#fof thoughts

[thyandrawrites]

Bingyi and Ying Long are so king x knight coded in my eyes. Like what do you mean you gave up your BONES to forge a sword that will protect him for the rest of his life. What do you mean you want him And trust only him. To wield you in his hand. That you have such absolute faith that he will bring the world back from the brink of pure chaos so you give yourself willingly. You make yourself his weapon to make sure his enemies can't harm him. And then keep protecting his legacy for generations.

How are people not insane about these two. The devotion of making yourself an extension of someone's arm... The underlying desire to be one with him. One flesh and bones.

Do you ever think about how Cloud Light is activated by tears. And how much it must've cut up Bingyi to use it. Knowing it was the last part of his lover that he could keep close. Knowing that Ying Long singlehandedly rebuilt the sky with his gift of creation, but the world only remembers him as the monster that tore it down and betrayed his best friend. Like a weapon is all that Ying Long could be. And a weapon is all that remains of him

[tackykachowch]

Idk if I'm gonna get jumped for this but....Iiii don't know if it's really appropriate to call Vander Jinx's dad. He definitely was her guardian, with huge uncle energy for sure, but dad? Like, dad is something really personal and requires a high level of closeness, and they didn't seem to share that bond. Out of all the kids Powder seemed to be the most removed from him and share very little traits/interests with him, and after growing up we don't see Jinx care about him at all. So, idk, to call him her dad seems more like a fanservice to me rather than what can be confirmed by the show.

He's defo her dad in the au, tho, because there he would spend a lot more time with her and because of Vi's death pay more attention to her, therefore tightening their bond.

UPD: I mean, Vander isn't even a part of her hallucinations. Now, you could argue that it's too traumatic for her even to remember him as is seen in season 1 ep9, but I think it's the opposite, actually. Knowing Silco he probably yapped about Vander all the time (and he literally does this in ep5), so Jinx definitely remembers him and thinks of him to some extent. But why then his hallucination appeared only once? Well, I think it only happened because Jinx was under extreme pressure already, plus she recently had a shimmer operation, which could've worsened her mental state, hence Vander appearing as a hallucination. Again, this is just how I see it, I may be wrong, but I do think this view of their relationship is rational enough.

[hyog-blog]

Can we just talk a little about this unholy unity of Li Lun and Zhuo Yichen? Just look at him :D Why does he look so hot)) And those bare arms, in a show where everyone is so deliberately clothed in multi-layers (apart from demons who are veeeery bad, hence, they can show their sexiness as much as they want).

Anyway, that's it, that's all I have to say XD

And while we're on this bad-demons-look-so-good topic, let's throw in a few of them sizzling hot baddies to the mix. Because no one pulls the bad demon look quite like Zhao Yuanzhou's Inner Demon :3

And I enjoyed the whole dark!Wen Xiao sequence a little too much :D

[kandadze]

Such a good scene and parallel to what happened in ep 25. I still hope, in spite of all the hints suggesting otherwise, that these two can be okay in the end.

If you want to die to settle all grudges and atone for your sins, then you don't deserve Wen Xiao's tears, you don't deserve Ying Lei's blood, and you certainly don't deserve Mountain God Ying Zhao dying for you. Zhao Yuanzhou, if you really feel remorse… you should do something that can truly make amends to everyone. When your debt is paid, I'll then come to kill you.

[kandadze]

Don't forget your promise.

Beyond Evil, episode 8// Fangs of Fortune, episode 8

I finished episode 8 of Beyond Evil and my head is spinning. Partially because I realized why Lee Dongsik and Han Joowon's conversation in the soup shop (including the flashback) sounded so familiar even though this is my first run through the series... ::Will Smith 'behold' meme at the gifs above::. Have a parallel and suffer with me XD

[dramashutup]

There was that post that was like "the love was there but still it wasn't enough"

The one with "the character had been dead since the beginning"

Another one with "the story is a tragedy because it was always going to end this way"

Stop tearing my soul apart???

[silvershayde]

An Acaesian Encyclopaedia

Darena’s Seafarers: Sirelians (Aqua Sirens)

Second Instalment for Darena’s Seafarers! This is about Sirelians! The other Seafarers include: Merfolk, Melusines, and Nymphs/Nereids. Of the four treasures Darena handed out, the Sirelians were given the Bident.

Before I get into the nitty gritty, I wanna go over why I named them Sirelians rather than just Sirens. Everyone knows Sirens right? Well, first off the original version of Sirens were bird like, and many of you may already know that. So because both Sirelians and Sirens have the hypnotic voice that can sing a lullaby of doom, the names have had an overlap and they’ve been conflated with one another, which is why I put in brackets Aqua Siren next to their original name. Another name would be Darena’s Sirens since Zetune has her own Sirens; they treat each other like cousins even though they are in no way related. So yeah they are not Sirens since they cannot fly, are not bird-like and do not fall under Zetune’s domain of Caeli. (For the uninformed Caeli is wind/air.)

Anyway! They’re mostly found in the area within and surrounding Sirelia, which is found in the ocean east of Theia/Turnunda (sorry again my map needs updating, once it is I’ll link it in these posts) which would put it south west of Aquaria. Like Merfolk you can find Sirelians in fresh waters.

First off, yes they have two tails, and the tails blend with the upper body. And yes I know the two tail thing is a Melusine thing, but I have my reasons (I came up with Sirelians first and they were initially supposed to be like Selkies because, again, they aren’t technically Sirens. Calling Sirelians Sirens is a land dweller’s misguided label. Like how red pandas aren’t pandas.)

I will note before I move on that there is practically no gender dimorphism that you can see on a Sirelian no matter what upper body they’re rocking.

Second! Unlike Merfolk their tails are more colloquially fish-like. (I use colloquially because classification and fish are not friends so to hell with it.) Their tails can also either be smooth or have scales and if it exists as a fish there’s most likely a Sirelian variant of it. Their hands are webbed and have it on their ears too. They have gills and their nostrils are just to smell not to breathe.

The sclera of a Sirelian is black, and when in hunting mode or when the prey drive is triggered the pupil dilates a LOT. (The iris being bigger on the right is a drawing error but I’ve sat here for nearly three hours doing it)

Through their hypnotic voice and applying their manipulation of Aqua to shapeshifting, Sirelians can change the way they look. Whether it is changing the sclera of their eyes to white, changing the appearance of their teeth to make it less… uh… terrifying to hiding the webs in their hands, and the extra limbs on their arms. Similar to octopuses and cuttlefish they can change the colour of their bodies, but unlike them they can do it consciously rather than just being an environmental reaction.

The one thing they can’t change the image of is how their upper bodies meet their tails, and how many tails they have. This is why those are the only two reliable identifiers to distinguish Sirelians from Merfolk.

[kandadze]

I hope that ZYZ telling ZYC that his life is entirely in ZYC's hands and that he won't seek death hints at breaking the cycle and getting out of the spiral. After all, curses can be broken. I hope this one will be.

Fangs of Fortune is indeed built as a tragedy, but what I find interesting about the construction of the story is that it goes in a spiral, approaching the next version of the tragic ending, living it, but ultimately surviving it and moving on.

Like... we all know what endings "from enemies to lovers" story can have, especially under censorship. For a censored bl, the ending "one of them died" or "both died" is almost mandatory. (And I'm seriously starting to think whether the author is hinting at this circumstance in the whole story with the curse).

But then this is what happens. We went through the first, as if initially announced version of the ending in episode 17. Everything was moving towards the fact that ZYC would kill ZYZ, albeit with regret in his heart - but he did not.

The second version of the ending of this scenario - two died together, because they could not separate - we went through in episode 26.

(And look how this two scenes kind of mirroring each other)

So I'm really interested in what the next ending this spiral is heading towards. A repeat of the first but with different feelings? Or will they eventually be able to get out of the spiral?

[dearmyloveleys]

Hello since I keep seeing the same users like my posts and we’re in a state of doomed by the narrative misery together, do we fof stragglers want to set up a discord to discuss fof? Lmk in the comments! I’ll see what I can do

[vibing-lizard-nose]

I had a dream last night (not the whole dream but a part of it) and i'm gonna write it here cuz mMM juicy damn prompt

It's A/zira and C/rowley going to like- an antique shop because A/zi wants to get more vintage stuff for the bookshop, so they get inside. It's a new shop, they haven't been there before.

And as they walk through the shop C/rowley starts sneezing. Not a lot at the beginning, but it intensifies the more they're in the shop. He thinks it might be the dust around the shop or something.

When he sneezed the first time, a shop assistant hears him and chants "Bless you!" and C/rowley has the weird wrong feeling of getting blessed at but says "thanks" and tries to ignore the whole thing. The shop assistant tells A/ziraphale they keep they're most precious books on the back of the shop, and she guides them both there.

The whole random sneezes get more insistent and C/rowley thinks there's something weird in the air but doesn't say anything about it even when A/zi asks him what's the matter. The worse part is he keeps getting blessed by the clients nearby, and this is pooling down on his belly and gradually making feel tired and weak.

When they get to the back of the shop, they don't find books, but a dark, dusty room with a large pentagram on the floor, cameras on the corners and a very dim light that barely allows them to see the group of people inside the room.

It was a trap. More people get behind them and they say something like "Hello, Demon. We've been expecting you for a long time." They're getting closer and C/rowley freezes and turns to A/zi and whispers "We're being set up" and when some of these people try to hold C/rowley from the back, he flinches and tries to focus on a miracle. But he feels drained and dizzy and sneezes continuously.

A/ziraphale, who had been looking at the situation developed put some of the puzzle pieces together and realized what was happening. Seeing C/rowley struggle in vain, he snaps his fingers and the cameras suddenly break, the people standing behind the door trip over, and the ones inside the room fall asleep. I guess they were prepared for the demon but not his angelic guardian.

A/ziraphale pats C/rowley's back and tells him they need to get out of there right now. C/rowley makes to try and get up and dash out the door but the accidentally steps on a little bag on the floor. It pops and deflates like a balloon which seemingly nothing inside. But as they quickly make their way out of the shop, C/rowley has a really violent fit that leaves him gasping for air.

Suddenly, everything comes together and A/ziraphale snaps his fingers again they get transported in a second back to the bookshop. C/rowley, still coughing and sneezing out the whatever was that had him this bad, bents on the floor.

"That was holy dust, it was a trap", the angel said. It clicked.

The blessed thing was one of the hardest byproducts one could get from holy water, it was light and hardly holy at all on its own, soft enough that the holiness can't be perceived and most aren't affected by its properties. Most, except demons. Those people had used holy dust to detect C/rowley's presence, then used the aftermath of sneezing to get C/rowley blessed constantly by the people in the shop, weakening him enough so that he couldn't defend himself.

A/ziraphale explains this to C/rowley over a cup of tea, when he isn't sneezing his head off, and C/rowley thanks him for getting his back. He'd have been doomed if the angel hadn't been there. They don't return to that shop ever again, and C/rowley decides to teach A/ziraphale how to get antique-looking things from e-bay.

[twilightworldinblueandwhite]

shawty's got sexual teniques. and a big round oily butt. goosebumps on her booty cheeks. i want to bust a nut

[kandadze]

There are many wonderful moments and scenes in this drama, but this one, this one is just so. damn. good. Immediate rewatch.

This is a shiver inducing scene.

And back to it being a choice. He's had so much choice taken away from him (as has ZYZ) but he still insists on choice where he can and this reasserts his humanity.

This is AMAZINGGGG! But also the way he explicitly unites himself and ZYZ into a "we."

This is perfect! So perfect!

What an absolute banger of an exit line. And by attempting to wedge them apart, LL has only drawn them closer. MMMM

[sophisticatedswifts]

I can’t believe I’m at the point of my life where my class is having a high school reunion

[thyandrawrites]

I was too ace to catch this the first time, but now that I'm on a rewatch, I am starting to understand why all the li lun / zhou yichen shippers have been raving on about the sexual tension between those two 😂 when they fight in ep 23 it's all physical and dirty, and it's got none of the grace and the swish and daintyness of typical xianxia fights. After the sword breaks, there's not even magic anymore. They're all up in each other space with fists and punches and bites. God, I don't think I've ever seen a fight in this genre where someone bites someone else and breaks skin. And it's ZYC of all people who does it, breaking character for a moment, fighting dirty, dishonorably, because this is personal. LL is targeting the child. The little brother figure whose only real mistake was having to grow up too fast in a world that is unfair and cruel, particularly so to kind people. And ZYC is furious about it. Furious that Li Lun can look at BJ and only see the perfect container for his demonic powers, and not a boy who is scared, a boy who keeps braving the dark despite his fear. And so gone is Yichen's restraint, his dignity, alongside the sword. There's no more time to play fair. Li Lun went too far.

And then there's Li Lun's side. It's not enough to incapacitate Yichen, or to metaphorically castrate him via the breaking of his sword. No. It wouldn't be enough to simply kill him, either. ZYC needs to see the real face of the man choking him. He needs to know it's even more personal for him. This is the human who had the audacity to point his sword at a great demon and promise to take his life. The life that should've been Li Lun's to reclaim take. ZYC dared put himself between an older blood feud, and yet still managed to gain ZYZ's loyalty despite it all. Like, damn. Put your whole fist inside an open wound, will you, Yichen?

So it's only around ZYC that LL loses all his composure, too. It's almost compulsive, his fixation on ZYC's throat, the way he always lunges for it, even when they eventually join sides and he gifts him his demonic powers. You went too far first, he says back with the sheer physicality of getting all up in Yichen's face to tighten his hands or his arms around his neck, when just moments before he had been strangling others with vines instead. When he always uses vines to strangle literally everyone else. But not this guy. LL needs to feel his pulse die out, and with it that cursed Bingyi bloodline that stole his man and his will to live, that promised to stop the most powerful demon from what LL believes to be the final purifying act, the ridding of all human lies and deceit, and with it the grief LL feels, too.

And I'm sitting here like. Oh. Oh. I get it now. It's not just the metaphorical sex they just had on screen for 10 minutes here (😂). it's also about the way both characters are shaped into who they are now by their grief, by their losses, that makes them cling until they're raw and bleeding all over the last things they hold dear. That... I kinda dig, ngl

[harocat]

Tian Jia Rui is twenty-six??? I legitimately thought he was a teenager.

[kandadze]

Well your speechlessness is top tier.

Ep 25 Commentary

“難受嗎？難受就對了[...]卓大人，你習慣就好。” Is it difficult to bear? Good [...] Zhuo Daren, you'd better get used to it. —Zhao Yuanzhou, Ep. 1

Oh my god what the fuck ep 25. Ohhh my god. I don't think I ever stopped going "holy shit oh fuck" for the entire forty minutes. My head is in my hands. Why is FoF experimenting with onscreen physical/emotional/mental whump at a frequency and intensity previously unknown to man? To my favorite character? 我前輩子得罪了誰？？(Who did I wrong in my previous life??)

Quote from ep 1 because I had just re-watched it earlier in the day and those words came back to me not with any particular use towards interpretation but just as a characterization of—all of this. It is indeed difficult to bear.

Spoilers incoming.

Also spoiler for how I feel about this episode in case the sound of me wailing in lament in the distance makes it unclear: It was probably one of the most effective episodes for me thus far, personally. It struck many, many chords and did not stop for breath at all.

Honestly I'm kind of at a loss for words because I really, truly, did not expect shit would get so much worse for ZYC so incredibly rapidly. The speed with which the situation deteriorated broke the fucking sound barrier (I'm exaggerating, I'm being dramatic, but jfc I wasn't prepared). I apologize in advance if any of my reactions become a little bit repetitive, there are only so many ways I can express continuous distress and shock and despair.

My stomach dropped during the watchman attack scene. I can't believe how effective it was for me, this moment coming at the heels of ep 24, how that episode was a whole meditation on the goodness of ZYC's heart, his gentle and sensitive nature, the reasons why everyone loves him, the way things are bad but they will not break us and we may lose heart individually but we will persevere together.

And then in one single moment, all of that is threatened and very nearly destroyed. I felt every one of ZYC's dry heaves.

This drama is not one I necessarily go to for subtlety of intention, so the fact that I really had no inkling how at-risk ZYC's irreproachability would be in the coming episode despite being very invested in his arc made it all the more shocking and well-done, personally. They set him up as high as they could so they could tear him down as thoroughly as possible in an instant, and I did not notice the set-up at all.

I also have to say, I really appreciate PSJ. How quickly she cut to the chase about what he'd seemingly done, how she'd said the things that aren't just hard to hear but also hard to say. Because that's exactly what ZYC will care the most about. It seems to me her righteousness helped keep his own intact. In such a moment of complete and utter vulnerability and devastation, her moral clarity is as terrible as it is necessary and true to ZYC's belief system, just when it is most susceptible to collapse. And I say this not to mean that I think he is culpable for the supposed attack, given how much discussion the show goes into about culpability or lack thereof when not in one's right mind, but just that I find PSJ's moral compass to most closely align with ZYC's beliefs as he has been carrying them out throughout the show, and she keeps him from contradiction in a moment when it may be on everyone else's mind to spare him from the double-edged blade of his own righteousness. (Also, I may be reading too far into WX's statement later on that PSJ protected ZYC with her decision, but it could be interpreted that WX agrees or understands that as well on some level.)

And the fucking fact that all this takes place in front of a shrine for the Righteous God of Virtue and Blessing. As I said, I'm speechless.

(Speechless, she says, as she continues to ramble.)

Ouughhhhhh the reversals. ZYZ draping the cloak on ZYC this time. Fuck. The dungeon. Oh god. The way ZYZ loses more and more of his facade of calm, even just from his somewhat tense but understated distress in ep 24 to this unblinking, almost unseeing stare at ZYC in shackles.

Also, I'm glad for the moment PSJ and WX have to themselves once ZYZ proves ZYC's innocence. The way we get to see them navigating a situation so dire together despite its potential to push them utterly apart. PSJ's near-silent delivery of "friend" fucking kills me. It's loaded with so much emotion that neither the voice nor the term can truly handle that weight. That's art to me.

And then oh god, the Tianxiang Pavilion scene. I don't even know what to say. How everything spirals completely out of control. How we literally watch ZYC's worst nightmares play out. WX's first shout, the way I don't feel like I've heard that particular shade of emotion in her voice up until now, even with everything they've been through. Honestly, each of their expressions as the mob began to jeer and before they were separated was so effective. Ying Lei's indignation, PSJ's alarm, ZYZ's agitation, WX's fury. And the palpable panic as the crowd surged around them and pulled them apart.

I've watched this whole scene three times now. Every actor is giving their all here, and it's so impressive because this isn't at all the usual context of their angst and heartbreak. This isn't a decisive battle over life and death. The range of tragedy stretches so far in this kind of fantastical drama and yet they are able to create such tension and emotion that the shock of that first egg thrown has all the impact of a fatal wound. And it's worse in some ways because it means so little to an outsider and everything to this family.

That rage and helplessness in WX as she wipes ZYC's face and asks who threw it, when she says if the crowd goes any further, they'll fight back—her delivery is so raw. When I heard her lines, I felt the fantasy genre completely slip away for a moment and it became absolutely personal. Like, this point is getting a little away from mere commentary so please forgive the brief aside but those are words I can hear in my own family's voice.

Then, watching the very last vestiges of ZYZ's composure fully crumble away in real-time. God, I wish I could say something more substantive about ZYZ's entire reaction because it's so so good but I'm feeling levels of angst I truly don't know how to convey, which is really saying something given how much of an essay I usually write despite claiming I'm speechless.

Just. The way this is the most desperate and near-breaking we have ever seen them, in a completely different manner than the grief that has come before.

Alright, and then, the juxtaposition of the mob and the cheering crowd around ZYC?—yeah, that's when I started sobbing. As I've said before, the effectiveness, the efficiency, of TJR's acting. The way we can read every emotion off of young ZYC's face: his awkward pride, his self-consciousness, his bashful happiness. Even though this is a memory only recently and fleetingly alluded to in the previous episode and this is a ZYC we have never actually met, we know him and all his mannerisms and expressions so well. He is so alive with his character and so familiar, and then we cut back and, god, how unrecognizable everything is now. That absolutely broke me.

Finally, ZYC and Li Lun's conversation. Again, so so good and again, not sure I can offer much substance in my commentary to do it enough justice. I've been writing this commentary for over three hours now, so if my coherence is petering out, I do apologize.

This is so much of what I wanted and didn't even know I wanted from them, simply because they've been kept apart by the plot for so long. To see some of this come to pass is so satisfying. For Li Lun to claw so desperately at ZYC and try to bring him down, what that means about how he views ZYC's role in ZYZ's life right now. That this is twofold, to ruin ZYC and to be understood, and how he can never get the latter if he is still holding onto the former, wanting to pull others into the abyss rather than seeking a way to perhaps be pulled out of it. Li Lun is so precise in his brutality towards ZYC, digging his fingers directly into the worst of ZYC's fears, and yet ZYC is so insanely clear-eyed and incorruptible and incisive with his words in a way Li Lun has never experienced or had to combat (ZYC, articulate king fr). And for all of Li Lun's bluster as he continually makes to take the physical and conversational upper hand, how quickly that becomes a pitiful immaturity when ZYC truly fights back (in defense of ZYZ). Yan An plays this part so well, when he's looking up at ZYC.

And seriously, talk about ZYC delivering just the most on point monologues to struggling characters ever (ZYZ, Bai Jiu, now Li Lun), and doing all that after the day he's had?? I don't know what direction this conversation will push Li Lun. I can see it go either way because yeah ZYC just basically rubbed in his face how alone and pitiable he is and how he'll never get what he wants out of ZYC, but at the same time I've never seen Li Lun so close to understanding why he has ended up alone, nor look so desperate enough to not be that he might make a different choice for himself. And just as Li Lun is that mirror showing ZYC the darkness of the abyss, ZYC must be reflecting to Li Lun how bright the dawn could be. (Oh the incredible nature of character foils.) Even though ZYC has denied Li Lun the understanding he wants, he has seen through Li Lun so thoroughly that that is an understanding in itself.

And then oh my god. The reverting to Bai Jiu's voice and body. One of the most top-tier narrative choices ever. Li Lun, deconstructed by ZYC completely, is really so unbearably young in his heartache.

Okay, I think that's all I have to offer. I'm so wrung out, and I apologize if the quality of the commentary declined in the second half, but I hope some of this was enjoyable to read!