alex

Because it does all the things every other confession scene does, but it also does so much more.

For starters, from Chu Wanning’s perspective, this is simultaneously the best and also most embarrassing moment of his life. Like, his long time crush just told him he likes him back, and that he’s the most beautiful person in the world (not that he believes him of course). But also Chu Wanning is mortified because now he basically admitted to being the mushy little guy that he’s tried his entire life to pretend not to be.

In essence, he’s just so flustered that he might explode.

And then you get to Mo Ran.

And at first, he acts exactly how you expect. He’s thrilled, he’s ecstatic, this is everything he’s ever wanted and more.

Then he takes two steps away from the moment and suddenly everything cracks. Because he’s gotten everything he’s ever wanted, and now he realizes what that means.

He could have had this before.

Because if Chu Wanning has loved him since before the ghost marriage, then that means that he also did in their past life. And this is so much worse then just when he realized that Chu Wanning had always been looking out for him, because this was all there before and Mo Ran then proceeded to treat him terribly.

every new thing I learn about this man leaves me speechless

However, while capturing the personhood of queer people; Danmei also captures the queerness of people because none of these stories would work if the characters weren’t gay/queer

Wei Wuxian’s absolute buffoonery of misunderstanding Lan Zhan’s feelings in a decade long telephone game in which neither of them open their damn mouth would never work in a non-queer story because between a man and a woman romance would be the natural assumption of everyone around them and therefore wouldn’t leave space for confusion. The misunderstanding of their romance is so closely tied to the plot succession that the plot would be… non existent without it

In TGCF Xie Lian and Hua Cheng’s absolute aspirational love is literally in the backseat and front seat of the story. Not too different from a classic hero’s journey but instead of the hero being one person, it’s two people. They are so intertwined with eo that they become one character and witness a lot of the story together. Witness being a very interesting word choice. Their queerness doesn’t drive the story but replacing one of them with a woman would dampen the effect— it’d remove the uncertainty, the confusion from everyone around them, the genuine slow burn of the romance. There’s also this idea of Hua Cheng falling in love with Xie Lian so far separated from concepts such as gender or whatever which wouldn’t have been hammered home in a straight romance where those conversations aren’t always had between the audience and the story

And Erha.. well obviously. Half of Chu Wanning’s “this is so inappropriate” spiral wouldn’t exist if he was a woman. And, the idea of Mo Ran being a “cut sleeve” builds up the under current of his character being so far dismissed by society because he’s seen as immoral. Which just wouldn’t serve to the same effect if he was into exclusively women because so was every other character.

Been thinking a lot about the similarities between Chu Wanning and Kevin Day. Both are child prodigies dehumanized in the way they are held up on a pedestal. Both are raised specifically to inherit a legacy of someone dead that their respective caretakers both caused the death of and are hung up over. Both inspire insane one-sided devotion in the various men they spend significant time with. Both have major revelations about their blood relatives that they did not discover until later in their life. Both are raised sheltered in a cult. Both find a home in a place founded by a good man to help the people that slip through the cracks of their respective societies. Both are exceedingly nitpicky about their respective areas of expertise, prone to give constant harsh critiques rather than praise. Both straddle the line of being respected but also disliked by their peers for their cold asshole-seeming personalities. Both form attachments to dog-coded characters with possessive tendencies. Both are arguably autistic. Both have incredibly complicated relationships with their respective abusers. Both, at some point in their stories, experience a life-ruining injury by a person that they love that blocks them from their area of expertise. Both can drink a lot.