Arrow. Arjun. Or a very Fake Monk.

FIRST NOTE OF LOVE - a Taiwanese BL - from a Liu-Minting-centric POV

I watched First Note of Love purely to see Liu Minting, a.k.a. Tim Minting, better known in Guardian fandom as the adorkable scientist Lin Jing, in a secondary role. I got to see more of him than I expected!

The "screencaps" were taken by me aiming my cell phone at a television, so they're maybe not as sharp as they could be. But I think they'll give you a pretty good idea!

Liu Minting plays a pop music manager named Reese, who is trying to orchestrate a comeback for a former idol ("Neil") by teaming him with a promising composer ("Sea"); the idol and composer form the BL pairing featured in the ads for the show. Neil, traumatized by death of his brother, who was also his musical partner, has been schlepping around being miserable and avoiding music for years; Sea is one of those staple blank-faced BL characters with zero communication skills. I mean, this kid makes Adachi from Cherry Magic look garrulous.

So I found the main pairing pretty annoying and watched the show mostly in half-episode chunks. It was very nice, however, to glimpse Liu Minting fairly often. You know how some actors look kind of ... unfinished in their early roles, and then look quite a bit better once they're a bit older?

The first examples I thought of were Sean Connery and Michelle Yeoh, both of whom IMHO became a lot hotter when they hit middle age. Liu Minting hasn't had quite as much time to age, but there's still visible improvement - he ages up nicely! It's amazing what a better haircut (or a less dorky wig), a sharper outfit, and a few years can do for an actor.

Moreover, he gets a love story too, which I wasn't expecting; he is visited by a Thai singer with whom he had previously shared a relationship and who clearly wishes to rekindle their feelings. Orca, as he is called, brings a lot of welcome energy to his scenes. Being from Thailand; he mostly converses with the other characters in English, but as it says in one of the captions above, he wants to speak Thai with Reese. "Speak Thai with" is apparently what the kids are calling it these days. ;-)

AS FOR OUR FAKE M- Anyway, Hyde, don't start to freak out in other people's posts :x But it's been literal 10 months with Liu Minting brainrot and a much longer that one ship brainrot ~~he just made it worse.

I watched FNOL because of him, with @tazzy-ace, and what a fantastic surprise that we had him and every single episode skjsjksj and then singing, as he should. I was really wondering for several episodes if they would NOT give that man the mic, but they made my dream come true. (yep, I dig through his social media like a raccoon in the trash and find gold, his Highlights of him singing 😍, and other pretty interesting stuff).

Summary: Although Mianmian existed under different conditions now, it didn’t mean he would let go of (most of) his obsessions and settle with a Buddhist cultivator, of all people. Still, there he was, quietly breathing the scent of incense lit under a Buddha statue, barefoot and dressed in one of Lin Jing's loose white t-shirts and simple cotton pants, observing the starry sky through the open balcony door slowly turning into a cloudy sky, while his (maybe) partner was (supposedly) meditating, sitting on the living room rug. He could handle 'that' - his own mind. Not like before, when he couldn’t even see how much he had lost himself in the blurry line between the truth of all that unfairness and the tricks of his flawed heart.

@sagittariusdarkarrow Lin Jing in a nutshell.

"Zhao-chu, what do we have so far?" Lin Jing entered the small office unannounced, carrying a few file folders in his arms. If he entered the man's home like this, wouldn't he do so in what assumed was 'his private office' in the still-under-construction office of the unofficially functioning Department? Zhao Yunlan spun around in the swivel chair to face the monk, "What ‘Zhao-chu’?! I'm not officially the Chief yet! Because if I were, you wouldn't see your salary just for barging into my office without knocking!" "Buddha of patience, grant me some. I have the key to your apartment, what are you complaining about? Did Lao Chu return any information?" “So far, the citizens of the village have not been willing to speak to him to provide even the slightest assistance, even though they are terrified by what happened there,” Zhao Yunlan sighed and took the folders Lin Jing had brought, beginning to flip through the files. “The only thing he managed to do was confirm what we already suspected, that the team killed in that place was related to Wu Sanxing…” That name made Lin Jing understand why Zhao Yunlan was in a worse mood than usual regarding this case. “Oh… So… huh… are we in need of the expertise of some grave robber?” They didn’t bring it up to other people, but they didn’t forget it either. Zhao Yunlan clicked his tongue and took out a cigarette and lighter from his pocket. “I know where you’re going…” “I’m going to call Shifu. I wouldn’t doubt if one day he confessed that he sent me to work with you just so he could have some fun…” “Ridiculous,” Zhao Yunlan exhaled the first puff of smoke from the cigarette between his lips. “I wouldn’t doubt it either.”

As requested by @meluci-fer based on the Totally Objective and Very Correct Opinion of Tumblr user Fixaidea (with the occasional guest appearance by Wu Xie as part of a V-shaped poly setup).

Caring for Your Zhang Qiling: A Practical Guide by Anonymous - Glasses saves A-Kun before Grandpa Chen finds him. Bittersweet and lovely.

A Moment to Breathe by Anonymous - Glasses and Xiaoge relax after robbing a tomb, a cute and fluffy oneshot.

Message Received by MountainRose - This one is a smutty oneshot. It's from Glasses' POV and his cheeky humour carries through the whole narration. It's as cute and funny as it is hot.

Solitude by Anonymous - 'The thing about loving Yaba was that it was supposed to be safe.' Yeah, this one hurts. :)

end this night by Anonymous - 'Yaba was crying' This one is lovely and bittersweet.

Do not vote if your first language is English!!!

If you have multiple first languages, please choose to vote for the one that is not English OR the one that you think will have the least votes!

I am aware that Indo-European is still going to win but I do hope the results will be a little less skewed!

Oh boy, that sounds like either a very drunken sort of conversation or a dialogue from the pirates of the Caribbean idiot duo (soldier edition) so... Let's be difficult about it 😂

I will go with Treasure Planet au. It would have Ye Zun (yes, I know, I am shocked too) who gets in trouble with the law but is given a weird key to the heart of Dixing, the forgotten planet no one believes actually existed. He gets his scientist brother on board with the plan to find it - they hire Captain Zhao Yunlan and his crew as their guides, and as the romance between SW and ZYL brews, Ye Zun is left to find out the real reason why Dixing as a planet was removed from the maps - for space piracy and powers beyond the Interstellar Alliance's scope, the planet was closed off, with no way for anyone to visit it, and no way for the people to leave it. Guess who finds out they were originally from Dixing too?

How will the brothers deal with the mystery? What's happening on Dixing? Would Zhao Yunlan side with Dixing or with the Alliance? Have he and Shen Wei met before?

really wish we can get by and zyl back on screen at some point in any film - without character death

LIU MINTING IS GOING TO BE LEAD ACTOR IN A BL DRAMA??? Wow, good for him😌😌😌 Thank you for informing me of this anon!!! I hadn’t heard yet, but I am delighted to receive this information!

And yes, getting zhubai back on screen together would be a true gift from the gods 🙏🙏🙏 I doubt it’ll ever happen, honestly, but a guy can dream…