I hope you enjoy NYC. It’s a great place to visit for film fans or otherwise. :)

There was more than what is pictured in that photo I just wanted to give a sense of what the store had. You can see my photo only really covers the middle part of the alphabet.

I think I may try to go back there again when the November sales hits. Just seeing that huge wall of stacked criterion films made me very happy.

Oh I’ve been to the Moving Image museum and absolutely loved it. But I have only made it out there once and would love to go back. I usually do day trips to NYC so have to plan my timing with the train to get to Queens.

Did my comment go over your head?

1) I already own a lot of Criterion titles. I did not start collecting this year so I already own movies that were in the store. But I am still selective because I don’t have the space or money to buy every Criterion title. So I only buy my absolute favorite movies.

2) Just because I am saying a movie is not a must buy for ME does not mean I am saying it’s a bad movie or it can’t be a must buy for someone else. Do you care that much what another person wants to buy? That’s so weird.

Wow this is an extremely rude and judgmental comment. I said nothing in the store was a must buy for ME. You do not know my budget, what I already own, and what my personal tastes are.

Nowhere did I say the selection was bad. I am literally recommending the store to other fans. Just because I personally did not buy something does not mean I am saying that nothing in the store is worthy of buying for other fans. There was just nothing that I wanted or needed right away. I even said I resisted the temptation.

How does that make me elitist?

Taming Wangxian is the name of the translation group. The novel did not change names.

Yeah do not buy this it’s a bootleg. The novel was never released officially in Simplified Chinese outside one volume- and it was censored.

Definitely share your painting with us when you are finished. I would love to see it.

I mean is that not the point that it’s “out of character”? Wei Wuxian can drive Lan Wangji to do things he would never normally do. Wei Wuxian has that much impact on him.

Here is a quote from MXTX from the Interview she did in Subaru in 2023 about this scene

I especially like the part where they were in Xuanyu Cave. Wei Wuxian kept teasing and poking. While they were in there alone together, he kept provoking Lan Wangji. Amazingly he managed to provoke Lan Wangji into biting him? Wa! My readers grit their teeth and said: "There's no need to be so charming ok! Please feel free to turn around and scram!" But before they even knew it, they had been enticed by him (Wei Wuxian). In other aspects, Lan Wangji is Wei Wuxian's opposite. He's an elegant, refined gong who's far removed from the petty squabbles of mere mortals. But he acts so cute whenever he's provoked and harassed by Wei Wuxian.

Yes exactly you need the character development to make the character work.

I take Amtrak (or NJ Transit) to Penn Station from Phila and walk to the theater district..

I really like it as a Bacall and Bogie vehicle. It’s more about the atmosphere, snappy dialogue and chemistry between the two leads

Also I read the Chandler novel and the mystery aspect is still confusing but you can see how the production code impacted a lot of things so when I read the novel certain things about the setting and characters made a lot more sense.

Also Bacall and Bogie’s characters do not end up together in the novel but it’s no surprise why they did so in the movie version.

Yes it was me

https://www.reddit.com/r/MoDaoZuShi/s/Ei1R0XRp1d

I’ll always love a Tsundere. Even though I don’t think realistically this type of character is a good romance partner. But for storytelling it’s great. Of course some are done better than others.

Some of what people are writing to you is not accurate. Not to mention there is the novel of MDZS and there are adaptions and the adaptions change major plot points in the story.

If you want to understand the story you have to read or watch it yourself. No one can tell you what happens except the most basic of summaries and this will not make you truly understand the story or characters or themes because you are missing the context.

Ha Ha don’t beat the messenger 😅

Yeah it’s obvious Wen Qing and JC comes from the Untamed. I mean does he not give her that comb? They interact quite a bit.

I think people who come from the Untamed are surprised there is absolutely nothing in the book. In the book what he wakes up screaming, is unconscious, visits the Burial Mounds and says send everyone back to their deaths. There is zero shipping basis.

But Xicheng has zero shipping basis in all versions. I am not saying people should not ship it ( knock yourself out) but I also understand people who see it everywhere in the fandom think there is something in the source material or an adaption and will be surprised when there is not.

I got it at Gmarket but that was back in 2021 and it’s no longer available there I am afraid 😢

Of the ones you mentioned I think Some Like it Hot would be a great one. It’s just a feel good Classic with so many memorable moments.

When you said Grease I thought of maybe Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Though this may depend on how much your mom would be cool with a musical in French.

I don’t read much fanfic so I can’t recommend anything but you bring up one of my favorite head canons of Lan Sizhui getting married and having kids and WWX and LWJ doting on his kids.

I am not an expert on the genre conventions beyond some basic knowledge so I will not comment on that.

But MXY’s soul being destroyed is mentioned in the text. So based on this it does sound like MXY’s soul was completely destroyed to me.

They would then sit in the center of the circle and give up their mortal body to evil spirits, using the annihilation of their soul as the price to summon a nefarious, malicious ghost.

It also notes if WWX did not fulfill the contract (even though he did not consciously agree to it) his soul would be destroyed

He was already inside this body, which was a silent acknowledgement that both parties had formed a contract. He had to fulfill the wish of the caster, or the curse would rebound, destroying the possessor’s primordial spirit and extinguishing it forever.

Edit: I do remember there were some debates in the fandom if MXY’s soul could enter the reincarnation cycle again. I feel like reincarnation is pretty complex so I don’t have an opinion on this personally.

Found someone referring to the original text they say the text seems to indicate that MXY can still reincarnate but WWX would not have been able to if he did not fulfill the contract

https://x.com/doufudanshi/status/1641605410799927299?s=46&t=2eeI4_CDpxikP0I9MGSlzQ 

Sure it’s possible. But the story we have in MDZS is not what she wrote in High School again outside some random scenes & dialogue. If she had wrote a full story out back then it may have ended up being very different to the story we ended up getting with these characters in MDZS.

MXTX actually said under her pen XY/XXC would never be a couple but she did not elaborate on her feelings about Song Lan/XXC because no one asked her.

But again I can’t say if she had wrote the story in HS it would be the same. And who knows maybe a decade from now she may say something different.

Edit: Just to add while I don’t strongly ship any non-canon ships in MDZS (I admit I am very Wangxian focused) I actually like the idea of Song Lan/XXC. I can see them just as friends but I can easily see them as more than friends as well.

Some of this is contradicted by what MXTX has actually said though about the Yi City arc

MXTX said she created XXC and Xue Yang in High School. She wrote some random dialogue for them but she never wrote out a full story for them. Song Lan is never mentioned as being in her original idea or A-Qing. A lot of people mistakenly think that MXTX took this fully formed old story idea and popped it into MDZS but that is not necessarily the case.

The characters Xiao XingChen and Xue Yang are pretty much old friends of mine. In high school, every evening self-studying session* I’d pay no attention to studying, sneakily writing things down on a notebook. That was when I settled on their names and overall personalities. But back then, there wasn’t a full plot or any context. There were only a few fragments of their interactions, some of which I directly put into the story, such as drawing sticks to determine who to purchase the vegetables. To have characters and pieces of dialogue that previously only existed in my head be seen by everyone and discussed so fervently is a curious feeling indeed.

Yes it’s possible that in another version of the story Song Lan and XXC would have been a romantic couple but there is nothing to show they were originally planned as a romantic couple either.