너무 깊게 생각하지마.

- what time it is

- how long you’ve been reading

- how many chapters you’ve covered in the last 24 hours

- what you were late for because you were reading

- the woeful few hours you have left to sleep

- the emotional outbreaks you’re experiencing

- the inappropriate place you’re having said outbreak

- the general public’s reaction to your outbreak

The flirty will they/ can they of parker/hardison- oh i am down bad for that.

The unlikely older brother-little brotherhood of hardison/elliot- im cuddled up next to it with a bowl of popcorn.

The grieving king protective knight that is Elliot/nate- you have my sword.

The classic enemies-who-want-to-bang to lovers-who-do-bang that is nate/sophie- its a classic for a reason.

The aunt who has no idea what their nephew does but is proud and supportive anyways and the exasperated nephew who’s trying his best to explain it for the fifth time that is sophie/hardison- rare and under appreciated but not by me

The father figure pushing the child he cares for to be his very best and prove how incredibly brilliant they actually are that is hardison/nate- so freaking sweet.

The protective dad neurodivergent child that is nate/parker-in tears.

The older sister teaching the younger sister how to interact with the world that is parker/sophie-i think a hole in my heart healed.

The growth of a genuine deep friendship between sophie/elliot- im eating it like a five course meal

even as the story progressed, i would register in the back of my mind that even if Changyu and Zheng go back, it will never be anything like it was before. they were forced to move forward and would never be able to even pretend to go back to their old lives because it was destroyed along with the massacre. You can rebuild homes, but you can't rebuild the lives lost. I can't lie to you chat, ep40. where Changyu came back and we saw everyone, including those who had been slaughtered welcoming her back? i sobbed gang. like i lost it when Man Di showed up, like, are you shitting me right now? how dare you pull at my heartstrings like this??

i love that duty plays such a big role in their romance because one of the things that makes xie zheng so attractive in general and especially to changyu is that he's not an ingrate, a big contrast to song yan. xie zheng recognizes everything changyu does for him, is thankful, and pays it back. he does not reaffirm the way song yan and his mother treat fan changyu, as if everything her family has done for him is worthless because they are pig butchers. in fact her worth comes from how well she treats the people around her--from how she chose to save him--and not from her social status.

stuck on this because xie zheng is not someone who should be asking "why me?" he's the marquis of wu'ang, he avenged his father's death and won back the territories their empire lost, he's the head of the red robe cavalry, everyone fears him, all the women in the capital want to marry him. his worth isn't (shouldn't be) just self evident, it is (should be) unquestionable and is (should be) the thing that most characterizes him. his reaction to fan changyu saving him and offering to take care of him (for life!!!) should be "of course she saved me and will financially support me. not only am i worth being saved, it's her privilege to have saved me and take care of me. in fact she didn't save me, she just helped me."

like the fact xie zheng can step out of his identity as the marquis and understand that changyu only sees and knows him as some random guy who on top of having no family and no papers is also disabled and therefore likely can't "be of use/contribute" to her household the way it's expected a man should...first of all it's a romantic fantasy (xie zheng and changyu both are *such* romantic fantasies, my god...), but it's also, imo, more evidence of his intelligence than anything he does on the battlefield.

i need to keep rewatching to keep track of this desire/need to be validated/seen/recognized by changyu that xie zheng's expressing here, because it's so unlike his behavior as the marquis. i like it a lot because it lies alongside changyu's own misgivings about being a pig butcher, and her later realization of how big the social distance is between her and xie zheng.