#sorry to anyone in the mdzs tag that has to see this

[menelaus-blue]

do you know tumblr im losing my mind. do you know when you’re not at home in your funky little element and its like cosplaying as a normal person and you have to keep all the crazy in and sometimes there’s a reprieve like talking to your friends on the phone or going to your mind palace but SOMETIMES you’re at college and no one at college wants to talk about your modern gender swap mdzs au because no one knows what mdzs is and besides no one would understand the complexities that went into creating it like for instance the fact that its set in san francisco (you’ve never been to san francisco but trust please its important) or that jin guangyao is a lawyer or that the entire this is centered around nie huaisang. no one at college understands this so you just sit around all day doing nothing because you can’t keep having the draining kind of social interaction where you make small talk and ask about peoples dogs you need to be a cringe fandom girl but no one here even knows what the word yaoi means. im losing it.

[mitchmotch]

I'm so interested in your Anastasia au! will you tell us more?

yes of course i will! @revalito and i are genuinely so elated that so many people like the au HEHJKSDHJKS i will always want to talk about it trust

i don't know if there was something specific you wanted me to talk about, so i'll just talk about their time in the cloud recesses when they were younger =]

as i said before in my tags, wwx found lwj sitting outside the gentian cottage waiting for his mom and that's how they first met--he brought him a blanket and something warm to drink and offered to sit next to him. after that wwx would find lwj every now and then and hang around a bit but not for long. that does.. imply that his parents died sooner but well. HEJDSJKSD we figured one of the servants was his dad's close friend that agreed to babysit wwx for a while before they died, so now at least wwx has someone that was considered family (and that can tell him about his parents)

wwx didn't actually start working as a servant until he got older and that's when he was really allowed to interact with lwj. silly little comments turned into prompts to speak more and eventually, they'd have "conversations" (lwj would listen, wwx would talk) as wwx did what he had to. one day lwj asked wwx if he would be allowed to be a personal assistant on a quick task he had to do outside of the cloud recesses, and of course that's allowed. and that's the loophole they found to spend more time together =]

lxc knows about lwj's crush. he could read it on him easily HEJKSDJK i'd like to think one time wwx was called in to serve something to them, and as he did he made some comment to lwj. lwj acknowledged him with a small uptick of his lips and lxc was just ⁉️⁉️⁉️ HEHKJDHJKDHDJK he starts making excuses for wwx to go see lwj. the first time he asks a servant to call for wwx bc he needed something delivered to his brother it started a rumor within the servants immediately. this is where the teasing among them began HEHJKSDJKSDK lxc is the main reason why eventually wwx is the main servant/one of the only servants for lwj

wwx starts learning about cultivation in his free time--and we'd like to think the gusulan sect would set aside a teacher for willing servants on their breaks--but he never attends any actual classes. it isn't until they accept guest disciples when they're around 15/16 that he even entertains the idea. he probably makes a side comment to lwj, like "ah, guest disciples… it would have been nice to attend a class or two.." and lwj is immediately like i'm on it. he talks to lqr to attend the classes and ofc here lan qiren doesn't Need lwj to be a good example to wwx like he does in the novel, but we think lqr would still want to show him off HEHJKSJKSD also, lxc is probably like "it would be nice if wangji had more friends =] perhaps if we have wwx in there (someone he is already comfortable with) he would be more willing?" and that seals the deal HEJKSDHJKSD wwx is invited to his classes to be a "personal servant" to keep up appearances, but he is there to learn.

of course some other people there aren't to keen on the idea of having a servant in the class with them, so this time when lqr calls on wwx, it's not to test him, it's to prove his worth. he knows wwx and lwj are friends so in his head, his justification is that disciples are offending wwx -> they're offending lwj -> lwj is his nephew -> they are offending lqr too. ofc. HEHJKDSJKSDK lwj defends wwx in his own ways.

nie huaisang is the first to go up to wwx to chat and they become good friends, and since wwx is friends with lwj, nhs becomes friends with him too. it's a funny dynamic but lwj inwardly thinks it's nice.

thank you sm for asking! <3

[mxtxfanatic]

so,,, does anyone else lose braincells when it comes to the mdzs fandom??? like there was this post that basically goes saying that forget about jiang cheng and lan wangji being jealous about each other when it comes to wei wuxian, the one that is winning is wen ning since wwx leaves everything to save and protect the wens, and then i see some tags talking about how wwx has his own weird moral code and wen ning is it's first victim... there is somethung about these sentences that just made me sick, it just felt so wrong?? am i the one who couldn't interpret anything in those books?? wasn't wangxian the ones that mxtx said to be morally perfect?? am i the one in the wrong?? it's been 10 minutes and i feel my brain has melted

why does wwx get painted as the villain even by his fans, when the whole plot was how he was prosecuted and villanized, judged by the the surface of his actions, when nothing about the situations and his actions itself was as simole as black and white. also calling wen ning his victim made me feel kinda of violated, like im a yiling siblings and yiling settlement supporter and truther and im kinda of suck of everyone disminishing and ignoring the relationship between them.

sorry for the dramatics, but none of my irl friends have read the books, we seem to have the same opinions on it, and i just needed a second opinion

also sorry for the english, it isn't my first language

Even when fans claim to like Wei Wuxian, the fandom perception of him is so pervasive and (has been since the original fandom BNFs became jc stans) that people will describe some of his most somber, thoughtful moments like they are crimes that we can joke about only because it’s fictional, as a irl!wwx would be “deserving of jail” (or some shit 🙄). It’s why I’m not afraid to say that some people are decidedly not fans/stans of his character, they are fans/stans of the memes involving his character. And everyone knows that the meaner and ruder you are about something in a meme, the funnier it is /sarcasm.

[stormblessed95]

How to search some specific genre fics on ao3 ? Like do we put the genre on Google or should put that on ao3 and we'll get? I mean idk exactly what are the things we should use to describe or find specific genre fics on ao3, idk how it works sorry, so if you can just tell me how to search that wil be helpful..

I'm okay with doing a quick little AO3 tags lesson! I'm on mobile for now though, so that's what you are getting.

So idk if there are better ways, but I normally start with the fandom (unless you are searching more specifically off the bat, but I like browsing and seeing what catches my eye.) So for this example, let's say the MDZS fandom is what we are searching in as that's the fandom sandbox that has been the subject of my hyper fixation for a while now! So either find while already in AO3 or just type "x fandom AO3" into Google too, that would work just fine lol. Than once in the fandom tag, click "filters"

Once in filters, you'll see a bunch of options, the ones you probably want to use first for "genre" type stuff is the relationships, other tags and sort by. Those are the ones I use most anyway

Under relationships click the pairing you want to read about (if you are searching under BTS, you'd click "Jeon Jungkook/Park Jimin" if you want Jikook fics) and then you could also type in under other tags which type of story you are looking for. And then I always sort by kudos to get the highest rated fics at the top....

So let's do wangxian as my pairing....

Then I can figure out what type of vibe of story I might want.... Like if I wanted an AU, it would give suggestions as I type too....

Or a fix it....

Or time travel....

Plus the additional tags gives some of the most popular tags in the fandom we are under currently that get used.... You can check off any of those....

You can also check the other filters to narrow things down further, like if you want completed fics only. The type of relationship (m/m, m/f, f/f, etc), the rating (explicit to general), you can also check off if you want to exclude anything. So if you really don't want to read about a certain tag or relationship, exclude it and any fics with that in it won't show up in your search.

So if I just said I want a Wangxian fic that's in a modern university setting... I can put that into the filters, sort by kudos.... And it'll just give me pages of fics I can scroll through till I find a description/summary that appeals to me lol

(and in case anyone was wondering, the first two fics are hilarious and adorable and I plan to read ride a socialist now lol)

If this was NOT helpful, tell me and I'll try to do better. Lmao or if you need help finding something specific let me know and I'll do my best!

Thanks for asking!

[xxhappy-chickenxx]

bl blorbos i desire carnally 💖

fully ready to expose the fact that i have one type lololol ~ ty @saturnskyline for tagging me + enabling this chaos

vegas (kinnporsche)

no bc it's actually a problem how much i love him!!! this wet, pathetic, murderous bastard has occupied my waking (and sleeping) thoughts for over a year and it's just??!?!?! i didn't used to be like this. i owe him so much and the things i would do for him-

wei wuxian (the untamed/mdzs)

yeah no i am by his side through THICK AND THINNNNN through lotus pier and nightless city like that's MY MANNNN (sorry lwj). if they didn't want me to desire him carnally they shouldn't have made him the most chaotic bisexual to ever walk the earth 😌

jack (HIStory 3: trapped)

starting to see a pattern here... i, too, would be absolutely TRANSFIXED by those tittes. you have to love a ruthless mercenary with boyish charms, that's just common sense!! i credit HIStory 3 for selling me on mafia dramas, which led to KPTS and the rest was history (see above, and...)

porsche (kinnporsche)

kinn i absolutely get it!!! i, too, would put my whole mafia life on pause in order to woo hire this man!!! i already know he can rail me in an alley, what else do i need??? no one fucks better than bisexuals (source: bisexual)

this was so fun lololol do i need to thirst on main more often?? spreading the chaos love to @mousydentist @jazzyjj @mousydentist and anyone else who wants to thirst~

[sasukimimochi]

Hi guys! here's my promised update on whether or not I'm pushing back the chapter. yes, I am pushing it back.

after thinking about it and being convinced by Moma, I will push it back 1 update (so two weeks) so I don't have to rush through it. I have a lot of stuff I'm putting into motion in GOM but also I have been sorting things irl (Lucien's birthday is today actually as well, so I've barely even been at my pc. I wanted to update you guys in the morning or early afternoon but I just didn't have time) Basically what happened before this is we were suddenly under threat of going into the red/negative in the bank. we lucked out on a lot of fronts and I finally got the due rent from our past renters (and the new one that has moved in just paid rent as well,) on top of Lucien getting his birthday money today, so we're finally feeling safe again, although we're going to be very frugal with winter coming haha. So, things should start getting back to normal! I'm hoping that I can get back on the 2-week schedule with less to no delays after this.

I'm 'half-way' through writing the chapter but its hella rough- however I'll give you guys a preview of the first segment - that i feel i am definitely keeping - today, so you have something to get excited about! This chapter I feel is going to be very exciting and full of a lot of new things!!

Also, if you haven't seen it yet, I put up this little fall Writing/Drawing challenge for anyone who wants to participate, no matter if its oc/mdzs/or any other fandom. if you guys want to participate please tag me!! I really want to see your works from the prompt 💖 if you're too shy to tag me, tag it "Sasu's Writing/Drawing Challenge 2023" and I'll look through the tag sometimes! If you just want to do it without tagging that's also alright, but I do really want to see, so if you can please do!!

see other mdzs projects in my masterpost! ❤

See you guys in a couple weeks! Sorry, again ಥ_ಥ ❤ Thank you guys so much for 1k kudos as well!! you guys are amazing!! ❤❤❤

edit: reminder, plus with a date. Next Chapter should be NOV 5th.

[corduroyserpent]

20 questions writer meme.

thanks @monroeknoxwrites for the tag! 💖

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

81

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

362,928

3. What fandoms do you write for?

mainly danmei – svsss, tgcf, mdzs (on occasion)

i used to only write for one piece but clearly i've branched out lmao

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

there's a CHILD in my shrine?? WTF!! – hualian adopts wwx crossover, 2k words, 2.9k kudos

When I Was Older – post-canon xie lian swaps places with his book 4/volume 6 counterpart, 67.5k words, 2.7k kudos

i shine only with the light you gave me – tianlang-jun brings zhuzhi-lang back to life but oops his nephew is now a toddler, 48k words (and counting), 1.9k kudos

Out of Your Mind – mobei-jun gets hit with a mysterious pollen that allows him to hear shang qinghua's thoughts, 1.9k words, 1.8k kudos

i'd wanna be held by you, felled by you – hua cheng allows xie lian to see beneath his eyepatch (this was baby's first hualian fic), 1.6k words, 1.6k kudos

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

i try to respond to every comment (sorry if it's annoying 😆) because it's fun! there's no deeper reason

6. What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

uhhh probably for lack of words because it's canonverse maigu ridge zzl pov so...you can imagine how that ends

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

So Much for Stardust has a classic everyone gets together fairy tale ending so probably that one

8. Do you get hate on fics?

yeah sometimes 😖 if you've ever wondered why i haven't updated something in a year, or enabled comment moderation on a fic that didn't previously have it, that's why. but it's okay! we stay silly

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

i sure do! and all kinds i guess, idk i just have fun 💕

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

i write about wen ning and zhuzhi-lang kissing. so yeah. i do write crossovers

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not that i'm aware of

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

yup some of my fics have been translated into russian which is very cool!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

no but i've co-written a series with my bestie

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

i can't answer this afgdhkjls i ship too many things!!

15. What's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

sigh. the fic i was writing for that one hualian zine that ended up imploding 😔 the vibes surrounding the wip are just too rancid for me to get back to it

16. What are your writing strengths?

dialogue, characterization

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

description

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

like entire lines/scenes? i've never done that so i suppose my thoughts are neutral

19. First fandom you wrote for?

i'm pretty sure it was percy jackson asdfghjkl i was 11

20. Favorite fic you've written?

ohhh in pursuit of warmth my beloved zhuzhi-lang introspective 💚

Tagging: @luukeskywalker, @breadandblankets, @peerlessbellbird, and anyone else who wants to do it!

[asha-mage]

tagged by @veliseraptor (a while ago, but I'm just now catching up on these)

rules: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! Then tag as many people as you have WIPs

My WIPs, at present-

A Cloak of Black [HOTD]

Ashes and Dust [RWBY x Code Vein]

As It Was [WoT x MDZS]

Don't Go Blinding (Into the Dark) [FE: Three Houses]

Grey Adamante (RWBY x Forspoken]

Heaven is Here If (If You Want It) [FE: Engage]

Modern Cultivators AU [MDZS]

Reign and Rule [Merlin BBC]

Reincarnation [Temeraire x Horizon: Zero Dawn]

Sworn [WoT]

System Crash [SVSSS x The Sandman]

The Warrior in the Woods [RWBY]

Turnabout Time [Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney]

When the Day Met the Night [Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney]

Spideyhunter [Marvel's Midnight Suns]

Wildest Dreams [Fe: Three Houses]

This has made me realize two things. The first is that I really need to get better at organizing my creative writing folder. The second is that I actually don't write that much WoT fic- or rather I don't start that many WoT Wips. If I'm going to write a WoT thing, I commit to the bit hardcore. No half finished stasis mode forever.

Anyways, I'd love to get asks about these! I know my following is mostly WoT related, but if you see a fandom or title here that you recognize (or even one that just looks interesting) throw me an ask!

Tagging (and again sorry if I'm double hitting anyone): @kevin-sedai @anyboli @gunkreads @highladyluck @reflectionsofacreator @lordfenric-writes

[thebiscuiteternal]

tagged by @jaimebluesq

rules: give us the links to your fic with the most hits, second most kudos, third most comments, fourth most bookmarks, fifth most words, and fic with the fewest words.

Note: For the purposes of this list, "A Maze of Possibilities" doesn't count because it's really 100+ fics crammed in a trenchcoat. So, going by actual solo fics:

Most Hits: "Cracked and Scratched, Not Broken" from Danganronpa fandom, at 11,597 (which is still kind of a surprise to me)

2nd Most Kudos: "Another Cute Animal Video" from Tiger and Bunny fandom, at 531 (see above. what???)

3rd Most Comments: "And One in the Cage" from Mo Dao Zu Shi fandom, at 54 comment threads

4th Most Bookmarks: "Finding Balance" from Tiger and Bunny fandom, at 111

5th Most Words: "Saganesque" from Voltron fandom, at 26,902

Fewest Words: "Shield to Sword" from Mo Dao Zu Shi fandom at 304 words. To be fair, this one got posted before I started collecting my MDZS work in "A Maze of Possibilities" and otherwise would have been included in that, so the actual winner is probably "Chores" from Gravity Falls fandom, at 394.

I have no idea who in my general writing circles has already done this other than a few I've seen pop up on my dash, so I'm gonna throw it at.... uh.... hell, anyone who wants to do it? I know, I know, complete copout, sorry.

[ben-wisehart]

I posted 1,400 times in 2022

35 posts created (3%)

1,365 posts reblogged (98%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@thedoggoesed-ward

@cactus-juice-for-sale

@aquietquixotic

@seaflying-fliptuna

@peachdoxie

I tagged 392 of my posts in 2022

#svsss - 65 posts

#bingqiu - 46 posts

#svsss meta - 14 posts

#shen qingqiu - 13 posts

#luo binghe - 9 posts

#tiktok - 9 posts

#mdzs - 9 posts

#meta - 5 posts

#wangxian - 5 posts

#shen yuan - 4 posts

Longest Tag: 138 characters

#just in case anyone starts to think i have interesting and thought provoking opinions…my inner monologue is 90% ‘haha bingqiu soulmates��’

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

1/2) Regarding the bingqiu-bingjiu thing on twitter today, I don't know how to put this but such discussions seem to prompt a downplaying of sy's worth re the svsss world. I'm not saying that was the op's intention and indeed you and many other commenters had brought up such interesting points, but I saw takes from certain character stans as well that rubbed me the wrong way- bingqiu (or any ship with sy) won't happen without sj, sy has no separate identity of his own from sj. ..

2/2) ...he is just seen as an extension of sj by other characters, he is just a privileged young man who got handed sj's hard earned life and is kind only cuz he didn't go through shit like sj... Maybe it's just my sy|sqq bias speaking but such discourse bothers me fsr..

the twitter threads in question:

https://twitter.com/ShanBlackRX_alt/status/1506618891556077570

https://twitter.com/bobby_speeds/status/1506984146794528773

https://twitter.com/bobby_speeds/status/1507009062135005185

sorry I put off answering this! It's been a busy week, etc. etc. anyway

Yeah, I know what you mean. Like.

Listen. I'm obviously a very outspoken SY fan, and I will readily admit that I can't be unbiased when forming opinions about him. He's my favourite character and I utterly adore him, so seeing people ignore him or outright drag him down to elevate SJ annoys me a lot. but. I'll try to break down exactly what bothers me about people saying SY "got handed SJ's hard-earned life and is kind only because he didn't go through the same hardships"

Firstly, Shen Yuan was literally ripped away from his family and the only life he'd ever known!! Just because he plays it cool and tries to make the most of his situation doesn't mean he's happy about dying! Most transmigration or isekai stories (the ones that I've read, at least) explicitly have the MC either come from a life where they didn't have much in the way of family or close attachments, so the loss of their original life isn't as big of a deal, OR their feelings about losing their old life is a source of tension in the story that gets brought up and focused on.

In Shen Yuan's case, he explicitly comes from a nice family who was very close. SY himself might have been unambitious and felt like he was wasting his life, and sure, we'll never know the exact nuances of his relationships with each of his family members, but there's nothing to suggest he didn't love them. His sister in particular he's described as having doted on.

And yet, they're almost never mentioned again. SQQ finds out he's died and just goes "Well, I've been granted a second chance here, I might as well make the most of it" and just...goes on. This straight up never gets explicitly addressed in canon, and it's not because he doesn't care. It's because he can't. He doesn't have anyone with whom he can talk about this loss. He died and was thrown straight into a world that was constantly reminding him that if he didn't satisfy the System, it would KILL him, and if he DID satisfy the System, there was a very good chance he would get horrifically mutilated by the person he was rapidly growing to care for more and more each day. I've talked about this a bit more on twitter here if anyone is interested.

I probably sound like a broken record at this point but I have to keep saying it: SHEN YUAN SPENT SIX YEARS (excluding the 5 he wasn't conscious for) WITH THE CONSTANT THREAT OF EITHER DEATH OR MUTILATION HANGING OVER HIS HEAD. And that IS a traumatising event. So was losing his old life and not getting a chance to process or mourn it. So was being forced to push Binghe into the Abyss (yes, it was traumatising for SQQ specifically, as well as Binghe!!). So was being forced to send Binghe to fight Elder Sky Hammer and all the million other tiny things that he would never have had to do if he'd had complete control over the new life he'd been given.

Like, look at his treatment of Binghe when he comes out of the Abyss. He's terrified. He's spent so much time afraid of Bingge, afraid of what his return will mean for him, that he can't even bring himself to look at the real man who is before him and see the very real differences he has made. He can't afford to, because he's been living with his fear for so long and he knows that one wrong move could be the end of him.

That time Meng Mo puts him into a deep dream where he experiences Shen Jiu's fate, SQQ is so shaken that he can't even look at Binghe afterwards! Compare that with later, after the punishment program, when he literally HAS experienced the fate that he's been threatened with for years, but instead when he gets out all he wants is to see his own Binghe again to make himself feel better, because he desperately wants to forget the image of the man he loves taking pleasure in torturing him. God. FUCK. I CANNOT be normal about this.

Shen Yuan was a VICTIM. That's what it comes down to. Saying he was privileged and was only kind because he never had to suffer like Shen Jiu did is SUCH a bad faith take. Did Shen Jiu have it worse? I mean...sure, yeah. Certainly, he was traumatised during his formative years when the trauma it would have a bigger impact in shaping his personality. But do we really have to do the "oppression olympics" speech in a novel aimed at adults?

And like. Okay. "He got handed SJ's hard earned life". Let's unpack that, because it's not like "Shen Yuan didn't ask for Shen Jiu's life" and "Shen Yuan benefitted from Shen Jiu's death" are statements that can't coexist. Shen Yuan didn't just get pulled into PIDW because he badmouthed the author, he got pulled in because he died and if he hadn't transmigrated he would have simply stayed dead. Even if you ignore all the trauma he faced in his new life, and all the legwork he himself had to do to get the happy ending he eventually gets with Binghe, I can hardly deny that he was better off in the long run than if he hadn't been given SJ's life.

But here's the thing. Shen Yuan wasn't really "given" SJ's hard-earned life. He wasn't given that life at all. If Shen Yuan had woken up in Shen Jiu's body with no System and complete free-reign over his new life, I would agree with this sentiment, but he wasn't. He was being used by the System with no regard to his own wellbeing.

Seriously, ALL the bad things that SY does as SQQ are the result of the System, either by having his hand directly forced on fear of death, or because he's under extreme pressure and in a position he would never have been in if he'd been in control from the beginning. If Shen Yuan had simply transmigrated into SQQ with total free will, he would have lived a happy, peaceful life of spoiling his disciples rotten and that would have been that. Maybe something would have come up later with regards to Binghe's heritage, maybe there would have been some other conflict from TLJ or the OPM, but the main thing is that SQQ would would have never betrayed Binghe and therefore wouldn't do any of the things he did in canon to push him away out of fear. However their lives would have ended up, I think most of us can agree that they would have only faced a fraction of the trauma they did in canon, if any.

That's why it's impossible to compare SY and SJ on equal footing. It's true that some of the things SJ did (killing LQG and making a move on NYY) were misunderstandings, but ultimately, SJ abused Binghe because he chose to. All of his actions were done of his own volition. Nobody forced him to pour tea on an innocent boy who'd just lost his mother and was desperate to please him. Nobody forced him to make a 15 year old fight a demon. Nobody forced him to give Binghe a fake cultivation manual that would have led a normal person to a dangerous qi deviation. Nobody forced him to push Binghe into the Endless Abyss.

The reason it's unfair to say SY "stole" SJ's life is because we've seen the life that SY stole. We already know* how it would have ended. It's not open to interpretation. PIDW explicitly ends with Bingge taking everything from SJ; his home, the life he'd built, his freedom, his childhood friend, and finally his limbs. The world was broken, with countless people dead or otherwise hurt who weren't so in the SV timeline. If SY's presence was what prevented all of that, then...I'm sorry, but I do think SY deserved that life more.

*One person in the comments of the above twitter threads did make an interesting point that SQQ wasn't the only variable that changed in SVSSS compared to PIDW, and that SQH's warning to be careful when saving LQG might have led to a different outcome for SQQ even if SY hadn't transmigrated. I think this is worth bringing up, and I'd honestly love to know exactly how PIDW would have played out if LQG had still been alive, but ultimately, even if SJ had succeeded in saving LQG, I'm just not convinced his ending would have been that different. I think SJ would have been too proud to admit he was the one who saved him and LQG would never have known. They wouldn't have become friends like LQG and SY did, and LBH's personal resolve for vengeance (the main driver in SJ's eventual fate) would not have been affected by this change.

Anyway yeah TL;DR SY's presence improved almost every aspect of the PIDW world for the better (RIP Qin Wanrong, Gongyi Xiao and Zhuzhi-Lang) despite the fact that he never asked to be there and had a force far more powerful than himself trying its damnedest to make him hurt someone he cared about. Sometimes he failed to find the best possible solution to the problems he was faced with, but he still tried his best to work around the limitations placed on him and in the end, I would say he did a pretty good job of it! Maybe even a Better job than the man who was in the exact same position as him but WITHOUT an omnipotent being monitoring his every move and threatening to kill him if he didn't Try To Kill A Child?? who can say for sure ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And to be fair, I think a lot of Shen Jiu fans would agree with this? Like I don't think it's really a debate that Shen Yuan is an objectively better person than Shen Jiu, it's just that some fans find Shen Jiu a more interesting character to read and write about, which is not my own experience but to each their own! I might prefer SY but I still agree that SJ is a compelling character and I can for sure see why he's a popular character to blorbofy. It only annoys me when people try to drag SY down to his level, or downplay the fact that Shen Jiu is still very much a child abuser who showed absolutely no remorse when asked if he thought his abuse might have been the reason Binghe grew up to be a tyrant.

Thanks for the questions and sorry about the length!! I just hear a question about SQQ and my brain goes brrrr

156 notes - Posted April 3, 2022

#4

Hi! I LOVE your SVSSS meta, it's always so well thought out<3 At the very bottom of your BingQiu meta post you mention that LBH is gay. I had interpreted his sexuality in SV as like, he could be attracted to anyone (evidenced by his huge harem in PIDW) but after falling for SQQ, he wasn't interested in anyone else. What leads you to believe that LBH is gay and not bi or pan? (I don't have a strong opinion either way, I'm just interested in hearing your take if you feel like talking about it!)

the post anon is referring to

Oh man I've had this one stewing in my brain for days. I DEFINITELY feel like talking about it.

So here's my obligatory disclaimer that media should be enjoyable first and foremost, and if someone reading this enjoys seeing Binghe as bi or pan, I think you should continue to do so regardless of whether or not it's supported by canon.

To be honest, while I don't read either Luo Binghe or Shen Qingqiu as mspec, I'd probably have an easier time believing it of Binghe than SQQ. SQQ's feelings and attitudes toward women come across very much like your pretty stock-standard compulsory heterosexuality; he talks a lot about how he's straight and wants a girlfriend, but try to name one single woman he's actually attracted to and you come up short. In practice, he's constantly making excuses why any given woman who crosses his mind isn't suitable for him: usually it's "they belong to the protagonist" or maybe "she's too intimidating", and he never seems to realise that these things...don't actually preclude him from finding them attractive.

To Shen Qingqiu, simply not being attracted to a woman is very easy and he genuinely doesn't realise that that isn't normal for straight guys. It's why he finds it so confusing why so many people like PIDW despite all the terrible sex scenes. Even when Madam Meiyin (a woman whose predictions he's just described as infallible) is describing his literal destined partner, he tries to picture a woman who fits that description and immediately dismisses the prediction out of hand because she's unrealistic and would obviously go to Binghe anyway.

I think it's really telling that his favourite female lead in PIDW was Liu Mingyan—the only one who never got sex scenes with the character he was actually attracted to. Like. Seriously. His favourite wife was the one he never had to read having straight sex with Binghe. The lack of sex scenes gave her room to breathe and grow as her own character; Shen Yuan talks about how he thinks she should get "pushed down" but I'm willing to bet that if that had actually happened and she'd ended up in the same ridiculous sex scenarios as the other wives, his fondness for her as a character would have mysteriously dried up.

I don't think I have a specific moment I can refer to for this, but you also just...get the impression that even though Binghe is obviously the person SQQ finds most attractive, he's still capable of finding other guys hot. With Liu Qingge in particular Shen Qingqiu spends a hilarious amount of time fixating on what a Pretty Boy(TM) he is compared to how the PIDW fandom liked to portray him. Tianlang-Jun, Gongyi Xiao...even Shang Qinghua he describes as "handsome with an air of sleaziness" in his first appearance. I'm not saying SQQ wants to bone each of these guys, but it does make you kind of feel like a man's general attractiveness is something he takes note of. He does also describe female characters as pretty, so there's an element of it that's just...the POV character relaying the other characters' appearances to the audience, but with the female characters he's usually describing them as they appeared in PIDW, and I sincerely doubt PIDW ever took much time to establish that any given male character was nice to look at.

Anyway. I'm digressing.

As for Binghe...

God, even when I'm trying to talk about Binghe I'm talking about Shen Qingqiu, aren't I??😔

The problem with Binghe, I think, is that he fixates so heavily on Shen Qingqiu to the point of obsession. Like, sure, it's hard to imagine Binghe (as we know him in SVSSS) being attracted to a woman, but it's equally hard to imagine him being attracted to a man that isn't Shen Qingqiu. He just has such singular focus on the person he's fallen for that you might just as well label him "shizunsexual" as anything else.

So if you heard that he married a man in one timeline and a bunch of women in another, and took this information in isolation, you probably could conclude that Binghe is a bi/pan dude who just got really invested in one specific person to an extent that it permanently blinded him to anyone else he might have otherwise shown an interest in, and that this one specific person just happened to be a man.

However, I do think it was MXTX's intention for Binghe to be specifically read as gay, and not just because she's a BL author with a fondness for making her romantic leads only ever have feelings for one single person (and by extension, one gender) in their lives. The Bing-ge extra just doesn't make sense to me if Bing-ge was genuinely attracted to women. And the story overall, I think, makes more sense when that's not the case as well.

Firstly, I want to emphasise that Airplane didn't originally plan for Binghe to be gay. This is a common misconception that I think stems from his teasing remarks to SQQ in the last chapter. In truth, his original plan was for Binghe to not have a love interest. Binghe was supposed to be a tragic protagonist destined to die alone and unloved. Airplane might have added all the wives in for fanservice, and it's obvious that he thinks he's been writing a straight character since he seems genuinely shocked and even upset(??) when he finds out Binghe is gay in real life, but...at the story's core, Binghe having a loving, positive relationship with someone who meets his emotional needs was not part of the plan at any point.

I want to pull up a quote that I think is incredibly telling. This is how Shen Qingqiu describes the scene in PIDW in which Binghe loses his virginity:

The girl thought, "Since I'm about to die, I must leave behind some memories to ensure that my life won't have been in vain. I don't have many days left, after all, so I won't suppress my feelings anymore."

Then, using her weak and fragile body, she pushed Luo Binghe down.

Luo Binghe put up a brief show of resistance before telling himself "She did it all for my sake. I don't have the heart to reject her final wish." He yielded, still half-reluctant, and went along with it...

(Vol 1 Page 143 of the official translation)

Which is just...utterly tragic. I do want to be clear that it's perfectly normal for men to not actually want sex all the time, even with the gender that they're attracted to. Even if Binghe were totally straight it wouldn't be weird that he didn't want to have sex with Qin Wanyue in a life-or-death scenario like the one above. This scene on its own isn't proof that Binghe doesn't like women, but I think it does show that Bing-ge didn't start out chasing women indiscriminately; his very first time was being pressured into it.

Here's the thing. Bing-ge had no positive male figures in his life, especially when he was young. All the men he encountered were indifferent to him at best or outright cruel at worst. He spent his formative years alone with no permanent caregiver. The Meng Mo arc suggests he was on his own until the age of four or five, and that he was regularly beaten on the streets, usually by men. Once his mother took him in, she became his safety and his shelter; it was the two of them against the world. When he loses her, he resolves to join a cultivation clan to get stronger, and is immediately chosen by a graceful and talented immortal—his dream! For the first time, little Luo Binghe allows himself to believe there's going to be somebody else in his life who will protect and mentor him—but then the harsh reality is dumped on his head and he's alone again. His new Shizun punishes him harshly and encourages others to bully him. His shixiongs are only too happy to oblige. His sect leader turns a blind eye to his abuse.

But Ning Yingying...Ning Yingying is naive and a bit tactless and sometimes her interference causes him more problems than it solves, but she's well meaning, she seems to like having him around, and she's the only person who will stand up for him despite everyone telling her not to. In PIDW, she was the person he trusted the most during his time at Qing Jing Peak. Admittedly not a very high bar, but he has a friend. And then the others. Liu Mingyan, Sha Hualing, Qin Wanyue, the Little Palace Mistress...these are people who make him feel wanted. Needed.

It's a really interesting and frankly tragic mirror to Shen Jiu, who was also abused by men and for whom women became his safety. It's also interesting in the ways that they differ. He goes to brothels to sleep so he won't be around men, but there's nothing to suggest Shen Jiu actually turned to having sex with women for comfort in the way that Binghe did. Shen Jiu closes himself off completely from forming relationships with other people, even superficial ones, while Binghe can't seem to stop forming new connections, even if they never manage to satisfy him in the way he really wants.

I think the members of the harem have varying levels of genuine care and love for Binghe. Unfortunately we don’t have the benefit of their POV and we only have brief allusions to what their individual relationships with Binghe were like in PIDW. Breaking down my exact thoughts on each wife would make this essay even more bloated than it already is and wouldn’t add much overall, but in general, I do think most of them were at least physically attracted to him. Some may have married him for political or social advantages, especially once he started to amass power and…eliminate their other options. Some might have wanted the safety and protection that came with being the Saintly Ruler’s wife. I think a good chunk of them were, consciously or not, using him in some way—but Bing-ge is so desperate for human connection (or at least a parody of it) that he doesn’t really care, especially as he spends more and more time using Xin Mo. If he's being taken advantage of, it’s not like he doesn’t have the resources to support it.

But there must have been women in the harem who genuinely loved him, who wished they could be more to him than just an interchangeable face in the crowd. There must have been women whose personalities meshed well with his. Women who earned his trust and his loyalty. Women whom, if Binghe were somebody with the capacity to have romantic feelings towards women, he would have fallen in love with.

And yet, all it took was a few days with Shen Qingqiu to change everything.

Now, I don’t think Bing-ge in the extra was gearing up to give up his harem unprompted. He wanted SQQ to come back with him. I do think that if Bingmei had simply never returned and provided a way back, Bing-ge wouldn’t have regretted the loss, and I also think that if SQQ had gone back with him to join the harem, Bing-ge would have never looked at another woman in his life, but these things aren’t outright stated in canon so I can’t in good conscience present them as indisputable fact. The fandom is pretty consistent on the belief that Bing-ge goes home with his worldview shaken and develops an obsession with SY, and I think that too, but the fact remains that we will never really know for sure how he moves on from that experience. I'm pointing all this out because I really do want to give mspec Binghe as much benefit of the doubt as I possibly can.

But god…I really just don’t see how it’s possible to read the Bingge vs Bingmei extras without coming to the conclusion that Bing-ge is a gay man who is experiencing a genuine positive connection with another man for the first time in his life. He’s hostile and standoffish when he doesn’t know what’s going on, but as soon as he understands the situation, he melts. He looks at Shen Qingqiu like he’s seeing him for the first time. He starts calling his name just because he can, because he likes hearing SQQ respond to him. He becomes drunk on it, unable to stop. He offers to cuddle him to sleep. For somebody who has never had intimate relations with a man before, he doesn’t even hesitate to start seducing him once he understands the situation. Everything is just perfect—right up until SQQ sees through his deception and the facade crumbles.

I don’t think Bing-ge knew he was gay before this point. How would he? Who could possibly have been a focal point for these feelings? The only male friendship we know he had was with Mobei-Jun, and even though Mobei-Jun is also a MLM, he’s not exactly Binghe’s type and they just don’t have the kind of dynamic Binghe needs in a relationship. He’s spent his entire life being the strong one, the one who saves the maiden, the one who carries the weight of the world on his back. So the relationship he truly craves, even if he doesn’t realise it, is one where he gets to be doted on and cared for. Where he gets his hair braided.

See the full post

226 notes - Posted April 6, 2022

#3

im finally reading tgcf

381 notes - Posted January 29, 2022

#2

518 notes - Posted January 10, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Lowkey amused when fic writers make lwj complain about or otherwise express discomfort over eating wwx’s spicy food as if wwx didn’t fully believe right up until the fucking yi city arc that lwj loved spice. that motherfucker would have gone to his grave without ever letting wwx know that their palates were completely incompatible. In an AU where the juniors never got corpse poisoning Wwx surprises his husband one night when he gets home from training like “Lan Zhan, I made you some spicy pork and noodles 🥰🥰🥰 you’re always doing the cooking so tonight I wanted to treat you🥰🥰🥰have as much as you like!🥰🥰🥰are you excited?!” and lan wangji just gives him the sweetest smile ever to grace the face of a mortal man and goes “mn” and sits down and proceeds to eat what is essentially just a bowl of straight chilli oil without losing his composure once

842 notes - Posted April 8, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[canes-venatici200]

I posted 426 times in 2022

That's 426 more posts than 2021!

114 posts created (27%)

312 posts reblogged (73%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@mxtxfanatic

@motivationisdead

@jiaoji

@jiangwanyinscatmom

@hands-of-nishka-t-rex

I tagged 401 of my posts in 2022

Only 6% of my posts had no tags

#mo dao zu shi - 310 posts

#mdzs - 306 posts

#grandmaster of demonic cultivation - 203 posts

#wei wuxian - 191 posts

#mdzs novel - 84 posts

#lan wangji - 71 posts

#the grandmaster of demonic cultivation - 68 posts

#canon jiang cheng - 64 posts

#jiang cheng - 31 posts

#anti jc - 29 posts

Longest Tag: 137 characters

#madam ew collects debts from dead people and children for imaginary issues taking up space in her cold non existent narcissistic heart 🤯

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Fandom: Hua Cheng and Xie Lian invented love!!!!♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️💞💞💞💞💞💖💖💖💖💖❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥💘💘💘💘💘💘💘💘💘💘

Me: Xie Lian invented recycling ♻️♻️♻️♻️♻️♻️🌳🌳🌳🌳🌴🌴🌴🌲🌲🌲🌲🐳🐳🐳🐳🐬🐬🐬🐬🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢🐢

152 notes - Posted May 16, 2022

#4

Anyone else tired of of seeing “straight boy Wei Wuxian” tag? Especially when they attack him for not discovering his sexuality sooner or being the oblivious “straight” not thinking that he could like boys too and also everyone else figuring out his sexuality sooner than him and they always get mad at him when he doesn’t realize he’s gay or bisexual.

191 notes - Posted July 21, 2022

#3

Prompt:

Rogue cultivator Wei Wuxian meets Lan Wangji on a night hunt. (They are in their mid twenties) Wei Wuxian invites himself to eat dinner with Lan Wangji and he gets unusually flustered so he doesn’t tell Wei Wuxian no. (Not that he looks flustered)While eating he keeps getting teased by Wei Wuxian that he accidentally drinks his wine and blacks out. In the morning he wakes up in bed with him and they both are half naked. After waking up Wei Wuxian tells him he has never slept with someone and that he needs to take responsibility which Lan Wangji already halfway smitten tells him that he will.

233 notes - Posted September 23, 2022

#2

Wei Wuxian truly believes that Lan Wangji is considerate in helping him take baths in the mornings to wake him up but Lan Wangji’s true motives are the soft kisses he receives without fail each time.

298 notes - Posted April 15, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Fanon

Lan Wangji: Wei Ying, will you marry me?

Wei Wuxian: I can’t Lan Zhan sorry I don’t deserve you, I’m a nobody.

Canon

Lan Wangji: Wei Ying, will you marry me?

Wei Wuxian: OMG! Yessss!!! Let’s go right now! Hurry Lan Zhan, we’re wasting daylight!!!🥰🥰🥰😍😍😍😘😘😘❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥💞💞💞♥️♥️♥️💘💘💘💖💖💖

455 notes - Posted June 4, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[thispatternismine]

Getting rid of any kind of umbrella tag makes it impossible to find stuff or filter properly.

Having to search tags multiple times if the fandom you're in has multiple adaptations or versions is annoying, especially if you want to be excluding stuff.

Worse, the option to filter for crossovers is functionally useless in any fandom where there is more than one iteration of the property (such as a sequel or adaptation), because everyone tags multiple versions of the fandom for ~reach~ (ugh). And yeah I know that's what they're doing - I've clicked on fics with both MDZS & The Untamed tagged where the author admits they're following MDZS novel canon specifically (so the drama being tagged is a lie). Also I'm sorry, but I refuse to believe that many of you are writing fics specifically focusing on the audio drama or MDZS Q like c'mon some of yous are lying! Same for SVSSS fans tagging the donghua in addition to the book. Like, why?

And because of that I can't filter out actual crossovers because non-crossovers will go too!

And on the flipside, finding crossovers when I want to is impossible. A few years ago I read a fun Good Omens/Untitled Goose Game crossover & was like 'Huh, Good Omens seems like it'd be perfect for some interesting crossovers!'. But like 90% of the fics were tagged with both the book & TV series, which counted as crossovers, & any actual crossovers got buried.

Most of the time the adaptations are similar enough that characters & plotlines are roughly the same, & differences are often smoothed out by the fic itself anyway (does it matter if characterisation of a particular character is slightly different in an adaptation if you're going to put him through the wringer & have him emerge a fundamentally changed person anyway? Does an added plotline matter if you're adding a bunch of plot yourself & handwaving stuff you make your fic work?). But according to Ao3 they count as crossovers.

And tbh I don't blame the authors for tagging multiple fandoms! It's annoying & they're misrepresenting the fic but of bloody course they're going to do that to make sure people see their fics regardless of which sub-fandom they've chosen to search for fics in.

That's something that will only become more necessary considering how much media being released these days is a reboot, remake, sequel or adaptation of something else.

I don't even know why you'd want to get rid of AMT type fandom tags? The only thing I can think of is that maybe people find it hard to seek out fics that are focused on more niche adaptations within a fandom because a lot of authors might tag their fics with an AMT tag rather than getting specific. IDK that seems a lesser evil to what is going on now, but I suppose it could bug people. Is it possible to make it so an umbrella tag can be used to search & filter, but ot be added as a tag on fics? That way authors can pick applicable sub-tag(s), but anyone searching for the fic can be more vague. Is that something that can be done or is that just Not How Tags Work On Ao3?

Regarding Fandom Trees & AMTs

Tag wrangling is, on the whole, a fluid process. It's meant to be, because the way language is used and the way tags are used change over time. We're the first to admit that we don’t always get it right, and that we do sometimes make mistakes despite our best intentions. This is why wrangling decisions are not set in stone and are reevaluated periodically as circumstances change or as new information becomes available. 

In light of the impact that removing the Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms metatag has had, we have put that metatag back in place. 

When it comes to fandom metatags and fandom trees, there is no 'one size fits all' approach that works for all fandoms. Consequently, we have placed a hold on all structural changes to fandom metatags, All Media Types fandoms (commonly called AMTs), and fandom trees while wranglers discuss the need for additional guidelines and adjustments to our approach regarding these tags going forward. 

This hold will remain in place until tag wranglers have had ample time to fully reevaluate our fandom wrangling guidelines with the aim of making it easier for Archive users to find the content they’re looking for and filter out the content they aren’t. This guideline reevaluation process is something we are actively working on, but it will likely take some time to complete. We will update again once these fandom guideline discussions have come to a close.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

(From time to time, ao3org posts announcements of recent or upcoming wrangling changes on behalf of the Tag Wrangling Committee.)

[skywriterjade]

It has just struck me that this is a blog. Seeing as I did not get to experience the full blogger lifestyle due to Strict Parents™️ I will occasionally be feral here lol

Maybe not tonight though. Sleep deprivation does not make for "good ideas"😆 I do wonder if anyone still scrolls profiles or just their fyp and stuff that pops up on the main page. I think I scroll my fyp until I find an interesting blog or tag then the adhd brain takes over and I'm 15 accounts deep into a video game I've never heard of or something

Which is pretty much how I learned how rabies actually works come to think of it🤔

Oh! If anyone does do profile scrolling and comes across this who also follows any of my current ongoing fics, I am so very sorry for the wait. I do mean to finish them, life has just been very hectic and unkind in it's time distribution😅

WDKY is almost done. It's so wild to think about how long I'd been working it. Aftereffects WAS done. I found a plot hole😅 so I pretty much ripped up the chapter like it was a pothole ridden road. All of my MDZS fics are in various stages of development. The batfam fic is almost done.

I think that's it. I will literally ramble on forever lol One more curiosity before I do go. Does anyone else have that thing where if you focus on any of the million and five brain tabs, the music stops playing?

[viterbofangirllovestheuntamed]

Hi..... if you don't mind me asking, can I ask your top 5 favorite characters from MDZS? And your top 5 (or top 3) favorite moments from the novel (or the drama)? Sorry if you've answered this before....Thanks

Hi, hi! I have NOT, in fact, been asked this before, so thank you very much!

The top five characters I can definitely pick! They are:

1) Jiang Cheng (no surprise there. I just... I LOVE HIM SO MUCH! He's so MEAN but he feels and loves so so so soooo much! He's hard working and dedicated and has fought and triumphed in the face of impossible- yeah, I went there- odds! He's not perfect by any means, but his personality fits together perfectly in light of nature, nurture, environment, and circumstances... you know what I mean? And that is just straight catnip for a writer/people analyzer like myself.)

2) Jin Ling (MY BABY!!! He's adorably spoiled, adorably short-tempered, and adorably bratty... then he gets some SERIOUS character development that builds on the worthwhile foundation that was clear to see UNDER the brattiness. Like how he's ride or die for anyone who takes him into consideration-- the juniors, Faux Xuanyu, and of course JiuJiu-- or how he's trying to be a better person, or how he very bravely stood up to THE two most revered cultivators and his supposed blood relative as they tried to break into his little uncle (and Chief Freaking Cultivator)'s private rooms, and how he's trying his best as his dad's murderer and dad's murderer's puppetmaster come back to life and start hanging out with his only friends who don't really try to understand where Jin Ling is coming from only to find out that his second-most-trusted-person in the whole world was actually behind it all. MY BABY!!!)

3) Nie Huaisang (This dude's hilarious! I support him in his messy murder-revenge endeavors! When my mutuals started getting into the Untamed, before I knew jack-squat about what the whole thing was about, I saw him and Jiang Cheng and I was like "I have no idea what is going on but these two idiot assholes are gonna be my favorites, I just know it..." And I was right!)

4) Wen Qing (My tag says it the best: Very Desperate Older Sister Does Not Deserve This Please. She is in SUCH impossible situations, over and over again, and she just keeps trying to keep those she cares for safe, despite the risk or hardship or principle-violation it poses to herself! Also I want her and Jiang Cheng to make beautiful, bitchy, cranky, supermodel babies.)

5) GAH, this is hard... I mean, the amazing thing about CQL is they got such an AMAZING CAST that you just either love everyone or utterly delight in hating them! But I'm going to pass on Romantic Muffin Ouyang Zizhen and Yet Another Grumpy Single Dad Uncle Trying His Damned Best Lan Qiren and ULTIMATELY pick... Lan Xichen. His compromising and vacillating are SO! ABSOLUTELY! MADDENING! but he is such a pure person in such a cruel world, and he tries so HARD to please everyone, and he really does go above and beyond when Wei Wuxian comes back to life-- letting him hide at Cloud Recesses and hearing WangXian out when they're accusing his dear a-Yao. I'm really proud of him for the latter, tbh, and it's the reason he's nabbed spot number five.

(It might be noticed that WWX and LWJ are *not* in my top five. Please rest assured that I still love them oodles and boodles! Their actors are absolute *perfection* and are hella impressive and make it impossible NOT to like them! It's just that both characters are I-do-what-I-want-and-to-hell-with-everyone-else types and I am more the overburdened-with-responsibility-oldest-sibling type, so it makes me perhaps a little harsher than others in my "favorites" rankings.)

Top *moments* are definitely harder! But I'm going to try! (This will be The Untamed/CQL *only* as that is currently my only direct exposure.)

1) The Death of Jin Zixuan (HOW COULD I DO THIS TO MYSELF?!?!? But it is just... soooooooo! well! done! The acting, the pacing, the music, the abruptness, the lingering dawning horror... 1000/10 for exquisitely done maximum-grade tragedy! *upside-down smiley face*)

2) The Second Siege of the Burial Mounds (Hoo boy, but this runs the gamut! The grief of the return to the burned out husk of their old home and the ghosts haunting their memories, the hilarity of the Juniors bickering, the showdown outside, Jiang Cheng's sexy, sexy stride to the front of the battlelines, his resulting repressed panic at his spiritual power draining followed by *Wei Wuxian's* repressed panic at Jiang Cheng's panic, the showdown INside with Jingyi and Huaisang gossiping like hens right in front of a deliberately-ignoring Lan Qiren, the GORGEOUS FIGHT SCENE with Wei Wuxian's blood talisman written out on Lan Wangji's borrowed underoos, Jiang Cheng trying DESPERATELY not to show the rest of the cultivation world how BATSHIT WORRIED he is about Wei Wuxian's survival and YES he's still angry at him what does THAT matter... Cap off the whole thing with the scene at the docks in all ITs heartwarming/ breaking /reassuring glory... IT'S JUST... *CHEF'S KISS*!)

3) The FUCKING COMB™ Saga (Okay so I'm cheating a little bit since this comprises multiple scenes over hours, but the whole tragic non-romance of two people who are so completely dedicated to their own people and responsibilities that they are unable to explore the potential of uniting with those same similarities... *keening screech*)

4) Yunmeng Jiang Arrives at Caiyi Town (a.k.a. When Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt. To see the pure, affectionate, adorable HAPPINESS of the Yunmeng sibling trio and their disciples, especially knowing how utterly, utterly fragile and short-lived it will be... just... excuse me. *googles directions to nearest cliff*)

5) Soft Soulmates Song (That scene post-resurrection when Wei Wuxian is nursing Emperor's Smile outside the Jingshi as it starts to snow, and he's spiraling down remembering all these bad things and how little has changed and how everyone still hates him... and the sound of a guqin playing their song starts from inside. That beautiful, BEAUTIFUL moment of Lan Wangji silently saying "I love you, I'M glad that you're here, I think you're worthwhile"... *UGLY SOBBING*)

That's what I got at the moment, but I fully anticipate reblogs and comments to spark a personal parade of "OH SHIT I FORGOT THAT'S ONE OF MY FAVORITES TOO" regrets.

Thanks again for the ask!

[qiu-yan]

the tags + other additions here kind of got buried the last time i reblogged this post (mainly because i was focused on arguing with someone lmao), so i'm reblogging again because cerusee's tags are correct and also raise a really interesting point about what wei wuxian really wants.

what i find interesting is that, in the ancestral hall scene, wei wuxian isn't treating himself like an outsider at all, which is exactly why jiang cheng gets mad at him.

immediately before wang and xian enter the lotus pier ancestral hall, they pass through other areas of lotus pier, upon which wei wuxian finds that the places he's familiar with have since been rebuilt into something unfamiliar:

The two returned to the docks and re-entered the main gates of Lotus Pier. When they crossed the drilling grounds and passed a small, resplendent building, Wei Wuxian paused and did a double take, wearing an odd expression. “What is the matter?” Lan Wangji asked. Wei Wuxian shook his head. “It’s nothing. The house I used to live in was here, but now it’s gone. Torn down, just as I thought. These are all newly built.”

MDZS Seven Seas translation, vol. 4

and then, after wei wuxian enters the ancestral hall, he and lan wangji have this conversation:

“I used to be a frequent guest here,” he said to Lan Wangji. With a look of understanding, Lan Wangji said, “Punishment by kneeling?” “How did you know?” Wei Wuxian marveled. “It certainly was. Madam Yu used to punish me like that almost every other day.” Lan Wangji nodded. “I have heard a little.” “How is it a little, if word managed to spread from Yunmeng all the way to Gusu?” Wei Wuxian said. “But to be honest, I’ve never seen a woman as bad-tempered as Madam Yu, even after all these years. She’d order me to march to the ancestral hall and kneel over every little thing, ha ha ha…” But other than that, Madam Yu had never genuinely done anything to harm him. He suddenly remembered that this was the ancestral hall, and Madam Yu’s memorial tablet was right in front of him. He hurriedly apologized, “Sorry, sorry.”

one common argument i've seen people make is that "ancestral halls are open to anyone, even outsiders, who wants to pay respects." which 1. is not true: chinese culture places a lot of importance on ancestor veneration and formal familial structure (and in a time period like MDZS's one can fully expect ancestor worship to be practiced) so you cannot just be traipsing around in someone else's ancestral hall without the permission of the family head. more importantly, though, 2. wei wuxian is not just here to "pay respects" as a stranger. he's not treating himself like an outsider to the jiang family at all.

first, wei wuxian walks through lotus pier and sees that the house he used to live in has been rebuilt. lotus pier has changed in his absence and is no longer familiar to him; the places that were familiar to him no longer exist. immediately afterwards, wei wuxian heads towards and enters a place that he is familiar with, that he does have many memories of - the lotus pier ancestral hall. once inside, he does pay his respects, but he also honestly and openly reminisces to lan wangji about all the time he spent here in the past, to the point where he worries a bit late that he's being rude to yu ziyuan.

this indicates to me that wei wuxian did not enter the ancestral hall purely to pay respects, but rather because he missed home. he found the new lotus pier to be unfamiliar, that the home in his memories had changed beyond recognition, and so he sought out a location that was still familiar and still held memories of home. he acted as he did in the past when this place still was his home, when the jiang family still was his family.

in this moment, he's not acting like an outsider at all. he's fully treating himself like a member of the jiang family. this is further evidenced by what he thinks after he and lan wangji bow to yu ziyuan and jiang fengmian's memorial tablets:

He put his palms together and said silently, Jiang-shushu, Madam Yu—it’s me again, here to disturb your peace. I really wanted to bring this person here to show him to you, though. Please consider those two bows our wedding bows to the Heaven, the Earth, the father, and the mother [6]. So please—help me lock this guy down first. Let me owe you the third and final wedding bow for now. I’ll find a chance to make good on it in the future…

provided footnote:

[6] During a wedding ceremony, the couple must bow three times: one bow to worship the heavens and earth, one bow to respect their parents, and one bow to respect each other.

here, wei wuxian is not just paying respects to yunmeng jiang's venerated ancestors as an outsider. rather, he's treating himself like a full-fledged member of the jiang family by introducing his future husband to yu ziyuan and jiang fengmian as if they are his parents. you don't go around doing your (unofficial) wedding bows to random strangers, you only do those for those who you consider to be your family.

thus, the impression i get from wei wuxian's actions here is that he wants to return home. he wants to return to lotus pier. more specifically, though, he wants to return to the lotus pier of the past - which, due to both unavoidable circumstances and to his own actions, no longer exists.

to put it another way, he wants to return to a lotus pier that does not include the jiang cheng of the present.

even if wei wuxian wants to return to lotus pier, after wei wuxian's resurrection, all of his choices instead imply that he no longer wants anything to do with jiang cheng and no longer considers jiang cheng to be family. because, while his continued avoidance of jiang cheng is understandable, it also isn't how one treats someone they consider to be family: if, due to someone's own actions, they accidentally killed their brother-in-law and injured their sister, then they do in fact owe their remaining family members an explanation as to why this happened. this goes doubly so if that someone never even clarified to their surviving family members that their manslaughter of their BIL was an accident and not something they chose to do on purpose. if someone instead provides none of these explanations, the only conclusion i can come to is that this person is no longer interested in maintaining a familial relationship with their surviving family members.

wei wuxian wants to return to the lotus pier of the past. wei wuxian also does not want to be held accountable, fairly or not, by the jiang cheng of the present. unfortunately for wei wuxian, the lotus pier of the past no longer exists and the lotus pier of the present cannot be accessed without going through the jiang cheng of the present. to me, it seems that wei wuxian's actions here were caused by the fact that he has not yet realized this fact.

gonna be real here boss when it comes to the ancestral hall scene i am 100% on jiang cheng's side

[akatsuki-shin]

I... I don’t often call out anyone specifically using social media before, but... I saw this among the reblogs in my first post about MXTX novels English release announcement and I feel that this is just too much...

I’m not going to tag this with the fandom tags because this is literally just my personal rant, and I don’t want unpleasant things to appear when people are happily browsing the tags.

I also censored the person’s blog name. It’s not like I want people to mass attack them.

But I do have some things I want to say about this kind of mindset.

And this is gonna be a long post, so I’ll cut it with "Read More” later below as not to disturb anyone’s browsing experience.

Why do they have to split the books into multiple volumes?

First, you do realize that the original Chinese version and other languages versions are also in multiple volumes that don’t always be published on the same date, right?

SVSSS has 3 volumes, MDZS has 4 volumes, TGCF has 5 volumes.

With the English release, both SVSSS and MDZS get +1 volume while TGCF gets +3 volumes.

Why you ask?

Have you ever considered how long a single Chinese word would be if written in alphabets?

The word “人” in Chinese only needs 1 (one) character, while in English it would translate to “P E O P L E” = 5 (five) characters.

The word “知己” in Chinese only needs 2 (two) characters, while in English it would translate to “C O N F I D A N T E” = 10 characters, or “S O U L M A T E” = 8 characters.

Now apply this to an entire novel. FYI, TGCF has more than 1 million word count in Chinese, so you can do the math by yourself.

I mean, just go watch the donghua or live action in YouTube. One single sentence in the Chinese sub is often translated to two or more lines in the English subtitle.

And have I mentioned that the English release will have:

Glossary

Footnotes

Character Guides

And I’m going to repeat this once again: In China and other countries that already get their official releases, it is also NOT always all released on the same date as a single set/box.

So yes, (not) surprise! For the Chinese release and official releases in other countries, you also often need to purchase multiple times, pay shipping fee multiple times, and wait for certain period of times until all volumes are released.

It doesn’t only happen to MXTX novels, it happens to almost all novels, be it danmei or not.

Why don’t they just wait for translations to finish and release it all at the same time/as a box set? Why the span of two years?

On my part, I already say above that in China and other countries that already get their official release, it’s also not always published all on the same date.

Other than that, I’m not an expert at book publishing, much less when the publisher is not from my own country. But maybe consider the following:

They’re releasing 3 (three) hugely popular IPs all at the same time. Maybe the preparations take more time and effort to ensure everything is flawless?

Since it is very rare (or maybe never, cmiiw) for danmei novels to be published in English, maybe the publisher is testing the market first? Because if they already release them as a huge bundle from the start and it somehow flops, the loss would be very big. If it works well, then good! Maybe for future danmei release, they will consider making a box set or releasing them within shorter timeframe. 

In terms of marketing, if they wait another 2 years to release it all at once, will the momentum still be there? You can say “so in the end it’s all about money”, but if not sales number and money, what else should the publisher expect to receive for their work? They’re already putting a lot of effort buying all three IPs from the Chinese publishers, proofread or even translate some from scratch, pay translators, editors, illustrators, printing companies, etc. If it’s not selling well simply because they release it at the wrong time, aren’t all these efforts going to be wasted? And you can bet there will be no more danmei published in English if their first try already flops merely because of losing the momentum.

Are there any other rules or regulations they need to comply that prevents them from releasing everything in one go? But once again, even in China and other countries, it is also not always all released in one go, so this argument is already invalid from the start.

But they make it so expensive like this!

I’m sorry to break it to you, but I’ve compared the prices to MDZS Japanese release + TGCF Thai release and... The price isn’t really that much different.

Btw, I’m using Google’s currency converter, in case anyone wants to know where does my calculation comes from.

Okay, so here’s MDZS Japanese version from CD Japan:

One volume of MDZS Regular ver. cost 1760 yen. This is 15,96 USD before shipping. There’s only like $4 difference.

There’s also the Exclusive ver. that cost 3660 yen (32,92 USD) but we’re not gonna talk about that because they’re basically making you pay for the bonus, which is some acrylic panels and illustration cards.

Now here’s TGCF Thai version from Sense Book:

Translation using Google Chrome page translate:

One volume of TGCF costs 360 baht. This is 10.77 USD before shipping. So there’s about $9.22 difference.

Again, notice the difference of word/sentence length in the Thai words and English alphabet.

"But there’s still difference in price and other releases usually gets merchandise!” - Correct me if I’m wrong, but the US is probably one of the most expensive countries in the world. Do you think the materials, printings, and manpower cost is the same with other countries? Especially compared to one in Southeast Asia.

“But it’s xxxx times more expensive than the original Chinese version!” - Excuse me, the original Chinese version doesn’t need to pay for translators, proofreaders and editors with multilingual skills, and purchase the IPs? If you think it’s more worth buying the Chinese version, then by all means go ahead.

------------

Some last words...

I’m not looking down on those in difficult financial situation, but hey, I’m not filthy rich either? I come from a third world country and even if I’m a working adult, I’m still in working middle class + I got my parents to take care of. My country’s currency is literally just a tiny 0.000069 USD per 1 Indonesian Rupiah.

Every single fandom merchandise that you see me bought, either I’ve saved up for that or I sacrificed other things to buy that. I just don’t show the struggle to you guys because why should I? I’m just here to have fun about the fandom I love, not to flex my struggling financial condition.

These official English release of MXTX novels? All 17 books are going to cost me almost HALF of my monthly salary. But hey, I think it’s a good thing that they didn’t release it all at once, so that I can save up between months to purchase them all and plan my spending better.

If you feel the price is expensive, especially if you have to ship from outside North America, consider the following:

Book Depository provide free worldwide shipping

The books’ ISBN numbers are all available in the publisher’s website, just show it to you local bookstore and ask if they can order it for you

Plus, there are already hundreds of generous fans doing free giveaways in Twitter, even the publishers are helping to signal boost this. You can go and try your luck if you’re really desperate.

Lastly, I know how much love we all have for our favorite fandoms, but remember that fandom merchandise is NOT your primary needs.

You are NOT obliged to purchase any fandom merchandise if you can’t afford it and you should ALWAYS prioritize your primary needs.

Also, if you still want to read the fan-translations that are still available, alright go ahead. But remember that the translators themselves already said fan translations in English are now illegal. You can read it. We all consume pirated contents at one point. But don’t flex about it and diss the official release just because you can’t afford it.

I don’t know if the person who made that reblog tags are going to come at me or not, but even if they do, I literally don’t care. I’m not gonna waste my time arguing with someone with that kind of mindset and will block them right on the spot.

Also Idgaf if they call me out or talk behind my back, I literally don’t know them, so I don’t care.

End of rant.