the sensibility of a boy @mommykavi - Tumblr Blog

Episode 5 spoilers!

Back in my thoughts again, you know the drill. A bit lengthy!!

I cannot stop thinking about this scene—how Steven clearly remembers that this was his room,

And how he remembers the exact thing he said during this part of the scene, which proves that he was, in fact, in control for at least a couple seconds.

BUT. He doesn’t remember anything from this moment forward. That’s why he wanted to see what their mother did to them, and that’s why Marc was set on getting him out of the room before he saw something that would severely taint his memories and what he knew of their childhood. At the same time, Marc knows EXACTLY what happened.

I’m positive that Steven dissociated at that moment and Marc took over. In general, he didn’t want Steven to remember what truly happened. It’s his way of making up to Randall/RoRo, I would like to believe. He treats Steven like the younger brother that he lost when he was a child. The one who loved drawing the one finned fish. The one who was always eager for adventure. The one who was screaming for help back in the cave.

Remember? His mother explicitly stated:

“Marc, what do you do? Keep an eye on your brother, okay?” And Marc is set on fulfilling that promise to Steven.

Marc let Steven keep all the good memories, while he himself lived through all of the bad ones, just so that he could protect him from getting hurt and feeling pain. Steven, his alter, who he considers to be his little brother.

That’s the reason why Marc was so adamant about simply telling Steven what had happened in that room at the top of the flight of stairs, so Steven wouldn’t have to watch the memory play out in front of him. Seeing what happened would definitely hurt more than just knowing what happened. By telling Steven himself, he would have control over what he would reveal to him, and how he would tell him.

That’s why Marc’s first thought when waking up in the Asylum was Steven. That’s why Marc never complained about fronting right after Steven was pierced by the weapons back in Mogart’s. That’s why Marc probably set up a line for Steven to contact “his mother”, and why Marc replaced Gus with another fish. That’s why Marc didn’t want Steven finding out about him in the first place.

Marc spent most of his life protecting and saving Steven the way he wished he could’ve protected and saved Randall. I am literally bawling over this.

Also ending this with another appreciation for Oscar Isaac because he’s a damn legend for the breathtaking portrayal of Steven AND Marc. He better earn awards for this series or I will riot.

counterfetts

sebcastellanos

the fact that din called grogu’s name just so he’d look at him………….

meltesh28

“…I was going crazy!”

TGCF chapter 199

krasmazov56-deactivated20220524

PEI MING

So my problem with Pei Ming is that I like (???kinda??) him, but I think he is horrible. Absolute douchebag. Fuckboy of a century. Bad guy. But I will make some good points about how he escapes his sexist side just to then contradict myself and go off about how he actually treats women.

He is respectful towards Ling Wen, treats her as his equal, is actually baffled when people tell stories about her sleeping around so she ascends and is overall friends with her. We know what he is like towards woman that dont act girly (rip Ban Yue).

But does Pei Ming consider her a woman in his brain? I know its ridiculous, but I think Pei Ming has some weird excuse to not consider her a woman because he is not attracted to her and she is not attracted to him. Also the part about her being worshipped as a male literature god, because yes. Pei Ming knows Ling Wen is strong and capable and she wouldnt actually care for his remarks if he ever wanted to say something about her. MAIN POINT: she is strong and uninterested and he doesnt like both of those traits.

Then we should also talk about Xuanji, the general he left because she had bigger dick than him probably. Maybe she defeated him in a sword fight and he just couldnt stand it. We will never know what was the turning point. But she held a strong feelings towards him, leading her to hurting herself and making everything in her power just do he could feel superior. He still leaves her though because if he stayed after that he probably would be even more ashamed. His pride makes him leave her, completely helpless too because she has broken legs. She is obsessed because at this point what else can she do really? She no longer can walk, she cant fight, the man of her life left her. Then she actually becomes ghost that kills other pretty women. Part of her delusion is that she blames herself and other girls for pei mings way of being. which is tragic if you think about it. She is out of her mind and jealous, she never attacks him, just the girls which are of his taste or the ones with which he flirts with (Ban Yue, once again, poor soul, she didnt sign up for this). Xuanji thinks commiting crimes is going to make Pei Ming care about her and notice her. Which really, this girl was a female general, too strong for martial god Pei Ming to handle, but she fell in love with this person who doesnt treat her right and makes her go mad with bitter feelings.

He literally scolds Ban Yue that he knows for 3 mins because she cant cook (how unladylike)

So the cause of this is probably that he sees her as potential partner for Little Pei. He makes an assesment according to his standards of what he expects of a girl. And Ban Yue isn't meeting any of his standards, because she is a fighter too and isn't "pretty enough" and apparently she cant cook too, so Little Pei should run away, because Pei Ming would if he even glanced at her twice in the first place. Little Pei Has different principals and its actually found out quite early. He is trying to repair his mistakes, takes his punishment and while descended he really enjoys his life, he likes Ban Yue.

Pei Ming and his saviour syndrome

So its the most noticable with Yushi because she literally does not give a shit or even aknowledges his struggles to make her more "ladylike" in his eyes. She is the one that saves him constantly. And that makes him malfunction. Because she is soft, elegant anx polite, she smiles and her "strongness" is different, she is not a fighter. She just lives with her people in Yushi and is just so straighforward, its blinding for pei ming. She is petite too (from what I remember) so his alpha urge to protect her is even more significant. But she is actually badass, can handle herself and is just polite to him. He doesnt feel that she finds him attractive so he cant label her, because her energy is not like ling wens in nature, but she is just as capable.

Pei Ming doesnt seem to mind hua cheng and xie lian relationship.

Wow a one good point and its not concerning women, but lets give him that.

hunxi-guilai

Firstly, thank you SO much for taking your time to answer all our Untamed questions. Secondly: if you don’t mind, maybe you could talk about that iconic line around 4:46 of episode 27, which YouTube translates as “If I am doomed to death, at least I could be killed by you. That would be worth it.” I know it more or less works out to “I trust you more than I'd trust the rest of them,” but it seems an odd thing to say regardless, so I wonder how much I'm missing.

oh hey there! I translated this line super fast in this post, but there’s... a lot going on in that post, and I never delved into this line in particular.

prepare for tears tears tears

Okay so first of all? The slight amount of slow motion on Wei Wuxian’s withdrawal of Chenqing, and holding it out between them? Thanks, I hate it, because it’s reminding me that in this show, there are maybe three instances when Wei Wuxian initiates a fight with Lan Wangji. The first time is the waterfall fight in Cloud Recesses summer school, when Wei Wuxian draws on Lan Wangji and trades a few blows before he realizes who Lan Wangji is (i.e. not an enemy combatant), at which point he promptly sheathes his sword and commences the flirting teasing. The third time is when they stand on opposite ends of a rooftop on the worst night of their lives.

Meanwhile, Lan Wangji starts fights with Wei Wuxian like, all the time -- their first moonlit meeting, in the Qinghe Nie compound (and if I may indulge myself, throughout all of Sunshot); I’m even inclined to give the waterfall fight to Lan Wangji as well, because he sneaked up on purpose, he was so ready for that fight and probably would’ve been too happy to keep trading blows (I firmly believe that bb!Lan Wangji was ferociously competitive).

But I’m getting distracted from the sads. This is the second time we see Wei Wuxian draw on Lan Wangji, and the first time we see him do so with Chenqing. It’s definitely the first time we see Wei Wuxian offer a genuine, heartbroken challenge to fight him for real -- this isn’t a sparring match anymore, this isn’t just another friendly bout between fellow cultivators. Wei Wuxian is prepared to die for what he’s doing, and he’s prepared to let Lan Wangji be the one to kill him.

(and if Lan Wangji had fought him, right there, right then? How far would he have gone? How far would either of them have gone?)

Wei Wuxian says:

蓝湛 / Lan Zhan

如果我和他们之间必有一战 / if there must be a fight between me and them

那我宁愿和你决一生死。/ then I would rather fight to the death with you.

要死，/ If I must die,

也至少死在你含光君的手上. / then at least I would die by you, Hanguang-jun, at your hands

不冤了。/ I would not be wronged.

Okay! So I’ve gone back and changed some parts of my older translation to be a little more faithful to the text in order to highlight some parts I want to point out:

如果我和他们之间必有一战 / if there must be a fight between me and them

那我宁愿和你决一生死。/ then I would rather fight to the death with you.

In the first line, Wei Wuxian is fighting the entire cultivation world, one against many. He says 他们 tamen, ‘them,’ the third-person plural pronoun, instead of 你们 nimen, ‘all of you,’ the second-person plural. Then, in the second line, he emphasizes that he doesn’t think of Lan Wangji as one of them. Lan Wangji is different for Wei Wuxian; he’s always been different.

This is barely two episodes after Wei Wuxian says to Lan Wangji in a sunlit forest on Phoenix Mountain, I had once taken you for the one who knew me, and received the answer I still am.

要死，/ If I must die,

也至少死在你含光君的手上. / then at least I would die by you, Hanguang-jun, at your hands

What I glossed over in my translation last time was the fact that Wei Wuxian, in this moment, specifically calls Lan Wangji by his title, Hanguang-jun. The hands are not Lan Zhan’s, Lan Wangji’s -- the hands he would die at are Hanguang-jun’s. Wei Wuxian evokes the idealized, glorified version of Lan Wangji that the cultivation world knows him as; Wei Wuxian calls upon the Lan Wangji who is famed for his unswerving righteousness and impeccable conduct, the bearer of an impartial light that illuminates good and evil, regardless of factionalism or politics. Hanguang-jun is the version of Lan Wangji that Wei Wuxian trusts with the verdict on his life, and Hanguang-jun is the farthest from the Lan Zhan he called his 毕生知己 bisheng zhiji.

(Not to keep shoving this post in people’s faces, but I have a lot of feelings about how Wei Wuxian trusts Lan Wangji to take him down if he goes too far, and I don’t want to repeat them all here because I used up all of my words there)

不冤了。/ I would not be wronged.

This is probably the biggest change I’ve made in this translation -- in a previous post, I translated it as “it would be worth it” because I was leaning on the 达 da and 雅 ya sides of the translation triangle, and I stand by that translation as communicating the essential sentiment of the line with the least amount of confusion.

But we’re not here for easy answers on this blog, we’re here for the most painful ones --

a lot of this sentence hinges on the word 冤 yuan, which means injustice, grievance (thanks Pleco) or, in its verb form here, to be wronged. Before anyone asks, no, it’s not the same yuan as resentful energy -- which is 怨 -- which is a nice instinct, but alas.

I personally have a lot of emotional connections with the word 冤 yuan because it’s one of the central themes of 《琅琊榜》Langyabang / Nirvana in Fire, a show that keeps coming up on this blog and one I love with every fiber of my mortal being. Especially through the context of LYB, you can see how powerful of a force 冤 yuan can be -- whereas CQL, one might say, is driven by 愧悔 kuihui / regret and shame and how to live a life free from it (from Wei Wuxian’s 问心无愧 wenxinwukui to Lan Wangji’s 我有悔 woyouhui / I have regrets), LYB in contrast is driven by 冤 yuan -- from 冤枉 yuanwang / wrongful treatment to 冤案 yuanan / unjust case to 冤魂 yuanhun / the unrestful wronged spirits of the dead to 雪冤 xueyuan / to wash clean the injustice, until what’s left is white as snow.

Okay I’m getting distracted by LYB, but the point still stands -- 冤 yuan is an incredibly powerful word, and Wei Wuxian’s usage of 冤 yuan here encompasses so fucking much:

if I die at your hands, I would not be wronged

I wouldn’t come back as a vengeful spirit

I wouldn’t haunt you for what you’ve done

if I die at your hands, I would not blame you

if I die at your hands, you would be in the right

if I die at your hands, it would be worth it for me

you know me, so I trust you to lay judgment on me

and I will accept your verdict with no resentment or ill-feeling

even if that means that I die at your hands

One last dig of the knife, which is something I didn’t notice until I re-watched this line to write this post: Wei Wuxian says all of that -- Wei Wuxian says a l l o f t h a t -- with the softest, saddest smile on his face

because he knows the monumental scope of what he’s asking of Lan Wangji in that moment -- I trust you, he says in that moment, to kill me -- and so that goddamn smile? That smile says two things:

thank you,

and

I’m sorry

flwerpath

I am here for you now…

a-cutebird

hunxi-guilai

师父 I have a tiny discussion request (only if you have the time/inclination). The scene when Wei Wuxian returns from Burial Mounds there is a tense exchange between him and Lan Wangji where he uses Lan Wangji’s title 含光君 ; a lot of people have talked about that specific moment, but I feel like a lot of nuance of their conversation (and the things 江澄 says) was lost in translation. Basically, I was wondering if you had any thoughts you wanted to share on that scene. Thank you for everything you do!

listen…you can’t just point at one of my favorite scenes in the entire show and call it a ‘tiny discussion request’…

all right, so, funny story — while I was writing my response to this ask, I sat down and rewatched that scene on YouTube with 1) the sound off (otherwise my brain will process the dialogue and not the subs) and 2) with English subtitles on, and I just…I can’t even…it was an experience. Only six minutes of an experience, mind you, but I don’t think I fully understood what y’all were suffering out there in the subtitled world. People put up with fifty episodes of these subs??? You are all much stronger and more forgiving than I.

If anyone’s still wondering if the dialogue sounds better in Chinese? It absolutely sounds better in Chinese.

One thing that I really love about this scene is how every character is active in the conversation, even if they’re not the ones actively speaking. In the first half of the conversation, the camera/editing tracks Lan Wangji’s responses to Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian’s conversation, and you can literally see Lan Wangji piecing together what Wei Wuxian isn’t saying way before it comes up in conversation (all hail Wang Yibo, microexpression king). While Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng are bickering about some imaginary secluded master and their powerful secret cultivation techniques, Lan Wangji is already lightyears past either of them, working through the ramifications of Wei Wuxian’s demonic cultivation to reach the sole conclusion of come back to Gusu with me before he even opens his mouth to speak.

But that’s for later.

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