i love cutthroat kitchen but bingewatching makes it really stand out how often alton brown refers to himself as ‘daddy’ and makes contestants wear spreader bars
We met Alton Brown at a show he did here - we paid the extra cash to meet him and get a blurry cellphone pic with him and have him sign a picture. He noticed my (male) companion’s pocket watch, and proceeded to order him to take it out of his pocket. It wasn’t obnoxious, it was in a Dom tone that brooked no argument. So he complied. When he found out it wasn’t wound, and so not working, he was deeply disappointed, and told him to do better next time.
If this guy isn’t a Dom, I’ll eat that spreader bar.
i love cutthroat kitchen but bingewatching makes it really stand out how often alton brown refers to himself as ‘daddy’ and makes contestants wear spreader bars
We met Alton Brown at a show he did here - we paid the extra cash to meet him and get a blurry cellphone pic with him and have him sign a picture. He noticed my (male) companion’s pocket watch, and proceeded to order him to take it out of his pocket. It wasn’t obnoxious, it was in a Dom tone that brooked no argument. So he complied. When he found out it wasn’t wound, and so not working, he was deeply disappointed, and told him to do better next time.
If this guy isn’t a Dom, I’ll eat that spreader bar.
For those who watched The Untamed on Youtube and Netflix, here is the true ending we deserved. The same footage shown in a different order tells a completely new story.
As you may know, drama aired in Japan wouldn’t have to work around the same restrictions that the original version faced, so two guys getting their Happily Ever After isn’t going to get a show axed at the censorship board there. This is from the finale last night – what the show’s cast and crew would’ve wanted you to see.
Can we PLEASE talk about how the Japanese subs decided to translate the last line of Wuji/ Wangxian?
The original lyrics are
天涯一曲共悠扬
Which is basically the vaguest way possible to say, “We share a song wherever we go.”
But oh? What’s this?
Excume?
This 二人の琴笛 is a very explicit addition, that means “these two people’s qin and di.”
In summation, Japan side of MDZS has elected to not only say “fuck you” to censorship, but converted the poetic, more general idea of “ah, yes, may our song be heard and shared” to “THESE TWO PEOPLE IN PARTICULAR ARE SHARING A SONG. DO YOU HEAR IT? HERE THEY ARE, WITH THEIR GUQIN AND THEIR DIZI. DO YOU HEAR IT?”
Of all the differences between mdzs and cql, the one I like the most is that when I first watched cql I was completely convinced that Xiyao had been as much of a victim of censorship as wangxian. I was fully convinced that they would have a canon romance in the novel and not only was that not the case, but in the novel, I honestly only got a older-younger brother vibe from them (which is so goddamn tragic in it's own right).
Which means the all that eye-fucking these lingering glances, the "We are peers", the catching-him-mid-bows, the head-touching upon being asked to die with the one you love - that was all ... the actors? the director? And yes, censorship sucks, but they fucking went with the period-drama-romace-of-glances-and-barely-there-touches and made it MORE gay
Someone made a post once and said the rest of the cast took one look at wangxian’s story arc and demanded for homoerotic undertones of their own, and like... yeah that’s exactly it. mxtx explained in an interview that the only “canon” gay couple in her story is wangxian, and it’s so funny because literally the entire production team including lhk and zzj went book canon? what’s that?
and if i may add, it was revealed that zzj (jgy) was originally supposed to say his last line “er’ge, why don’t you die with me?” in a more forceful/hateful way, but zzj felt it just didn’t work for his character, so he asked the director if they could try redoing the take using his own personal interpretation. Well, tldr they went with his interpretation in the end.
AU where the Wei Wuxian who returns from the Burial Mounds has already had his mind so affected by the resentful energies that he's forgotten - many, many things. He remembers who tried to kill him, so lashes out against the Wens, but everything else? Not so much...
There was something quite freeing about not having much of a memory, in Wei Wuxian’s view; it wasn’t his fault that no one else seemed to agree with him.
It made things very simple. If he liked someone, he liked them; if he didn’t, he didn’t – he didn’t have to worry about how they might have interacted before, or what their history was like, or who they might be. He could just feel what he felt, and act accordingly.
Take the one in purple with the poisonous tongue, who scolded him in public and wept over him in private; Wei Wuxian liked him very much. So what if he couldn’t remember his name, no matter how many times he repeated it?
If he had a memory, he might have resented the way the man ignored his wishes and demanded desperately that he work on a cure to undo the damage the Burial Mounds had caused; as it was, he was able to simply see it as a gesture of love by someone who only knew how to show affection and never how to speak of it.
He liked the girl who made him soup, too. She made him feel safe and small in the best of ways; he’d remember just enough of manners to make sure they were alone before he asked her if she was his mother – it turned out she was as young as she looked, and not younger due to cultivation, and so it was impossible. A pity, in his view, and he told her as much; she’d been sad but also flattered.
She’d patiently explained a few times over what their relationship actually was; from that point on, he tried very hard to remember to call her shijie, and most of the time he even managed to remember it.
So there were two people he liked.
Turned out there weren’t many more than that. The ones in white-and-red – he didn’t like them.
That was something of an understatement, actually.
He loathed them.
It made killing them and denying them the dignity of having an intact corpse, turning their bodies into his puppets, into something that was not only useful, but enjoyable.
The man in purple scolded him about that, too, but maybe not as hard as he seemed to think he should.
Those ones were the easy ones: the rest were a little more tricky, since he largely felt nothing at all about them – as a favor to the two he liked, he didn’t make a move against them unless they provoked him, which they sometimes did, but even when he did take action it didn’t really matter. It wasn’t as though they weren’t all willing to trade a few dead allies in exchange for his power.
Good, bad, indifferent – that was his life now.
Nice, clean, simple.
There was only one problem.
At first he’d thought the one in white was the one in purple’s friend – they spent an awful lot of time huddled together trying to think of ways to cure him – but eventually it’d been explained to him that they weren’t. In fact, the one in purple said that the one in white had previously hated him.
Wei Wuxian didn’t like that.
He had no idea why he didn’t like that, but he didn’t.
“You’re not allowed to hate me,” he told the one in white, cornering him one day and poking him in the chest. “You’re not. You need to like me. You understand? You can’t dislike me.”
The one in white blinked. He had very long eyelashes, and pretty golden irises beneath them. “I don’t dislike Wei Ying,” he said.
“Good,” Wei Wuxian said, satisfied. And then, because he was feeling mischievous, he said, “Your forehead ribbon is crooked,” and laughed when the man immediately reached out to fix it.
He laughed an awful lot when he was around the man in white. He wasn’t sure why, since the man himself seemed to have no sense of humor at all, and barely any more ability to carry a conversation, but the man in purple seemed to think it was a good sign – apparently he’d always done that.
Personally, Wei Wuxian thought it was suspicious.
He laughed around the man in white, he felt bad when he thought the other man didn’t like him, he constantly felt the need to be near him, to tease him, merely seeing him made him lick his lips and taste the phantom impression of sweet wine, and yet no one else seemed to think they were on good terms –
It was really very obvious what was going on.
Even someone with no memory could figure it out.
He snuck up on the man in white late one night when he was off patrolling unnecessarily, as if all their sentries wouldn’t do the job; personally, Wei Wuxian would wager that the man in white just liked to be alone.
“I know, you know,” he said conversationally, and the man in white – totally unsurprised to see him, another mark of evidence in favor of Wei Wuxian’s theory – turned to look at him. “There’s no need to keep hiding it.”
“Hiding what?” the man in white asked, stoic as always.
Wei Wuxian laughed and wrapped his arms around his neck; the other man stiffened, but that was fine – Wei Wuxian reached over and placed the other man’s arms around his body, and yes, it was just as he’d thought; a perfect fit.
“I know we were lovers,” he said, and laughed again when the man in white’s ears turned bright red immediately. “It’s pretty obvious, you know.”
“Wei Ying –”
“Ah, ah, don’t worry! I won’t tell anyone. The way everyone thinks we can’t stand each other – we were clearly hiding it from them for some reason, probably politics, I think I’m very happy that I can’t remember politics – and even if I think it’s stupid, I won’t embarrass you by revealing it. But there’s no real reason we can’t keep on carrying on in private, right?”
“Wei Ying –”
“It’s my memory, isn’t it?” Wei Wuxian sighed dramatically. “You’re so stubborn. So what if I’ve lost my memory? I’m still me. The purest form of me, in fact, untroubled by all that mess…I’m still capable of thought, and I’m an adult, and I’m consenting. You should take me to bed.”
“Wei Ying!”
“Or do I take you to bed?” Wei Wuxian squinted at him. “Do we switch? I did some research, you know, once I figured it out – the cultivator in green, with the fan, has a truly marvelous collection, I hadn’t even known some of that was possible – and it seems – mmmm!”
The man in white had covered his mouth very firmly.
Wei Wuxian struggled for a bit, and the other man’s other arm tighten around him, and oh, yes, they were definitely lovers and he was definitely the one being bedded; he would rather like it if the man went a little further, maybe tossed him down on the ground – or oooh, maybe against a tree, that would be exciting, they’d done that on the fourth page of the book he’d looked over –
“Wei Ying, listen to me,” the man in white said, then jerked away his hand in a panic when Wei Wuxian licked his palm.
“I’m listening,” he said lazily. “Go on. What’re your conditions? Whatever they are, I’ll meet them.”
The man in white had been about to say something, but suddenly hesitated.
“Well?” Wei Wuxian prodded. “You want this as much as I do. I can tell.”
He rocked his hips forward suggestively, and smirked when the red started spreading from those ears into those cheeks.
“You will meet my conditions?” the man in white finally said, and yes, Wei Wuxian was going to get laid!
He had no memory of whether or not he’d done it before, but he was very enthusiastic about the idea.
“Whatever you like,” he said recklessly.
The man in white pressed his lips together for a moment, clearly weighing his options, and finally he said, “Very well.”
Wei Wuxian grinned. “Hit me.”
“Put your full effort into regaining your memory,” the man in white said, and Wei Wuxian’s smile disappeared.
“That’s not fair!”
“You haven’t been trying,” the man in white continued ruthlessly, and he’s not wrong; Wei Wuxian’s been nodding rather than waste effort disagreeing. “If you tried, you would succeed.”
Wei Wuxian pulled back just enough to study the man in white’s expression. “And if I do manage to get my memory back?”
The man in white looked awkward, but determined. “I will – do as you said.”
“Oh no,” Wei Wuxian said. “No deal. Uh-uh. You think I’m going to trade what might be weeks of work for a mere roll in the sheets? Absolutely not. You’re going to need to up your offer.”
The man in white frowned.
“I want to go public,” Wei Wuxian said, and grinned at the way the man’s eyes widened. “I don’t like the thought of sneaking around and not telling my family – my shijie, my…you know, the purple one, him – they should know. I want them to. You want me to put my full effort into getting my memory back? Fine. Then I want you in my bed all the time, not just when we can do it in secret.”
The man in white seemed to be thinking very hard about something.
Wei Wuxian waited.
Eventually, the man in white nodded, and Wei Wuxian beamed.
“Very well,” he said, and his voice was oddly shaky; the thought of going public must really be frightening to him. Good thing he had Wei Wuxian by his side; Wei Wuxian wasn’t scared of anything. “If you successfully regain your memory, I will go to Sect Leader Jiang and ask for your hand in marriage.”
Wei Wuxian hadn’t actually meant marriage, only publicity, but of course a stickler for etiquette like Lan – like Lan Zh- – like – like the man in white, well, of course he’d insist on doing things the right way.
That was fine by Wei Wuxian.
“And when we’re married, we’ll sleep together every day,” he added, feeling especially daring. “You hear me? Every day.”
The man in white nodded. “Every day.”
Wei Wuxian grinned. “Well then,” he said, feeling quite smug at having wrapped things up so nicely. His past and future self-with-memories was going to just have to thank him for doing what he’d clearly been too much of a coward to do before. “I guess I’d better get to work.”
Three sentence fic request: Jeeves and Wooster, Honoria Glossop, "hold my beer"?
It would take far too long to explain just why I was in a beer garden in the Weimar Republic with Honoria Glossip thanks to a pair of lost Wellies, a misunderstanding of why each of us had decided to vacation there without telling the other, and some bad directions from a man who clearly wished me no good– suffice to say that we were there, and we were very much unwelcome by the sort of rotters who back at home would faff about in black shorts with Roderick Spode and his oily ilk.
I was all for letting what’s it be the better part of thing-me-bob and bustling over to a nightclub instead of hanging about, but then some great hulking fellow made an opprobrious remark about the inferiority of the British race if Honoria and I were typical specimens.
“Hold my beer, Bertie,” said she, in such commanding tones I realized someday she would be a most formidable aunt– and dash it, what could a preux cavalier such as myself do but obey?
Its always weird, feeling a hyperfixation take root.
Like I’ll be watching some movie and all of a sudden, some miswired synapse fires off and a bunch of neurons in the cerebellum go “MINE.”
And I’m like “no, guys, this is mediocre at best,” but it’s too late. They’ve adopted these characters and this universe and there’s no turning back.
I’m going to be thinking about it every hour, of every day, for somewhere between two weeks and five years.
In the span of eight seconds, I’ve gone from “not really paying attention” to “this is going to be part of my identity” and that’s definitely a weird shift to experience.
