A.

I'm still not done talking about this drama, by the way. I've been rewatching bits of it for fic-writing reasons and I have to say, some of the episodes really reward a rewatch or six? You really notice all the subtext they managed to squeeze in. And this is after passing censorship and having so many scenes removed by the network, the final couple of episodes are ten minutes shorter than the first. What a mess that ending is. But some of the jokes still make me laugh, even after the seventh time.

Anyway, I want everyone to watch this drama, so badly. One of my War of Faith fandom friends watched the whole thing in a week or so and found it very gripping, and apparently not as bad as I'd made it sound. So hey!

(The mutual friend who experienced the show through our yelling and select video clips summed it up as, "looks like the scriptwriters just wanted to write incest but also wanted the show to air and this is what happened," and it's still my favorite description of the drama to date.)

Two things:

Remember dangai photoshoots? Remember the Zhubai wedding shoot? Madame Figaro did a shoot for The Way Home and it was. I don't even know what to say. Here's my Bluesky thread about it, and here's a preview:

Five pictures

Madame Figaro also put together a four and a half minute vid set to Stay Alive by José González (from the 2013 movie The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, which like, okay, deep cut) and only posted it on their XHS account, I believe. Here's a Dropbox link to watch it. I know these are actors and this is all very careful editing, but my god. I find it almost unbearable to watch, it's so tender. (And I've watched a million BTS and interview clips that make the actors appear to be incredibly smitten with each other, but that's neither here nor there.)

Moving right along. I've written another fic for the drama, it's rated M for blow jobs one blow job and some quasi-D/s elements, and I fully intend to write more and increase the filth levels. But gosh, this fandom is not growing. Just putting this here for the record:

I'll build a house inside of you (7815 words) by A
Chapters: 5/5
Fandom: 归棹 | The Way Home (TV)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage Sex
Relationships: He Jiahao/He Jiashu
Additional Tags: Domestic Bliss, Pseudo-Incest, Masturbation, Getting Together, Kissing, Dom/sub Undertones, Blow Jobs
Summary: Jiahao and Jiashu figure out their sleeping arrangements.

Gifts have been revealed, yay!

I received a ton of links to online shops (for when I'm in the mood for a little treat), a whole bunch of Ni Ni icons, and beautiful Zhu Yilong fanart! <33333

I made:

» a selection of vegan cookie recipes

» a mini-fanmix for a Zhubai ficlet

» a War of Faith post-canon fic (2000 words, rated E)

» a Ted Lasso OT3 post-canon ficlet (860 words, rated T)

» a little story about sad ghosts and friendship (~1800 words)

I wasn't going to write ~original fiction, but then I needed a fifth thing to complete this set (you understand) and just started looking at all the trees in order. Came across these prompts and thought, oh hey, why not! In my head, the POV character was Ni Ni, but I'm not the boss of you. :-)

As per tradition, lunarriviera and I asked each other some questions from this list, so we could talk about our fic output over the last year. Whee!

» 2022 edition
» 2023 edition

( Navel-gazing! )

Five more questions to follow later! Thank you so much for reading, if you made it all the way to here. <3

» Part 2

Siiiiiigh.

I had such high hopes for this show. And then Youku went and removed a bunch of scenes, and the whole ending was very disappointing, and here we are!

*sad jazz hands*

I opened the MDL page and saw a comment about how the creepy shippers ruined everything by practically FORCING Youku to delete everything from the show that could be remotely construed as gay, even though there was nothing gay about this touching, platonic, NORMAL relationship between brothers we got to witness in the first few episodes. Before, you know, Youku deleted all the scenes.

So then I closed the MDL page again.

I'm not gonna list all the ways in which the show very heavily leans into BL tropes and visual cues to assure us that, if you wanted to, you could read something a little non-platonic into this relationship. I trust you to believe me that it did. It also did a lot of things to assure us that this was a show for kids and these were definitely a sweet, innocent teenager and his supportive big bro. But I mean. We all contain multitudes.

Anyway, I still want to talk about this show, just for closure, so here's my final review, with spoilers for the ending. Again, this entire drama is an 8-hour commitment, you're not going to be on tenterhooks between episodes. (I still want someone other than me to watch it. 😩 Please!)

( SIGH. )

Oh man, you guys.

Zhang Kangle in a high school bromance* drama, being beautiful and angsty and decidedly not in high school. It's only 16 episodes long, with the last three being released over the next few days. It looks like the first 9 might be available for free on Youku right now? They're like half an hour long. You could basically watch the whole thing in 8 hours!

(* This is being very contentiously discussed in the MDL comment section, and I would not recommend following the discussion. Personally, I wouldn't call this a BL drama. It is very queer.)

» MDL Page
» Trailer
» My Watch Thread

I want to make a "proper" post when it's over (semi-coherent bullet points and yelling), but I'm imploring all of you to watch this now, PLEASE DO IT FOR ME. It's clearly a show aimed at teenagers, I'm sorry, you won't find a ton of nuance in the writing or acting, but also these boys are very fucked up about each other and I will write inappropriate fanfic about them the second the show ends. Zhang Kangle breaks my heart.

A summary of my notes so far, in the form of five thesis statements:

1) This is a tender coming-of-age story about navigating complex feelings and relationships when the adults in your life won't even listen to your problems, let alone model good emotional self-regulation.

2) You know those Tumblr posts about how exercise is good for your mental health, actually, it's just not the only thing that can alleviate your depression? Anyway, an entire drama about that, but with gay incest vibes.

3) These two brothers desperately want to fuck each other.

4) If you're a gay teen and dealing with all the problems that come with that, here's a show in which Zhang Kangle can be your beautiful, kind-hearted, troubled older brother who loves you. You deserve this.

5) If you're a dirty old fujo who's into gay incest vibes, this show isn't for you, but who's gonna stop you from watching? Knock yourself out.

In conclusion: cousins.

XHS:
- full performance by the boys
- cute little montage
- dad and boys!
- dad and boys!
- dad and boys!
- taking pictures
- pictures!

Weibo:
- Wang Yang's post
- The boys' repost
- Li Hao's repost 🥺


Will add more if I find anything!

Requested fandoms:

- DMBJ (Reboot, UN, Time Raiders) | Pingxie, Wu Xie &/ Bai Haotian
- Parallel World | Ye Liuxi/Chang Dong, The Gang
- The Ingenious One | Shu Yanan/Yun Xiang, The Gang
- Land of Broken Hearts | Huang Zhenkai, Li Xiaole
- No Fandom | Recs for cute little online shops

» mumblemumble's Tree 🎄

All fanwork types welcome! <3

I have the biggest trouble starting a new show, and I can't remember the last time I watched something that wasn't a tomb drama (or just YouTube). Might have been Parallel World?

But I had heard about The Ingenious One before (very vaguely), and I wanted to check it out for Mao Xiaotong, and then someone showed me this gif set and I was like, SOLD! A handful of episodes in, uh, The Horrors happened and I avoided YouTube and most social media, and this show became literally the only thing I turned on the TV for.

Soooooo. Some thoughts!

( Just some gushing, no spoilers. )

I finally watched Long-ge's manic pixie dream boy movie over the weekend, and I think I'd have to watch it again to have some more interesting things to say about it, but here's some random thoughts anyway:

( Spoilers, obv. )

I recently discovered scrapbooking as a hobby (currently in the process of assembling a little binder with food pics I've taken on my various travels, enhanced with stickers and things~) and while it's nice to have something to do that isn't looking at a screen, there's also a retail therapy aspect to the whole thing that I'm slowly getting under control.

(Ask me about the organizers and boxes I've acquired to stash away all the supplies as neatly as possible. PLEASE ASK. *ahem*)

I'm limited by the available crafting surface and storage space, so I don't really own a heap of things at this point, but it's definitely more origami paper and stickers than I'll ever find ways to use up. So!

If you're also into paper crafts and would like to receive a random assortment of scraps and things, let me know! If you have a favorite color, even better. Makes it easier to assemble a selection. It won't be a ton, but you'd help me make room for new things. :-D

You can leave a comment here or DM me, it's all good. <3