#unknown bl

[ladypeonies]

"Acting is a dangerous profession."

credit.

Some people will watch this extract and just brush if off perhaps as fanservice and miss the point completely. What I like about Chris and Xuan it’s how candid and honest they are about the whole process.

The host says it all, “acting is a dangerous profession,” and both actors agreed. She’s right. So many fans don’t get it, and they focus on the superficial. It’s not just a dangerous profession in Asia. In my opinion it’s more challenging there because most of entertainment industries in Asia rely a lot on Method acting and immersion. You have notice how they call themselves by their character names, on and off set and it has several purposes. I won’t dwell on them here because this post would be too long.

And you have method acting which I have several issues with. It’s basically psychology. I’m not going to write an essay on it here, it basically means one can convince themselves of anything and you can become anyone you want. It’s becoming someone else entirely for a time, by changing your habits based on your environment. You study a character and become them, by assuming their point of view, mannerism, state of mind etc. If they drink you start drinking, if they love someone you love them too etc. Some actors are strongly against method acting for a reason and stick to use their imagination which is way safer. In a live Xuan talked about how physically and mentally it impacted him.

You are still yourself but you can’t escape your character, their emotions bleeds into you. And you use it to play the best version of them by using your body. Of course, Xuan fell in love with his co-star and had all those “evil” thoughts. He learned to fall in love with him and make him the centre of his universe. The preparation for the role, to build a bond took longer than the whole filming.

So, any actor in their shoes will feel the same, if they say no well, they are either lying or just bad method actors, that’s it, no in between.

The trick is to use those emotions while filming and then to be able to let them go. And that’s the issue, because for many it takes time to do so and get rid of them. Notice how Xuan doesn’t say while they were filming NC scenes he had evil thoughts but he was sitting there, so before or even after. The thing is if you hold on to those emotions it can hurt your mental health. They can be addictive. Under those circumstances sometimes there is a co-pendency which appear between actors. I remember an actor explaining how he basically went through a heartbreak because he got attached to his co-star who was engaged to someone else and he was full of emotions for his on-screen partner. And those emotions weren’t there before they started filming. And they knew each other, they were friends before and he never felt that way about them. And his mind knew they weren’t a good match but he kept longing for them.

I talked here about the bubble actors found themselves in. And the best remedy to get rid of those feelings, thoughts are a healthy distance, and being back to oneself. I hear often, “they’re just acting, it’s their job…” etc. Actors aren’t robot. There is a process to play a role and they all have a process to get out of a particular challenging role. Obviously, all roles aren’t the same.

Another thing: Chris and Xuan are friends and were friends but under the circumstances, they don’t have the same friendship they had before filming, the one from a year or two years ago. Friendship 101 had specific boundaries, and now there are new ones in friendship 201. It’s not possible to know the taste of your friend’s mouth, their skin, and be in the same exact friendship. Actors are not robots there isn’t a reset button. Now there is a new set of boundaries. Perhaps before there wasn’t any skinship now because there are use to each other touch, there is more skinship. Before they wouldn’t talk about certain subject, now they can. I believe they gain and also lost some things. The only possibility MAYBE to go back to friendship 101 would be a complete separation for weeks, reset. But it’s not happening because there are promotions and also, you get use to seeing each other all the time, I guess.

Now method acting and falling in love, it happens of course, but has to go through the test of time and distance.

One has a girlfriend/boyfriend and start method acting with a co-star LOL. 9 out 10 people will break up with their significant other, the GF or BF will leave, it happens all the time.

PS1: I also took the opportunity to answer a couple of asks.

PS2 :Translation by Wava please be kind to your translators and grateful for the work they do, I personally hate translating it can be so taxing.

[fuzzykittydinosaur]

How do I move on from one of the best BLs of all time? I just keep watching episodes 8-12 over and over.

[vegasthehedgehog]

According to the book, Qian didn't even know how to kiss, which confirms my theory that this was the first time he ever felt that excitement. The story is slightly different in how it unfolds in the book, but it's safe to assume that it is the same.

[heretherebedork]

I love them so much. Every last one of them. Beloved and wonderful babies.

[ah-bee-blogs]

I have been thinking about the shifting dynamic between Qian and Yuan all week. A ton of people have written really insightful posts about these two, and I can’t get them off my mind.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again and again: the tragic backstory is not used as a shock factor or just to make you sympathetic towards a character. It is ingrained into Qian and Yuan’s thoughts, behaviors, actions, and responses. And it contributes to their compelling relationship.

Qian is hesitant around intimacy of any kind. Yuan is eager to care for the person who saved him.

We’ve seen from the beginning how much of a caretaker Yuan is for Qian. The vast majority of intimate physical contact Qian accepts is from Yuan (and by intimate I don’t mean romantic. I mean familiar, personal, etc.).

Qian rarely ventures beyond surface level relationships with people. His experiences growing up left him in a constant state of survival. He focuses on work as a means of survival and doesn’t consider slowing down as an option.

We see this at work, where he is often separated from his coworkers and rarely interacting with them outside of a professional capacity. He often stays late and arrives early at the expense of his own wellbeing.

It’s Yuan who bridges the gap. Who asks coworkers to take care of his brother. Who makes Qian sleep and eat right. Who is there at work and at home ensuring that Qian won’t overwork and exhaust himself.

But their relationship is not one-sided. Qian takes care of Yuan as well, making sure he’s able to take advantage of academic opportunities and clubs and things that Qian never had a chance to partake in. He gives Yuan a life where survival is a guarantee, not something to earn.

Qian protects Yuan through hard work. Yuan protects Qian through tender care.

When Yuan is sent away to study abroad, the time skip works because it isn’t used at the very end of the series to jump to happily ever after. Too often, time skips force us to miss important character growth and leave us unsatisfied and wanting more. By placing the time skip towards the middle of the series and using it as an actual part of the story and character development, we are able to see how Qian and Yuan live during the separation and the impact it has on their relationship.

And their reunion is more than one scene before the credits roll. There’s still many episodes for them to keep learning and growing together.

Once Yuan returns, the line between them has shifted. Qian actively seeks out Yuan’s care in a way he never did before. He’s always watching Yuan, reaching out for him, and aware of his presence. He had always welcomed it, but the separation forced him to feel what the absence of Yuan’s care was like. He was miserable.

Yuan matured on his own and still knows that he loves Qian. Being away only confirmed what he already knew. And Qian is starting to realize that he loves Yuan too.

Yuan knows exactly where the boundary is between them, but he’ll let Qian be the one to break it down. They have complex relationship, and it is being respected, not rushed. Moments are earned, not pulled randomly from the trope bucket.

[wen-kexing-apologist]

Parallels in Unknown Episode 9

God I love the physicality in this show.

I will preface by saying once more that Kurt is doing a great job in his role as Yuan, especially lately with all the pushing and prodding Yuan has been doing to Qian, but I once again find myself having to highlight the masterful performance of Chris Chiu.

Wei Qian is a very tense and quiet character in a show that uses voice overs sparingly. This means that Chris has a very difficult job in conveying Qian’s inner monologue through body language alone. Without uttering a word we know what Qian is thinking; what he’s feeling; we understand the depth, the weight of his care for the people he loves.

For Episode 9, I want to talk about parallels. Parallels and how effectively Unknown is able to use them to bring maximum emotional devastation:

gif by @ueasking

We open with a flashback to Lili and Yuan as kids, to Lili trying to get out of going to school because she is worried the world is going to end. We open with a line from Qian:

“Even if the world comes down, I’ll hold it up.” 

Y’all. That line hit me like a 16 wheeler, holy fuck. This is the summary of Qian’s life, of his goals, of his struggle. Qian’s never had the luxury to live in a world that wasn’t falling apart. But he’s spared Yuan and Lili (especially Lili) from the trauma and the abuse and the pain he has suffered. He is already holding everyone’s worlds together, and that line struck me as the deepest and most beautiful profession of love. And of course, because he is acting as a parent to these kids he has to follow it with an empty threat.

The kids head off to school, but before the door closes behind Yuan he turns around, he looks Qian right in the eye and he says

“Ge, if the world comes down, we’ll hold it up together.”

gif by @ueasking

Double homicide. A perfect expression of Yuan’s devotion to Qian, Qian who very rarely experiences reciprocity. Qian spent a large portion of his life being uplifted and supported by the people around him: Le-ge, San Pang and his family, Xiong this is true, but for Qian most of those feel like or literally are debts to be repaid. He said it to Le-ge in this episode “I will pay you back everything I owe”, in Episode 1, Qian tells San Pang he’ll pay him back when San Pang covers his bills, Xiong helped kick start Qian’s career, but he’s in business with Xiong now so Qian’s success is Xiong’s success. Yuan is the only person to whom Qian owes nothing, and Yuan is the only person who is trying to care for him back without being owed.

Because this show has been looping in my head, I’ve been thinking a lot about trauma. The first scene we see of Qian and Yuan together, Yuan holds out a metal pipe in defense and Qian has an immediate flashback to his own childhood and the abuse he had suffered. Qian immediately establishes a connection to Yuan that he never will with Lili because Qian was incredibly successful in shielding Lili from the harshness of the world. We don’t see the trauma Yuan must have experienced as a kid, but we get the snippets, the ties in to Qian’s experiences, the illness, the hunger. Yuan has suffered, and Qian has saved him, and Yuan understands the burden that comes with care. Yuan is devoted to Qian, Yuan does not want Qian to hold everything he’s carrying all by himself.

Yuan has always been like this, and will always be like this for Qian.

Despite the overarching structural problems I had with this episode, I do think there was a strong thematic thread in paralleling space and physical touch all the way through.

The Letter

Qian discovers this letter in a box under Yuan’s bed. 

“In my life, I’ve been driven by a deviant and sharp obsession” 

Qian tenses up, taking in a deep breath, his eyes wandering away from the page. He literally has to mentally prepare himself to continue reading Yuan’s words 

“Looking back, there’s nothing else. But if my life were to cease all of a sudden-” Qian barely moves his head to finish reading, instead just casts his eyes downward.

“-not seeing you one last time would be my greatest regret” 

Qian moves the paper downward, and he looks away. Legitimately, Qian looks at that letter for as short a time as he physically possibly can. 

I’m mentioning the letter because the face that Qian makes when he is reading it is a recurring character throughout this entire episode. Because we see that face again almost immediately when Qian is at H.O.T.. That man is fully dissociating in his meeting, his mind is not at work at all. He is a statue sitting there with exactly the same face he was making when he read the first few words of Yuan’s letter. And it is not until everyone else but San Pang has walked away that he breaks from that thought paralysis and turns to get San Pang’s opinion. Dissatisfied with San Pang’s response and knowing that Yuan was hiding something from him and has not responded to his phone calls, Qian seeks additional answers. 

Rescuing Yuan

In Episode 1, Qian figures out Yuan is in trouble because he gets a phone call from Yuan’s teacher saying that Yuan applied for a leave of absence, he freaks out and goes straight to the pool hall where he barges in yelling and fighting his way to Le’s door. The second he gets in the room, he barrels straight towards Hu and grabs him by the collar. Qian has to be held back by multiple people in order to stop him from laying waste to everyone there, and the second Le-ge tells his people to let Qian go, Qian starts running straight to Le to fight him and has to be held back once more. 

While Qian is being detained, he is looking around wildly, face a perfect picture of rage and desperation. When Yuan is brought out and Qian is released, he runs straight to Yuan and pulls him in to a hug and they start to walk away, arms linked to each other’s backs in support and connection. 

And it sticks as such a vivid memory in my head that I had a visceral reaction to seeing how Qian has changed over time. Because in Episode 9 he knows something is wrong, you can see the worry behind his eyes when he tells San Pang that Yuan hasn’t answered his phone. And San Pang leaves him sitting there, still mulling over everything. When Qian enters the restaurant to talk to Le he appears calm (though there is very clearly a storm brewing inside him), he enters slowly. He is tense, and frustrated, and trying to contain it all. He is trying to keep himself calm. This is a very political conversation. He pours beer for Le-ge, he drinks with him, but you can feel it in the way that Qian sits that his every thought is like a clock just ticking away until something bad happens to Yuan. 

“Le-ge can I ask a favor of you?” 

“What favor?”

“Help me find Yuan,”

“Are you asking me to help you find him or hand him back?” Le asks bemused and we get a jaw twitch from Wei Qian. Qian is seething, but he knows how Le operates and he’s older and wiser now so he can’t just enter the scene beelining towards Le with his fist ready for a face. As a child he was willing to fight Le, as an adult he has recognized Le more as an unfortunate ally who has all the power. Le and Qian roll up to the scene and we get a far more familiar Qian the second he exits the car and starts sprinting towards Yuan and immediately decks Hu right in the face to get him away from Yuan.

Again he tries to fight everyone that comes between them, again he is detained, being held back by multiple people, again Le and Hu fight while Qian is waiting to be released so he can run to Yuan. Again Le puts an ultimatum on their freedom, before it was a boxing match, now it is Russian Roulette.

When they are set free, Qian immediately runs to Yuan and grabs him like he did when they were running away. The way he looks at everyone when he has Yuan in his arms is exactly the same way he looked at everyone when he was reunited with Yuan the first time Yuan was taken from him by the gang. 

It’s all the same, the way they walk out together, the way they are made to pause, the way Qian’s face is snarling when he’s trapped. It’s all there.   

Russian Roulette

Now, we are all about reciprocity here so we get another really tragic parallel between the boxing scene in Episode 1 and the Russian Roulette scene in Episode 9. 

In Episode 1, it is Qian that is made to play Le’s game alone: win three boxing matches, he and Yuan get to leave the gang. But Le doesn’t let Yuan off scot-free here either, forcing him to stand there and watch Qian get beat to shit over and over and over again for Yuan’s sake. And we get Yuan being the one to call out to Qian. 

“Ge, stop fighting, let’s go home!” Yuan yells, and when Qian wins we see Yuan wiping tears away, and then screaming after Qian when his opponent sneaks up behind him. When Qian and Yuan are alone together after the fight, Yuan is crying and when Qian tells him not to cry he says: 

“Sorry. You wouldn’t have been in this fight if it hadn’t been for me,” which in this case is true for reasons outside of Yuan’s control. The things Qian has done for Le are informed by the care he has for Lili and Yuan, but Yuan is not himself the cause of the problem. 

In Episode 9 however….he walks right into the gang as if that is going to do anything, and has to be rescued by Qian. This time, though Yuan does not (or at least has yet to) say it, Qian would not have been in this fight with Hu and the rest of the gangsters if it wasn’t for Yuan. 

Similarly to Episode 1, Le-ge gives an ultimatum to their release, Russian Roulette. Where before we had three boxing matches, now we have three bullet chambers. And Yuan is old enough to protect Qian now, so Yuan volunteers to go first, and we get a role reversal. Before, Yuan had to watch, crying, as Qian fought and bled. Now, Qian is the one sobbing, having to watch Yuan get a gun to the head. Yuan looks at him and mouths “wo ai ni” and Qian immediately closes his eyes because cannot look at Yuan when the trigger is pulled, just as Yuan tried to look away when Qian was getting his skull bashed in in the boxing ring. 

Yuan gets tortured right back though when it is Qian’s turn to have the trigger pulled, all we hear over the background music is this desperate and broken pleading scream from Yuan to let Qian go. When the game is over and Qian is released he runs straight to Yuan and pulls him up stating “Let’s go home, we’re going home,” another direct parallel to Episode 1. 

THE HUG

Alright, my favorite devastating blow of the evening, the hug in Episode 9 and how it parallels the hug in Episode 1. Because there are two levels to this: 

photo of the photobook that @thisonelikesaliens was kind enough to send me. gif by @wanderlust-in-my-soul

The hug that Episode 9 more explicitly parallels, in my mind, is the hug that Qian gives Yuan right when they are reunited. He has that boy tucked in his arms, and is holding the back of Yuan’s head with his hand. It’s a very quick moment, but the intensity of Qian’s motion, the strength of his hug, the emotional core of that hug is evident in just the briefest of seconds and matches the intensity, the strength, and the emotional core of the hug in Episode 9. 

gif by @ueasking

Then you get a secondary parallel with the hug between Qian and Yuan after the boxing match, though it’s not as much of a 1:1 visual as the brief hug above. This is mostly in the changing heights, Yuan and Qian are on relatively the same level here. And you get the hand to the back of the head as a comforting thing which Qian is also doing to Yuan in today’s hug. 

In Episode 9, they are walking back home, it is dark, it is quiet. Qian stops dead in his tracks, the same look on his face as when he read the letter. He turns to face Yuan and clenches his fist because he needs that extra strength, it is taking everything in him to follow through on what comes next and then he just grabs Yuan and pulls him into a hug that parallels the hug they shared when Yuan was younger. Qian hugs Yuan like he is that small, scared boy even though Qian is now so much shorter than Yuan and Yuan is so much braver than he used to be.

gif by @wanderlust-in-my-soul

But unlike the hugs in Episode 1, I don’t think this one is intended to comfort Yuan. I think this time, it is Qian reaching out to Yuan for his own comfort. Because in Episode 1 it is Yuan who cries in to the forehead touch, in Episode 9 it is Qian who burrows his face into Yuan’s neck as hard as he can while his face contorts in sobs. This is not necessarily a parallel, but it is the moment of the episode that ruined my life so I needed to make sure that I took you all down with me with a reminder of this scene and a gif. Oh also, they hug in front of a giant pile of wood like they do with the forehead touch in Episode 1 because they HATE US. 

Fishing Conversation v. Letter Conversation

The two big conversations that Qian and Yuan have this episode are really interesting to me because of how they play with space. When Yuan and Qian are out fishing together, Yuan places himself directly in front of, directly next to Qian for the whole length of the conversation where he asks Qian his feelings. Here they are with allllll this space around them, the water, the earth, the air they can sit wherever, they can stand wherever, they can exist wherever they want and they sit half a breadth apart. 

“Four years ago you turned and left, four years later we’re back here. This is enough.” Yuan states

“Can you stop staring at me then?” Qian asks.

gifs by @ueasking

And that in itself is a parallel to Episode 6 and Yuan begging, pleading, clutching at Qian’s knee for him to look at him. Qian could not look Yuan in the eye from the second Yuan told him he was suffering until the moment he returned home, and now Yuan refuses to break eye contact. (And as an aside, it is a very good indication that Qian is warming up to Yuan’s feelings because he says this in a very light, almost joking way. And he follows it with an empty threat, like the empty threat he gave to Lili when she said she didn’t want to go to school, one that Yuan calls him on immediately.) Yuan moves back to his seat, but even then he does not keep any physical distance from Qian, immediately reaching over to grab Qian’s rod ;-)

At the end of the episode, we get a very differently blocked conversation. It starts with the camera focused on Qian as he ices the back of his head, a place we know has caused him continual problems since the boxing match. Yuan knocks before he enters (which he did for the first time last episode), gives Qian a glass of milk (which they’ve definitely done in this show before), and in response Qian (rightfully imo) yells at Wei Zhiyuan for being dumb, then confronts him with the letter. 

“What is the meaning of this?” Qian asks, and it’s the first time he looks at Yuan in the exchange and Yuan takes it, turns around, and walks away without a word. Yuan puts the letter away and goes to sit on a chair in his room, looking across the hallway at Qian. And this is one of my favorite parallels in the episode, because of what it is doing with distance. 

gif by @ueasking

Earlier in the episode Yuan and Qian were fishing together and engaging in very intense conversation about their feelings and their relationship to one another (or rather, Qian was undergoing an interrogation about his feelings and hearing once more Yuan’s feelings for him). With all that wide open space at the river they were essentially joined at the hip the entire time. But here, when there is another very intense conversation about to happen- one where Yuan is breaking some news to Qian that is almost guaranteed to make him feel all the more guilty for sending Yuan away and going no-contact -there is as much space between them as possible.

So despite the fact that they are in their house, in a much smaller space than the river, despite the fact that they started the conversation in Wei Qian’s room, one of the few places Qian has been vulnerable in front of his family (especially when intoxicated, triggered, or experiencing symptoms of his chronic health condition), one of the few places that Qian has allowed Yuan to be completely carefree, cuddly, and affectionate with him (even sharing a bed), this space Qian has fought tooth and nail to make safe for his family, Yuan does not tarnish it by being in the room with him for the conversation. 

gif by @wanderlust-in-my-soul

No, instead Qian will get this information with as much physical and emotional distance between them as Yuan can muster. 

“...some people started writing their last words” causes Qian to break eye contact with Yuan, but his posture, his breathing, all the rest of his physicality remains the same. Until…

“Everything I own is yours, whether you want it or not,”

That is what breaks Qian. Throughout the conversation as he is hearing about Yuan getting trapped, as he is hearing about Yuan thinking he was going to die, he is stoic, he is stone faced, the most movement you see from him is his eyes looking Yuan up and down in concern and his breath getting slightly quicker with each word, the turn of his head. But here he closes his eyes, he looks down at the ground, he releases his breath. It hits him so hard, the knowledge that he could have sent Yuan away and never seen him again, he sent Yuan away and Yuan could have died, where Qian was not around to protect him. 

It is just such a good mirror to the fishing scene, I love it so much. 

[thecasualfkfan]

UNKNOWN(2024)-The 12 Kind of families.

[nozunhinged]

I need everyone to understand how incredibly hard it is to shoot this angle and make it look as natural and intimate as it does.

Please appreciate the camera work, acting & direction that went into these 5 seconds.

This is some award-winning-level shit. I'm absolutely serious.

[just-naemi]

This is so HEALING bruh

[coffeelover5eva]

[angelicalbl]

So finished Unknown and absolutely loved it 10/10. But can we get an explanation about why there is this adorable photo of Qian and Yuan with the BABY in the end credits photos but we did not get a single scene of it! Not even a short snippet! Like come on! My heart would have exploded from the cuteness!

[ladypeonies]

cr.

This isn't FANSERVICE anymore, this as a fan called it SELFSERVICE, they're enjoying those promotions way too much. By the way the hosts are screaming Chris and Xuan went far and beyond what was asked, I'm sure. LOL.

No matter what you think of fanservice, it doesn't work for anybody. With these two you can clearly see how comfortable they are with each other and they have the same energy. There is a great deal of trust and communication for them to behave like that, what you see here is something which doesn't appear enough among BL couples, a clear and honest partnership. They know each other and spent/spend a great deal of time together.

I'm not shocked by the kissing, if you kiss someone for several weeks, sometimes for hours, it's nothing. They won't be embarrassed or shamed showing two men kiss. They are having fun and I love how proud they are of their roles, and how candid and honest they are about the process (post about that coming soon). They can talk about the lovey-dovey moments and the silly arguments. It's so refreshing.

I love the let's kiss, and then hug like bros lol. This a pair one doesn't even need to ship, they don't need fans intervention lol. they do that themselves very well. In most interactions, they tell you, My Ge is the greatest, my Di is amazing, we are so compatible, so good together, we act so well together, we look so hot together, you only wish to be us lol. This is the best f**** you to any hater. I love that level of confidence. And the we don't give a flying f****** what you or anyone think of our behaviour vibes makes them hotter. Just enjoy it because they're adorable and hilarious.

The production company is as we speak patting themselves on their back for choosing so well.

Those two are a menace for all the hosts out there.

PS: Chris chiu play the poor pretty creature at the mercy of a wolf very well...too well.

[fuzzykittydinosaur]

Dayum Youku. Alllll the moans in their latest trailer.

[vegasthehedgehog]

I'm just thinking about how touch starved Qian was. He has had such adverse reactions to getting close to people that I doubt he has felt the heat and pleasure that he does during the nc scene. Imagine how amazing it must feel to finally give in and experience it. And he gets to experience it with someone he knows loves him unconditionally and has never given up on him. The way the scene makes me melt.

[heretherebedork]

Their first morning after and the tenderest of snuggles and comfort.

[theadderalltoyourstiles]

Idk if it's only me but I think we are taking this 'chronic ailment' thing too lightly bcz hear me out..

This scene in ep 7 :

Paired with this scene in the long trailer :

Doesn't seem like good news to me . Specially bcz this is a Taiwanese series .