#yuka's translation is very detail complete though~! which is absolutely lovely because some guardian translations cut out descriptions

[mejomonster]

so on the progress back to getting some energy i can now read a little and have been chipping away at yukacchi’s translation of guardian (here’s yuka-cchii’s twitter and tumblr @yukacchi) and

i love the characterizations? when i have more energy i might go back and quote but just. i love how priest sets it up. the moments where zhao yunlan frightens li qian for an inexplicable reason, that god tier intimidation still there. the fact he takes the guardian rules so seriously while he makes a mess of his personal life, how he’s unabashedly bi and wants love but thinks he isn’t long term relationship material so he always is a loyal partner but just keeps being left by them and thinks shen wei is ‘a serious looking man’ and zhao yunlan doesn’t want to offer himself when he thinks he can’t be the kind of man shen wei would deserve to date. how shen wei pointedly won’t look at zhao yunlan directly, how when he touches zhao yunlan he can’t help but reveal his affection (that’s already there) and desperate urge to hold/protect. how he hears li qian want to throw her life away and takes it So Personal he gets scary. 

Because it almost killed the man he loves. Because he knows what its like to want to die to protect someone and reasons for throwing your life away are deeply personal shit to the man and stuff he’s thought about for centuries in longing and grief. How guo changcheng looks back in the hall, and shen wei who’d refused to meet zhao yunlan’s eyes is now staring like he’s been doing it 10,000 years in longing and pain and care to the point he doesn’t even notice guo changcheng watching him. the way shen wei has a gentle smile that the more you look is clearly pasted on and held tight and a mask. 

the way he immediately makes zhao yunlan think of a beautiful scholar a demon falls in love with and paints, with that touch of darkness in the art unable to be ignored. that shen wei looks just so perfect of a beauty behind the glasses and avoidance he’s using to keep his walls up and go less noticed. how shen wei speaks eloquently but dances completely around giving actual answers. the way zhao yunlan is singleminded in his work, puts on this friendly casual act to handle the SID and push Guo changcheng along but he can drop it and be frightening at a dime and when people have done something wrong or they’re sensitive wow do they feel that underlying threat no matter how relaxed and ‘friendly and casual’ he’s putting on. 

just. the masks the two put on were certainly aspects in the drama acted out well by zhu yilong and bai yu, but in the novel there’s such a noticeable undercurrent of otherworldly power/isolation in the way zhao yunlan relates to things even if he doesn’t notice or pay mind to it - its in how he acts relative to da qing, to the SID, to regular civilians. the way this dark shadow seems to seep from shen wei, not in an evil way but in a way like he fits more with the shadows and ghosts, with the things slipping in the dark, like its touched him and he can be the sweet strong level headed and kind professor but that past doesn’t go away, doesn’t leave, its just under this very nicely made up front he’s got on. and the moment no one’s looking (or shen wei thinks they aren’t), the moment zhao yunlan gets too close and shen wei feels like he’s young and vulnerable and aching with loss again, it breaks right through (and then there’s zhao yunlan’s much sharper to the point its scary perception in this novel form - he picks up on shen wei’s oddness before he even falls into the contemplating how Hot and His Type the guy is - but it also Doesn’t even put him off a man is weird because zhao yunlan is so used to seeing ghosts and dealing with shadows without even a jump or blink of shock, because he’s the guardian he doesn’t feel like he quite belongs to the world of the living even though he plays in it and protects it).