Weilan Week day 2
Nov. 23rd, 2019 03:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xparrotWeilan Week 2019 day 2 prompt: What do you love the most about Weilan?
The MOST? Ask a fan to choose one thing about her OTP?? Impossible!
But if I must...I think my favorite thing about them is their fantastic compatibility. Which cheatingly covers a whole range of things, but it's what makes them so satisfying. Especially because they're people who on the surface don't seem that compatible. They can come across as an opposites-attract couple because their exterior presentations are so different, between Shen Wei's ultra-reserved, iron-willed control and dignity, with his rigid posture and rigorously tailored suits and his actual literal mask; contrasted to Zhao Yunlan's casually insouciant slouching and scruffy distressed jeans, his aggressively informal attitude toward public and personal space and his easily expressed moods.
Except that there's so much more with them that is shared and mutual, when you look at little closer. Not even just all those other traits that they have in common -- that they're both so smart and both so dedicated to their work, and how they're both such heroes (and that they so admire and appreciate that in each other). But it's also how those traits that seem to be opposing are so much more shared. Zhao Yunlan seems to express himself openly, but he's always so aware of himself and what others think of him; he has his own mask that's less visible but more impermeable than Shen Wei's himself. (The novel has a gorgeous bit of insight that when Zhao Yunlan is blinded, his face is on occasion blank, because he doesn't know when people are looking at him and doesn't really bother making expressions that aren't observed). And meanwhile Shen Wei's calm demeanor only barely hides the depth of his feelings; he's still in part the young warrior who had to wear a mask because he couldn't hide his fear.
Zhao Yunlan is the one who casually touches, throwing his arm over Shen Wei's shoulders when they've barely met -- but then once they're closer and Shen Wei dares to reach out in return, Shen Wei touches Zhao Yunlan as much, a hand on his knee as they talk, catching him when he staggers. And of course they're both extremely overinclined to obsess over the other's injuries while ignoring their own. They both understand self-sacrifice all too well. And of course the drama has the time loop, and their parallel histories and matched first meetings, that both of them fell in love when the other was already in love with them.
Then there is both of their unique understanding of boundaries, or lack thereof -- their stalker tendencies should be red flags except that they both share them. In the drama Zhao Yunlan isn't nearly as weirded out by Shen Wei moving in next door as you might expect, given that he thinks Shen Wei could well be a criminal at that point -- instead he's more pleased by how easy it makes it to snoop further. And then Shen Wei comes home to realize Zhao Yunlan has broken into his apartment, and smiles as soon as he realizes who it is.
...That's not even touching the novel, which is on the next level when it comes to the mutual obsession (Zhao Yunlan's reaction to finding out that Shen Wei's bedroom has no bed and instead is a picture gallery and shrine to Zhao Yunlan and all his previous incarnations is to bring Shen Wei to his family home for dinner and tell his mom that they're together and it's serious. This is after Zhao Yunlan bought a house for him and Shen Wei. Without telling him. Before they were actually dating.) Their novel incarnations especially deserve each other in both the best and worst ways -- it's good that they found each other, so no one else has to put up with them!
The MOST? Ask a fan to choose one thing about her OTP?? Impossible!
But if I must...I think my favorite thing about them is their fantastic compatibility. Which cheatingly covers a whole range of things, but it's what makes them so satisfying. Especially because they're people who on the surface don't seem that compatible. They can come across as an opposites-attract couple because their exterior presentations are so different, between Shen Wei's ultra-reserved, iron-willed control and dignity, with his rigid posture and rigorously tailored suits and his actual literal mask; contrasted to Zhao Yunlan's casually insouciant slouching and scruffy distressed jeans, his aggressively informal attitude toward public and personal space and his easily expressed moods.
Except that there's so much more with them that is shared and mutual, when you look at little closer. Not even just all those other traits that they have in common -- that they're both so smart and both so dedicated to their work, and how they're both such heroes (and that they so admire and appreciate that in each other). But it's also how those traits that seem to be opposing are so much more shared. Zhao Yunlan seems to express himself openly, but he's always so aware of himself and what others think of him; he has his own mask that's less visible but more impermeable than Shen Wei's himself. (The novel has a gorgeous bit of insight that when Zhao Yunlan is blinded, his face is on occasion blank, because he doesn't know when people are looking at him and doesn't really bother making expressions that aren't observed). And meanwhile Shen Wei's calm demeanor only barely hides the depth of his feelings; he's still in part the young warrior who had to wear a mask because he couldn't hide his fear.
Zhao Yunlan is the one who casually touches, throwing his arm over Shen Wei's shoulders when they've barely met -- but then once they're closer and Shen Wei dares to reach out in return, Shen Wei touches Zhao Yunlan as much, a hand on his knee as they talk, catching him when he staggers. And of course they're both extremely overinclined to obsess over the other's injuries while ignoring their own. They both understand self-sacrifice all too well. And of course the drama has the time loop, and their parallel histories and matched first meetings, that both of them fell in love when the other was already in love with them.
Then there is both of their unique understanding of boundaries, or lack thereof -- their stalker tendencies should be red flags except that they both share them. In the drama Zhao Yunlan isn't nearly as weirded out by Shen Wei moving in next door as you might expect, given that he thinks Shen Wei could well be a criminal at that point -- instead he's more pleased by how easy it makes it to snoop further. And then Shen Wei comes home to realize Zhao Yunlan has broken into his apartment, and smiles as soon as he realizes who it is.
...That's not even touching the novel, which is on the next level when it comes to the mutual obsession (Zhao Yunlan's reaction to finding out that Shen Wei's bedroom has no bed and instead is a picture gallery and shrine to Zhao Yunlan and all his previous incarnations is to bring Shen Wei to his family home for dinner and tell his mom that they're together and it's serious. This is after Zhao Yunlan bought a house for him and Shen Wei. Without telling him. Before they were actually dating.) Their novel incarnations especially deserve each other in both the best and worst ways -- it's good that they found each other, so no one else has to put up with them!
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Date: 2019-11-27 03:38 am (UTC)Also both of them fell in love when the other was already in love with them ... this, I hadn't actually consciously thought of it like that before but yes, of course. *clutches heart*
I love the time loop, it rather obsesses me, and this is a big part of it for me, that their experiences end up mirroring each other -- they both have meaningful first meetings and such, just different ones ^_^
And welcome aboard! This week is more posting from me than usual (and I'm already behind, whoops) but always happy to have more people along! ^^