GUARDIAN: An Introduction

[adisgracetothescholars]

Who we are

kitsunec4: We’re a group of mumblety-something professional ladies spread across at least five to six time zones with far too many feeling about topics wide and varied (the current one of which seems to be a hyperfixation on Guardian).

moggiesandtea: We also apparently enjoy doing media analysis while yelling about the above mentioned feelings.

What we’re doing

kitsunec4: ...bad decision making. A lot of it.

moggiesandtea: By which Kit means that we are taking the current hyperfixation on Guardian and turning it into a weekly episode by episode roundtable discussion, which is probably the definition of poor choices.

hollyberries: Look, we’ve all done worse for the sake of actors/actresses we follow.

Why we’re doing this

kitsunec4: Uh, because a podcast is dead in the water before we even start? Also, we missed longform discussions of old.

moggiesandtea:What Kit said. And hey, what better place to put said longform discussions than Dreamwidth, because no one is going back to LJ.

Guardian: A Basic Intro

rageprufrock: I’d like to put all the blame for this debacle squarely on YouTube Personality Avenue X, who -- frankly -- has a lot to answer for.

hollyberries: … whose review you then linked us all to?

rageprufrock: I’m a professional gossip. It’s all I know.

moggiesandtea: The rest of us blame Pru.

lazulisong: Look I just smelled a trainwreck and came to rubberneck.

tammaiya: I held out at first, but got bombarded from all sides by thirsty bitches telling me I needed to watch this objectively terrible show. It was like a pack of lionesses taking down a gazelle. (I still blame Pru, though, she started it.)

kitsunec4: The rest of us definitely blame Pru, but it has also brought us all back together in the same fandom pit once again. So I’m finding it difficult to be too salty about this, what I am salty about is the attempt at an exposition dump in episode 1 where the script tries to get around the ban on supernatural/mystical elements in storytelling after the founding of the current Chinese government. Which leads us to...

The World of Guardian

kitsunec4: Aliens, it’s aliens. The story starts off with a very poor baby’s first cgi segment explaining how aliens came to the Haixing (or sea star/planet) and some of the alien cells “fused their genes with Haixing’s plants and animals,” who are the Yashouren (people with characteristics of plants or animals). While others retreated underground and came to be called Dixingren (or people of the ground/earth). Somehow, because apparently this is an universe where Lamarckian genetics work…these people have various special powers, but all was well! Until a natural disaster in the form of a meteor crashing into Haixing, destroying the ecology and kickstarting wars between the Haixingren (think of them as standard humans), the Dixingren, and the Yashouren.

rageprufrock: Eventually some kind of peace agreement is brokered whereby the Dixingren clearly lose the coin toss and live underground, but honestly who gives a fuck because it makes no sense.

hollyberries: For context the Chinese broadcasting bureau does not allow for modern dramas and mystical elements to coexist, which resulted in the writers flexing their paltry muscles and grafting the story entirely onto a different planet with ‘alien’ technology and origin stories. It’s hobbled a number of other dramas too, but none so badly as Guardian - which fandom is largely laying at the feet of the three writers attached to this show.

lazulisong: Honestly my first impression was that someone had taken their D&D game way too seriously and was trying to come up with a modern version of the Underdark and Drow.

moggiesandtea: I had forgotten up until the opening info dump that this was supposed to be taking place on a different planet. So clearly they do a great job with that.

kitsunec4: I still maintain the best solution would have been to actually just set the story a bit back in time and into the Republican period and then we get delicious dapper suits and the supernatural plot of the original novel.

rageprufrock: Oh my God. I hadn’t even considered that possibility and now I’m furious it didn’t happen. It would have been Supernatural Republican Punk.

lazulisong: This is the worst timeline.

Cast

rageprufrock: This groups skews very heavily toward the actor playing Professor Shen, and I concur that he is great and very attractive, but as the representative dirtbag connoisseur, I’m repping for a population that likes our men rough around the edges, morally gray, and possessed of terrible facial hair. In short: Bai Yu playing Zhao Yunlan is all of my Christmases and Lunar New Year’s come to pass at once. He’s effervescently delightful, but has a fabulously dark edge to him, too. We’ll get to the book comparisons later, but there’s general agreement that a lot of what made the character of Zhao Yunlan most compelling got unfortunately nerfed by the censorship laws around China, which is in addition to being one of those commonplace indicators of how infuriatingly despotic and terrible the Chinese regime is, is a real shame because in the book he had a whip. And a magic watch. Either way, Bai Yu does amazing work with what he has on the show -- he’s a walking, talking, flirting, imposing bottomless well of charm, and I would fuck him even though he drives in a Hummer in a major Chinese city. There is no comment I can make more significant than that insofar as conveying my affection for his stupid wonderful face.

moggiesandtea: For SOME UNKNOWN REASON the shared folder of Guardian screenshots is heavy on Zhu Yilong and not Bai Yu, but here is a shot of Zhao Yunlan and his ever present lollipop:



(hollyberries: Hey, I will have you know I withstood eight weeks of being carpet-bombed with Zhu Yilong photos/gifs before succumbing.)

kitsunec4: The other male lead of this drama is Professor Shen Wei, aka the Black Cloaked Envoy (I swear it sounds less terribly awkward in Chinese) and is played by Zhu Yilong. By day, a mild-mannered professor at the local university, by uhm, weird bullshit happening summons, is a scary enforcer and all around overpowered being that every Dixingren with half a brain cell treads cautiously around. Zhu Yilong does some amazing toggles between cute, wouldn’t hurt a fly, bunny of a squishy academic to stern and ready to destroy an idiot.

moggiesandtea: This is Zhu Yilong in harmless bunny mode:



moggiesandtea: This is Shen Wei in I will destroy you mode:



hollyberries: There’s no denying that the actors both have talent in spades, but something about the chemistry of their interactions together makes their turns in this drama many times more intense than their turns opposite (by chance) the same Chinese actress in two unrelated dramas.

rageprufrock: I love how everybody here is going to try and be dignified and analyze acting ability. STOP LYING. RELEASE YOUR PERVERT KRAKEN. (HOLLY.)

hollyberries: I JUST SPEND A LOT OF TIME ON BAIDU OKAY. Anyway. Both Zhu Yilong (Shen Wei) and Bai Yu (Zhao Yunlan) spent time acting as love interest for actress Yang Rong in Love Three Lives (2014) and Memory Lost (2016), respectively. The intensity of emotion, in love or in devotion, don’t reach the heights they do in this work. They’re perfect partners, or at least they are for this particular story.

rageprufrock: Unbelievable. If only y’all could see the fresh hell of the Guardian WhatsApp chat that I’ve lived with the past few weeks. The sheer thirst. The amount of gifs. My pure eyes can barely stand it.

hollyberries: ‘Pure’.

lazulisong: I blame you guys I had no idea who these kids are and I am genuinely tempted to watch even the historical Long-ge was in. Plus my tumblr dash is like, carpet bombed with Zhu Yilong at all times.

hollyberries: Oh god Meg I marathoned like 25 eps of that show in a fugue state this weekend SAVE YOURSELF.

moggiesandtea: And yet if past is prologue, next thing we know we’re all going to be watching whichever historical it is you guys are talking about. But for now: Guardian.

Comments

[naye]

Hi all! I fell into Guardian thanks to uh. A sudden barrage of gifs on Tumblr? And I vividly remember reading lazulisong's rec post going "oh no I'll have to watch this".

And then I did.

And I'm still watching and I have it so bad. I am suffering. Everything is terrible and I love it?? Zhu Yilong is too pretty for words and Bai Yu is a world class scruffy sprawler and I've always had a weakness for those and. Oh. My heart.

I have no Chinese skills to speak of (though I do read quite a bit of Japanese, which is helpful for knowing my way around a character dictionary and such), but I'm married to someone who speaks the language and so gets drafted into explaining nuances of honorifics and such to me. Usually this just leads to me having even more questions and so I love every bit of translation meta I can get my hands on.

Right and this is me and my guardian tag on Tumblr!

[kitsunec4]

Hahahaha, welcome, welcome. The more in this sinkhole of feeling the better.

I always warn people this is not really a good show even as I try and sell them on it. XD

[naye]

Thank you! ♥ I was so glad to see the post announcement because I've been dying for some good long-form Guardian discussion even though most of it will undoubtedly be about how terrible things are? But also how Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan are everything to each other and it hurts how good the actors are together?

[kitsunec4]

We also have some non-Guardian materials in the works that hopefully everyone will still enjoy coming up, and yes, I think we all missed longform discussions a little bit.

ADMITTEDLY, uh...we also forgot DW was a thing for a bit there too.

[moggiesandtea]

Case in point, the conversation where Pru asked why I'd created a journal account instead of a community and I had to explain that I'd forgotten that communities were a thing.

[naye]

...to be fair with the level of activity in most communities that's not really surprising. But obviously those are simply lacking enough people obsessed by the same things. I'm glad to see discussion is already happening here!

YAY META

[aubreyli]

I am always a slut for meta and I'm delighted that this exists. Also, I told my girlfriend (who I got into watching this show with me, and it is a testament to her great love for me that she has not, in fact, dumped me as a result) about the fact that so much of the show could have been mitigated by setting it pre-1949, and we literally spent 10 minutes cursing the show-runners.

I look forward to your insight!

Re: YAY META

[kitsunec4]

I’ll be furious about the zero supernatural plot point allowed thing 5ever. When you watch the show, especially with the last quarter or so of the episodes with this in mind? The patches and edges of where they hacked the already weak script further to probably satisfy a censor becomes super duper glaring.

We could have had it all! Dapper suiting and period outfits AND the supernatural!

[tinny]

Thank you so much for creating this comm! *I Needs It*

Is it okay to post own content? I've made an icon post so far that I could share here.

I also have about 300 Guardian caps already and I'm only on ep 18... *ahem*.

I also have some questions that I couldn't get answered on tumblr that I'd like to maybe ask?

[kitsunec4]

Currently, posting access is limited, as you might have noticed, we are currently still in the middle of settling in and making this space useful for the group at large. This might change in the future? Will have to see about demand for that sort of thing.

Feel free to drop questions in the comments section. If it’s something that spurs great discussion, we might try and make it a feature, or maybe a wandering comm member may answer in the comments!

[tinny]

Okay, thanks! Let me know if you decide to open it up.

I don't insist on posting my icons here, myself, but if you decide to link them for me, I'd be thrilled. Here's my first one: https://tinny.dreamwidth.org/514398.html

I'll definitely be making Guardian icons for the next two months at least, in case anyone would like those. They're for use on dw, obviously, and might come in handy in this comm? :D (I know, nobody cares for dw icons anymore... (you actually chose a layout without icons... blasphemy! ;))) )


The most important question I have right now is stuff needed to read the Chinese novel. I've seen your discussions on tumblr, and you seem to have the original novel and tools to translate words.

I only know the (ongoing) English translation on wattpad, but I'd love to check back to the original once in a while. I am only just getting back into Chinese (fandom is a great motivator :D), so I am not up to date with useful tools. So any links to the novel and/or hints on translating Chinese would be very welcome!

[spindizzy]

I'm so glad I'm not the only person who fell into this because of lazulisong's rec post! (And then infected like four other people with it...)

I'm really excited about this community, I love this terrible show and getting to see people talk about it (on DW!!!) is great. :D

[spindizzy]

(Also I started livetweeting Guardian around episode 10, and it's mostly me screeching about how much I am dying over Zhao Yunlan's STUPID FACE.)

[kitsunec4]

Welcome, welcome! Pull up a proverbial armchair and stay a while. If you want to get twitter alerts of new posts, we’re putting together an account for announcements @scholardisgrace

(Hint: we might have something going up tonight!)

[meishali]

Should I watch this??? I'm almost too scared to, mostly because I'm a huge fan of the author...since when she started writing really and feel that NO ADAPTATION is good enough.*

*I swear I'm a professional adult...

Can someone who's read the original novel first help a fellow fan out?

[arrghigiveup]

Oh man. Ok, I've only read the first 21 chapters of the novel, but even just based on that, I can tell you that going from novel to show instead of the other way around is Not Ideal because you will get SO ANGRY about the things you get deprived of due to censorship and whatnot. They essentially had to take a butcher's cleaver to both plot and central relationship, leaving you with inexplicable fragments strung together with silly string and bad CGI. Also, they fridged ZYL's mom for no good reason, which pissed every single one of us off, because ajsgagakjkjhjk ALL THE DELICIOUS FAMILY DYNAMICS AND INTERACTIONS WE HAVE BEEN DEPRIVED OF.

But. BUT. Zhu Yilong is so pretty as Shen Wei (I am still convinced that they cast him because his eyelashes naturally match the description in the book), and Bai Yu is the perfect kind of cheeky dirtbag for ZYL. Also they both read the novel to prep for their roles, and both clearly made the decision to play their characters as close to being in a romantic relationship as they could possibly get away with without being slammed by censors, and their chemistry is really, truly a treat to watch.

My recommendation? Maaaaybe watch the first 10, episodes, just for the delicious character interactions. Maybe the first 20, for the sight of SW kneeling in the rain to get ZYL's eyes fixed. Definitely abandon ship before the last one-third, because the plot completely plunges off a cliff past that point, and content yourself with imagining Zhu Yilong and Bai Yu playing out the rest of the original novel =D

[laleia]

Do you know where I can find a summary of the ending of Guardian (or want to tell me what happens at the end) so I can gauge on a happy ending/unhappy ending level whether or not I should watch the show? I promised myself ages ago that I would stop watching cdramas unless I could ascertain in advance that they had happy endings (for a given value of "happy"), but I see a lot of people talking about this drama ...

[arrghigiveup]

I completely understand the feel. Alas, the ending is bullshit. Both main characters sacrifice themselves for the Greater Good.

But! The novel on which it's based ends well! And also the novel's author wrote a fix-it happy ending for the show because all the fans were in an uproar. So if you can read Chinese, what you can do is watch just far enough to get the fun gay shenanigans, and then switch over to the webnovel and imagine the actors acting those scenes out instead. There are also ongoing fan translations for if you prefer English (as a comm policy we will not publicly link to non-official sources, but I'm sure you can get your hands on them if you do a search).

[unrelaxing]

This is from way back but I just wanted to express Some emotions that Pru Apparently loves Bai Yu/Yunlan the mostest because uh. Same. And I do feel a general skew towards Shen Wei, which is valid because he can wall sex you and that’s a Lot.

[mekare]

I have fallen into this fandom this year and am looking forward to reading your episode posts! Since I haven't read the novel, a lot of frustration just passes me by for which I am glad! I was forewarned by rheasilvia's excellent introduction post that the info dump at the start would be confusing so I just ignored it mostly.
I do like many aspects of the show (costuming! Hair! Sets! Cinematography! Music!) but the most important are the two leads. I sway back and forth with my 'who’s the favourite’ opinion because they are both absolutely irresistable. ZYL's face is out of this world (but also so frustrating because he is a fucking chameleon! I say this as a fanartist) BUT I agree with all of Pru's reasons for preferring Bai Yu too. He reminded me of John Sheppard from SGA right away.