one of the things that makes me feral about novel weilan is how completely and totally shen wei falls in love with zhao yunlan as a person. because yunlan having kunlun's soul was enough to guarantee shen wei's unwavering love and loyalty. but instead he found a man who was nothing like what he expected. a man who regularly surprised him, horrified him, and delighted him. a man who openly adored him and wanted him and who shen wei adored and wanted back. not as a god but as a lover who was incredibly human and incredibly special. zhao yunlan is wickedly smart, kind of a bastard, a little gross, so so so good, and everything shen wei didn't know he wanted.
what's so striking to me about younger queer generations rn isn't the lack of knowledge about queer history, but the complete unwillingness to engage with it, when confronted with an identity or history they haven't heard of before they react with disgust rather than curiosity. (for example) instead of asking where the leather pride flag came from and what the leather community is and represents they immediately question the need for something like that to exist, not even willing to listen and learn from both elders and peers. this is also more broadly a problem in leftist spaces in general, being reactionary is somehow the default now, and anything that's different or unknown must be an attack and bad. really hoping y'all manage to grow out of this deeply conservative way of interacting with the world.