#toxic polycule let’s go

[saltywinteradult]

ned, cat, jaime and cersei. all four of em should’ve fucked each one of the others at least once. it wouldn’t have solved anything but i do think jaime and cersei could’ve made ned and cat worse and i think that would be funny

[weekdaysend]

My SentOpLita 1AM relationship chart I did not think I'd be psycho-analyzing this dynamic as much as I thought I would..

[cielomist]

personal interpretation of radiant garden unethical science polycule:

even and aeleus were married first and dilan got absorbed into the marriage later. braig was their collective sidepiece bc he had no interest in committing

[bipanicoverthegravessiblings]

Can you write about toxic policule of andrew x reader x ashley. Reader is Ashley childhood friend, who genuinely befriended her not trying to get to Andrew. The type that will try to throw them food during quarantine.

The polycule is in shambles ❤️

Andrew and Ashley x ChildhoodFriend!Reader

Befriending Ashley Graves was no easy task

She made you work for it to say the least

Giving you her homework to do because a good friend wouldn’t let their friend fail.

Some girl was saying stuff about her, so a good friend would go punch her square in her ugly face!

A good friend wouldn’t stare at other people, or make other plans

Ashley was exhausting, yes- and a lot of the time you wonder why you’re even her friend.

You catch yourself wondering that sometimes too…

“Yeah! Fuck off to your whore mothers!”

Your vision was still hazy- only being able to crack it open ever so slightly as to not mess with your black eye. You flinched as a small hand placed itself on her bruised cheek.

“Hold still!” The shrill voice snapped, “Lemme get a look at cha..”

LeyLey hummed, her lips pursing as she inspected your beaten up face. She retracted her hand and reached into the pocket of her overalls, and pulled out a crumbled up bandaid still in the package. She fumbled with the wrapper and placed the bandaid overtop the cut on your chin. It did nothing, but she smiled proudly.

“There! Now if those assholes do that again, just let me know! I’ll make Andy join me!” She grinned. You couldn’t help but smile back.

No one ever stood up for you as a child, and Ashley always made the bullies go away.

Albeit, out of fear- but fear was better than anything

So you stayed by Ashley’s side, because without her….you’d just be a target again. She told you herself.

Being so close with Ashley only mean being close with her brother as well

To an extent

Ashley pitched fits whenever you two hung out without her, claiming you were scheming against her to leave her.

Neither of you would do that

There was a silent agreement between you and Andrew to shower Ashley with as much affection as you both could when you three were together

This is probably how you became so used to their closeness

You and Andrew somehow managed to find common interests outside of Ashley, something she made fun of you two for on a regular basis

You don’t know how, and you don’t know why, but you slowly fell for both of them

It just hit you like a bag of rocks

To say you were subtle would be a blatant lie, so it didn’t take long for the siblings to catch on.

And make note to tease you about it…

“Here, let me help you with that Y/N..”

Sirens went off in your head as Andrew pressed himself against your back, trapping you between him and the counter. He reached over you, grabbing the bowl you had been reaching for. The few seconds he did that felt like an eternity, and you feared your face boiling from the heat that had risen to it. Your brain buffered, not registering that he had left to sit with Ashley on the couch.

Mr and Mrs Graves were out, and normally this led to a movie night the pair would invite you along. It was just a movie, you told yourself, you could handle it.

Oh you could not have been more wrong.

The pair felt far more….touchy than usual- and it was slowly killing you. As you sat, sandwiched between the pair, Ashley clung tightly to your arm. Her nails dug into your skin possessively as she rested her chin on your shoulder. Andrew had his arm over the both of you, claiming to just be resting it. He was also awfully close.

You slowly blocked the movie, and any other sounds out, the only thing being audible to you was the rapid beating of your heart.

You could’ve sworn you died for a second when both of them placed a hand on your thigh.

Both of them had a bet to see how long it would take you to tell them

Neither had anticipated it would be over the phone…

The quarantine hit and you weren’t allowed to see them

The entire thing made you anxious

Parasites in the water supply…

As dramatic as it was, you were worried you wouldn’t see them again

So you called them, confessed everything

And like any good siblings would….they decided to share you <3

They took turns staring down at you fondly from the balcony when you came by to throw them food

They called you late into the night to pester you, Andrew especially when he couldn’t sleep

Eventually security became so tight you couldn’t even go near the apartment without risk of being shot.

And the calls had stopped

You were worried they were mad at you…that they hated you…

Until they showed up on your doorstep one night….

[anistarrose]

So, it's not a moral failing to be bad at what I'm about to describe. But collectively, most of Tumblr is bad at identifying polls that function as bait for bigotry and harassment. Polls that, either intentionally or unintentionally, encourage people to spew hatred about a marginalized queer sub-community — because that sub-community is considered, at least by some, an acceptable enough target.

Most of us have probably seen that polyamory poll go around (as of September 2024). Fewer people have probably taken a look at the notes on that poll — and in many ways, that's for the best, because a lot of the notes are fucking vile. I won't link the poll itself, but content warning for threats of domestic violence and suicide in just this sampling. I don't know enough about the poll creator to make assumptions towards their intent, but that poll was functionally bait, acting as encouragement for people to spew vitriol and bigotry.

And none of this is specific to that individual poll! In December 2023, a single person made a series of polls about friends with benefits, and the "question" of whether aromantic heterosexual cisgender men were queer — and those polls led to huge waves of arophobia and sex negativity (inseparable from, let's be honest, some mask-off radfem shit). On top of that, multiple polls about people's feelings towards sex, or experiences with such, have turned into a festival for bashing both asexuals and virgins — insofar as the people doing the bashing use those words as anything but interchangeable insults.

Polyamorous people. Aromantic people, especially aromantic allosexuals. Asexual people, especially those who are virgins or sex-repulsed. That's a clear and obvious trend — they're all people who do relationships differently. People whose relationships and identities are considered "cringe." Who are considered acceptable targets to mock within the queer community. Making fun of "polycule drama," making fun of "queerplatonic," making fun of a-spec microlabels.

So many people who call themselves sex-positive refuse to extend that positivity to polyamorous people and aromantic people. To casual sex, to sex without monogamous romance. They insist that the polyamorous, the aromantic, are in fact the predators, the abusers, the degenerate queers that the conservative pearl-clutching queerphobes were right about. They tack on asexuals to the "abuser" category, too, because allegedly no one could ever be happy in a relationship with an asexual; because allegedly it's manipulative to your partner to refuse sex! Meanwhile, asexuality and sex repulsion are conflated with the completely different concept of sex negativity, twisting the language of sexual liberation to demonize asexuals further...

And yes, polls play a role in all of this! Of course, not every poll about sexual experiences, for one example, is a poll intended to bait or to harm people! But if they blow up, there is a high risk of people feeling emboldened to comment things like: "so many people are okay with casual sex, or multiple sexual partners! this is what's wrong with the world, it's all just toxic hookup culture!" Or if not that, then things like: "look how few people on this virgin loser website have had sex! this is what's responsible for cultural sex negativity! they'd all be better, more progressive queers if they just got laid more!"

And that's not even getting into the obvious, and obviously intentional bait. The "cishet aromantic men" poll, most egregiously. Clout-chasers hide behind the veil of "I'm just curious about people's opinions!" and then, put out a poll catered to the most rancid, exclusionist, verging-on-radfem opinions. At the very least, catered to platforming them seriously, when people inevitably feel emboldened to say that shit they've been thinking.

And "emboldened" really is the key word here. These polls increase the social acceptability of saying cruel shit about polyamorous people, a-spec people, and whoever else becomes the queer community's acceptable target of the year. The groups discussed in this post are by no means the only popular targets for harassment and exclusionism, but they are some of the most egregious examples I've seen personally, and they are tied together by their non-normative approaches to relationships or lack thereof. Moreover, the groups overlap — I am personally aromantic and asexual, not polyamorous — but even then, my struggles with amatonormativity overlap with those of polyamorous people.

And I bring this up because for years, I've witnessed popular Tumblr bloggers attack a-specs and polyamorous people within the same posts. With the same tactics, using cringe culture in addition to demonizing alternative types of relationships. Now, polls are another weapon for harassing us. And, it is... absolutely exhausting.

Of course, there's obviously a sliding scale of how prone polls can be to harassment. I don't think polls just asking about people's sexual experiences need to be totally anathemized and blotted off the face of the earth, for example — but you know, maybe consider searching OP's blog for "asexual" and some other keywords before you reblog one?

Furthermore, maybe just don't reblog polls about "does X count as LGBTQ," even if you're in support, because you're still legitimizing the poll to begin with. Maybe proceed with caution with posts that mention polyamory, even if not in an inflammatory way, unless maybe you know that OP is polyam themselves. Maybe block, obviously don't harass, but just silently and unceremoniously block people that make a lot of clout-chasing polls about controversial queer issues.

I don't know. I don't have all the answers. I'm not an expert on catching these red flags myself — the first time I saw the polyamory poll, I ignored it just because it was irrelevant to me as a non-partnering person, not because I clocked it as something that would generate hate and threats. So really, if I do have a plea to end on — it's just to listen to people, polyam and a-spec and otherwise, when they say that some post is generating hate and threats towards them. And then, maybe, try to learn some red and orange flags from the experience.

None of us are part of every queer sub-community that Tumblr loves to harass. We all have blind spots, and that's inevitable, not a failure of you as a person. But after seeing so many of these bait polls go around, after seeing multiple rallying effects in the communities followed by people letting their guards down, and circulating a slightly different bait poll... well? I just hope that eventually, people will be willing to learn.

[sherbertquake56]

okay I’m dropping some of my fable arcane au thoughts before the new episodes drop tomorrow even tho most of it is based on season 1 anyway—

so some basic taggings for you that I based the AU around:

1. Icarus as Jinx.

powder vs jinx is just the sherbert vs icarus name thing. toxic father. unhealthy relationship with sibling. a lil crazy and maybe evil. thinks that they are at fault for the things around them. lil bombs? nah- little SPLASH potions. hearing and seeing mylo and claggor? it’s Haley- it’s literally Haley—

2. Fable as Silco.

okay fable’s design WAS partially inspired by silco— they literally look the same— they’re both a man with two priorities: take over and make his own nation & care for child.

you know the ending scene of season 1? where they’re sitting at the table? THAT. With Jinx assuming that he’s gonna give her up to topside and him getting the first chance to talk and saying “her name is JINX!” i could write an essay on that for icarus. they’re so toxic and it’s so perfect. also that scene at the start of s2 ep2? YEAH THAT—

3. Centross as Ekko

This one is controversial and up to debate but i will die on this hill— SO THE S1 BRIDGE FIGHT. I am so willing to put aside any possible prison duo gay-ness in this AU for that rivalry/fight. they were friends!!! they were so good!! and now they wanna KILL EACH OTHER!! it’s great.

It’s also specifically thinking of Ekko’s tree home as solstice— older Ekko very much has the vibe of Violet specifically-

4. Arisanna as Sevika

I DONT KNOW WHY BUT IT MAKES SENSE TO ME. It’s specifically vexed Ari during the coworkers era but idk it just feels right— I look at her relationship with Silco and Jinx and go ‘hmmm this could be something’

[I will also say there is an argument here for swapping Centross and Ari tho— big tree city as Ari rebuilding the records goes hard, and angsty fighty toxic with jinx centross is also good— it’s like 50/50 for me]

5. Isla as Vander

LET ISLA BE A BADASS IN THIS AU. SHE DESERVES IT— something something raising vi and powder alone, something something the backstory with silco— there’s something there and it hits really hard in scenes where vi sees vander and helps her get back up— also I look at jinx and vander and I go “mmmm this is in fact how icarus sees Isla”

6. Rae as Vi

This was obvious given the above but LISTEN— in this ALTERNATE UNIVERSE OF EVENTS I think it would be fun- do I think that vi perfectly fits canon rae? no. But in this world it would KICK ASS. rae deserves to beat some people up— got kicked out of the overworld (zaun) by fable (silco) and had to go to the end (piltover) to get away from him?? rae end prince aus are already here so why not end rae also punching people huh??? also. gay people.

———

Okay— here’s where I need some help, thoughts, and opinions from you all…

1. Caitlyn.

POLYAMORY IS HARD TO TAG AND I DONT KNOW WHO FITS BEST?? For me, season 1 Caitlyn fits best as Caspian, but season 2 Caitlyn is more for Fenris— so I’m very stuck. yes absolutely give thoughts on this please—

2. Viktor as Aax (but how does that work)

Viktor absolutely should be Aax— mr. Scientist / lab experiment / turned religious figure vessel for god is CORRECT. But honestly the rest of Piltover gang is really hard with Rae as Vi— Jayce/Viktor/Mel is yelling at me to be the polycule but aGH— ya know??? very stuck on this so I instead look at the coworkers and go “mm good yes—”

Random other tags I think also make sense:

- Ulysses as that Telchin looking mf Stev— mans took out one lil medical device as his fish self and I said YUP

- The hexcore big orb thing underground as Quixis— big white glitch orb room make things go wack. couldn’t be easier than that.

———

Anyways that’s all— I’ve been rotating this in my mind for like a week and have had way too many thoughts about it thank you for your time—

[brandwhorestarscream]

Mer jazzsound and construtiprowl

Jazz is courting the local milf of that reef, and it's working

The polycule need a bit more time with their milf,but he is becoming more and more comfortable with the courtship and gifts

Oooh yeah I'm here for that! Jazz trying to show that he can be good not just to Soundwave, but his gaggle of guppies as well 🥺 Soundwave is entertaining the idea but has not decided which way he wants to go. He may let Jazz fertilize his eggs next season regardless

And Prowl is extremely prickly and venomous, keeps the constructicons from touching him with a layer of toxic secretions like a second layer of paint. He jealously guards Springer, his only guppy, and routinely chases the structies away from his nesting cove. They're not deterred 🤭

[janayuga]

Hi yes, this is absolutely everything to me.

Hi, could you share with us which Giovanni pairings you ship?

Oh boy, sure can. I should preface this by saying that I see Giovanni as an absolute manwhore with commitment issues, so technically all these ships can coexist:

- Giovanni/Ariana

Two bad bitches all around, Gio respects her a whole lot as they are on the same wavelength in most aspects (hc them as Silver's parents. Both regret it)

- Giovanni/Proton

Proton is a determined and feisty kitten who strives for Gio's approval. Unfortunately for his fangirl army Proton's into older men

- Giovanni/Petrel

Gio's weed soking gf and a menace to society. Gio highly appreciates the absolute agent of chaos that Petrel can be

- Giovanni/Archer

I mean, have you seen the guy? He is obsessed. Archer's his boss' loyal dog, Giovanni's the only reason he wakes up in the morning. Will kill and die for him and Gio would have nothing less

- Giovanni/Ghetsis

They hate each other, they want each other. While there's respect and admiration, both have egos the size of the sun, so it's a constant competition for dominance (in multiple ways). They will bite

- Giovanni/Nanu

Go way back, just two old cats. Nanu will do bare minimum to protect Alola from Rocket's shenanigans, yet won't rat Giovanni out to police while he absolutely should. Have a soft spot for each other

- Giovanni/Rose

Rose is charming and easy to manipulate, a win-win for Gio

[justaz]

LMFAO toxic polycule with four way cheating all around. Arthur and Gwen are married but Gwen is also having an affair with Lancelot who is having an affair with Merlin who is having an affair with Arthur who is having an affair with Lancelot who is having an affair with Gwen who is having an affair with Merlin- idk how they get caught/exposed/confess but I just think toxic polycule whatever the fuck their ship name is is kinda funny. Also. Gwaine is there? For some reason? Hes Merlin’s boytoy on the side. Arthur has angry sex with him when the agony of lying to your three lovers gets too much and Gwaine pushes him just far enough. Oh, and Gwaine’s boyfriend Percival is over there holding hands with his boyfriend Elyan who is also Gwaine’s boyfriend.

Oh. This is definitely all leading up to Camelot being a huge polycule. Isn’t it? Leon is in a qpr with all of them. And hates it. (Just kidding, he loves all his idiots. He just wishes they made better decisions. Or let him rest.)

lol Morgana betrayed Camelot bc she got voted out of the polycule. Gwen stands with her hot canceled wife.

Idk where this is going anymore. It started off being a silly haha mutual cheating idea I was laughing at but now. Now we’re here.

[imaginariumwanderer]

What are your personal predictions/hopes for the eternal sugar update?Aside from toxic yuri

Saw this right before I logged out lol Hi hi cheesecakemermaid we've met again<3<3

For my prediction, one thing is certain. Hollyberry will lose her shield or might even have it broken as foreshadowed in the 4th anniversary title screen and the cuckoo show. I'll take a wild guess and say it'll involves a rabbit or a rabbit-adjacent character/event based on what happened in the cuckoo show too (is 50/50 on this) From what I can remember in her introductory arc, Hollyberry have technically practiced sloth by running away from her kingdom to go on adventuring alone. With justifiable reasons, as she deemed herself not worthy of her shield anymore after the Dark Flour war and decided it's best to entrust her royal duties along w/ the shield to her descendant. In the end she learned that despite the fact her kingdom is in trusted hands, there's still things she can do for her people/loved ones. Her character arc is the inverse of Dark Cacao who have to learn to share his burden w/ his people/younger generations. I'm expecting the story/Eternal Sugar to touch on that fact. Maybe an illusion featuring the royal Berry family à la Mystic Flour

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if the Paradise is revealed to have a true/different appearance similar to what happened to the Spire in ep 7

Most of the Beast yeast EPs so far have met my expectations pretty consistently, aside from ep 1-2, an ok introduction arc but kinda rushed, and ep 5/8, being the absolute best of the best. So I'm thinking ep 9-10 will be the same in quality. One of the thing I wanted is a different flavor of the playable Beast's follower character type. All the Beast follower we've met acted loyal or have a favorable disposition toward their Beast, it'll be nice if we get a follower character whom either don't care about or outright hate the Beast they served. I hope the amount of creepy beast faces Eternal Sugar make will be higher than Mystic Flour (who only got 2 I think.) Crack theory but it'll be sooo funny if Pitaya Dragon tagged along, and that they get to interact w/ Eternal Sugar, the og member of the polycule arguing with the latest member of the polycule

And plsplspls have a pre-corruption flashback or let the ep show us the Beasts interacting I know I'm asking for too much but I don't care, a lil glimpse is fine I want to see them interact SO BAD

[artdcnaldson]

toxic polycule.... think tashi probably has you strip in front of them, all of them, patrick too, and bend over to show her your pussyn- she tells you she's gonna let patrick touch you, gonna let him eat you out. and if you really hate him like you say you do, well, you'll safeword out wont you? you wont cum? but if you get wet while patrick plays with your pussy - if you cum on his tongue - well that just means you're a liar, baby. and liars get spanked. ❤️ especially bratty liars get spanked by patrick and his big rough hands.

Sighhhh you just get it <3

It’s the perfect “punishment” to adjust that bitchy little attitude you’ve gotten. Patrick’s been stealing all of your precious attention, right? So patrick’s gonna be the one to fix it, to give your needy cunt all the attention it needs.

And you’re dumb enough to think he’s not going to make you cum— that you’re defiant and willful enough that you’re just going to take it and prove that you’re right— you don’t need Patrick, he doesn’t have any power over you. He’s a fucking guest. You’re staying, not him.

But oh, you’re so wrong. You’re on all fours on the bed, bent over to reveal the perfect pussy that Tashi and Art spent two years worshipping before this. And that wasn’t enough? Now you’re so greedy that you can’t fucking share?

You can’t see very well since they’re behind you, but you feel Art’s thick fingers on your pussy, spreading you out for Patrick to leer at. Your face heats at the exposed feeling, so much more vulnerable than just bending yourself over. It’s cheating— having him touch you like that. Your body recognizes his touch, the warmth and roughness of his fingers and reacts accordingly.

Patrick laughs at the sight of your hole clenching around nothing, and you muffle a whimper in the sheets as he rubs over your entrance with the pad of his thumb, pressing just slightly, so the muscles there open and relax to accommodate him.

“I think she wants me,” Patrick says, all smug and self-assured.

You huff, pouting as you feel yourself growing slick at your core. “I do not,” you argue feebly.

Patrick smears the juices that seep from your cunt around your pussy and presses the tip of his middle finger against your entrance. Your walls flutter around the intrusion, wanting more, deeper. Fucking traitor. “I wasn’t talking about you.”

You muffle a cry into the blankets beneath you, fisting the soft fabric as Patrick thrusts finger inside of you. He doesn’t wait, quickly lets a second join the first, then a third. He has you stretched around his fingers, fucks them deep inside of your cunt, presses hard on your walls so they brush against your sweet spot and your cunt drips for it.

“I thought you hated me, hm?” Patrick asks, condescension dripping from his voice. “This pussy doesn’t though. She’s squeezing me so tight, soaking me. You’d be the perfect little fucktoy if you weren’t such a fucking bitch.”

You huff, glaring back as best as you can, but Patrick just leans down, puts his face inches from yours, and grins. “Don’t worry, I’ll get that attitude adjusted real quick.”

You turn to look at Art, at Tashi, who stand on the sidelines like casual observers. Tashi’s face is impassive— she already told you that you could either safeword out or take it. So you look to Art, give him big pleading eyes and pout. Say something, don’t let him just be mean.

Just when you think Art might actually crack, You feel the wet seal of Patrick’s lips around your clit and cry out. Your legs kick helplessly as he licks and sucks at your cunt, as he continues thrusting three fingers inside of you.

It’s nothing you haven’t taken before, but something about Tashi and Art watching instead of participating makes it feel more intense.

Definitely not that it’s Patrick— not that his fingers are skilled and experienced and his mouth is downright fucking sinful. Because you don’t want him, right? The way he talks down to you, treats you like nothing more than a hole to fill, that’s not what you like. Right?

But you’re a blubbering, whiny mess nonetheless. Eyes rolling back, grinding yourself back on his fingers and mouth. Reduced to needy gasps and cries, moans that are ripped straight from the core of you.

You fight it. Tashi and Art can tell, and Jesus, Patrick knows you’re resisting. “C’mon, stop fucking fighting,” he murmurs against your cunt, so you feel the words like a rumble through your veins. “Give it to me. You want to, just fucking do it.”

Your body gives in, maybe a little bit of that willfulness in your mind too. Your orgasm hits hard, makes your limbs buckle so you’re limp and pliant on the bed. You moan as he withdraws his fingers and your used cunt is left empty and needy. Your body feels syrupy and slow.

“I thought you weren’t going to cum,” Tashi says, as she settles beside you on the bed. Her pretty, manicured nails drag along the soft skin of your back, tracing your spine. All you can manage is a pathetic moan. “Good girls don’t lie, baby. C’mon, over Art’s lap.”

Art sneaks a tiny kiss to your forehead as you climb over his lap, asa propped up and on display. It’s a perfect combination— Art’s sturdy, affectionate hand and Patrick’s unwavering one. Art pets the small of your back affectionately while Patrick lays into you.

The first spank hurts like nothing Tashi or Art have ever dealt. You previously thought Art’s could be bad, but that was amateur compared to Patrick. It stings, slams rough into the sensitive, plush flesh.

And you count, dutifully. Even as tears streak your cheeks, as your ass stings and begs for a reprieve.

Fifteen is where Tashi calls it. She pulls you into her lap, rubs over your aching, tender skin soothingly. “Are you going to behave now?” You nod. “Apologize to Patrick for being so greedy with us.”

Patrick is grinning smugly as you meet his gaze. “I’m sorry, Patrick. For being greedy.”

That satisfies them both. For now.

[kittenfangirl20]

If you are going to act like this over a poll for fun and once again act like “Hades and Persephone is toxic because one interpretation of the way they got together involved kidnapping” I am going to block you. I also thought it was funny that they went “Oh once again Dionysus/Ariadne are being underrated and under appreciated” that ended up changing and is in the lead at this point. Also in the myth Eros/Psyche weren’t 100% wholesome and healthy when their relationship started with him refusing to let her see his face and he ran away from her when she went to catch a peek at him while he slept. Maybe don’t judge what you think is wholesome and healthy when it comes to the Greek Gods because none of them would win.

[ro-bee]

I’m very curious about the poly quad relationship (Narinder/Lamb/Kirander/Goat). I’m assuming that NariLamb, PupiGoat, and maybe LambGoat are love relationships (Let me know if I’m wrong), but what about Lamb x Kirander, Narinder x Goat, and Narinder x Kirander? Do they also love each other or is it mostly a sexual arrangement?

Ok so

Narilamb are very very in love (after all the divorce stuff now they are fine)

Pupigoat are toxic yaouri (?) but they're going to get better eventually (lamb is their couple counciler)

LambGoat have this very special relationship that is like best friends but not quite, lovers but not really?? Is hard to give it a name

Like queer platonic??? Qeer romantic?

And about the others :

Lamb and Kiran like each others and are very affectionate, so we can say that they are in love ;)

Nari and goat relationship is like "yeah I like their company but ngl it would be really funny if now they got hit by a car"

they don't hate each others toh! They are just bastards I think lol is like passive aggressive? neutral?? Fuck buddies even???

Nari and Kiran are like that Barbie meme "I'm just like you, you're just like me" they go along pretty well but sometimes nari bullies Kiran because "he's too sweet" just like his lamb, nothing too evil or anything

Also he would find very interesting kiran's "revenge" plan against his siblings (you know the whole "go goat, kill all gods, kill everyone")

Is there any jealousy in this messy polycule? Hm probably... Sometimes, but not much I think

Is probably just Kiran being like "why my lovely goat isn't THAT SWEET with me? *sad dog noises*" idk I think is funny

[legally-allowed-to-slime]

been receiving asks in various degrees of seriousness (you guys are very nice) so i might as well elaborate on galaxy duo before any actual toxicity leaks in

first of all. i could care less if you love galaxy duo and think they’re fluffy and cute. there’s only so much objective interpretation you can draw from literal cubes, so at a certain point it’s just your biases forming your opinions, same way you can’t build a house with two bricks. personally, i found them interesting, my interest dipped slightly in the latter half of WL, but who knows? their dynamic could change if/when there’s a new season.

a disclaimer in advance: if it wasn’t already apparent by the asks (anyway the only people who will see this are people who were following me already but this is jic), i am a pearl main. i don’t watch scott because i don’t like the editing. therefore my takes are exceedingly biased but so is pearl, so there’s that.

let’s talk about their dynamic pre-WL. for LL, i’ll accept that they were a cute wholesome duo. i didn’t watch LL so i can’t really say anything, but from what i’ve heard they were your regular alliance. and then in DL. well. the Horrors. i’ve said a lot about DL already so we’re going to settle and say, pearl absolutely deserved to be mad at scott. abandoning her and not even considering a polycule was not very open minded of him

anyway throughout LiL and SL she’s still angry at him and wants to kill him, which again, i find fair because of the tilly death do us part sacrifice (i invite you to rethink the implications of that line paired with what he did next. essentially saying “we break up when one of us dies” and then killing yourself. ?).

and then add in the element of gem in SL. trust me she’s relevant. gem and pearl have a thing going on, scott doesn’t like it because he sees it as gem nearly leaving their alliance for his ex, but still, because gem is Gem, he holds back on giving her the jimmy/pearl/joel treatment and still tries to be nice to her.

WL begins. it’s a lot. gem doesn’t like pearl because she viewed it as a betrayal and also she finds it funny to play around with her like that. scott doesn’t like pearl. pearl doesn’t like scott.

this is where it starts to get contentious, but also a hill that i will die on: the Gs were absolutely toxic, at least for the first four episodes. i don’t really feel like pointing out all the clips of the pointed comments, the veiled insults, the DIRECT QUOTE of “we’re a family whether you like it or not”, so i’ll use two examples, one for scott, one for pearl.

pearl borderline sold her alliance out. mumbo and skizz came up to pearl, explicitly told her that they were trying to kill her allies, and she not only agreed but engaged in friendly conversation with them for the entirety of their hiding. when the rest of the Gs came back (even joel commented on how pearl was alone at the base), mumbo even helped pearl cover up.

this is not normal alliance behaviour, and definitely not normal pearl behaviour. if pearl was happy in the alliance she wouldn’t have practically invited two would-be murderers to kill her allies. neither is she unjustified with how scott and cleo dismissed her feelings from DL. look, pearl is one of the most loyal lifers, to the point she faced a messy breakup with gem. even to mumbo she was reluctant to trash talk scott or cleo, but still, she let them make the hole, because plain and simple, the alliance was toxic.

as for scott; scott was more friendly to gem than pearl. see, i told you she was relevant. this is less black-and-white than the mumbo and skizz trap, but in social terms it means a lot. it’s like your bestie siding with your ex instead of you, which if you think about it was exactly what was happening. scott spouts a lot about loyalty, but he thinks about it very plainly: loyalty is killing yourself for your ally. but in fact what he did was push the “antagoniser” narrative onto pearl and reinforce and encourage it. gem said an inch, he said a mile.

not to say gem wasn’t the one who created it in the first place, but as pearl’s ally, scott’s first reaction shouldn’t have been to side with gem (he admits to pearl that he doesn’t know what she did, but that based off gem’s reaction he just assumes that pearl did something wrong, despite KNOWING that gem has beef with pearl from SL and is thus an unreliable narrator). as pearl’s (and impulse’s, but to a lesser extent because impulse kind of deserved it for going on about the cows) ally, he shouldn’t have brought it up at the start of every session and result in pearl defending herself furiously before he dragged pearl and impulse to apologise to gem.

this is not up for debate. wl!pearl did nothing to gem, or to anyone. scott tried to convince her to apologise to gem, for nothing. again, even gem points this out to pearl, and because pearl is loyal to a fault, she says that scott’s her ally.

anyway. the Gs were toxic for at least the first four episodes, full stop.

here’s where it starts to derail slightly (for me, at least): the sacrifice. but, you know, let’s examine the circumstances a little closer. as background information, pearl was the only yellow/red whose allies didn’t try to get them a kill. like, the Gs’ approach to gaining lives is not to kill others but to spend one session doing nothing before the guy with the most lives offers to kill himself. strange. lots of issues, these two.

anyway, scott offers the sacrifice, and pearl’s initial reaction is to refuse. the alliance talks it through, and decides it would take the target off scott’s back and give pearl a life. pearl and scott have pretty similar playstyles, in that while they do engage in more rp than say, grian or jimmy, they are also, in a way, sweats. the sacrifice was discussed logically, practically, and it turned out to be a logical decision because without it pearl would’ve permadied a few sessions too early.

here’s where i was a little thrown off, by the presenting that this would be somehow cathartic (iirc, scott uses this exact word) because pearl finally gets to kill scott. it’s funny because pearl does admit while they’re going back to base that she would’ve preferred a 1v1, but i don’t think her deal was ever over that she wanted scott to die. sure, she wanted scott dead, but it was because she didn’t have agency in the dl finale. in the same way, the WL sacrifice isn’t exactly because she really wanted the life (she refused it at first), or because she wanted to kill scott so badly (she said she wanted a 1v1), but mainly because both parties recognised that it was the most sensible decision to do in the circumstances that they were in (scott was dark green, pearl needed a life). to me, it didn’t address pearl’s lack of control over the season that she won, or scott’s distrust of pearl.

but whatever. they act friendly for the rest of the season, because technically their story’s been resolved, so there’s no aggression to be acted out. nothing galaxy duo there.

the ONLY OTHER thing of note is the?? matching hoodie?? not on my bingo card at all. i’ve spoken about it in some ask before but it’s just so random to me? like it never went anywhere, and i don’t see why scott wanted to match red hoodies with her anyway. like why her, specifically? pearl hadn’t killed anyone besides martyn, and that was to avenge her allies. they never address this so i suppose this lack of logic is what spurs on the majormoon truthers; that scott loves pearl so much that he wants to match with her so they can be like a #dynamicduo or something.

uhhhhhhhh. i dunno. it’s just so random and again, because it’s never brought up besides pearl’s cursory “oh, we’re matching” (which we now know was planned because scott asked for permission when getting the skin), it doesn’t have any narrative significance to me. maybe scott explains it in his video. idk

anyway, my problem was how a duo with so much bad blood (>3 seasons), to the point that they were at each other’s throats while in the same alliance, was just kinda. rushed? look, i know the life series isn’t scripted, and the players just have to make do with whatever improv they can do, and i do think scott and pearl did the best with what they had, but personally i was hoping that they wouldn’t go the “pearl finally forgives scott! yay scott for sacrificing!” route because it’s pushed under the rug so suddenly in the hopes of achieving any sort of closure.

again, ccs are fine, i think they were great, i wasn’t a big fan of how the story was handled. that’s it

[farenmaddox]

Supernatural unhinged rambling ahead… be warned.

I have started obsessing over this idea that was a passing thought I had a few weeks ago, which is how much better seasons 6 and 12 would have been if the plots had been swapped. Reasons: the Campbell family plot Did Not Serve the Narrative of season 6 and felt hugely distracting, and the BMoL felt like a silly threat at the point of season 12. They have super-cool weapons to fight monsters. Okay, and? They can incapacitate/go toe-to-toe with an angel? Me, too, bitch, you ain't special. This is well after The Fall and after angels have already been thoroughly nerfed by previous seasons.

So what if the big bad of season 6 was the BMoL and the big bad of season 12 was Sam?

Season 6: The British Men of Letters knew some shit was up in America but left it alone until Crowley leaned on them for resources in some cagey plot of his. They dig into it and realize angels are on earth and fucking things up. This is a big deal, a big problem, and they need as much information and leverage on angels as they can get, immediately. So what do they do? They identify the person who knows the most about them at this point: Dean Winchester.

Sam is in hell, Cas in heaven; Dean is alone (I mean, he has Lisa and Ben but let’s be realistic about how much of a shield they can be). This group who is so ruthless about killing monsters gets to Dean at a point of real vulnerability in this life. They promise him that if he works with them they will find a way to save Sam. And so begins the War. Dean is a ruthless hunter, Ketch and Mick get more screentime to attempt to be interesting people, the Alpha plot is more developed. They capture angels and study them. Cas is too distracted and Dean too sad/angry to realize the threat that the BMoL actually poses to Heaven until it's almost too late.

Dean defects to side with Cas, but only at the last minute. Cas is the one who amasses the power to get to Sam first, and Dean’s grateful. That, plus the fact that the BMoL want to lock up and study Sam and kill Cas. Cas decimates the BMoL and Dean doesn’t mind that at all. Then the Leviathans happen, end season.

Season 12: At the end of season 11, as Amara is trying to gather as much power as possible, Sam is caught in the crossfire and she eats Sam’s soul. Very end of the season, she brings back not just Mary but Grandpa Campbell as well, in an effort to fuck up Chuck's storylines.

Sam is dangerous and running amok, chasing Lucifer all over the globe and leaving a trail of collateral damage, maybe trying to steal the Knights of Hell's loyalty for himself. Cas and Crowley and Dean (hello toxic polycule!) are chasing Sam, and the Campbell family (including Mary) is left to deal with actual hunting as a profession. Dean tries to be around when he can to temper their hunting style and forge a relationship with his mom, but it goes poorly. At the same time, Dean is trying to negotiate with Billie on how to get Sam’s soul back, which of course goes awry when Cas kills Billie to get Dean and Mary out of the deal they made when they got arrested for trying to kill the president.

Big overarching themes/plots related to “blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb” type stuff, and the nature of Death and souls. Dean maybe gets caught up in Death politics for a minute, as a way of actually doing something with how much Dean has had a special connection with Death and reapers in previous seasons, and his role as assassin of the old Death and an agent in the ascension of the new Death. Because Sam is like this, Dean ends up sticking with Cas more and ends up siding with him about what to do with Kelly's little nephilim problem.

Season 12 ends similarly to canon, except that Sam is the one who gets sucked into Apocalypse World, Grandpa Campbell is the one who tries to shoot Jack, and Dean is the one who tries to stop him. When they wake up from Jack flinging them away, Mary turfs her dad out and sides with Dean about Jack. Heading into season 13, we are wondering about soulless Sam and whether he's going to find a way back and take Hell for himself, and what Dean and Mary are going to do about the absolute MESS that the Campbells have made of the hunting network and the Winchester reputation.

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 山河令/Word of Honor.

Word of Honor is a 2021 adaptation of a novel by priest that tells the story of two beautiful murderers, their three kids, and their collective attempts to ignore the fetchquest madness that has taken over the rest of the jianghu.

Look, you know what Word of Honor is. Doing a rec for this is like doing my rec for Nirvana in Fire -- I am not introducing you to a new concept. Even if you haven't watched it, you've probably osmosed enough through the rest of Tumblr to have an opinion on it. At this point, if you haven't seen Word of Honor, I'm assuming it's for one of two reasons: either you haven't gotten around to it yet, or you haven't been sufficiently moved by what you've seen fandom do with it.

So I'm going to give you five reasons to watch the show, and they're probably not going to be the reasons you've seen already. Not to say that the other reasons are bad, but you've heard them already, right? What I've got for you are five somewhat more unexpected reasons that may just convince the fence-sitters that this nut-flavored morass of toxic relationships is worth your time.

1. No matter how gay you think it is, it's gayer

Okay, sure, you've probably been given the impression that this show is real gay. But I don't know if you know how gay it is. This show is so gay that we still haven't seen many of the other BL-flavored shows filmed around the same time period or since, because Chinese censorship gay-panicked and locked them all away before they could air, because Word of Honor was just too gay.

Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing (L-R above) are in love. The story does not make sense if they're not. There is no story if they're not. Everything else in the show is set dressing to this incredible adventure story of two horrible people who fall for one another.

Oh yeah, did I mention that they're both bad guys? One's a fascist toddler-murderer and the other's a cannibal mob boss. These two deserve one another, in every possible sense of that phrase. In any other property, they'd be the villains -- and even here, they're still kind of the villains! It's just that the heroes are worse.

What's more, their two actors absolutely understood the assignment. They got the memo. They read the book. No one ever had to sit them down midway through shooting and explain their dynamic. They had it from the table read. When given creative freedom, they chose to double down and make the gay shit even gayer.

But the actors weren't the only ones who knew what they were doing! Everybody working on the production was pretty much in full-on Let's Make A BL mode. There are no gay accidents here. It's so gay that it's actually gayer than the version that aired. If you can do a little lip-reading (though beware of spoilers in those links), you can get at the original filmed version, which had a number of lines that were too homo and/or sexual for Chinese television.

No, they don't kiss. They don't have to. This is the TV version of the tweet about, what's gayer, gay sex or whatever these two have going on? The answer is, whatever these two have going on.

It's so gay that they're not the only gays. No, I'm not going to tell you who the other gays are, in part because spoilers. But trust me, they're there. Lesbians too! And a bisexual elderly polycule! And one pair of hets that we love love love, and most other heterosexuals are creepy and gross. And if that's not an accurate representation of how the world looks to queer people, I don't know what to tell you.

2. Go nuts!

You are not prepared for the product placement.

Word of Honor started off having a budget, so they went ahead and started spending that budget in the way you do when you're making a TV show. Unfortunately, circumstances changed, and their budget became much less, which meant they couldn't keep making that TV show unless they got more dollars. But where to get a sponsor for a fairly low-profile wuxia BL property?

Enter our hero: Wolong Nuts.

I have seen actors do bumper ads in costume for products from their various sponsors, and I have seen actors do bumper ads in character for the same. But the feeling of seeing a modern product diegetically hawked mid-scene by ancient fantasy characters is like none other.

Something like 40% of Word of Honor's total budget came from this nut sponsorship. And here the thing: It worked! It sold nuts! Hell, I’d buy them if they were sold anywhere near me; I like nuts in general, and nuts that support the queers in particular.

I'm including this as a selling point because, come on, it's funny as hell. But it's also a good place to warn you that Word of Honor has what we're politely going to call a spotty use of its funds. Some things, like everyone's outfits and the score, are lavish and beautiful. Other things, like some of the sets and a lot of the CG, are janky and sad. Crowd scenes are thirty humans and a bunch of Blender assets. I've never seen so many fake plastic trees together in one place before. There's a lot of visible hairnets. Like, a lot.

The show was originally planned as being 45 episodes long. It wound up being 36 + a tiny epilogue. That's a huge cut! I’ll say to its credit that you mostly can’t feel the seams; the production team did a heroic job killing their darlings (in many senses) while keeping the narrative coherent. If you know about the original vision, though, you can identify pretty quickly where the excised material should have been. Don’t be surprised when the last two episodes in particular smack you like a hit-and-run.

They blew a truly unwise amount of the budget on costumes in general, and Wen Kexing's costumes in particular, and thank goodness. (@canary3d-obsessed has done a noble job of cataloging everyone's wardrobes, and some of the details are just stunning.) See that red outfit he's wearing there, with the elaborate, delicate embroidery? That apparently took two people literal months to hand-sew. It's a terrible use of limited funds, and I am living for it. Even when Wen Kexing looks awful, he looks stunning -- especially when you put him side by side with Zhou Zishu, who is wearing the jianghu equivalent of slutty yoga pants and a thrift-store dollar-bin t-shirt that says IT'S WINE O'CLOCK SOMEWHERE.

So if, while you’re watching, you’re ever disappointed by the quality of the production in front of you, just console yourself by thinking: That’s nut money, baby.

3. The ghosts (and everyone else) doing the mosts

This is a show that somehow managed to accumulate a tremendous supporting cast of actual grown-ass adults, then had the wisdom to make them play a wide variety of balls-to-the-wall bonkers roles.

You can't throw a rock in a crowd scene without hitting a dozen actors with resumes as long as their arms, who have been acting since before you were born. Apparently they poached a couple veteran film and stage actors from other contemporaneous productions and had them come over to film bit parts on their days off. If you see a character played by an older actor who's getting more lines and face time than you think their character strictly deserves relative to their importance to the plot, and you're like, hm, I wonder if this older actor has a career that includes roles in several dozen other shows and/or stage productions, the answer is yes.

I've seen the tone of the show described as melodramatic, but I don't think that's quite it -- it's more operatic. People speak to the middle distance and play to the back row. Several actors have the body language and line delivery that makes it seem like they're always about three words away from breaking into song. Several of my favorites are downright camp. It's magnificent.

Statistically, everyone in this show is a bad guy. There are the respectable people who don't mean to be bad guys, but wind up being bad guys anyway because they support bullshit systems. There are the morally grey folk who are willing to become bad guys because they think they'll be the good guys when all is said and done. And there are the bad guys who know they're bad guys and are going to chew every piece of scenery in the vicinity about it, so watch out.

My favorite collection of scene-stealing weirdos is probably the clutch of freaks that make up the ghosts of Ghost Valley. They're not actual ghosts -- this is not a supernatural show. They are instead living people who call themselves ghosts because they've found themselves on the margins of society for one reason or another, and have created their own little society! With hookers! And blackjack! And also a little murder, as a treat!

These ghosts are so extra that they actually have a Top Ten List, where all the ones that have code names and specific costumes hang out. How do you get on the Top Ten List? By killing one or more of the people already on it, of course! I told you these guys are villains! They're not even the only villains! They're not even the only villain organization! It's wall-to-wall bad guys around here! And oh my goodness, the actors are clearly having a ball with it.

When the screenwriter came to adapt Faraway Wanderers (the novel) into Word of Honor, she realized that there weren't a whole lot of ladies in the book -- so she invented/adapted some for the show and made most of them sinister! (In fact, if you watch Legend of Fei -- and you should watch Legend of Fei -- you can see a lot of the inspiration for said ladies.) Some of the female characters in the show were men in the book, while others weren't even in the book at all. They all feel organic, though, and not like someone was trying to get Strong Female Character Points. It's the good representation you get when there's a lot of representation, so nobody has to be The Girl, and all the girls can just be people.

...Alas that another casualty of the budget cuts is that several of the lady characters did not get to live up to their full ass-kicking potential. But that potential is still there! The badassery may be implicit instead of explicit, but you don't doubt that many of these women would eat your heart at the slightest provocation, and you would thank them while they were doing it.

This show is perfect food if you're the kind of viewer liable to get sucked up into the worlds of villains, NPCs, bit parts, optional side characters, and other narratives going on outside the main storyline. Because there's a lot going on outside the main storyline. I mean, that's kind of the running joke of the whole novel, that there's this whole complicated political plot happening, and yet our dudes are over here studiously trying to not know what the hell is going on. Obviously that's harder to preserve in a show, but it's still a key feature of the narrative. Most of the Big Power Play What-Not is always happening a few towns over from where the main party is at any given moment. I know people who've watched the drama several times and still can't explain whatever's happening with all that. That's fine. You roll with it for the sake of everything else.

So! Do you like gazing upon delightful character actors and having imagination adventures about the unexplored workings of a bunch of tantalizingly mysterious and often very sexy weirdos? Great! This will keep you busy for a good long while.

4. The juciest pining in the jianghu

I said I wasn't going to tell you about all the gay shit going on here, and I'm not. What I do want to cover, however, is how much gay shit isn't going on here -- and by that I mean just how much of the show's gay longing is unrequited. If you like it when the boy yearns for the other boy, friend, you will feast well tonight.

You have likely already, through fandom, been alerted to the existence of the biggest gremlin in the land and an understandable number of people's favorite character, immortal grandpa Ye Baiyi. What may not have been conveyed, however, is just how tragically gay this bitch is. The ultra-condensed, scrubbed-for-spoilers version of his backstory is that he was in love with a guy who got injured because of him, so he decided to stay and live on a mountain with that guy and the guy's wife and coparent their son with them, all the while never once telling the guy how he felt.

This is not me with slash goggles on. This is canon. Well, okay, the "in love with" part is only confirmed in the book, but Huang Youming, Ye Baiyi's equally gremlin-like actor, has also clearly done the reading and understands how to break your heart with it. Ugh, it's so good.

Shidifuckers, rejoice! Zhou Zishu has Han Ying, his devoted little dumpling who would -- and does -- do anything for him. Back in Zhou Zishu's regrettable (but very fashionable) fascist days, he had a bunch of little underlings; one of them was Han Ying, who still works for the same evil empire. Problem is, Han Ying isn't evil. He was never loyal to his job; he was always just loyal to Zhou Zishu. It's cute the way Wen Kexing hisses like a cat upon meeting Han Ying and immediately identifying him as a rival for Zhou Zishu's affections. If you like OTPs that occasionally roll in a service-top third, please consider that adorable muffin boy up there.

And speaking of quitting your job, have you ever had the problem where you had to orchestrate your own death to get away from your toxic boss who won't stop sexually harassing you, and that motherfucker still expects you to show up for your shift next weekend? Meet Prince Jin, who has refused to accept Zhou Zishu's resignation letter with extreme prejudice.

Zhou Zishu isn't even the only ex he's mad he drove off! But that's just a namedrop in the show; see my bonus selling point for instructions on how to get into that whole gay-ass story. [insert obligatory "Prince Jin is not Helian Yi" disclaimer here]

...Nope, uh-uh, we're not going to get into what's going on with Scorpy. Suffice it to say, this is one of those cases where the show can't outright call a thing gay (though uhhhh it sure can imply a lot of it!), but it can set up an unspoken Gay Bad Idea as a direct, textual parallel with a canon Straight Bad Idea and be like, see? see? Anyway, daddy's boy there has deliciously terrible taste. This is the one that'll have you screaming crying throwing up etc.

And then there's this handsome jackass, who isn't doing the pining, but is the unfortunately heterosexual object of the often confused and misdirected longings of his friends. About the first thing you know about Rong Xuan is that he died before the series begins, so you only see him in a few flashbacks. The precious few times you do, though, you're treated to scenes of him holding court among his besties (many of whom are the spectacularly cast younger versions of major older male characters) while they all wrestle with varying degrees of homo longing for his cocky dreamboat self. You ever wanted to fuck a straight guy so bad you got both him and his wife killed about it? Because somebody in this drama sure has!

I sense you think I'm making this all up, that I'm just a fujoshi looking at the world through rainbow-colored glasses and telling you about her favorite slash pairings. Friend, I am not. Okay, I am being a little cheeky about the last one, but I swear that everything else I have listed in this selling point is about as textual as the show could make it, if not outright straight (ha ha) from the books.

(I have a whole separate theory about how priest herself is a real-life queer, based on how basically everyone in her works is either queer-coded or a token straight who's on thin ice, but that's a subject for a completely different Tumblr post no one's ever going to read, so save us both the time and imagine I already wrote it.)

I cannot stress to you enough how much this show knew what it was doing with the queer stuff. I love how amazingly toxic so much of it is, too, because one of the big themes of the show is that secrets will destroy you and everyone you love. If you have gay longing in a society that forces you to hide that gay longing, yeah, you're going to be extra-vulnerable to making some shitty decisions because of it! You're either going to suffocate yourself by keeping silent, or you're going to open yourself to intimate partner abuse you can't reveal to anyone else, or you're going to do some murders about it! Or some combination of the three! Either way, it's not good!

Also, tell your partner about your chronic health conditions, whether they be Can't Remember My Past, Would Eat A Guy If I Had The Opportunity, Stuck Some Nails In My Chest And Am Now Dying And Also Can't Get A Boner, or Whoops Took The Nails Out Of My Chest And Still Can't Get A Boner. Oh, and tell your partner if you're about to run off and go confront your dangerous ex. And absolutely tell your partner if you're about to fake your own death. Just ... learn to have conversations with the people who love you, okay? Avoid huge amounts of narrative suffering with this one weird trick!

5. Putting his whole Zhang Zhehussy into it

See, Gong Jun (playing Wen Kexing) is not what I'd call a great actor. This is more of a case where you take a guy, you cast him as a character whose motivation can be summed up as "I want to fuck that man in half," and then you cast opposite him a man that the guy in question clearly actually wants to fuck in half. And you let the magic work.

Zhang Zhehan (playing Zhou Zishu), however, legitimately knocks it entirely out of the park. Whenever the camera's on him, it's hard to take your eyes off him. He holds his own in a sea of veteran actors. He can do comedy and tragedy with equal panache. It's lucky he's such a beautiful crier, because Zhou Zishu cries so much. I have never seen someone more perfectly portray the mood of "in love and absolutely furious about it."

As the story goes, when he auditioned, he actually wanted to play Wen Kexing -- but the director told him, look, while you'd be great at that, I can find another Wen Kexing, but I'm never going to find another Zhou Zishu.

Zhou Zishu is bad man who has done terrible things and resigned himself to suffering to atone for his crimes, and he is so mad to find himself at the end of his life suddenly having a reason to keep living. Zhang Zhehan does a pitch-perfect tsundere right up to the point where he breaks. I'm not going to call it an understated performance, because nothing in this show is understated, but it is often times subtle and always complex, and fuck does he have a good crazy grin.

One of the first things you find out about Zhou Zishu is that he's got just a couple years left to live, over which time all his senses are going to deteriorate. In fact, they've already started going. And as the show goes on, you can watch Zhang Zhehan play it so you can tell when he's missed something he should otherwise have picked up on, reacting to noises and touches a split-second late. It's a testament to what a thoughtful job Zhang Zhehan's doing, keeping track of how much of Zhou Zishu has already slipped away.

There are, if you've read the book, legitimate complaints to be made about the adaptation's interpretation of Zhou Zishu's character, and I get that. But you can't say that Zhang Zhehan isn't pulling off exactly what he means to here. I say this too as someone who loves the novel: I think it works. Given the constraints of Chinese television in particular and cinematic adaptations in general, the show made the right choices when it came to figuring out what were the more filmable, actable options, and Zhang Zhehan plays every one of those choices within an inch of his life.

Also did I mention he's like the most beautiful man to ever exist? Holy crap. You're going to be so mad about what they do to his face for the first several episodes.

Don't worry, it washes off eventually.

caveat: Kind of a bummer!

You may have been warned that this one's got a sad ending. Well ... yes and no. On the "no" side of things, there's a "secret" mini-episode 37 that rolls back one of the major points of tragedy. (It's also clearly the first version that got shot, and then they shuffled around and redubbed some material to make the aired end of episode 36.)

But oh man, not all of them. Plenty of characters we love do not make it to the end. Like ... kind of a shockingly large number. Some are dispatched offscreen, some have tragic onscreen deaths, some are probably dead given the circumstances we last see them in, and a couple aren't dead yet but are almost certainly going to be soon.

(It's also kind of a meta-bummer! I mean, I don't recommend falling down the rabbit hole of what happened with Zhang Zhehan's career after the show aired, but tl;dr, it's not great.)

So yeah, it's not an outright pain simulator, and if you've got the mettle for Nirvana in Fire or Guardian, you should be okay here. But hoo boy, don't just blunder on in expecting a cheerful romp from start to finish, because ... yeah. I said it before: This is a story about a bunch of bad guys. Bad guys don't live long lives, nor do the good people who get tangled up in their shit. Just be prepared!

bonus selling point: black and white husbands

Okay, I will tell you who one of the other pairs of gays is. You'll see the two of them show up near the tail end of the show, and then you'll decide you want to know more about what their whole deal is, and then you'll read Qi Ye, which is a novel entirely about gay pining, and then it'll be all over for you.

Ready to wander this way?

There's a number of ways to watch this one! Viki, Netflix, YouTube, and Amazon Prime all have you covered -- but Viki's the only one that has the epilogue at the ready, so I'd go there if you can.

And I get it, if you're enough of an aging hipster that you don't want to play in the same sandbox everybody else is playing in. Believe me, I understand that impulse on a visceral level. After all, this is not a small fandom -- 7718 works on AO3 (at time of writing) isn't Untamed levels of content, but it's nothing to sneeze at. Maybe you want to leave this one for a little while longer, until the hubbub dies down a bit more and people's attention is redirected by a different gay and shiny thing. That's valid. I get it.

But if you do, I still encourage you to get around to it someday. For all its flaws -- and yeah, it's got flaws -- it's a good, solid story that makes you feel lots of feelings about some fascinating characters in some beautiful costumes, running around being real queer (and okay, occasionally straight) to beautiful music. This, to me, is television.

Fun fact! There is also a Japanese dub, if you feel like taking it at that speed, and the guy who voices Zhou Zishu is the voice of Kaworu from Evangelion, and the guy who voices Wen Kexing is the voice of Victor Nikiforov from Yuri on Ice. See what I mean???

I'm telling you, everybody ships it.