Rambling and incoherent spoilers follow the read more tag.
....
They never had a scene showing them discovering that there's a missing page in the book of dangerous music, but Wei Wuxian just talked about the missing page. 😰 And when I first watched this, I probably thought that was a translation error, rather than a "well, everyone's already read the novel anyway, right?" moment. 😅
The translator has apparently changed, because it's now the "Collection of Turmoil" when last episode I think it was translated as the "Book of Turmoil." (Or maybe not. I'm feeling too lazy to check.)
Good grief, now the sign above the gateway leading into the courtyard in front of the house is being translated as "Shadow Bamboo Pavilion." It's a different sign than the one directly on the door of the house (the one that Google Translate swears reads "the room is quiet") but...unfortunately, as expected my phone doesn't read the sign as having anything written on it. 😰
See? It's understandable that the phone app can't recognize that sign as having writing on it...but I really kind of doubt that it says "shadow bamboo." That doesn't sound like a very Cloud Recesses type of name.
Okay...so...my brain is apparently a deeply flawed thing.
We're at Lan Xichen explaining the whipping scars on Lan Wangji's back, right? (Since explaining in the midst of the final confrontation is a little...uh...yeah. Understandable that they changed it. Also since they can't admit any of the romance stuff in words.) It was firmly in my mind from when I originally watched this (only two years ago!) that Lan Wangji was thus beaten for having fought to defend Wei Wuxian at Nightless City and then having tried to save him when he flung himself over the cliff.
It turns out that wasn't it at all. He was totally not punished for that at all, but instead went to the Burial Mounds to keep everyone else from searching the place (which is how he found and rescued a-Yuan, so that at least makes sense, except for how the heck a-Yuan was left behind when everyone else left in a body, and how such a tiny child survived there alone for the weeks (or months!) all that travel would have taken) and even apparently fought to prevent them from searching (though that may have been "fought" in the sense of "argued with" since no one else seemed to be wounded and the only wound we can see on Lan Wangji in the flashback is the one he received at Nightless City) and it was for that that he was punished.
I can't believe my brain just totally lost that. Heck, that scene's where the "You are not qualified to talk to me." line comes from! (Though I think he uses it again later, 'cause I could swear it came from the (second) Siege of the Burial Mounds.)
Anyway, then we go into the explanation about the Twin Jades' mother. Though I don't entirely understand why they decided Lan Wangji should be living in his mother's house. I mean, I know he has deep trauma about her death, and there's a component of his love for Wei Wuxian that's because Wei Wuxian reminds him of his mother, but...living in her house seems kinda...
Well, among other things, it seems like no one would allow him to live there. What with it being way the heck off away from the other houses. One of the bonus stories in the novel specifically says that Lan Wangji's house is very near his uncle's house (and that therefore Wei Wuxian needs to be quiet at night so they won't wake Lan Qiren with loud sex 🤣) so this is clearly an invention on the part of the drama. But maybe it's just so they didn't need to make another set? In the novel, Wei Wuxian's first present-day visit to Cloud Recesses is centered around Lan Wangji's house, and the second one (ie this one) is centered around the late mother's house, so if they're both the same house then they don't need to have two sets. That's all I can think of.
But it does mean I need to rewrite a bit of the reference in my fic, because if Lan Wangji is living in his mother's house, then it definitely didn't get burned down along with the rest of Cloud Recesses, so it's not a case of "come see how well it's been rebuilt" and just "come see it."
Oh, this is also when the drama mentions the name of Lan Xichen's house. (Or rather the clan leader's house.) And they translated it as the "Frigid Chamber." I...uh...I think I'll stick with the "Wintry Room" from the official translation of the novel.
Ah, crap. Lan Xichen's dialog here specifically says that "this woman didn't fall in love with my father." I had it that she did love him back, and that the man she had killed was trying to get rid of her as being unworthy of marrying the young clan leader.
Ugh.
On top of having to change it to a much worse situation for that poor woman, now it completely deflates the comparisons I was making between her and Wei Wuxian. 😖 (Specifically, later in the relationship, I had Lan Xichen muse that if he cannot find any other way to make his uncle accept Lan Wangji's unconventional choice of romantic partner, he should at least be able to point out to him that Wei Wuxian wouldn't stop at killing just one person if anyone should try to part him from the man he loved. The other comparisons could still work, but that one? That one would be shattered and irreparable.)
Well...maybe I'll just leave it and call it part of the AU...
Though, honestly, the story doesn't make a lot of sense if she was unwilling. Because if she doesn't love him, why did she marry him? He couldn't force her into it; he could force a lot of other things, but marriage is not really...I mean, there are a lot of ways to force someone into getting married, but if she killed one of his teachers, then she's obviously a powerful martial artist, so it's already going to be much harder for anyone to force her to do anything. But even setting all that aside, if she was being forced into all of it, why wouldn't she either escape or take her own life rather than staying in that house all alone for possibly as much as ten years?
Hmm.
I'm trying to guess just how much older Lan Xichen is than Lan Wangji in this version, so I can have the ages of the characters right in my fic, but it's hard to tell. Early on (like the second episode of the flashback), Lan Xichen has dialog that implied he had actually raised Lan Wangji after their father's death, suggesting that he's significantly older.
But the shot of them as children right after their mother's death...I don't know. I don't know how to tell how old children are by looking at them. In the novel, Lan Wangji is six when his mother dies. So if we assume the kneeling baby Lan Zhan is six, then the standing baby Lan Huan is...🤷 I don't know how to tell a child's age. He's definitely more than the year or two older that he would be in the book. He might be as old as ten, maybe? If he's four years older, then when my fic starts Lan Xichen would be around twenty-two. I think that's about the age bracket I had picked out when I was writing it. I hope.
Wait. If Lan Wangji was just going to check on his uncle's recovery, but they're waiting for him at his house, then how did he change his hairstyle and what did he do with his crowning ornaments? Also, did he detour the twenty li to town to get that wine, or did he have it stashed at Cloud Recesses somewhere other than under the floorboards of his house?
...it's like the script was written with Lan Wangji's house and his mother's house being two separate things, just as in the novel, only then they decided to film with them being the same place and they didn't update anything in the script.
😰
That being the case...do I need to change the reference in my fic or not? 😰 Yet something else I need to ask someone's advice on, I guess.
...uh...
There is no way Wei Wuxian could give a cavalier "whatever" about someone hijacking his orders and causing the death of his precious shijie. All the other deaths, maybe he could be so cavalier about it (though I don't think he could be that cavalier about the deaths of the Wen remnants he was working so hard to protect, especially since he believes a-Yuan to have been killed, too), but never about Jiang Yanli's, and her death was the direct result of the other dizi player at Nightless City.
Whatever they were aiming for with that moment, they missed the mark.
Okay, the long follow-up speech helped, but it's still sorta problematic.
By this point, they're basically just using the word "puppet" but talking about fierce corpses. 😰 Also the thing with them searching the Burial Mounds does not really count as a "Siege" in any sense I'm aware of. 😅
Hehehe...it's cute how Lan Wangji changes the subject rather than letting Wei Wuxian suggest new titles for Wangxian.
😷
I think I made myself sick by mowing the lawn yesterday.
😭
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