#zhou ying

[junesfool]

small tai sui line-up

[ririnpopo]

compilation

[cinammonelles]

Graduated from traveller abroad to unbound knife 👍

close ups under the cut

[grassbreads]

God I think so much about like. priest is mostly known as a danmei writer. She's written m/f too, but most of her biggest, most popular works are danmei, and she's written a lot of them.

Long separations full of pining are a pretty common trope in popular danmei. MXTX's novels all include this to some degree, some of priest's danmei include this trope, and it pops up in several other authors' work besides. The lead characters are separated for anywhere from a few years to thousands of years, at least one of them spends the whole time yearning for his Person who disappeared/died/insert-plot-point-here-ed, and eventually they find each other again and get to be together. Non-danmei romances do this too sometimes, but I really see it a lot in danmei novels.

And I think so much about the fact that when priest, a danmei writer who has used this trope, wrote her first romance-free novel, she immediately said "but what if they don't reunite?" What if I wrote a scenario just like all those pining-filled danmei stories, but about a platonic/familial relationship instead? What if I did The Separation Trope, but without the romance genre obligation of them getting together at the end? What if I made my protagonist spend hundreds and hundreds of years waiting to see his favorite person again, certain the whole time that they would be reunited (or at least telling himself he's certain), only for it to not happen?

Like, even though the context isn't romantic, Xi Ping in the extras is absolutely living a danmei trope. He's the Shen Wei, the Hua Cheng, of his story. He spends who knows how many hundreds of years waiting patiently to see Zhou Ying, trusting absolutely in ZY's promise that they'll meet again. He insists as much in his final bet with Bai Ling. He races north to go searching the second he thinks he has a chance of finding him again.

And he just doesn't. Xi Ping saves the world, and he lives a long and mostly happy life, and then he is very lonely for a very long time, and his devotion doesn't pay off. He never gets to see Zhou Ying again.

Zhou Ying gets beyond the bounds, gets to see his true reflection and the true face of the sky, and the price of that self-fulfillment is that he never gets to see his beloved Xiaobao ever again. And Xi Ping doesn't get to see him.

What if there was a story about a guy who spends hundreds of years waiting to see his Person again, just like a danmei lead, only for that waiting to never pay off?

Who the fuck writes that? (complimentary)

[bubbledcoffee]

[thatlittlemouse]

I don't hate you, I know you

I guess I haven't loved you for nothing

[tchai-castor]

These were some studies I made from Chinese shows, the focus was mainly on the clothing, although I have completely forgotten how I did it. It's mainly Wei Yinglou (although I know she isn't all that recognizable) from Story of Yanxi Palace. The other one is Zhou Ying from Nothing gold can stay (she didn't turn out that well facially either in my drawing).

[morethanwonderful]

Every time I reread Traveler Abroad I'm always re-overwhelmed by how good it is. There are so many passages from that arc that I end up rereading over and over every time I revisit them.

Zhou Ying's pleading one-sided conversation with Xi Ping's empty corpse. Xi Ping's struggle to find the right "mask" to wear when he speaks to Zhou Ying. The "have you been mistreated" passage. Xi Ping's "I don't hate you, I know you" speech. Xi Ping's final conversation with his grandmother. Zhou Ying's return home. It's all so fucking good.

The arc starts with Zhou Ying being driven to his all-time most monstrous act for the sake of his love for Xi Ping. He wants to tear open the Impassible Sea and throw the world into horror and chaos to retrieve the dead body of his beloved murdered cousin. And the arc ends with Zhou Ying collapsing to his all-time most vulnerable and human state for the sake of his love for his grandmother. He's reduced to a miserable wreck because he can't be there for the last moments of the figure in his life who most deeply understood and accepted him. His need to avenge the death of one loved one brings about the death of another. He regains a cousin and loses his grandmother.

This is the arc about how nobody is ever truly beyond human fallibility. A great clan of immortals can be brought down by common Kaiming cultivators. One man's insidious meddling can drive a shed skin master to his death. Petty emotional squabbles can split apart a sect in the immortal mountains. A half-demon can struggle on a wrecked mountain road with the mortal masses. And the Demon of the East Sea can be rendered a drenched, bloody, travel-weary shell of himself by the desperate force of his love for his family.

Xi Ping doesn't actually do all that much during Traveler Abroad, at least not compared to other arcs. He convinces Zhou Ying not to wreck the demon seal, and he helps Lin Chi calm things down a bit at Xuanyin, but he spends most of the arc forced to just watch from the background and pass messages for others.

But even there, that's because the point of Traveler Abroad for Xi Ping is showcasing all the ways that he's already changed. That's the magic of all those heart-wrenching passages I listed out above. Xi Ping already knows he's not some perfect enlightened being. He's already matured from the spoiled, sheltered rich kid he once was. Xi Ping has already been brought down to the mortal dirt by his five years in Tao County. He doesn't need a reminder of the pain of a mortal life or the fact that he can once again be reduced to it. Instead he gets to play the voice of reason and maturity across from Zhou Ying, the cousin that's usually so much more composed.

Xi Ping decides to steal the Unbound Furnace during Traveler Abroad, and the first chapter after Traveler Abroad, Unbound Knife 1, ends with Xi Ping directly announcing for the first time that he's going to tear down the Bell of Tribulation. Traveler Abroad's core theme, this emphasis on the ultimate human fallibility of even the loftiest immortal mountains, is key for any of this to be believable. It establishes that, for all the incredible might of the Way of Heaven, its agents are not undefeatable. The immortal mountains themselves can be turned upside-down by the meddling of ants.

Zhou Ying causes the spiritual energy shutdown in Traveler Abroad that prevents him from making it home to see his grandmother when she's on her deathbed, just like he "bites his tail" by screwing over Xi Ping with his political meddling in the second arc. His attempts to be heartless and cunning lead inevitably to pain for him and his loved ones. This is his fallibility, and the drama of the Zhaos reveals the fallibility of the powerful and the wealthy, of the lofty immortals, all of which is key for everything that comes next.

And in the midst of all that, the infinitely fallible Xi Ping sits with his grandmother at her death, just as he's done for countless people in Tao County and just as he'll one day do for everyone else he's ever known and loved.

It's just such an incredibly human and heart-wrenching part of the story, not to mention a well-crafted thematic beat within the wider narrative.