preferred Hobo-Xu here for canon's sake.

A-Xu's hat fits on his head via these pegs that fit into the holes in his head. What's nice is that there's definitely a front and back side, which makes it fit a little more securely. Baiyi is fairly posable - you can kind of tilt it up and down in his hand to position it in front of his face or lower down.

Lao Wen also comes with his white scholar's fan as a separate piece. You might not be able to tell, but that little bendy piece that is supposed to be the handle of the fan is NOT particularly handy. The fan is quite difficult to get to solidly into his hand, and falls out constantly. I should probably put a bit of the Museum Wax in his hand to get it to actually stick.

Here they are! There's a beautiful ombre effect to the robes here that's a little hard to see.

A-Xu has some peach flower blossoms on his robes, which go beautifully with the peach blossoms on his hat. I think Lao Wen looks particularly rakish from this angle!

You can see the peach blossoms even better from this side. I wish we'd gotten Lao Wen's ginkgo hairpin from the first few episodes here instead of this one. I have yet to see that hairpin executed successfully in fig form. One day I'll get it!

It's interesting they have the hair colors reversed here too - in the show A-Xu is the one with pure black hair, with Lao Wen's hair slightly more brown.

The script on the left side (their right feet), translates per MTL as "a literary creation". The roundish writing on the right side is Koitake's branding. You can see their boots and Lao Wen's pants (sorry Lao Wen). I really like how well their boots are detailed on these figs.

The box cards. Oh, that's how Lao Wen is supposed to hold his fan! Oops. It does look much better that way. It probably fits just fine in his hand that way too. Shoot, I haven't looked at these cards in forever. Let me, uh, check that out.

Alright, a bonus extra pic. I realized I also hadn't taken an overhead shot, so it's the perfect opportunity to put his fan in his hand the right way, and showcase the top of A-Xu's perfect head. I was at least gratified to see that I wasn't totally clueless - Lao Wen's little PVC hand doesn't hold his fan any better this way. In fact, it won't stick at all. So, I did end up putting a bit of Museum Wax into his hand, and the fan sticks just fine now.

Material: PVC

Fig Count: 162

Diorama Count: 9

Snowglobe Count: 1

Rating: Perfect as a spring day! And it is a beautiful spring day in the jianghu, isn't it. A perfect spring day to have a drink. A drink on a boat.

[link back to Master Fig Index for more posts]