#to go into a bit more detail i think MDZS itself was written with a heavily virtue-ethicist moral framework

[qiu-yan]

i'll write a more in-depth post later, but imo one of the reasons for the level of disagreement in this fandom is that many of us readers can see what mxtx is trying to imply about ethics through her work and simply do not agree with her base premise. like i think that there are some conclusions about the various characters in mdzs that mxtx wants you as the reader to draw. you can kind of tell even if you don't agree with those conclusions. more importantly, though, you can also tell exactly what kind of moral philosophy mxtx (consciously or unconsciously) favors, and what she treats as the granularity of morality, so to speak. the most commonly-held positions in the fandom are those mxtx intends for the reader to reach using her own beliefs about ethics as fundamental axioms.

the problem, then, is when the reader does not agree with mxtx's unspoken axioms of morality. if you come into mdzs with a moral framework different enough from what mxtx has (consciously or unconsciously) used to write mdzs, then of course you're going to come to different conclusions regarding the characters or even the object lessons of the story.

or rather, in simpler terms: the rammies, mxtx....the rammies....

[ameliarating]

I read through @pumpkinpaix‘s deeply thoughtful post about cultural appropriation and dismissal of Chinese cultural concerns (two related but distinct phenomena) in non-Chinese MDZS/CQL fan-spaces and should-be-obvious-but-painfully-is-not disclaimer: 

When it comes to these things, the voices that should be rising above the rest are the Chinese fans speaking out about what they’ve seen.

I’m only here because I feel I have what to say on this bit here: 

For context, we are referencing two connected instances: the conflict described in these two threads (here and here), and when @/jelenedra tweeted about giving Jewish practices to the Lans. Regarding the latter, we felt that it tread into the territory of cultural erasure, and that it came from a person who had already disrespected diaspora’s work and input.

Context

The Lans have their own religious and cultural practices, rooted both in the cultural history of China and the genre of xianxia. Superimposing a different religious practice onto the Lans amidst other researched, canonical or culturally accurate details felt as if something important of ours was being overwritten for another’s personal satisfaction. Because canon is so intrinsically tied to real cultural, historical, and religious practices, replacing those practices in a canon setting fic feels like erasure. While MDZS is a fantasy novel, the religious practices contained therein are not. This was uncomfortable for many of us, and we wanted to point it out and have it resolved amicably. We were hoping for a discussion or exchange as there are many parallels and points of relation between Chinese and Jewish cultures, but that did not turn out quite as expected.

What happened next felt like a long game of outrage telephone that resulted in a confusion of issues that deflected responsibility, distracted from the origin of the conflict, and swept our concern under the rug.

Specifically, we are concerned about how these two incidents are part of what we feel is a repeated, widespread pattern of the devaluing of Chinese fans’ work and concerns within this fandom. This recent round of discourse is just one of many instances where we have found ourselves in a position of feeling spoken over within a space that is nominally ours. Regardless of what the telephone game was actually about, the way it played out revealed something about how issues are prioritized.

(Big surprise, I’m going to talk about Jewish things and MDZS)

I haven’t read the fic in question, but I have certainly made many posts about Jewishness and the Lans, imagining certain traditional Jewish educational settings and modes of learning and argumentation as superimposed onto the Cloud Recesses. I’ve also written other posts, mostly for me and the three other people out there who would find it funny, imagining different sects as different Jewish sects - or at least, who they have most in common with.

Never was I imagining these characters or worlds to be actually Jewish, but, as people often do in fandom, I was playing around in the spaces, delighting in overlaps I found, out of a deep-seated wish that I could have anything like MDZS or so many of the other fantasy I loved with Jews.

I’m jealous. I’m so jealous. 

Here’s how I was relating to it: 

China is a country of billions with an immense media audience of its own, its own television, movies, books, comics, etc. The only Jewish equivalent could ever be Israel, very tiny, and while there is a lot of good Israeli television, books, etc out there, it doesn’t approach what’s available from China, and certainly none of it has broken through to be a fandom presence of its own, not even in Jewish only or Hebrew speaking spaces. And even when that happens, the creators don’t often draw on Jewish history and myth. (One example I can think of a show that does is Juda, a Jewish vampire show from Israel, but I know exactly one (1) person on tumblr who’s seen it.)

So I was treating MDZS the way I treat American media - as a playground. Since I can’t find Jewish stories, especially in fantasy, I’m going to play around with it in non-Jewish stories.

Here’s how I should have been relating to it:

There are so many people who, like me, have been hungry to find themselves and their stories and their magic in fandom spaces. They have a show that’s made it big. Is it fair to, even playing around in tumblr posts, set so much of that rich cultural context aside in order for me to find room for my own? 

In the U.S., at least, where I am, it’s not the same as doing the same thing with, say, The Lord of the Rings (where I wrote a fic making use of Jewish mourning practices and assigned them to the Beorians) or Harry Potter, because that’s taking a dominant culture which is all I usually ever see and make room for myself. 

In MDZS, especially in the English language fandom where the Chinese cultural context is never dominant and is often shouted over and overlooked, and where there just aren’t many other examples of media that made it big in the fandom, I am only making room for myself by shoving aside something else that barely has any room at all.

In many ways, I became the fan that frustrates me, that writes about Jewish characters celebrating Christmas, rather than the fan that I wanted to be, which gets excited about cultural overlap and similarities. I’m sorry and I apologize.

My first reaction was not to. My first reaction was to say it’s not the same. Because it isn’t the same. It’s never the same when minorities do things to each other. But even if that’s less destructive, in some ways it’s more painful, because that’s where we should be able to look to each other for solidarity. (Obviously this is in English language fandom - Chinese fans are not a minority in Chinese language fandoms!)

I do believe that there should be room to make silly posts about the Lans doing things that Jews do, because the Lans do do things that Jews do. When I made an edit where Lan Wangji was responding to Lan Qiren quoting in Hebrew from the Jewish prayerbook rather than the sect rule to distance from evil, I did that because he was saying the exact same thing. It was wonderful to me, that a Lan sect rule could be exactly the same as something I pray every morning.

That’s very different from when I wrote imagining the Lans as Jews which left no more room for the Lans as Chinese Buddhists. It’s those later things I apologize for and what I’ll be careful about in the future.

I do still want to return to something I said just above, however: “Because it isn’t the same. It’s never the same when minorities do things to each other.”

I worry, as I wrote in a separate post, about the tendency I see in anti-colonial, anti-imperialist spaces to look at Jewish practices and laws and culture and see it as an example of Western hegemony rather than as a survivor of it. Especially in a post that talks about the Chinese diaspora experience, where the very word diaspora was coined to describe the Jewish scattering across the globe and only much later was used for other cultures and peoples.

I don’t object to its now much more universal use as a word. It’s useful and it’s powerful and I believe it can be used to build solidarity. I do ask for, however, recognition that while Jews, especially in the West, might reproduce Western hegemony and use it against others, our own ethno-religious experiences bubbling up is not one of those reproductions.

In other words, when we erase, accidentally or purposefully, the Chinese cultural and religious contexts of characters in MDZS/CQL in our rush to write in Jewish cultural and religious contexts, we are doing harm as ourselves, not as representatives of Western/European/Christian hegemony. And in fact, what inspired us to write in our own contexts is that there are certain things (deference to elders, life carefully regulated by a series of laws about everything from interpersonal-ethical behavior to food habits to modes of speech, cultural horror regarding desecration of the dead, etc) we find in these stories that we don’t find in many Western stories that resonate with our own cultural background.

Which is not to erase the harm itself. I am sorry for it and I will do my best going forward to write about overlaps without erasing or replacing what is already there from the beginning and should remain so.

[beanmaster-pika]

So, if someone wanted to get into MDZS, where would they... start?

Well!!!!!!

First of all I can’t in good conscience recommend the novel itself to a minor because it explicit, but if you’re an adult just ignore this warning! If you’re not, save the novel until you’re older!

I started with the donghua (animation) then went manhua —> novel —> live action drama. You can go through them in any order you’d like, but if I had the chance to do it over again I think it’d be best to start with the novel if possible since that contains the original plot through which lens you can view the adaptations. There are consent issues in some scenes that you can probably find warnings of if you ask around (unfortunately one of them is tied with the relationship development which is. 😬) and I would recommend skipping the incense burner extras like I did, but the main plot is interesting and most of the other extras are delightful from what I recall. For me it felt like the flashback sequences dragged on (they’re long) but they provide very important backstory and also make up a lot of the plot, so I hope you enjoy them! They’re really good even if I was impatient. However, the novel is also around 450k words, and if you don’t wanna read it obviously you don’t have to! And it’s not absolutely necessary if you want to understand what people in the fandom are talking about which I will explain a little more with the donghua.

AGAIN, PLEASE SKIP THE NOVEL FOR NOW IF YOU ARE UNDERAGE!!

From there, I would recommend the donghua next, or first. It more or less keeps the plot of the novel while superficially embellishing on some bits (they added a whole extra scene when the mc’s senior sister’s kid got cursed and when I tell you I cried) and cutting out some others because of censorship, but between it and the drama it’s a more faithful adaptation, and it keeps a lot of the important parts! It’s only two seasons long so it shouldn’t take too long to finish watching, and the third will be airing next year! You can find everything that’s out subtitled in various languages on YouTube for free under Tencent Video, but any anime streaming site will probably have a better English subbed version if you prefer that. The donghua is a perfectly good starting point if you can’t/don’t start with the novel, and though it fudges details the flashback follows the same story beats as the novel. The story that it’s covered + the upcoming season should cover most of where the live action deviates from the novel, and what remain are just a few differences you can piece together from people’s fics and salt posts OR this handy post someone wrote that explains the differences between the novel and the live action. 

Last I’d put the live action drama! It takes way more liberties with the plot during the flashback, and I feel like it makes some changes to characterization, so I think it’s best to have knowledge of the original before going into it. It’s much more loosely adapted and they changed up a major plot point, expanded a few characters’ roles (one more than the others, though their casting also changed the vibe/characterization I got from her in a way that wasn’t necessarily bad, but different), and what could be written in/said/the ending of the show because Censorship Doesn’t Like Gray Morality And Queer People, but the actors did an incredible job and the character dynamics felt very vivid to me. I’m still only on episode 16, but I’ve seen clips floating around and I assume it’s still good! Would’ve been better without the censorship, but on its own I think it still stands as a good show! I think the key is to treat it as something separate, but I do love to mishmash canons and it’s interesting to see how people choose to blend them! The flashback sequences are one long chunk at the beginning, so after the first two eps it’s told in chronological order instead of being intercut. It’s on YouTube (also under Tencent), Netflix, and viki; YouTube also has a special edition or something? Idk. There’s also two spin-off movies that I haven’t watched but people have been going feral over “Fatal Journey”, so by all means try to find the movies after you’re done!

The other two adaptations are the manhua and the audio drama. As far as I know they’re the most faithful to the novel in terms of pacing and plot, but the most I’ve seen from the audio drama are subtitled clips on YouTube. The manhua scanlation can probably be found on whichever manga site you use, but the initial scanlating group kept putting extra shit at the start and end which a) pisses me off and b) used nsfw images. It got picked up at chapter 106 by other groups on the site I use, though, so there’s that! There’s also the ongoing chibi donghua on Tencent called “founder of diabolism q” which compiles a lot of lighthearted shorts. I wish you all the best for your mdzs journey; you’re in for an adventure!

[imaginaryelle]

Author Interview

Thanks to @dafan7711 for the tag!

Name: Alex (they/them)

Fandoms: MDZS & The Untamed, Marvel Avengers (comics), Good Omens, Dragon Age & Mass Effect, Star Wars & SWTOR, Star Trek, Sherlock Holmes; the list goes on but these are the main ones.

Where You Post: Tumblr and AO3.

Complete: 72 works on AO3; a few (less than 10?) oneshots are only on tumblr.

Incomplete: Posted? I think the closest is these two snippets from my Wangxian Modern Musician AU (1 | 2). Unposted? The well is bottomless.

Coming (hopefully) Soon:

1. Wangxian Modern Musician AU: Wei Wuxian has been out of the live music scene for more than a decade and just happens to land a traveling show with his ex as his first get-back-in-gear gig (thank you, Nie Huaisang). Features include hand massages, yearning in taxis, getting-back-together uncertainties, publicity angst and comfort softness alongside traveling show hi-jinks.

2. MDZS/Abhorsen Fusion: What if. Just stay with me for a second. What if. Lan Wangji was the Clayr-raised Abhorsen who was chosen for the role over any of the Lotus Pier disciples and Wei Wuxian was an Abhorsen-raised free magic necromancer who became more of a free magic creature instead of falling properly into Death? Possibly he can also turn into a rabbit I’m still working on details here but I am. Excite! Thank you for your time; @suspiciouspopsicle and I have a lot of ideas we like to play with for this AU.

3. So Many Wangxian Things Okay, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Canon Divergent A-Yuan!kidfic, Everything; Also Some Juniors Friendship Things; Possibly Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian Reconciliation While Night Hunting.

Do You Accept Prompts?

Absolutely, though I tend to be focused on one fandom at a time for actually answering them (I try to note what fandom’s at the top of my mind in my tumblr sidebar). Currently, that’s MDZS & The Untamed (shippy stuff-not just wangxian, sibling or family relationships, hurt/comfort, whatever). Also, kissing, hurt/comfort and domestic moment prompts are always likely to be answered fastest. I cannot resist them and am unlikely to build an entire world and accompanying plot and thus get lost for weeks on end.

Upcoming Story You Are Most Excited to Write:

Wangxian Modern Musician AU! Which is, as a point, from an anon prompt that I got a bit carried away with.

Favorite Story You Wrote:

What, ever? Hm. I’m going to go with Practical Exercises in Free Will (Good Omens, Aziraphale/Crowley) today. It’s a choose-your-path fic, which was both challenging and enjoyable to put together. I should definitely do more of those.

Most Popular One-Shot:

Treasure, Explosions and Romance (SteveTony, Marvel Noir, 13k), which is probably the most fun story I have ever written. Secret passages and nazi punching and pulp adventure tropes ftw!

Most Popular Multi-Chapter Story:

If You Want a Life of Action (SteveTony, Marvel 616, 72k) This was my first Cap-IM BB, and remains my only actual multi-chaptered work of the last … decade or so. May try that format again soon, we shall see.

Story You Were Nervous to Post:

the face and the mask are mirrors, baby (SteveTony, Marvel 616, 16k, mind the tags). This fic is… really really personal for me, and I’d never read anything in fandom that explored gender identity the way I was trying to so I was, in fact, a complete wreck over posting it (I’d also never before written a remix so that compounded things). But the fandom reaction to it has been truly lovely <3.

How You Choose Your Titles:

It depends on how long and complex the story is, I guess. I try to think about what the core concept is, or about phrases/concepts that will tie the beginning and end together, but sometimes I just look up song lyrics and poetry that feel right.

Do You Outline?

This really depends. I do outline for bigger fics (over 15k), and especially for fusions that are bigger because I need to keep track of so many elements at once. Sometimes I will do a pseudo outline of interior vs exterior plots while brainstorming, just to get themes and main plot points recorded. In general I need to just write a certain amount of a story before I can even start an outline though. The act of writing itself helps me figure out more of how I want the story to flow. I am trying to get better at outlining overall, because I’m pretty confident that if I can develop it as a more readily-accessed skill I’ll be able to finish more stories much faster.

I’ll tag (if you want to, no pressure): @somanyjacks-writes, @theflowergirl, @suspiciouspopsicle, @roamingjaguar, and anyone else who’s a writer who wants to join in; please tag me if you do!

Find an easy copy/paste version of these questions here.