#since apparently that's not a danmei trope either

[pharawee]

[I've accidentally deleted the original post so if you think this is familiar then it's because I already posted this yesterday. Here's a reblog of the original along with some replies but I wanted a version of this in the tag as well. 🙏]

I can't help it. I just feel so sorry for the Joe that used to be a model and fell into a coma for two years and is now just... gone.

I probably shouldn't. He's no longer there after all, and hopefully he's moved on/reincarnated by now.

But seeing as (for some reason I still don't completely understand) Ming makes me incredibly uncomfortable and I consequently just don't get Joe (aka the only Joe we ever really learn about) AT ALL, i have to focus on something.

And that something is how this Joe is really just an empty vessel for "our" Joe to pour his himself into. There's really nothing left of him except for some short glimpses of Winner Tanatat in a mirror. I know, this is deliberate. The story just doesn't have time to focus on anything beyond Ming and Joe, and that's absolutely fine.

Yet here I am, almost in mourning over a character we know nothing about. Was he kind? Was he well liked? Did he have friends? What about his job? What happened to him? Surely he was close to his mother because there's no hesitation in her love at all and Joe uses her picture as his laptop wallpaper. Beyond that, there's nothing. No trace of him remains. Not even muscle memory.

And sure, there's always a possibility that if someone spends that long in a coma they're not expected to wake up from, they might unfortunately be forgotten by most. But no one came for Joe after he made a miraculous recovery either. No one reached out. It's like Joe isn't only gone but so is every single facet of his life as well.

And I find that almost unfair - almost rude of "our" Joe not to make merit for someone he owes his second chance to. As if Joe only ever existed so that another person could completely replace him.

There's other Thai BL where the premise is kind of similar.

[SPOILERS FOR CHAINS OF HEART]

There's an extra chapter in the Chains of Heart novel where it turns out that the original Peter Lue's ghost is still around, wondering what happened and why someone took over his life. He moves on only when he's reassured that the new Peter Lue doesn't mean any harm and will continue to honour and care for the things most dear to him.

[END OF SPOILERS]

More often than not the deceased's life or even the ghost's presence is honoured and merit is made in their name if any kind of relationship or connection persists. That the same thing doesn't happen here makes me sad - especially if they ever find "our" Joe's body and lay it to rest when the same courtesy is never extended to the other Joe.

I also feel like it lowers the stakes of the whole transmigration thing. If everything remains the same except for a handful of fleeting visual reminders, and everyone who counts almost immediately recognises "our" Joe's essence anyway, then what's the point? Where does that leave Joe the model?

[admirableadmiranda]

hello, i was on the bird app and i saw a thread regarding how mxtx wrote MDZS as a fanfic for OCs she wrote as a teen. i guess i was curious if this is true since MDZS isn't seen as a well researched or intentionally written masterpiece. i find that the fandom tends to really focus on interpreting intention into her writing when she simply maybe wanted to write her OTP as they are

Oh anon. You have run into the conclusion of the idiot brigade on the bird app. I was there in real time watching my friends who have twitter accounts arguing with this nonsense and I can spell out just how nonsense it is and how they know it's nonsense.

But first, Modaozushi is not a fanfic. It is an intentionally written novel, written to deconstruct common xianxia/danmei fan tropes and it is incredible at it. Something that becomes more and more apparent the more of them I read. She may have not intentionally written it to be a masterpiece, but she absolutely knew what she was writing. Also the "well researched" is nonsense because it's not meant to be set in any one particular historical time, it's like if we were to call all fantasy novels poorly researched because they mix up 8th century squabbles with 15th century armor. When you are writing fantasy, you are allowed to mix as many bits and pieces as you want together when creating your own world and Modaozushi is certainly a created world.

I have heard, though I cannot verify, that she created Xiao Xingchen and Xue Yang earlier in her life, but the fact that she did this does not make Modaozushi a fanfic for them. For one thing, they're only in the book for a maximum of ten chapters. Two, regardless of how they were originally created, they slot in seamlessly into the world which is much, much bigger than the two of them. Also it is no longer about them. At most it would be a sequel to some of her more youthful writing that is about a much larger story that was happening around them. That does not a fanfic make, especially when everything in Modaozushi is either common xianxia/danmei conventions or her own original creations.

Now that I've made that part clear, let me tell you why this thread came into existence. Because it is entirely the made up nonsense of butthurt JC stans on twitter.

I am fortunate enough to be friends with the delightful @jiangwanyinscatmom who wrote a fantastic meta on the Ancestral Hall scene and why not only were Wangxian not being disrespectful there, but by the very resources and arguments JC stans were making as well as cultural context, Jiang Cheng was the one being disrespectful and that's part of why everything went down as it did and it is meant to show how terribly Jiang Cheng is behaving.

Some very butthurt BNFs who make money off of drawing MDZS art decided to first lie about this meta because it directly shows their trash fave as he is and makes it harder to lie about how he's the only betrayed one in the book and everyone, especially Wangxian, is just out to get him. They were very upset that the book itself did not conform to their wild nonsense.

This did not go over well. After several fights and a bunch of blocking, they made up this thread when called out on lying about and dismissing MXTX's work in favor of their own headcanons and decided to invent a rumor that MDZS was just a fanfic that she wrote of "some characters she made in high school" to try and minimize the legitimacy of what others were saying about their attitude.

There are a few problems with this argument. One is that they know it's bullshit, they made it up because they were mad. Two is the point that I outlined above about how it does not meet the definitions needed to be fanfic. Three is that they think calling it fanfic demeans it while they make money off of drawing fanart of her work so they are being stupid and hypocritical there.

The last one is also that it shows how little they actually know of the world that MXTX lives in. MDZS is not her first published work even, it is her second. Scum Villain's Self Saving System had already put her on the map before she even wrote Modaozushi. She knew exactly what she was doing, she was setting out to lampoon common tropes of the genres she read, SVSSS is absolutely hysterical when you know more about the stallion novels she is cheerfully mocking, and MDZS is an absolutely brilliant takedown of many common xianxia/danmei tropes especially with the presentation of the lead and how modao/guidao itself is used almost as a trap to make people think that they'll be reading about the slow blackening and corruption of the protagonist as is common, only to find out that he is the one who is right, guidao was never harmful to him and what really brought him down was the classist cultivation world turning on him for being brilliant and of low rank. Wei Wuxian is a servant who is the son of a servant and a disciple of an immortal and that combined with his brilliance and unwillingness to be pushed down to be silent was enough for the cultivation world to bury him for it.

This is not something you write on accident. This is not something that you do when just playing around and doing some silly stories on the side. MXTX knew exactly what she was doing in MDZS and she executed it perfectly.

So no, it is not true, anon. It is not at all what they said. I do think there is an extent that people read way too much into her works when she just wanted to write things about the leads she developed, (don't get me started on the current crop of WWX would actually hate it in CR and he just wants to leave the world and go settle on a farm, he is not XL and CR is not the heavens and just because her extras are about Wangxian being deliriously happy in marriage does not mean that he's actually quietly suffering and being a miserable damsel in distress waiting for LWJ to see the light and rescue him) , but this is not it.

This is a bunch of butthurt, whiny JC stans who make money off of drawing art of him being mad that they don't get to control the fandom and that there are people who will call them out on their shit, continuing to lie and diminish the very work their reskinned oc fave came from. There is no truth in MDZS being fanfic. They know it's not true.

They're just mad they don't get to run the fandom anymore because there are too many of us who actually read the book.

Thanks for the ask, hope this cleared some stuff up!

[sarah-yyy]

Jie jie what is the novel you're reading?

it’s 魔君总是以为我暗恋他 (The Demon King Always Thinks I’m Secretly in Love with Him)! thank you @simpleredstar for rec-ing this to me! i was thoroughly entertained by dumb shenanigans today because of this novel! :DDD 

links: chinese // eng trans (incomplete; 66/104)

(chinese skill level: 1/5 - i read this faster than i did 妻为上 but that could just be because i didn’t have to work today, but in general the vocab was chill, i found it really easy to read)

brief summary: 

bai yang’s dad arranges for him to transmigrate into a popular novel to build his character. he was supposed to transmigrate into the protagonist, but by some glitch ends up in the body of a henchman to the demon king, ji zixuan (JUNSHANG <3). 

bai yang can’t transmigrate back into the real world until the protagonist ascends, and he apparently will die if the protagonist dies, so he keeps finding ways to leave the demon world to assist/save the protagonist. he doesn’t want junshang to suspect foul play, though, so he camouflages his trips by declaring that he went to the human world to kill the protagonist/save junshang’s life etc. 

the whole time this is happening, in junshang’s mind, he’s going:

junshang: i can’t believe he would do so much for me. i don’t feel the same way for him, he’s just a subordinate to me, but it is rather touching that he loves me so much! then: ah ah ahhhh he loves me so much??? maybe....... and this is just a wild thought.......... perhaps......i should love him back??????

and, when bai yang insists he’s not in love with junshang: but??? he must love me????? why would he do these things for me if he doesn’t love me desperately?????? then: he must be shy!!!! it’s okay!!!! i know how he feels about me!!!!!

he goes through entire journeys in his mind, it’s so fucking funny ohmygod.

i have been selling junshang’s character to every single rl friend i have who reads danmei as mobei jun from scum villain meets han shuo from the romance of tiger and rose. if you enjoyed either of these characters, you’ll love junshang.

there’s not too much plot in this beyond just junshang/bai yang shenanigans, which i appreciate! sometimes a girl just needs to sit down and read about two dumbasses being incredibly dumb about Feelings, and that’s valid!! there are some “twists” that are......incredibly obvious and greatly foreshadowed (this includes the resolution to the whole returning to the real world thing), but it didn’t detract from the read tbh, since i was really just in this for the whole 霸道魔君恋爱靠脑补 trope! :D