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So after Yibo edited his bio to remove CQL from his "representative works" list, I felt soothed the next day when YBO shared photos of him wearing that shirt with the yellow field of flowers, and that limited edition #32/33 jacket in Lan Sect blue, all posted with kadian.

Then the following week, Xiao Zhan showed up at the airport in a pigtail, and my brain went ping! I dashed off this fic, imagining Yibo tying that pigtail while telling Xiao Zhan that it was his turn to show everyone all was well in the Yizhan household.

It seems that Xiao Zhan took his task very seriously!

After their joint (😂) attendance at the Greater Bay Area Film Concert on June 29, Xiao Zhan's long-awaited xianxia novel adaptation, The Longest Promise, suddenly began airing July 2. And with that, Xiao Zhan's studio began posting to promote it.

As I've said before, sometimes it takes a little time to notice the number patterns that give meaning to timestamps, and so it didn't hit me until today that XZS was hammering with kadian timestamps every day since The Longest Promise began to air.

Here's XZS's first post for TLP, on July 2:

18:19 is just so loud to me... 18 is of course yi ba in Chinese numbers, and represents Yibo. And 19 is yi jiu, which is a soundalike for 依旧, which means "still." So 18:19 means "still Yibo." Awwww...

XZS posted again that day at 22:10:

22:10 is 爱爱要你 or "love love want you" or it could be 10:10 pm, which would be 要你要你, or "want you want you." (For those wondering, the number 1, when read aloud in a series of numbers, is often read as "yao" because "yi" is easily misheard.) So the day's timestamps together read as "Yibo still love love want you."

Or 22:10 could be nothing, maybe... but then the next day, July 3, XZS posted at 20:00. 20:00 is also 8:00 pm. Of course, "8" is "Bo" and I thought, "huh, is that for Yibo?" (In the early days of the fandom, Xiao Zhan's solo fans would get upset with him posting at 18:xx or 8:xx as often as he did, so it's not really a stretch!)

Then again, 8 pm is a good time to post if you're airing a prime time drama, so perhaps it's just that. But then... why isn't XZS posting at 8 pm every day? So maybe 8 pm is purposeful after all?

The next day, July 4, XZS posted at 13:00. Yizhan!

So if I'd been wondering if these timestamps were intentional or just accidental, I stopped wondering at this point. Yizhan is, after all, the ship name that Yibo himself came up with, so they surely recognize this one!

By the way, let's enjoy the sweet smile on Xiao Zhan's face in the 8th photo of the set posted at Yizhan o'clock:

But anyway! That wasn't the only post on July 4. XZS also posted a video that featured a birthday cake for Xiao Zhan's character, Shi Ying, because Shi Ying turns 18 in the drama. Huh. 18.

There's no cake in the drama, so this giant flaming 18 seems totally gratuitous to me, like XZS had an excuse to shout 18 and ran for a touchdown with it.

The timestamp is 19:02 — again with the 19! — which means 依旧你爱, yijiu ni ai, or "i still love you." And who is "you"? The answer seems to be lit up in the photo... yi ba or Yibo. Together with the "Yizhan" timestamp from earlier in the day, it seems clear to me what sentiment is being conveyed!

By the way, if it's feeling like this is a one-sided conversation taking place, both Yibo and YBO posted right before and right after XZS's 19:02 post. Like within minutes, almost like Yibo needed everyone to know exactly who that 18 refers to.

Yibo himself posted at 18:59 (3 minutes before XZS)... and this is maybe a bit of a stretch, but if you're gonna try to post within minutes of your bae, you don't have a lot of options for kadian... this could mean yibo wo jiu or "I'm just Yibo."

It's kind of a showy dance pose, so I imagined that this was his way of saying, "look at me, my man is posting about how much he loves me!"

And eagle-eyed fans think that's the bone necklace under his shirt, to add to the sweetness.

Anyway, YBO re-posted that image right after XZS's 19:02 post, at 19:08 (again with the 19), and 19:08 is "still Yibo"... like YBO needed to emphasize that yes, XZS is talking about Yibo.

And I'm sighing a bit at the caption, which says "midsummer is coming"... we turtles have warm feelings about midsummer when it comes to these two, but so do they! The Dragon Boat Festival, for example, marks the midsummer, and Xiao Zhan has a company literally called "Midsummer Moon" (different characters from the ones used in YBO's post, but the sentiment still resonates with me).

By the way, as of the date of this tumblr, neither Yibo nor YBO have posted on Weibo since TLP started airing, so this rando post/re-post bookending XZS's post within mere minutes is... kinda sus, no?

So have there been more posts by XZS? Yes.

On July 5, XZS posted three times, at 17:10, 18:00(!), and 19:40.

Of course the 18:00 timestamp jumped out at me, but the 17:xx and 19:xx timestamps also made me look twice because 17 is yi qi or "together" and 19 is "still." Yibo and YBO posted at 17:19 and 19:17 on 6/17 and boy did that seem intentional.

By the way, both have been in Beijing for awhile, so when they post at 17:xx, it makes me smile.

So anyway, putting my clown hat on, the three posts on this day at 17:10, 18:00, and 19:40 read like this to me: 一起要你一博依旧是你, yiqi yao ni yibo yijiu shi ni, or "together, want you Yibo, it's still you."

SIGH

Maybe I see what I want to see, but this long string of kadian since The Longest Promise started airing just seems... not accidental? Like, it feels very meaningful, no?

So now we get to today's posts, July 6... there are two, at 18:30 and 19:00. 18:30 is of course "Yibo Zhan." And then again with the 19, like Xiao Zhan is trying to say, "Yes STILL. I still love this man, we are still together."

Oh, and did Xiao Zhan himself post too? He did, twice. Once on July 2 and again on July 4. Those timestamps? 19:00 (again) and 10:10. "Still want you want you."

10:10, huh? Maybe that 22:10 on July 2 was intended to be 10:10 after all (reinforcing the idea that these number patterns, while by no means any kind of science, do tend to become more clear with time and repetition).

💜💚💗💙❤️

they snoop~

I guess I will keep this going, because right now they're just really busy throwing things out there. I was going to wait to see how some of this plays out (some things don't look like patterns right away or are much more interesting after more repetition or with more context), but also I feel like I'm drowning in content so... let's go!

First, a bit of kadian CPN... on the 21st, there were rumors that Xiao Zhan went to visit Yibo in Shanghai, where he was doing promo work for the release of "Hidden Blade."

Xiao Zhan posted at 17:30 (together Zhan), with cute bunnies that he drew on his photos... he signed each photo with his signature "z." that also look a bit like 王 (Wang). I think it's cute that he kadian'd "together Zhan" on a post where the text says, "Bring the 🐰 captain to celebrate the new year"... so "together Zhan" makes sense here and says yes, I do kadian.

But what's with that 4th photo, of the Chongqing cab? Surely he didn't hop into a cab to go anywhere, least of all to Shanghai. But maybe it's just a symbol of going someplace? Maybe he wanted to post something yellow, the color of their CP. I don't know, but it feels like a puzzle because it's the one photo that doesn't fit with the others in this post.

YBO posted on the 21st too, at 17:00 (一起, meaning together). (It was later edited at 17:26, but I'm not sure why, as nothing obvious changed).

This post was a very cool retrospective on Yibo's amazing year of accomplishments. I won't get into all of that (there were a lot of accomplishments), but it made me smile that Yibo's beloved bone necklace appeared in three (Zhan) photos:

These weren't just "oh I see the bone necklace chain under his shirt" kind of photos, but instead "OH IT'S OUT AND PROUD" photos, all taken from public televised appearances on SDC or from official photo shoots. Gawd, Yibo loves that necklace so much. 🥺

Also included was this photo of Yibo in a hibiscus shirt and shrimpy colored pants... very fitting for the King Prawn.

If you didn't know, the fact that Yibo wore hibiscus more than once on SDC was kind of sus because the hibiscus is the logo for Xiao Zhan's collaboration with Tod's.

Okay, but I digress!

So YBO, Xiao Zhan, and XZS all posted on the 21st with 17:xx timestamps. Yibo himself didn't post until the next day, at 13:35... YiZhan Zhan wo, or maybe yao ZhanZhan wo... "Yizhan, my Zhan," or perhaps "want my ZhanZhan"? Kind of a stretch since "wo Zhan" is a better way to say "my Zhan" but anyway... lots of 3s!

The text says, "This is how I'm spending the first day of the lunar new year: first, I wish everyone a happy, healthy, and lucky new year, then I will go watch Wuming." A few minutes later, at 13:41, YBO reposts this with the text, "I wish everyone a happy new year 2023. What a coincidence, I will also go watch Wuming."

Interestingly, this post was written using 我 for "I" instead of 我们 (the plural pronoun "we"). It reads as if a single person is responding to Yibo's post, instead of from the perspective of Yibo's staff.

In fact, in YBO's 1/21 "year in review" post, the text included this line: 搁笔暂告段落,新年大幕将启 (the pen is done for now, and the curtain of the new year will begin), which suggests that staff would be off for the holidays. So who posted this? Obviously, Yibo wasn't totally staff-less for the "Hidden Blade" road show promotions beginning on the 22d, but given the rumors that Xiao Zhan went to Shanghai to see Yibo, as well as rumors that Xiao Zhan is involved in YBO (consider YBO's panther logo and all the doodles and graphics that YBO uses that are similar/same to the doodles and graphics used by XZS)... it did make me go hmmm.

This also made me go hmmm:

On the 22d, YBO posted about the premiere of "Hidden Blade," at 9:00:

An hour and 30 minutes later (1:30... YiZhan?), XZS posted at 10:30 (also YiZhan?) with two images that look very much like movie tickets. Nice call-and-response here... one studio posts about Yibo's movie premiere, and the other responds with a pair of movie tickets.

The text includes the phrase, "tranquility meets Spring." But it's January, not remotely Spring yet, so this wording makes me think of Yibo's "Like the Sunshine" song, and the theme of meeting in the Spring. I hope they met, and got to watch "Hidden Blade" together!

By the way, it was after this call-and-response with the movie tickets that Yibo and YBO had the funny exchange with "I'm going to watch Wuming" and "What a coincidence, I'm also going to watch Wuming" so... yeah...

YBO posted three more times near the end of movie premiere day, at 18:29, 19:03, and 21:39, which together read like a sentence: 一博爱久, 依旧战, 爱你战久, or Yibo ai jiu, yijiu Zhan, ai ni Zhan jiu.

Yibo loves for a long time, it's still Zhan, love you Zhan for a long time.

One more late night post, at 00:22: "New Year's Day. Shanghai flash mob, hello! Good night~"

The timestamp 00:22 means "love love" 🥰

I am fully aware that I am a clown, but all of these timestamps together feel very romantic to me, like a long, loving declaration on a day when Xiao Zhan was rumored to have left Shanghai to go back to his filming set in Chongqing. 🥺

Let's go back to the 18:29 post, though... it looks like another puzzle post because all of the photos have the same color scheme except for the blue in photo 4, the white cast of photo 10, and the red of photo 11.

There's the red/blue CP thing, of course, and then there's this: in photos 3 (Zhan) and 8 (Bo), Yibo is holding an object in his right hand. In photo 3 (Zhan), it's a bell, which of course makes me think of when ADLAD first premiered and Yibo kept posting ding ding ding, evoking the bell sound that ends the 8-hour play. Why a watch for the 8th photo? Maybe just because Yibo loves watches, who knows.

The only other photo where Yibo is holding something in his hand (his left one this time) is the 4th photo, where he's making a phone call. Maybe he's calling his Zhan. 🤪

So remember how XZS posted photos of movie tickets on the premiere day for "Hidden Blade"? XZS did it again on the 2d day of the movie's release. So loud!

Both posts went up at 10:30, which for me makes it clearer that the timestamp is meant to be YiZhan.

Also: yesterday's post said, "on the first day of the lunar new year," and today's said, "on the second day of the lunar new year"... is XZS going to do this every day? We shall see! But this is pretty dang loud already, a lovely show of support for Yibo's big screen debut.

And finally, YBO posted "Hidden Blade" artwork today at 18:39 (一博战久, or Yibo Zhan jiu... Yibo Zhan for a long time) and now I'm feeling like reading 9 as 久 or "long time" isn't so far-fetched.

This quote is recited in the text: "Whoever will eventually shake the world must be silent for a long time."

And no, no word yet on who the artist for this artwork is... it doesn't feel like Xiao Zhan's art style, but who knows?

just hanguang jun husband things

AO3 is an Archive. It is meant to be a safe location for creators to house their fanworks, long-term. A title and tags alone aren't a fanwork, and posting a note about what you plan to post is against the Terms of Service and could end up getting you a warning on your account if you're reported.

Not to mention, when you edit a work that doesn't change the date on it. So if you post a placeholder today and then edit it next week to put the story in it, it won't go to the top of the tag. You'll annoy readers now without getting readers later.

Instead, I recommend either creating your work in another location (such as google docs or scrivener or other software of your choosing) and then moving it over into AO3 when you've finished your chapter/fic.

If you're like me and you prefer drafting in the AO3 window, then you can save your work as a draft. This allows you to create the placeholder without actually posting it for everyone else to see.

To save a draft, hit the Preview button at the bottom of the work posting form. Then, scroll down the preview to the bottom of the page and hit Save Draft. Drafts are saved for up to 30 days before automatic deletion. You can access your drafts from your Dashboard, under the link Drafts.

For readers, please do not go out of your way to search out these works and report them. That will bury the Policy & Abuse team in reports. However, if you see these while normally scrolling through the Archive, you can report the works by clicking on the Policy Questions & Abuse Reports link at the bottom of every page of AO3. If a work has already been reported, there is no need for you to report it again.

If someone comes to a predominantly QUEER space (like AO3) and tells you that censorship is necessary to eradicate CP... it's not actually CP they want to eradicate...

I've seen this type of discourse about Pride and about queer literature and queer movies and queer communities. It's a tried and true technique of the right and conservative movements.

First, they say there is a DANGER to the community through CP and they conflate the actual threat of CP in the community (we all know someone who thinks that writing a love story between two characters who are 16 is CP...), and make you believe that censorship is the only way to PROTECT THE CHILDREN. And since most people are (rightly) mind-bogled at having to explain that of course they don't support CP content, they bow down and accept the censorship for the greater good, without anyone actually trying to have a conversation about what qualifies as CP (which needs to, you know, actually involve real children and not fictional characters who are 17 and losing their virginity with their crush in a Mature-rated story about high school football and first love based on the author's own experience of losing their virginity at 17 to their crush in high school).

Then, they tell you that there are other forms of DISTURBING CONTENT, and what they really mean is porn that THEY find disturbing, for ex, (and I kid you not, I have seen comments like that) porn featuring disabled characters, which they consider to encourage the exploitation of vulnerable individuals, or BDSM porn (which supposedly encourages violence and lack of consent), or rough p*rn, or any kind of porn that isn't two (preferably white and skinny) able-bodied people doing it missionary style while lovingly gazing in each other's eyes. SO TO PROTECT VIEWERS, that needs to be banned as well.

And then, they tell you that even that sanitized version of porn is still porn and that people under 18 or under 21 or under whatever age they consider too young to view anything sexual regardless of the fact that not all countries have the same law about the age of maturity, should be free to surf the site without having to *gasp* filter out properly tagged works. So TO PROTECT THE CHILDREN, every explicit content is censored.

And then finally, when all that is left is a sanitized, white-washed, ableist, puritan type of content featuring General-Audience approved gay works of two nice men or two nice women holding hands and chastely kissing each other on the lips... Well guess what? :) CHILDREN SHOULD NOT BE EXPOSED TO QUEER CONTENT SO WE NEED TO BAN THAT AS WELL, and since we've basically done purge after purge before and there are still a handful of people on the website, well surely they won't mind/care anymore, will they?

It's not just a slippery slope, it's something that has been done time and again, and that is why censorship on AO3 will never, never have a positive outcome.