The Problem With Bed Trick
Mar. 17th, 2021 07:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
x_losTitle: Bed Trick
Sumary: Gongyi Xiao has a standing invitation to visit Qing Jing Peak. Luo Binghe has an in at Huan Hua Palace, a subordinate with access to magic that can make two similar-looking men identical, and a feverish desire to see the man who pitilessly threw him into hell.
A/N: This is predicated on the trip to collect the sun and moon dew mushroom occurring several months later than I believe it canonically did (though the timeline is really ambiguous on this point). Basically, in this fic Luo Binghe is already staying at Huan Hua Palace by the time Gongyi Xiao meets Shen Qingqiu and Shang Qinghua, whereas in canon I believe Luo Binghe only later took up residence at Huan Hua, when Shang Qinghua had properly defected and couldn’t tell Shen Qingqiu that Luo Binghe had returned early."
***
At 22k, Bed Trick is either a few thousand words too long or ten thousand words too short. Katy, my partner and long-time beta, has watched s1 of the donghua with me but hasn't read the book, or any fic beyond mine (more out of a partner's interest rather than a particularly fannish impulse towards the text, which she likes but which hasn't happened to hook her thus yet). She's the best structural beta and I know, and so I asked her how to take some of the exposition from the first section and weave it through. She observed that the easiest fix was just to chop the whole first section, in part or entirely, to work a bit harder on my admittedly-pat ending, and to present a fic that was entirely about LBH showing up on Qing Jing Peak in disguise, taking the lay of the land and eventually revealing himself.
Here is where her not having read in the fandom makes us have fairly different opinions, because fic is always in conversation both with the canon text and with other readings. While I hate cutting whole scenes, I think what she's suggesting could indeed work better to make a tight original story. But 'tightness' has its downsides: for muscularity, you trade expansiveness. No one story can or should do everything, but having stuff to establish in a conversation is often a driving reason for writing a piece to begin with (and sometimes these points are what readers will retain and offer their own thoughts on, in later work). In an email, I laid out why I think everything in section one needs to exist, even if not all of it needs to sit exactly where it does:
"1. literally no one has set LBH PoV in this era, and so
2. no one has made any of the, I think, pretty textually obvious connections here regarding *why* he thinks Huan Hua needs taken down and tortures the Palace Master (there will be incidents later that make this more pressing, and of course he hasn't LET himself realise the previous head disciple is his mom), why he's no longer at all interested in marrying the palace mistress--because it's not just that he's gay for Shizun now, it's that the person he is is really different, he's no longer strategically going for that connection or, crucially, impressed by her.
3. no one's ever gone over what he thinks of Gongyi Xiao, a pretty important character he's consistently paralleled with and jealous of SQQ getting along with when SQQ is avoiding LBH's supposed Terrible Vengeance
4. almost no one does anything with LBH, scheming and politics *at all*, like nooooo one has said that given what we know about mobeijun's uncle, there's a REASON mobeijun aligns with him immediately, and reasons hualing does. that decision's not like--out of nowhere, it makes a ton of sense for them, and why has no one ever said ANYTHING about why mobeijun does the abyss shit at all?? it's a p easy explanation
A thing I was thinking is, everything up to the section break feels like a chapter to me, which would reshape the whole rest of the fic and take weight off this. But then I'd need at least one more chapter break, and where? Maybe when they go to sleep, and then we're at the next morning?"
(Caveat: I've read just about every Bingqiu on Ao3 in English, and some assorted other pairings, but if there's MoShang that's super political--and there may be!--I wouldn't have seen it. And I feel like the virtuous thing would be to go read some gen or fic for pairings I only slightly care about (like, I'd read a MoShang rec'd to me or by an author I liked or because the summary was super fun, but not otherwise), but to be honest, I've never been Good in that Yuletidey way, and I don't feel like faking it, particularly. You know, time is limited, and unless I need to read a given piece to execute something well, I'd rather read NiF than Liu Qingge doing anything.)
The more stuff you're trying to do without scaffolding in the form of others' having written x and y before you, the harder it is to see how to do it. A later conversation about this resulted in my deciding to shave off the present ending and keep it as an omake or as some part of chapter three. Which of course requires writing a chapter three, which attempts to fix the balance and 'what is this fic about?' issue by staging the deconstruction of Huan Hua, making Gongyi Xiao someone Binghe feels he can give reigns of power he doesn't personally care about to, and accomplishing that. Binghe doesn't need Huan Hua for the reasons BingGe did, and honestly other than accomplishing his goals via it, he's not invested in it. What happens to the sect post-canon is unclear.
Part of the problem was, I didn't want to make and walk through some big, tough choices about post-canon fallout. I also debated whether, as part of this, Binghe would be giving up his Junshang position, and decided against it both because of what I'd done with Mobeijun's position and, more centrally, because it's really narratively unsatisfying: it makes it feel as though the Abyss period was all for nothing. And in a sense, canonically, it was? If LBH isn't a revenger's tragedy protagonist, it is all just a sad waste of time and period of suffering for the character. So I think I want LBH to seriously consider what it would be to just live as a human cultivator again long-term, in this era when that's still somewhat possible for him, and to think through the appeal and why ultimately he's going to choose not to do that. And part of that is about the narrative-making we impose on our own lives, the sunk-costs shit: we want things to have had some point. But tangled up in that psychological perspective is the meta-narrative trajectory of PIDW/SVSSS/the fic itself, which all require the Abyss to have had some lasting, positive consequence: winning the survival game of thrones has to come with some kind of prize, beyond survival itself. (The imperial logics of the empty throne in SVSSS, the meaninglessness of political power, could and probably should be the subject of their own paper.)
It's all very tough because while Mari is interested in this book, the nature of her interest in the fandom is predicted on the layers of reality a transmigration novel involves. Katy's helped me think this through, but she's not read broadly in the fandom and thus isn't bringing that kind of investment--and that's not just a matter of 'did the fic hit different for you?' personal reception, it actively shapes what you're looking for, what interventions in ongoing conversations you value, what you think is refreshing or intriguing versus rote. (Helena is mercifully happy to beta, but she's at the same spot in some ways regarding investment.) Like, imo whether your analytic lens is centred around a given pairing, even, matters a lot? I could not beta fic for a fandom I don't read or write for anything like as well as I could for a fandom I extensively do, and then further, I wouldn't seek advice on a paper from just any Victorianist or SFF scholar because we nominally share a field. If anything, the differences of perspective are likely to become more potentially harmonious or jarring in relation to our proximity. I've almost never worked in a fandom without Kelley, Katy or Molly K in there with me, sharing an evolving essential reading that's important to us, and as much as I like this fandom I do feel like I'm flailing around a bit. But then there aren't active comms, just weird silo'd discords and I guess fic comments at best, so there aren't great ways around that, at present.
EXCERPT:
On the second occasion, they’d handled a case where a little boy had drowned. The wealthy parents had said the lake where it had happened was the province of some spirit, and had demanded cultivators come and banish the vicious ghoul.
There had been no spirit. The thing had been an accident. Just a moment’s inattention, and the child they’d thought sleeping had slipped away to play where he’d been told not to. His parents had been desperate for an explanation, and for closure, and had used their influence to demand official attention. The ‘malevolent spirit’ had just been pain, given some material shape.
Shen Qingqiu had assured the boy’s mothers that the supernatural phenomenon could no longer hurt anyone else. He had used his words elliptically, allowing them to believe what they wished to. Even that indulgence, however, could do nothing against the fact that this fundamentally inadequate solution couldn’t bring their child back. Luo Binghe had watched the boy’s mothers face this, and falter. Cultivators worked miracles: these women had hoped for what they knew better than to expect.
The cultivators left the estate, and the family to grieve. It had been tragic, but from his youth Luo Binghe had been accustomed to the rapid declines and deaths of the frail, hungry, sickly children around him. Your skin cracked and bled when you took up a sword, but in time you grew calluses to protect yourself. Luo Binghe’s heart had a few, by now. This little boy had enjoyed a better life than many while he’d breathed, and would clearly be remembered with love.
Shen Qingqiu had been a solemn comfort to the afflicted throughout the day. The carriage that would bear them home had remained in town, at the inn. On the walk back to it Shen Qingqiu stopped, looking down at something on the side of the path. It was a dead songbird that had yet to be picked up by scavengers. Unusual to see, but not so uncommon. Shen Qingqiu had gazed down at its small, round, yellow body. Its yet bright feathers. Its stillness. He’d looked until tears had coursed down his face in abundance—slicking off the lines of his cheek and chin, ruining his detached elegance.
“Shizun?” Luo Binghe had whispered.
Silently Shen Qingqiu had looked up at him, blinking as though he’d forgotten he wasn’t alone.
Luo Binghe had offered him a handkerchief, and Shen Qingqiu had looked at it, confused.
“You’re crying,” Luo Binghe had said, by way of explanation. And Shen Qingqiu had touched his face, because he hadn’t known it. He’d scrubbed his hard, red cheeks harder and redder still with brusque, punishing rubs of the cloth. He had not been gentle with himself. He’d cleared his throat, and inclined his head in thanks. He had not spoken of the matter at all.
Luo Binghe had wished for the right to clean his shizun with greater care. To kiss away tears, and to wield the cloth with delicacy. To do what Shen Qingqiu would have done for him: to hold the man and soothe him, and coax him to rights. To put him back together, when grief was done with him.
Allowed none of that by their positions, Luo Binghe had instead dropped to his knees with Zheng Yang in hand. He’d looked up at his shizun. “Let me bury it for you,” Luo Binghe had offered.
Shen Qingqiu had given a tight nod, and Luo Binghe had done it with his sword, thinking, ‘I love you like this. Like family. In grief, in adversity, in weakness as in glory. I want to be the one to do such things for you, forever. I want to be with you until we die.’
Afterwards, Shen Qingqiu had breathed “good boy”, and touched his hair. He had walked on, the trudge of his tread eventually lightening into his customary glide.
The third, and, until today, final such occasion had been during the Immortal Alliance Conference. Luo Binghe had thought of it often, since. There had been hot wind in Shen Qingqiu’s eyes. He’d been hobbled by Without a Cure, and exhausted by the combat he’d pushed himself through despite his injuries. And when he’d asked Luo Binghe how long he’d secretly held Meng Mo as his master, there had been tears standing in his eyes. When he’d forced Luo Binghe into the Abyss he had been weeping, though he had not seemed to know it. It might have been a matter of fatigue, or purely physical. But then, beneath his front of detachment, Shen Qingqiu had always had a susceptible heart.
It had been touched now, with no wind or ailment to confuse the point. Shen Qingqiu was looking up at Luo Binghe, trying hard to stave off wracking cries.
“Oh no,” Luo Binghe said, feeling cruel and helpless, “oh Shizun, don’t—”
“Why shouldn’t I?” Shen Qingqiu said, all watery defiance. “I can at least do this, and surely I have reason.”
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Date: 2021-03-17 07:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-03-17 08:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-03-18 02:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-03-18 07:54 am (UTC)1. undertrains his disciples to the extent that they all barring GYX glom onto LBH before shit even starts,
2. and because they're undertrained, a LOT of GYX's sect siblings get slaughtered.
3. has a missing stair record of sexual harassment of GYX's predecessor that may well be ongoing, like, why wouldn't it be, when is it not with a guy like that?
4. lets his daughter/subordinate run around (as Sect Discipline Master, it seems like?) just whipping untried prisoners when she feels like it?? While GYX is embarrassed by even LBH's apparent treatment of SQQ.
GYX evidently never asks any questions about why his predecessor succeeding disciple got sent on a lot of missions to talk to a demon, got pregnant, got locked in the torture chamber for the better part of a year, Suddenly Disappeared--and he must know SOME of that, because there must be ANY understanding in Huan Hua of what happened to the last succeeding disciple??
So we have this Good Guy TM who's evidently at best DEEPLY unquestioning about roughly every sort of institutional corruption a sect can have, if not complicit (because by the end, he's 20 odd, he's part of this rather than just caught up in it as a kid). And the book doesn't press on the intense weirdness of this, on what anyone at Huan Hua thinks/why they'd follow LBH very readily beyond charisma, because there's really no narrative space for it. But for all LBH is intensely self-focused, as BingMei his morality and sense of how shit should be done is actually kind of orthogonal to Whatever GYX's Complicity Is, in ways that are tied to BingGe being a wuxia hero/Revenge protagonist with an interest in restitution, and his mom's involvement, but also BingMei's sense of there bring a Fit way to do things, his investment in SQQ as a sect leader who's not at all like the Palace Master, and thus his own more morally/intellectually/emotionally engaged relationship with disciplehood (to see GYX's blind obedience at first makes him uncomfortable because it could reflect on his, if SQQ is a hypocrite, but also even if SQQ is--SQQ is still better at this job than Dungeon Master Flex over here).
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Date: 2021-03-20 06:25 am (UTC)The only fic I can think of set during Binghe's time at HHP is the one where he bodyswaps with SQQ, and that's more just using the story point as a setting for shenanigans. Which, like, obviously SVSSS fandom has the best ever canon justification to get handwave-y about background characters and worldbuilding and skip to the porn if the writer wants, but. It's there, it's free real estate, and it could be super interesting.
I also am really digging the theme at the start of the excerpt of how people try to understand and build narratives out of senseless tragedy, and how that could potentially be echoed in Binghe's experience of the Abyss.
no subject
Date: 2021-03-20 10:19 am (UTC)