#chuixian

But the very funnysilly thing with Gao Tu and Shen Wenlang is that that version of the dynamic ONLY exists in Gao Tu's head. Everybody around them can see that Gao Tu is hypercompetent and patient and socially graceful and literally perfect, that Shen Wenlang can't function without him, and that their company would fall apart without Gao Tu holding Shen Wenlang up, that Shen Wenlang can only communicate with Gao Tu to interpret and smooth things over for him. THAT SHEN WENLANG IS A HUMAN/S-TIER ALPHA DISASTER.

Because it doesn't start with each other. Shen Wenlang "hated" omegas before he knew Gao Tu. It's now a deepset prejudice whose cause I'm so interested to learn.

And Gao Tu learned to hide his secondary sex as a child for self-preservation. It's now a deepset survival instinct.

The way that these really entrenched beliefs play out against each other in the most torturous way would be so fun no matter what. But the fact that it seems clear in the present day that any bias of Wenlang's pales beside his attachment to Gao Tu: every new terrible thing he says about omegas is more about jealousy and insecurity, combined with those shadows of a long-held belief system, than a newly sincere opinion. And the bulk of Gao Tu's fear of exposure now is not what would happen to him by society writ large. It's fear of losing Wenlang specifically that drives him to continue torturing himself and risking his health.

But that fear isn't the core of this, that fear isn't where this started. He was already so perfectly primed to choose the most self-destructive path, just like Wenlang was already so perfectly primed by his biases and reactive personality to choose the most destructive-to-Gao Tu-path in response to the jealousy of Gao Tu apparently choosing someone else as a mate.

Like basically I love that this isn't JUST a misunderstanding ship. Their issues aren't JUST driven by their longing for each other, and how their belief that it's unrequited comes out through their unique (mis)communication styles. Their issues predate each other, but perfectly poised them to miscommunicate in the absolute worst possible way. A way engineered in a lab to cause Gao Tu, and by extension Shen Wenlang once he realizes everything, the most life-threatening pain.

Episode 5: Wenlang's making up wild stories about assaulting Hua Yong to punish Sheng Shaoyou for being super annoying (i.e. being willing to hurt Hua Yong if he was who he said he was >:( luckily he's not and it doesn't matter that he was sent to work with a bug. but it's the principle of the thing! suffer bitch!!!). Hua Yong's scolding Wenlang for defending him too well! Who told you to keep my secrets so well?? You're killing the vibe bestie!!

I have gone from a person who "is not that into omegaverse" to a person who "thinks every omegaverse story from now on should be about secondary sex catfishing while using pavlovian tactics to train alphas into counterintuitive preferences".... genuinely genuinely the most galaxybrained premise.

Desire has taken a thing I was watching for its like cultural value, and turned it into my sincere obsession. Catfishing Enigma gajillionaire who uses all his resources to study his mark's exes and disguise his overpowering pheromones, then dress up as the ex his target stayed with the longest, work three jobs, hand-bake cookies every day, and never raise his eyes or his voice above 'breathy subservient deferential' ALL to trick this guy into soulbonding with him for life and then .... impregnate him with his babies? Profit? I DON'T KNOW BUT IT IS SO CRAZY I AM SO DELIGHTED THIS IS TRULY TRULY EAT YOUR HEART OUT QL SUMMER

Like!!!

I was already lowkey preoccupied with whether Hua Yong knows Gao Tu is an omega, or whether that wasn't on his radar before he got the photo of Shen Wenlang's mystery omega from his hotel cameras or w/e.

Because Gao Tu is in many ways Hua Yong's omegaspiration; he stole his working three jobs to support his sick sister struggle wholesale, yknow? So I'm so so soooo curious if he knows that the tragic backstory he lifted was coming from another omega who is coincidentally hiding HIS secondary sex from the person HE loves, or if Hua Yong just thought this sad beta's life story would fit the poor downtrodden persona he was going for nicely (while also enabling him to get Gao Tu's sister's bills paid for and Wenlang given the credit??? LMAO??? I'M SO CURIOUS HOW DEEP HIS MACHINATIONS GOOOOOO).

But yeah then the idea of him wondering if Gao Tu, his plucky downtrodden omegaspiring foil, has some kind of endgame to all this hiding - there's no way he was just going to suffer and die without ever winning the man he has waited 10 years for, right? For someone as determinedly, devotedly in love as Gao Tu, there HAS to be something this is all building towards!! Idk I loooove it. Hua Yong at least partly buying into the idea that Gao Tu IS the scheming, conniving omega Wenlang believes who waited with his perfect pheromones for his perfect moment of perfect entrapment, and Hua Yong feeling such kinship and pride for this brave bold brilliant inspiration to all yearners and longers of any sex the world over. Like I'm sure he's smart enough to only wonder, but thinking like, if this IS true, it's the most romantic thing he can possibly imagine, for Gao Tu to patiently wait 10 years for the perfect moment and means to lock Wenlang down forever.

My Desire theory is that it also works in reverse. When humanity's sense of smell becomes highly highly developed in one single generation, when our ability to distinguish between unique smells spontaneously evolves to a god tier level (in some ways it's the opposite of COVID actually, THIS global pandemic makes you smell EVERYTHING more -), our ability to parse what we see and hear diminishes.