#This is the actual writers of these articles making fandom stances in public and that's weird as HELL

[userautumn]

Easily the most bizarre thing to happen in the 9-1-1 fandom this year was the ship war making it to the mainstream press with obvious Buddie biased writers promoting their viewpoints using their legitimate, paid journalism jobs. Not discourse (or if it is, I don't know about it because I have the 9-1-1 tag filtered), I've just never seen so many people en masse decide they want to fandomify their careers as a gotcha in a ship war. Totally fuckin odd.

[potteresque-ire]

I’ve got several asks about BJYX supertopic’s recent battle for the top CP ranking. I’ve meant to answer them the way they’re asked, but the answer gets long. Dear Anons ~ please forgive me for splitting the answers into multiple posts!

As with everything I’ve said about CPs, they’re mostly my limited observations—unlike history and news, it’s impossible to find articles about any of this that pass journalistic standards. Therefore, please consider the following to be my personal impressions and ramblings, and as usual, everyone please feel free to point out mistakes and add your own thoughts!

Everyone probably knows already, but the new drama that has brought waves to the Weibo’s CP ranking list is Word of Honour (山河令, which I will abbreviate to WoH), and the CP pairing is known as Lang Lang Ding (浪浪釘, LLD). I haven’t watched this drama yet but as a Wuxia (and slash) fan, it is on my to-watch list. Nonetheless, I’ve been watching the developments surrounding the popularity of the drama and the CPs, and I think I can make the posts long enough just with these observations alone. (I’m incredibly long winded :D )

For the CP competition, I think it’s important to point this out: the LLD supertopic is a mixed character-CP and real-person-CP supertopic, unlike the YiZhan supertopics (BJYX, ZSWW, LSFY) that are real-person-CP only. This means comparing LLD and the YiZhan supertopics is really …  comparing apples and oranges, especially when WoH is still airing (and therefore providing fresh candies for the character CP with every new episode). I therefore wish this kind of popularity competition doesn’t take root in the international fandom; it’s … a bit silly to me, really. It makes little sense.

That said, however, I understand why c-turtles are fighting so hard for the #1 CP spot. C-ent (as is true with many other aspects in the country), numbers and ranking are everything. That 20(?), 40(?) minutes during which BJYX supertopic fell to #2 the first time already made “news” headlines that claimed that WoH had surpassed The Untamed (TU)—an even stranger comparison, if one thinks about it. BJYX, technically speaking, doesn’t have anything to do with TU. It’s a GG/DD real person CP.

But it doesn’t matter—numbers are numbers, and they talk to c-ent watchers, the commercial interests looking for their most promising future investments. The perceived power of c-turtles hinges on them and by power, I mean both fan power and spending power, which are almost synonymous terms in c-ent. Many of you have probably seen those charts that rank the popularity of c-ent entertainers by how much goods, in monetary value, they’re able to sell. How much do the c-turtles contribute to these monetary values? Are they, as a collection of fans, worth keeping, worth wooing?

The notion that only the fan’s spending power means something may cause unease in many i-turtles—and it is, indeed, a very cold-hearted assessment, as it implies that fans are little more than living wallets to be emptied. My observations have been that such a notion doesn’t bother c-turtles for the most part and, IMHO, they’re being realistic for their sociopolitical environment. They also respond to this notion accordingly—while it is difficult to tease out the exact percentage of turtles among Gg and Dd’s active fans (fans that make major purchases goods and merchandises), c-turtles have previously demonstrated their ability to contribute a substantial fraction (in the 10s of percent) of money spent on Gg and Dd. As these splits are only very occasionally visible to the public, the CP ranking likely serves as a constant reminder of c-turtles enormous fan/spending power — without which, Gg and Dd’s popularity will also take a hit.

In that sense, c-turtles are fighting for their right-to-exist. Remember when I talked about the “traditional” thinking that CPFs < solos, and that one CPF = one (loyal) solo lost? This means c-turtles must be able to demonstrate their ability to offer something that the solos cannot, and more importantly, that their offer will not come in any other name. If c-turtles proved last year that they wouldn’t change their name to solos, then this year they’re set to prove they’ll not change their name to LLDs or other CPFs. 

If the latter sounds a bit like a battlecry, it may be exactly that. Ever since the announcements of the long line of upcoming Dangai’s, ample inflammatory posts have been made on the platform to get c-turtles to “defect” to the new dramas, or predict that as soon as another pair of random, beautiful men start to throw candies on screen, c-turtles will promptly forget about Gg and Dd and join the fun. The latter, especially, can be quite insulting to read, as one can imagine. However, with c-turtles being a loosely connected group of millions, despite their apparent firm stance that they shall stay turtle, their underlying nerves that these “insults” may turn out to be true can also be felt — the worry that c-turtledom will haemorrhage when the next popular Dangai with enticing M/M CPs (character or real person) come along. 

WoH, as the first drama that fits the criteria, is therefore a test— a test that many c-turtles likely view they must pass with flying colours to prove their point, to stand with their heads held high among those who do not care about BJYXSZD (not necessarily solos—many solos, BTW, have actually helped the turtles out this time); to show that turtles are not only every bit as loyal as other Gg and Dd fans, they’re not so … cheap as to take any random “industrial saccharine” (工業糖精; referring to ZQSG-free candies created solely to lure in fans) and walk away.

The reform of the BJYX supertopic (which now allows candy analysis and explains the sudden appearance of many old candies), the flood of BTS videos from almost every Zhan Jie previously involved with the YiZhan CPs, the temporary retaking of the top 3 CP spots by BJYX+ZSWW+LSFY ... can therefore be viewed as a rally of c-turtles. The message is: we’re not going anywhere. We’ve got enough candies that no other (M/M) CPs can hope to match in quantity, in quality.

(And the parade is indeed impressive.) (The reform also didn’t come out of thin air; there have been discussions about the supertopic’s candy sharing rules before.)

Some c-turtles have rightfully been concerned about how such a parade of candies can affect Gg and Dd. They point out that some candies should still remain 閱後即焚 (“burn after reading”, instant return to hiding after release like certain BTS videos); that at some point, c-turtles have to let go of their obsession of staying on top of the CP rankings. TU is already almost 2 years old, and being a little lower on the CP ranking list will take the heat off the YiZhan fandoms in the long run, incite less outside forces trying to fan the flames between the shrimps and the motors and the turtles.

The rules and guidelines of c-turtledom therefore remain a work in progress, and c-turtles, the millions of them, are still learning as they go.

Personally, I have faith in what will come. I also haven’t been too concerned about the candy parade, because most information is already out there for those who’re determined to find them — on Bilibili, Douyin, Zhihu etc. I spent some time talking about the Gg Assistant fic not with the goal of eliciting pain or panic, but rather, as a demonstration of why it has been the tradition of CPFs—not only the turtles—to play things very cautiously, with 閱後即焚 and 圈地自萌 (“to play within the circle”; ie, keep all information and candies within CPFs) being the default rules even after removing the “queer factor” from the discussion. Real person CPs have fate as one of their writers and so, unlike character CPs, their candies can have unintended, unpredictable consequences. As the YiZhan fandoms have now grown big enough that their candies can no longer be realistically well-contained, it may not be such a bad idea for especially the sensitive candies to return under the “jurisdiction” of the BJYX supertopic, so to speak. c-turtles can then gain better control of their comes-and-goes. Their narratives.

(CPN below.)

About narratives. @rainbowsky have previously written a thoughtful piece on the possible reasons the YiZhan fandoms have been allowed to thrive, and I’d like to add the following hypothesis—it may be a way to take pre-emptive control of the Gg/Dd narrative in preparation for the scenario where their relationship is exposed without their consent. Some i-turtles, I think, may have already gained a sense of how ruthless, cruel and above all, quick the c-ent rumour mill can be. If Gg and Dd get outed by a third party, chances are they won’t have time at all to create a fresh narrative, and the one that come out of the rumour mill will likely be … very ugly, containing every worst misconception people have against homosexual relationships. Whereas now, c-turtles already have a narrative at hand—the canon-fanon that, while c-turtles may not agree on every detail, is largely agreed upon on the important milestones. The supporting materials are also ready: the videos, the images, the voice and arrow guides on them.  

For me, another interesting question is whether this c-turtle rally and parade of candies are truly necessary in the end.

I’m curious about what will happen to the LLD supertopic when WoH completes its airing. There’s really no precedence for this kind of a mixed character + real person M/M CP supertopic setup — the history of Dangai is short, of popular Dangai’s, even shorter.

Guardian (鎮魂), the first successful Dangai aired exactly a year before TU (in the summer of 2018), never had a dedicated CP supertopic (please holler if I got this wrong! I know there’re Guardian fans here ~ hello! *waves*). Discussions of Guardian’s CPs were found within the drama’s supertopic (剧版镇魂); the real-person-CP also never had its own name; its discussions were hidden under the character CP (巍瀾) tag.

Then came TU. Its real person CP (BJYX) split away from its character CP (WangXian) long before the airing for the drama—the birthdate of the BJYX supertopic was 2018/04/28 (TU’s airing date: 2019/06/27).

After TU, two Dangai dramas have already aired before WoH that seemed to have largely passed the attention of i-fandom: The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty (成化十四年) and Winter Begonia (鬢邊不是海棠紅). Winter Begonia, in particular, was well received. Their character CPs never really took off, however, being conceived and perceived as more brotherhood than romance. Age also played a factor for Winter Begonia—Yun Zheng (尹正), known to many turtles as Dd’s motorcycle buddy, is 34, and Huang Xiaoming (黃曉明) is 43. The associated real person CPs also never became popular as a result; Huang Xiaoming’s famous marriage to a beautiful actress also meant that a real person CP was likely to be off the table for Winter Begonia from the start.

The best reference I can think of then, when it comes to speculating the fate of LLD, is therefore the fates of the CP supertopics of 2020’s summer hit, Love and Redemption (琉璃). I’ve talked about its character CP before; essentially, just days after the drama was done airing, the (het) character CP (初遇夫婦) was broken up and in a manner largely criticised as unnecessarily cruel to CP fans. Its supertopic closed immediately afterwards. The supertopic for the real-person-CP (冰橙汁) got to live, however, and is still active today.

The commercial forces behind WoH will likely break the character CP as soon as the drama is done airing; popular het and non-het character CPs in the recent years have gone through similar fates. What does this mean to LLD then? Does it mean the supertopic will be shutdown, since the drama itself already has its own supertopic? But what will happen then to its real-person CP, which has been incorporated within the LLD supertopic? Will the real-person CP be broken at the same time as the character CP to allow for immediate “purification” of real person CP fans into solo fans, to avoid future “headaches” like BYYX—a bound between the actors that cannot be severed—or 227 that, in the eyes of many passerbys, remains an issue of solo vs cpfs?

Only time will tell, and I very sincerely hope it’ll get a happy ending. Fans are made to love, and it saddens me every time to see them being severed from their loves, or pitted against each other especially when it’s clear it’s the social media platforms, the commercial interests behind the scenes — not just the production/media companies but the YXHs, the water armies — who will reap the benefits in the end. Personally, I feel no joy in seeing anyone’s favourites getting torn down, even if they aren’t my own. Gg and Dd’s safety — and the safety of every upstanding, hardworking c-ent entertainer like them — doesn’t hinge so much on their CP or solo or drama ranking, but whether their fans can refrain from bringing their conflicts into the public eye, from “occupying social resources”—ie, deflecting the public’s attention from the “core socialist values” the government intends it to focus on.

Fandom is big enough for us all.

[ohnobjyx]

A snow storm out of nowhere

Part Two: March

In this post we continue to go through XZ’s situation, to better understand why he is where he is now. The ask that originated everything is here, with an index. 

Disclaimer: I try to keep the content objective, but I am biased, by the kind of content I’m usually exposed to and by my own perception of their situation. I may be wrong, and language barriers and cultural differences have to be taken into account. If anyone wants to discuss this, please make sure you have enough information to do so.

I think that even with all the “darkness” this post has, it express also quite nicely why I think XZ won’t be defeated by this. We will see him again, let’s be patient. 

So, taking from Part One, the next day public thought that XZ’s Studio and his team were trying to hush all the commotion. People were very very furious, looking for a way to vent their anger. Some said that the only way they’d let this go was that XZ retired from the entertainment industry.

Attacking his endorsements

That night, Olay was to air a live video with a product that XZ was going to endorse, and antis realized that they had a new way to express their anger. The comments and their interventions during the event made it impossible to progress adequately, and the announcement of XZ endorsing the product had to be put off.

Antis and haters realized the power they had, and started to announce that didn’t just reject the products endorsed by XZ, they also rejected the brands that worked with him. In the face of such controversy and boycott, many brands chose another spoke person temporarily for their commercials and banners, removing XZ’s from their websites.

From March, the antis centered themselves around the topic “Not buying products XZ endorses”, making his value go downwards. The brands he worked with decided to stay low for the time being and removed his image from their websites. Some even decided to terminate their contracts with him, in fear of being boycotted.

Douban

By the 3rd day ao3 was down, reality sank in and people turned to douban, were C/QL, The Joy of Life, Jade Dynasty were in the top 3, all of them series were XZ is lead actor or secondary actor. The antis placed bad reviews, to the point of bringing down the score of C/QL from 8’5 to 7’9 in a single day (we’re talking here of 1′5 million reviews as of today) and affecting every project he has worked on since the beginning of his career as an actor.

Public scorn

XZ as well as XZ fans became the objective of public scorn. From the 1st of March, some of the accusers apologized for “the problems caused”, and the one that had led the report posted a public apology and deleted every post related to the reporting. However, to the rest of the users it looked like they were apologizing against their will, and that they still thought they weren’t wrong, but were doing so in an effort to preserve XZ’s public image, as well as their own image as XZ’s fans.

The conflict ceased between XZ’s fans and the cp fans, now uniting in an effort to lesser the damage. They agreed to bring down the tone of the discussion, and once things cooled down a bit, XZ Studio posted a public apology, asking people to support their idol rationally, to speak and act carefully, as well as saying that XZ was currently quarantined at home.

Antis brought up more complaints about XZ’s fans. Unfortunately, it’s a fact that some of his fans had taken sometimes unreasonable measures to give him the spotlight, such as:

Making him the center of attention in a tv drama in which another actor was the male lead. They took over the community in w/ibo and started to delete all of the other actor’s fans from the group.

Some fans attacked WYB, so XZ wouldn’t have to “divide” his success from C/QL with him. They reported WYB for not having a “host degree” (whatever that is). This was shot down by a statement from Hunan TV, by the way.

Attacking whoever says that they don’t have any interest in XZ’s works (a professor was asked to have a look at his works, and he refused, so XZ’s stans started to attack him).

(Again, bear in mind that antis and hater and these kind of very obssesive fans are a minority, and they are greatly outnumbered by the rest of the people that like and support XZ in a much more rational way... but they make more noise, so to say). 

Antis and people resenting XZ for the 2/27 incident wanted a scapegoat. So I think the resentful party wants the fans to know “so you take away this, I want your idol to pay for it” and antis… they have their own agenda, and that’s for another post. 

XZ Studio’s apology didn’t do much and the drama continued to unfold. Maybe XZ’s Studio wanted to wait for the storm to pass, and since acknowledging the issue would give it importance, they waited until they couldn’t put it off anymore. I don’t know if this was actually right or wrong, but people weren’t satisfied with this apology. XZ’s fans would try to argue with the antis, and thus keeping the image of obsessive fans, even if many of them were actually right.

People were disappointed by the actions taken by his team and waiting for him to say something, but, to their disappointment, XZ didn’t express his opinion. 

Other authors

Fanfiction writers, mostly from the BJYX fandom, would receive insults and attacks from antis and XZ’s stans still pursuing their original stance, so a lot of content has disappeared. 

(To this point: I don’t like RPS. I don’t read RPS fanfics. I didn’t like seeing them and adjusted the filters in ao3 so I could only see fanfics from CQL. But attacking the authors this way is also terribly wrong).

Responsibility and consequences 

XZ had previously signed up with many companies, with WJJW being the main stockholder. Since he was under so many companies, none of them wanted to take responsibility of the matter and try to solve it, so it was left to XZ’s Studio to try and fix it.  

Investors, directors, brands’ representatives... they all thought that it’d take at least half a year for XZ to recover from this blow, and it also depends greatly on how his next work is received by the general public. He still has the support from his fans, but that alone wasn’t enough in the face of such boycott.

While later people who supported him appeared, there were voices at first too that asked him to take responsibility. 

(These are influential people, and, while I’m not surprised that their stance was to support public opinion, as a public figure, you may find yourself in the future in the same position as XZ. To add oil to flames doesn’t seem very kind to me, but again, this is a competitive industry.) 

Support 

At the same time people criticized him and his studio for his management of the issue, prominent people stepped forward and talked in his behalf, like critics, directors, and even lawyers, talking about the legal aspect of the fanfiction, saying that, by Chinese laws, it was indeed violating the law.

(However, there was another article I agreed more with: not liking a content doesn’t give you the right to manage it. That’s the duty and right of the platform, in this case ao3. You may report the author and the work if you find it unsuitable for the platform, but to call the authorities on them is quite excessive). 

It was also positive that in spite of everything, the sales of the products he endorsed remained high and in the lead in March, and the trend continued all the way to July. He’s still considered one of the most influential celebrities, taking usually the top 1. This is why his companies, agencies and his team hasn’t given up on him. As sad as it may sound, if he’s a profitable asset, they won’t give up on him, because he can still earn money for them. 

Since the antis were spreading hate, rumours and false news, trying to damage XZ’s image, the fans also tried for the contrary. They posted about XZ’s kindness and polite gestures, to try to counter the antis’ attacks. 

However, no matter how much his fans support him, the greatest help came from fellow acquaintances, coworkers and friends from the entertainment industry. It’s a reality that no matter how much a fan likes their idol, the average fan doesn’t know him personally. But that can’t be said of people who have worked with him. 

People he had worked with (fellow actresses, critics, directors, screenwriters) supported him by posting comments defending and praising him, expressing their dismay about the antis or by praising him in livestream. For well-known people to step up and speak for him, when they could have stayed silent in fear of retaliation, it’s a true give away of XZ’s character and what these people think of his future, especially if we consider that they are facing a group of unreasonable antis.

(In fact, many of the people who supported him received hateful comments and were attacked for supporting him, but none of them took away their support, that I know of). 

Happy Camp’s support

It was also a good sign that while brands still avoided his image, tv programs didn’t shy away from his image. Happy Camp emitted a video in which XZ appeared, so fans interpreted this as a sign of silent support from the program and the tv channel.  

This was also very important. There have been cases before, when an actor was being seriously boycotted because he had been having an affair, that the tv stations refused to work with him. It got to the point that, when a episode had already been filmed, they used photoshop to erase his image and simply cut out all of his interventions and interactions with other participants .

See that space there, between the girl in blue and the guy with a suit? Such are the miracles of photoshop.

So if an actor has really committed a mistake, the entertainment industry will not hesitate to take away their support. It’s also a way to say that they disapprove of what that person did. 

(To those who are curious, this man had been a very successful actor for many years. He was “happily” married and had a 20 years old son. But when people discovered that he had been keeping a mistress for almost two decades... he fell out of favor. Quick.)

XZ’s very brief appearance in Happy Camp was an auspicious sign for his future, meaning that tv stations are still willing to work with him and that his dramas will likely be aired in spite of everything. 

(I’ve never been happier to wrong, since I thought this would take longer to pass at first. But when I thought about this carefully, I realized that anyone could see that XZ in himself isn’t at fault for what happened, so why would they reject him once the storm passes?).

The start of the public welfare project 

So, in the midst of this situation, which was very serious at the time, XZ’s fans Public Welfare Group was founded, with the support of XZ’s Studio. 

(This is actually quite common in China. A group of fans create a welfare group, and they do volunteering projects and others in the name of their idol. Many celebrities’ fans create a group like this when the fandom is big enough.)

I think it served to remind that idols can use their influence and unite a large group of people to serve purposes that are beneficial to the society (at least in Asia). It came in a “good” moment, because if nothing else, XZ can’t afford that the first that comes to mind to the general public when they see him or his fans is this small group of people, who are the representation of the worst part of his fans.

(Since this project has the support of his studio, he must know of it and must have given his approval. But he is not the one to actually initiate the project, that was a collective effort from his fans: to do welfare projects in his name. He collaborates with welfare projects, he had done it before, and did it again in June. This a reflection of a more positive part of fan quan culture, which will be explained in the next post).

However, because he was in the middle of great controversy and criticism, this move was also considered “hypocritical” and “insincere” by the antis. Nonetheless, the influence such a large group of people have is undeniable (in promoting local commerce in this case), and the local representatives thanked them for their support. They kept on with their projects these months, usually promoting agricultural products from impoverished provinces. They were also praised by the media for the results they achieved.

For those who are inclined to doubt whether this was a move to improve his image, here it’s a compilation of charity and public welfare projects that XZ’s fans pushed forward in 2019, collecting for numerous projects an amount of almost 450.000¥ and 620.000¥ as epidemic relief effort during the coronavirus period, that started in December 2019.

The welfare project was also a source of controversy later... but again, people always seem to find fault with everything you do. 

[thinkingaboutyoungroyals]

So some other Tumblr said this and I want to make sure it's not true. They said Tyrus are not actually endgame and are not a couple according to Terri. They also said Terri hates Tyrus and never wanted to have it be endgame but that wasn't her choice. They also said that Terri doesn't want a Terri kiss and one would be over her dead body and she doesn't give a crap about Tyrus. Is this true? I want to make sure it isn't but Im hoping you know the answer

Anon… dear anon… that Tumblr spits lies. I’m not sure what Tumblr posts you’ve been looking at but this ain’t it. 

Let’s take it one-by-one, shall we?

They said Tyrus are not actually endgame and are not a couple according to Terri.

First of all, Josh, Luke, Terri, and almost every member of the Andi Mack cast and crew have all confirmed and have shown public support for Tyrus as a pairing. 

Let’s look at the evidence? 

https://twitter.com/JoshuaRush/status/1154960649128165376

https://twitter.com/thelukemullen/status/1154991294151684096

https://twitter.com/thelukemullen/status/1154990402593669120

https://twitter.com/DisneyChannelPR/status/1154988294985228289

And simply because she’s adorable:

https://twitter.com/emilyskinner/status/1154984410296377350

^^ That says “I love Tyrus” btw

In this interview, Terri said, “And even [if] that final conversation isn’t explicit. I love that they have that moment reaching for each other and holding hands, in my mind, in the world that we live in, in the story of this relationship, that is a lot.“

They also said Terri hates Tyrus and never wanted to have it be endgame but that wasn’t her choice.

There is no evidence of this anywhere. Trust me. I’ve looked. I’ve googled “Terri hates Tyrus” and the answer I got?

The results are all Tumblr posts. No official interview. Nothing. Null. If anything, we got a Youtube suggestion of Cyrus and T.J.’s storyline. And of Terry Crews like Yogurt.

No offense, but I wouldn’t trust a Tumblr post as a source. It’s not a legitimate source. I would know, I work in news and media. We don’t accept Tumblr posts as legitimate sources.

They also said that Terri doesn’t want a Terri kiss and one would be over her dead body and she doesn’t give a crap about Tyrus.

First of all, it would be weird for Terri to kiss herself unless it’s through a mirror and one over her dead body. Harsh. Let’s look again at that same article above, shall we?

“Showrunner and creator Terri Minsky has opened up about the episode, explaining why the pair didn’t go further and share a kiss – especially after Buffy and Marty did.

“I feel like… they’re still in middle school, you know,” she told Paste Magazine. “And I know that people do things in middle school, but I guess I feel like it’s so. much. for, you know, the captain of the basketball team, to hold hands with a boy in the middle of a party.

“Like, the look on his face? I feel like a kiss, in a way, would have not been realistic to these characters. A lot of that story, a lot of that journey between Cyrus and TJ was subtext, and I think that whatever they were saying to each other, they weren’t actually saying in words.”

“I just felt like this was the story of these characters, that they finally understood what they were saying to each other, and it wasn’t like they had to wonder, is he saying this? or is he thinking this?

"In terms of the story, it didn’t need a kiss. Adding a kiss would have been doing it just to do it, to be first, and I didn’t want that.

"I would love if we were going to go on and have another season or another story, I would love to have the first LGBTQ kiss on Disney,” she added.

Okay, my sarcasm aside, here’s what I think. 

The Tumblrs who claim that Terri doesn’t like Tyrus and didn’t give them a kiss because of that are the ones who probably don’t actually like Tyrus. They’re mad at Terri for having Tyrus as a pairing. Or, they could be mad that Terri didn’t give Tyrus a kiss like she did with Muffy, and in their mind, that automatically means hate and not simply because it’s a combination of poetic cinema and limitations from the Disney corporation.

(My stance on this kiss thing is that I like what Terri did because I personally don’t believe a kiss is that important to show an explicit relationship between 2 people. I’m speaking as an adult, here. And the short but sweet conversation between Cyrus and T.J. shows plenty and speaks loud enough if you had been paying close attention to their relationship since season 2.)

Anon, if Terri didn’t like Tyrus, why would she keep T.J.? Why would she ask poor old Luke to keep flying from Santa Barbara to Salt Lake City if she hated his character? Why would Terri and her writers spend so much time giving T.J. an actual storyline, flesh out his character, and have every single interaction he has with Cyrus be layered in subtext that even my 9-year-old niece could probably tell that there’s something going on there? 

So, Anon, you make your own judgment. Do you think Terri hates Tyrus? Do you think Tyrus is not endgame? Cause the people who don’t like Tyrus will ignore the fact that they are canon, and you know what? That’s okay. That’s why being part of a fandom is fun because you can create your own canon if you don’t like what exists. However, claiming that Terri hates her own creation when she’s only shown love towards it and wishes she had more time with it is just rude.

Anon, you’re lucky I had nothing to do tonight so I actually had the time to Google stuff and go through Josh’s incredibly long Twitter account. 

[aelaer]

Hey aelaer, I have a question and since you seem to have been writing fanfic forever, I think you're a good person to ask this. I have a crossover idea with Doctor Strange and another universe, but to my dismay someone has already written something similar (not the same universe). I did have my story plotted out already, but there's some key concepts that can't be avoided I don't know if I should give up. I don't want to be accused of plagiarism even if the story is completely different.

Hi, thanks for thinking of me for your question! I have a tendency to ramble (and I ended up writing an essay for this) so let me answer you immediately: yes, you should still write it.

Now the rest of the answer delves into the why, in entirely too much detail as I am wont to do.

According to plagiarism.org, Merriam Webster defines the following items as plagiarism:

to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own

to use (another’s production) without crediting the source

to commit literary theft

to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source

For instance, if I were to state that the above was my own words, I would be plagiarizing both Merriam Webster and plagiarism.org (which is just irony at its finest).

Figuring out how to avoid plagiarizing words is easy: don’t copy-paste words that aren’t yours and declare them as yours. Slight rewording of the content doesn’t keep it from being plagiarism, either. The issue of ideas, however, is a good deal more difficult to quantify, especially in the creative space.

The Office of Research Integrity starts off by giving us a base point of idea plagiarism with the sciences in the following statement:

“In the sciences, as in most other scholarly endeavors, ethical writing demands that any ideas, data, and conclusions borrowed from others and used as the foundation of one’s own contributions to the literature, be properly acknowledged. The specific manner in which we make such acknowledgement may vary depending on the context and even on the discipline, but it often takes the form of either a footnote or a reference citation.”

This makes sense. In many educational systems kids are taught to properly site sources for information, which extends to ideas within the scientific community. If you are building your thesis on cancer research upon the discoveries of other researchers, they need to be referenced and cited properly (and it builds credibility for your own studies).

But how does this apply to creative writing, or indeed any creative medium? Obviously you don’t see footnotes for every source of inspiration in popular fiction across creative media, and it’s not like magical schools are banned from fiction because JK Rowling wrote a series about such a place. How do the rules of plagiarism of ideas that have a clear guideline in formal writing adapt to the creative arts?

To answer this question I am first going to turn to the modern legal system. Every country has its own set of laws regarding the protection of original works and ideas, but for the sake of ease the following is based on US laws and definitions. If you’re interested in your own country’s specific laws (and how they differ from what is stated here) I recommend a quick Google search.

Copyright is a concept that puts some (but not all) acts of plagiarism into a legal liability. It came into form as the printing press (and printed works) became more popular, but has grown significantly over the past 150 years as new technology and new ways to distribute media have come into play. As Wikipedia succinctly summarizes, “In law, copyright is the exclusive right, given to the creator of a work, to reproduce the work, usually for a limited time. Copyright protects the original expression of an idea in the form of a creative work, but not the idea itself. A copyright is subject to limitations based on public interest considerations, such as the fairuse doctrine in the United States.” This is how parody and criticism are protected, for instance.

It’s important to note that copyright protects the specifics, but not the actual idea. For instance, Marvel (and thus, Disney) have the copyright to the story of Stephen Strange, the arrogant surgeon that had a terrible car crash and went to Kamar-Taj and learned the ways of the Mystic Arts. However, if someone were to write about Trevor Baker, the arrogant baseball player that lost his arm in a car accident and went to a secret society in Japan to learn magic to become a sorcerer, there is no copyright protection. The idea is the same (and perhaps plagiarized), but there is enough difference to make it its own work.

You may note that, under that copyright definition and the current state of US law, all fanfiction are copyright infringements. Alongside that, all fanfiction can be considered a plagiarism of ideas in the eyes of some original creators. However, you’ll find that most authors, studios, and creative organizations are tolerant and sometimes encouraging of fanfiction and other fan-derived works so long as it’s not done for profit and clearly stated to be a fan-derived work (one time commissionsseem to be a grey area that most seem okay with, but something like art prints of copyrighted or trademarked characters is not something I’ve found definite rules for, and I imagine that it is also on a case by case basis; publishing written fanfiction works widely for profit is a big no for most creators). For more on this subject and how fan-derived works have fared legally, take a look at this wiki article, which mostly looks at cases within the United States but is still an interesting read. For more details about specific cases you can go to the sources linked.

You’ll note that, since copyright law does not protect ideas, that it doesn’t really fall into the scenario prompted in the original ask. The reason I bring up copyright is that it is important to recognize the differences between copyright and plagiarism.

I think Sara F Hawkins (an actual attorney, unlike me) states it best in her article about it. She has a whole list of the differences between copyright and plagiarism, but I think for the sake of this topic, this point is especially relevant to us: “Plagiarism is a violation of moral, ethical, or organization norms not laws.”

So let’s look at this case from those three viewpoints (for the sake of ease, I am using this definition to show the difference between ethics and morals. I don’t know if it’s right, but it’s useful).

Moral: The plagiarism of ideas and where it stands on a moral ground really varies from person to person. For instance, one may accuse me of plagiarizing @amethyst-noir​‘s ideas with the embellished or different spins on the prompts and asks received in her inbox. However, my moral stance would be that this falls into inspiration rather than plagiarism because there is enough of my own work within these prompts. This is a stronger argument as I also have her full support (as well as the support of a couple of the anons), but even if I didn’t, I think that if you put enough of your own spin onto the base of an idea, you craft it enough to make it your own. Many, many stories follow the same general plot lines and tropes; that does not mean they are all plagiarizing each other. Furthermore, the original ask makes it sound like you, anon, did not know this story existed after crafting the outline, making the argument null. How can you plagiarize something you did not know existed? You can’t, not from a moral standpoint.

Ethical: Unfortunately this one is a bit harder and the one you seem most concerned about. There is no one culture amongst the fan fiction community, and even every fandom has its own set of different communities with their own sets of norms, leaving this not entirely possible to predict. Instead I would rather critically examine the key plot points that are the same as this writer and figure out if they are relatively common tropes or entirely too specific to each other. For instance, if there’s a kidnapping, that’s in half the fiction out there. It’s way too broad a trope to be considered an idea one can really plagiarize. However, if both your story and theirs feature a kidnapping of the same character in the same spot with the same method after a very similar series of events, then there may be more people that see the similarities between them.If you want to take precaution against overzealous fans of the other work, upon publication of your own story, you can outright mention that you found a work similar to yours well after beginning your story and that any similarities are unintentional, with a link and a positive plug to the story in particular. You could even reach out to the author themselves before publishing, but I don’t think this is necessary, especially since you are crossing over a wholly different world (which already distinguishes itself as a different piece of work in regards to the base idea in most cases).

Organization: The authority on transformative works is usually considered to be AO3. AO3 would not pull a work for very similar ideas; if that were the case, the hurt/comfort, chatroom, and E-rating categories would be much, much smaller than they are now. So no worries on that end.

I cannot predict the behavior of your reviewers, anon, and without specifics I cannot say how similar your work is to this work already published, but I hope that everything I outlined above gives you an idea of where to go from here.

I am going to end this essay of an answer with something I found in my research on this subject. I came across this fantastic article by a Jonathan Bailey about the plagiarism of ideas and how they apply in US patent law (unlike copyright law, you can patent ideas), and what it would mean for the creative space if they were applied similarly. I recommend reading the whole article, but this passage especially stood out to me:

The best thing that we can do is realize that, in the eyes of the law, the value of a creative work is in its execution, not the idea behind it. As such, we have to take it upon ourselves not only to be original, but to carry out our visions the best possible way.

I think that should be a mantra everyone working with both original and derivative works should take to heart. Supposedly every story has already been told, so we may as well just tell the stories with our own spin, in our own words, and our own specific ideas that make them distinctly ours. That is how we make them unique and memorable.

[jinjojess]

hey jess. again i agree with all your points over categate, i just wanted to point out something which is highlighted in an article on the mary sue (don't think i can send links in asks?). to sum it up, the point made is why is cate choosing the "straight actors can play lgb characters" hill to die upon as opposed to the "other issues that lgbt actors face in hollywood" hill? while i actually don't disagree with her, im just surprised by how adamant she is over that rather than other issues.

Anonymous said:excerpt from aforementioned article: “There aren’t even that many major films and television series that will include non-stereotyped, well-written LGBTQ+ characters to begin with, so we’re taking an already small crop of roles and then only considering straight actors? That’s not fair. This is not to say that straight actors should never, ever play LGBTQ+ roles for the rest of time, but it’s a little silly to feel the need to defend it with the statistics so far out of balance.”

I think that there’s nothing wrong with picking up the conversation from here and saying “Well, if anyone can play any role, then why don’t we have more major films that have queer characters in them?” but that quote from the MS isn’t exactly fair or even necessarily true.

Nowhere in the pieces of interview that I read did Cate Blanchett say anything to the effect of “only straight actors should be considered for LGBT+ roles”–if there was a part where she did say or imply that, then I stand corrected, but to my understanding, what was actually said was “this recent trend of thinking that an x role can ONLY be played by a real-life x is kind of ridiculous and goes against what acting is supposed to be at its core.”

That is way, way different than the snippet that’s getting passed around on social media by click-hungry websites.

And she’s right, it is a hotly debated issue right now! Even in fandom, there’s all this stupid discourse lately about who is “allowed” to write fanfiction about queer characters hooking up and all these weirdly prescriptive rules about how to go about it (particularly about m/m stuff), and I don’t see why we as a community are so jazzed about wanting to gatekeep like that. It discourages writers from wanting to talk about anyone besides themselves, which means we all get less of what we want. I want to read more stories about wlw, and I couldn’t give a fuck about the author’s identity so long as they write well enough.

So for me, it’s a similar concept here. If the straight actors were playing these gay roles in a way that was stereotypical and/or offensive, then I could see the outrage, but if the portrayal of the queer character is good and makes the average Hetero Harry and Cis Sally more comfortable and open to watching queer content, then how is that an objectively bad thing?

Yes, there are a lot of out-of-work queer actors. Yes, there are not nearly as many queer roles as straight ones. However, part of the issue with Hollywood is that it perpetuates “movie star culture” where the actors themselves become part of the product just as important as (and often more than) the content of the film itself. Hollywood is all about keeping a contained stable of household-name actors to sell products to the public. What’s the first thing advertised about a new movie coming out? The cast. How often do people go see a film knowing very little about it besides who the lead actors are? Why are they called “Steven Seagal movies” instead of “martial arts cop thrillers”?

There’s a very telling quote in the interview about how it was difficult to get Carol off the ground as a project, even though well-known actors were involved with it. It’s a thing you take for granted with Hollywood–if nobody famous is in the film, then who’s going to go see it? How the heck do you market that to the general public? Especially if it’s focusing on subject matter that isn’t as well-established in pop culture, like queer content, stories about racial minorities, etc.

So in a way you could see Cate Blanchett’s quote as an endorsement for straight actors to not get all “ew, no homo” and throw their weight behind projects like this so it’s easier to get more of that content made. Her statement to me sounds way more like “I am totally secure in myself and I don’t mind a future landscape where every other love story is queer, because I don’t have to be identical to someone else to empathize with them and be able to play their roles.”

Basically I don’t agree with the assessment that she’s dying on any hill here. I don’t think she exclusively cares about straight actors being allowed to play queer parts and nothing else. I think that it was a response to an interview question about something she feels passionately about–if you want to know what she thinks should be done about dismantling the clique-ish nature of Hollywood casting, then…ask? Like people irl generally aren’t spouting off their political stances every second of their lives, guys. 

If someone asks me “Do you think that anyone should be allowed to write queer stories?” I’m going to answer with a resounding yes, and say that I think the current gatekeeping sentiments are misguided and ultimately counterproductive. I’m probably not going to then spiral off and discuss how publishers need to be more accessible to LGBT+ writers, because at that moment in time, I might consider it obvious, or not entirely relevant to the question that was asked. Meanwhile, the headline the next day becomes “Tumblr User JinjoJess Passionate That Only Straight People Should Tell Queer Stories” (I am well-acquainted with this phenomenon, given that people take what I say on this blog out of context all the goddamn time, usually because I didn’t specifically reassure them that what they care about is important too).

So tl;dr, I feel like a lot of this is projection–I don’t think that this single response to a question that was asked during an interview encompasses the entirety of Cate Blanchett’s feelings on Hollywood and Representation. I also suspect that people reporting on this have an agenda to push, hence taking the quote out of context and twisting the words to make her look bad, and for many of them, that agenda is “get more clicks”, which has been proven to be easier to accomplish by pissing people off.

[potteresque-ire]

More ask answer about Word of Honour (山河令, WoH) and the so-called “Dangai 101 phenomenon” under the cut ~ with all the M/M relationships shown on screen, does it mean improved acceptance / safety for the c-queer community?

Due to its length (sorry!), I’ve divided the answer into 3 parts: 1) Background 2) Excerpts from the op-eds 3) Thoughts This post is PART 3 💚. As usual, please consider the opinions expressed as your local friendly fandomer sharing what they’ve learned, and should, in no ways, be viewed as necessarily true. :)

(TW: homophobic, hateful speech quoted)

Here are the key points I’ve picked up from these op-eds:

* The state believes Danmei can turn young people queer. * The state also believes Dangai dramas can turn young men “feminine” to suit the taste of Dangai’s young, largely female audience. * The state views queerness in both sexes, and androgynous beauty in men as negative traits. * The state is wary of Danmei and Dangai’s popularity and wishes to contain them as subcultures. * The state is particularly annoyed by how the Dangai dramas have achieved their popularity with CP-focused promotions and marketing tactics, in which the actors are involved and blur the line between fictional and real-life suggestions of queerness.

What do I think of, concerning the acceptance and/or safety of … everything, with the above opinions given by the state media about Dangai?

* For c-queers, I don’t think things are different from before—these op-eds didn’t change the big picture for me. The op-eds taking traditional BL characterisation for Dangai / Danmei means the state’s intended focus of the genres is not its queerness; this is not unexpected, as the established review system is supposed to have removed the show’s queer elements, and to characterise those elements as queer would be a critique against the NRTA.

 While unpleasant, the veiled, antagonistic view towards non-traditional gender expressions and homosexuality isn’t new: the state has long believed popular culture can turn its young male audience “feminine”; the NRTA directive that bans homosexual content from visual media already makes clear its stance that homosexuality is, while not criminal, something that is Not Good in its eyes.

A (very) good thing that can be said, I think, is that none of the op-eds explicitly disapprove of the queer elements, the things that got away from being censored—of which there were, arguably, many in WoH. While Article O2a noted such “playing edge ball” (note the articles use this term to avoid mentioning “queer”), the comment right after was neutral / positive (“provide their audience with room for imagination”). Article O3, meanwhile, acknowledged that Dangai can be imitated by introducing suggestive atmosphere between male characters in their plot layout, thereby admitting that suggestive atmosphere between male characters in their plot layout is a defining trait of Dangai—and it didn’t say anything bad about it; the criticism was only for non-Dangai playacting Dangai.

This signals, to me at least, that Dangai can continue to be the cover for queer relationships to reach its audience for now — which is, perhaps, the best case scenario for continued queer representation on TV, given the current sociopolitical climate.

* For Danmei / Dangai, I’d also venture to say the genres are safe. Upcoming Dangais may need to undergo stricter / further reviews (if the rumours surrounding Immortality 皓衣行 are to be believed), and whether they can still achieve explosive popularity after such reviews remains a question; the genres themselves, however, will likely survive. 

Article O1 was a very positive, very enthusiastic review of WoH; its determined focus on the show’s aesthetics (as TU’s review) signals to me that the state approved of the genre’s take on aesthetics—which, again, also includes the aesthetics of a world cleansed of its real problems, which also aligns with the NRTA’s directive on TV / web dramas to focus on the positives of life in the country (Previously translated in this post: D12: … They [Pie note: the dramas] cannot place too strong an emphasis on social conflicts, must showcase the beautiful lives of the commoners.). Article O2b was very critical at places, but actually tried to sever Danmei  / Dangai from its major complaint, argued that the attention-grabbing gimmicks path was taken * instead of * aspiring to positively, proactively guide and display Danmei culture, therefore positioning Danmei on the “good side”.  While Danmei was named a (bad) influence for potentially turning youths queer (and predator, by the cartoon) in Article O2a, no mention was made of eliminating the genre both in the same Article or its editorial (Article O2b). The focus was placed, instead, on the subculture’s “containment”, and how it has been broken for “Rot Culture” to reach mainstream. The implied solution to Danmei’s “bad influence”, therefore, was to re-contain rather than eliminate.

[Logically, of course, this makes little sense. Blaming Danmei on turning youths queer is already confusing correlation and causation—youths may be drawn to Danmei because they are queer, rather than Danmei turning them queer. Re-containment, meanwhile, suggests that the state, which isn’t a fan of gays, is okay with Danmei turning kids gay… as long as there aren’t a lot of kids.

However, I’m hoping to tease out what the state may do, not whether the state is logically sound.]

Article O3 had the harshest wording on Danmei—“the canon and the Rot Culture behind it still hides large amounts of pornographic, violent content…”; “this vulgar custom of “playing edge ball” as a means to tempt, to lead the audience into indulging in fantasies [Pie note: sexual fantasies implied by the idiom 想入非非] have spread from visual media production…” . Still, no word on axing the genre, only containment.

* For CP culture, specifically, actor-character based CPs that are promoted with the dramas: while I don’t see it on the chopping board yet, these op-eds are, I believe, warnings for those in charge of the promotion and marketing of the upcoming Dangai dramas to tread carefully. I find the reach of these warnings difficult to predict still, because these warnings can be genuine—as in, the government truly believes the CP-focused promotion and marketing tactics are morally objectionable—or they can be more for show, in that the true reason behind the warnings is that CP-focused promotions, which also put a heavy focus on in-drama candies, make the NRTA / censorship board look like a joke and the government had to put up some objections to save face. 

In all cases, companies will likely need to talk to the government to nail down its stance. Whether to heed the warnings afterwards, tone down or eliminate the CP-focused promotions will require a thorough risk-benefit analysis. After all, CP culture appears to sits at the heart of the money-making machinery of Dangai dramas. The expenditure of fans is mainly to support their favourite actors and see their interactions, and money is, ultimately, what Dangai 101 is about.

Finally, for the sake of completion ~ how likely did these op-eds reflect the actual opinions of the state? Here are the sources of the articles:

Article O1: 上觀新聞, which is under Liberation Daily 解放日報,  the official daily newspaper of the Shanghai Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.

Article O2: 半月談 Banyue Tan, a state-controlled biweekly magazine published by the Xinhua News Agency, the official state-run press agency of China.

Article O3: 光明日報 Enlightenment Daily, a newspaper associated with Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (中共中央機關報).

None of them are of the calibre of People’s Daily (official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party). However, they’re all very well-respected state-sponsored sources. Banyue Tan does require an asterisk  ~ while affiliated with the Xinhua News Agency, the massive influence of which has earned it its nickname “the world's biggest propaganda agency”, Banyue Tan‘s authority on this particular issue of Danmei/Dangai has been somewhat undermined by a … strange (?) trivia to end this super long piece: the magazine has also been caught in the controversy surrounding 227. Due to its pro-TU, pro-Gg stance, antis have insisted there are Gg fans within its writer’s ranks, who have used the state-sponsored publication for their private, support-Gg purposes. To this day, the argument is ongoing—with the criticism of Danmei in Article O2 sparking another round of “discussion” due to its previous approval of TU—and the lead anti is a well-known international politics professor and CCP (Chinese Communist Party) mouthpiece named Shen Yi (沈逸), whose claim to fame was the US government cancelling his visa and denying him entry due to suspected espionage …

[Banyue Tan was not the only state-sponsored publication caught in 227′s cross-fire. This is one of the reasons why some political watchers have suspected 227 to have a political component, that some form of political power struggle was happening in the post-227 chaos and disguised as the fan war.

While the truth may never be revealed, one thing is for certain ~ fan wars are about the worst things fans can do for their favourite idols, by lending space for such veiled conflicts to happen, by lending the names of their idols / their idols’ fans to the actually warring parties who may not wish to reveal who they are.]

[Okay okay, I will shut up now :) ].

PART 1 PART 2 PART 3 <-- YOU ARE HERE