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

[anotherslashfan]

I actually find Lan Wangji pretty uninteresting as a love interest, too ;) It's one of those archetypes where I go "aww, he's pining!" while reading but if I had to deal with such a person in meatspace I would tell them to get the words out or get lost! The saving grace for Lan Wangji, for me, is that he saved A-Yuan/Lan Sizhui. My heart melted when Wen Ning recognized him ;__;

[extrapenguin]

Huh, I realize I'm also not interested in pining! Lan Wangji really is a very uninteresting love interest. :P Especially considering how a bunch of Wei Wuxian's interactions with others read like this was originally supposed to be a dating sim, except the player character Wei Wuxian went way off the rails of the plot and ended up inventing necromancy instead of romancing anyone because he didn't realize he was in a dating sim, then completely accidentally managed to get into the "love interest Lan Wangji" route. (Other possible routes would include Jiang Cheng and Wen Ning at the very least.)

Another part of my antipathy for Lan Wangji and the central ship is that I've heard what the author has said of it: "ideal relationship" with a "perfect boyfriend" and um... Lan Wangji is very far from my ideal relationship partner, and the dodgy smut + way Wei Wuxian gets basically sequestered from the world, and the way Lan Wangji is very very obsessive make the relationship nonideal. Basically the remarks are kind of alarming, and death of the author and all that, but ... they'd need some sort of counseling. 13+ years of pining do not relationship skills make.

[anotherslashfan]

Another part of my antipathy for Lan Wangji and the central ship is that I've heard what the author has said of it: "ideal relationship" with a "perfect boyfriend" and um... Lan Wangji is very far from my ideal relationship partner
Oh yes, I totally agree!

And I actually really ship Wei Wuxian with Jiang Cheng. They need all the happy AUs (especially b/c of something that hasn't been translated yet, iirc)! And yeah, Wei Wuxian/Wen Ning would also work.

[extrapenguin]

And I actually really ship Wei Wuxian with Jiang Cheng. They need all the happy AUs (especially b/c of something that hasn't been translated yet, iirc)! And yeah, Wei Wuxian/Wen Ning would also work.
YES! I am a multishipper at heart, but Wei Wuxian/Jiang Cheng is a ship I love to pieces. All the happily ever after AUs! A bunch of even currently-translated things imply that Jiang Cheng was really into Wei Wuxian, and that sort of obsession, well, it's twisted, but it'd make sense if it were born from a frustrated love, no?

I'm willing to ship anything once, though. In addition to Wei Wuxian/Wen Ning, I'm also intrigued by the potentials of Wei Wuxian/Lan Qiren, Wei Wuxian/Mo Xuanyu, and Wei Wuxian/Wen Zhuliu, and my attitude towards other rarepairs is basically "convince me!". (Then there's the stuff that doesn't involve the main character, like Song Lan/Xiao Xingchen, but that's a different thing entirely.) I'd also like Wei Wuxian-centric gen a whole lot.

[anotherslashfan]

I'm willing to ship anything once, though.

Me, too, but I don't tend towards romance involving "the bad guys" in general, with few exceptions. I like morally grey just fine, or even redeemed villains - but not plain villains.

[extrapenguin]

Hm, I can do romance with "the bad guys" – if they're morally grey villain protagonists, or they're in the process of being redeemed, or there's lots of loyalty kink, so idk Wen Ruohan/Wen Zhuliu is fine, but I'm uninterested in Wen Chao/Wang Lingjiao.