Bloomie

And there was this one guy I talked with who seemed super sharp, but had virtually zero experience writing software. When it came time to do the show-n-tell part of the interview he whips out his laptop, brings up a website, and spins it around to show me what he made.

A website of tiny ceramic frogs.

Not for sale. Just… all these ceramic frogs, organized into categories. Frogs on bicycles, frogs with hats, frogs sitting on lily pads. It was a virtual museum of ceramic frogs in web form.

I scrolled through his online collection of frogs, slightly baffled.

“This is your website?” I asked finally.

“Yep!”

“You coded this yourself?” I popped into view-source mode and poked around some incredibly well-formatted, well-commented html. I nodded slowly. This guy was meticulous.

“Yep!”

“So… where’d all the frogs come from?”

“I made those too,” he says, beaming. 

And while I’m processing this he rummages in his bag and pulls out a little ceramic frog working at a computer terminal. He places it on the table before us, next to the laptop.

“And THIS one,” he says, “I made for you! As a thank you for the interview.”

It was adorable. I hired him on the spot. I mean, why not? Worst case he’d wash out in 90 days and we’d hire somebody else. He turned out to be one of the best developers on our team. 

it is only after zhuo yichen rejects this that he starts trying to kill him in earnest

until, of course, we get to the demonisation arc, also known as "li lun decides that if there's one person in the whole world who can understand him it'll be zhuo yichen"

Omg hi. Okay forgive me but I am going to take this as free reign to ramble. Fair warning cause I like talking.

Okay so meet Gong Yuanzhi

He is from a series called My Journey to You, which was directed by the same guy who did Fangs of Fortune (I don't know if you've seen it but it's very popular). This is his actor's debut role, and I think it's still my favorite of his (if you catch me on the right day. Zhuo Yichen has him beat sometimes). This is due to my favorite thing about Gong Yuanzhi which is so many microexpressions.

One of my favorite things to do when I am in my Gong Yuanzhi feels is to go into the My Journey to You tag and find gifsets of Gong Yuanzhi and stare at his face. Not because Tian Jiarui is very pretty, but because every single facial expression has so many emotions behind it, and they are constantly changing over the course of a few seconds. This guy can take you on an entire emotional journey over just one gifset because he is always feeling so many things and he is always showing all of those things on his face. It is wonderful to watch.

His two favorite facial expression are creepy grin and kicked puppy.

These happen in the same conversation btw. Within seconds of each other.

If you spend any time at all on the My Journey to You tag (my favorite place on the internet), you will also notice that a lot of posts featuring him also feature his older brother. This brings me to my second favorite thing about Gong Yuanzhi: he is weird about his brother. How is he weird about his brother? Great question!

So this is Gong Shangjue

He is Gong Yuanzhi's older brother (they're actually cousins but I'll get to that). According to Gong Yuanzhi, this is the only person on the planet who actually matters. Gong Shangjue is the most amazing person ever, can do no wrong, and is always correct about everything. Gong Yuanzhi will always do what his brother tells him to, even when he really really doesn't want to, and directs all of his energy to trying to make him happy. Sound toxic and heavily codependent? It is!

Don't worry though, Gong Yuanzhi is far from the only person here with issues. Gong Shangjue is just as crazy about his younger brother as Gong Yuanzhi is about him. Without getting too deep into it for spoiler reasons, at one point Gong Yuanzhi gets fatally wounded (it's okay, he recovers) and Gong Shangjue, who is very stoic and duty-oriented, sits down at his bedside, oh so gently grabs onto his hand, and refuses to leave until Gong Yuanzhi himself musters enough energy to tell him to go because there are important plot things happening outside of their room. I would not like to admit how much time I have spent thinking about just this one shot of Gong Shangjue and Gong Yuanzhi's hands.

See, the thing about these two brothers is that they are not actually brothers---they are cousins (the actual blood relation between the two of them is unclear, but we know they are essentially from different branches of the same family, so cousins). However, after an attack on the Gong family during which Gong Shangjue's actual brother died, Gong Yuanzhi stepped in and said "I'll be your brother" to which Gong Shangjue said "hell yes" (paraphrased). So now we have emotionally stunted, grieving Gong Shangjue who does not know how to be an actual person raising emotionally stunted, grieving Gong Yuanzhi, who feels like a replacement for the real younger brother whose death he feels partially responsible for. If this sounds complicated and unhealthy that's because it is.

Also in another scene Gong Yuanzhi gets captured and stuffed into a closet and Gong Shangjue storms into a place where he isn't supposed to be and demands to see his brother. And just as you think he might leave without finding him, Gong Yuanzhi bites his own tongue so that Gong Shangjue will smell the blood and find his hiding place. And it works. Because these two are unwell.

And I would be remiss to write an entire post on Gong Yuanzhi and not mention Shangguan Qian at all. Shangguan Qian is an assassin sent to seduce Gong Shangjue and then kill him, except that the two of them end up falling in love and then Shangguan Qian becomes conflicted. That's not important though. What's important is that Shangguan Qian spends a major part of her screentime beefing with Gong Yuanzhi specifically. Because he feels like she's replacing him in Gong Shangjue's life. Which is frankly hilarious no matter how you chose to interpret it, and reveals so much about Gong Yuanzhi's mentality that is simply heartbreaking.

Anyway, jumping off of Gong Yuanzhi's abysmal sense of self worth, the third best part of Gong Yuanzhi's character is all of the poison.

Our boy is the poison master of the Gong family. He's a little poison genius. His branch of the family is the one responsible for creating poisons and running the apothecary and even though he is technically too young to be the head of his lineage he is functionally the head of his lineage. He spends a signficant amount of time talking about poison, talking about curing poison, or talking about medical ingredients. This is not so much a plot relevant trait, but it is one that is so deeply ingrained in his character and it is very endearing.

(How did he get so good at poison, you ask?

Don't worry about it. I'm sure that's fine.)

jade city (fonda lee)

Like when Gandalf spent literal PAGES trying to figure out why the vibes were off in Moria and Legolas chimes in with just "it's a balrog :) that shit's evil :) we're so fucked :)" like what do you MEAN you knew already and just didn't tell him??

Or at the beginning of Two Towers when Aragorn thinks there's something nearby so he puts his ear to the ground to listen, and then like 10 minutes later is like "hmmm i hear horses" and Legolas is just like "mm yep. there are 105 blond bitches with spears" like you just let your friend put his face in the dirt and you can SEE them??

gandalf is scratching his head in moria, and legolas is thinking "oh man, the wizard noticed something off *besides* the obvious balrog that we all are aware of??"

Kaul Shae, Jade City/Jade War era. Green Bone Saga by Fonda Lee.

Day 3 of “I can’t get this series out my head so might as well draw my way through the obsession.”

The Twice Lucky from Fonda Lee's Jade City. Modeled in Blender and painted in Photoshop.