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Yes

I just realized something that I’d like to un-realize.

Remember when we saw this:

and we thought this was Pete struggling with PTSD from Vegas’ torture and some part of him liking it and how it made him feel so messed up?

Well.

Now we know this is Pete crying and missing Vegas, how it made him feel so alive and powerful to submit to someone who understood him.

How when we see this

is the ache of how he would give everything to be back with Vegas. How he misses him. How he craves for him.

I can’t find it, but there’s one pic from this scene where Pete puts his wrists together, in a sad recreation of having them tied. And I think. I think that all of us were focused of wanting to see Vegas losing it, screaming, crying and destroying everything around him.

But we never considered Pete.

Does he looks at his wrists, bare and unbound, and thinks of this?:

We don’t know how Pete goes back to the main family’s house. Does he escape? Did Vegas set him free? We don’t know yet.

What we do know is that -like everyone else in KP- we also fell into Pete’s smile trap. We focused so much in the obvious deranged man with a sadistic streak that we overlooked the other side of the coin.

What it meant to Pete.

A man who hides behind his smiles, to finally let free the darker part of himself.

A man who tries so hard to be seen as unconfrontational and non-threatening, to taunt the most deranged and dangerous person he knows.

A man carrying so much hurt on his shoulders, but not letting it blind him.

A man living in such violent world where weakness is exploited and gets you killed, showing that compassion is a choice.

A man who values to be able to defend himself, to ask to be tied up and allow himself to be vulnerable.

A man seeing the serrated edges of another and saying “yes, we fit together”

.

(and now, if you excuse me, I’m gonna launch myself into the sun)

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Episode 11 Reaction

I had a lot of feelings and thoughts after watching episode 11. I wanted to record them here. These are my own personal opinions.

First of all, I loved the episode! I was glued to the screen from the beginning to the end. 

Vegas/Pete - What an interesting, dynamic pairing. Such excellent acting from Bible and Build. In Vegas and Pete, we have a meeting of equals coming from opposite sides - Vegas, darkness and Pete, light.

Vegas starts off the episode by groping Pete and discovering his hip tattoo: “No legacy is so rich as honestly.” 

He berates Pete and gets even more handsy. I have to admit that I found this whole scene to be very hot (sorry, Pete!). Vegas’s Dad interrupts, and we discover that Vegas’s dad is physically and verbally abusing his own son. 

Then, we get that phone call with Pete’s Grandma. I loved seeing Vegas pet and kiss Pete, while he lies and sobs on the phone, probably thinking that it’s the last time he’s going to talk to her. Vegas doesn’t kill Pete but drags him along to the safe house because he doesn’t want to be alone there.

Kinn/Porsche scenes were cute and light-hearted in this episode, but I can’t help but feel that Porsche has no idea what he’s getting into.

This is Porsche’s clueless expression after Kinn’s dad told him that he and Porchay are going to move into the mansion, and he was going to be a live-in boyfriend. Afterwards, the couple acts like they’re on a honeymoon, but I wonder if Porsche will have to make a decision about this mafia lifestyle. I don’t understand the benefits, for him, of living with Kinn. Yes, he’s with his rich boyfriend, but Porsche seems like a simple guy. His big dream was to have a bar by the beach. As Kinn’s guy, he’d need his own bodyguard detail, Chay would need his own bodyguards, Chay has to live away from his precious house and with the mafia, and let’s not forget about Porsche’s insecurity. 

In the last two episodes, he’d tailed Tawan, Kinn’s ex, leading to a whole host of problems. It was clear that Kinn didn’t trust him because he didn’t let Porsche into the plan he had in place for Tawan. In episode 11, Porsche’s insecurity rears up again but in a funny way - he chooses the least attractive and least fit guards to be Kinn’s new bodyguards since Ken and Big are dead (RIP) and Porsche is now the boyfriend. The scene is funny until you think about all that Porsche doesn’t know about his boyfriend and living the mafia lifestyle. The last episode, Porsche escaped with Vegas and only just discovered how malicious the man could be. I’m not fully convinced that Porsche is 100% knowledgable about what his situation is. I want to be clear, though. I do not criticize Porsche’s actions. If I were to place myself in his shoes, knowing what he knows, and being inexperienced in romance, I would make similar (or even worse) decisions. 

Kinn knows a little better about the situation Porsche is in. I actually liked the scene where he told his Dad and Tankhun that he needs to let Porsche go. He didn’t even try to get in between the brothers, he knows how close they are. He knows the mafia life is dangerous, and apart of him doesn’t want Porsche near it. The game changer comes when his dad approves of their relationship and moves Porsche in.

Back to Vegas and Pete!

We start seeing a change in Vegas. He calls Pete his “pet” and disciplines him via belt. It leaves some deep gashes on Pete’s chest. However, I think it’s important to point out that the show makes it clear that Vegas doesn’t engage in the physical torture right after dealing with his father. Vegas’s father makes him feel angry and humiliated, causing a rush of negativity. He doesn’t immediately rush to punish Pete because his Dad punished him. 

We find out why when Pete confesses that his own father used to beat him because he felt inferior. In order for Pete and Vegas to work out romantically, the cycle of violence needs to be broken. Whenever Vegas feels inferior or angry, he cannot take it out on Pete or else their relationship would be abusive. Instead, we see Vegas panic when Pete becomes unconscious. 

He panics because he’s gotten attached to Pete. I don’t think he loves him or anything close to that. For a while, Pete has been a constant presence in Vegas’s life. He’s been someone who’s seen Vegas for who he truly is and has challenged him.

It’s worth noting that Vegas can be a very sweet person. Throughout the series, it’s been difficult to figure out who is the real Vegas. In episode 7, we saw how respectfully the people treated Vegas. It wasn’t out of fear, they genuinely liked and respected him. He also has a positive relationship with his brother, Macau, and looks after him as best as he can. So, he has the capability to be sweet, gentle, and kind. However, he uses his soft side to manipulate and hurt others. 

When Vegas treats an injured Pete and brings him noodles, we’re seeing real Vegas. That’s why Pete and Vegas are such an interesting pairing because they show their true selves to each other. Even Pete walks around with a mask-- have you noticed that he smiles “brightly” whenever feeling embarrassed or shocked or another kind of negative emotion? He gives the world cute, happy, fake smiles in order to mask what he’s feeling. 

Other than giving Vegas some twisted smiles, he hasn’t smiled with Vegas. He hasn’t had much reason to, so far, but I know that we’ll see genuine smiles from Pete once their romance settles. I’m also looking forward to seeing Pete initiate physical intimacy with Vegas since he hasn’t so far.

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So, English-Speaking Danmei Fandom, You Want to Support Authors…

…and so do I, so here’s my dumb white English-more-or-less-only (I speak a small amount of Japanese…it vaguely sort of kind of helps) speaking ass, doing a little homework that hopefully will help others? This is not exhaustive, not complete, not better than resources others have made, but I checked things I personally cared about, and since I’ve done the research, I figure I might as well toss the info out into the wild.

First - as Suika linked, HERE IS AN AMAZING GUIDE TO HELP YOU MAKE A JJWXC ACCOUNT and it teaches you how to use it. It was created by Shoko Translates and it’s incredibly clear and easy to use and you should use it and trust anything they say over literally anything in this post, because I only have the vaguest idea what I’m talking about but they know their shit.

Google translate on Chrome works decently to make the site English…but doesn’t work well in any other respect; overall it functions WAY better on Firefox even if it’s umpteen times harder to figure out what anything says.

Use the guide to make your account; I couldn’t get it to successfully send my phone a text, but I had zero problems when I switched to e-mail. Chrome translate is definitely easier for making the actual account, but then it’s better to switch.

Once you’ve got the account and you log in…

…so, I have no idea what either of those two I’ve circled say (USE THE LINKED GUIDE, IT’LL TELL YOU) but I know that if you click either of them, you get a huge list of authors and book titles, with genre notes, hits, publication date, etc. More importantly, you get a search bar - you can see it right below my silly black circle.

Congratulations, you can now find the things you want to support using search! The first option in the search drop down is book, and it brings up the actual book but also a lot of superfluous stuff. I had way better luck searching by author, which is the second option on the drop down menu.

Now that you know how to search - when I sat down with this today, my goal wasn’t yet to actually pay for anything, I just wanted a sense of how many points things would cost, and I wanted to be able to look that up. So, that’s this post’s goal, and sorry I’m a little disjointed in presenting that out, I got like no sleep last night. Anyway. The point is, based on that link I provided (DID YOU USE IT YET? YOU SHOULD):

10,000 points on JJWXC cost approximately USD 17. Convert as needed for your own currency. Or, one point costs 0.17 cents. (To be clear: that’s about 2 tenths of a cent, not 17 cents.)

With that basic conversion, once you have an account, you can see how many points things cost, and therefore calculate how much they’d cost you in $$$ to support the author. Anyway, I haven’t actually figured out ANY of the money parts of this yet, because I wanted to figure out how many points the books I would want to support were before I even attempted money stuff. My thinking with this post was - if you, like me, were holding back cause you were wondering about expense…well, here, have some answers about expense, and probably in a day or four I’ll sit down and try to figure out the money part, and I’ll do another post then. Or, you can just use that guide I linked. Cause that’s what I’m going to do.

So, what/who do you want to support?

Priest (search for author: priest)

镇魂 (Zhen Hun/Guardian). Point cost: 1,742. In USD: $2.96

天涯客 (Tian Ya Ke/Faraway Wanderers/Word of Honor). Point cost: 943. In USD: $1.60

有匪 (You Fei/Legend of Fei). Point cost: 3,031. In USD: $5.15

默读 (Mo Du). Point cost: 3,506. In USD: $5.96

杀破狼 (Sha Po Lang). Point cost: 2,673. In USD: $4.54

七爷 (Qi Ye/Lord Seventh). Point cost: 934. In USD: $1.59

(This is not an exhaustive list, but you can search for others - the Priest Wikipedia page gives a full list of Chinese names, translations, adaptations, etc.)

墨香铜臭 (Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, search for author: 墨香铜臭)

天官赐福 (Tian Guan Ci Fu/Heaven Official’s Blessing). Point cost: 5,270. In USD: $8.96

If 魔道祖师 (Mo Dao Zu Shi/The Untamed) and 人渣反派自救系统 (Ren Zha Fanpai Zijiu Xitong/The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System/Scum System/Scum Villain) are on there, I wasn’t able to find them - someone who knows more than I, and has the time to the research right now, will have to explain more to help with those, but for starters, they’re on the publishers website - Scum Villain; MDZS)

肉包不吃肉 (Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou/Meatbun Doesn’t Eat Meat, search for author: 肉包不吃肉)

二哈和他的白猫师尊 (Er Ha He Ta De Bai Mao Shizun/The Husky and His White Cat Shizun/Hao Yixing/Immortality). Point cost: 7,246. In USD: $12.32

余污 (Yu Wu/Remnants of Filth). Point cost: 4,245. In USD: $7.22

梦溪石 (Meng Xi Shi, search for author: 梦溪石)

千秋 (Qianqiu/Thousand Autumns). Point cost: 2,783. In USD: $4.73

(There are many others.)

漫漫何其多 (Man Man He Qi Duo, search for author: 漫漫何其多)

当年万里觅封侯 (Dangnian Wanli Mi Feng Hou/Those Years in Quest of Honor Mine). Point cost: 1,551. In USD: $2.64

(Again, there are many others.)

I could go add titles for years, but, well, it’s my post, and these are the stories I was most interested in supporting personally. Doing ALL this research, AND writing it up for this post, took me less than an hour, and once you’re in the website and have bought points, you can select all chapters with a single click, it’ll tell you the final point cost, and with another click - bam, you’re done, you’ve bought the raws. You’ve supported the original creator. You’ve done what translators have been begging us to do for ages. And, if it’s a story that’s not all out yet - you’ve got the raws! You can mtl them! You can read them before the translators are done! Or, if you’ve got a fave author? You can read their work in progress! You can learn what’s coming next! Even without speaking Chinese (I don’t speak a word of Chinese!!!) there is NO DOWNSIDE HERE.

(also, can I point out how INCREDIBLY SMALL some of these dollar amounts are? Some of ya’ll are acting like this is bank-breaking, I mean seriously, COME ON.)

Google is your friend. Find the carrd for your fave. Copy and paste the author’s name in Chinese. Use the JJWXC search. Find the thing. Support it.

English danmei fandom, this is our chance to do better.

PLEASE, can we do fricken better??? It’s so easy. And so cheap. And these fandoms have brought so many of us so much joy.

Go forth, and do the thing.

I’m doing it.

(edited: I DID do it! Part 2!)

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mafia boss wkx with painter/ex special agent zzs………………………………..

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Season 2 Makeovers!

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Did this meme catch on yet?

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It’s true.

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Shen Qiao has a birthday! It’s on August 8th! Everyday could be Yan Wushi’s birthday, lol!

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Hopefully, we can have some meaningful discussions and produce some great content for Thousand Autumns in the future.

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The story behind the 'sugar'

Many fans have seen the following pics of GJ holding up his fan to keep the sun off ZZH.

But what many people may not know is what might be motivating GJ apart from friendship and care between acting partners.

For the role of ZZS, ZZH had to lose a lot of weight to look more frail. The original shooting schedule was for it to be done during winter or spring period, but instead they were filming with thick period costumes in the middle of summer. This double burden caused ZZH to struggle coping with heat and to have at least one heat stroke.

Warning: following video contains footage of ZZH actually fainting

In an interview since the airing of the show, GJ has said that he dislikes most when people he care about do not take care of their own health.

At this point, I need to talk a little about ZZH the actor. International fans may not know that ZZH was an amazing basketball player. I've seen a video where he had just won MVP for a game he played, and was very emotional and said on the verge of crying that his dream was always to play basketball. ZZH then suffered a knee injury at one point. However at the time he was under the management of Yu Zheng (a very influential producer who is behind the success of many famous actors in China). Yu Zheng encouraged/made/pressured (who knows) ZZH into taking on acting projects even while he was injured.

The end result being that this exacerbated the injury and meant that ZZH can never play basketball again (to the intensity that he would want), which is why he turned to become an avid golfer (in fact he has a golf tournament upcoming during June). ZZH hasn't been shy in stating that he regrets acting while injured till this day.

Now Gong Jun has openly spoken about this experience of ZZH's with clear sympathy, concern and care in joint interviews. And fans like to share moments when they feel GJ seems to in small actions always be aware of ZZH's knee injury, and take care to not hurt him further in that way.

So when you come back and look at this again...

Does it hit differently?

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Yass stick it on your crotch bestie

This is a "to hell with gj and his censorship warning bells" household

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Yan Wushi or Wen Kexing, who had the better insults?

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That which could not be aired.

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The scene where Shen Qiao saves Yan Wushi but with the ending theme song in the background.