#or more specifically: this ain't about LWJ

[poorlittleyaoyao]

Intrigued by the scene composition choice to have Nie Huaisang pointedly looming over Jin Guangyao's shoulder as he explains the whole wretched incest situation, ESPECIALLY here because LOOK WHERE HE IS POINTING:

HE IS POINTING

AT THE METAPHORICAL LIGHTNING

[toomanyplotbunnies-sendhelp]

Hello and welcome to Day 1 of "Let's Explore My Plot Bunnies"

This little bunny has been born today (while I was thinking of my other OLDER plot bunnies) and I don't that that much detail about it - like how would the story continue past the premise of it - so I thought this would be a good first plot bunny to begin with.

Edit: As of February 6th, this fic has a title:

"Shen Jiu's forceful adoption" (You don't choose family, family chooses you)"

Here goes nothing:

So, this would be a crossover between SVSSS (PIDW?) and MDZS, where Shen Jiu (the original goods) either runs away from Wu Yanzi or kills him before the Immortal Allience Comference where he meets Yue Qingyuan again. And so Shen Jiu just becomes a Rouge Cultivator (I wanna put forward that Wu Yanzi may have messed with Shen Jiu's head and made him believe that Qi-ge truly just left him behind and didn't care an ounce to come back for him, so Shen Jiu is not exactly in a rush to find his Qi-ge again)

During the first few months on the road, Shen Jiu ends up meeting (a three months pregnant), Cangse Sanren, and her husband Wei Changze. Shen Jiu is not really in the best shame when they meet (he is kinda feral and malnourished + has a distrust towards people a mile long), so of course WWX's parents are like "I am adopting this kid right now".

Since they are worried about Shen Jiu and they want to take care of him, both try to gain his trust, and after maybe half a year, they are somewhat close.

Needless to say, once Wei Ying is born, Shen Jiu is hooked since who can resist baby!WY. Like seriously - Shen Jiu may be a bit too mean sometimes (which is mostly due to trauma and the fact that ancient China had no way - to my knowledge - to treat PTSD) but he ain't someone who would ever be capable of killing a child (I shudder when I think that Shen Jiu and Yue Qingyuan may have seen more children die/suffer than be born in their life).

So this basically ends with Shen Jiu gaining a family, Wei Ying having a big brother that is very protective of him (watch out LWJ) and, in Cang Qiong Sect, we have Shang Qinghua (aka Airplane) who is very much freaking out because "the Scum Villain is nowhere to be found, how is the plot supposed to progress now System".

Small things to note:

• Shen Jiu is about 14 when he meets WWX's parents and 15 when Wei Ying is born - which means when Cloud Recess happens Shen Jiu is in his 30s (tho he still looks like a 20 years old man due to cultivation)

•As a child, Wei Ying couldn't pronounce Shen Jiu's name, so he called him Sè-ge (瑟) which means "zither"; Shen Jiu does in fact learn and (tries to) teach Wei Ying how to play this instrument while he is growing.

•I have no idea how to handle Cangse Sanren and Wei Changze tbh. I kinda want them to remain alive (albeit very injured) after that Night Hunt just so that Shen Jiu isn't alone in taking care of Wei Ying and himself.

•I want Lou Binghe to be a Bai Zhan Desciple in this AU and both him (+ a few other deciples) and Liu Qingge to be present at Cloud Recess just to have them meet Shen Jiu (sorry Binghe, you are literally Wei Ying's age (if not a bit younger); Shen Jiu won't look at you. Liu Qingge on the other hand.... (¬‿¬) )

•Shen Jiu, upon meeting the Jins the first time: "I don't trust you. Get the hell away from me and my brother Satan."

•Shen Jiu immediately after Wei Ying is born: "I only had Wei Ying for less than 5 minutes but if anything happens to him, I will kill everyone here and then myself."

•Shen Jiu, after realizing LWJ likes his little brother: "I will be watching you very closely, mister. Don't you dare try anything with my little brother"

And this is all I have for this Crossover AU.

So what do you guys think?

Good? Bad? Very much looks like my brain is on Crack? (I personally agree with the 3rd one)

Either way, I will be stopping here for today, but if I get any more ideas for this specific au, I will try to expand on it. (I am 89% sure I will be expanding on it at one point or another)

Till next time,

TooManyPlotBunnies - Send Help

[inspireland]

Personally, I think that those working behind the show were very aware of the importance of delivering wangxian as a couple on screen - respected it and risked big time to deliver it. Ofc, they were limited by censorship so they couldn't be explicit in the way the western expectations want, but through time I've read the opinions of various Ch inese viewers who were impressed by how much cql pushed the limits of censorship in order to keep certain elements that define wangxian and were wondering how they managed to pass censorship despite that. We need to keep that pov in mind because applying our expectations and context to a reality that's so different to ours is not exactly fair (although understandable in this instance).

Moreover, certain elements/scenes were added to their relationship in the show in order to compensate for the things they could not put in there from the source. One example is the whole ep 6/7 cave scene where wangxian very pointedly, symbolically (or unconventionally) got basically married.

The show was very careful to point out who can touch the ribbon (and why wwx couldn't), and then later on in the same episode, lwj willingly ties their wrists together (symbol of marriage in many cultures) with that same ribbon. The directing and editing focuses on that moment A Lot (and they basically walk towards an altar, too 😭).

The ancestral Lan weapon thus recognizes wwx as family (wwx is not lwj's parent or child - so he qualifies as spouse) and let's not miss the symbolic meaning of them kneeling in front of a Lan ancestor and, later on, after wwx's return, them bowing three times in front of wwx's family.

My theory is that cql passed censorship bc whoever was in charge of analyzing it, missed the various pieces completing each other in the show context.

wangxian is not built on one specific, explicit big gay moment that queues the audience in - which is what Western audiences are used to. They're built on many moments and elements and talks and symbols that all come together to present them as a couple. And in their togetherness they're surprisingly explicit - just not the type of explicit one would expect, which is why it may seem like it's within censorship limits. Like, you have to be awfully obtuse to declare them platonic guys being bros after all that.

I think that everybody working on the show knew very well what they were dealing with and you can see the intent of making wangxian canon in the whole series. Directing, writing and acting (of not only wwx and lwj themselves, but other characters as well and their reaction to wangxian) on the first line, of course, but also props (hello ancient gay erotica that escaped censorship!) and, of course, score and editing (oh there's a lot to say about those).

And for crying out loud, they managed to very naturally confirm wei wuxian's bisexuality, which left me stunned honestly and made me wanna cry.

I'll be honest, despite censorship imposing its awful limits, wangxian managed to go beyond that and imho they're easily one of the best written/acted couples in visual media that I've seen so far - and I consume a lot of media where censorship ain't a problem, so they have 0 excuses for the barely developed (at best) couple dynamics that they put out.

Notice, I said couple, period. Among all the couples I've seen in visual media so far, be them lgbt+ or straight, imho wangxian is one of the best written and presented.

If you can build up an lgbt+ couple so well with serious censorship breathing down your neck and still deliver, then this shows how complacent many people on our side of the world are, where such limits are not imposed.

So TLDR: cql was limited by censorship and that meant that they had to focus on the emotional dynamic between the two more bc they couldn't show anything explicit in the sense one would expect (kissing, having s*x, saying "I'm in love with you" etc), but they did not stop at that. Beyond that, there is just too much stuff that's... subtly in your face (I don't know how to explain it) that shows respect towards these two lgbt+ characters and their love, as well as a clear intent in properly representing them on screen (as individuals and as a couple).

I hope my ramble makes sense. It's 4 am and English isn't my mother language. Also excuse my typos.

the untamed! wangxian vs novel! wangxian 🥺

hahahah hello anon! I can’t tell if this is a request for me to post the cut essay I mentioned in this post or if it’s just a general expression of ~emotions (believe me, I feel u

tagging: @silvercrystal1 and @kurusutakatsu since I saw they expressed interest also.

just as a warning, this isn’t really about wangx/ian at all–it’s mostly a heavily qualified ramble about my complicated feelings re: homophobia, censorship etc. along the same lines as other posts i’ve made in the past. if that’s not what you’re interested in, probably don’t click through?

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