#more mdzs than cql but for organization

[veliseraptor]

Please tell me all the reasons xxc and nmj wouldn't get along, I'd love to hear that as a rant

I kept meaning to get back to this one and then forgetting and then going "oh I should answer that" and then going "but I don't want to be too bitchy" and then - and anyway that's why this took me like two months to answer.

basing this more on novel canon than cql, because that's where I tend to see the comparison being made more often, I think because they're more directly in contact in one specific scene.

so I think why people say this is basically because they see nie mingjue's "xue yang must be punished/killed" and xiao xingchen's "xue yang must be punished/killed" and also look at nie mingjue's relationship to jin guangyao and xiao xingchen's relationship to xue yang and go "oh so they're morally aligned and are parallel to each other :)" and that's just! not true!

for one thing, and I think this is something that gets lost a lot - xiao xingchen does not live within the hierarchy and structure of cultivation society at large, and is in fact not a huge fan of it. he and song lan are actively trying to do their own thing! that is part of xiao xingchen's problem specifically - he walks into great sect politics with the expectation of justice and runs headlong into, well, politics. and a big part of that is that he doesn't have a whole lot of respect for power if he sees that power as unjust or acting badly: despite pressure from the Jin, "neither coaxing nor coercion had budged Xiao Xingchen."

I think then people look at nie mingjue's showing up and arguing for the same and take those two things as equivalent, but they really aren't, because while nie mingjue is younger than jin guangshan and therefore owes him respect in that sense, he is also a sect leader and approaching from a far more equal position, which is why he can get away with actively threatening violence in a way that xiao xingchen...couldn't. nie mingjue has power, even if it ends up not working for him; xiao xingchen doesn't.

furthermore, I think another important distinction between the two of them is around the question of violence. specifically in the scene around xue yang's initial trial (ish), the distinction between xiao xingchen's bringing xue yang back to jinlintai to ask for him to be punished (by the sect whose responsibility he is), versus nie mingjue's attempt at direct personal execution, including an attack on jin guangyao when he doesn't get his way. again, some of this is likely based on power dynamics (nie mingjue, again, is closer to equal status and therefore has more allowance to step into jin guangshan's affairs), but I think some of it is a difference in approach, too, and inclination. I think it's also notable that (at least in translation) xiao xingchen doesn't specifically say that xue yang should die ("severely punished" is the phrase), as opposed to nie mingjue going for outright beheading.

so I think presenting them as similar/aligned in this scene, basically, is overselling it.

it's not that I think they would hate each other, or anything. I just don't think they'd be friends, or particularly see each other as allies. xiao xingchen occupies a space outside of the social order; nie mingjue, I would argue, is deeply wedded to the social order as it stands. xiao xingchen has a loose sense of the importance of traditional hierarchies of power; nie mingjue is very much embedded in those hierarchies of power and believes in upholding them.

furthermore, looking at the nie mingjue/jin guangyao dynamic versus the xiao xingchen/xue yang dynamic, I think the idea that they're narrative parallels really falls apart. nie mingjue is jin guangyao's superior officer and continues to perceive himself as an authority over jin guangyao; it is his job to correct his behavior and discipline him as he sees fit. xue yang is a criminal that xiao xingchen apprehends, and xue yang turns around and takes revenge on him for interfering. the latter are much closer to equals, at least in the way they perceive each other, and xue yang's revenge on xiao xingchen is considerably less motivated by self-preservation.

they're just not similar except in terms of very specifically both having the opinion "xue yang must be punished" and being willing to push against jin guangshan to do something about it, which isn't a lot to build on for a relationship of any kind, and I have a hard time seeing them vibe personalitywise.

boy this got long. you did ask for a rant though so I guess you got one? climbing down off my soapbox now and going back to my yi city cave where I belong.

[poorlittleyaoyao]

Okay! Trying this again now that it's not midnight, because I'm still on my bullshit but have more words now. What I do not have is my copies of the first two novel volumes, since I am traveling, so I can't do direct quotes.

We know that, at some point, JGY and XY became cultivators. IIRC, it is stated in Volume 1 that becoming a cultivator without a golden core is possible but it's unorthodox and unlikely--even moreso given that a golden core in MDZS/CQL is akin to an organ that can be permanently destroyed/remove rather than an energy reserve from your qi being super swole. Demonic cultivation is appealing in part because it operates under a different set of parameters, and (though the world at large doesn't know this) WWX invents it in large part to compensate for the loss of his core.

We can also safely assume that the means to do this aren't accessible to everyone. We see peddlers hawking dubious cultivation materials. JGY tells his sworn brothers about the fraudulent pamphlets his mother purchased for him as a child and laments that she and people like her have no way of knowing that they're useless. (Since this statement goes unchallenged by LXC, NMJ, or WWX's narration, I think we can take this particular JGY assertion at face value.) In Yi City, WWX explains the "folk wisdom" practiced by regular people, ranging from the effective (the rice congee to absorb poison, the mortuary's high threshold to keep corpses from hopping away) to the superstitious (the paper effigies and joss money), and WWX reminds the juniors that these people don't have cultivation knowledge of their own. All of this suggests that there is no freely-accessible bank of cultivation knowledge, demonic or otherwise. There are no old-timey YouTube tutorials, and there is no indication that a person can roll up to a sect like it's nbd in this particular universe for formal education.

WHICH BRINGS ME BACK TO MY ORIGINAL POINT, which is: how did JGY and XY become cultivators in the first place?

JGY has acquired some level of cultivation by the time he's working with the Nie, albeit with a shaky foundation that both he and Narrator WWX identify as a deficit he'll need to compensate for with breadth over depth. How did he develop his power without formal training or reliable study materials? Teenage XY has somehow become capable enough for the Jin clan to see him as an asset, despite the fact that he is a feral street urchin who can't even read as a child, and demonic cultivation is a brand-new technology, as it were. Where, when, and how did he teach himself? What skills did he demonstrate that caught JGY's interest?

Since this story is not about JGY and XY's professional journeys, the text doesn't have an explanation. (Or, if it does, this website and also the wiki have been slipping, because "how the hell does JGY even have a core?" has vexed me since 2021.) There isn't a definitive answer here! What I am curious about--because I cannot possibly be the only one who wonders about worldbuilding ramifications and what offscreen events brought these characters to where they are, and I think it is fair to wonder about the mechanics of things that a text itself brings up--is people's personal headcanons.

So! Canon-compliant Xue Yang and/or Jin Guangyao enjoyers! Tell me how you personally explain their whole deal! Bonus points for telling me how it changes for CQL, bc both of them are coming from very different places there, and an MDZS-compliant explanation won't work for CQL and vice versa. Bonus BONUS points if you have fic exploring it that you can link.

[greatyme]

tag game 🫧

thank u @markpakin for the tag!!! :D

1. why did you choose your url?

bc I am a canker sore girl (an intak fan lmao)! But why did he also lowkey come up with a fire gender like yes… canker sore of a girl…. splendid…..

2. any sideblogs? if you have them, name them and why you have them.

@lwjenthusiast is my cql/mdzs sideblog I made after I started reblogging so much cql on main that I wanted a blog for it lol. I like it for organization n whatever. @biantianyang is my beety/tgcf sideblog for tgcf & beety purposes hehe (I think I’m more active on here than the other one lol)

3. how long have you been on tumblr?

For this blog, since august 2019

4. do you have a queue tag?

Nah

5. why did you start your blog in the first place?

I used to stalk the druck tag without a blog and I wanted to get involved!! Once a skam acc always a skam acc…

6. why did you choose your icon/pfp?

It’s an iconic photo of ffv era Hayley!! I need everyone to know I’m a paramore fan too lol

7. why did you choose your header?

It resonated a lot with me. I’ve had it for years. It’s just a little quote from a book I love, grief is the thing with feathers. And I will Never move on. It’s one of my last acts of love

8. what is your post with the most notes?

I’m pretty sure it’s a post I made before only friends aired joking abt the type of product placements they’d have. Every time someone likes it I’m reminded of how they failed me via NONE OF IT tho. That show Needed some product placement BAD imo

9. how many mutuals do you have?

I counted once and it was maybe like 30 something…?

10. how many followers do you have?

I like the anonymity of this on tumblr so I shan’t say hehe

11. how many people do you follow?

138 and sometimes I think it’s too many lmao

12. have you ever made a shitpost?

Hell yeah brother

13. how often do you use tumblr each day?

A Lot… countless times probably……..

14. did you have a fight/argument with another blog once?

I want to say no but like also maybe…??? If I did it was a long time ago tho

15. how do you feel about 'you need to reblog this' posts?

Extremely inconsiderate to people with ocd. They’re so guilt-trippy I hate them. I refuse to/do my best not to reblog them on purpose if I see them

16. do you like tag games?

Ofccccc <3333 hehehe

17. do you like ask games?

Yessss these too!

18. which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

Omg idk… all my mutuals r famous in my Heart (is this too corny lol)

19. do you have a crush on a mutual?

Hmmmm not literally noo

20. tags?

@pondphuwin @thisonelikesaliens @charles-edwin @loserlesbianongsa @iliketodecompose @brightokyolights @celestial-sapphicss @icouldhyperfixatehim (if u want/if u already did this I’d love 2 see it hehe)

[lyselkatz]

Clan leader Jin YàoZhong 金耀忠 and his younger brother 金耀德 Jin YàoDé.

Meet them in the 8th chapter of @journey-to-tiger-mountain written by the fantastic @howling-harpy

"The clan leader Jin Yaozhong was seated at the place of honour in the hall and turned to receive the guest. [...]On the other side was his younger brother Jin Yaode, sprawled on his side with a chess board on the table, playing against himself.

The brothers bore a stark likeness to each other even though they were eight years apart in age. They had the same heart-shaped face and the slightly arching nose, and they had chosen to underline their likeness by wearing the same hairstyle, tall topknots decorated with peonies and a single golden hairpin pushed through horizontally. As the clan leader Jin Yaozhong was wearing slightly more flamboyant robes with an extra flair of embroidered details, but other than that if it weren’t for their difference in age, it would have been easy to mistake one for the other.

However, their greatest shared trait was the proud and indifferent demeanour that the older brother had perfected, and the younger one mimicked from him."

It's mostly an original story set 400 years after the CQL/MDZS canons so don't hesitate to give it a read even if you don't know the original media.

...☕?/commission

[irrealisms]

new pinned post!

blog organization

tags list about ao3

fanfic

lifesteal between the moth and the moon: T, vitalasy&zam. a conversation about graves and death and love and hope. 1.2k. every martyr in this jungle: T, vitalasy&zam. a conversation that goes nowhere and doesn't help anyone. but they're trying. 1.4k. Game Over. Try Again?: T, vitalasy-centric. does it count as a time loop if you're the one making it happen? 2.3k no apple but a heart: M, vitalasy-centric. "when you kill someone, you get their heart" taken literally, or: the one in which vitalasy eats subz's dead body as an act of devotion. 1.1k. and by way of honoring the things we once both held dear: T, parrot&spoke. PMMM au of the conversation parrot and spoke have post-wormhole. 1.1k. the visceral organs used for food: M, vitalasy&planetlord. the stream where vitalasy spawnkills planet in the prison, set in the same universe as no apple but a heart. 2.6k. every hand is a storm: T, vitalasy/zam. PMMM au of their relationship starting and ending. 2.7k. tidal forces: T, vitalasy/subz/zam. hwbm au; three chapters, each chapter is a scene from a different relationship. 3.6k. tell me what you want me to say: G, vitalasy&zam. canon divergence where vitalasy joins the solar union. not a fix it. 1.1k.

dsmp and behind us is the devil: T, bench trio-centric. pieces of my we know the devil au. three chapters/hours, each of which focuses on a different character & a different relationship. 3.3k. no one gets too much light: T, tubbo-centric. a drunk conversation between tubbo & ranboo in new l'manburg after tubbo finds the exile pole. 1.8k gadfly: T, dream-centric. dream goes into heat in pandora's vault. 2.6k. if this wine hasn't turned to vinegar: G, niki-centric. wilbur is niki's soulmate; niki isn't wilbur's. a relationship study of the wilbur & niki relationship, from niki's pov. 3k. isolate song: T, tommy-centric. avian!tommy post-exile recovery, but with way more birdsong neurology facts than is usual for the genre. 3k. two for flinching!: T, dream&wilbur&tommy. mild canon divergence between 'inconsolable differences' and 'boundless sands', where wilbur goes to confront dream a second time; a compare-contrast on the tommy&wilbur and tommy&dream relationships. 3.8k. liza forever minnelli: M, wilbur-centric. hunger games au. about mental illness and institutionalization. mind the tags. 4.7k. the autopsy garland: M, dream-centric. hunger games au. about RPF fandom and youtube celebrity culture. mind the tags. 4k. where you hide your heart from me: T, wilbur/quackity. in pogtopia, wilbur preens quackity's wings. 2k. you're fairly certain there's a curtain somewhere: T, techno-centric. script-format metafiction about being a character in a collaborative medium. 1k. one must imagine Sisyphus happy: T, wilbur&quackity. during a late night in las nevadas, wilbur and quackity have a conversation about living. 1.6k. under these smothering waves: T, tommy&dream. a snapshot from exile arc. 3.7k. how everything is torn: T, ghostbur-centric. ghostbur angst set in the gap between ghostbur on doomsday and the resurrection attempt 4 days later. 2.3k.

mdzs/cql i don't have the heart to match: T, jiang cheng-centric. what if jiang cheng was a self-closeted trans woman? 4.5k. no one lays a lily on their grave: T, jiang cheng & jin ling. a post-canon conversation about grieving people you loved who did terrible things. 2.5k. our crooked aim: M, jiang cheng/lan wangji. what if they had grief hatesex about the absence of wei wuxian? think about it. 2k. how easy you are to need: M, xue yang/xiao xingchen. an exploration of xue yang's history with sexual abuse and xiao xingchen's relationship with touch. 2.7k, with an 800 word bonus scene.

tma stifled the choice and the air in my lungs: E, jon/elias. set in late s4. extremely dubiously consensual sex for the sake of feeding the Eye. 4k. watch the blood evaporate: M, jon-centric. jon whump about self-harm and suicide attempts. 2.6k. dream when there's nothing to feast on: T, jon&daisy. a conversation from late s4 about starving. 1.6k. here or not here: E, martin/peter. martin dissociates through a series of bad decisions during s4. 3k. your body is not a word: M, jon-centric. jon exchanges sex with strangers for statements; there's dubious consent on both sides. 1.8k.

silmarillion always already annihilated: T, turgon/gondolin. paris burning/cityverse au. or: in an au in which cities are people, turgon falls in love with his. 2.6k. [DISCLAIMER: from here on out, we're reaching my older writing; there's a lot here that's good but there's also a lot here that i would do differently now!] sweating out the poison: E, maedhros/maglor. dubcon + omegaverse + post-sirion angst. 2.2k. whatever a moon has always meant: M, indis/míriel. an exploration of doubt, grief, and faith. 3.3k. wherefore art thou come: T, fingon/maedhros. fingon survives the nirnaeth; maedhros plans to march on doriath. a fix-it, but only if your vision of a fix-it includes murder. 1.2k. in the indigos of darkness: T, about original númenorean characters. a story about found family, three unrepentant king’s men under pharazôn, disability, religion, and death. 5.4k. melt, thaw, resolve: T, maedhros-centric. maedhros attempts suicide. 2k. we but teach bloody instructions: T, maedhros&maglor. scenes of maedhros and maglor having arguments about morality while raising elrond and elros. 5.4k. what you sow: M, maedhros-centric. maedhros has nightmares. one after angband; one after sirion. 2.6k. pitch black, pale blue: T, about original númenorean characters. a short history of númenor, as told by its women. 4k. survival skills: E, maedhros/fingon or maedhros/sauron depending on how you look at it, which should be all the summary and content warning you need. 1k.

taz balance corvidae: M, lup & taako. abandoned multichapter fic with the premise of lup & taako as a DID system. 7.5k. liebesahnung: E, lup/barry bluejeans. hurt/comfort sex about gender dysphoria. 2k. as the tide: T, magnus/lucretia. a nonlinear love story that is also a tragedy that has a happy ending. 4k. but thinking makes it so: G, lucretia-centric character study. 2k.

we know the devil 3 a.m.: G, venus-centric. a venus pov character study of yellow ending 3am. says as much about 16-year-old-will as it does about venus, imo. 1.9k.

fic rec masterposts dsmp [no others yet but you can ask if you want me to post my tma + mdzs ones]

web weaves, moodboards, and collages

about my life quitting therapy Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani? i was born for this my hands are clean. / your mind is not. if you can live your life without an audience, you should do it. Aww, did you think you broke the cycle?

lifesteal it's more like a very pointed argument: heaven will be mine eclipse federation au you wear the moon like a halo: zam's grief over subz, and the thin line between hallucination and haunting fox, chicken, grain: eclipse federation and 2+1

we know the devil the three worst girls since eve - three collages for the three main characters the devil is lonely - a moodboard for the game as a whole

dsmp as the last i may know: c!tubbo diptych: c!crimeboys PERPETRATOR TRAUMA: c!quackity and no one was gonna come and get me: c!fundy c!wilbur + relationships c!wilbur + death as catharsis c!wilbur + change, and the lack of it exile arc + water c!wilbur + legacy attachments on the dream smp new l'manburg

meta

lifesteal c!princezam and ableism

dsmp c!tommy is annoying (and that's important) c!wilbur and his audience bedrock bros analysis in defense of l'manberg

nbc hannibal nbc hannibal and psychiatric abuse

silmarillion [DISCLAIMER: from here on out, we're reaching my older writing; there's a lot here that's good but there's also a lot here that i would do differently now!] tolkien & the fall of arda (short) on being a Christian with complicated feelings about Eru on original sin and loving terrible elves a fading world in defense of Maeglin my feelings about Númenor and religion martyrdom in tolkien (short) religious conflicts between pelargir & umbar tolkien and religious feelings (short) a defense of fëanor's refusal to break the silmarils

[llycaons]

ending message...🥺

friends, followers, mutuals, passers-by, exasperated acquaintances, beloved companions, and everyone else. roughly six months ago, to my excitement and disbelief I landed my preferred job right out of school, an extremely demanding and stressful position at a hospital. due to the rigorous training program I found I didn't have the time or energy to do any of my regular hobbies, so I turned back to an old comfort and subsequently started reading much more fanfiction than I ever have in my life.

followers may recall I then decided, with very little thought, to download a tag blacklist and go through the entire ao3 tag for cql (400 pages) and for cql/mdzs (almost 1500 pages). this pursuit, as horrifying as it sometimes was, staved off my breakdown long enough to get my footing at work, and provided hours of entertainment afterwards as I tried to go through all the stuff I'd marked. the vast quantities of ooc, nonsensical, poorly written, confusing, or just silly trash I found on that site have been well worth it, even if I hadn't then found almost 200 works I liked enough to bookmark and recommend to others

I've always wanted to do a rec list, but I haven't had a clear idea of how to go about it responsibly, what with the absolute trash fire that is ao3, until a mutual linked me her own rec list (thank you!!!). along with sharing my passion and my excitement about the works I've found, it also allowed me obsessively categorize, sort, and organize all the fics I have bookmarked, which has given me a much-needed sense of satisfaction during these past few months

and here we are - my training has been completed! I have a week off from work, and when I return I'll be working more independently. finally having finished my training, I have a lot more confident in my capabilities than I even had last week. I feel that I've overcome a monstrous hurdle, plagued at every side by doubts of my competence and fears about my performance. in tandem with this accomplishment, I've decided to make public the rec page I've been working on for so long. I have around 30 fics left in my marked for later, which is far fewer than the 1,660 I began with, and I'm not worried about making it zero before unveiling it. as silly and inconsequential as this project is, relatively speaking, it was a great source of accomplishment and joy for me during this extremely stressful and discouraging time in my life, and I want to thank everyone who hasn't unfollowed me, who's replied to my liveblogs, who's recommended me fics to read, who's laughed and commiserated with me, and who's shared advice or feedback about the organization of the page, especially lesbianstorm, who's been here since the very beginning <3

I've spoken before about finding something new to occupy my time, because I don't know how much cql I still have left in me, but I thought it would be a nice send-off to at least watch the show one more time since this story and these characters mean to much to me, and since it's brought me close to so many wonderful people. thank you all again, and know that your presence here means the world to me

[red-talisman]

My ask is about the golden core transfer and what it would mean for jc. So, if it triggers you, don't read it! I feel the need to alert about this! Be safe!

I don't know you, ( and yes! wwx was just a traumatized teenager!), but the golden core transfer gives me so much negative emotions. Fandom focuses on wwx's pain (and it's interesting! ) but jc's situation is dismissed with "you have to be grateful about it. What a disprectful brat he is" and I am like, dude, you okay? (maybe their opinions are influenced by what wn says, without understanding that what he says isn't the truth, but only what he knows would hurt jc, because he *wants to make jc suffer*). I tried to think about what *I* would feel and I triggered myself, lol. I would get insane if I knew that someone put my brother's golden core in me (transferring organs is okay, but in this? I don't know that it's from my brother! Also when people say that jc agrees to the surgeon, I don't know if they understand the concept of "informed consent") . It's disturbing. I can't even imagine how jc feels about it! How can you live in a body which is modified in this way? Do you feel shame? (this is something a lot of victims feel). And I am not even talking about what this would do with jc insecurities! No one ever appreciated his efforts! Maybe in the moment doesn't , but wn's "you would never compere to him!" would destroy jc! And that's terrible and unfair. And more unfair it's how fandom treats this argument! My loved ones manipulated me for my sake : this doesn't make anything better! I can't imagine jc's feeling. This ask is messy, but my emotions are messy about this. The only thing that I know is that disturbed me the way fandom treats all of this. I don't want to be too harsh but I would see wwx and wq as monsters more then heros for this. And I am not even thinking about how can you trust again someone who did this to you! People can't forgive cheating in a relationship, lol. Oh, and the "jc and wwx's relationship is destroyed by jc's jealousy" : I am like: you okay, dude?? But maybe I am the weird one. Sorry if I seem rude! But this argument just triggers me

Thank you for the warning. 🥰

(Under a cut for both length and content. Reminder that I'm a CQL-only fan.)

Fandom focuses on wwx's pain (and it's interesting! ) but jc's situation is dismissed with "you have to be grateful about it. What a disprectful brat he is" and I am like, dude, you okay?

From what you're saying, I think I'm hearing that while the whole golden core scenario itself is upsetting for you, what's worse is really more about how fandom tends to talk about it. If I'm interpreting that correctly, then...yeah, honestly, I agree. 😕 And it sucks, because I think the characters of MDZS/CQL are supposed to be messy, and there are some truly delicious, nuanced discussions about justice and love and sacrifice to be had! Unfortunately, I've had to be more liberal than usual with the block button to avoid losing my love of the show due to the impact of fandom discourse.

Honestly, I feel like the whole fandom response thing often comes down to a few overlapping things:

a person is inclined to defend whichever character they like more and/or reject the character who reminds them of people who have hurt them in some way, which is totally normal! But doesn't lend itself well to textual analysis so much as an analysis on this how a piece of media affects me personally, which is an entirely different thing;

whether some element of the golden core transfer reflects a personal trauma (e.g. bodily autonomy) closely enough to shape their perspective on this whole episode in a way that's different from someone who lacks a similar experience;

a person's comfort level in allowing a character's actions -- especially a favorite character's actions -- to be complicated, messy, and maybe even morally questionable;

whether or not someone has access to evidence-based, accurate information about larger social issues like abuse, consent, etc.

I tried to think about what *I* would feel and I triggered myself, lol. I would get insane if I knew that someone put my brother's golden core in me (transferring organs is okay, but in this? I don't know that it's from my brother! Also when people say that jc agrees to the surgeon, I don't know if they understand the concept of "informed consent") . It's disturbing. I can't even imagine how jc feels about it! How can you live in a body which is modified in this way? Do you feel shame? (this is something a lot of victims feel).

Tbh, I also have some pretty strong feelings of my own. I talked about some of that here, from the perspective of a religious person whose faith has some distant parallels to Taoism. And as a survivor who hasn't always had a say in what happens to my body, I struggle with some of exactly what you describe when I think about the golden core thing and especially fandom's common responses too deeply. (It's why I'm writing a JC-centric fic like Crashing Like Stars in the first place, honestly, lmao.)

I think what I struggle with most is the pageantry that's shown in CQL: how WWX and WQ have a whole theater around it that somehow feels almost as bad to me as the act of transfer itself, maybe because it shows how much premeditation went into what is, by definition, gaslighting. I always have to skip this scene on rewatches, tbh. The non-consensual core exchange is bad enough; the playacting feels like a humiliation to me.

And I am not even talking about what this would do with jc insecurities! No one ever appreciated his efforts!

True, but to be fair...why should they? As far as most other characters are concerned, JC is unfriendly, probably not very fun or pleasant company to sit down to tea with, very obviously cares more about his own sect than anyone else's**, and has had the reputation of a disfavored son for years. The only reason to make nice with this guy is purely for politics, but everyone else has enough of their own stuff happening that there's no incentive to try giving JC the benefit of the doubt -- which he wouldn't even accept anyway, since he'd probably interpret it as condescension or pity.

**Which is true for everyone, of course, but he doesn't have the charm or charisma to at least fake concern for people or 'play the game' like JGY.

If you mean that fandom doesn't appreciate his efforts...I'm not really sure what to say to that mostly because I'm still puzzling over HOW DARN POLARIZING this fictional character is. 😂 Even his haters can't be chill about him and it's rather fascinating to watch, like a trainwreck.

And more unfair it's how fandom treats this argument! My loved ones manipulated me for my sake : this doesn't make anything better! I can't imagine jc's feeling.

I think a lot of people confuse things like context and motivation for justification, and even more so when it's a family member and emotionally charged beliefs about family relationships get pulled into the mix.

This ask is messy, but my emotions are messy about this. The only thing that I know is that disturbed me the way fandom treats all of this.

Unfortunately, when not treated carefully, discussions about fictional characters can cross into more real-world consequences. I've certainly blocked people less because of a disagreement in interpretation and more because their line of argument betrayed much deeper biases that made me feel actively unsafe, and I don't always have the resources or bandwidth to try educating folks who aren't here in good faith.

I don't want to be too harsh but I would see wwx and wq as monsters more then heros for this.

I think it's a false dichotomy, honestly. I don't think WWX and WQ are heroes or monsters: I think they're young people put in horrific circumstances with limited resources and support, forced to make decisions with no good possible outcomes. Again, not meant to justify anything, but I think recognizing that the things we label monstrosity is, itself, a very human thing to do is the best way to begin recognizing why it happens so that effective interventions, preventions, and methods for taking responsibility for one's actions to encourage real healing can be put into place.

And I am not even thinking about how can you trust again someone who did this to you! People can't forgive cheating in a relationship, lol.

Oh man, forgiveness is complicated. Some people DO forgive cheating and even worse, for a whole host of different reasons and motivations! (Me, I hold grudges for years.) But forgiveness can also be customized to a situation: maybe forgiveness is earned, not freely offered; maybe it means letting go of one's resentment towards another but not letting that person back into one's life; maybe the refusal to forgive is itself an act of self-empowerment because forgiveness was always coerced and guilt-tripped prior to that. But again, we come back to folks in fandom not always having a solid grounding to have productive, informed conversations about this sort of thing, which can lead to some REALLY unhelpful hot takes going around.

Oh, and the "jc and wwx's relationship is destroyed by jc's jealousy" : I am like: you okay, dude?? But maybe I am the weird one. Sorry if I seem rude! But this argument just triggers me

I don't think you're weird at all. 😊 JC and WWX's relationship is thorny and messy and multi-layered, compounded by unaddressed trauma and mutually conflicting coping strategies and perspectives, exacerbated by the people around them playing political games with their relationship because of their respective positions of power. I think JC's jealousy is a factor, but it comes from being constantly compared and found wanting since childhood, and we have multiple scenes in CQL where WWX does something Cool (TM) and JC will do that half-exasperated smile or roll his eyes with a laugh or something that clearly isn't mean-spirited. The evolution of their relationship is made by a progression of smaller decisions on both of their parts in the context of family dysfunction, loss, war, and political powerplays, and I think flattening it down to "JC is just a jealous bitch" or, conversely, "WWX is just an arrogant asshole" does a disservice to WHY these goddamn characters have taken so many fans emotionally hostage, lmao.

LONG STORY SHORT I agree or am sympathetic with a lot of what you say, anon, with maybe some different perspective on other pieces, but I found that MXTX fandoms became a lot more lovely when I began using blocking features liberally (and, frankly, avoiding Twitter altogether).

[fleur1005]

YiZhan fandom interviews!! 003 @OldObsess/overthinkingthis

I am so thankful that not only she accepted this interview, but accepted it with eagerness! 🙏 I was actually very excited about finally being able to talk to her because one of my first fics I read in this fandom was hers (and is my favorite to this day) and it was rec’ed by none other than Ren 😆 Now you can imagine what fic that is lol, but I digress. So without much ado… here’s Tee, aka @OldObsess!!!

▪️ Please, tell us about yourself. How you like to be called or how you go by in this fandom and how long you’ve been in the swamp.

i respond to a lot of names in this fandom, it's all good. on twitter, i'm @oldobsess... if i could do it again, i'd probably pick a new handle, but i had never used twitter before this fandom, so didn't know what i was doing! my first screen name was "too old to obsess over 💚❤️" and then sometime later i decided that there was no shame in being an older fan, so i changed it to "never too old to obsess over 💚❤️" 😂

on ao3, i'm "overthinkingthis" — i deliberately picked a different handle entirely because i had never read or written fics before, and wanted to keep my fic activities separate, like a secret side thing. that did not last long. again, shedding the shame!

on tumblr i'm "overthinkingyizhan" but i'm new to tumblr so there's not a lot going on there yet.

fandom friends also call me tee, and that works too!

how long have i been in the swamp? i watched cql in march 2020... my family watched it first, and i had no interest in watching with them until i saw xz's face. i literally asked, "why is that man so beautiful???" i watched the entire series twice, read mdzs a couple of times, and then one day i was listening to wuji and thought, "are the actors singing this as a duet?" i googled them, was horrified by 227, amazed by yibo's dancing, and then started mainlining the official bts and all the fan analysis videos on youtube. i was so charmed by how happy they looked together, but i'd never shipped anyone in my life before, so wasn't sure what to make of all the shippy stuff. i came to yizhan twitter in april 2020 to find out what happened to them after weibo night (aka "divorce night"). what finally threw me into the pit was seeing video of yibo looking teary in a ddu clip from the first taping after 227... i remember thinking, "oh my god, he really loves him."

wow, i'm rambling. let me let you ask your questions!

Ooh, I’m loving your story…! You could keep going and I can keep listening/reading it… 🥹🥹🥹

So it was the first time you shipped someone???

yes, this is my first and only fandom! i was very lucky to find really good friends in the fandom when i came to twitter, and they have been such good guides. that's one of the reasons i love what you're doing with this project (and i very much vibe with your "omg how can i organize all this information" panic because that's how i ended up on ao3!) i could go on, but let me answer your next question:

▪️ Where are you most active/ favorite place to dabble in fandom-wise? (Twt, tumblr, ao3, pixive, privetter, etc)

i'm most active on twitter as @oldobsess… i've posted more works on ao3 than i ever expected to, and i have a tumblr that i hope to use to archive more of my collected fandom candy if i ever find the time

▪️ I’ve also been very fortunate to be in friendly fandoms, but being this your first, were you surprised by the toxic side of it when you found out?

yes! i mean, because i learned about 227 right away (it had just happened when i started watching cql in march 2020), i learned about antis very early on. i don't really understand why anyone takes the time to hate a character or celebrity when they can spend that time on the character or celebrity they love, but sadly, i know now that there are people who do that in every fandom.

i was also very surprised that dynamics is a thing some people get very worked up about, especially with an rpf ship where no one has any idea what people do in private. i've tried to be more mindful about it now that i know it's a thing, but i wish everyone could assume more positive intent when it comes to this particular topic. personally, if i see or read something that isn't my thing, i don't stop to comment and i don't like to do callouts in public. (that's what private chats with friends are for!) instead, i scroll on by or use the back button. i don't like to give fandom wank more exposure by posting about it publicly. there's enough negativity in the world as it is — i don't need to add to it!

i'm also aware that as an rpf shipper, i have to be careful about where i do my screaming. i don't do it on posts by official accounts (whether in comments or qrts). also, i follow a fair number of solo accounts because we share a love for either xiao zhan or yibo, but i am careful not to say shippy things on their posts... i think that's basic courtesy, because they're entitled to do fandom the way they like. if i don't like the way they do it, i scroll by or i can block if it's really something i don't want to see. some solos block me, and i prefer they do that than to say unkind things to me.

basically, i try to follow the golden rule... how would i feel if something said X to me? i feel like i've had a relatively drama-free fandom experience by following these guidelines. fandom should be fun, so as long as you're not hurting anyone, you do you!

I very much share the same opinion about how to handle 🐜.

Now that you bring up the topic about the dynamics, I think it’s a cultural thing b/w Asian countries and Western countries. They simply have different backgrounds of how they came to be and have very different view points. They can’t really be compared. But I still love both styles.

▪️ What was your first motivation to start writing/ drawing about them?

before this fandom, i never read or wrote fic! and i had no idea rpf was a thing! to be honest, i was a little weirded out by the idea of reading or writing fic about real people. 🙈 but then after spending hours chatting about ggdd candy with my first fandom friends, i felt completely overwhelmed by the need to organize everything they were sharing with me. (also remember that the pandemic lockdown had just begun, so i was going a little stir crazy and needed something to do with all my restless energy.)

one night, we were musing over when ggdd might have first gotten together, and one of my friends told me that a significant minority of cbxg (chinese ggdd shippers) believe they got together BEFORE cql. i demanded to know more about this theory, and after countless hours of drowning in candy from 2017, i decided i had to write a fic with this alternate timeline or i would lose my mind.

i opened an ao3 account and started posting "we are made to love" in june 2020. https://archiveofourown.org/works/24669283/chapters/59612737 i had no idea what i was doing! i just wanted to write something about all the candy for myself and to amuse the three fandom friends i had then. 😂 but then what started out as "maybe i'll write 15k on this, 20k tops" turned into a 20-chapter, 83k work that took me six months to post in full.

i swore all along that i would write that one fic to get it all out of my system, and then never write again, but that did not happen. these two beautiful and talented individuals are just too inspiring! i've created or co-created over 50 works since then, but wamtl is still my best-known work.

sorry, these responses are just so long! renren was so much more succinct... please feel free to tell me to shut up hahah

No, I won’t cos I’m enjoying this way too much myself 🤭

▪️ How many fics/ fan arts have you written/ drawn so far? Which one is the one that you’re most fond of and why?

i've written 45 fics (including two drabbles that i drew art for, and one anonymous work). i co-wrote an additional eight fics with friends. i also posted two works (a recipe and a knitting pattern) that were part of an art/fic collab that i did with some creative fandom friends.

i don't know how to answer this question (about what fic i’m most fond of)! i've been asked before, and my answer changes all the time. it depends on my mood, and also on what it means to be fond of a work. sometimes a fic is bound up in the feelings i had when i wrote it, or who i was writing it with or for. if you asked me what fic of mine i would most want to reread, that would also depend on my mood. do i want to laugh or cry?

i am really fond of "talk to me," which is the fic i HAD to write after i saw an article about a japanese man who rented himself out as a "rental-san" to keep lonely people company... i was absolutely seized with the idea of writing yibo as a "rental-ge," hired by xiao zhan to listen to him talk about a boyfriend who keeps breaking his heart. it's also a wholesome t-rated fic, and soft getting-together fics are really my jam.

i'm also very fond of "lying in the dark (no sunshine)," which is my angsty break-up/make-up fic. it's based on the movie "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind," which is one of my favorite movies. i am also in love with the concepts of memory and forgetting, and this fic is a long meditation on those themes.

i'm really cheating now, but i am super fond of my tattoo and tentacle aus ("under my skin" and "wrapped up in you" ) because i wrote them with and for dear fandom friends, and so both were so much fun to write. when i re-read them, i think of these friends, and the warm feelings i have for this fandom.

Ooh, I’m glad you mentioned “Wrapped Up in You” cos it’s been one of my first fics I read when I came into this fandom and was rec’ed by none other than Ren and it’s one of my fave fics for so many reasons! 😆😆😆

*screaming* i cannot believe that you joined this fandom and read TENTACLES right off the bat 😂😂😂 i love that! 🐙

▪️ What’s your favorite trope to write/draw or a new one that you want to try this year?

"established relationship" is my most common "additional tag" for my fics! i just adore writing yizhan all soft and secure with each other, even if they're sharing insecurities or bickering. to me, they fit together like puzzle pieces, so no matter what i put them through in the story, when i get to the parts where they're settled and happy, with all the trust and fondness that comes with that, the writing feels effortless.

among the projects i want to finish these year is a getting-together rom-com, a sci-fi au, and a fairy tale! occasionally i think about writing more "canon" fics based on real-life candy that they throw out there, but i also feel like i've written so many of them already, and i have a lot of other ideas i'd like to try to write.

oh, i should say, since this is supposed to be a guide for baby 🐢, i've dumped a ton of links to candy in the endnotes to a lot of my fics, especially wamtl and the fics in the "extra chapters" series. since i started writing fics as a way to organize my thoughts and the fandom candy, i actually do continue to revise the endnotes as i come across new sources (and if links go dead, i try to fix them). ideally, i would post all these links to tumblr so people don't have to go to my fics to find the links, but there are only so many hours in a day!

Wow, I’m amazed at how organized and prolific you are!

▪️ Are you bjyx, zsww or lsfy? Is this dynamic important to you?

i would say i am lsfy. i do not care about who does what physical act. i do care about characterization, and to me, that is completely separate from how the characters have sex. if a fic is written well, and the way yizhan is written feels real to me, i don't care how they have sex (or if they do at all).

one of the things i've really enjoyed about writing yizhan fics is that because they are both men, i don't worry about gender baggage the way i might if i were writing a m/f fic. i have the freedom to flip things around to fit the story and i don't spend emotional energy worrying whether having a character cook, cry, or apologize — or bottom — is gender-coded. honestly, i spend enough time irl worrying about race and gender, so i like that these are not issues i need to think about when i write yizhan.

so yeah, at this point, i have written all possible dynamics (and with tentacles, you really can do everything, everywhere, all at once 😂)!

i do try to tag my fics for dynamics (the actual sex act, not for vibes or characterization) so that people who *do* care can find what they want to read. i'd rather that someone who cares a lot about such things is able to avoid reading a fic of mine that doesn't suit their tastes so they don't feel compelled to write me a nasty note (also, readers, don't do this. there's a back button for when that happens).

That seems to be a very important issue in this fandom, they even have names for each dynamic. That a first for me and it was another thing that surprised me as a new 🐢.

▪️ What’s your most fave 🍬? Have you written about it? Where do you get your 🍬 sources?

i don't know if i can pick a favorite candy! like renren, i love the tattoo cpn, and so i wrote an entire fic about them having tattoos ("under my skin," in which xiao zhan is a tattoo artist and yibo is an idol who meets xiao zhan and suddenly wants to be inked all over his body haha).

i am fascinated with kadian, which is a kind of number language that's popular in china. i honestly thought it sounded far-fetched the first time i was introduced to it, but over the course of the years i've been in this fandom, i've seen enough evidence to know that kadian is real and yizhan use it (for example, 520 means "i love you" because the chinese numbers read out loud (wo ai ni) are a homophone for 我爱你, or "i love you" — may 20 (5/20) is a nationally-recognized couple's day in china for that reason)... yizhan (and all of their endorsements) post at 8:05 or 10:05 frequently because those timestamps represent their birthdays. there are many examples of different codes in wide use in china that have shown up in yizhan's various socmed posts... and there there are all the 18s (一八 sounds like yibo) and 3s (三 sounds like zhan).

i do incorporate kadian in nearly all of my fics in some way (and there's a whole chapter about it in wamtl), often because i’ll have yizhan post not-so-secret kadian messages to each other over weibo and oasis.

i even embed kadian codes into the word counts for nearly all of my fics, i'm that obsessed.

twitter followers know i post about kadian a lot too!

my first fandom friends have been such excellent sources of candy... @ShirasagiS @VenOceanofStars were the ones who spent hours talking to me about the candy that cbxgs had unearthed when i was writing my first fic. they helped me so much with translations (translation from chinese can be so difficult, especially when it's xiao zhan who's posting... he loves the word play and can get very literary in his wording).

other good accounts to follow to stay on top of weibo/oasis posts, endorsements, past appearances and such are @wxyzybxz @bjyxiaos @bjyxnoa @sunhuas

i also follow some solo accounts... although they don't *intentionally* deliver candy, they always have great content about xiao zhan and yibo.

candy also comes my way through chats with friends!

i'm not on tumblr much, but i like UntamedConnotations and AccioVictuuri for roundups of candy that aren't captured as well in tweets

Wow, thank you for sharing with us so generously your sources! I for one am very grateful cos I didn’t know several of them.

▪️ Open topic: hot/latest topic of the boys and/or fandom.

the latest hot topic!? i think it has to be yibo's new song, his performance, and his many, many posts about them! it's ticking all the boxes for me... a GORGEOUS, heartbreaking song, a beautiful and emotional performance, and a tidal wave of posts about it, with kadian, possibly hidden messages, and yibo looking incredibly handsome.

just today, he posted pictures of himself in a hoodie with a rainbow logo and his ever-present 🦴 necklace, and combined with a song and performance that already feels like yibo baring his soul in a way we haven't seen before, it's just SO MUCH and i am just in awe of how comfortable he is in his skin, how unapologetic he is about who he is... and how safe and secure he must feel to be able to shout all this out. i realize i could be completely deluded, and that none of this has to do with love, or that maybe he loves someone who isn't xiao zhan, but after all that i have seen over the past few years, i'm not sure how else to harmonize it all if they aren't szd. if nothing else, it makes me so happy to imagine that they've really found a love like this with each other, and for me, that's been the joy of being in this fandom (especially these last few years, with all that has been going on in the world).

anyway, i like to tell people that i fell into the wangxian pit because of xiao zhan's beautiful face, and that i tripped and fell into the yizhan pit because of yibo's lovesick face. everything about yibo's "like a sunshine" song and performance is just making me even more emotional about them and the epic romance that i see between them, and it brings me so much joy.

▪️Now that you bring up about the the 🦴 necklace, do you think the necklace is actually XZ’s gift? Does it really have a 王 engraving on it? Do you think the 🦴 necklace some kind of statement?

i'm not sure if it's really engraved with a 王... but i think the 🦴 is (1) a gift from someone special because yibo wears it so frequently... you only come back to a piece of jewelry that often when it has great personal meaning... especially when you are someone who wears fancy accessories for work all the time. it has shown up in inappropriate times too, like under a period costume on set, when he's not supposed to be wearing personal jewelry... that tells me it means something very special, because he just won't take it off. and (2) i think it's from xz because he has called yibo a puppy (gouzaizai), there was that time yibo's co-star from LoF said in a livestream that he can't call yibo gouzaizai because he's not xz (which tells me that other people know about xz using that term of endearment)... also xz has called yibo clingier than jianguo (comparing him to a pet), so yeah... i think it's really only xz who could give yibo a 🦴 necklace 🥰

could it be another person? i guess if i am wrong about them being szd, it could be someone else... but to me that would mean he's in a relationship with someone else. i have jewelry that other friends have given me that i wear on occasion, but the pieces that i wear all the time are the ones my husband has given me.

In between this answer and the next question, we both became a crying mess remembering the beautiful and meaningful dance performance of Yibo’s LtS at the New Year’s Gala, till we regained our composure, lol

▪️ How did you come to meet your good friends when you first started out in fandom?

when i first came to twitter in early april 2020, i really didn't know where to start. i wasn't a twitter user, and i'd never done the fandom thing before. i lurked for awhile, following solo accounts (at first, just xfx, because i was really worried about how xiao zhan was doing... it was still very early after 227). i stumbled over ventus's (@VenOceanofStars) posts, and spent a few long nights scrolling her posts of old candy. she noticed that i was liking literally hundreds of her posts, and dm'd me to ask me "how old is too old to obsess over ggdd?" and that's how we became friends. 🥰 she introduced me to @ShirasagiS and the three of us spent a lot of time just talking about ggdd and c-ent generally, since they are fluent in chinese (i am also asian, and although i've been perpetually trying to learn chinese, it's been a slog!)

i also found @BjyxObsessed because i thought her pinned tweet was hilarious and it spoke to me (back then, it was all about the shock of falling into this shippy pit as an older fan), and because i am not a shy person, i slid into her dms and forced her to be my friend. 😂 she introduced me to the world of rp fiction, and her sweet and funny fics were among the first i read (in any fandom!)

that's generally been my pattern... i see people around who might share an opinion or a demographic (a lot of my fandom friends are older fans with families and irl jobs) and i might dm them to see if we click. sometimes we do, sometimes we don't (and that's okay!)

when i finished posting wamtl and realized i was not done writing after all, i helped put together a discord server with some other writing friends, a place where we could encourage one another as we prepared for an upcoming fic exchange that we were all participating in. that was a great way to make friends... gathering around a common creative interest, be it writing or art or maybe just yelling about the boys.

some of those writers have since moved on, and some new writers have joined... it's sad when friends go on to other fandoms or to other interests, but i'm told this is a natural ebb and flow of fandom, and so i've learned to roll with it and keep making new friends.

somehow, nearly five years after yizhan started filming cql together, new 🐢 still find their way here, and i like to think that that's a testament to how beautiful and real their story feels.

▪️ Okay, I have the exact same question. How old is too old? Because I regard myself as one of the older 🐢 age-wise. I was VERY relieved to see several 30+ or 40+ in fandom 🤭

well, i don't like to tell people how old i actually am because i feel like putting a number on it might make people wonder if they're too old (if they're older than i am)... i prefer the mystery! but yes, i've been told that my saying i'm an older fan makes other older fans feel more comfortable with being here, and that's nice to know!

i do have readers and followers who i know are older than i am, and i think that's awesome!

▪️ Lastly, a piece of advice for newbie 🐢, please!

i would second renren's advice to respect the boys, their business partners, and their co-stars/friends and don't write shippy things on their posts. think of the golden rule before you hit "send" on things... how would you feel if you were yibo or xiao zhan and people were yelling shippy things on your work projects? for that reason, i try to keep my nonsense within this fandom bubble... i don't hashtag with their names, and i don't interact with solo accounts unless i *know* they're tolerant of cpfs.

the other thing i would say is to spend your energy positively. being excited about yizhan's projects and their accomplishments does not mean you have to trash someone else... that's a really bad look, and can only make trouble for them (and especially don't do that if you're using them as your profile picture because it reflects badly on them).

finally, don't evangelize. if people see what you see and want to find out if they're szd, they'll find their way here. arguing with people and trying to "prove" to outsiders that they're together is bad form... remember that we really don't know anything. i might personally feel they're szd, but if other people don't see it, i respect that too. THAT SAID... if they trip and fall into the pit the way i did, i'll do what i can to make them feel welcome so they can enjoy a positive and joyful fandom as i have!

END

[shijiujun]

hey so uh, it's 110% Not Your Job, but can i ask for like a crash course on these chinese bl series that are everywhere around me but i don't know them. like i'm familiar with the untamed or however many names it has but i'm seeing two or three more???? help please if you can thank you

hello!! oh no worries, i happened to be looking for a distraction too so this was timely hahaha although it’s a pretty broad question since there are so many new live adaptations coming out (and some which have already come out which are featured as bromances), but let me see if I can like round this up for you a little. 

*i may be giving you a bit more than you need or like irrelevant stuff, but i guess i’m bound to hit something hahaha

Okay so the chinese BL series you’re talking about is The Untamed, and since you said you’re familiar I won’t get into it in detail, BUT just for like flow’s sake:

The Untamed (Chen Qing Ling) is based on the danmei (BL) novel written by MXTX, called Mo Dao Zu Shi (and yes however many like English translations to this title there is), or MDZS for short. You watched the live-action, and there’s like a lot of other versions of it e.g. the anime, the chibi anime, audio dramas etc. etc. the list goes on. In case you still haven’t seen any of those, just glance through this masterpost made by @the-social-recluse​ - In any case, right now everything is sort of already out EXCEPT:

MDZSQ - chibi donghua, cutest shit you’ll ever see

More MDZS merch 

Some teasers from MDZS mobile game which has been one year and developing

Now moving on to other BL series floating around so frequently - MDZS is the second book that MXTX wrote. So there’s SVSSS (The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving-System), which is also called lovingly by others in the fandom by Scumbag System/Villain in short, this is MXTX’s first danmei novel. Right now if you’ve seen this on Tumblr, it’s the anime (donghua) version - 10 episodes only for Season 1, available on WeTV with subs, finished airing like a few weeks ago. Translations of the novel are definitely out in full somewhere.

An absolute mess, but an organized one

Tried to do a manhua but failed

Everyone thought the donghua wouldn’t air on time either (it has a history of dropping development halfway) but it did

Would probably be the most entertaining if ever dealt with a live-action

And then there’s arguably, the most beloved child out of all three novels (at least right this moment) - TGCF (Tian Guan Ci Fu, or Heaven Official’s Blessing). This is the third and so far last (???) danmei novel MXTX has written, main pairing invented love. Strawhat-wearing scrap collector smiley angel with devoted kid-turned-adult-turned-ghost-king who follows smiley angel for like many years because he loves him. Anyway, if you’re seeing this, once again on Tumblr a lot, it’s the donghua version you’re seeing. Still airing, I think we’re midway through the whole season, the yelling starts Saturday (Asia time zone) and then extends into Sunday, sometimes Monday.

There’s like a god-tier Eng translation in full for TGCF by Suika

There is a manhua for this as well, only like 45 chapters in, but the time Jan/Feb 2021 rolls around, the donghua would have overtaken the manhua progress on the storyline HAHAHA

Apparently the director/production team who did CQL/The Untamed managed to get the rights to filming its live-action, but heh nothing much about that just yet aside from casting rumours and fans worrying that the casting will be done wrongly and also that they won’t be able to do justice to the story.

Alright now that we’ve more or less cleared MXTX and what everyone is hyping over (for good reason), let’s move on to the other CHINESE BL stuff you could be seeing (although I feel like you might not actually be asking about this), and these will all be live-actions (I’m also only clearing SOME of this year’s stuff, so none from before 2020, don’t ask me why I didn’t leave Guardian or SCI up here):

✨✨✨ Already aired, done and dusted or maybe ongoing, just ones I see on my dash and notifs so I definitely am biased ✨✨✨

The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty (Cheng Hua’s Fourteenth Year) - Many episodes, much bromance, base novel is gay af, but live action is cute af. Read more here and full translation is not yet done I think

My Roommate is a Detective - THIS IS A SPECIAL MENTION. NOT BL. Doesn’t even have like a book to go along with it, it’s just I’ve seen people getting into this again and creating content, so idk, imma just leave this here. It ain’t BL but it got the most glaring BL-esque relationship I’ve ever seen in my life. You’ll get what I mean if you watch it

The Lost Tomb Reboot - AGAIN another special mention, because many handsome young-ish men who you know, head into tombs, much bromance. Based on a huge series of novels, totally not BL, but as always with like a lot of men put into one story, ships happen. This year as well, in case you’ve seen it floating around

✨✨✨  Upcoming Chinese BL live-action adaptations, confirmed + casting + filming. You may have seen some of these because like posters were recently released etc. - As far as I know these are all slated for 2021 ✨✨✨

Faraway Wanderers (Tian Ya Ke) - A danmei novel by Priest, filming wrapped up, should be airing soon. Leads are pretty cute, although I’m sure they’ll turn this bromance. One of the male leads is known for a lot of period web dramas, and Gong Jun, the other male lead, is known for more contemporary modern dramas, but damn Gong Jun’s jawline

Winner is King (Sha Po Lang) - Another danmei novel by Priest, filming wrapped up recently as well if I recall? Posters recently released, and this is arguably Priest’s most famous and popular danmei

Immortality (Hao Yi Xing) - A super popular danmei novel called 2ha or The White Husky and His White Cat Shizun by Meat Bun. Filming also... wrapped? I think, because posters came out the next day and everyone from Earth to Pluto went mad, definitely one you should look out for next year spring i think, but I’m pretty sure there’s gonna be a hell lot more teasers, posters etc. coming up and then half of danmei Tumblr will probably go into cardiac arrest

The Society of Four Leaves (Zhang Gong An) - Ehhhh I think this hasn’t yet been filmed but casting was recently confirmed (contentiously).  Concept posters are up though. This technically isn’t classified officially as a BL. There are no CPs officially in the novel, but apparently it’s very like idk flirty etc., also slated for next year

*There are a few more by Priest, e.g. Liu Yao, but no concrete news that I’ve seen (by now like at least 60% of her danmeis either have a live-action contract or a donghua contract or both lmao)

✨✨✨  Upcoming Chinese BL donghua adaptations (2021-ish). All by Priest✨✨✨

*Throwing this in just as a by the way thing, because these are also recent news (these two weeks). There might be more but I haven’t seen anything yet personally :D

Imperfection (Can Ci PIn) - Space AU, the novel won like two national literary awards if I recall like last year? Anyway a brief trailer recently came out last week I think, and main lead is handsome af, and once again it’s space and space wars so it’s pretty cool

Silent Reading (Mo Du Zhe) - Novel is called Mo Du, and honestly I think the donghua has been like teasing fans for like idk years, but it looks like we’re finally getting to the donghua as the team previewed the first ep like... two weeks ago live to an audience? Modern crime thriller thing, there’s a masterpost going on Tumblr

Lie Huo Jiao Chou - Another Priest fan favourite, a historical + modern danmei combination. Much angst from what I’ve seen, but donghua teaser looked good also, released also last week

---

anyway hopefully some part of this or at least one part answers your question? if not, just send me another ask or like, DM me hahahaha

[jaimebluesq]

deep fic writer asks: 1, 9, 17, 19 :D

1. what's the fic you're most proud of?

You're gonna love this one - the completed fic I'm proudest of is Reality is Overrated - the one I did to fill your Man Who Has Everything prompt. It was such a great idea to begin with and inspired me immediately, and so many elements just came together naturally. There are lines I still giggle over (e.g. JZXun saying "what did I do to deserve this" and NHS going "Shall I make you a list? Well..." and drunkenly ticks items off on his fingers), and the ending gave that last bit of bittersweetness that offset the return to the canon world with its dead Da-ge and revenge plot. I'm just really proud of what I did with it :D

9. what's your writing process like?

There can be some variation on pre-writing aspects - if I'm filling a prompt/doing an exchange/challenge/something specific, then I try to at least make an outline with points I'd like to touch on (point-form), particularly if there are required elements (I also do this sometimes if I'm writing something that has lots of pieces of information, like OC names and plot elements, etc etc). But whether I outline or not, the one consistent thing about my writing process is that I write linear - as in, I don't skip ahead to write a scene further down the line (I tried doing that with a 5+1 type fic and it was hard to get back into the earlier parts). Even with an outline, I always try to give myself some leeway - when in the middle of a scene, things sometimes go in a direction I didn't expect, so I need to be flexible enough to go with the flow. Other than that, I've found that youtube playlists are great to have in the background - there are some "deep focus" types that I've found pretty useful.

17. What’s the best engagement/interaction/feedback you’ve received from someone who’s read your work?

I think what hits most in feedback is when people pick up on something I've worked hard on but that may not necessarily get noticed by most. Examples:

My first MDZS/CQL fic (Portraits of Qinghe) had me worried about starting in a new fandom, and the first response was a long comment where the person talked about many of their favourite things in the story, one of which was the set of advisors (OCs) I had created - I'd worked so hard on them, it meant a lot to have that noticed, and it meant so much that my first fic in the fandom was so well-received.

In "Winning the Game", I tried really hard to write the story in a way that you really don't know if the OC Wen character was genuinely kind or just acting that way (because the not knowing was supposed to make NHS' actions hit hard), and it meant a lot when some of those who commented talked about the ambiguity I'd worked so hard to create.

When a certain person noticed how I started the first paragraph of every (with 1 exception) Murder Tortoise fic - actually, "New Shell, Old Tricks" was so much of that for me, it's like I felt my fics were so seen because of all the little things you found to add in there, just wonderful and had me happily over the moon for quite a while :D

19. If you could write an ideal fic, what would it include?

Great dialogue - I just LOVE writing dialogue, getting into a character's head to find their voice

Plot - I genuinely love a plotty fic, the more elements the better - I especially love political elements, and with CQL/MDZS, the Jianghu politics are a fertile ground for plots

Good characterizations with insights into how the characters act/think

Romance - I just think it's neat ;) But it has to be genuine and not forced, organic in how it develops (and sex scenes are nice but not required - sometimes they disrupt the flow or mess with the tone)

Relationships - Not just romantic, but friends and family as well (e.g. I write so much NHS that it wouldn't be an ideal fic without NMJ and some sort of observation on the Nie bros' relationship)

Humour - doesn't have to be the focus, but there needs to be some humour to break up the heavier scenes

A satisfying conclusion

I've talked a few times about this epic SangCheng fic I've been working on for a year now, and it actually has all the elements (except for the satisfying conclusion because I'm not there yet - actually, now that I think about it, Reality is Overrated has them as well) - if I finish it and perfect it through editing, it would def. be my magnum opus.

Thank you as always for the ask!!!

[colorisbyshe]

I have literally no way of verifying this info so take it with a grain of salt but I heard a while ago mxtx actually was in college when writing mdzs so the confusing style makes a lot of sense since she's inexperienced, and tgcf was much tighter and made more sense. as someone who read the fan translation of mdzs (and never will again, lmao cql is my only canon), it's interesting to hear about your thoughts about the writing and novel! imo there are genuinely spectacular book moments/dialogue/scenes, but most of them made it to cql, and the few good romance scenes (if he catches me I'll-, the yunmeng date extra) rly aren't worth it. I'm personally glad I read the entire book (sans incense burners) because it gives me a fuller perspective and allows comparison between adaptations, but it's not something I would necessarily recommend. the only scene that I think the novel did great that cql didn't have was the wen blood pool scene, but iirc that was in the donghua too. on the other hand the novel had a lot of really cool worldbuilding elements that were explained much better than in cql and I think jin ling was a stronger character so it also depends on what you like and want to see. anyway it's great to hear your thoughts, thanks for posting!

same anon - also love your description of the problems in the framing device in mdzs. you're right! it's inconsistent and a mess! also super insightful to pinpoint the fact that wwx is being used to introduce characters without spoiling them instead of reacting organically to the situation. and his weird interactions with lwj…they were so miserable /sob

Yeah, I do think the novel does a LOT better job explaining word building stuff than CQL did, since it can just... write things out instead of having it just sort of implied or directly stated via dialogue, which can be clunky. I honestly think a looot of hwat I know about the ~lore was actually picked up through checking the wiki or like having concepts spelled out in fanfic by authors who were drawing from both MDZS/CQL information, which... is a problem. Like it's almost all technical information (like about how golden cores work and what specific terms signify) but also some of it is just concepts being better explained when they were skimmed over in the drama.

So the novels do have value in like... padding out the world and maybe providing some character moments (although I will say... I thought Jiang Cheng being homophobic was just like... an exaggerated meme but no he's like... straight up just textually homophobic LMAO... don't know if i needed that enhanced character depth) but they will never be my definitive understanding of the story, even if I do read past Vol 1. And I definitely hve no interest in spending money on or owning the novels, even in a pirated way.

I am still impressed with how enjoyable of a read it is and I think the text holds up better than I thought it would in terms of like... properly dropping bread crumbs for people who know how everything ends, like it lays things out well... outside of the very weird framing of Wei Wuxian himself against everyone from his former life.

Like I said his reactions to everyone... come off as very unnatural and untrue to his character and their relationships, even with how much distance came between them in his final months/years. For how well misdirection worked in CQL at least... it's really not working here when provided with characters more inner thoughts.

So I LIKE having them, at least in theory, and I like more peaks into the background (like Lan Xichen teasing Lan Wangji early on about liking Wei Wuxian's company lmaoooo), but idk if the early stuff is servicing what is to come as well as it should be.

Also... the bad BL tropes are already hitting hard. Like LWJ making WWX sleep on top of him and the moments emphasizing how tiny WWX is now.... girl, the fujoshi within you has leaked onto the page, go clean that up.

I think (from what I know at least, from the manhua and from comparisons) Imas sively going to appreciate MXTX being less present in the CQL adaption. Like I feel the author too much in the novel. I feel the machinations.

So as pleased as I am by the world building and overall narrative/character moments, which is VERY pleased, she really is her own worst enemy. Not even getting into her moral issues just from like a technical stand point, her writing is very frustrating to me.

Going from a superior adaption to the OG text is lot.

It's like... did any of y'all read the thirteen letters? Womb to tomb bitches?? It's like reading that then watching TFA. Like... even the likable things become frustrating because you're so aware of their limitations and how they aren't reaching their full potential.

[susuwatari-kompeito]

#showyourprocess

I was tagged by the wonderful @wangxianbunnydoodles for this gifset. This tag game was started by @lan-xichens (starting post here).

From planning to posting, share your process for making creative content!

To continue supporting content makers, this tag game is meant to show the entire process of making creative content: this can be for any creation.

RULES: When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag 5 people with a specific link to one of their creative works you’d like to see the process of. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours!

Process will be underneath the cut! 

1. Planning

This was the very first post I put a considerable amount of time into, and I’m really proud of it. I wanted to make a set showcasing the Twin Prides, which is my favorite character dynamic of MDZS due to Jiang Cheng. I knew that I wanted to use the scene from CQL episode 14 because that’s where the quote “Yunmeng Jiang will have its Twin Prides” comes from. I also wanted to include the scene from the MDZS donghua episode 10 because it was different visually, and I wanted to incorporate both visual adaptations of MDZS. 

I was really happy that the scenes in both the live-action and the donghua are visually captivating. I don’t really know how to explain it very well, but the scenes are just interesting to look at and I’m glad that JC and WWX are in the same frame for every single frame of the gifs. 

I took a few notes on paper to organize the layout and decide how I wanted to break up the text.

2. Creation

I choose to gif by using screenshots. I use MPlayer OSX Extended to pull the screenshots and use Adobe Photoshop 2021 to create. I like using screenshots because it allows me to control the exact frames I want to use, so once I open photoshop, I can just load the screenshots and start the actual editing process. I organize the screenshots into folders based on which gif, which makes it easier to load into the stacks. 

Step 1: Coloring

I don’t really have a specific process for coloring my gifs. I approach it from the process of “click until it looks good,” but I do like making some colors pop. In the CQL gifs, I wanted to make sure WWX’s red ribbon stood out. I also adjusted the hue/saturation of some of the colors to make the lotus seed pods more green. Here are the hue/saturation levels I used:

Blue: Hue (+24); Saturation (+24)

Red: Hue (+18); Saturation (+18)

Green: Hue (+39); Saturation (+36)

Magenta: Hue (+24); Saturation (+24)

Step 2: Text 

Because of the text effect, I knew I needed a blockier type of font. I’m also a fan of simpler fonts, and I didn’t want something that would be too distracting. I tried a couple different fonts until I settled on Forta (downloaded from dafont[dot]com). 

Placing the text was a little tricky. If the background was too light, than the text would be too hard to read. I used the setting “soft light” (you can set it to this using the dropdown menu directly to the left of the opacity setting where the layers listed) for the text and moved it around and adjusted the size until I was happy with the placement and I could read the words.

After I was happy with the placement, I used the following steps:

CTRL + click on the text layer to select

Select --> Inverse (or Shift + CTRL + I)

Step 3: Adding more color

This is a continuation of the previous steps, and these steps will get that overall purple/pink color. I chose that color because I thought it matched Yunmeng colors and the color of the scene the most. 

Create a new solid fill layer (I chose white first, then adjusted later)

Set opacity to 40%

Play around with the color until you find something you’re happy with! For this set, I used #e67af3. 

Done!

This is what my layers look like. Ignore the second Hue/Saturation layer, I don’t know why its there haha.

I used the same coloring and font for each of the CQL gifs on my set. As for the donghua gifs, I just played around with the hue/saturation as well as the exposure until I liked how it looked.

3. Posting

For the caption, I used a gradient text generator. I went with the purple gradient text because that is Yunmeng Jiang colors. I chose WWX’s quote as the other part of the caption because I believe that is part of what makes the “Twin Prides” promise so important to Jiang Cheng, and it is also very important when understanding the relationship between Wei Wuxian and the Yunmeng Jiang Clan. 

I saved the post as a draft first, so I could see how it would look, then I posted it!

Anyway, I hope that makes sense at least a little bit, and I apologize for this being so text-heavy. I had a really fun time making this set and it was my first time playing around with different elements outside of basic editing. 

I am tagging:

@mylastbraincql for this beautiful Lan Wangji color palette edit 

@marquisguyun for this awesome WangXian video edit

@perkynurples for this lovely WangXian fanfiction 

@blinkplnk for this stunning WangXian waterfall fight edit

@wendashanren​ for this amazing WangXian lyric edit

Please don’t feel pressured to complete this! Or if you wish to talk about something else, feel free to do so! If anyone else sees this and wants to do it, consider yourself tagged! 

Thank you for reading so far. <3 

[unforth]

Rules of the Gusu Lan Clan

Since I wrote my fic about junior Wei Wuxian trying to follow every rule, I’ve been wanting to compile a list of all known rules across multiple sources, and apparently today is the day for that.

General notes:

According to the MDZS novel, there are 3,000 rules at the time of the lectures, and 4,000 rules 13 years later after Wei Wuxian is resurrected. According to CQL, there are 3,500 rules at the time of the lectures.

These rules are presumably numbered, as when Lan Wangji is being beaten, Lan Qiren asks him “what is the 52nd doctrine of the Lan clan?” However, they are given in a different order in different sources so establishing how they are numbered is impossible. Since we can’t know the order they “belong” in, I’ve organized them by grouping them thematically. For the few I know numbers for, those numbers are included in parenthesis.

I don’t know how these rules are referred to in Chinese; in English they are translated as rules, principals, doctrines, or laws. Based on contextual clues, it’s possible that the rules are sorted into different categories (ie, principals vs. doctrines vs. rules)

I did my best to consolidate the rules listed duplicatively over multiple sources, but as I don’t speak Chinese and therefore cannot say which are identical in the original, there is likely some redundancy. This is exacerbated by a lot of rules apparently being given in both “do not” and “be” forms - ie, “do not disrespect elders” and “be filial” and “be respectful to teachers” are all rules. The reason I opted to leave these areas of redundancy is that this compiled list is around 175 rules. There are 3,000 plus of these things. If just ~175 have this much duplication the amount of redundancy in the actual list must be insane, so I think these overlapping rules are intentional and consolidating them would be inappropriate.

Crossposted to AO3

Sources I used to compile this list:

The “Book of Righteousness” notebook, as translated by BigBadRedPanda. They did two translations, posted on Tumblr and on Twitter, which don’t always match on translation choices.

The inscribed wall is shown in the donghua, as translated by my-otp-list, based on a list transcribed by an unknown Weibo user.

The MDZS wiki, which draws on multiple sources.

The Netflix translation of CQL: I watched through the episodes of the lecture and transcribed these myself. I do not have time to rewatch the whole series for those that might have been listed elsewhere. I specifically rewatched: the fight between WWX and LWJ and WWX arrives at Cloud Recesses in episode 3; the “NHS has a bird” scene in episode 3; the “putting a turtle on LQR’s back” scene in episode 4; and the scene where LWJ is punished in episode 43.

For anyone with a lot of patience and a working knowledge of Chinese and English, in CQL episode 3, timestamp 23 minutes on Netflix, there’s a carved stone with the rules on it. Also, in episode 4, timestamp 2 minutes on Netflix, Wei Wuxian is shown sleeping amidst the copies he’s made, there are more rules visible then. Same episode, timestamp 3:30 or so, a disciple opens a pamphlet of the rules and some are shown. (I expect there’s much overlap between these three sources). Information there might be able to expand this list? Or it might be entirely redundant. I don’t know. I’m sorry.

Interpreting the list:

“Source” indicates which source(s) include this rule. (this isn’t exhaustive and there is a fair amount of overlap between CQL and MDZS)

notebook - “The Book of Righteousness” translation by BigBadRedPanda

donghua - the translation of the list in the second episode done by my-otp-list

CQL - the Netflix translation of CQL

MDZS - the Exiled Rebels translations of the novel.

“Also translated as” is a different translation from the same source (ie, two different translations of the Book of Righteousness)

“Alternate” is a similar rule from an alternate source that overlapped so closely that I lumped them together (ie, overlap between Book of Righteousness and donghua)

THE RULES:

Rules pertaining to appropriate behavior and comportment:

Lan clan disciples must follow the principles of the Lan (source: CQL)

Do not work after 9 pm (source: notebook)

Do not rise after 5 am (alternate: wake up at 8 am (??)) (source: notebook, donghua)

Do not go out at night (also translated as: venturing out at night is prohibited) (source: donghua)

Those who come at night should not be allowed in until 7 AM (source: CQL)

Do not be late (source: CQL)

Do not enter Cloud Recesses without permission (source: CQL)

No one is permitted to attend the lectures without an invitation (source: CQL)

Do not enter the back hills without permission (source: CQL)

Do not fight without permission (alternate: fighting without permission is prohibited) (source: notebook, donghua)

Do not create damages (source: donghua)

Do not take life within Cloud Recesses (alternate: do not kill within the premises)  (source: notebook, donghua)

Do not stand incorrectly (also translated as: do not stoop while standing) (alternate: have a proper posture) (source: notebook, donghua)

Do not sit improperly (also translated as: do not slouch while sitting) (alternate: do not sit with a disgraceful pose, sitting improperly is prohibited) (source: notebook, donghua, CQL)

Do not make noise (alternate: do not make an uproar, causing noise is prohibited) (source: notebook, donghua, CQL)

Do not hurry rashly (also translated as: do not rush while walking, do not walk too fast) (alternate: do not act impulsively; running is prohibited) (source: notebook, donghua, CQL)

Do not move arbitrarily (source: CQL)

Do not smile for no reason (also translated as: do not smile foolishly, do not laugh for no reason) (source: notebook, donghua)

Sneering for no reason is prohibited (source: donghua)

Do not drink alcohol (alternate: alcohol is prohibited) (source: notebook, donghua, MDZS, CQL)

Do not consume meat (source: MDZS)

Killing livestock within the area is prohibited (source: MDZS)

Do not be difficult with food (alternate: do not be picky about food) (source: notebook, donghua)

Do not eat more than three bowls (alternate: eating more than three bowls is prohibited) (source: notebook, donghua)

Do not talk during meal times (source: MDZS)

Pets are not permitted (source: MDZS)

Change clothes after a shower (source: CQL)

Wear a headband to discipline yourself (source: CQL)

Do not touch others’ headbands without permission (source: CQL)

A headband is not to be used for any other purpose (source: CQL)

Only a spouse or child may touch the headband (source: MDZS)

Do not bribe a law enforcer (source: CQL)

Do not use a concealed weapon (source: CQL)

Do not hide an edged tool (source: CQL)

Do not wear any jangling objects like beads (source: CQL)

Do not wear more than three accessories around your waist (source: CQL)

Do not alter clothes secretly (source: CQL)

Never hurt insects or plants (source: CQL)

Do not borrow money (source: CQL)

Rules related to personal virtues (virtues in the English sense, not the classical Chinese sense):

Love and respect yourself (source: donghua)

Behave yourself (source: CQL)

Be respectful (alternate: be courteous) (source: donghua, CQL)

Be modest  (source: CQL)

Arrogance is prohibited (source: donghua)

Hide your wisdom (source: CQL)

Do not show off your skills (source: CQL)

Be humble (source: donghua, CQL)

Do not be supercilious (source: CQL)

Be amicable and united (alternate: be cordial) (source: donghua, CQL)

Be strict with yourself (source: donghua)

Have a strong will and anything can be achieved (source: donghua)

Diligence is the root (source: donghua)

Morality is the priority (source: donghua)

Harmony is the value (source: donghua)

Be ethical (source: donghua)

Uphold the value of justice (source: donghua)

Be just (source: donghua)

Shoulder the weight of morality (source: donghua)

Perform acts of chivalry (source: donghua)

Have courage and knowledge (source: donghua)

Have courtesy and integrity (source: donghua)

Do not be ill-mannered (source: CQL)

Have affection and gratefulness (source: donghua)

Be compassionate (source: CQL)

Be generous (source: donghua)

Frugality is a moral (source: CQL)

Give more, take less (source: CQL)

Do not expect rewards after giving (source: CQL)

Do not be miserly (source: notebook)

Do not regret after offering (source: CQL)

Accumulate virtue and merits (6th rule) (source: CQL)

Make sure to act virtuously (source: donghua)

Be grateful (source: donghua)

Be grateful when praised (source: CQL)

Stop bad habits (source: donghua)

Destroy the five poisons (the five poisons are desire, anger, ignorance, pride, and jealousy; references: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Poisons; http://www.chinabuddhismencyclopedia.com/en/index.php/Five_poisons) 

Do not indulge in pleasure (source: CQL)

Do not be promiscuous (alternate: do not commit acts of promiscuity; promiscuity is prohibited) (source: notebook, donghua)

Do not indulge in debauchery (source: notebook)

Do not wallow in luxury and pleasure (alternate: do not live extravagantly, do not be luxurious) (source: notebook, donghua, CQL)

Be peaceful when insulted (source: CQL)

Do not succumb to rage (also translated as: do not get angry) (alternate: do not be over-the-top; do not be aggressive) (source: notebook, donghua, CQL)

Speak meagerly, for too many words only bring harm (source: donghua)

Do not be haughty and complacent (source: notebook)

Do not be of two minds (alternate: be of one mind) (source: notebook, donghua)

Do not exult in excess (also translated as: do not be overly happy) (source: notebook, donghua)

Do not grieve in excess (also translated as: do not be overly sad) (source: notebook, donghua)

Do not covet the property of others (source: CQL)

Do not steal (source: notebook)

Do not be greedy (source: notebook)

Be careful with your words (source: donghua)

Do not use coarse language (source: CQL)

Do not tell lies (source: notebook)

Do not take your own words lightly (source: donghua)

Do not sow discord (source: CQL)

Do not use flowery writing (also translated as: do not write about love and sex; do not use frivolous language) (alternate: do not spread empty line (sic) ) (source: notebook, donghua)

Do not say one thing and mean another (alternate: do not break promises; do not go back on your word) (source: notebook, donghua, CQL)

Do not boast about your own strengths (source: CQL)

Believe sincerely (source: donghua)

Do not be suspicious (source: CQL)

Do not be wasteful (source: donghua)

Do not break faith and abandon right (source: notebook, donghua)

Do not be unreasonable (source: CQL)

Rules for training, studying and learning:

Learning comes first (source: donghua)

Train your body and your mind (source: donghua)

Maintain your own discipline (source: donghua)

Organize work properly (source: donghua)

Do not neglect your studies (source: CQL)

Do not give up on learning (source: donghua)

Do not lose your life goal (source: CQL)

Nurture aspirations (source: donghua)

Rules for interacting with others:

Love all beings (source: donghua)

Embrace the entirety of the world (source: donghua)

Honor good people (source: donghua)

Appreciate the good people (source: donghua)

Good people will be esteemed, blessed by natured, and accompanied by good fortune (source: CQL)

Respect the filial ones (source: donghua)

Be fair, and they will follow you (source: donghua)

Be trustworthy, and they will believe you (source: donghua)

Be mighty, and they will die for you (source: donghua)

Be loyal (source: donghua)

Earn trust (source: donghua)

Win friendships with kindness (source: donghua)

See friends as neighbors (source: donghua)

Steer away from bad men (source: donghua)

Correct others by correcting yourself (source: CQL)

Do not fear the strong (source: notebook)

Do not ignore others and be undisciplined  (source: CQL)

Help the lonely (source: CQL)

Take pity on the desolate (source: CQL)

Do not despise poverty (source: CQL)

Do not bully the weak (alternate: do not bully others; bullying is prohibited) (source: notebook, CQL)

Do not mix public and private interests (source: notebook)

Help the underprivileged (source: donghua)

Care for the weak (source: CQL)

Lend a hand to those in need (source: CQL)

Rescue those in danger (source: CQL)

Do not take advantage of your position or connections to oppress others (source: notebook)

Do not build wealth by using others, for this wealth won’t last (source: donghua)

Do not curry favour (also translated as: do not flatter) (source: notebook)

Do not go tuft-hunting (source: CQL)

Do not be a social climber (source: CQL)

Do not form a clique and exclude others (alternate: do not form cliques) (source: notebook, donghua)

Do not insult people (alternate: do not slander others) (source: notebook, CQL)

Do not use bad words to hurt others (source: donghua)

Do not tease others (source: CQL)

Do not praise yourself and slander others (source: notebook)

Do not jump to an unfounded conclusion (also translated as: do not make assumptions about others) (alternate: do not judge others quickly) (source: notebook, CQL)

Do not judge people behind their back (alternate: do not speak ill of others; talking behind other people’s back is prohibited) (source: notebook, donghua)

Speak not about other people’s weaknesses (source: CQL)

Be easy on others (source: donghua)

Be sad for other people’s sufferings (source: CQL)

Rejoice in other people’s blessings (source: CQL)

Regard other people’s gains and losses as your own (source: CQL)

Do not hold grudges (source: donghua)

Have wins and losses (source: donghua)

If others win over you, do not envy (source: donghua)

If others lose to you, do not look down (source: donghua)

Do not take apprentices excessively, nor pass ordinary people (source: CQL)

Interacting with Wei Wuxian is forbidden. (added by Lan Qiren at some point post lectures...yes, really...heck of a lot of good it did anyone...)

Rules for respecting those in authority:

Respect the elderly (source: CQL)

Do not disrespect the elder (source: notebook)

Do not disregard the younger (source: notebook)

Do not forget the grace of the forefathers (source: donghua)

Be loyal, filial, friendly and dutiful (source: donghua, CQL; donghua only lists the first two)

Be a filial child (source: donghua)

Do not argue with your family, for it doesn’t matter who wins (source: donghua)

Honor the teachers and respect the elders (source: CQL)

If your senior is standing, you may not sit until they have done so (source: CQL)

Teachers have extensive knowledge and are examples of moral integrity (source: CQL)

Disturbing female cultivators is prohibited (7th rule) (source: MDZS)

Rules on cultivation, good and evil:

Concentrate on cultivating (source: CQL)

To suppress and eliminate ghosts and monsters, liberate them (source: CQL)

Stay on the righteous path (source: CQL)

Take the straight path (alternate: follow the righteous way) (source: donghua, CQL)

Reject the crooked road (alternate: do not take the crooked ways) (source: donghua, CQL)

Eliminate evil and establish a just law (source: CQL)

Do not associate with evil (source: CQL)

Do not befriend the evil (52nd doctrine) (source: CQL)

Do not fall to evil (source: CQL)

Resist evil (source: CQL)

Promote good (source: CQL)

[suibianjie]

Getting to Know You - Tag Game

I was tagged by @susuwatari-kompeito and, @yibo-wang​, @jingyismom​ and a few others ❤ Thank you! (also sorry but I take forever to do tag games sometimes lol......)

1. Why did you choose your url?

It’s a combination of jie (as in 姐 sister) with Suibian (as in Wei Wuxian’s hilarious name for his sword). Also I vaguely liked the idea of “whatever sis.” Me and my braincells shouldn’t be in charge of naming anything tbh 😂

2. Any side-blogs? If you have them, name them and why you have them.

Kind of, but they’re all very casual or made as a joke. One is Wormxian for reasons that are too long to list here. Another is a sideblog I use for organizing posts I wanna save and maybe reference later.

3. How long have you been on tumblr?

Ooooh, let’s see. This blog was made at the end of January of this year after I watched The Untamed, but my first Tumblr blog was created in 2013-ish. There’s a gap in-between where I didn’t really use Tumblr at all, so I guess that’s an answer? 😂

4. Do you have a queue tag?

Sure do! It’s Between queue and me there’s no need for ‘thank you’ and ‘sorry’ for obvious Wangxian reasons. 

5. Why did you start your blog in the first place?

Because I watched The Untamed and just had all these FEELINGS so needed a place to vent and shitpost about them  (￣▽￣*)ゞ

6. Why did you choose you icon/pfp?

It was pretty and I stan Lan Wangji 😁

7. Why did you choose you header?

I don’t think my current theme shows a header on desktop. On mobile it’s a custom header I made with vectors from my 1k milestone post. 

8. What’s your post with the most notes?

This one! I took my favorite Jingyi line from the MDZS novel and went through a scene from the CQL Yi City arc frame by frame to find the perfect matching shots. Really surprised how many notes it got, but that’s what Jingyi deserves ❤

10. How many followers do you have?

Way way more than I ever expected. Thank you all for following me and my 2 brain cells! 

11. How many people do you follow?

80 right now

12. Have you ever made a shitpost?

Pretty sure it’s not an exaggeration to say my content is at least 50% CQL shitposts.😂

13. How often do you use tumblr each day?

14. Did you have a fight/argument with a blog once? Who won?

That sounds exhausting, I just delete/block/scroll past and move on with my life lol. 

15. How do you feel about ‘you need to reblog this post’?

Having survived many iterations of those “forward this email to 10 friends or X will happen” chains of the early internet years, I usually just scroll past and Bloody Mary can catch these hands if she tries to disturb my sleep.

16. Do you like tag games?

I do, mostly! Though sometimes I take forever to fill them out.

17. Do you like ask games?

I don’t think I’ve played one yet. Next time I see an interesting one on my dash I’ll have to reblog 😊

18. Which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

Sure I know some BFNs but they’ll murder me on the spot if I call them out ❤😁

19. Do you have a crush on a mutual?

If you don’t lowkey crush on your mutuals then what even is the point

[stiltonbasket]

Twelve Moons and a Fortnight wrap-up Q & A!

(brief note that this post does contain spoilers, so don’t click past the cut unless you’ve finished reading!)

__

1. Hi Stilton! I love you and TMAAF! The way you write the letters really feels organic and like people writing letters to other people in a time where communication wasn't instantaneous and thats a pet peeve I have with some fics that treat letters like text. I don't know if you've been asked this but what's your inspiration for the letters? Did you just make them up as they are? Did you look at old letters and studied the tone? @iwillbetrash4eva

I made the letters up as they are, but it was essential for me to keep in mind that the characters are all highly educated, and that Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian, and Nie Huaisang in particular are very accomplished in the arts. Letters written by someone who composes music and poetry in their spare time aren’t going to be the same as emails and text messages written for the sake of raw information transfer, so I made sure to incorporate that into the letters; they’re written on pretty paper, usually in the sender’s best calligraphy, and it takes time to sit down and write them, so there’s an aspect of aesthetic reflection there that we rarely notice in modern communication.

I also felt that the characters would include snapshots of their lives and feelings while writing; this was more important with Wei Wuxian, since he throws himself so deeply into his daily life, but I also had to remember how important the past is to all of the characters and how enmeshed it is with their relevant current events. Ultimately, each letter serves as an extra look into the characters’ state of mind, which is something the narrative might not give us. 

2. What was your favorite scene in TMAAF, and which OC was the most fun to write? @keela1221

My favorite scene was Wei Wuxian’s departure from Lotus Pier in chapter 46, especially the part when everyone chased after him! I planned it several months in advance (sometime last summer, I think?) so finally getting to write it felt amazing.

Surprisingly, my favorite original characters to write (besides the main additions of Xiao-Yu, Yu Zhenhong, and Li Shuai) were the Jiang juniors. They love their Wei-zongzhu so much ;~;

3. What made you think of writing this fic? And would you consider a special epilogue because I don't think 50 chapters were nearly enough for me.❤ @avezevin

I think I just wanted to speculate about what cultivation politics might have been like after Jin Guangyao died, and TMAAF was born! And I most likely will be posting an epilogue, since I realized that the Zhenqing wedding works best as a coda instead of as a fic of its own.

4. what's your research process for tmaaf? the worldbuilding is so detailed!!

I read posts on tradition and culture and use them as sources if the chance ever comes along. A significant portion of the lore was entirely made up, but @light8828 helped me with some of the language, and offered so much guidance on cultivation worldbuilding <3

5. I really like the way you write the dynamic between Wei ying and lan zhan with their kids in all your stories. Xiao-Yu is a very lovable character and his relationship with his parents is something I go back to read many times. What do you use as inspiration when writing his, or any of his siblings, relationship with their parents?

Real life, I guess. Some of my older friends have recently had children, and they’re very good parents. :3

6. Where will you be going with the series? I need to prepare myself for heartbreak if the end is approaching, (its ok if you dont know tho! Idk is an optimistic answer, its just that you seem to have many things plotting away in that brain of yours)

Up next, I’m going to finish all the fics in the series that are still in progress, and then I’m going to write Lan Xichen’s fic, maybe a fic from Wen Qing’s point of view, a fic focusing on a reincarnated Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen, and a fic from Jin Yun’s POV focusing on his relationship with LXC and the latter’s death and ascension. This doesn’t count all the fluffy wangxian oneshots still bubbling on the back burner, so I expect this series to keep me busy well into 2022. *sweats*

7. TMAAF Q&A: when did you decide you were bringing wen qing back? what led you to making her return a result of the soul-summoning array, rather than having her have survived by some other method? @mischief7manager

I decided that Wen Qing would be returning sometime between chapters 12 and 15, since that was when I knew I wanted her to be the one to cure Wei Wuxian. And as much as I liked the idea of Wen Qing surviving, I didn’t want her to be imprisoned for the 16-year interim; it was important that she appear in TMAAF as she was before her death rather than having over a decade of character development off-screen. But she wasn’t a fierce corpse that could just be put to sleep for all that time, hence the soul-summoning.

8. For the Q&A: Stilton, how did you come up with such an adorable perfect little child like Xiao-Yu?? You write him so well it really does seem like it’s a child talking!! @whereisyourcahier​

He’s partly based on a real baby I know. :P It might sound impossible, but he’s even cuter than Xiao-Yu is.

9. Thank you for doing this Q&A! Was Xiao Yu always part of the story? (Ilhim so much!!)

He was! I always wanted Wangxian to experience parenthood together, so Xiao-Yu’s entry was planned long before he actually appeared in the fic.

10. how did you deal with any writers block that came up?

By reading comments!! I have all of you to thank for that <3<3!!!!!!

11. What was the process for plotting each arc of tmaaf? & when did you decide on what the storyline was going to be? Did you know when you started or did you incorporate stuff as you wrote?

I hashed out the whole plot at once sometime last May, and that was when I laid down the rough storyline. The overall plot was finalized by the time chapter 18 went up, though I did add further details as I went along. In particular, the mini-arc of Wei Wuxian investigating the Yangshuo plague was mostly written on the fly.

12. how long have you been planning the wen qing lang xiyan reveal? has it been something set in stone from the start?

I’ve been planning it since last April, though the exact circumstances weren’t clear until around August or September. Originally, Jiang Cheng was going to ask “Lang Xiyan” to marry him after her mourning period was over, only for her to reveal herself as Wen Qing before accepting, but I soon realized that this wouldn’t fit either of their characters. Wen Ning recognizing her was the only way the reveal made sense (both emotionally and logically) so I had to find a reason to bring him to Yunmeng at exactly the right time.

13. I just want to ask two little things (well three). Where we will be able to read the wedding of baby Zizhen and A-Qing? Will there be Chengqing? And with the last question, if it's yes, will you write a one shot, drabble or something like that?? 🥺🥺🥺

I’m going to post a 51st chapter to TMAAF with the Zhenqing wedding as an epilogue, and Jiang Cheng and Wen Qing are married by then! Wen Qing will most likely be getting a fic of her own, focusing on the time between her revival and her engagement to Jiang Cheng.

14. I just finished reading your fic and let me tell you it's one of the best I have ever had the pleasure to read :) For someone who wants to start writing, how did you start the story? Did you wrote everything with a little scheme or you just leave your brain to work in the document?

I wasn’t planning to write fic for MDZS/CQL at all, and then I randomly ended up outlining, drafting, and posting the first chapter of TMAAF within the span of around two hours. When starting a story, I think it works best for me to just let my brain work in the document without worrying too much about how it might turn out--outlines and schemes tend to come later, after I’ve gotten a feel for how the characters act and laid down some dead-basic worldbuilding.

If you’re just starting out, make sure you’re having fun and that everything you write is as self-indulgent as possible! Enjoying the process is the most important thing, worrying about all the specifics can come later. <3

[songofclarity]

Hi cat anon back again I absolutely loved your response to my ask though I doubt WRH sleeps 16 hours a day lol. On the contrary I think he's more likely a workaholic who rarely if ever gets a full night of sleep. even if he delegates a part of his workload, leading a sect as large as qishan wen is still a very hard and demanding job and there are things that just can't be delegated and there's also his cultivation that he must put a lot of work in to be that powerful I would be surprised if he ever gets time to rest. If I were to compare WRH as a leader to anyone it would be Miranda Priestley from "the devil wears Prada", all those working under him are terrified of him not because he's needlessly cruel but because he's extremely strict, demanding, and has very high expectations of everyone starting with himself and the higher you go in the hierarchy of the sect the higher his expectations of you will be and if you can't meet his expectations you will be kicked to the curb without mercy (srsly if you haven't watched that movie you absolutely should especially if you're looking for inspiration for WRH because Meryl Streep slays the role of the demanding and tyrannical leader in it).

Also I'm curious what kind of parent you think WRH is. We never get to meet WX in the novel so there's no way to know what he's really like but WC strikes me as a sort of spoiled kid who was used to getting all his demands met without question and was never disciplined for anything ever in his life but also there are WQ and WN whose upbringing WRH had more or less involvement in depending on the adaptation and who seem to be far better adjusted people than WC even if WN seems to suffer from near crippling social anxiety and stage fright. I personally think he has no idea how to parent because he was mostly raised by nannies and tutors and barely had any relation with his own parents if he had any so his idea of being a father is buying his children anything they ask for no matter how extravagant and having dinner with them once in a while.

Sorry for the rant but you're my favorite writer who writes WRH I just love the way you write him ❤️

Ahaha, 16 hours is indeed much too much, he needs to have time to work on his cultivation! I'm so happy you love the way I write him and I love hearing you talk about him, so thank you for sharing your thoughts with me!

I will confess I, too, have a soft spot for workaholic/insomniac Wen RuoHan. It’s a big sect and there is a lot to do! At the same time, I also have a soft spot for well-rested and idling Wen RuoHan who is purposefully kept oblivious to most things happening in his sect, either because other people are doing a good job taking care of it all, because they just don't want to look bad in front of the boss and so don't tell him, or both lol

To be honest, I don't see Wen RuoHan as someone who is that critical of people! I just don't see him dropping people simply because they make a mistake. The way he lightly jokes with Meng Yao after Meng Yao nearly gets himself killed is kind of something I can see Miranda Priestly doing though lol But she knows she's top brass and has the attitude for it. There is an arrogance about her that when she says something disparaging, it's really not a joke even if she might smile and laugh. By comparison, I don't think Wen RuoHan is nearly that arrogant or, if I may, that rude. I think politeness and proper manners are actually very important to him (and there is a whole essay in me about that lol). Wen RuoHan says "you good-for-nothing" only after Meng Yao was being self-deprecating, and then they laughed and carried on with Wen RuoHan going along with Meng Yao's ideas. Meng Yao's status doesn't falter in the slightest.

(So yes, The Devil Wears Prada is a great movie and I have definitely seen it!)

Instead of Wen RuoHan creating a toxic environment where he plays an active hand in making people fight for privileges and status, I can better see people around Wen RuoHan vying for his attention that it becomes a dog-eat-dog situation. It's like with the guest cultivator who threw Nie Dad under the bus. Wen RuoHan did not pose a question that needed to cause a sect-sect incident, but the guest cultivator made it into one. No one is quite sure why he would say such a thing, although one of the assumptions is that he said it simply to stand out and gain attention.

Although I may just have some rose-colored glasses on lol Wen RuoHan just kind of has that personality, to me, that draws people in. They see Wen RuoHan, recognize his power, and are like, "If I can have 5 minutes of his time, my whole life will change for the better." I do think Wen RuoHan thought he was making things better with his policies. The problem is that some bad people are taking advantage of this offer, and it in turn reflects badly on Wen RuoHan. I will say this though: I think there is some room to argue that Wen RuoHan does follow the teachings of Wen Mao.

For the record, I like to completely ignore what CQL did to the Wens, tbh LOL Wen RuoHan is Yikes, Wen Chao is more just evil asshole rather than pompous asshole, and Wen Qing and Wen Ning are like desolate orphans for some reason. I love the younger actors, acting, and the aesthetics (although white and red will always be Wen colors to me!) but the changes to their story line and their relationships with each other made a complete mess and I don't like to see it ;;

But man, I wish we knew, like, anything about Wen Xu! Wen Chao is absolutely spoiled though. Although one thing I like is how he's being given opportunities to practice leadership, management, and organization skills. He's the one arranging the Wen Sect team for the archery competition and he's put in charge of indoctrinating all the juniors when he himself is the same age as them. We see evidence that he's getting the right education and opportunities to maybe even become Sect Leader one day (Wen Xu, who are you!?), but we also know he's a rather rotten, arrogant person who seems to enjoy his power and privilege more than anything. Wen Chao is also the second son and we get a nice comparison with Nie HuaiSang, who also enjoys all the wealth and the pretty things of his station but doesn't want the responsibilities that come with it.

My headcanon is that Wen RuoHan adores children and is very good with them. I want to believe he was very good to Wen Xu, Wen Chao, Wen Qing, and Wen Ning. This is in part because every other parent in MDZS is awful so statistics says at least one of them needs to be good, so let's give it to Wen RuoHan LMAO

But for the actual teaching of said children, I can definitely see them being given tutors and Shifu and all that good stuff. Then when they have learned something, they show it off to Wen RuoHan, who I think is someone who likes seeing others learn and improve. I don't think utilizing nannies and tutors would make him a bad parent though! It might make him somewhat distant, however, which might explain why Wen Chao lies about killing the Tortoise of Slaughter. That would be a great way to get his father's attention! But it might not be because his father is distant. That lack of attention could also be because he's competing, as I mentioned before, with all the other people vying for Wen RuoHan's attention.

Considering Wen RuoHan gave Wen Chao his strongest bodyguard, a whole ton of disciples to lead, and opportunities to prove himself, I think Wen RuoHan is arguably a decent father. That Wen Chao was desperate to get back to him when it all went south shows that his father is someone he knows will protect him, which no other kid in the series (except Lan SiZhui who has the benefit of being from the next generation lol) ever displays. Considering how Wen RuoHan protected Meng Yao in the Sun Palace with Extreme Force, I like to think Wen RuoHan really doesn't mess around with the safety of his kids (with Meng Yao as honorary kid). Even Wen Qing and Wen Ning had ZERO fear running around as they did right after the massacre of Lotus Pier. No one and nothing is going to harm them--not with Wen RuoHan around.

(As a side note, Wen Qing said she wouldn’t be able to protect Wen Ning from Wen Chao if Wen Chao really wanted to kill him, but there is no mention of harm coming from Wen RuoHan. It really does sound like a sibling spat of “He’s going to fucking kill you when he finds out you ate his pudding and there is NOTHING I can do to stop him.”)

With all that said!! I really like your headcanon that Wen RuoHan wasn't close with his own parents and thus having no idea how to parent. It makes me sad, but in a good way lol So I'm definitely willing to run with you on it! Although I love the idea that Wen RuoHan is trying to be different than the generation before him. His parents weren't close to him, so he is close to his own children. He cultivated to a high level because no one was around to protect him, so he makes sure he's around to protect them. Wen ZhuLiu is an extension of Wen RuoHan and it shows when he protects Wen Chao, despite not liking the kid in the slightest.

So Wen Chao grows up spoiled and Wen Ning grows up fearless and Wen Qing grows up prideful because Wen RuoHan is just one letter away and no one wants to mess with Wen RuoHan.