superborb | Entries tagged with fandom: mdzs

1. Diaspora vs Chinese-from-China feelings on culture. Growing up diaspora means living through racism that completely colors the perspective -- it's hard to explain why wearing qipao as a costume is A Problem or cultural appropriation broadly to people who haven't had the experience of it being uncool and othering when you do something and then cool when a white person does it. From someone who grew up in the dominant culture, it just seems like a good thing that people are interested, right?

Anyway, this leads to a feeling (a logical one!) of possessiveness over the tidbits of culture that you can claim for yourself.

2. The nuances of cultural erasure for a canon that was created by the dominant ethnicity and culture of Somewhere Else. As point 1 says, I highly doubt Chinese-from-China would feel as possessive over MDZS/CQL as diaspora fans do. They have many canons that reflect their world; as diaspora, there is relatively few canons that speak to the Chinese diaspora experience. So we attach ourselves to the things we can see a glimmer of ourselves in, in familiar faces, even though we aren't really their target audience.

I personally don't like most modern AUs or really, fic that gets too removed from the Chinese roots of the canon and just /feels/ wrong. It's just not what I enjoy reading. But I'd argue that it's way more erasure to celebrate [insert vaguely often American modern AU here] through its ubiquity and influence on the fandom. I know I fall more on the "this is a transformative works" fandom side of things generally, though I also know that fic and fandom can be deeply racist. But blanket bans on what kind of transformative works are permissive... MDZS/CQL are out there in the world! We can't erase it by any fanworks.

I do fully understand /why/ people are uncomfortable with certain transformations, I just think that in the absence of criticism of transformations that are similar, it leads to point 3.

3. I am so, so, so uncomfortable with anti-Semitism in a world where the alt right is resurging. Adding to the previous tweets I made a while back, characterizing Jews as "greedy," "taking over" are clearly dogwhistles. Please, I beg you, do not. The double standard where Christian AUs don't get backlash? Also seriously anti-Semitic.

As a nonreligious person who grew up in the US, where Christian Chinese are common, I absolutely 100% really do not like Christian AUs. And hey-- I can skip them when they're tagged. The fic getting backlashed was tagged as AU and Jewish from the very beginning.

In conclusion, I don't really want to be ~discourse all the time~ like I feel like I've been recently. I wanted to do two things: a. to push back on the narrative of "you're pushing out diaspora folks!" a bit and b. leave an opening for my ideal, a more nuanced discussion about why certain things feel like erasure and certain things do not. I think it would be revealing.

I saw a post where people were ragging on Yanli for being not politically savvy enough and like, I respectfully disagree?

She definitely took the "doomed older sister" role, but she was also like, a weak cultivator and her interests lay further in the caretaking aspects of life instead of physically fighting. Once the Jiang sect was rebuilding, the person most in danger was WWX, who could not be protected by the Jiang sect alone. Everyone was still suspicious of the close ties of WWX and the Jiangs, so JC's ability to move was curtailed. Military might alone through the Jiang sect wasn't enough, so she /needed/ the help and buy-in of the Jin sect in order to protect WWX. Her ability to protect her family thus lay in the marriage alliance she could make and maintain.

Through her influence on JZX, who now had expressed a willingness to protect her no matter what, and therefore to the Jins -- the only sect who was fully intact and also the one leading the call to destroy WWX and the Wens -- she could directly try to bring WWX and the Wens back into acceptability. Because of her expressed desire to bring WWX back, JZX asked JGS to agree to let WWX come to the one month celebration, and JGS even agreed to not continue the feud under certain conditions.

I mean, she wasn't successful in her influence campaign, but that was a pretty good attempt to play politics in the only way she could. (I guess also she married JZX bc she loved him or something...)

Don't pay lip service to "oh we don't speak for all the diaspora" and then if someone disagrees call them names and say how much self hatred they have.

You do not speak for all the diaspora.

I try to always express myself cleanly and I'm always, always willing to change my views with more data (the sign of a scientist!). I was already hesitant to say anything bc it didn't sound like opposing views would be entertained at all, so I narrowed my arguments to the most major, (I thought) unobjectionable flaw. I doubt any of the more fuzzy ones about diaspora vs mainland politics, the element of the fantastical, or the transformative nature of our fandom would have been entertained at all!

I'm actually shocked at how upset I am over this. I'm so glad the mdzs/cql fandom let me meet new folks, but I can't say that it was a good experience overall.

(Xposted from twitter for posterity/archiving purposes)

tl;dr mixing and matching from CQL and novel canon is fun, but there really are significant differences in the emotional and moral lives of the characters so there is a limit to how much mixing can be done

I've been sitting on this post for a while, so I'm just going to kick it out the door. As always, anyone can do whatever they want and headcanon whatever they want.

To me, the biggest difference is the (potentially censorship driven) playing down of WWX's crimes. Actually, I am still thinking of the Qi Hun director discussing how they had to make changes to the Hikaru no Go characters so they'd seem more realistic in live action form. Even leaving aside any changes explicitly driven by censorship, I think the interiority of WWX's thoughts in the novel would be difficult to show in live action form.

In any case, in the novel, the story really goes, WWX loses control and kills tons of people through massive hubris; he then finally destroys half the Yin Tiger Tally and dies in the process. WWX really does perform true necromancy and defile dead bodies, which prevents them from moving on and is a huge cultural taboo.

WWX actually does the things he is accused of, even if at a smaller scale than the accusations. IMO, this makes the message against mob mentality stronger when everyone turns against JGY at the end, bc WWX is guilty and everyone forgets this, vs WWX is not actually guilty and is exonerated. (Though, CQL adds the human targets in Phoenix Mountain and WWX tossing the Yin Tiger Tally for people to fight over, both of which do not make anyone come out looking good.)

A major theme in CQL is how LWJ is right to love WWX bc WWX is morally correct, and LWJ recognizing this is how he knows they're soulmates. Contrast to novel canon, where LWJ is in an irrational, this-above-all love with WWX. This point is where I think mixing the canons becomes kind of strange in fic. You can't have the irrational love in a mostly CQL fic, bc that's /not/ the basis for their relationship. Conversely, WWX is /morally wrong/ in novel canon, so a mostly novel based fic has to acknowledge that.

Turning their relationship from text to subtext also means that picking up WWX's obliviousness to LWJ's feelings from the novel (where LWJ def acted like he hated him!!) and putting it into CQL makes no sense. In order to have it be subtext, their relationship is much more strongly developed from the beginning. In CQL, they call each other soulmates! They have a solid friendship at the least! They're pulled apart by outside circumstances, and putting the idea that WWX thinks LWJ hates him into CQL is a bit-- ill fitting.

tl;dr: Where should the line of going too far in chinaboo behavior be? When is it gatekeeping? The particular example I've chosen to illustrate is sajiao WWX.

I want to be careful and say upfront that this isn't directed at anyone in particular and that fandom is ultimately everyone's own experience. I also have complicated feelings on this topic and haven't fully worked through everything, so I would actually love to discuss this further to develop ideas etc. Or if anyone has relevant meta/essays to link, I would enjoy reading those.

MDZS/CQL has attracted a lot of people for whom this is their first Chinese source fandom. This is cool! It's nice to be able to share something with so many people. I love the community feeling of fandom, where you can squee over fun things and throw around headcanons. There's also a big contingent of English speaking Chinese diaspora folks, which is also nice! It's fun to learn about culture and tease out the differences in everyone's experiences.

I'm going to use the trope of WWX being cute / pouty / xianxian is three! here, bc it's the one that caused me to start thinking of this topic and for a concrete example.

This behavior is called "sajiao" in China; it is analogous to "aegyo" in Korea or "aikyou" in Japan. The most direct translation IMO is "to act coquettish," but despite what a google search will have you believe, is NOT exclusively girls flirting with their boyfriends. It's used by both genders as an affectionate gesture towards family or friends. Lest I overcorrect against the Orientalist articles, it is most definitely also used to flirt.

I love sajiao, and do adore when WWX sajiaos. It's an aspect of flirtation is totally natural to the character! And accordingly, I love when it's incorporated into fic.

What makes me a little uncomfortable is how this occasionally ventures into fetishizing territory. I'm trying to be careful here to not cast judgement, but rather analyze my own impulses and feelings. A lot of this stems from growing up in the US, where yellow fever is definitely a thing and how as a result, I will always be hesitant and wary of people fetishizing Asians. So when I see sajiao used in ways that are tonally wrong, I have the impulse to recoil and (in my head) chalk it up to them being a chinaboo.

(An interlude: the diaspora, grew up as the minority perspective here is key. Asians-in-Asia, especially East Asians, grew up as the dominant culture, and so their baseline concept of racism and fetishization is very different. I'm explicitly calling this out bc it's an important distinction. Someone Chinese from China would probably view the same thing that bothers me and go "oh it's nice that they're trying" or similar.)

At the same time, there's the competing thought of: is it gatekeeping to say something like that? Why must everything be precise to my personal boundaries of chinaboo behavior? If someone in a non-Chinese fandom went around pouting all the time and acting cute, would I just consider it OOC instead of going to the "fetishizing!" place? There is also obviously considerable variation in how people behave, when is it just exaggerated for effect or the joke, am I being humorless by feeling uncomfortable?

I'm extremely unlikely to start calling out specific examples, by the by, and I picked sajiao as an example bc there isn't IMO a black and white answer on it. I am more interested in thinking about how fandom, as a social group, navigates the line between "this is a thing that I find cute/hot/compelling" to "this is fetishizing but in a way that doesn't harm anyone" to "as a dominant view in fandom, it distorts our perspectives on the culture." Additionally, how we navigate this without lurching from wank to flamewar. (Are those terms outdated now? I'm old.) I don't think it's useful to gatekeep, or to say "thou must not xyz," especially since it rarely results in shifting opinions.

1. I didn't mention it in the first post, because it doesn't quite fit (NHS is the acknowledged heir), but NHS fits into a well known trope, that of the artistic/literary younger prince. Historically, this was done to ensure that said prince wasn't seen as a threat whoever was meant to be inheriting (to sometimes bad ends when the younger prince did end up inheriting and oh, hadn't learned how to rule). Jacytheblue pointed out that post-timeskip, NHS is definitely playing this trope up for comedy (as it is often used).

2. Let me potentially dabble into controversy. I was a bit !!! at my bf about why this post got popular and he pointed out another reason why NHS may be often read as feminine. And that is, because he's physically the weakest one. I uh, hope that this isn't a motivating reason for fandom, but cannot help but think that it must contribute? (This would be a bias that crosses into the cdrama world too, from what I can tell)

3. Now I can make a very biased, anecdotal observation into patterns of engagement on DW/tumblr/twitter. (Though: still baffled why /this/ was such a popular post.) Namely, it's the hardest to have a conversation on tumblr: a few people put some followup comments in the tags, but uh, I see no way to respond to them? Nor did it seem like it invited response.

DW, of course, was the easiest to have a short conversation in, and despite having the fewest eyeballs on it, probably had the highest reply-to-read ratio (obviously an assumption, but based on the number of people who could have possibly seen it...). Posting on the comm (thanks rekishi for suggesting!) was not the crickets I was expecting either!

Twitter's notifications became completely unusable (the mentions tab stopped working, and over on tweetdeck, it only aggregates the last X notifs), which made it much harder to follow conversations. At first, there were very few replies-that-invited-conversation, but when I woke up this morning, there were more, which was excellent. I remain confused if -- QRTs are inviting conversation with me + the person's followers or just the person's followers? I assume a reply to my thread, as I am @'d is explicitly an invitation.

aka NHS is not particularly coded feminine in MDZS/CQL and I'd like to provide some context why!

I'm sure this has been pointed out before, but I'm not like, really ~with the youth~ aka how do people find meta post-LJ? So I don't know how redundant this post is... First, the caveat that obviously anyone can do what they want and headcanon whatever they want! These are just my thoughts!

I think people are mistaking NHS's love of art and fans as particularly feminine traits, which conflates Western ideals of femininity with what is happening. For reasons beyond the scope of this post, ancient China's ideals of masculinity rest on the ideal of a scholar -- the highest social class for much of imperial Chinese history served as officials and bureaucrats. (Of course, the perfect man was both martially AND academically inclined.) As a result, poetry, painting, these are /not/ coded feminine, because any true gentleman is a master of these arts.

On the topic of fans, folding fans were commonly used as canvases, and so scholars would gift fans etc etc until decorated folding fans were a Big Deal. Some of the aesthetic hanfu blogs say folding fans are masculine and the stiff round fans are feminine, but I don't think this is broadly true through much of history? Like, yes, that is the association NOW, because a lot of dramas will give the young women the round fans and we see men with folding fans. But also there are lots of examples of historical folding fans that were designed to be carried by women, and the round fans predate the existence of folding fans. In any case, folding fans are not coded feminine and may even be a masculine accessory.

In conclusion, I have and will continue to happily read f!NHS and related fics, but mmm how to put it? If you're taking a textual reading of the canon, you need to do a bit more work to explain it?

I have to preface this by saying that my vocabulary around vids and general fluency in vid culture is seriously lacking, since I have historically mostly hung out on the fic side of things. As a result, I am less well equipped to appreciate the meta or broader trends in vids, and this recs list is necessarily more biased towards my own idiosyncratic tastes than an already inherently biased recs list of any flavor might be. But I have enough vid recs that I want to talk about them with people!

Bury a Friend by Rhea
I love the use of silence here, and how well timed the cuts and song are. The contrasts between sound / silence and motion / stillness also were really enjoyable. I think because the song choice has multiple layers of action that the vid teases out, I rewatched several times to get more of the clever cuts. I also liked the use of (not sure the technical term?) cutting short scene clips into an unrelated clip to place them in juxtaposition.

double knot by by pingvi
I think by pingvi's sense of timing and repeated motifs are excellent. I find the flashiness of the edit and the rhythmic layering of sound from the source really appealing.

the fault by Pteryx Videos
So there must be schools of vid thought and trends, right? I think Pteryx Videos must belong to the same one as by pingvi, with the emphasis on elaborate cuts and sound layering. There is a sense of -- urgency and motivation through the vid that makes me want to rewatch.

The Black Parade: An Untamed Vid Album by helcinda
First: this is a series of vids to a whole album. As a result of the length, it felt very different to watch, with more space to explore almost? There was much more a sense of storytelling, which -- and this is probably a personal failing on my part -- I am usually too impatient to sit through in a vid format. I guess it just needs to be 45 mins long for me to invoke the sense of falling into a story? I especially enjoyed the WWX one, which gave me more JFM as father feels than I think I've ever had previously.

Fuck this shit I'm out by shati
OK this is only 25 s long, BUT I liked it a lot! Perfectly represents Mianmian's POV lol.

So What. by NKZephyr Edits
Right, so possibly I love this because I love Jiang Cheng, which -- valid crit. But I loved the premise of WWX as uh, the cheating husband, and all the many, many angry JC expressions, interspersed with angsty retrospective scenes of their brotherhood.

1. She's actually not very good at social planning. She can defuse a tense situation well and keep the peace, but would be terrible at matchmaking. Look at how she handles her engagement with Zixuan: does this look like someone who is good at romance to you? Her main seductive move is to make soup with love. Her contribution to a matchmaking scheme would be to optimistically assume that everything will turn out well.

2. Half the reason she falls in love with Zixuan is that it's a societally approved way to escape her family. Like, yeah, she sees the inkling of the Good Person underneath the Jin face, but it starts because of the dream of having a happy family life.

3. Even though Zixuan is her True Love, she's willing to forgive WWX killing him, because her little brother matters more. Also, they did have a very romantic reconciliation etc etc, but at the end of the day, she wants to protect all the members of her family as well as she can, and that means defending WWX.

4. Honestly, WWX and Yanli are very similar: Big Fans of expressing their love through self-sacrificial gestures, dreamed of having a happy simple domestic life, but when the chips are down, will do anything to protect their family. Including going up against the world.

Three is enough for a recs list right?? I sure hope so, bc this is kind of an esoteric theme and could not find more haha. I am excluding any canon sports here. Please link me more, it turns out that I have a predictable weakness for sports AUs, but sometimes you don't want to read about a Real Sport.

I feel like I win when I lose by so_shhy
The Untamed/MDZS, 26k, T
Competitive cultivation as a fight either solo or bw pairs! I liked how the canon magic was incorporated into the sport, and the details in LWJ's observations were fascinating.

Stargazer by Fahye
Yuri!!! on Ice, 22k, T
This is a sports AU of a sports canon, which is hilarious. The sport here is more of a performance (like skating). TBH, it's actually a bit more scifi!sport than fantasy!sport, but it hits the same button for me! I enjoyed how it handled the wider cast of characters and situated the sport in the wider universe.

and so my heart beats wildly by lily_winterwood
MDZS, 106k, E
As the length might imply, this goes more in depth compared to the other two in describing the mechanics and technical components of the fantasy sport, nighthunting. (It also does have social media bits.) I liked the descriptions of how the sport worked, and how the behind the scenes politics affect the in-sport event.

Pros:
1. Improves the gender balance in MDZS
2. Girls as the hope for the future, improving and moving past the war and prejudices of the previous generation
3. h/t

messyobatis for Thoughts on Mianmian having the only daughter reflecting that no one but her learned any lessons; but if we genderswap the juniors, this leaves room for fic where we reinterpret the canon in more promising ways where people have learned some lessons
4. OYZZ as the lone romantic boy with his squad of less romantic girls
5. Old men sect elders not quite sure what to do when confronted with all these polite yet firm girls overthrowing the status quo

Cons:
1. Would require some OCs to fill out the world of the junior generation to be really satisfying
2. Something something A-Yuan being a girl means she would have always been the last Dafan Wen

I was reading LtLJ's newest installation in her "hills and rivers" series, and it clarified something about a lot of post-canon fics that doesn't quite ring true to me.

It always bothered me when LWJ/WWX fics end with them living happily in CR without acknowledging WWX's like, entire THING with JC and JL. Beyond WWX's complicated family feelings, it runs straight into the all too common emotional arc of "and now you have a romantic relationship and that will take precedence over everything else" and privileging of romantic relationships over platonic in our society.

But even ignoring WWX's relationship with his family, he clearly ... didn't like being in CR? Like, it's nice that LWJ will break rules for him, and I know fandom loves the whole rule-breaker part of WWX's personality. But, he grew up his entire life feeling unwelcome in his family, is it really the happy ending to be somewhere where that will continue to be true? Where he'll always be in some low level of conflict with the elders?

I know that the novel ends with them living in CR, so it's "canon" of a sort, but I guess I don't feel like we've reached maximum happiness! Part of this is, of course, my bias that WWX would only ever be happy if he felt like he still had a home in Lotus Pier, because it would represent the fulfillment of his childhood hopes.

Anyway, there's recently been a lot more post-canon fic that doesn't end in "happily ever after after in Gusu" fics, which is nice.

I am unabashedly unashamed that genderswap is my all time favorite trope. I love it. I love when it's a ~commentary on society~, I love when it's an excuse for porn. I love when it's an always-a-different-sex AU, I love when it's a sudden change.

We'd roll and fall in green, 27k / 2 works, ongoing series, by x_los
x_los has such a deft touch for immersing the reader into the world, and the two fics here really showcase that strength. The world feels so real, and wider than just the pair, even when you're looking from LWJ's POV (tightly focused on WWX of course). The second fic, when you get to the case-fic part of it... whoo I loved how creepy/scary it was and how, despite their experience, LWJ and WWX are still teenagers.

The life and times of a bad idea bear, 20k / 5 works, ongoing series, by houselesbian
This modern!AU series has a very scene by scene feeling. I really like how imperfect Jiang Cheng is, where his flaws are clear, but so are his feelings, and I especially loved the image of LWJ as hm, that kind of icy cold hot lesbian? This series is what definitely sold me on lesbian LWJ anyway!

my heart is kept as pure as ice in a jade vase/一片冰心在玉壶, 21k / abandoned?, by daledesu
This one is more of an unconventional rec. It was originally written in Chinese, and this is the translation by the original author. As such, the trope choices are different than English fandom would make, so I find that and the chapter endnotes really interesting.

A Troublesome Charge, 70k / 4 works, ongoing series, by Moonsheen
Another unconventional one, since the genderswap happens after a reincarnation. I've recced this before, so I won't go on about it, but I thoroughly enjoyed this post-canon series and especially the NHS characterization here.

Coming Back to Yourself, 22k, by acernor
To finish this off (hehehe), a fic that's just porn. I... don't know what else to say. It's hot?

I find YZY a very fascinating character. I think she is unambiguously a terrible mother, and definitely caused some serious issues in her children. I think it's rare for a character to be a bad mother while still being portrayed as loving her children and wanting what's best for them, and I wish that was explored more! I can see arguments for her being more and less levels of abusive, especially considering how normal physical discipline is in their society and how much tougher having a developed golden core makes you.

After reading through all the fics on AO3 tagged with YZY in a day long frenzy, I come with five recs, all quite short:

Numbing by nekokoban [3k, G]
Food as a divider and a connector between YZY and the family she married into. I love this perspective on YZY's motivations: she feels like a real person, pushing against the constraints of the society she lives in. This fic was what caused me to become so interested in YZY.

MDZS short fics, Chapter 33 by nirejseki [1k, NR]
This is a much more forgiving view of YZY. Starting from the idea that YZY's actions are ultimately protective of her family and takes it to the logical conclusion.

纸鸢 • paper kite by ewagan [3k, T]
Second person YZY. I'm always fascinated by how YZY views JFM and how bad at communication they are; their "love languages" are so clearly incompatible.

unblemished by mud, Chapter 4 by chomrafy [1k, NR]
Short snippet of the women of the YZY generation as teenagers. Cute, and some fun lines.

Drowning Depths Blazing Blue by ExtraPenguin [1k, T]
A short nighthunt while WWX and JC are children. I loved the kid!logic here.

The theme is: less than 500 kudos! For the express reason that I had a couple dozen to rec, and this cutoff leads to a nice round 10 recs of presumably less widespread knowledge.

hear my voice and it’s been here by souridealist [56k words, E]

Jiang Yanli POV, and not an easy story. This is the fifth part of a series, and the one I loved the most; the others tell the story from other POVs. It can be read first. There had been two months between part 4 and 5, and I think not remembering the details of what happened in the previous parts immersed me in the limited view that JYL has in a more engaging way.

the final cut by wildehack [20k words, E]

This explores Nie Huaisang’s use of Mo Xuanyu, and is as dark as you’d expect from such a subject. Huaisang is complicated and so, so determined.

Call and Response by x_los [9k words, M]

The Lan brothers play Inquiry for Madam Lan, and what is revealed is, of course, tragic. There is one line, that Xichen thinks about Wangji, that punched me in the gut and made me gasp out loud. It’s not my headcanon, but it makes a seriously convincing argument on the backstory and relationship between the brothers.

The Same Cloth by x_los [8k words, T]

Lan Wangji reluctantly brings Wei Wuxian to see a merchant family. I love backstory and worldbuilding and this had both in spades. The descriptions of the textiles were amazing and so immersive. This one is much less dark than Call and Response; they are in the same series but not necessarily related.

A House on Fire by nirejseki [10k words, G]

Jiang Cheng and Jin Guangyao raise Jin Ling. It sometimes goes smoothly and sometimes... not so much. It’s quite episodic in the scenes described, which makes it move along very quickly. Each scene is a perfect gem of an interaction.

Warm in the Sun by 50artists [29k words, M]

Fix-it Jiang Yanli/Wen Qing. IMO this fic’s strength is the Yanli characterization: she’s strong and determined.

Rule 3001: Do Not Blink by EHyde [4k words, G]

It’s a Doctor Who fusion, which may seem absurd, but is executed so well. It’s from the Juniors’ perspective, as they investigate a mysterious statue. The perfect length to get a taste for the world in the fusion.

Sprout by EHyde [6k words, G]

Crack taken seriously is one of my absolute favorites, and this is such a fun one. Jingyi is a plant, and Jin Ling discovers this secret. Wen Ning’s final line in this fic is absolute GOLD.

I Don’t Get Paid Enough For This (But I’d Still Do It Anyway) by Quixiote [25k words, T]

This is technically a WIP, but I loved what was there. Someone made the joke that the Untamed could be a shonen anime from Jin Ling’s perspective... but what if it was a shojo instead! It’s a Cardcaptor Sakura fusion, and it fits so well. Fairy makes for an excellent Keroberos. Sizhui and Jingyi as Shaoran and Meiling! So good. So perfect.

something wrong with this (you know it) by myliobatis

Truly the fact that only ONE woman doesn’t get fridged is absurd, and Mianmian is rightly angry about it.