#and in today’s climate I’m honestly not sure where I should post them anymore 😆

[kukuandkookie]

Because I’m…temporarily…not really active on my Twitter anymore and I’m still waffling on getting a Bluesky, both due to anxiety, I’ll just throw this thought out here lol:

The 188男团 taking over my brain has made me crave fanfiction in a way I admittedly don’t usually. 😆

If I were to guess, it’s because when a story is so angsty and sad in canon, it makes me crave post-canon fluff all the more. And I have found some absolutely lovely fics on Ao3, Lofter, and Weibo!! 99% of them have been in Chinese and I need a translator to help me read them, but I still love them so much.

But I will say there is a specific brand of “freaky” on Ao3 that doesn’t appear anywhere else, which…makes sense haha (it’s because of censorship LSNGKSHS). Weibo fic authors do sometimes throw out some freaky nsfw stuff too, usually by including a link to a different site or asking fans to dm them, but…Ao3 is where people may go to like…really let off steam.

I think that’s totally fine! I’m of the firm mindset that people should be allowed to enjoy whatever fiction they want, as long as it’s not hurting anyone in real life (the fact I’m obsessing over the 188男团 which is famously toxic may show that lmfao). But I’m not writing this to get into pro-ship versus anti discourse here. x’D

I’m writing this because I swear I’m technically a multi-shipper so I can be chill about breaking ships up (although I do prefer following canon) and I also know sometimes fanfics are just written to scratch an itch, but…

Why am I filled with such…banal frustration over the 188男团 characters being mischaracterized and having canonical ships broken up in an OOC way just to get some freaky sex (often with multiple people)? 😂

I’ll get into the main reason later, but I guess part of it could be that there’s shockingly few fics on Ao3 for Lijian and Yubai despite Lijian being so popular in China, so when a lot of the fics in the novel tag actually break up the main ship, it is a bit painful for me SLFJKSDH.

In reality, I know it’s not a big deal, and I’m totally cool with letting people play in their sandbox haha. And obviously I don’t harass writers for writing something I didn’t vibe with, and I avoid fics that make me uncomfortable.

But still. I have read a couple because sometimes tagging isn’t done perfectly in Chinese on Ao3 (I don’t blame them; language barrier and it’s often an unfamiliar website to them and all that, I get it), so sometimes I check one out when I want to get a feel for a fic…

And that’s why I’m emphasizing it’s a banal frustration—I know that in the grand scheme of things, this doesn’t matter. 😆

Regardless, I read a couple fics where they had Yu Fengcheng top Li Yu and it’s just like…they would not do that—let alone in that way—guys LDGMSHSKS.

I can kind of get people wanting Li Yu to be dicked down for his arrogance and temper, but seeing him being turned into a coquettish mess in fics where he bottoms is killing me a little haha. And Yu Fengcheng, who is my favourite 188男团 gong so far, being shown as disloyal to Bai Xinyu kills me a bit more because…he loves Bai Xinyu so much. He wouldn’t just abandon Bai Xinyu like that because he’s horny. 😭

In fact, every 188 gong is like this so they’re all possessive of and obsessed with their partners, but also…Yu Fengcheng has this specific brand of disliking sharing and even this sense of “mysophobia” where, before he even realized he was in love with Bai Xinyu, he already didn’t want Bai Xinyu or himself to touch anyone else.

And he is such a determined person when he tries to win Bai Xinyu back, and unlike other 188 gongs (that I’ve read so far), he never blames Bai Xinyu for disdaining him even though the ultimate thing that broke them up wasn’t fully Yu Fengcheng’s fault, and he hated being away from Bai Xinyu so much that he chose to be tortured closer to Bai Xinyu and he’d even feel a masochistic pleasure seeing Bai Xinyu spurn him, all because he didn’t want to be apart from him.

So what I’m saying is!! I like Yu Fengcheng a lot so obviously I’m biased, but seriously, he’d be one of the last people to leave his partner to fuck his “saozi (sister-in-law)” just because they’re pretty LSNGKSHSH.

My feelings are strong enough I do have a fic idea for this lmfao where Lijian and Yubai are shopping and while holding their partners’ bags, Yu Fengcheng and Li Yu get mistaken for being a couple, much to their chagrin. Bai Xinyu would find it funny, which would annoy Yu Fengcheng a bit, and with his shamelessness, he’d show everyone there that Bai Xinyu is his wife. And Li Yu wouldn’t want to be upstaged despite his own embarrassment at doing anything inappropriate publicly, especially when his Jian-ge may misunderstand and get upset. 😂

And yes, I do have (quite a few) Lijian and Yubai fic ideas. My obsession has officially run that deep lol. I just haven’t been in the mood to write lately due to kind of depression, but I’m hoping to pick myself back up soon.

Anyway, ending this little ramble with another “yeah, I know, it’s really not that big of a deal” (we do see a lot of jokes about this and how much pain super OOC fics and headcanons can bring us, but tbh I fault OOC headcanons and analyses more than I fault OOC fics, since the former can “damage” fandom perception of a character or theme in a more direct way. Overall though, it’s obviously not that important and I just wanted to mumble a bit about it here to get my thoughts out).