Chapter Text
Bathing Boy Beauties
So, now we and Wei Wuxian get to see Lan Wangji with his shirt off. Eventually Lan Wangji will realize that his brother set this up, and will think of some way to get back at him, possibly by spending three years being stubborn in a cave or maybe by chopping an arm off of someone his brother cares about.
This is A+ Yibo fanservice but it's also a male-male version of a trope that's ubiquitous in c-drama, in which the male lead takes a bath and the female lead sees him. The purpose of the scene is almost always so a woman can look a man’s body over and decide, not to put too fine a point on it, whether she wants to fuck him.
Examples:
The Pillow Book - “Which part of Shen Ye is better than me?”
Women’s sexual agency is not often at the forefront in c-dramas, but the bathtub scenes are an acknowledgement of the female gaze, and of male objects of desire being subject to evaluation & approval.
Tientsin Mystic is a show with a lot of muscley swimming in it, In case you’re looking for your next Netflix show.
As a CGI artist I have to mention that water does not reflect or refract 100% of light. If you look at a naked dingle-having person in a bathtub full of clear water you will definitely be able to see their dingle. But C-drama water is magic and nothing is visible below the waterline, to the point that Bai Yu is modestly covering his thoracic surgery scar chest in Detective L while leaving his lower half uncovered.
Note: that caption isn’t fake; she is really saying this on her way out the door, after having a long chat with him in the bathroom. You can find the whole series on YouTube.
Seen in this context, The Untamed’s two bathing scenes are saying quite a lot. Wei Wuxian, being a boy, doesn’t display any female-encoded shyness or modesty, but he and his sword pause for a moment of admiration.
16 years later, Lan Wangji will sit quietly in this pool and let Wei Wuxian examine his wet body thoroughly from multiple angles, in a more prolonged invocation of this C-drama mating ritual.
Carrying on - was Xiao Zhan supposed to kick his boot in the water like that? Because if not, he rolls with it like a champ.
Wei Wuxian starts trying to be direct with Lan Wangji, giving him the worst, most neg-filled compliment ever, bless his heart.
Then he says that there are benefits to being his friend, and starts taking off his clothes.
Wei Wuxian here takes his first step into the bold new world of respecting Lan Wangji’s boundaries, asking Lan Wangji to stay and saying he will keep his clothes on.
Lan Wangji actually does stay, so he's apparently not too angry with Wei Wuxian about the drinking. Wei Wuxian invites him to visit Lotus Pier sometime (see my gifset here), but the promise of lotus pods doesn’t impress him. Then Wei Wuxian tries to tell him that the Yunmeng chicks really knock me out, they leave the rest behind. This also doesn’t impress him.
You could read this macking-on-ladies talk as a sign that Wei Wuxian is oblivious to LWJ's feelings for him. But I read it as a bisexual boy being horny on main with a boy he likes, not understanding yet that some boys don’t share all of his turn-ons.
Lan Wangji is sort of mildly startled when Wei Wuxian disappears under the water. His eye makeup is good here, isn’t it?.
Ice Cave
They end up in an ice cave and both spend the rest of the episode showing how good they look with wet hair.
When the guqin starts attacking, Lan Wangji is only mildly perturbed about Wei Wuxian getting his shit rocked over and over.
Eventually he sends Bichen to protect his very bedraggled date. Lan Wangji’s sword is faster than the speed of a very slow sound wave.
Beauty's where you find it not just where you bump and grind it
Gusuship Down
I feel like there are a couple of things in this show that are so problematic the fandom has silently agreed to never discuss them. Well, I’m here to talk about this one:
There are rabbits in this ice cave and they are wearing headbands. HEADbands. On RABBits.
EXCELLENT FUCKING QUESTION, LAN WANGJI
*deep breath*
Are these rabbits lineal Lan descendants? Who makes the headbands? How do they stay on because “headband” here means “glowing cloud on forehead” without any actual band. When rabbit babies are born, how do they stay safe while they’re waiting for someone to make them baby-sized headbands? Do these rabbits adhere to the other 3499 Lan Clan principles or just the headband one? Is any ol' rabbit allowed to touch a rabbit’s headband or is it limited to parents and significant others and is that even relevant when presumably these bunnies are all fucking each other like...bunnies?
The characters are like “oh, the rabbits are wearing headbands; killer guqin problem solved.” And then they move right the fuck along with their lives and the rabbit headbands are never seen or discussed again and I just want a hit of whatever the author or creative team was smoking when they came up with this whole idea.
Headband Sharing
When Wei Wuxian tells Lan Wangji to hand over his headband, Lan Wangji understands his entire rabbit-based thought process without asking
Gen-X Joke Alert
Wei Wuxian is awfully impressed by this sword-recall trick, considering that he did it himself when they went to the lake.
I see you know your way around a sheath
Killer Guqin
When they approach the guqin I hope that the subtitles are mistranslated, because Wei Wuxian keeps promising not to touch it and then says he can't look at it without touching it. I'm not going to touch it, I just need to touch it.
Lan Wangji is going to teach Wei Wuxian some goddamn boundaries no matter how many times he has to make him fondle his sword.
Nothing suggestive here
Lan Wangji sits down to play the guqin and immediately goes off into the ether where there are seagull noises and plenty of fans. This is either a state of pure bliss, or he just really likes seagulls.
Did Lan Wangji just have a stealth orgasm?
Speaking of getting off, get your ass off of my desk
The Yin Iron
Lan Wangji does some spirit whispering, and suddenly the cave starts yelling at them. A bunch of clans are chanting in unison about a plan, which is the cultivator version of a battle cry.
Lancestor Lan Yi shows up. She is elegant and has a combination of sweetness and gravity that is similar to Lan Xichen’s. And none of Lan Qiren’s douchiness.
Search Party
Lan Qiren is worried and Lan Xichen is worried and they have sent people to look for the boys. It's really too bad nobody around here knows magic.
All these powerful cultivators search for missing people by running around outdoors yelling for them.
Yanli is excused from PE class because she’s not feeling well, so she sits on a rock in the woods instead of, you know, staying home in the first place. She gets bored sitting down and unwisely decides to walk two or three steps. Xuan Lu, seen here competing in a gymnastics event, gamely pretends she can’t climb a small rock.
Yanli falls into Jin Zixuan's arms and they gaze at each other for a long heterosexual moment.
No homosexual explanation possible
This means two things: 1. he isn't looking very hard for her brother if he's hanging out here catching wobbly girls 2. soulful longing looks from him ain't shit, because he's going to dump her in the next episode.
Lanny Granny
Lan Wangji intros himself to Lan Yi and does a full prostrate bow. Wei Wuxian does a standing bow since he's not a descendant, just a future in-law.
No I mean come on, HEADBANDS
Lan Gran explains the entire history of the yin iron. It's bad, it's full of resentful energy, no-one should use it. She’s going to dump it on a couple of 16 year old boys, one of whom has a woody for using resentful energy, because it’s destiny and her battery is about to run out.
Props to the Prop Department; this thing does look pretty cool
Xue Chonghai was the most problematic cultivator back in the old days. He killed a lot of dudes and fed their resentment to...a turtle? To the disk? I don’t know; I literally am unable to pay attention when anyone is explaining the intricacies of the unobtanium Yin Iron.
Anyway there’s a disk and it’s soaked up a lot of resentment.
Using it makes people evil. Well except..clearly this dude started off evil, yeah? If he was feeding people to his turtle.
Side effects may include: being fucking crazy
Here Wei Wuxian brings out his "resentful energy is awesome" theory and has an experienced grown-up grand master tell him that she also thought this, and has spent 100 years locked in a cave with headband-wearing rabbits because she was super fucking wrong. Does this deter him? ...nope
Baoshan Sanren
Now she name checks Baoshan Sanren, and Wei Wuxian has a big reaction and Lan Wangji has a big noticing of Wei Wuxian’s reaction. He’s very attuned to Wei Wuxian’s emotional state, in the moments where WWX lets his actual feelings show through the sass and swagger.
Lan Gran talks about her search for the Yin iron, and Lan Wangji wisely says, if you can't neutralize it, why look for it? And she says, I was filled with hubris just like ya boi Wei Wuxian. Lan Wangji points out the exact same shit he will later point out to Wei Wuxian.
So now we have a parallel in which Lan Yi is just like Wei Wuxian and Baoshan Sanren is just like Lan Wangji, yeah? Which is kind of sweet; it shows how these types are drawn together and how your clan doesn't determine your personality. Also it shows how the Lan clan has room for an unorthodox clan leader. Also it shows how the Yin Iron causes some really bad breakups.
These boys are standing on snow barefoot which has got to take a pretty high cultivation level. Look how short Lan Wangji is without his stilettos, aww.
Flashback to Baoshan Sanren, just long enough to appreciate how beautiful she is.
Did OP give up on recoloring that flashback-blue-hazed image and just start fucking around with random filters? Yes she did.
We also get to see that Lan Yi and Lan Wangji have more common than just guqin, because they both like to solve problems by kicking them.
So after breaking up with her girlfriend, Lan Gran became invisible in this cave for 100 years while trying to contain the Yin iron and put headbands on rabbits.
Soundtrack: Vogue by Madonna
Writing prompt: Watership Down rabbits meet Lan rabbits
Bonus extended bath clip:
Bai Yu, Detective L