worldbuilding notes for empress xianming
factions in fairy court story are
- moon court (zhouyu, the spymaster)
- ghost valley (xianming, the lord and master)
- spring court (shiragiku, enemy of moon court)
shiragiku is gonna fuck around and start a war bc she's bored.
zhouyu has a misplaced and flimsy loyalty to Honor and Duty and Repaying Debt.
and like zhouyu as spymaster is trying to repay with his service the debt to the monarch for sparing his mother's life from execution (who ironically died of illness due to chemical exposure a few years later) . she was an imperial scientist, and she betrayed the monarch by killing his "long-term experiments" out of what she viewed as "mercy" but also bc they were too clever and threatened her status and position in the hierarchy as scientist vs. subject though they all worked in the same lab.
zhouyu inherited his mother's debt and is paying with his life service out of a sense of misplaced honor but also guilt at being the only experiment to survive (bc he was his mother's Personal experiment).
and he thinks that if what his mother did was mercy by killing the other subjects, it must be her punishment to exempt him.
zhouyu has a really strong sense of duty and inertia in the way that he believes leaving the moon court he grew up in would be worse than paying with his life.
he isn't Loyal to the monarch, but he is definitely Afraid.
just like... he has a very strong sense of authority and hierarchy bc of his mother.
he also has rly weird Gender bc his mother condemned him for being born a boy who will grow up to "be a man like his father" and therefore betray her.
zhouyu is actually a woman... like, in his heart, but he despises himself when he looks at xianming who passes androgynously and is very very beautiful, exceptionally beautiful.
and knows like the only kind of woman he could be is plain and ugly.
but zhouyu has never like, felt a complex specifically about passing as much as like one about being extraordinary.
like zy also knows that like. he doesn't have to like Do Anything. he can just Be A Woman. but he also can't like.... conceptualize it as permissible. bc then how can that justify the way his mother treated him for becoming a man that will betray her like his father.
so zhouyu has some Gender Problems and separately he has extreme homophobia insecurity that has to do with like being brainwashed out of his extreme attachment codependency with young xianming (a boy) and into the monarchs palm of trying to indoctrinate him into having obedient children who will inherit zhouyu's debt in case he were ever to die.
bc obvs the monarch will never just Let zys debt be paid off. that's what makes zy so fucking outrageously homophobic.
bc he's convinced like the only way to escape his debt is to scapegoat his child as a replacement but also atst never wants to have children and is skittish and nervous around women.
zy is basically being extreme manipulated by the monarch but is by upbringing and necessity Obedient to authority and hierarchy.
but also like he has this weird and specific fixation on blaming xianming for making him want better and more and he really wants to make xianming HATE him so he can go back to barely living and living miserably.
but he's also like extremely obsessed with her and can't reject her like she will push him to actually reject her and push and push and he can't actually admit to it. he'll do everything JUST SHORT of it like any despicable violence and lashing out but he's extremely afraid she'll abandon him again and he also Needs her to fuck off and leave so life can be predictably horrible.
he's really anxious for her to leave. but he missed her SO MUCH and loves her deeply. she's his best friend...
meanwhile like zy doesn't Quite get this One thing which is that xianming is a pathetic harmless meow meow to his face but actually she's Extremely Extremely dangerous.
like that's what zy has never understood about her. she's Fucking Insane. but she has always shielded him from that side of her.
and she has always made him understand she would never ever hurt him or allow him to come to harm.
the unfortunate and horrible part of this particular fairy intrigue story is like the pressure of literally every other person knowing how frightening and dangerous xianming is Except for him, but the monarch degenerates in his rule So Fucking Bad that the dissidents in his court murmur about putting zy on the throne and therefore xianming.
bc if zy chooses to protect them, by extension xianming will (or Might).
and that is better than being scorched earth and rock salt due to shiragiku whim.
but the dissidents disagree whether xianming will protect Them or not.
like, if xianming will only protect zy and zy alone Or if his protection will extend to them if zy protects them.
and one of the things keeping zy there is that his court is his family...
it's his neighborhood...
he's not Close with anyone but he is helpful and cares and is loyal to ppl on the same tier or lower.
but the biggest and most invisible gamble is how much and who xm will protect.
bc xm is a wildcard and a tide breaker.
but... no one quite knows what he will do.
everyone is trying to protect themselves and the ones that aren't, are in it to play games.
and like the question of what constitutes self defense is like. what will xianming do to protect zy who is necessary for her to live.
the monarch is also acting in shoddy cruel and exploitative self preservation at his crumbling authority and throne.
and the dissidents are also acting to protect their own lives and livelihoods.
shiragiku is just here for a good time. she's playing games for her own self interest. you can't even consider her like... she's not evil, or malicious, she's just playing with her plastic toys.
they're all fairies but like. she doesn't have enough human interest to be considered evil.
the moon court is structured with a heavily buddhist cult influence like geto in jjk.
there's a lot of bizarre and deep indoctrination but multi tier on many levels.
the monarch is just a pathetic sad sack of shit bastard, but the mirage of authority is so absolute and convincing a threat to ppl inside his court that his power is unshakable bc of the way he convinced ppl inside the court that it was.
but xianming seeds doubt the moment she walks in.
and then she gradually like. the denizens of the court understand that the monarch they were all afraid of being a monster is just a pathetic dirty mongrel. it's xianming that they should Really be afraid of.
but xianming is also very lovey darling and cute to zhouyu and the most dangerous part about her is that you forget she is dangerous bc she's silly and charming.
zhouyu moved away suddenly / just disappeared one day when they were children and the abandonment was the worst and most severe trauma among severe traumas of xianming's life and xianming has never felt more powerless helpless and pathetic than when he felt not knowing where zhouyu had gone and being nobody and no one. so xianming sought refuge in ghost valley run by a faceless master at the time, but the de facto ruler was shiragiku, who raised a (fairy equivalent of) 12 year old xianming and taught him everything she knew, but she was fairy equivalent of 20. rather than any kind of paternal type relationship it was more like to shiragiku she was raising someone that had the potential to be her equal one day.
when shiragiku disappeared one day from ghost valley xianming wasn't surprised or disturbed, and then xianming killed the figurehead master and took over.
the story starts when xianming is about 29 and zhouyu is 28.