I’ve seen a lot of posts recently which rightly cry for help in working out the timeline these days. Ever since June of last year, starting with chapter 443 (Haircuts), it’s been really hard to determine where the newest chapters fit in any timeline. Even my analysis may not be correct, so if you have other ideas, please share! I took a close look and came up with these:
Four Distinct Timelines:
Third year of middle school, boys are 15 (chapters 51-445, except special chapters)
Zhan Zheng Xi’s first year of university when Jian Yi returns – guys are 18-19 (chapters 1-50)
Christmas and Chinese New Year of He Tian’s return, ZZX is finishing uni, guys are 21-22 (Xmas special chapters, chapters 452 to present, chapter 462 and possibly 415 and 438; New Year activities last 2 weeks)
Post-age 22, guys are settled in their relationships (chapters 446-451, various Special Chapters, and much single-panel art).
The Breakdown:
Chapters 1-50 are a series of short, unconnected comics and single panels that are set during and after JY’s return. ZZX notes that JY disappeared the second day of high school. JY says he was kidnapped and taken to a remote island, but ZZX doubts this. ZZX is at university, and JY is repeating an unnamed year at high school. One scene shows them leaving a public drinking date, so they’re over 18, but it seems to be early in ZZX’s uni days, so they’re probably 18 or 19.
Chapter 51 begins a long flashback to the 3rd year of middle school, when the guys are about 15. Chapter 445, Mo Guan Shan’s shut down of She Li posted July 1, 2024, is the last chapter from the school years so far.
Not yet shown is exactly when HT leaves, but it’s assumed from other context to occur before high school, roughly when JY also disappears.
Between chapters 51 and the current chapter are many special chapters that depart from the school timeline. They’re often written for Chinese holidays and stand alone. One exception is the series of Christmas chapters written between 2017 and 2023. These are set on a single Christmas day and the immediate days following and show HT’s return from his long absence overseas. Three consecutive New Year’s chapters may show different days from the same New Year that follow the end of the Christmas chapters.
The Christmas chapters, followed by Chapter 452, begin a new timeline. HT is recently back from overseas and is earning his own money with a new unnamed business. MGS works on cars as a new apprentice at a luxury car modification shop (though he was taking out trash from somewhere else in the first Christmas chapter; maybe that was his last day?) ZZX seems to be in the final months of university and interviews for an entry position at a firm. He’s living at home. JY’s life is not yet described, but he not earning money to rent a place, so he may be a student as well. The guys are probably around 21 or 22.
Chapters 446-451 have no obvious timeline clues. Based only on MGS boldly wearing an assortment of earrings and a common orange cap, I’m guessing they’re probably set in the future beyond the latest chapter 452 timeline when their relationships are more settled.
I haven’t dared consider the single-panel art, mostly set in the more distant future (my “settled relationships” timeline). In these, we can see that HT and MGS have developed a highly sexual relationship, and JY and ZZX are more romantic than demonstrative.
Here are the special chapters that I grouped into where I think they fall on the timeline.
Anyway, this is a clear example of why I miss the old art style: the light, the movement, the emotions… Everything was expressive and dynamic, the art had a life and character of its own. Now everything is too crisp and clean and polished, and the characters often look like stiff mannequins, it comes off as generic and lifeless.
So, one (ONE) anon asked me to elaborate on this, and now here we are.
Long and messy personal rant, with example art, beneath the cut.
Important reminder here: Don't Like, Don't Read!
This contains exactly what it says on the tin, so if this is not your jam, just go read something else.
There are so many panels now that just seem like a repetition of previously used illus. Ever since the story at Qiu’s place, where one of the drawings of him gets re-used with zero variation, I’ve been noticing more and more just how repetitive things get.
The characters look more alike too.
And now the characters’ expressions are often exaggerated into these goofy, rubbery faces that are frankly just ugly to my eyes. The only one of the boys that doesn't get this treatment is He Tian. So now Zhengxi and Guanshan are also airheaded goofballs, whenever it pleases OX, and their established individual character traits are optional elements.
I used to love the subtle expressiveness of the art, and how much of the story was told in the tiny glances and shifts in expression and body language. Well, that doesn't exist anymore. Hit me with a rubber mallet. Right in the face. And don’t worry about the characterisations either. Just throw that to the winds for the sake of goofy arse rubber-face slapstick. I guess we’re not supposed to care about the characters as people, just laugh at the jokes and simp uncritically at the romance and sexy-times allusions. /sarcasm
But seriously, there are too many badly drawn panels for such a good and experienced artist. Is the drawing being outsourced to assistants? Is some of it just AI with minimal cleanup? Remember the six fingered hand in that panel at Buzzcut's place?... (˃̣̣̥⌓˂̣̣̥ )
sad sad sad sad sad... i know the artist can do so much better
So many of the backgrounds are just modified photos. Zoom in 0n them a bit and it becomes extremely obvious. They were run through a few filters, and then maybe cleaned up/colour corrected a bit. Even the background on that drawing of Jian Yi’s back (see below), where it’s completely unnecessary to add such a thing — it’s just a bad habit at this point.
At least there's a bit of greenery sometimes (and the backstory for Qiu gave us a little break), but there is so much colourless concrete, steel and glass. Everywhere.
The colours sre flat and weirdly smooth and everything sort of looks like a boring office building? even the characters? a lot of the time? how does that even work?
Also, what's with the ugly boring clothes? Loose, slippery-smooth whites, greys, tans and black. Jian Yi has been drawn in this weird type of uncle-trousers a lot now (the kind he's wearing, again!, in the latest chapter). Is it a Chinese thing? Would you expect a 19 year old to attend a rap concert dressed in these officeworker slacks with pressed folds and all? I'm just feeling a little bit lost here. Jian Yi has been shown to have a quirky fashion sense, and I know that OX can draw clothes and has demonstrated interest in fashion since the early days of drawing. I have favourites! This just reads as a lack of interest in the work, to me.
And what's going on here?
I know OX can draw anatomy beautifully. I know that. Because I've seen it. Repeatedly. So wth is going on? Look at that back, it's a travesty! Stiff and flat and like those shoulder blades are just a couple of slabs slapped on there, and not actual scapulas with muscle attached. Instead of expressive art, we get a little tremble-line to tell us he's upset. Sob sob sob - I am fucking sobbing at this!
And the abs on Jian Yi here... ???!?
(N.B: more of those double lines (see below). Sorry, at this point I just hate them so much)
Jian Yi is canonically a long, skinny, decidedly un-athletic guy. We've been shown that. Repeatedly. He can’t run without collapsing afterwards. He's so skinny he used to look borderline anorexic (and, lbr, it fits his character so well. It makes sense for him. Why would you jettison that? Why make all the characters buff? What's the point?)
The double lines, that I marked with little arrows in the images further up? I noticed them becoming more and more ubiquitous a while back, and now they’re just default anatomy descriptors. It’s lazy, boring, stiff… Like, what is that shit? They’re supposed to denote shading, and the doubling is meant to make the line more lively and expressive, but instead it’s being used in such a mechanical way that it just makes them more stiff looking!
I am so sad! I am literally grieving the art!
Look at this shit. They ALL get the poofy-lips treatment now, every single one of them. Why? It’s such bad characterisation. The entire main cast getting the same-look bishounen treatment (and it's not just the kips, but that's what I'm focussing on here for comparison purposes). I didn't even go back and get the most egregious examples of this, I just grabbed the first ones I came across.
There’s a ten-images-per-post limit, so I can’t include She Li here, but even he gets the treatment. Just check the latest chapter with him.
I mean, I don't like the poofy lips on any of them, but the worst, the absolute worst, is seeing them on He Cheng and Qiu
(ﾉ-_-)ﾉ ~┻━┻ ☆
You may be asking yourself at this point: didn’t they just say the rubber faces were ugly? and now the prettyboy face is a problem as well?!
Yeah. The current art style cycles between prettyboy mask, excessive rubber-face clowning, and chibi-style emoting (you can find lots of examples of the latter in recent chapters, usually with He Tian doing a slightly modified version in the background or off to the side).
I am dying. This weirdly smooth, characterless style, with the boring clothes and rubber faces and repetitive panels, and the frankly faithless characterisations paired with how there is no love for their individual stories...
And really, the whole disregarding-the-established-characterisations is another rant all of its own. I have copious short outbursts in my drafts from the many, many times I got pissed off at that happening, but I haven't done a coherent rant, because I am frankly scared of making myself so sad that I'll want to leave off interacting with the material altogether.
Omg thank you for that post! I've been feeling really disappointed with the art lately but I couldn't really describe what was making me feel this way? You used the exact words I was missing!!!
I've been following this story basically from the start and tbh the old art style, even if it's old and kinda wonky, is still my favourite so far. Yes it has some problems with anatomy etc but at least every character looked unique! One look at the face, eyes, hair, body, anything and you could tell who it is. But nowadays it's all the same. Like they all have the same body shape, everyone is buff and athletic out of nowhere?? Almost the same-face syndrome too!
And the worst part is that those boys are supposed to be middle schoolers! 15 years oldish and yet they basically look the same as He Cheng and Qiu who are grown ass adults??? I cannot stand the fact that He Tian and He Cheng look basically the same now??? (I know they are brothers bla bla but they are years apart from each other!!
Look at the body shapes here, they look like regular teenagers, and JY is basically a stick figure as he hates working out! Also they have very distinctive features and characteristics.
And look how She Li has changed. He looks sooo much older and also like He Tian but with white hair...
And yes!! the backgrounds!! They start to really look like photoshop filters or just straight-up AI, which makes it feel so boring and half-done.
I still love this comic as I've dedicated a big chunk of my life to following it, but it really feels like OX doesn't really know what to do with it and where to go. Both with the plot and the art style. And it really hurts me to see it like that :(((
So, remember this 19 Days meta I wrote a while back, where I look at instances of jealous/possessive behaviour between Jian Yi and Zhan Zhengxi? My conclusion was that Jian Yi stops exhibiting this behaviour as soon as they start dating (i.e. as soon as Zhengxi commits to him), while Zhengxi continues to display possessive and sulky jealous behaviour on occasion.
At the time, I thought this was a sign of Zhengxi being less secure in their relationship. That he continued to doubt the security of Jian Yi's commitment (in the college-age arc, possibly also due to Jian Yi's highschool disappearance). But this reason never really sat right with me. So, here's a different take on why Zhengxi continues to show this moody, possessive behaviour from time to time, throughout the span of the story: he doubts himself.
Zhengxi is from this super mainstream middleclass family. Everyone, including himself, has always expected him to lead a very normal life, and part of that is getting married and starting a family. It's not that he's interested in getting married or starting a family, it's just that it is expected to be a natural step in life, once he's completed university and gotten a job. And he hasn't questioned this. Not until his whole gay awakening (or at least "Jian Yi awakening") in the last year of middle school.
I already read all of this as a central part of his struggles, coming to terms with the shifting nature of their relationship. But I think that, even after he works through the internalised homophobia and shit, and starts dating Jian Yi, he still hasn't worked through these things in relation to his family or the wider cultural expectations aimed at him. He's used to being a good son, a good brother, a good student... A large part of his self image is based on this: on being a model citizen; and he doesn't know what to do with that, if he can't follow the script.
Re-evaluating his relationship with Jian Yi, and navigating the shift from childhood BFFs to romantic couple, is something he could do with and in relation to Jian Yi. Despite his sister being present for some of the struggles, he doesn't have to tell his family anything. And he doesn't tell them anything about dating Jian Yi, not as far as we can tell. And I think this is the source of his continuing internal conflict: that he is commited to their relationship internally (in direct relation to Jian Yi, and affirmed within their peer group when necessary); but he hasn't followed up externally. He hasn't figured out how to reconcile being in a comitted gay relationship with being a good citizen*. And as long as he hasn't settled this conflict within himself, he continues to feel the pressure to marry and establish a family.
I think his insecurity is based in a fear that he might eventually betray their love, because he doesn't know how to navigate around it.
*) Current Chinese policy towards lgbtq persons is, that it is not illegal to be queer, but it is also not accepted/accommodated. It is simply ignored. Which means that you will not be legally persecuted, but you will also have zero protection from discrimination of any kind, including from e.g. police, doctors, teachers, employers, etc. And the overall cultural climate towards queer people in China is pretty negative/unaccepting.
Jian Yi is so into Zhengxi's looks! He knows it and he shows it and he calls him "handsome" to his face. It's not that Zhengxi's looks are the reason for his feelings, but that his feelings make him very susceptible to Zhengxi's looks.
And it's not like Zhengxi is indifferent to how Jian Yi looks either, we get a few scenes showing just how affected he is when Jian Yi flaunts his assets. But he is obviously just as taken with him when he's muddy, wet, has a running nose, etc.
It’s so heartwarming and they had such a fun night of smiles, and I wish I could ignore the anxiety gnawing at me saying that all this fun is the last fun they’re going to have for a while—and not just because he tian is leaving soon😭
I know everyone is talking about tianshan (because really who wouldn't die for Mo rn) but zhanyi holding hands clingy zhanyi head in lap heart eyes zhanyi
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