Critical Obsession

We are M & Z, 2 critically obsessed fangirls who started a podcast! Come and make your obsession critical with us. https://ko-fi.com/criticallyobs

[criticallyobs]

Critical Obsession

Just two fan girls … or should it be fan women? Just two crazy obsessed fans who love to spend hours together pulling apart and putting back

You can find our Spotify podcast playlists here:

Cooking Crush Playlist

Last Twilight Playlist

Dangerous Romance Playlist

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[criticallyobs]

Happy New Year!

We're still alive!!!

Wait for us...

[criticallyobs]

Oh, no it's the last time I get to see Jimmy in his hot fit from the credits of Vice Versa *quick someone make me a wallpaper for my phone or something*

The wait is over. The show is over. The podcast is here.

In this episode, we celebrated the sacred art of the rewatch, because yes, watching a show again totally counts as productivity (I don’t make the rules, I just enjoy them). It's especially true if you host a Podcast about media...we must consume all the media. We owe it to our listeners.

We took an emotional rollercoaster from the trauma tiggering memories of Last Twilight (seriously, it still hurts, okay?) to the rainbow-colored joy explosion that is Vice Versa.

Somewhere along the way while watching this show, I realised that M was right — it was worth the effort. Do we hate how right M was? It’s becoming a problem.

Or maybe we love it, and her, because it birthed this series of our Podcast and it was a lot of fun.

And then, like any responsible podcast hosts with poor impulse control, we wandered straight into the minefield of fandom entitlement.

Did we make it out unscathed? Unclear. But we definitely have opinions, questionable metaphors, and I might have missed my point a couple of times (I'll find it eventually or hopefully you found it on your own).

So I guess my take-away from this is you should always tune in, rewatch responsibly, and remember: just because somethings hurt us, doesn't fit us on first glance or don't seem like they're worth the effort, doesn’t mean they won’t become your favourite comfort show, your weirdest inside joke, or the reason you’re suddenly emotionally invested in the romantic implications of a bunch of Lotus flowers.

Past Episodes from the Vice Versa Podcast can be found here.

[criticallyobs]

Oh I almost forgot: I am not watching the abo desire show cause I physically am incapable (I tried but I couldn't I just couldn't by whole body went NOPE but I wanna know about it?!?!?!?!?l) And I def would listen to three hours of you talking about it? 👀🥺 if youre up for it. Once it's finished or while it's still airing I don't care I just feel I would be able to enjoy it through you 🤣🤣🤣 you just name dropped it like two times during the revenged love podcast and I'm curious 👀👀👀👀

Completely valid response. Some things just trigger that full-body "Nope Reflex" and there’s no fighting it. Except you should totally fight it for this one…

Because there is all sort of Evil Genius in ABO Desire and especially in Hua Yong's character. There are morally grey characters, red flags, morally black characters and then there is Hua Yong. I saw someone post a video saying this isn't a character with a few screws loose. They're ALL LOOSE, some are even missing and it is so fun to watch.

He is so questionable but it's totally cool because it is for love, right? Even his bestie thinks he's a psychotic asshole.

You know how there are characters you love, ones you want to wrap up and hug.

I want to give Hua Yong a stick of dynamite and see what shit he blows up.

Huang Xing who plays Hua Yong deserves all the awards, no really just like all of them.

But also?? I’m deeply honored that you’d trust us to narrate the chaos of “Abo Desire” to you like some dramatic audiobook/podcast hybrid I am actually kind of excited by the idea now…

I already has thoughts and theories and a tiny bit of yelling stored up - poor M is getting the brunt of my unhinged cackling and epic love for Hua Yong.

Also lol @ me name-dropping it in the Revenged Love ep like a chaotic gremlin trying to spread the gospel. No regrets.

I want everyone to watch but I get the cringe attached to ABO but this show is just low key epic…the layers people. LAYERS. It is worth it. Everyone should tune in and give it a go. And another and another. Let Hua Yong manipulate you too. You know you want it.

I am dying to talk for days about the Master of Manipulation. And this is only one character. The other three mains have their own charms too.

[criticallyobs]

If we were to record a part two podcast for Revenged Love, what topics would you like us to dive into?

The friendship dynamics

The ambiguously polyamorous situationships

#Guo Cheng Yu x Jiang Xiao Shuai

The family dramas

Wang Shuo and his "brother"

Yue Yue and her bad choices

Their top craziest shenanigans

Something else (leave a comment)

Voting ended onSep 3, 2025

Click here to listen to our Revenged Love podcast episode on Spotify and here for YouTube.

[criticallyobs]

So I just spent my lovely train ride listening to the revenged love podcast and its just making me want to rewatch the whole thing.

I just really enjoy you two talking and gushing about the shows you love and when it's a show I love as well its like birthday and Christmas combined so thanks!!!!! You basically have to imagine me nodding along to everything you say and get mind blown by the details you see that just fly under my radar. The music for example so Z if you haven't already and I missed it this is my reminder that you wanted to make a post about the music cause I want it and you should do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I would also like to see a directors cut but I am a little cautious about the 'drama'/rumors about the editing/cutting of scenes. I know too little about the process of making a show like that under these specific circumstances to have a solid opinion but i find it strange that an editing team would just cut necessary scenes without talking to the director. Editing is such an important part of movie making and does a lot of the heavy lifting and I just can't imagine a director being walked over just for scenes to be cut. If they actually cut these scenes there might be more to it. A lot of different factors weighing in that made them do it which you guys basically said as well ANYWAY

I'm just here for my boys and your correct opinions about them 💖🥺

Z I basically screamed when you mentioned the green/red light in ep1 being the red/green flag cause I only saw the villain lighting but you are of course correct. Amazing.

Also your talk about the earlier moments of their characters made me remember so much fucked up shit I already forgot. This rewatch really is a must at this point what am I even doing

You also made me think about why cc would fall head over heels for wsw if he's basically made a home in his own misery and broken heart for 6 years and why it had to be wsw who shook him out of it and I think it's not just the 'loser aura' (omg cc I just urgh so romantic) wsw is in a way... maybe who cc wants to be. He's carefree he's loved he has a home he is optimistic not just about his own future but about humanity he got hurt romantically and picked himself up by his bootstraps and did not succumb to loneliness and despair and hatred he did not get turned into this shell of himself. He stayed absolutely 100% true to himself - which is funny cause wsw tries to be someone else entirely but cc sees through that instantly - and I forgot where I wanted to go with this but the whole 'I am mesmerized by your loser aura' for me means I am mesmerized by how you are unapologetically yourself.

So..... yeah big rant I am sorry but this is your fault as well so bear with me 😌🔪

The snakes!!!! Yes about the snakes. I missed them in the end as well but it does make sense that they're gone (they just should've talked about it but I'm nitpicking a great show) If the snakes represent cc past and basically all his red flag behavior and giving them away ridding himself of said past then I feel like you could open up a conversation about how cc's dad kidnapping his snakes and his parents in general trying to make him stop taking little jealousy everything, was their attempt of breaking cc out of that downward spiral. I mean yeah the much more literal interpretation is 'these snakes are weird please get rid of them and be a good heterosexual son' but I do like to give them more credit especially since they seem to come around in the end.

Just the snakes!!!!

Anyway. Thank you for entertaining me this afternoon and making me emotional about revenged love again ❤️

Just as a visual aid I decided to include this artist interpretation of my journey today:

Have a great night/day!!!

First of all — this message is EVERYTHING??

We both grinned so hard reading it, and honestly, it means so much that you took the time to share all of this.

You captured exactly the kind of conversations we hope the podcast sparks, and hearing that it made your train ride feel like birthday and Christmas rolled into one?? Literal serotonin boost. Thank you. Also the included visual aid had me cackling like a crazy fool.

Now let's get into the meat of this glorious rant (and NO apologies necessary — this is the energy we live for):

The music post… TBH I want to do it but well… I am queen of procrastination, so we'll see. I do really love that song so much.

Re: the director’s cut and the drama — you put that so well.

It’s easy to get wrapped up in the outrage or disappointment (especially when we feel protective over something we love), but you're right that editing is a layered process with a lot of moving parts and people. It’s rarely as simple as “this scene was cut = someone was wronged.” I think we have the stigma of censorship which after so many years is hard to shake our fear of it, as viewers. I think for me it came down to being sad that the actors took the time to create these scenes for us and we will probably never see them.

Still, a director’s cut would be fascinating — even just to see what the full vision looked like before all the necessary compromises were made. Ahhh a girl can dream. Although all the behind clips they are dumping are helping a little. It's nice to see how much joy they had doing this show.

I love how you put CC's love for WSW - "I am mesmerized by how you are unapologetically yourself." Yes. This. Totally. No Noted Needed.

But because I am me, you inspired the ramble in me: it made me think about the snakes as a metaphor for CC's personality. The idea of not feeling safe or comfortable in his own skin. A lack of trust and security, his love for and even the act of keeping snakes as pets made me think of the way they shed their skin. A process used for growth and to remove parasites. His snakes were a bit like WSW if we look at it from the idea that CC saw a freedom and personality that he wanted for himself in WSW, in his snakes he saw an ability to shed the world he lived in and the pressure and expectations of his family and the pain of his past. - end ramble - No wait there is more. LOL. Maybe, that is why I wanted more snakes, even if it was so he could vocalise that he didn't need them anymore, because he finally felt comfortable in his own skin with WSW by his side.

Your whole message felt like a giant warm hug and a deep brain conversation at the same time, which is our favourite combo. Thank you for ranting, for screaming at the green/red light bit (with me), and for being on this journey with us. You're 100% right — a rewatch is absolutely necessary.

-- Z

[criticallyobs]

Z's Pervert Card has been returned!

*We all cheered.*

It is here finally... those waiting, wait no longer as here is our Podcast for Episode 11 of Vice Versa!!!

We had a lot to say.

But in case you missed it, Z finally realised that Tess is a dick in all universes and timelines.

M was insightful as always and managed to trigger some brief moments of coherent rambling from Z, so all in all a good time for all.

Past Episodes from the Vice Versa Podcast can be found here.

[criticallyobs]

It's been a while since the last time we posted anything, hasn't it? We would like to remind people that we exist, and we've heard that a good way to engage people is to make polls.

Here's a little test poll to gauge the waters and keep the conversation about Revenged Love going.

Do you want more polls from us?

Yes, I want polls regarding the latest Revenged Love podcast episode.

Yes, and I would like to contribute to the pool of ideas ;)

Yes, I'm always excited to exercise my right to vote.

Yes, I have strong opinions about RL and I want you to unleash the Kraken.

I don't want polls, but I want something else and I'll let you know what it is.

Polls are the bane of my existence, unless they're made by you <3

Voting ended onAug 24, 2025

Click here for our Revenged Love podcast episode on Spotify and here for YouTube.

[rageprufrock]

Things that I should be doing: going to bed.

Things that I am doing instead: pulling out my notes document about Revenged Love and finally doing a massive word vomit about a number of nuances that jumped out at me during the last five or so episodes of the series that might be of interest to other people before I go to bed, because I keep signing up for hot yoga at 9:30 a.m. on Sundays out of some unfathomable masochism.

Hospital Stuff

So despite what everybody likes to pretend, health care does cost money in places outside of the U.S. -- sometimes, that healthcare is even extremely fucking expensive, which is the case in China. While you may have access to socialized care, that's dependent on a number of different factors including but not limited to whether your job pays into your social insurance (until literally the last month, this was not a requirement) and if you have "hukou" or "residence" where you're receiving medical treatment.

Let's assume Wu Suowei (WSW) is a local, and therefore has hukou and social insurance -- as would his mother -- in the hospital where she's treated. Assuming that, while some of the costs would be compensated, if she's using imported medication -- read: anything developed outside of China -- there's a massive surcharge on the cost of that treatment, and her social insurance would only pay for certain parts of her stay, and at a given point, potentially run out.

Momma Wu is clearly pitched up in a private room, which would be hugely expensive. Standard she'd be sharing with most frequently five to three other patients in an either six- or four-bed configuration with curtained dividers for a modicum of privacy. (Those of you who watch a lot of kdramas or other modern cdramas know exactly what I'm talking about. Think Hospital Playlist.)

All this is to say -- I'm reasonably sure Chi Cheng (CC) paid for a lot of Momma Wu's medical care. Even if their shared company was making better money by that point, WSW would have access to the books, and also just diverting massive amounts of revenue to private use is active embezzlement. Either way, it wouldn't be a secret. Her treatment, her private hospital room, the round-the-clock additional carers she'd have needed (see below) would not have come cheap and had to come from somewhere, and I think her other son, CC, quietly paid the bills.

Final note that really differentiates the Chinese hospital experience: expectations around the type of support nurses offer is very different. While bedside nursing in the U.S. is both medical, comfort and hygiene, that's not necessarily provided in China. Most families with in-patient members end up either doing shifts at the hospital to provide hygiene and care support, or hire someone to do the same if they're not able to be on hand directly.

Given that during the time Momma Wu was ill, CC and WSW are still running around trying to get their company going, I think it's fair to assume one of two outcomes: either CC paid for her to have additional nursing support provided by a private hospital alongside the private room, or that he was taking the night and day shifts where he was able to help her stay cleaned up, wash her hair, help her to and from the bathroom, and hiring someone else to stay by her side when he couldn't be there with her.

There's a lot of grief and devotion in this. When my grandfather was in his final days, his children slept in rotation with a hired carer in a cot by his bedside, making sure he didn't get pressure sores, bathing him, trying to coax him to eat. And I think it makes the tenderness CC clearly feels toward Momma Wu even more acute when you look at it through this lens, and gives additional weight to that wreath he left at her services -- in every way that really means something, he was her son: he must have brushed and braided her hair, brought her dinners, washed her feet. He must have truly, truly loved her.

Money Stuff

Guo Chengyu (GCY) explicitly references "caili" in these final episodes while cuddling up with Jiang Xiaoshuai (JXS), which are basically gifts you give to your bride as part of your marriage agreement. This wouldn't be a formalized contract or anything the way we think of a pre-nup, but it would be a pretty formalized discussion between both families. To be super clear: this is both a new and ancient practice. In the distant past, ciali would be given to compensate a family for the loss of their daughter, and it's become more generally popular to expect this in marriage negotiations in recent years as life's gotten more expensive, and as people have actually started having money to give. In total candor: does this make me uncomfortable as fuck? Hell yeah! It's absolutely more or less selling your daughters -- to my Westernized sensibilities! But I have to force myself to remember that for a very long time post WWII, China was in the agonizing throes of revolution, civil war, mass starvation, authoritarian counterintellectual movements and like 1700 other shitfucks going simultaneously. People were fucking poor. People were literally starving to death. Universities were shuttered. Professors and journalists were tortured. When I was born, my parents got ration tickets for how much milk they were allotted per month because they'd had a child, how many eggs. I'm an old millennial -- this vast poverty, the absolute lack of abundance that so many people in other parts of the world don't recognize as a privilege, it's not so far away. So yeah, Chinese people are deeply, deeply weird about money. See: WSW literally getting bribed to let CC hang out for Lunar New Year dinner.

CC getting downgraded from 30RMB cell phone top ups to 10RMB a month is HARROWING. As a reminder: like a grande latte is 27RMB in China, so homeboy was not joking about literally not being able to afford to buy or refill his lighter. It's also so completely over the top broke for him to be that this has to be some sort of weird financial domination kink like this man cannot afford to buy four bus tickets.

Random Language Stuff Oh God This Is So Long

CC calling GCY "gege" in that one episode is the most repulsive thing I've ever heard in my life. I think I actively screamed on my sofa in @waldorph's ear when he did it and just thinking about it now sends shivers down my spine. It's hard for me to explain exactly why it was the worst thing I'd ever had to hear with my human ears, other than to say it's for use when you're flirting like a brothel tart, or you're actively being cute at your boyfriend, but that CC's barely lilted dead on arrival delivery triggered some sort of brain stem lizard disgust that made me want to chew off one of my own salamander legs and flee for my life. Vile. Jail for Snake Daddy. Jail for 1,000 years. But while this has done me -- a person who wants to see them fuck -- lasting psychological damage, it also underscores my ongoing repeated point about how violently fucky calling anybody "gege" is as an adult. I just engaged in a thought exercise about referring to one of my adult cousins by [Their Name]-gege and just threw up inside my mouth. I hope GCY lights CC's car on fire. GROSS.

This one was discussed all over but still bears repeating that after being kidnapped by CC's father (ha ha, this family, amirite?), WSW nearly gives the man an aneurysm by referring to him as "lao zhangren," or the flavor of father-in-law you use when you refer to your wife's dad. A wife would use "gong gong" for her father-in-law. (And yes, for the eagle eyed folks who watch harem dramas, it is the same gong gong as you'd use for the eunuchs.)

This is something he keeps up consistently though! When WSW talks to his parents at their graveside, he consistently refers to CC as their daughter-in-law, but also by using an extremely colloquial "媳妇," technical pinyin "xifu," common putonghua pronunciation "xi-fu'er." This is the sort of thing gruff dudes who are a little rough around the edges refer to their wives as to other people. I can't think of a truly appropriate parallel pet name schema in English unfortunately. But it may be helpful to know that there's a long legacy in Chinese culture of avoiding names or words for respect. It's disrespectful to use the character from your parents' or grandparents' names in a child's name; it's disrespectful to write your mother's name in common conversation -- to avoid it, you'd adjust the character some way, drop a dash, a line, a dot. These are all really old fashioned and not well-adhered to any longer, but feed into a long-ago term called "neizhi," which translates to "inner one," which was the way men used to refer to their wives, so jealously hoarded that even to say their names or their titles was too revealing to people outside of their families. Those things most loved, most cherished, were kept most jealously. Using xifu in the modern context has a little echo of this: intrinsically possessive. WSW's not happy just to tell people about CC, he has to make sure that every single reference to CC, people know who CC is, which is WSW's person.

CC's version of this is in no way less possessive and gross, as he has his nephew call WSW "jiu ma," or "auntie." Specifically, the title you use for the wife of your mom's younger brother, because Chinese has different titles for every single fucking person you are related to, so anybody hearing this adorable kid being like WSW-jiuma! knows instantly that kid's mom's younger brother is a homotron888 and has a weakness for anime legs.

I can't remember what episode this happened in but there's one stellar "you absolute cowards" translation puss-out where the on-screen says "darn" and in the in-episode is literally "fuck your mom," so you know, A+ to everybody for that one.

The conversation at the campground where CC is asking GCY if he ate well wasn't just a convenient euphemism for sex, it's one of the more common ways people elide to fucking. So if you ever listen to people on the Chinese internet asking salaciously about how many dishes someone had last night, they're asking about rounds. So, "did you eat?" = "did you guys fuck?" and "did you guys make dishes? how many?" = "did you guys fuck? how many times?"

In the note CC has GCY bring WSW back from the jail (wtf even was this show seriously), the subtitles said "I don't hate you. I just can't let it go" or something to that effect. It's not a good translation, but I don't blame them, because it warrants an old school anime fan-translation-hit-pause-to-read-the-paragraph-here. The actual line CC writes is, "我舍不得." This concept of "she bu de," (the last three characters) is so layered and complicated and so, so tender. It means, "I can't bear it. I can't bear to see you suffer in any way." In this context, it specifically means that you ache for someone you love, that you can't endure any discomfort, unhappiness, fear to darken their day. So the note, in a very few short sentences, serves as an apology, but also an agonized confession that WSW's love has left CC a wreck. In Chinese, I can think of no more heart-felt confession of love than to say 我舍不得你, "I can't bear it, when it's you," and all that implies. Y'all I swooned when I saw that note I don't even want to talk about it.

Oh my God. Okay. I'm rolling up my sleeves on this last one I'm so sorry. SO. @biochemjess asked me to explain the exchange that GCY and CC have while WSW is sleeping for 100 days at the very end of the episode, where CGY calls CC "ye" and then refers to WSW as "zhu zhong." So before I can even explain what either of those mean, the first thing I have to explain is the concept of deference to your betters and elders. Most cultures respect their forebears, but in China we have active ancestor worship, and even during the most misogynist periods of history, the most powerful person in a given household was oftentimes the mother of the head of family, whose word was iron. So related to this, there's this conceptual idea of "服了," or "fu le," which translates sort of into "to obey," but in general context is used in the sense of, "I have no means of countering your demands or your behavior." So a lot of parents say they "fu le" their kids or "fu le" their insane friends who are doing something unstoppably goblin-ish or they're "fu le" with their own parents, because wtf are they going to do to keep them from buying insane shit off of WeChat live streams, right? SO WITH THIS CONTEXT: this conversation is GCY trying to get CC to get up and eat something, or wake up WSW and have them both eat something, and CC openly telling him to fuck right off in a way that leaves GCY "fu le" of him, like what the fuck is he even going to do with this guy? And thus, he refers to CC as his "ye," or paternal grandfather -- who, as a reminder -- is someone he'd have to defer for all o the above, and then, when CC asks if he's the grandfather, then what does that make WSW in the hierarchy? That's why GCY calls him "zhu zhong," which means ancient ancestor, someone even more of an immovable object and irresistible force in this circumstance. Was that context worth reading this entire word vomit? Only you can decide!!!!

Random Final Thoughts

I've seen some discussion about CC's father not being willing to support his son, and I have a different lens on it. One of the most important fundamental things to understand about Chinese parent-child relationships is that they are not going to model the expected rhythms of a Westernized or U.S. contextualized relationship. Your parents are not going to say they're proud of you. They're not going to tell you they love you no matter what. That's not something anybody even expects, and most Chinese kids would wonder if there was some kind of brain tumor or body snatching involved if a declaration of pride, support and tenderness burst forth from their parents -- especially our fathers -- without some extremely specific context. Like genuinely if my dad said he was proud of me I would ask if he was dying. CC's dad was never going to tell him that he supported his objectively insane lifestyle and is going to wear a rainbow flag in front of his friends and colleagues, and not even just because queerness is nowhere near as widely accepted in China as it in other places. The love of a Chinese parent in enduring, in worry, in action. CC's father has absolutely no reason to be supportive of his son being a raging snake-hoarding homosexual. His son -- based on photographs in the house -- who once upon a time seemed to have a pretty good relationship with his family, fell in with a man in college and went completely off the fucking rails. Bad enough he dated this guy for three years -- after breaking up he became a weird hermit in a fucking overheated basement with 700 snakes and slept with a revolving door of everybody in the city with a pulse while being actively fucking miserable. When he and CC have their confrontation about WSW and their relationship, of course there's a measure of, "what am I going to say to my colleagues about this?" but his questions are more complicated in nature: your little company can't sustain you; you won't be able to have children, who will care care of you when you're older? More than anything, to me, these are questions he asks because he desperately, desperately loves his son. It's the same reason that Momma Wu told CC in her some of her dying moments that she knew, she knew all along, but that she was scared for them. It's the exact same sentiment, packaged in different ways, delivered better and worse, in harsher and softer tones. If this is the life CC wants, he's going to have to prove it by being happy in it. This is the ultimate thesis of any parent-child fight in a Chinese household: your parents aren't going to be supportive because they're scared of how it might hurt you either today or in the future. The only way out is through, by being more stubborn, by proving to them that what you've chosen will make you happy. That's exactly what CC does. You'd think that if his father was so unsupportive, he'd fuck off and stop spending time with his family again the way we see at the beginning of the series, when they have a horrendous relationship and they have to pretend his mother in the hospital to get him to visit. Instead, CC brings WSW over, he introduces WSW to his nephew! As his aunt! And nobody stops him! Nobody's particularly happy about it in that moment, and everyone's awkward, but nobody's throwing anybody out of the house! CC's dad isn't supportive, neither is his mother, but they're giving him and WSW the space to prove that this fucking insane life they've chosen will actually make them happy, and that's familial love, Chinese style.

I also thought it was hilarious how we meet his mom and dad when she's talking about how once he gets a girlfriend -- CC will get his shit together and come back into the familial fold. And that's sort of exactly what happened. He got his man wife and started hanging out with his family again. Incredible.

A lot of the various manipulations that our besties and worsties get up to I think have echoes of the Chinese concept of “下台," or stepping off the stage. It's this idea that it's really hard and embarrassing to admit you're wrong, to admit that you do want something after all, and that the people around you should allow you opportunities to step off stage without having to openly admit those things because it's a kindness and we're civilized people who don't need to say things so frankly. The best example of this is that the only way the absolutely unhinged shenanigans around trying to get JXS to sleep with GCY makes sense is if WSW is basically constructing an elaborate series of excuses for JXS to bluster and say, "oh yeah! well! if you're going to claim my bestie is dirty for putting out, I'll put out, too! yeah! that's the only reason I am going to go find and fuck my boyfriend! with whom I have struggled for complicated reasons to advance in intimacy with! I'll show you!" Anyway all four of them are nuts and I love them.

I absolutely refuse to figure out how many words I just typed.

[criticallyobs]

Revenged Love broke us and put us back together again...

Come and Join us as we lose our minds a little or like a lot in our latest Let’s Talk: Revenged Love Special Podcast Episode.

Join us as we talk about ugly crying and laughing fits, if Z should have her pervert card revoked, belt shenanigans, censorship issues and if we're for book spoilers or not.

Previous Episodes of Let's Talk

[cavetreasures]

I love how laser-focused Chi Cheng is on Wu Suo Wei. There are so many moments of him just... studying him. And every time he approaches him he takes a moment to observe his reaction and we get to see him react to Wei Wei's emotion as well. He is truly fascinated. He's like a snake charmer slowly circling a wild beast, saving himself from being bitten by it by taming it first.

[cavetreasures]

"I'm mesmerized by your loser aura" is the new "You have bewitched me body and soul"

[cavetreasures]

Once again, Chi Cheng resorts to threatening the doctor when feeling he's in danger of losing his Da Bao.

Chi Cheng feels that Wu Suo Wei is struggling with his feelings and trying to find a way out. This is evident in Wu Suo Wei telling him they should break up, trying to push him away by bringing up the fact that he's been deceiving him since the very beginning, and talking about being straight and looking up conversion therapy info. So, Chi Cheng panics and acts like a jerk towards Wu Suo Wei's friend, trying to fix this from another angle.

Chi Cheng knows how much effort Wu Suo Wei put into getting close to him, so he must think that the thing freaking him out so much now is the sex. Of course, his inexperienced bisexual lover must be holding back because he's scared of taking this last step! So, in Chi Cheng's mind, once they do this, everything will be alright. They'll just start being all over each other, crazily in love, and nothing will ever separate them again. Maybe, as a bonus, he'll get his Wei Wei so hooked on sex that he'll never even dare think of leaving him ever again.

However, what Chi Cheng doesn't know is that the mental barrier Wu Suo Wei faces isn't only related to sex. Wu Suo Wei wants to be with him, but he feels guilty for lying to him and using him. The closer Chi Cheng gets to his heart, the more afraid Wu Suo Wei becomes of getting hurt, because now he must surely know that hurting Chi Cheng will result in pain for him as well.

The once unstoppable, scheming Wu Suo Wei is now stuck and paralyzed with fear, unsure what move to make next, as all the roads seem to lead him to his doom.

[vegaseatsass]

I did not catch that Wu Suowei was looking up conversion therapy info when Chi Cheng walked in on him. Goddamn. I think there is something to be said about how walking in on Wu Suowei looking for advice to escape his queerness and seriously researching forced conversion would hit for Chi Cheng after he just unburdened himself (and, in his eyes, Suowei!) from his parents' frenzied, unhinged attempts to coerce him into heteronormativity.

But what this also has me thinking about is Chi Cheng defaulting to sexual terrorism when he's frightened. He honestly isn't a huge manipulator like his boyfriend or his frenemy, and handles most obstacles with a combination of bluntness and blunt force.

And he tries that too, of course, with the belt bondage and the love confession of all time. But for him to go to an outsider for help at all speaks to how worried he is. I originally dismissed it as fuckboy sexual frustration, but the conversion therapy piece is making me rethink it as genuine fear, and not just for himself and his relationship prospects. He really believed his relationship with Yue Yue was what was hurting Suowei and now he is finding out it's deeper than that. So yeah, there's absolutely the possibility that, just as he claimed to the doctor, Chi Cheng is an "I'm only Not Evil for my special someone" type who is willing to solve all his problems with consent-indifferent sexual aggression, as long as it's not Suowei he's hurting. (Nvm that hurting Xiaoshuai would hurt Suowei, and he knows this!) But I would speculate that his approach here was actually more of a relapse into his "old ways" of dehumanizing, weaponized sex, away from the tenderness he's been discovering with Suowei. There's a hopelessness to it: if he can't figure this out with Suowei, there's no point to tenderness and there's no point to anything else either. Suowei is his reason for letting his heart thaw and believing in humanity and not just snakemanity (lolol), but if he can't help him through this to reach the other side where they're happy, he might as well return to being a dead-inside predator. The threat cuts both ways, in a sense.

Anyway, sorry to derail your post into a focus on my favorite toxic foil, but all of ^^that^^ has me thinking, on the flip side, of Wu Suowei getting desperate and scared enough to go to Guo Chengyu for help, and how energized and excited Guo Chengyu looks by his problems:

(gif by @usertoxicyaoi)

compared to how miserable he looked at the end of episode 9, when he thought Chi Cheng was healing and growing and moving on, that the mind games had ended.

So like, to summarize: Chi Cheng is relying on his old dysfunctional tactics instead of moving on into the glorious future he saw unfolding for himself in episode 9, which I think speaks just how grim and hopeless it is to discover that Wu Suowei has deeper and less obviously fixable problems than Chi Cheng's dick parents.

And who is the one person who is really happy about his character regression? Who is the one person who is gearing up to use Chi Cheng's backslide reconnect with the guy he's interested in, the guy he was seemingly actually ignoring/giving up on until this moment?

This motherfucker <3

(gif by @usertoxicyaoi)

[cavetreasures]

After ep6 came out I decided to rewatch the whole thing because I didn't watch it properly the first time and Chi Cheng's behavior in episode one hit me like a train! The revenge gang rape he ordered, the intentional car crash that left a guy paralyzed... I asked myself how the hell I managed to forget that he was like that in the beginning, and the answer is that he transforms into someone completely different around Wu Suo Wei. The difference is jarring. He changes so much and so fast that it's just that easy to forget his dead-inside predator ways and accept the better version of him as the default.

Chi Cheng without Wu Suo Wei is not someone anyone would want to be around, not even Chi Cheng himself.

And I cannot wait to find out what exactly is the story between him, his ex, and Guo Cheng Yu, that it's fucked them up so bad.

[cavetreasures]

I keep going back to that love confession. If Chi Cheng had tried to reassure Wu Suo Wei and tell him that he loves how resilient, clever, and driven he is, it wouldn't have been even half as impactful. Wu Suo Wei would have dismissed it as Chi Cheng being blinded by passion or deceived by his intricate lies. But instead, what he said was that he sees all the silly and unpolished parts of him—he sees the things Wu Suo Wei is most ashamed of, the things that make him feel insecure, the things he hates about himself, and he thinks they're all beautiful. How disarming!

[cavetreasures]

This line here, the fact that he was able to say it, the fact that he allowed himself to state the undeniable truth that his heart belongs to Wu Suo Wei after what he'd just been through with him, makes me think that he knows. He understands how Wu Suo Wei's mind works; he understands why Wu Suo Wei did and said what he did. It fits so well with his character and with how he's always been super observant when it comes to Wu Suo Wei. He's always seen through him and has never been fooled by his scheming. He just always went with the flow, and I think this is what he's doing now as well. Chi Cheng gave Wu Suo Wei what he wanted, or rather expected, because right now, Wu Suo Wei won't accept anything else. He won't believe Chi Cheng truly loves him until he believes he is worthy of that love. We accept the love we think we deserve.

[cavetreasures]

this should have been a post, @kinglucaslallemant <3

[cavetreasures]

I'm quite fascinated with the journey of Little Jealousy, as that part of Chi Cheng that belonged to Wang Shuo. It is the reflection of Chi Cheng that is all about Wang Shuo and of the turmoil caused by him.

It makes sense that once Chi Cheng realized his love for Wang Shuo was gone for good and fully decided to leave this part of his life behind he didn't want to hold onto the snake either. He gave it to Wang Shuo, because he thought it mattered to Wang Shuo, and because he is respectful to his past self and his past decisions, and thus of his ex and his ex's feelings too.

But what I find so interesting is that Wang Shuo did not get to keep even that little snake-like part of Chi Cheng. It also ended up in Wu Suo Wei's hands. Wei Wei cherished it, even though it belonged to someone else and now Chi Cheng's love for someone else is his as well.

Every part of Chi Cheng belongs to him.

[cavetreasures]

HE EATS THROUGH PAIN AND TEARS BECAUSE HIS WEI WEI TOLD HIM TO EAT WELL .·°՞(≧□≦)՞°·.