The Untamed - Nickname Edition

[rheasilvia]

It took a surprisingly long time, but solo and I finally finished watching The Untamed. I really enjoyed it! So of course, there is a pressing issue I must adress: NICKNAMES.

For the purposes of clever (?) commentary, solo and I came up with a number of nicknames while watching. We replaced some with actual names in due course, but others stuck around till the very end. ;-) (I should add that few of them are complimentary - but my surprise fave is among those with a really bad nickname, so...)

• Stoneface


• Jin Douche


• Canary Guy


• Sulkmeister


• Pretty Evil Guy, or PEG for short - also known as Cray Evil Guy by solo (who failed to appreciate his charms)


• Jin Douche.2, or JD2


• Slimeface, also Slimedude or Slimer


• Cute Baby Cultivator, or CBC


• Jim, also known as Golden Guy - named Jim because of solo's passionate non-spellchecked outbursts of "I really hate jim"


• Bonus nickname I came up with too late, but that I wish I had though of in time: Soup Girl

I now have a number of burning questions for all of you. Namely:

1. Can you tell who these people are?*

2. Do you have nicknames for The Untamed characters?

3. Why does nobody appreciate my darling properly?

So many qestions!


*If anyone guesses all of the nicknames, I will write a drabble for them. ;-)

ETA: Unsurprisingly, there are spoilers in the comments! Just in case anyone is even slower than I in watching this. ;-)

Comments

[lauand]

To be fair, I think they were kinda following the cues of the original material. The books pretty much lead them that way. In the Guardian novel there's also an immediate fascination between the characters, SW becauses he knows who ZYL is and what he is to him and ZYL because SW is kind of hot and interesting. That becomes complicated with the identity porn and eventually solves when ZYL "remembers" who he is. In the drama they potentiate all that and introduce the time traveling fuckery that makes all the reactions logical because the moment they meet is different for each of them and one of them is already utterly in love with the other one in each instance but has to hide it. It's a thing of beauty because the actors really took their job seriously and the creators decided to put a lot of focus on the character's feelings and reactions, since it was the only way they could keep the BL without crossing the line and getting censored. It was very well done and resolved. And the particular style of the actors meshed perfectly well with the characterization of the, well, characters. It really worked for me.

The Untamed is a bit different because also in the Mo Dao Zu Shi novel the dynamics are different. It's an excruciatingly slow burn for WWX and we can only guess about LWJ's feelings because he has the expressivity of a dead salmon. Which is part of his appeal, but well, the audience can't get into their relationship as easily because there's actually no relationship to speak of until WWX realizes his feelings, which is so close to the moment he also realizes LWJ's that that's basically at the end. Which works for me in the novel because the adventure telling and the intrigue is fantastically done and even their friendship and the way their morality aligns even though their methods clash is enough to keep my interest and to empathize with both of them. But in the drama, since the storytelling is a bit stiff, there's nothing to distract me from the fact that the chemistry is not really there. Also, I'm not totally sure about LGJ's actor, I can't totally envision him as the character (whereas WWX's is pretty much perfect for the role).

Okay, end of the essay. Sorry for the rambling.

[rheasilvia]

we can only guess about LWJ's feelings because he has the expressivity of a dead salmon

LOL! Potato, dead salmon... I sense a trend here. ;-)

But yes, absolutely. The situation is entirely different, and I definitely didn't expect the fascination and interest and depth of emotion to be there immediately, the way it is in Guardian - that doesn't fit the story. The relationship is set up to build slowly but steadily in The Untamed, which is also a lovely concept. For me, though, The Untamed drama never really realized this relationship potential - it didn't cash in on the premise, as it were. (And I do wonder what would have happened if an actor of Zhu Yilong's caliber had played LWJ. To me that would definitely have made a huge difference in terms of emotional impact and bringing the relationship to life.)