#lansizhuistalks

[lansizhuis]

I’m seeing so many posts lately on how problematic and fetishising danmei is and I feel very discouraged...danmei has helped me feel more confident in my own sexuality and I never thought it was a bad thing. Can you elaborate on what some people think is wrong about danmei? Thank you

disclaimer: my response is specific to my own experiences so it’s def not a universal thing but perhaps can hopefully be considered as another perspective. and whelp im on mobile so i cant add the read more function, imma edit this when i wake up

I think this is almost the same “issue” with JP yaoi genre and how much the West have vilified the term “fujoshi”. This issue has a long af history so let me just redirect you to this short collection of threads about it. Anyhow, connecting it to danmei which now deals with CN culture on the take of BL, I think it’s a lot about outsiders to said culture demanding they be put in the spotlight aka if it’s not THEIR standard then it’s “wrong” and is therefore ~problematique~. This kind of baby activism which is performative at best mainly takes root in the Western ideology/society. I’m not saying all Westerners are like this but that a large chunk of the really loud ones are most often than not — them. I’m not even going to touch the whole fiction vs reality mentality yet (again, the relationship between the two is CORRELATION and NOT CAUSATION) but would focus mainly on nuances.

An example on why they call danmei ~problematique~ is calling the “shixiong/shidi/etc” relationships as “incest” bc they “practically grew up together”. Martial siblings in CN cultural context are NOT the same as regular siblings. A very specific example I can think of is MDZS’ Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian (disclaimer: i don’t personally ship them romantically) who have the dashixiong-shidi relationship and are “martial siblings” but NOT (blood) siblings. Wei Wuxian is technically still an outsider to the Jiang family bc he isn’t theirs by blood. And trust me on this — relationship by blood is a BIG DEAL for this cultural context.

One of the examples on why they call danmei ~fetishizing~ is when the couple goes beyond the fluff aka having sexual intercourse of any kind. At the top of mind, the most recent discourse I saw was how antis were trying to cancel STARember (tgcf manhua artist) for making Hua Cheng sucking out the poison from Xie Lian “too sexualized” (whatever their standard is) even if it actually happened in the novel but you don’t see the same comments when they read the novel. This reminded me of when fans in EN fandom who are fluent in CN mentioned that Xie Lian gave Hua Cheng a blowjob in the temple when the ghosts were lowkey losing their shit and even gave “evidences” of it and a lot in the fandom got mad because of the same reason. These are cases of people demanding that LGBT+ content should only be “palatable” when it’s not always sunshine and daisies otherwise they’re going to brand it “fetishizing”.

Another example is the anger for when one half of the couple calls the other “wife” because it’s “forced heteronormativity” plus “fetishization”. For one, I personally know gay people who call their partners “wife” bc it’s their term of endearment and yknow most of the time it’s as simple as that. In addition to danmei context, we don’t really use or have a rule that the one being called “wife” (from those what I’ve read – 老婆) as something equal to “bottoming” but more on a ‘personality trait’ for the lack of a better word. A very specific example in mind is how Zhenhun’s Zhao Yunlan calls Shen Wei his “wife” bc Shen Wei is the one who can cook, actually cleans, etc. Note that Zhao Yunlan IS the shou/bottom which is even more contrary to the argument that wife = bottom. Of course there’s context to each story so this is not a blanket rule but just goes to show a sound point against those making a universal statement of anger against the term “wife”.

There’s a whole lot more and I definitely did not cover deeper cultural nuances but the answer got too long already haha

OKAY SO MAIN POINTS:

1. Danmei is a genre with thousands of titles under its belt — some may be considered “bad” or “good”, etc much like how in English Literature, we have “good” and “bad” ones. I bet you that those who make universal blanket statements against it hasn’t even read more than 10 novels.

2. A lot don’t understand that it’s more than okay to not like certain tropes or certain novels without having to justify it with “woke” issues. My friends have some novels I’m not very into and I have some novels they themselves are not very into. It’s normal. Human beings are, after all, different from each other in a lot of ways. What’s not okay is propagating hate over fictional preferences. Trust me, literally everything can be ~problematique~ if we try to reach hard enough.

3. MOST IMPORTANTLY — your experience with danmei is not going to be the same with the rest of the world AND YOU ARE VALID. It’s not totally about the content we consume but majorly on how we process it that matters the most. If you’re able to be more accepting of yourself with it, then that’s amazing! If others don’t feel the same then they should drop it and leave others alone who had better processing.

[raftels]

FUCKING GET MARRIED ALREADY

[lansizhuis]

Have you read anything good lately?

Quite a lot! I personally recommend my favs that I don’t think I’ve rec’d before:

1) Welcome to the Nightmare Game (欢迎来到噩梦游戏) by BMBL (薄暮冰轮) — this trilogy is currently my top 1 favorite novel amongst all i’ve read!

2) QQGK (全球高考) by musuli (木苏里) — which i talked about here

3) Laws of the Otherworld (异世之万物法则) by JTDG (焦糖冬瓜) — a personal gold mine i stepped into and def did not expect when i dived into jjwxc haha

Links for those above and the other novels I have finished with super short insight on each are HERE! If there’s something specific you’d wish for me to expound on, just lemme know~

[lansizhuis]

it has been forever since i logged in here but i am back bc of that yi city arc donghua trailer omg skfjiaxjjs i hope y’all are doing well and ahhh my backlog on msgs whelp im so sorry!! i will be going through them now haha

[lansizhuis]

i saw your fetish post and want to ask (as a westerner) about the jc and wwx thing as im still confused. if they're martial brothers and its not incest, why do people like madam jin say yanli and wwx need a chaperon until yanli says she thinks of him as a brother. whats the difference between martial siblings and adopted siblings?

I honestly haven’t touched MDZS novel since 2018 and it’s still locked in JJWXC so I’m not the best person to answer the specific instance you mentioned as I’m going to need to read that part for context to make a sound response. On the other hand, I can talk about your last question.

Martial siblings and normal siblings are NOT the same. The biggest thing to consider is the SETTING. Martial siblings are VERY NICHE to CN due to the existence of wuxia/xianxia/xuanhuan. You can read more in-depth about said setting and terminologies here and here; and since we’re specific about MDZS which is under the xianxia category then here’s a direct baidu article about it.

The presence of “sects” is very prominent in this trope/theme and in a certain area, there’d usually be a sect associated with it (eg in Yunmeng it was the Jiang, in Gusu it was the Lan, etc). People with the affiliation would send their children in these sects usually at an early age so they can be trained properly and thus introducing the whole “grew up together” trope. For CN culture where every relationship is very specific (eg what Person X would call their mother’s eldest brother, their mother’s youngest brother, and their father’s brother are all different but in EN, it’s all just called ‘uncle’), the way we term and denote each relationship is vital. An example would be that we’d call our mother’s younger brother as “jiujiu” which is definitely not the same as what we’d call a ‘martial uncle’ which can be “shibo” (elder martial uncle) or “shishu” (younger martial uncle). In sibling context, we’d normally call older brother and older sister as “ge” and “jie” but in martial sect context, they’d be called “shixiong” and “shijie” respectively. This is why Jiang Cheng calls Jiang Yanli as “a-jie” and NOT “shijie”; and why Wei Wuxian calls Jiang Yanli as “shijie” and NOT “jie”. It’s also common for sectmates to marry each other but definitely not when it comes to blood siblings, etc. Notice how the gender, age, and blood affiliation is noted with these relationship terms and this (again) shows how relationships in the cultural context isn’t something just general and that they have their own meaning as compared to how EN language just compounds everything to “uncle” or “siblings”. This is why I would strongly advise against drawing parallelisms with 1) cultures outside of CN and 2) context of modern times wherein the existence of wuxia/xianxia do not exist in the first place.

“but i feel uncomfortable with this trope” — and that’s perfectly valid! your own takes are your own depending on how you process them, after all. what’s not okay is brandishing western lenses on this theme/trope destroying the element of setting and imposing their own standards to it to sound morally superior. it’s really very simple: no one’s forcing anyone to read stuff they don’t feel comfortable.

[lansizhuis]

omg i finally fixed my tumblr pw and all that lmao i owe so much pending asks and gfx request sjfnsjjfksd I WILL WORK ON THEM THIS WEEKEND hehe and hope y’all are having a good day~

[lansizhuis]

nobody asked but here’s my son and the power of his beard™ transformations

[lansizhuis]

listen im no good with fan casts but i just wanna throw it out here that ayunga’s aesthetics and aura here screams tgcf’s jun wu

[lansizhuis]

hi! i hope everyone’s doing well despite the current events. please stay at home if possible, donate if able, and keep safe! ❤️

sneaking in to remind that i am actually alive hahaha and besides mxtx, the novels that i properly finished AND absolutely loved are:

- priest’s zhenhun (not for the uwu, the cp dynamics is very intense and they retain my top spot for favorite cp dynamics wherein i love the gong and shou equally) + has drama but the story’s vastly different due to censorship, an unofficial audio drama for 2 arcs, and pending official jp audio drama

- priest’s cancipin (not for those who don’t have time or no braincells to spare to specifically allocate just for this before embarking on this novel; extremely plot heavy and tbh it’s superb and it gets the best plot in my eyes bless the amazing world building and ofc my soft space gays) + currently has audio drama and pending donghua with trailers released

- cang wu bin bai’s huangjintai (EASILY HIGHLY RECOMMEND WITHOUT RESERVATIONS; it’s full of sugar and gave me almost all the tropes i love and easily my go-to novel when i feel sad haha) + has unofficial audio drama and a fandom of mine that’s starving even on weibo & loft lmao

**if anyone’s interested for a more in-depth review for any of my new favs, lemme know hehe; will also be finishing sha po lang, wanli, and kaleidoscope properly next then i’ll give my thoughts on it as well

[lansizhuis]

The Tale of Lan Sect’s Soulmates

🌻 a very quick 4.1k for wangxian week 2020 free day combining day 3’s mementos and day 7’s soulmate au; @wangxianweek

🌻 an accompanying fic (as voted) for the ghost of lotus pier which, yes, you have to read for this to make sense

[He looked up at the bright moon, cleared his mind, and made his way to the docks of Lotus Pier.

(First, the rule was that if you wanted his help, you need to have a lotus in your hand. You must go to the docks alone at midnight and you say your wish with your eyes closed and your hands wrapped around the lotus flower with you. You must then leave the lotus flower at the edge of the dock’s plank and return home the same path you took when you came over.)

Lan Wangji carefully held the lotus flower between his hands and whispered his one and only wish to it - the one he had always asked with the strums of his guqin from all these years.]

[lansizhuis]

Family Affairs: Extras Edition

+ shen!twins au is back <3 + after exactly a year since the main story has finished, i offer the first extra in dedication to the amazing oro~

+ original!LBH arrives and is definitely interested on the Shen twins, Shen Jiu and Liu Qingge are still actively trying to outdo each other with the maturity level of a seven-year-old, BingQiu is too in-love having their own world, bets and questionable "novels/almanacs" are discovered, and the peak lords have their own takes (oh, and Tianlang Jun is here for the fun ride)

[lansizhuis]

wei wuxian telling jiang cheng he wasn’t his type much like the fat bull in the village after being resurrected 13 years later is something expected from the wei wuxian before his yiling patriarch transformation and im certain that’s how jiang cheng recognized him aka that’s the brother he was familiar with

[lansizhuis]

Hi guys! It was quite a year for the Mo Dao Zu Shi fandom and as a gift for all old and new fans, here’s my 2020 CALENDAR gift for all of you! <3 I didn’t have as much time like last year so there’s only two (2) set of gifts this year, sorry.

What’s inside the pack? 1. Monthly Desktop Calendar Wallpaper 2. Monthly Phone Calendar Wallpaper

Please do NOT repost anywhere and note that everything is for your personal consumption only. All the images used are official arts and I only own the graphics/layout editing.

Feel free to download and use the MDZS 2020 CALENDAR

[lansizhuis]

i miss writing quick, short stuff ahhh might open up ficlet requests like this again?? if anyone’s interested? haha

[lansizhuis]

Some Things Stay The Same and Some Don't

**art by the amazing @/silverink58 // gift fic for @/thosch3i**

[“Xiao Wei,” Zhao Yunlan called in a serious voice making Shen Wei stiffen in attention, “Your boobs are actually big, aren’t they?”

Shen Wei almost slipped from her position at the unexpected - or well, this is Zhao Yunlan so perhaps ‘expected’ should be the term - comment. “Yunlan, honestly!”

“No really, it’s bigger than mine.”

“Everyone’s bigger than your tiny mangoes, stupid owner.” Da Qing laughed from the kitchen. “I think even Lin Jing and Lao Chu have bigger ones compared to you.”]

AKA (an au) where:

- kunlun jun took in two ghost queens; zhao yunlan still being shameless & thirsty; please press f for daqing; lesbian!weilan

[lansizhuis]

🧜‍♂️ depths of the sea

🧜‍♂️ mermay weilan fic for mic where zhao yunlan grows up with this beautiful sea creature, teaches him how to kiss, and lives the rest of his life w/ him

🧜‍♂️ ⚠️ not as soft as it sounds because shen wei’s a predator uwu ⚠️

[“How are merpeople made?” The same voice distracts him from his straying thoughts, “I mean you said that the cave I found you on before was where you came from but I didn’t see any other merpeople.”

Shen Wei pauses for a second and then answers softly. “Heartbreak.”]