In order: asdfhakjfh, Wei Wuxian, and Yuletide

[extrapenguin]

I had an idea about what I wanted to post, but then I received an e-mail with a job offer, and my brain was taken over by AHHHH. Details of starting date up in the air, but I'll have to move city next year. I'll generate the space_swap schedule once I'm clearer on mine.

Oh, now I remember what I wanted to say originally! I am apparently very super blunt or something. On a MDZS Discord server, in response to another person saying something offhand, I posted my opinions on Wei Wuxian being called dense. (He ... isn't.) Lightly edited, mostly in punctuation and replacing potentially-vague pronouns with phrases:

Unpopular opinion, but I wouldn't call Shen Qingqiu or Wei Wuxian "dense" – they're both quick on the uptake and smart, but they're both limited by the fact that they never reassessed their starting assumptions of the love interest. They both thought "ok love interest is Like That and hates me" and it might've been valid at the start, even if not now, so they try to fit all the love interest's behavior into the "love interest hates me" mental model they have of him. They're oblivious to the love interest's advances because of that, but they're not dumb, and they have reasons for being oblivious. Basically people going "aww wifi so dense" makes me go "??? are you skipping all the scenes that aren't about the main couple being cute at each other?" since no, he's not dense about human interaction or power dynamics or whatnot at all, unlike how a bunch of people characterize him.

Alas, I can't ignore it, due to the above showing up in eg fics as an opinion the author genuinely holds, and people really widening it so that Fanon Wei Wuxian is kinda dense and dumb, whereas Canon Wei Wuxian isn't really dense: he just doesn't see himself as a valid life partner to Lan Wangji due to eg class stuff and genders, so he can't even begin to consider Lan Wangji's actions from a potentially romantic perspective. Ergo, I try to push back against it, since the "wifi so dense" thing isn't the most accurate way to phrase it, doesn't imo capture the background, and tends to engulf actual canon characterization and make for OOC fic.

(A mod thought the above was super impolite and unfriendly, and threatened modly action should any more "negative conversation" take place. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I stand by my words, and while I may have been blunt, me being rude doesn't look like that. Mostly sharing it here for the content.)

I am also going to humblebrag about my Yuletide wordcount: it is Lots! It is more than last year! I might even add to it still, with another treat! :P I have also shaken my gift, and it looks appealing.

Comments

[soundofwonder]

I read a couple more danmei and my general impression is that danmei is still stuck in the early 2000s BL era, including the treatment of women, unfortunately...

Also with China clamping down on sexual stuff, the website where MDZS is published is locking chapters that cross the line so the writers there don't tend to write explicit smut anymore. I have also read the extra that's only in the physical book and it's not...good. I want to send Lan Wang Ji for sex ed ngl.

[extrapenguin]

Oh, yes, danmei is ... well, I would not call it progressive by any means. The women are nonexistent at best. The Chinese smut ban means all the (nonhet) smut is being hosted on the other side of the Great Firewall. Fanfic's gone to AO3, but I don't know about original works.

I want to send Lan Wang Ji for sex ed ngl.
10/10 would read the fic. Please write it.

[anotherslashfan]

Honestly, I was pretty thankful for the fade to black in (my version of) ZH/Guardian.
It's mostly curiosity for me in this case, because I think smut-wise I've seen pretty much everything I want to. I don't look at new to me stories for the smut - the curiosity in this case is mostly language-related.