#in absolute shock that I came back to these writeups a 3rd time asdfasdfzdf

[dorkshadows]

The Write-Up PART THREE!???????

Ao Bing: I'm 3 years old Nezha: I'm 3 years old too Shen Xiaobao: I'm 300 years old (From Jiaozi’s Nezha doodle celebrating the 14.3 billion record back in March)

Hi, it's me again. Nezhaheads, I truly was not expecting there to be a part 3 to the Nezha fandom shenanigan chronicles. Nezha 2 extended its theatrical run through June, so it'll be a while before it hits streaming and even longer before Nezha 3 comes out. But don't worry- there's plenty of action here to keep everyone busy until Jiaozi finishes the script for Nezha 3! Perhaps too much action.

Part 1 and Part 2 of these Writeups for those interested.

I thought things finally calmed down in the Nezha fandom since the Ao Guang ship wars fizzled out. Everyone went back to vibing and everything was peaceful... or so we thought!

All the previous write-ups will feel like a fin in the water compared to what this post is about. I'll do my best to explain it in ways normal humans can understand, because I'm still struggling to wrap my head around it myself. A lively portion of fans have invented a brand new form of discourse never seen before, and oubing got caught in the crossfire. This is like witnessing the conferred war of the gods, except everyone involved is terminally online.

I stared straight into the sun to obtain the info for the parts 1 and 2. For part 3, I flew a rocket straight to the sun, got cooked in a trigram furnace, and now I have Sun Wukong's fiery eyes!!

Will the following information improve your life in any way? No. Will it teach you anything of value? Also no. But will it be very funny? Perhaps!

Disclaimer: The majority of the fandom is not like this, as far as I know. Most fans ship everything they see and enjoy their own content in peace, but as we all know, 1% of 10,000 people being assholes still means there's 1000 assholes scrambling around. And in a fandom as huge as Nezha 2019/2025, that 1% can feel like a wildfire that won't go out.

And again, blanket note of caution- if you read on, you are prepared to see anything and everything. If you are OK with all this, then- let’s go! 

Most of the drama takes place across pockets of weibo and xhs, less so on lofter but if the drama is big enough, you'll catch whiffs of it. People who don't want to be part of it just close their eyes and pretend not to see it, which is a very good strategy. But other people are jumping into the drama with their eyes wide open and making it everyone else's problem.

To prepare you for the absolute nuclear takes below, I'll first mention some light drama that nobody cares about. This is what I call, "people squabbling in a corner" because these takes have enough people saying them to warrant a mention, but not enough people participating to deserve more of our attention. And again, these are a very small minority among the fandom, because as I said, the majority are just vibing. I won't mention oubing here because that's for the main event. And we're not going to name any ships besides the top 7 for simplicity's sake, but if you're interested, someone on lofter ranked the popularity of each ship here.

Top 7:

Oubing

Bingzha

Dilong

Lubao

Longwangbao (Ao Guang/Shen Gongbao)

Luhe (Lutong/Hetong)

Runhe (Ao Run/Hetong)

(I'm leaving you to figure out everything else on the list at your own risk fyi)

Anyway, you know how astronauts have to go into those spinning things to do anti-gravitational training before heading to space? That's what this is. I'm preparing your tolerance for insanity before launching you into its very depths.

Ready? here we go! 命由我不由天!

The Trinity of things people take turns complaining about:

Emasculated Ao Guang ("What kind of freaks think a 280cm beefcake is a bottom??")

Trophy Wife Ao Bing ("The fujos ruined Ao Bing!")

Punching Bag Shen Gongbao ("Why do you people always have to make him the most miserable person on Earth??")

People Squabbling in a Corner:

Wuliang Xianweng apologism exists for some reason. Not only are there people who believe Wuliang is not a villain, they also think he is the REAL hero of the story! Because everything he did was on behalf of the human race! They are passionate about it too.

Some sickos think a live action adaptation of the movies would be a good idea.

Every once in a blue moon, someone complains about all the Shen Gongbao whump content and calls it "immoral." No, this did not deter anyone. They're still throwing Shen Gonggong into the meat grinder every day. Lots of Things happen to Ao Guang and Ao Bing too in this fandom, but it's particularly excessive and brutal when it comes to SGB, so his is the only one that's prevalent enough to have people complaining about it. That's why "Yuxu Gong abuses cats" is a thing now.

Fanboys are still arguing over who deserved to be the 12th Golden Immortal more, Taiyi or Shen Gongbao

Oubing/Dilong/Lubao shippers are sometimes victims of drama and sometimes instigators. People are not normal about ships they don't like and characters they don't like. Usually not for anything the characters actually did or the actual dynamics of the ship, but instead because the other character/ship gets in the way of another ship or isn't attractive to op.

I originally listed a bunch of bad takes from individuals but deleted them all because it was singling haters out and turning into me going, "get a load of this asshole, guys!" because quite a number were coming from the same people. That's not fair to all the other haters out there! Every time you think someone's come up with the dumbest post, another person comes along to dethrone the last person. It's only fair they all get mentioned at the same time! So instead, see my example of the average weibo vaguepost when you put every terrible vaguepost (yes... these are real takes, and not even all of them asdfasdf) from every hater for every ship and every character out there side by side with each other. No paragraph breaks for true immersion (CW: fandom idiocy):

"Hope you enjoy dilong when Tiandi comes out as an ugly old man! Get your ugly old man away from lutong and go fuck yourselves, lubaos. he belongs to [whoever else I ship lutong with]. Stop mooching off of shen gongbao's popularity and get your abusive deer away from our leopard. also go fuck yourselves lubaos, he belongs to [whoever else I ship sgb with]. nobody likes lutong, fuck that guy. if you think jinzha is a bottom, kill yourself. fans of the ship I don't like all hate my fav even though my fav is 1/2 of the ship, stop making my fav top, stop making my fav bottom, tall people shouldn't bottom, ugly people shouldn't bottom, feminine people shouldn't top, nonexistent characters shouldn't even be here, no Li should ever bottom. Shen Gongbao fans go fuck a bike because you like faces that look like bicycle seats so much. Hope Tiandi enjoys the smell of Ao Guang's giant foot, loser dilongs. Luhe shippers go to hell. Self-shippers, jump off a cliff. Kill the switch fan, kill the switch fan right now!! RunHe shippers fuck off. Dilong shippers invented lubao to fuck with longwangbao. Bingzha shippers are sick in the head. all shippers die. all solo fans kill yourselves. Only X fans ship XY, only Y fans ship XY, YX fans die. Anyone who doesn't ship my ship should burn in hell. My ship will be canon and theirs will burn! I need to vague this loser's idiotic headcanon, unlike my headcanon, which is totally canon. Only a guangying shipper would like longwangbao. Of course an Ao Bing stan would say that, wow die bottom Nezha fan. Oubing fans are delulu because Ao Guang's true love is clearly [redacted for your sakes]-"

Are you following any of that? No? Good, neither can I. The scariest part is that you'd think most people saying those things are minors. No, the worst of them are adults with real jobs.

Thankfully, all that pointless squabbling never led to anything except more vagueing. Any attempts at harassment lacked the manpower of the dilong/guanying drama. So it usually boils down to a couple people beefing it with each other while their friends show emotional support by leaving likes and going "Yeah! That's right, fuck [whichever ship or character's being bashed]."

And yes, the SGB fans being vagued, vagued the "ugly, old man" accusations back by saying "we know he's old and ugly, that's why we're into him <3 we love riding bikes <3" Ironically, I think both the SGB fuckers and the SGB haters are unaware that "bicycle" has a very specific connotation in English fandoms LOL!

Citing a fanlore article I just googled:

Little Black Dress (LBD) refers to a character who, like a little black dress, "goes with anything." These are characters who are easily paired with almost any other character, including crossover characters from other fandoms. Also known as the Fandom Bicycle ("everyone gets a ride"), the Launcher of a Thousand Ships (a reference to Helen of Troy), or the Cargo Container (gets shipped everywhere).

In addition to actually wearing that black dress, SGB is indeed the one character with the most ships now (they're not necessarily hyper popular ships, but they exist), including with characters that aren't even in the movie (Hello Jiang Ziya and King Zhou). It's easier to count who he hasn't been shipped with at this point. He's not just a bicycle anymore, he's the fandom bicycle.

And yes, the dilongs are doing their best to manifest a hot Hao Tian to prove the haters wrong.

But don't take that as a picture of the fandom at large. I've noticed that most people ship oubing/dilong/lubao (and other assorted ships) at the same time without drama. Or just don't talk about things they don't like, which is a very hard task for some fans! Truly the one challenge that keeps all fandoms connected regardless of race, nation, or creed.

Meme Updates:

This time, I have no fanon lore updates for everyone. Nothing's really changed since last time. But there are some more meme variations of Sun Wukong meeting Shen Gongbao. Some examples-

SGB: "The prejudice in people's hearts is like a mountain. No matter how hard you try to move it, it remains immobile." SWK: "So true, they wouldn't even let me be the Jade Emperor!" SGB: "Wait-"

SGB: "The prejudice in people's hearts is like a mountain. No matter how hard you try to move it, it remains immobile." SWK: "Skill issue." *invades heaven*

SGB: "The prejudice in people's hearts is like a mountain. No matter how hard you try to move it, it remains immobile." SWK: "That's a YOU problem. I'm different.*invades heaven* SGB: "I was the only demon disciple under Tianzun. SWK: "Oh cool. Were you your Master's favorite too? SGB: :) :) :) :) :)

EDIT to add: also some random trivia since it's a joke that gets lost in the subs. "Gonggong" is a way to address eunuchs. In court, they're referred to as "[surname] gong gong" so in the first film, Shen Gongbao wasn't just offended that Nezha was mispronouncing his name, Nezha was calling him a eunuch.

A Breather before the next load of insanity:

I don't know if the algorithm's the same now, but a while ago on douyin, the search box would lead to a rabbit hole of search words when I plugged in #dilong or #lubao. As in, enough individuals were searching for these terms that it autofilled asdfasdf:

"Ao Bing gets tied up, Ao Bing gets crucified, Ao Guang gets crucified, Ao Guang gets crucified and tortured, Ao Guang gets bullied by Tiandi, Shen Gongbao gets tied up by Lutong, Lutong tortures Shen Gongbao, Shen Gongbao almost dies, Shen Gongbao coughs up blood, Shen Gongbao gets tied up and tortured, Shen Gongbao gets beat up, Shen Gongbao and his dad get beat up."

No, none of those yielded any results though you're welcome to try LOL. Wait, no actually one of those did yield something- it was someone's dilong fic about Hao Tian beating the shit out of Shen Gongbao and refusing to stop unless Ao Guang agrees to marry him, and then when Ao Guang does, Hao Tian gets really mad that he cares about another man. Average Tiandi behavior. Average day in Shen Gongbao's life.

And Jiaozi and co. work hard, but you know who works harder? Lubao shippers. They finally found a frame of their ship together in the same shot and angled in a position that allows face to face eye contact, and a with a lighting scheme that validates all of their headcanons to boot!

Now, THE MAIN EVENT. It's a wild one, so please strap on your seatbelts!

Solo Nezha fans vs Solo Ao Bing fans vs Oubing shippers vs Bingzha shippers vs Jiaozi vs Everyone Else

If I'm wrong about any of this, please feel free to jump in and correct me. Because I am NOT looking at any of this again. All that weibo-vaguing was hard enough for me to look at, but this next section took away at least 100 years of cultivation from me. But that's how much I love you all, Nezhaheads!

"The human capacity for drama is like a mountain. No matter how much you try, it can never be moved!" - me as I climbed up the mountain with what remained of my brain cells.

This drama, battle, whatever it is, was actually briefly mentioned in my first writeup. Everyone ignored it because it was just some unhinged people going at it with each other, and it never left weibo. Until it did. Then this drama that's been festering since as far back as February has finally reached its fever pitch.

To start us off with the seeds of this drama, you need to understand that there is a minor but extremely loud group of Nezha fans that really hates Jiaozi. To them, Jiaozi is like, Satan. These people are self-proclaimed fans of the "real" Nezha- the deity, the character from fsyy, the character from the 1979 movie, Black Myth Wukong, jttw, and so on. Basically, they stan classic!Nezha.

They hate the Jiaozi movies so much that they have entire tags dedicated to hating on him and his films and his characters and their fans. Mile-long essays, extremely angry rants, etc. They hate the movie, and they especially hate all the attention Nezha 2 got because it's a totally distorted picture of the Nezha myth and an offense to Nezha's character! They also spend like, everyday, writing frame-by-frame analyses of the films with citations and stuff, even though they despise it so much.

(Actual depiction of the Jiaozi haters)

As you can imagine, they HATE Ao Bing, who, according to them, is just an evil throwaway villain that did not deserve this much of a place in Nezha's story. This adaptation is distorting facts by making Ao Bing sympathetic! Tricking children into thinking Nezha is friends with that monster! How dare Jiaozi!? They claim Jiaozi is constantly bashing Nezha to elevate his precious Ao Bing and his precious dragon OCs. And bashing heaven/the Chan Sect to make the yaoguai look better. The spirit pearl/demon orb plotline especially offends them because Ao Bing RUINED Nezha's life by doing that! Poor Nezha suffered so much in his own movies, all because of Ao Bing! And Ao Bing rubbed salt in the wound by calling Nezha ugly! What an asshole, pull out his spine right now!

These stans/haters also spend a LOT of time insulting Ao Bing, unironically calling him "ugly," calling him unpopular ("see? he's not even as popular as shen gongbao! pathetic!"), weak, shameless, "girly," and every other insult under the sun.

By association with Ao Bing, they also despise Ao Guang and Shen Gongbao and Jiaozi's attempts to make us sympathize with them. But they can't decide which one of those two bastard men has more responsibility for the pearl switch-up- it changes depending on their mood. What matters is that Jiaozi is Satan, Ao Bing is the original sin, and Ao Guang/Shen Gongbao are the devil's minions, and they just want to see these two horrible men punished for their crimes. Coincidentally, Ao Bing, Ao Guang, and Shen Gongbao have all been accused of being Jiaozi's self-insert.

(imo, if they were paying attention, they would know that nobody punishes Ao Guang and Shen Gongbao more than their own fans. Every day Ao Guang fans wake up and think to themselves, "what else can we do to Ao Guang?" Every day, Shen Gongbao fans wake up and think to themselves, "what haven't we done to Shen Gongbao?")

Their hatred of Ao Bing extends to Oubing/Bingzha shippers, who they constantly bash, vague, and harass (when they get the chance). Because Ao Bing is just mooching off of Nezha's popularity ("Nezha is the main and most popular character! Nobody cares about Ao Bing aside from shippers!") and anyone who ships him with Nezha only cares about Ao Bing clearly. Nezha is just being used as an ooc plot device for them to further victimize and elevate Ao Bing.

These classic Nezha stans then start overlapping with the Nezha stans from the Jiaozi movies. As in, fans of Nezha the character from the 2019/2025 films, who like him exclusively and believe Ao Bing/Oubing fans are just using him as a prop for their loser fav. They believe Oubing is the worst thing to ever happen because Nezha is always a side character for Ao Bing, an ooc bully towards Ao Bing, a walking yaoi dick with no characterization, etc. They say Ao Bing would have 0 fans if it wasn't for Oubing. Unlike Nezha, who would still be the most popular character and the lead of China's greatest box office success, even without Oubing. In fact, Oubing shippers are just a small minority of losers, and the REAL people responsible for the box office numbers are solo Nezha stans.

If they hate 19/25 oubing, they despise Shangmei/1979 oubing for twisting Nezha into an unrecognizable pervert and Ao Bing into a helpless victim, when Nezha was clearly a pure hero in the original and Ao Bing was a dastardly evil monster! Whose fault is it? Oubing shippers. You guys know why the sun sets at night? Oubing shippers. Oubing shippers are all that is wrong with the world.

[For the context/lore behind Shangmei oubing, see this writeup by the lovely yunsound]

But is it only the Nezha stans running amok? LMAO of course not, this is the war of the (terminally online) gods here! Enter Ao Bing stans, who are, you guessed it, exclusive Ao Bing fans who don't care at all about Nezha. Now take all the arguments those Nezha solo stans made, and flip it around- that's what Ao Bing solo stans sound like.

They believe Ao Bing was cheated out of a good storyline in favor of being reduced to fanservice for the fujoshi. He's clearly the best character and so much cooler than that loser Nezha! And everyone else would see that too if Jiaozi and co. weren't so biased against Ao Bing.

Nezha glowed up, but Ao Bing got downgraded in the sequel! This movie has not one, but TWO protagonists, and the filmmakers were horrible for not seeing that! He was reduced to a plot device to elevate Nezha, and all Oubing shippers ever do is make things worse by turning Ao Bing into Nezha's punching bag, feminizing him into an ooc mess, making him weak in order to show how cool Nezha is, etc. Clearly ALL Oubing shippers are just Nezha fans who don't give a shit about Ao Bing.

They even made callout posts (like with screenshots, timestamps, and everything asdfasdf these are legit endlessly long callouts) of all the horrible things Nezha did to Ao Bing... in fanfiction. This stuff was used as proof of what those nasty Oubing shippers are like and how those nasty Nezha stans are always bullying Ao Bing.

Instead of @ ing Jiaozi like you'd expect, fans cut out the middle man and went straight to Nezha temples to pray for more Ao Bing screentime in the third movie. This riled up the Nezha stans because how dare Ao Bing stans bring their bullshit fantasies into their temple!? Ao Bing stans also kicked up a storm over this one official poster where Ao Bing was standing on the side, while Nezha was in the center with Ao Guang and Shen Gongbao (maybe Nezha is bonding with his in-laws?? ever thought of that, Ao Bing stans? checkmate!). Because they saw that as a sign of neglect and bias from the official team!

Ao Bing stans and Nezha stans then kept going back and forth with each other, while taking turns harassing various popular Oubing artists and accusing them of just being fans of Nezha or fans of Ao Bing and using the other character in the ship as a tool for their sick fantasies. I even saw one artist come out and apologize because?? she was friends with a lubao shipper, who *checks notes* reblogged solo Ao Bing art???????? That's how wild it's gotten. Some of these stans also attempted to harass Ao Bing's VA at some point or something, it was just a mess all around.

And coming into the ring, we have Oubing stans hating on Nezha stans and Ao Bing stans as well. They say that if not for oubing, neither Nezha or Ao Bing would be half as popular as they are today. And the WORST stans are the ones who enjoy all the art/fics/etc. made by Oubing/Bingzha creators, only to turn around and show how much they exclusively love 1 character while not caring about the other. Some of them even dared to view ship art as platonic, or worse, solo art! Depending on which character the Oubing stans favor, they'll either only call Nezha stans the scum of the Earth or only call Ao Bing stans braindead losers.

We also have the combo of Nezha stan + Oubing stan or Ao Bing stan + Oubing stan, who do everything the solo stans accuse Oubing shippers of doing!

In case you're wondering, this is how everyone else in and out of the fandom is reacting to the Nezha/Aobing/Oubing battles:

This behavior is "normal" in real person actor/idol fandoms, but seeing it play out with animated characters was truly a first for many, many people LMAO

And then when the stan wars reached new heights, the 31st ComiCup (CP31) came along. That's the biggest fan convention in China. It primarily focuses on Chinese media (donghua especially), but also includes animanga, hollywood shows/movies, novels, etc. I don't think creators, actors, etc. ever attend it- it's a completely fan-based convention for fanartists and writers to sell merchandise for their blorbos, ships, and favorite media. This year, it happened in Shanghai.

From what I can gather, anyone can set up a booth for their ship, character, etc. but to have an entire "street" (a whole lane/aisle of booths) officially dedicated to your fav character or ship is the highest honor. It gets put on the map guide for con-goers. And it means there's 1) enough creators for your blorbo/ship to host a whole street of different booths 2) enough people interested in your blorbo/ship to pack the whole street. While with the booths, you're just one of several numbered areas in the wider fandom lane.

Anyway, both Oubing and Bingzha had official streets. Every ship mentioned in this writeup (and not mentioned too!) had booths too. Dilong had its own street as well, and they're hoping Jiaozi will notice.

But there were no solo streets for Nezha or Ao Bing, or anyone else in the movie... except one character. It's Shen Gongbao. The only character from the entire cast to have a whole street dedicated to his content. And it's Shen Gongbao. Even his haters had to look at that and begrudgingly respect the dedication of leopard stans. Nobody would believe you if you told them this would happen in 2019, but here we are. So I guess you could say that at the end of all this, Shen Gonggong won the conferred god war?? greatest plot twist of 2025.

Me, explaining this in American terms: "This is like witnessing the popular kids fighting over who will be prom queen for an entire year, and then on prom night, the cranky old teacher from down the hall gets voted queen in front of the whole school"

Oubing/Bingzha stans were ecstatic either way, because this proves that the solo stans were delusional from the start and that the world belongs to the Nezha x Ao Bing shippers (and Shen Gongbao fuckers too, apparently). They're still mocking the solo Nezha and solo Ao Bing stans as we speak. I don't know if there's any way of this drama ending unless Nezha himself descends to Earth and tells everyone to shut up, but I think it'll be like the ABZ drama- something major happens or it just fizzles out on its own.

There's another big con coming up in Chengdu, and this time, in order to avoid being owned by the Shen Gongbao fuckers again, the Nezha stans were quick to establish their street! In order to participate in the Nezha street, you have to obey the following rules: "No Ao Bing content, No Oubing content, No content for the 2019/2025 Demon Child movies)"

But also once again, Oubing/Bingzha and Shen Gongbao have their streets set up.

Lastly, for some better news after ALL THAT!

Pop star Silence Wang, changed the lyrics to his song 梦幻诛仙 to make it Oubing-coded during a recent concert.

The one ship that's had zero drama arise from it is Yishen (Taiyi Zhenren x Shen Gongbao). Why? Because Taiyi is the ultimate Chad.

Hetong canonly reads transmigration novels

Jiaozi is now "unsure" how dragons procreate and says he's toying with the idea of it happening without the need for a partner. Ao Guang m-preg confirmed? Either way, congratulations m-preg Ao Guang fans

There's so much Shen Gongbao whump they were able to play a whump bingo for him LOL! He suffers in canon-era content, he suffers in post-canon content, he suffers in pre-canon content, he suffers in modern AUs. He even suffers in his own self-ship fics. There has to be some kind of lifetime achievement award we can give him for this because in a mere 4 months, there's been so much whump angst content for him that he can give *checks notes* MCU Loki a run for his money. At first, I thought maybe it was just coincidence that every time I clicked on his content, things like this popped up. Then I realized that no, it was because there truly was that much of it. Something about Shen Gonggong compels his own fandom to see him horribly injured in every way possible, good for them.

I made a English ver. bingo here just so the SGBheads can see all the common things he Goes Through in cn fandom. I was not exaggerating about it in any of the writeups. And this is just some of it! There's a lot more going on in that part of the fandom (like- Shen Zhengdao dies in front of him, King Zhou & Daji are actually super nice to him but die violently in front of him, all manner of public humiliation, starvation, brainwashing, a complete lack of self-worth, and so on) :

Maybe because of all the angst now associated with him, half the fandom's legit convinced he'll heroically sacrifice himself for everyone else in the 3rd movie, bringing his "redemption arc" full circle. Are they right? Only time will tell.

And that's a wrap! Will there be a writeup part 4 to dethrone part 3? Only fate can tell! We can't even predict what storms of drama will emerge from the popularity boost of a streaming copy + high profile English dub. If there's ever any drama as ballistic as this in the English fandom, someone please do a writeup and tag me!