waterscroll

Related 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.

( Dixing has no time )

( Rewatching early episodes with wrongshippergoggles )

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.

Title: Two Peoples
Characters/Pairing: Fu You and Ma Gui, with his canonical crush on her.
Rating: General
Length: About 800 words
Tags: Ye Olde Haixing Era, unreliable narrator, politics, unrequited love

Summary: Fu You and Ma Gui forge the Hallows and an alliance. They might not agree on what it means.

( writing notes )

As promised, after finishing the Guardian drama and taking a few days to think about it I'm back with some Ye Zun thoughts. In two versions, fic and meta. Here's the fic one first.

Title: Sunflower
Characters/Pairings: Ye Zun centric with some (one-sided, sort of) Ye Zun/Shen Wei and Ye Zun/Zhao Yunlan.
Rating: Teen
Length: about 1600 words
Tags: major character death, post-canon, 5 things, character study, emotional/symbolic twincest, hopeful, nonlinear, unreliable narrator.

Summary: After his death with his brother, Ye Zun wakes up in Dixing alone. He thinks about four places where he found light and one where he found darkness.

( writing notes )

...so I can try to finish in time to participate in the Zhao Xinci conversation over at sid_guardian. I'm only at episode 33, I need to hurry. And damn that man guts me whenever I see him onscreen. ( Why does a fictional character hurt so much? ) Worse, I can't find any fluffy happy-ending fixit fic for him in which he gets love and cuddles. Well, that may be my True Destiny in the fandom. But first I need to finish the rest of the series, because there seems to be lots of character arc left for him.

Speaking of Guardian characters who need fixits, fandom is *definitely* meeting my Ye Zun fixit needs. (Thank you extrapenguin!) I'm watching the show with fixit fics open so I can flip over to them when canon feels like it hurts too much. And then I accidentally wrote 4 pages of Ye Zun meta the other day to make myself feel better, I think I'm going to hold on to it until I finish canon and then maybe use it as the basis for fic.

I'm hoping I can produce some actual fic out of all these intense feelings I'm having, that would really be great. In the meantime, back to episodes.

I just read through it a second time, and I still feel like I'll need more work to understand it. I'll also need to read more about Chinese traditional creation mythology, because the novel seems to be doing very clever things with it that I didn't quite understand. But even with my limited understanding, I am still stunned by the highly beautiful love story. If you know me, you know I'm here (in fandom generally) for the redemption by love arcs. And this was truly a great one.

( major novel spoilers and forehead kisses )

So yeah, I loved the novel. It is different from the drama but gorgeous in its own way. I feel like the drama and the novel each meet part of the emotional needs that I am bringing to the canon(s), so I'm glad to have both of them.

I continue to not understand what is going on and have intense feelings anyway.

( NO SCHOOLS????? )

I'm up to episode 10 and am delighted to find that there is plenty to think about, it's not just pretty boys pining and lusting prettily after each other, although it is very much that too. And tropey slash fanfic on screen, yes it is that too. But right now I'm also struck by the nature mysticism, which I understand was based in Chinese traditional folk religion in the original novel, and censored about as effectively as the m/m romance. Sure, space aliens, we'll call it that. But what it feels like, at least to me, at least right now, is an allegory about trying to love a terrifying world.

Warning: personal reactions to a canon that I am fairly new to and might be getting completely wrong. I've read some spoilers but not enough to be able to think through more of this show than what I've actually seen on-screen.

( nature feelings and pandemic isolation )