thatbuildingisalsoastarbucks

BEST. MAKEOVER. SCENE.

Coda:

Zihan: Yanuo, code name - Been There, Done That.

Yanuo and Zifeng, simultaneously: Hey!

Zihan: Fine, fine. Never Been There, Did Not Come Close To Doing That. Guangchao is Currently Doing That.

Guangchao: *giggles uncontrollably*

Zihan: Stop that. Qingyang is It Happened Once In A Dream.

Qingyang: *blinks expressionlessly*

Zihan: Nana, code name - If I Had To Pick A Girl.

Nana: *looks mildly worried*

Zihan: And my brother is --

Zifeng: *massive sweatdrop*

Zihan: -- Eagle Two.

Zifeng: Oh thank god.

Later...

Zihan: I’d Be Lying If I Said I Hadn’t Thought About It is in position.

And then she kisses his hand.

And then she kisses his hand.

I just got back from a trip to the local IKEA and now I desperately need an extended scene of Yanuo and Zifeng visiting THEIR local IKEA.

Just think of the possibilities:

Zifeng dismissing Yanuo’s suggestion that they get a trolley, because ‘we’re just here for a few things’.

Zifeng realising, barely a quarter of the way through, that there’s no way they’re leaving with ‘just a few things’, and having to backtrack all the way to the entrance to fetch a trolley.

A very smug Yanuo teasing Zifeng mercilessly about the trolley incident, until she’s distracted by a pile of panda soft toys.

Yanuo getting carried away and putting item after item into the trolley, many of which Zifeng has to remove as diplomatically as possible.

Zifeng, against his better judgment, also getting carried away and putting item after item into the trolley, many of which an indignant Yanuo forces him to remove, citing parity.

Yanuo and Zifeng comparing the merits of two different sets of bedding: This one goes better with what Feng Jie already has in the house / But THIS one has cute cartoon hippos on it!

Yanuo showing off her martial arts moves with a curtain rod.

Zifeng, not to be outdone, also showing off his martial arts moves with a curtain rod.

Yanuo and Zifeng pretending to be very interested in curtain rods when a suspicious sales attendant passes by.

Yanuo chuckling as she discovers an artificial potted succulent abandoned near a shelf of real ones: ‘They must have thought, I don’t need to make do with a fake plant, I can have real ones!’

Yanuo and Zifeng playing house in essentially every single room display.

Yanuo presenting Zifeng with an increasingly outlandish assortment of kitchen implements, and asking him what each one is for.

Zifeng squinting in befuddlement at Yanuo’s last offering for a full five minutes before admitting defeat.

Yanuo, cackling triumphantly, revealing that it’s not actually from the kitchen section at all, but some sort of automatic watering device from the gardening section.

Zifeng retaliating by cornering Yanuo near the saucepans with a tickle attack, and Yanuo shrieking with laughter as she tries to fend him off.

Yanuo and Zifeng pretending to be very interested in saucepans when the same sales attendant passes by.

Zifeng flopping down on one of the beds and gesturing for Yanuo join him. Yanuo refusing on the ground that it would be too embarrassing.

Zifeng pulling Yanuo down onto the bed with him anyway, and Yanuo cutting short a yelp upon realising that it would only attract more attention to them.

Yanuo admitting after a while that the bed is really quite comfortable, though Zifeng needn’t be quite so smug about it, also she’s pretty sure there are rules about appropriate behaviour in IKEA showrooms--

Yanuo and Zifeng leaping up and trying to act like they weren’t on the verge of making out when the same sales attendant passes by yet again.

Yanuo and Zifeng sharing a plate of meatballs, and engaging in a heated debate over how they compare to the meatballs from that stall near work which is only open at lunchtime and always draws a queue a mile long (conclusion: the IKEA meatballs are definitely not better, but they have the advantage of being novel)

Zifeng surprising Yanuo with a panda soft toy once they reach the car park. I saw you put this back! You said we didn’t need it! / Well, we didn’t NEED it, but you clearly wanted it, so obviously I had to go back for it.

Sigh. Just think of what could have been if IKEA, rather than Samsung, had been one of the show’s main advertisers.

(also, I wonder how much money I would have to pay Megan Lai and Baron Chen to lark about in IKEA in-character. No reason. Just wondering)

(please, fandom gods, don’t make me have to write fanfic about this)

Look, you two, I’m running out of different ways to say: EXTREMELY MARRIED DORKS.

(not a Bromance post, for once)

So there have been many excellent translations and analyses of lyrics of the song ‘Aging of a Beauty’ from Nirvana in Fire - in particular this one here - so I can’t think of any further contribution I can make on that front, except maybe to point out that the line 蜡炬已残泪难干 (’the candle is spent, but the tears will not dry’) is almost certainly a reference back to a poem by the late Tang poet Li Shangyin, and in particular the line 蜡炬成灰泪始干 (’when the candle becomes ash, only then will the tears dry’). Only the lyric in the song goes even further than the line in the poem: the tears will not dry even after the candle has become ash.

What I wanted to say was this. So, to overgeneralise wildly, there are essentially two strands of the genre I call soldier-laments in classical Chinese poetry. The first is told from the perspective of the soldier on campaign, lamenting his - it’s generally assumed to be ‘he’, for obvious reasons - forced separation from homeland and family. The second is told from the perspective of the beloved left behind by the soldier, lamenting the slow slipping away of her - again, it’s generally assumed to be ‘she’ - youth and beauty while her lover is at war.

Since the invention of the kiss, there have been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one left them all behind. 

There was only one bed.