On the subject of looking at old poems for BL hints

[cashew]

A recurring theme in the analysis of JYxDH ship hints is the focus on JY's line: 我入估人梦，明我长相忆。

Which, of course, is a play on 杜甫's poem 《梦李白二首·其一》. A lot of fans have been freaking out over this, but I feel like maaaaaybe fans are a little too excited over a rather sad reality. See, according to this analysis, 李白's relationship with 杜甫 was a bit...uh, one-sided. Quote:

杜甫和李白的第一次相遇是在洛阳，当时的李白是国民偶像，杜甫是他粉丝中的一员。

两人一起游山玩水， 分别后，杜甫经常写诗思念李白。

他前后给李白写过十几首诗，每一首都满怀尊敬或思念：赠李白、忆李白、怀李白、梦李白……“白也诗无敌，飘然思不群”“世人皆欲杀，吾意独怜才”……

而李白却只给杜甫回过三首，其中还有一首是调侃的——《戏赠杜甫》：

饭颗山头逢杜甫，顶戴笠子日卓午。

借问别来太瘦生，总为从前作诗苦。

太扎心了，大部分都是杜甫在“单相思”。

Translating the basics, 杜甫 wrote tons of poetry talking about 李白, but in return, 李白 only wrote him three poems, one of which was making fun of 杜甫 for being too skinny and working too hard at writing poetry.

Ouch.

If we go with the fans' interpretation that JY's line is meant to compare his feelings toward DH with 杜甫's feelings towards 李白, this ship is so, so doomed.

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Meanwhile, 李白's actual best friend was 元丹丘. Apparently the two of them lived together for a while, did a lot of traveling together, and sought out a bunch of monks/daoists to learn the religious scriptures and stuff. Also, 元丹丘 was fond of making longevity medicine (仙药) and 李白 was fond of trying them out.

If we're gonna look to archaic poets for inspiration (and presuming 丹恒 is 李白 in this analogy), I feel like maybe 元丹丘 is a better model when looking for BL hints.

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But overall, I'm not really sold on any of this trying to dig through the archaic literary references for hints of potential BL hints, mostly because it feels like a stretch and the game clearly is only BL baiting, they're not going to actually commit to text a canon BL ship. Also, if anything, it feels like JYxDH is a ship that's kind of doomed to fail because a) age gap, b) long distance, and c) JY just has too much on his plate to really deal with DH's angsty teenager phase. DH needs to seriously step up his game if he wants to be in contention for being shippable with JY. (This is why I prefer the already doomed JYxDF ship, because at least Dan Feng was dealing with stuff that's comparably difficult to the shit JY has been handling and thus they probably have more of a shared life experience.)

Comments

[tanithryudo]

Maybe 元丹丘 is an analogy for the MC, since you can choose male for the player character? Though, in terms of personality, they would be more like the other way around. The MC is more likely to try out questionable pills and DH is more likely to dunk on immortality.

Also, ship-googles aside, I don't think DH has even gotten to the point where he realizes he has more than friendly feelings for JY. From pure on screen showings, his feelings for the Express crew is perhaps more obvious currently.

The JYxDH ship has been really quiet lately anyways. So I'm not putting out hopes for getting good fic out of the latest patch. My advice is to start looking at other pairings... :p

[cashew]

From the text itself, what I'm seeing is a lot of JY feeling lonely and sad and moving on, while DH is basically like "I want nothing to do with this place omfg, I've found a family with the express party!" Hence why I feel like the 凤求凤 ship is really more about JYxDF. Which is dead and sunk.

My advice is to start looking at other pairings... :p

You're the person who dragged me onto this ship in the first place!!
（＞人＜；）o(TヘTo) Now I'm a fan of Jing Yuan and don't want to get invested in another ship...

[tanithryudo]

LOL, sure, but it seems like I'm not as invested as you in the pairing despite being the one playing the game. :p

[cashew]

I actually think it's because you're not playing this game that you're not nearly as invested. You're constantly being bombarded by crappy game story while I'm being sucked in by the promise of what could have been. So much potential, none of it realized...

[tanithryudo]

Eh, the current story hasn't been all that crappy. A lot of the plot can be nitpicked after the fact, but nothing that jarred me while playing through it at the time. And honestly, I don't have that much high standard for game story like I would an actual book-story.

[cashew]

Right now my main beef is with 彦卿, because the story is telling me that he's supposed to be mature beyond his age and smart and qualified as the second-in-command of the Cloud Knights. His actual actions, however, is that of a kid in over his head and too dumb to pick up obvious clues that something wrong is a foot and it's driving me a little batty. Like, why didn't he report the weird breech of protocol to the general immediately? Chain-of-command have been violated, this should require his full attention. Why is he letting it slide? It's so irresponsible!

[tanithryudo]

I don't think Yanqing is supposed to be mature beyond his age. (We don't even know for sure what his actual age is, compared to the Xianzhou immortal average maturation rate, lol.) Just that the events of the previous Luofu arc have visibly impacted his ways of thinking and acting, thus giving him character development.

I don't think he's second-in-command of the Cloud Knights either, as an official position. Nothing about his normal duties and attitude gives the impression that he has that much power and responsibility in his normal duties. Rather, he's more like Jing Yuan's PA. His normal duties are usually the tasks that Jing Yuan assigns him, which is why he can speak with authority on issues he gets involved him (because he's there as Jing Yuan's mouthpiece, or at least assumed to be so by other involved parties). But for other stuff, he can rightly say it's not part of his normal duties.

[cashew]

Just that the events of the previous Luofu arc have visibly impacted his ways of thinking and acting, thus giving him character development.

I will concede he's not charging into unknown situations anymore. But at the same time, now he's too conservative and not taking any initiative, so that's also a bit annoying.

I don't think he's second-in-command of the Cloud Knights either...

I'm working off of his official position as 骁卫, which seems to be the second-in-command (based on historical understanding of that position and what a lot of other Chinese fans are concluding). But this could, again, just be miHoyo not bothering to clarify the power structure of any of the institutions they've built lore-wise and are just throwing out cool sounding words without thinking about what it means that Yanqing holds the exact same position as Jing Yuan before JY was promoted to general.

he's more like Jing Yuan's PA

That's how he's mostly acting, yes. But given the character story description and Jing Yuan introducing him as effectively his second-in-command during the meeting, there's a lot of contradiction between what the story is telling us vs what the story is showing us.

[tanithryudo]

Eh, my impression of Jing Yuan's introduction seemed more like he was trying to matchmake Yan Qing and Yunli in an asian parent kinda way. At least to me. >.>

[cashew]

ing Yuan's introduction seemed more like he was trying to matchmake Yan Qing and Yunli

You mean during the promotional "interview" thingy? Yes, he did strike me as an Asian parent trying to matchmake.

With respect to JY and YQ's relationship, it's pretty much a clear master-disciple thing, but there's that saying 一日为师，终生为父, so foster parent isn't too far off.

However, in the game when YQ brought the party along and met up with the generals, JY specifically mentioned that he keeps YQ close by to get on-the-job experience and that YQ is going to be tasked with upholding the title of 剑首 for Luofu's Cloud Knights. In addition to YQ's position as 骁卫, I feel like the story is "telling" the audience YQ is actually quite high ranked, if young. The youth thing seems to be intended as a superficial flaw, given YQ's personal story describes many achievements despite his young age. But what the story shows us suggests otherwise.

After the argument with Yunli, JY comes in to smooth over the kerfluffle, which Huaiyan returns in kind. So basically I wouldn't really consider that a "match-making" thing so much as playing the politics and maintaining civility.