#lc.

OKAY BUT THE ANIMALSSSSSS

kitty looking straight at cheng xiaoshi!!!!

also pupper on top as the past

bnuuy in middle as the present

kitty on bottom as the future!!!!

all corresponding with their powers....

sooo!!! lil white things (or "others" were gluttony and sloth) who would've been the opposing for cheng xiaoshi (diligence) and xia fei (temperance)

jae lee as chastity and liu xiao as lust opposites is sending me

what i find more interesting is lu guang being cast as wrath. he's displayed plenty of patience with how much he waits and plans (and overthinks) but he DOES have a wrathful streak (towards himself, towards vein, potentially towards liu xiao bc teehee ex theory)

thinking of a lu guang whose love for cheng xiaoshi gets more and more buried under all the timelines he's starting to forget.

cw child abuse DISCLAIMER: im not a psychologist i am a simple writer who just googles things obsessively!!!

lg really strikes me as a character who suffered emotional and/or physical abuse as a child. i think he grew up in an unstable environment with unpredictable and potentially volatile caregivers.

typically children who experience these things as a child can develop ways to hide their true thoughts/feelings to avoid conflict and maintain some semblance of stability in their home life.

along with this, they can learn compartmentalize their mental state/emotions in an effort to deal with everything thrown at them, sort of like a constant fight or flight (survival mode).

they can learn to always be hypervigilant and maintain presence of mind in highly stressful situations because of how often they've learned how to separate their emotions and feelings from their logical mind.

i think lu guang, given his tendency to compartmentalize and internalise all his emotions, underwent all of this 🫠

i think these things from the show support this:

in general, he doesn't show much emotion. he's used to holding back constantly, and has careful control of what he lets out and doesn't let out. we rarely ever see him lose focus or be overwhelmed by emotion

when he's tortured by ltc, he barely makes any noises of pain; i think this is because he's more-so used to holding back any distressed reactions as opposed to not wanting to give ltc any sort of satisfaction

when cxs and ql dies, he makes that 'rational and thought-out' decision of diving back in time, as per director li's words. i highly doubt a lot of people can make a rational decision after losing their family and having their best friend die in front of them. he set aside his grief to focus on a plan

he's also in pain and suffering from a wound at that point, but still manages to take time to think and carefully sort through the timeline to identify that Chance to save them

the entirety of bridon arc. literally he is holding everything inside. he doesn't panic when he wakes up from a nightmare of seeing his best friend's (boyfriend's) dead body on the floor. he just carries on like he's used to shrugging it off