#3zun consumed itself from the inside

[luobingmeis]

every day i feel like both the prosecutor and defense attorney for 3zun and all of my thoughts end in “would things have been different if the brotherhood was never formed” and then in every AU i make they are married and in love forever and ever

[spockandawe]

oooh spicy. Ship that is most misunderstood?

Ship that is most misunderstood: 💢

Ooooh, I like this one. This list could get VERY out of hand if I let it, because I'm a petty binch when it comes to characterization, and changing characterization has the power to REALLY shift a ship's dynamic. Hmmmmm.

Well, to go back to Bai Wuxiang, then... Bai Wuxiang/Xie Lian. In this case, I don't have any issue with the gratuitous cruel-for-the-sake-of-cruelty content, it FITS the character, but I'm very, very convinced that there's a lot more going on inside BWX's head. I will die on the hill that in addition to the cruelty, there's a lot of real affection and desire to nurture, which can express itself in positive or negative ways, and, crucially, the quiet, unvoiced hope that someday Xie Lian will surpass him, echoing the way that Xie Lian is pleased when Lang Qianqiu declares that he's going to be better than Xie Lian. Articulating this in a convincing essay is extremely hard, which is why I haven't done it yet, but I have strong opinions, lmao

Jin Guangyao characterization is.... a delicate balance, especially when it comes to any of the 3zun dynamics, but there are plenty of writers who do it well. Wen Ning is a TOUGH one, and he doesn't have any frontrunner ships like some of the other characters. I feel like the tides have kind of shifted once I entered the fandom and this is less of an issue now, but I have no patience for Sweet Smol Bean who is the most innocent creature you've ever seen and doesn't get angry or act out. Almost any ship he can plausibly end up in has some delicious crunch to it, and I want to FEEL that. The character is very quiet and shy, and is also super willing to throw down and fuck shit up from a very young age. And then he loses everything. Like I said, I haven't run into this as much in newer fic, but I think this aspect of Wen Ning is just crucial to making any ship work. A wwx/wn fic can get away with leaving it out, maybe, but in any other ship, it tastes like you cooked a meal without spices.

And........ mmmm, I think I feel like kicking this hornet's nest XD I have opinions about shipping clones now. Because their whole social situation is absolutely fascinating to me, and is part of why I'm now in star wars fandom instead of being a casual star wars consumer. It can be hard to ship clones! Not in the least because I don't think they're legally.... people? Morally, ethically, well, obviously they are, but they are mass-produced humans who were made to order to use as a disposable army. They were raised in isolation, with millions of other clones, some aliens, and a few other human trainers. They grow up into adults with rich inner words and their own wants and needs and spread out a little into the wider universe. They want to do a romance, perhaps. Now... with who?

I don't even want to talk cloneshipping here, because I get why some people call it incest, even if I think that's an unfair comparison and doesn't even make in-universe sense. And, of course, I totally support the right of people to be uncomfortable with it and avoid it, for whatever reason, which they don't need to justify to me.

But oh boy am I uncomfortable with how often that means the desire to Ship seems to translate to 'look, this non-clone is teaching this clone how to be a PERSON, and it's ROMANTIC.' I think I'm... moderately jaded when it comes to crunchy shipping dynamics. I think it's genuinely hard to make me nope out super hard on that basis. But WOW does this do the trick. The first time I stumbled into this, I was upset, and it was a strong enough response that it took me a while to figure out why it bothered me so badly. I feel a little bad about how much I hate this, because clone ships are overflowing with character/reader content, which I also can't stand for separate reasons, and there's a lot of overlap, and it all pings me as something with a heavy concentration of young writers exploring the medium and having fun and learning how to tell stories.

But also, I'll see a story where this cute young lady meets a tired, stressed clone, and teaches him how to talk about his feelings, and there's often bits where she treats him to new sights and activities and experiences he's never had before (because he's basically part of a slave army who has been genetically engineered to age at double speed and spent his childhood training for war) and my skin just crawls. It's been an experience!!! I'm still new enough to the fandom (which is an integrated part of a behemoth fandom) that it's hard to articulate my feelings about this, specifically, or speak to broader fandom trends. But wow, it's been a while since figuring out 'oh, this is what the author wants to communicate' had implications that made me SLAM out of a fic that quickly.