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extrapenguinIn the darkest hours of the night, I am more likely to lie awake in my bed than actually sleep. While this is bad for my alertness, I do get a lot of revelations about myself then. And when I say "myself", I mean "my fandom opinions".
A long time ago, there was a post, the comments of which touched upon what levels of sexual/romantic experience Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan might have. The fandom consensus is that Zhao Yunlan is experienced and Shen Wei isn't; a few commenters discussed the opposite case and expressed their love for the concept. I found myself squicked by it, and now, months later, my brain has decided to tell me why!
Let's take a step back: we have on the one hand an alien with superpowers who is sort of a head of state and widely seen as a hero amongst his kind, and on the other hand a regular human civil servant who is good at leadership and manipulating people. We can all see the power gradient, right? Our war hero could very easily kill or hurt the civil servant physically. And from the points of view of their respective bureaucracies, the war hero is irreplaceable, unlike the civil servant. To add to that, over the course of the series, the war hero alien knows more things than the civil servant, and withholds information even when he could safely tell it. Now, Shen Wei does have his reasons, but I think we can all observe the way the deck is stacked.
Switching our viewpoint to a romantic relationship, Zhao Yunlan's people skills even the ground a bit, but Shen Wei is still someone who habitually keeps secrets from Zhao Yunlan (including unnecessary ones, like that time he went to have a chat with Zhao Xinci and acted like it was a hostile interrogation the moment Zhao Yunlan maturely asked about it). Experience would be a good way to even this – make Zhao Yunlan the experienced one, and he can have fun showing Shen Wei what love and sex and so on can be like! When you put that card as well into Shen Wei's hands, however, it just turns the relationship into something squicky to me.
More commonly, though, I just see stuff that flattens Shen Wei's character unpleasingly. He's the Envoy, confident and competent at it, yes, but he's also more than just the guy who turns himself into justice. (For one, he has a trollish sense of humor. Bears, anyone?) A key trait is the streak of vulnerability: Shen Wei is the person who gets flustered when flirted with, cares very much about Zhao Yunlan's opinion of him, and spends the course of the series scared that Zhao Yunlan might not return to him from the wormhole. To remove that and make him into an authority figure with no weaknesses is to run contra to the show's message that Dixingians are human, too.
On the Zhao Yunlan side of the equation, he is a master manipulator who's capable of landing on his feet no matter what conversation he's dropped in (though occasionally he doesn't want to slip out because that'd be against his morals). I see a lot of people go "ohh he's such a subby sub!" and then cite scenes that to me are very explicitly about him using social judo to get his way. To insert a metaphor, he is a master at limbo: the fact that he bends backwards is incidental; the point is that he got to the other side of the bar like he wanted. He covers himself in a veil of artifice – we know he is both the person who'd ask a foreign diplomat to clean his bedroom and the person who single-handedly planned and then organized the plot to capture Zhu Jiu. His interiority is a lot harder to pin down, but I'd argue that we see a lot of him with minimal pretending during his first trip to Dixing, and that really makes plain how much mask-wearing he does in his regular life.
A long time ago, there was a post, the comments of which touched upon what levels of sexual/romantic experience Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan might have. The fandom consensus is that Zhao Yunlan is experienced and Shen Wei isn't; a few commenters discussed the opposite case and expressed their love for the concept. I found myself squicked by it, and now, months later, my brain has decided to tell me why!
Let's take a step back: we have on the one hand an alien with superpowers who is sort of a head of state and widely seen as a hero amongst his kind, and on the other hand a regular human civil servant who is good at leadership and manipulating people. We can all see the power gradient, right? Our war hero could very easily kill or hurt the civil servant physically. And from the points of view of their respective bureaucracies, the war hero is irreplaceable, unlike the civil servant. To add to that, over the course of the series, the war hero alien knows more things than the civil servant, and withholds information even when he could safely tell it. Now, Shen Wei does have his reasons, but I think we can all observe the way the deck is stacked.
Switching our viewpoint to a romantic relationship, Zhao Yunlan's people skills even the ground a bit, but Shen Wei is still someone who habitually keeps secrets from Zhao Yunlan (including unnecessary ones, like that time he went to have a chat with Zhao Xinci and acted like it was a hostile interrogation the moment Zhao Yunlan maturely asked about it). Experience would be a good way to even this – make Zhao Yunlan the experienced one, and he can have fun showing Shen Wei what love and sex and so on can be like! When you put that card as well into Shen Wei's hands, however, it just turns the relationship into something squicky to me.
More commonly, though, I just see stuff that flattens Shen Wei's character unpleasingly. He's the Envoy, confident and competent at it, yes, but he's also more than just the guy who turns himself into justice. (For one, he has a trollish sense of humor. Bears, anyone?) A key trait is the streak of vulnerability: Shen Wei is the person who gets flustered when flirted with, cares very much about Zhao Yunlan's opinion of him, and spends the course of the series scared that Zhao Yunlan might not return to him from the wormhole. To remove that and make him into an authority figure with no weaknesses is to run contra to the show's message that Dixingians are human, too.
On the Zhao Yunlan side of the equation, he is a master manipulator who's capable of landing on his feet no matter what conversation he's dropped in (though occasionally he doesn't want to slip out because that'd be against his morals). I see a lot of people go "ohh he's such a subby sub!" and then cite scenes that to me are very explicitly about him using social judo to get his way. To insert a metaphor, he is a master at limbo: the fact that he bends backwards is incidental; the point is that he got to the other side of the bar like he wanted. He covers himself in a veil of artifice – we know he is both the person who'd ask a foreign diplomat to clean his bedroom and the person who single-handedly planned and then organized the plot to capture Zhu Jiu. His interiority is a lot harder to pin down, but I'd argue that we see a lot of him with minimal pretending during his first trip to Dixing, and that really makes plain how much mask-wearing he does in his regular life.
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Date: 2019-07-13 12:18 (UTC)Squicks are tricky business, so feel free not to answer, but I'm curious:
I see a lot of people go "ohh he's such a subby sub!" and then cite scenes that to me are very explicitly about him using social judo to get his way.
I have a similar take on Zhao Yunlan's overt "subbiness"** as you lay out there, but I don't recall seeing a lot of merging his "subbiness" with inexperience. To me the "subby sub" narrative seems to come up in the context of "he's such a power bottom", which to me always implies that he gets around a lot.
Are you discussing two different things in this post or have we seen very different discussions of Zhao Yunlan's "subbiness"?
** Not a statement on what I might think or not on actual bedroom configurations.
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Date: 2019-07-13 12:31 (UTC)You seem to be assuming that I slept well before I got into Guardian, which is incorrect – for as long as I have remembered, I have been having fanfiction-y dreams for whatever it is that I'm currently reading/fannish about! All the advice on sleep hygiene is for naught due to my natural tendency towards a 25+-hour day cycle and overactive imagination...
I am discussing two completely different things! I started out with a realization on why the first thing didn't work for me, then segued into complaining about other things. :P The whole "subby sub" stuff is prevalent enough that one encounters it occasionally; the "inexperienced Zhao Yunlan" stuff I've only seen once.
(And FTR, it's not that I think it would be OOC for Zhao Yunlan to be a sub, it's just that all the "evidence" people cite for him being a sub is about as convincing to me as "He has dark hair, so of course he's a sub!")
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Date: 2019-07-13 13:56 (UTC)Aaah, gotcha!
the "inexperienced Zhao Yunlan" stuff I've only seen once.
Yeah, that gels more with my experience. I was in a convo once about that, but that was actually me speculating about it (not that I want to squick you - I was still trying to puzzle out what I actually believe about Zhao Yunlan's level of experience in the face of a lot of "he's so slutty" interpretations), and neither me nor my speculator-at concluded it was likely.
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Date: 2019-07-13 14:05 (UTC)Yeah, I got you. It's okay for people to like stuff I don't!
I will just complain it beneath a cut.And it's not like I need him to be the Slut King who has had ten thousand sex, I just want him to have some experience of relationships before he starts one with Shen Wei. (On the other hand, I also want Shen Wei to have experience with masturbation and know what sex and kissing are, even if he's not tried it yet! No explanations on what a dick is should happen unless Shen Wei's equipment is so seriously alien that they both need guided tours of the other's bits!)no subject
Date: 2019-07-13 13:08 (UTC)I feel like Shen Wei can be over-simplified in the same way I've seen in happen with Benton Fraser, Spock, Sherlock, most of the characters who are the more social outsider-y of the pairing. I wonder how much of this is from people who feel othered themselves and adopt only the most superficial of aspects before they take that characterization to project themselves onto it (before peeling back the subtle layers). Even though I do think Shen Wei can be seen as the personification of justice in the show, that's not all he is. For one, (as you point out) that erases his humanity, but also, justice can't be limited to a single experience/aspect or else it ceases to be capable of, you know, dispensing fair and equitable justice.
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Date: 2019-07-13 14:00 (UTC)While some of it could be motivated by that, I think a larger reason is that a lot of people for whatever reason find Zhao Yunlan a subby sub and then idk kink on him being taken care of by a competent adult with no weaknesses who doesn't need any caretaking himself. (Or there's some novel bleedover, just like there is with the top/bottom stuff, and the top/bottom stuff bleeds into dom/sub stuff or the novel has dom/sub stuff?)
(I mean, I am/have been an othered social outsider, but that just means that I recognize exactly how much work Shen Wei must've put into developing social skills appropriate for the modern age! And I notice how much he genuinely likes people and enjoys their company. He's an extrovert, albeit with some social difficulties due to reasons.)
Yeah! And I would argue that it mischaracterizes Shen Wei – justice is not something he is; justice is something he does. The Black-Cloaked Envoy is a role he wears and a mask he dons (literally in addition to metaphorically). There's a man behind the mask, and that man gives off what I can only describe as strong "I need a hug" vibes.
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Date: 2019-07-13 14:02 (UTC)Ugh, well that just sounds gross and boring. Ew.
justice is not something he is; justice is something he does
Oh, yes, I like that phrasing very much!
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Date: 2019-07-13 14:14 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-07-13 16:17 (UTC)I read everyone's head canons and sometimes find pieces of them incorporating into my own here and there. I've lost things that I used to have as squicks and gained new squicks based on watching other people talk about canon and characterization and meta in ways that bring new light to what I'd previously considered an old topic.
As far as fic goes, as long as a writer is good enough to show-not-tell me in their story how and why they took the character where they took them, I'm down for the ride. AUs open a lot of doors for me that would be closed if the writer was trying to stay in canon. But if I'm willing to accept an AU where Shen Wei is a dragon and Zhao Yunlan is his hoard (lol) then I can buy either one of them in any other kind of role if it's done with completeness and care. My favorite thing about fandom is how creative it can get, and if I don't like, I don't read. I don't like super-subby anyone or super-dom-150%-perfect in anyone. I've tapped out of fic I assumed I would like for a lot of reasons, and stayed in fic I would have insisted I would never read if an author covers all the bases well (like hooker AUs, for example - talk about power imbalance - it's hard to get that right, but when it's done well, for me it's 'wow' instead of 'ew').
It's early morning and pre-coffee so where these rambling comments were going is here: what an interesting take, thank you for sharing it. I haven't seen a lot of the characterizations you described, just here and there, but then there's a lot of things I never even see because AO3rdr hides my DNW tag choices. So I probably don't float in those circles much after all.
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Date: 2019-07-13 17:16 (UTC)I'm not! *g* I read almost exclusively canon setting stuff where they are who they are in canon. Making one a fish with a gambling addicition and the other the president of Russia is uninteresting for me, as are modern mundane AUs. IMO if you start removing the characters from their canon setting, it is very hard to keep them in character, and the further one moves, the harder it is to keep them recognizable. Also, a large chunk of the draw for me is the setting: I like Guardian for its zany science fiction and aliens with superpowers! Setting change AUs are removing that huge draw.
It's more present as a vibe in conversations and as a direction characterization points towards, but I dislike it, so it is memorable. Hence this post. :P
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Date: 2019-07-13 17:47 (UTC)I'm glad that even in a fandom as small as this one (on the English speaking side at least) there's enough talent that so many of the disparate bases are covered in the fanworks we've been gifted :)
But if we ever get assigned together in an exchange, this post of what you don't like will be a handy resource!
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Date: 2019-07-13 18:02 (UTC)While this is an admirable principle, sometimes people are just wrong about basic canon facts, for instance – so they argue that because X thing was never resolved, it says Y thing about characterization, whereas in canon, X thing was resolved not 5 minutes after it was brought up. It also extends to stuff where it's an opinion, yes, but I cannot see how it could be based on canon and Earth logic. That said, there's also a lot of stuff where it's not my thing, even if it can be connected to canon.
I do try to write a letter on what I like! (In Guardian's case, Zhao Yunlan competently saving the day and Shen Wei learning how to chill for five minutes while being hugged. (See icon.) Also all the worldbuilding.)
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Date: 2019-07-14 00:01 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-07-14 09:52 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-07-14 15:35 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-07-13 16:30 (UTC)I personally call this the akashi seijuurou syndrome lol. Attack someone with a scissors ONCE, suddenly he's charcterized as a yandere holding scissors 24/7, even though said scissors weren't even his in the first place.
Its prevalence was enough to make me go into rare pairs instead where characterization is usually more accurate (and interesting!)
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Date: 2019-07-13 17:54 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-07-13 23:05 (UTC)Glad that it made someone laugh though!
Edit: wait a minute, my comment IS a top level reply right? In that case sorry for this irrelevant comment lol. I'm still using my phone ORZ so the format isn't that user friendly
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Date: 2019-07-13 23:52 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-07-13 17:54 (UTC)Oh yeah, the fanon overload characterization generally doesn't form for rarepairs, so writers have to actually form the characterization themselves from first principles, instead of regurgitating ever-diverging-from-canon fanon.
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Date: 2019-07-13 18:12 (UTC)I almost made this comment twice in other places in this post, and then refrained because I didn't want to sound like I'm belittling your gripe - venturing out now, and still really not belittling your gripe: over the last few weeks, I've had the experience on multiple occasions that... sometimes discussion seems to make certain interpretations look sharper and more extreme than they really are if the same person takes the character as a whole and, like, writes them. Like, I've been in a few discussions lately where I went away thinking, "your fic characterisation makes total sense to me and is in breathing distance of mine, yet we sound worlds apart on issue X, wtf is going on here?". I love fannish discussion, and I love that there's a lot of it in Guardian. But yeah, I wonder sometimes if the sharp focus of discussing an issue can make you think there's a gulf, and then in fic, there isn't.
That's not to say that that always applies, honestly, and, like, my personal squick is literally all over the fic place. Sometimes people just disagree. But I wanted to offer this thought, as it's one I've found both intriguing and potentially helpful recently. :-)
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Date: 2019-07-13 18:26 (UTC)Mm, yeah, it's probably because in addition to the opinion on the issue itself, people also have opinions on how important the issue is! So two people who have diametrically opposed opinions on the issue but both consider it as mere trivia characterization-wise would find each other's fic more agreeable than each other's meta, frex.
My squicks are present in some fic, though more on the vibe level/characterization points there level than as actual explicit worst-case characterization, and then I have to either read through my fingers or backclick. (There is of course a plethora of fic that doesn't contain my squicks, and I can generally find out whether it'll contain them right at the start, instead of potentially being squicked right at the end.)
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Date: 2019-07-13 19:01 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-07-13 19:12 (UTC)Valid! :D And your fic is nice, too – I love your Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan!
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Date: 2019-07-13 19:18 (UTC)Most common romantic tropes bug me too, though, so maybe I just have a lot of squicks.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Date: 2019-07-13 19:29 (UTC)It would be a very quiet posterity, but you could gaze upon it and feel the satisfaction of being right!
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Date: 2019-07-14 08:17 (UTC)The whole 'service top' thing kindof bugs me too, and I'm not sure why - I think it might just be describing the behaviour that way rather than the behaviour itself.
But taken to extremes it becomes kindof squicky to me in how self-sacrificing it is of Shen Wei and how it then doesn't feel like an equal relationship, it feels a bit exploitative.
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Date: 2019-07-14 12:27 (UTC)And infantilizing Zhao Yunlan is a terrible thing to do to such a wonderfully complex character.
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Date: 2019-07-14 12:30 (UTC)After some thinking, I think it's because Zhao Yunlan spends the entire latter half of the show insisting to Shen Wei that he's a man, not a weapon/tool, he's allowed to want things and have preferences and be human. Going OTT on the 'service top Shen Wei' is just turning him back into a tool for Zhao Yunlan's pleasure, which we have seen Zhao Yunlan doesn't want.
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Date: 2019-07-14 07:26 (UTC)To me, experienced Shen Wei would necessarily run into some problems of experienced with who? I can't see him wanting anyone other than Zhao Yunlan after meeting him in the past, and before that, well, he was a general during wartime. There's some power dynamic issues there.
My headcanon is that Shen Wei is demisexual, that he had never had sex before meeting Zhao Yunlan 10k years ago, and that he didn't want to have sex with anyone else after meeting him. Which left him lots of time to study at uni and bemusedly observe the antics of his classmates. :D
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Date: 2019-07-14 09:51 (UTC)Realistically, I know that Shen Wei likely hasn't had any other lovers, because 1. busy, 2. dirt nap, 3. busy and lost, and thus is inexperienced with anything save his own hand. However, I have Problems with demisexuality headcanons (it hits my purity squick, and then there's some complex interplay with it vs how queerness and gender have been treated by society – I think I'd just shrug and move on if it were applied to a het dude, but other cases get my hackles up), and thus my brain, ever the contrarian, is trying to come up with ways for Shen Wei to have acquired experience. *g* At the very least, I think he's had crushes on other people before Kunlun came along.
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Date: 2019-07-14 10:25 (UTC)I... sortof have a purity squick... or something similar - I don't like emphasis placed on inexperience or 'virginity', which for me ties in with how I dislike the idea of monogamy as the Only Acceptable Happy Ending and dislike jealousy between partners. It's just how I'm reading Shen Wei's character and backstory - not that he was 'keeping himself pure' but that he just wasn't interested and didn't see any reason to go through the motions. And I also think the difference in experience would be a complete non-issue between them.
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Date: 2019-07-14 12:15 (UTC)Yeah, I agree with you! The whole purity stuff also edges on my squick related to claustrophobia-as-kink (soulmates, reincarnation, single-target sexuality, etc) and jealousy presented as romantic. I can like fucked-up stuff too, don't get me wrong, but not if the author seems to think that it's the height of romance.
Re: Shen Wei, while I think he might've had some interest, I don't think he had the time to do anything save maybe notice that people were attractive. He's a (child) soldier at war, and then he's an alien trying to hide his identity amongst humans. Even without any crushes on Kunlun or demi/asexuality, it's believable that he wouldn't have had the opportunity to get together or get busy with anyone. He definitely wasn't "keeping himself pure" for a nebulous stranger who might appear someday! :P
Yup! I think Zhao Yunlan's attitude towards Shen Wei admitting lack of knowledge or experience with anything would be more akin to this xkcd than anything else. After all, he is very careful about only having positive reactions whenever Shen Wei tells him something of his own volition. Here he'd have the opportunity to share something delightful with Shen Wei, so of course he'd make the occasion as positive as possible.
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Date: 2019-07-14 11:43 (UTC)I personally just can't get the aggressive novel!Shen Wei characterization to fit Zhu Yilong's sweet and shy looks. I need Shen Wei to be shy and easily embarrassed and both those things very quickly lead me to "inexperienced".
So I guess I'm arriving at the same conclusion for much shallower reasons. ;)
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Date: 2019-07-14 12:28 (UTC)Zhao Yunlan is a chameleon, capable of being whatever the situation requires! (It's meta – Bai Yu is acting as someone who is very good at acting!) In the drama, it's not explicitly stated, but it is super duper obvious e.g. in episode 10 when he whispers into Zhu Hong's ear and asks her to stay behind guarding Shen Wei while constantly laughing like nothing is wrong. Even before that, the very fluent approach code-switching is obvious to anyone who's paying attention. I don't think I've seen anyone misconstrue it, only set fics and discussion in areas where it'd be less relevant (the relationship) and not quite embrace it as much as it could be embraced. Zhao Yunlan in general fares better in characterization imo – the biggest flub is flattening him, instead of misinterpretation or outright deletion of features.
Yep! Shen Wei can put on the mask of the Envoy and the mask of Professor Shen, but if he's not wearing either of those masks, he's a bit shy and flustered by flirting. I also interpret his body language as wanting hugs from Yunlan but feeling unable to ask, so, shy. And inexperienced.