some Ye Zun/Shen Wei ship meta
Jul. 18th, 2020 09:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
waterscrollRelated to this fic. (cn: the fic is E-rated noncon.)
Two pieces of meta here. The first one is on the idea that Dixing has no time. The first part of it may be of interest to people who aren't here for the twincest, just bail when it starts to get shippy. The second is on my attempts to start a rewatch (which is going slowly, because like Dixing I have no time) and what I'm seeing and how I'm dealing with it. That one probably is only of interest for people who share my shipping tendencies.
No real warnings for the meta, aside from the obvious: villain apologism and non-graphic twincest.
1. Dixing has no time
I keep turning this over and over in my head, and it keeps meaning different things. Because, what do you not have when you don’t have time? You don’t have schools, because schools are about training people for the future, which only works if you have a future, and time. You don’t have hospitals, because hospitals are about curing people so that they will be healthier in the future, and ditto. There’s no government, because govrnment involves planning for the future, and with no future and no time all the king can do is a sick parody of governance, burning through his life in a haze of signing documents with no purpose. Meanwhile the Treaty can’t be updated or renegotiated, because nothing can change.
(I have some sympathy for the Regent when I think this way. He doesn’t do a lot of good - and what he did to the Chu brothers is abhorent - but maybe he didn’t have a lot to work with. When Shen Wei asks him to reopen schools, maybe it wasn’t that he didn’t want to, maybe it was that he couldn’t, because the timelessness of life in Dixing prevents it.)
There also doesn’t seem to be any historical memory, other than vague mentions of Alliance times. I assume things were better before the Hallows were lost, but I don’t hear a lot of Dixingian talk about the Good Old Days. There are no empty schools and crumbling old hospitals. The awful of the present seems to be the only world they know.
But they do have bars, because when you live in an eternal present a bar is not a bad place to be. It’s a place for enjoying life in the moment. It makes sense that a bar is the main social institution of Dixing.
And look, as the main social institution of Dixing it actually does passably ok. The bar-drinkers of Dixing can organize themselves to overthrow Ye Zun after he literally says that he is going to kill everyone, which,okay, it’s something. When the overthrow of Ye Zun goes down it happens in a bar, because there is no other social institution to work with, because the bar is a social institution that doesn’t require time.
When you don’t have time you also don’t have justice, in the sense of reasonable terms for crimes that can be served. You can’t serve your time, because there is no time.
There is also no forgiveness, at least not in the sense of letting go of the past, because to do that there has to be a past. (There might be forgiveness in other senses.) Ye Zun can’t really distinguish between past and present, the (imagined) betrayals and traumas of the past are still completely present for him. As they would be when time doesn’t pass.
But there’s a seed of redemption hidden there, because if nothing is ever in the past because time never moves forward then any love that ever existed can never be lost. So in the end Shen Wei and Ye Zun hold hands and go home together, even right after killing each other. They once loved each other and that means that by necessity they still do, because Dixing has no time.
It’s so striking, Ye Zun really did get what he wanted in the end. He wanted a world without cheating, betrayal or abandonment, and after death with his brother he found it. And he got it on his own terms, not by letting go and moving forward but by refusing to let go of the past (that wasn’t really past, because Dixing has no time) and stripping away layers of it until he found the pure and beautiful world he wanted, that had in fact always been there. He doesn’t get it for everyone, but he does in the end get it for himself, in an afterlife that looks very much like the palace of Dixing.
2. Rewatching early episodes with wrongshippergoggles
I loved Ye Zun from episode 20, but after watching Ye Zun and Shen Wei hold hands and go home together right after killing each other I was 100% In Ship. I have nothing against hot twincest, but let’s be honest, if it were entirely unrelated characters holding hands and going home together right after killing each other I would still be completely here for it, it is the kind of thing that I am always going to be 100% here for. So here I am, declaring my allegiance and waving my ship flag.
And, it keeps changing how I see canon. In episode 3, Shen Wei talks about how some tragedies are destined from the beginning and about being hurt and disappointed by people. I’m remembering how in the early canon I was convinced that there was going to be a later reveal that Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan had hurt each other badly in the past and I have to say I was a bit disappointed that they didn’t because I love the trope of people loving each other after hurting each other so very much. Well, I guess it was a different ship that I had been wanting all along.
And in episode 2, Shen Wei says to Li Quan that if someone he loved was dying in front of his eyes his first thought would be to exchange his life for his. And I have the following conversation with myself:
Self: Yes, that’s how Shen Wei must have felt when his brother was taken by the Rebel Leader.
Self: No, you idiot, he’s talking about how he felt when Kunlun was taken by the Hallows. Guardian is canonically a love story between Shen Wei and Zheo Yunlan, you can’t make everything about your wrongOTP!
Self: Yes I can, I am a shipper and this is fandom and you can’t stop me. Also, a nice thing about being mind-controlled by an evil villain is that he lets me borrow his evil laugh, so Mwahaha.
And then I think: is this what rewatching the rest of canon is going to be like for me? Oh no I am doomed. And I haven’t even gotten to the whole Ge Lan/Sang Zan thing with an actual pillar.
So, okay, let’s try this.
What it looks like to me now is that ten thousand years ago Shen Wei lost two people that he loved deeply. (I’d say ‘in different ways’ but brotherhood is a canon euphemism for bonking so ::shrug::.) When he vagues about his angst, it’s not always clear which one he’s talking about, or if he’s thinking about both. We’re encouraged to see all his vagueing as about Zhao Yunlan by how beautifully we’re shown Shen Wei pining for him, but that’s not necessrily always the only truth.
If that’s the case, what is going on for Shen Wei is two parallel love stories that don’t intersect. One of them we’re shown openly but the other we’re not clearly shown until the end.
In the previous meta I went on and on about Ye Zun and Zhao Yunlan as pillar and lantern and how they’re the inverse of each other, but if the objects that people become are reflections of their character, well, Shen Wei is a bomb, created by the presence of two different kinds of energy within him. He holds so much inside him and then in the end, well, he explodes.
And in the end the two things still don’t reconcile. To state it as brutally as possible: While Zhao Yunlan is dying out of love for Shen Wei, Shen Wei is holding hands with someone else. It hurts even more because Zhao Yunlan doesn’t have anyone else like that in his life. The closest he gets is his friendship with Zhu Hong and her crush on him, but he states clearly that she’s not in his heart. While Ye Zun is in Shen Wei’s heart, and he even knows it (or knew it, back in the day), he’s just pissy that he’s not the only one.
But (to me, with my shippergoggles) it hurts as much when I describe it from the other side: After ten thousand years of feeling abandoned, Ye Zun finally has Shen Wei say that they are going to go home together, and then Shen Wei leaves him to wait for someone else. I feel like the normal way to read this is: going home is a euphemism for dying and after going up the celestial staircase Ye Zun is dead and so Shen Wei waiting around for Zhao Yunlan isn’t something he’d notice or care about. But I actually want them to be going home together in some real sense so I don’t want to read it that way. If I try to imagine that they die and are lost to each other permanently after just a few minutes holding hands it hurts even more.
But, okay, the story isn’t over yet. So it’s ok that the end hurts, because it’s not really the end. I guess that’s true no matter what shippergoggles I’m wearing. tl;dr, Shen Wei needs a hug, and I think multiple hugs from multiple people, separately or together. Maybe the different forms of energy can be brought together in a way that doesn’t make things explode. That would be really nice.
Point being, canon looks pretty different if I let myself think that some of Shen Wei’s constant vaguely described angst and pining is about his estranged omnicidal brother. I wonder if that will continue to hold up and, if it does, how that will change the rest of canon for me.
Thank you for reading, and if you found anything useful here please do leave a note.
Meanwhile, if Ye Zun interests you, please take a look at In Two Nights and a Day, a highly shippy and fun Ye Zun/Zhao Yunlan fic thatextrapenguin wrote for me for ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
equalityauction. It's got food porn, Zhao Yunlan being caretaking, and a lot of optimism about the possibility of actually meeting Ye Zun's needs even when they feel overwhelming. It made me very happy to read.
Two pieces of meta here. The first one is on the idea that Dixing has no time. The first part of it may be of interest to people who aren't here for the twincest, just bail when it starts to get shippy. The second is on my attempts to start a rewatch (which is going slowly, because like Dixing I have no time) and what I'm seeing and how I'm dealing with it. That one probably is only of interest for people who share my shipping tendencies.
No real warnings for the meta, aside from the obvious: villain apologism and non-graphic twincest.
1. Dixing has no time
I keep turning this over and over in my head, and it keeps meaning different things. Because, what do you not have when you don’t have time? You don’t have schools, because schools are about training people for the future, which only works if you have a future, and time. You don’t have hospitals, because hospitals are about curing people so that they will be healthier in the future, and ditto. There’s no government, because govrnment involves planning for the future, and with no future and no time all the king can do is a sick parody of governance, burning through his life in a haze of signing documents with no purpose. Meanwhile the Treaty can’t be updated or renegotiated, because nothing can change.
(I have some sympathy for the Regent when I think this way. He doesn’t do a lot of good - and what he did to the Chu brothers is abhorent - but maybe he didn’t have a lot to work with. When Shen Wei asks him to reopen schools, maybe it wasn’t that he didn’t want to, maybe it was that he couldn’t, because the timelessness of life in Dixing prevents it.)
There also doesn’t seem to be any historical memory, other than vague mentions of Alliance times. I assume things were better before the Hallows were lost, but I don’t hear a lot of Dixingian talk about the Good Old Days. There are no empty schools and crumbling old hospitals. The awful of the present seems to be the only world they know.
But they do have bars, because when you live in an eternal present a bar is not a bad place to be. It’s a place for enjoying life in the moment. It makes sense that a bar is the main social institution of Dixing.
And look, as the main social institution of Dixing it actually does passably ok. The bar-drinkers of Dixing can organize themselves to overthrow Ye Zun after he literally says that he is going to kill everyone, which,okay, it’s something. When the overthrow of Ye Zun goes down it happens in a bar, because there is no other social institution to work with, because the bar is a social institution that doesn’t require time.
When you don’t have time you also don’t have justice, in the sense of reasonable terms for crimes that can be served. You can’t serve your time, because there is no time.
There is also no forgiveness, at least not in the sense of letting go of the past, because to do that there has to be a past. (There might be forgiveness in other senses.) Ye Zun can’t really distinguish between past and present, the (imagined) betrayals and traumas of the past are still completely present for him. As they would be when time doesn’t pass.
But there’s a seed of redemption hidden there, because if nothing is ever in the past because time never moves forward then any love that ever existed can never be lost. So in the end Shen Wei and Ye Zun hold hands and go home together, even right after killing each other. They once loved each other and that means that by necessity they still do, because Dixing has no time.
It’s so striking, Ye Zun really did get what he wanted in the end. He wanted a world without cheating, betrayal or abandonment, and after death with his brother he found it. And he got it on his own terms, not by letting go and moving forward but by refusing to let go of the past (that wasn’t really past, because Dixing has no time) and stripping away layers of it until he found the pure and beautiful world he wanted, that had in fact always been there. He doesn’t get it for everyone, but he does in the end get it for himself, in an afterlife that looks very much like the palace of Dixing.
2. Rewatching early episodes with wrongshippergoggles
I loved Ye Zun from episode 20, but after watching Ye Zun and Shen Wei hold hands and go home together right after killing each other I was 100% In Ship. I have nothing against hot twincest, but let’s be honest, if it were entirely unrelated characters holding hands and going home together right after killing each other I would still be completely here for it, it is the kind of thing that I am always going to be 100% here for. So here I am, declaring my allegiance and waving my ship flag.
And, it keeps changing how I see canon. In episode 3, Shen Wei talks about how some tragedies are destined from the beginning and about being hurt and disappointed by people. I’m remembering how in the early canon I was convinced that there was going to be a later reveal that Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan had hurt each other badly in the past and I have to say I was a bit disappointed that they didn’t because I love the trope of people loving each other after hurting each other so very much. Well, I guess it was a different ship that I had been wanting all along.
And in episode 2, Shen Wei says to Li Quan that if someone he loved was dying in front of his eyes his first thought would be to exchange his life for his. And I have the following conversation with myself:
Self: Yes, that’s how Shen Wei must have felt when his brother was taken by the Rebel Leader.
Self: No, you idiot, he’s talking about how he felt when Kunlun was taken by the Hallows. Guardian is canonically a love story between Shen Wei and Zheo Yunlan, you can’t make everything about your wrongOTP!
Self: Yes I can, I am a shipper and this is fandom and you can’t stop me. Also, a nice thing about being mind-controlled by an evil villain is that he lets me borrow his evil laugh, so Mwahaha.
And then I think: is this what rewatching the rest of canon is going to be like for me? Oh no I am doomed. And I haven’t even gotten to the whole Ge Lan/Sang Zan thing with an actual pillar.
So, okay, let’s try this.
What it looks like to me now is that ten thousand years ago Shen Wei lost two people that he loved deeply. (I’d say ‘in different ways’ but brotherhood is a canon euphemism for bonking so ::shrug::.) When he vagues about his angst, it’s not always clear which one he’s talking about, or if he’s thinking about both. We’re encouraged to see all his vagueing as about Zhao Yunlan by how beautifully we’re shown Shen Wei pining for him, but that’s not necessrily always the only truth.
If that’s the case, what is going on for Shen Wei is two parallel love stories that don’t intersect. One of them we’re shown openly but the other we’re not clearly shown until the end.
In the previous meta I went on and on about Ye Zun and Zhao Yunlan as pillar and lantern and how they’re the inverse of each other, but if the objects that people become are reflections of their character, well, Shen Wei is a bomb, created by the presence of two different kinds of energy within him. He holds so much inside him and then in the end, well, he explodes.
And in the end the two things still don’t reconcile. To state it as brutally as possible: While Zhao Yunlan is dying out of love for Shen Wei, Shen Wei is holding hands with someone else. It hurts even more because Zhao Yunlan doesn’t have anyone else like that in his life. The closest he gets is his friendship with Zhu Hong and her crush on him, but he states clearly that she’s not in his heart. While Ye Zun is in Shen Wei’s heart, and he even knows it (or knew it, back in the day), he’s just pissy that he’s not the only one.
But (to me, with my shippergoggles) it hurts as much when I describe it from the other side: After ten thousand years of feeling abandoned, Ye Zun finally has Shen Wei say that they are going to go home together, and then Shen Wei leaves him to wait for someone else. I feel like the normal way to read this is: going home is a euphemism for dying and after going up the celestial staircase Ye Zun is dead and so Shen Wei waiting around for Zhao Yunlan isn’t something he’d notice or care about. But I actually want them to be going home together in some real sense so I don’t want to read it that way. If I try to imagine that they die and are lost to each other permanently after just a few minutes holding hands it hurts even more.
But, okay, the story isn’t over yet. So it’s ok that the end hurts, because it’s not really the end. I guess that’s true no matter what shippergoggles I’m wearing. tl;dr, Shen Wei needs a hug, and I think multiple hugs from multiple people, separately or together. Maybe the different forms of energy can be brought together in a way that doesn’t make things explode. That would be really nice.
Point being, canon looks pretty different if I let myself think that some of Shen Wei’s constant vaguely described angst and pining is about his estranged omnicidal brother. I wonder if that will continue to hold up and, if it does, how that will change the rest of canon for me.
Thank you for reading, and if you found anything useful here please do leave a note.
Meanwhile, if Ye Zun interests you, please take a look at In Two Nights and a Day, a highly shippy and fun Ye Zun/Zhao Yunlan fic that
extrapenguin wrote for me for equalityauction. It's got food porn, Zhao Yunlan being caretaking, and a lot of optimism about the possibility of actually meeting Ye Zun's needs even when they feel overwhelming. It made me very happy to read.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-19 03:33 pm (UTC)I've rewatched it at least once through, and I think I interpreted his vague angst as being about the whole situation, all the things he could not do, for Ye Zun, for the war, and for his separation from Kunlun. IIRC it's pretty nonspecific, especially if you go for broad-spectrum angst where Shen Wei gets to angst about absolutely everything, from Zhao Yunlan not knowing to Ye Zun hating him to Dixing's present situation. He's such an angst moppet. Runs off melodrama. I wonder whether he has PTSD related to war stuff. He was almost certainly a child soldier, too. So, yes, Shen Wei needs a hug, and lots of them.
Yes, that is very brutal indeed. I think you've also put a finger on why I think the only real Good Ending is one where Ye Zun is redeemed and goes to live with Shen Wei, regardless of how the romantic relationships shake out.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-19 05:58 pm (UTC)the whole thing happened only about 4k years ago, because the tech level of 10k years ago is more "someone in the Middle East figured out we could domisticate goats maybe"
So ten thousand years didn't pass on Haixing either? You're right that makes sense in terms of how history actually works in our world.
Yeah, Shen Wei has so many things to angst about. My first watch through I took it as his angst was all about losing Kunlun/Zhao Yunlan and missing him and not quite knowing how to reconnect, because that was all I could see. But he's been through so much more than that.
I wonder whether he has PTSD related to war stuff.
I wouldn't be surprised. I feel like I need to be careful here, because my own narrative tastes push so strongly in the direction of seeing him as having PTSD, and moral injury, and a lot of guilt and regret. But I might be projecting here. We see so little of what his role in the war was like, or what he went through. But what we do see - three thousand dead soldiers, his allies not treating him as an equal - doesn't look good.
Yes, that is very brutal indeed.
I feel like kind of a jerk for writing it out that way. But...I can't unsee it.
I think you've also put a finger on why I think the only real Good Ending is one where Ye Zun is redeemed and goes to live with Shen Wei, regardless of how the romantic relationships shake out.
Yeah, thank you. The ending feels like a bit of a puzzle - a happy ending is possible, but how do you put all the pieces together? I guess that's why there are so many different post-canon fixits that put together the pieces in different ways. But yeah, for me the happiest possible ending is always going to be the three of them together in some configuration.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-19 06:07 pm (UTC)I find this very interesting! This is also very much making me think of saloons and speakeasies, with the associations of lawlessness and distrust (or refusal) of government authority.
There's something that feels simultaneously very communal and very individualistic about a bar, and particularly about the Dixing bar.
the bar is a social institution that doesn’t require time.
And also maybe a social institution that doesn't require a sense of being a community and affiliation. (But I'm not at the episode yet!).
There also doesn’t seem to be any historical memory, other than vague mentions of Alliance times. I assume things were better before the Hallows were lost, but I don’t hear a lot of Dixingian talk about the Good Old Days. There are no empty schools and crumbling old hospitals. The awful of the present seems to be the only world they know.
I wonder if a part of it is a deliberate erasure of history -- I'm not sure why that would be, though. Or maybe it's a relic of the novels, where it makes a lot more sense given that Dixing is really the underworld.
But there’s a seed of redemption hidden there, because if nothing is ever in the past because time never moves forward then any love that ever existed can never be lost.
I do agree it's a seed of redemption, but I think I actually find this as terrifying as the other things you listed! Because that also means that you can never let go of more destructive or painful kinds of love, either.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-19 07:48 pm (UTC)Yes! I'm thinking about the way they wear masks as a matter of course. And how suspicious they are of Shen Wei for caring about Zhao Yunlan - that whole extremely chilling 'what's he to you?' scene.
associations of lawlessness and distrust (or refusal) of government authority.
And here in terrible Real Life the bars in my city are open but the schools can't fully open safely and the medical system is overwhelmed. Not to project too much from American politics into Dixing, but it says some things about a society when they can keep bars open and not schools.
I wonder if a part of it is a deliberate erasure of history
Yes, I wonder too.
My current headcanon for how this timelessness came about is that the meteor that destroyed Dixing had time -bending powers, which makes sense because the Hallows were made from the meteor.
I think I actually find this as terrifying as the other things you listed! Because that also means that you can never let go of more destructive or painful kinds of love, either.
Yes, exactly. Like, it would be better for Ye Zun if he could let go of his singleminded obsession with his brother (that probably made sense once upon a time, when they were twins alone in the world who were everything to each other) and notice that Zhu Jiu, for example, does genuinely seem to care about him. But again, that would require moving forward in time.
Thank you for commenting!
no subject
Date: 2020-07-19 09:55 pm (UTC)Ah, yeah! The only way people can drink in peace is to be anonymous.
And how suspicious they are of Shen Wei for caring about Zhao Yunlan - that whole extremely chilling 'what's he to you?' scene.
Yeah! And also the way the bargoers gang up on him -- but there isn't really a sense of community there. It doesn't feel like the bar coming together against an outsider even, it just feels like a bunch of people who saw an opportunity to mock someone and took it.
And here in terrible Real Life the bars in my city are open but the schools can't fully open safely and the medical system is overwhelmed. Not to project too much from American politics into Dixing, but it says some things about a society when they can keep bars open and not schools.
...there were definitely parts of the last couple of episodes that felt so much more painful living in terrible Real Life.
My current headcanon for how this timelessness came about is that the meteor that destroyed Dixing had time -bending powers, which makes sense because the Hallows were made from the meteor.
I was left a bit confused by the timelessness -- how much of it is metaphysical, and how much of it is perception due to the lack of light and hope. One of the Dixing thieves makes a reference to the other one still being young.
Like, it would be better for Ye Zun if he could let go of his singleminded obsession with his brother (that probably made sense once upon a time, when they were twins alone in the world who were everything to each other) and notice that Zhu Jiu, for example, does genuinely seem to care about him
Yes! And definitely yes to the latter, since I have currently decided Zhu Jiu is my woobie villain of choice. :) But the problem with singleminded obsession, even in a more time-ful world, is that it's so hard to want to let go.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-19 10:36 pm (UTC)Yeah. And they're mocking him for...caring about someone.
I'm not going to say this shows that love doesn't exist in Dixing, we find out later about Chu Shuzhi and his brother and they truly cared for each other. But Shen Wei gets a lot of hostility just for visibly caring about someone.
I was left a bit confused by the timelessness -- how much of it is metaphysical, and how much of it is perception due to the lack of light and hope. One of the Dixing thieves makes a reference to the other one still being young.
Yeah, I don't know either. I liked
Zhu Jiu is an excellent woobie villain. Here's a fixit for him that I like (it's Zhu Jiu/Shen Wei):
https://archiveofourown.org/works/24276055
no subject
Date: 2020-07-19 11:16 pm (UTC)My read is that love exists in Dixing (the thief kids seem to love each other, for instance, and one of them tells the regent only to kill two of them and leave the last one alone), but it's complicated by the privation and the distrust. And there's a sense that you should be more cautious about it and also not barge into places declaring how much you care for someone.
Thinking about it with SW, some of it may have just been the bargoers trying to find any weakness to throw at him. He did just barge into a space where people go to unwind, flout its rules, demand that it cater to him, and ask about the other guy who was stealing masks and breaking rules. It's an intrusion on a space where people really aren't expecting an intrusion, and while it doesn't justify their response, I think I can understand how he got such a negative reaction from them.
But it is also telling that is what they go with.
And thank you for reccing the fic! It made me smile, and YES, woobie with narrowly-averted villainy. <3
no subject
Date: 2020-07-20 01:02 am (UTC)I KNOW, AND I WAS SO SAD. They didn't even know each other had died (well, I guess ZYL assumed when SW was eaten) until they met up again in the wormhole! Weh.
The ending really threw my shipper senses into overdrive much like it sounds like it did to you! I was also very "oh dang, SW and YZ's happily ever aft--wait. what. why is he with zyl now, isn't he dead? where's yz??" hahaha... I should really do a rewatch of my own sometime.
I hadn't thought about ZYL being alone in his heart, but you're right -- I'd say the closest thing he has is Da Qing, which, while definitely a close and (arguably) unconditional relationship, really isn't as high-key ride or die as anything to do with SW. It could have been (10k years waiting for his master!!) but the show doesn't focus on their bond much, sadly.
no subject
Date: 2020-07-20 02:41 am (UTC)Haha yeah. And then I end up with all these messy pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, Shen Wei has two contradictory endings with two people who hate each other. What am I supposed to do with that???
I really want to believe both things happen. Shen Wei and Ye Zun go home together like they said they would, and also Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan find each other eventually again like they promised. If it looks contradictory, that just means that the work of figuring it out is left to those of us in fandom who want to write fic about it.
10k years waiting for his master!!
I know! But it seems...kind of one-sided. Zhao Yunlan cares for Da Qing, and relies on him, but I don't know that Da Qing is really in his heart. But I suppose he could be, and we're just not shown. They did have years living together.
Thank you for coming by, it's nice to see you here, I really love your stories.