lean cultivation machine

Thank you to everyone who participated this year and shared their amazing work! Thank you @the-apostates-martyr, @sweetlittlevampire, @waltzing-marionettes, @ilcourtilcourtlefuret, @zitruseis, @subarusakurazuka, and a big thanks to @gilasaurus, who did the lion’s share of the technical work! To help keep track of all the amazing stuff that’s out there now, I’ve compiled a quick list for future reference. 

Art

gilasaurus

ilcourtilcourtlefuret

subarusakurazuka

sweetlittlevampire

waltzing-marionettes

zitis-art-corner

Fic

the-apostates-martyr

#oh actually u know what wwx knows bc he caught nhs at it  #and lwj knows bc wwx had to tell SOMEONE  #lwj has not seen fit to inform his brother bc honestly the man needs to figure some things out himself 

So I replied to this gem of a post and then got blocked by OP, because apparently if you are a Chinese person explaining why the MDZS novel does not, in fact, read homophobically to a Chinese audience, then that qualifies as “clowning”. I am very tired of non-Chinese people consuming danmei works and then shitting on them with interpretations that do not take into account Chinese cultural context, so here you go, MDZS/MXTX fandom - my take as a Chinese person as to why this is a wildly misguided reading of novel LWJ:

OP, I feel like you are levelling these accusations about the novel (and by extension its fans) partly because you are not aware of Chinese cultural context, and frankly it reads as culturally insensitive at best and extremely ignorant at worst.

The “homophobic stereotypes” that you accuse LWJ of falling into are (1) not really supported by the text to my knowledge and tbh I assume you read an English fan translation so you can’t exactly argue points with any certainty here; and (2) mostly very Western stereotypes that don’t hold the same significance in Chinese culture. 

Let’s play ball with your interpretation here - if MXTX did accidentally write a character that lines up with these stereotypes (which I truly don’t think she did, per my first point), do you realize that for Chinese audiences, MXTX did not accidentally write an “age old homophobic stereotype”..? That maybe Chinese LGBTQ+ people have legitimate reasons for liking LWJ’s character that have nothing to do with internalized homophobia? Maybe our major concerns don’t line up with yours and maybe we find comfort in novel LWJ and WWX for reasons that you, a non-Chinese person, cannot understand? Like sorry, I had no idea what the fuck you were getting at with “LWJ is an age-old homophobic stereotype” because, as a Chinese person, I treasure this novel from the bottom of my heart since it flies in the face of our age old stereotypes. I got to see gay characters that were not portrayed as mentally ill, not throwing a family/marriage into total disarray through their unfilial romance, and actually getting a happy, orthodox marriage where they effectively co-parent a kid and mentor many others. This is my list of priorities in comparison to yours - the stereotypes I was happy to see broken down vs. the ones you projected onto a translation you read.

But that is really only scratching the surface at the main problem I have with this post, which is that for some reason you think CQL LWJ is comparatively ideal representation of a gay man. While I will always appreciate the way CQL went to extreme lengths to gay-code the fuck out of the show, the reality is that CQL LWJ is the product of CCP censorship. And this is what really convinces me that you don’t have the best interests of LGBTQ+ fans at heart, or at least not the Chinese ones: you praised a characterization of LWJ that was born from actual, material oppression of LGBTQ+ people while shitting all over a character and work that many gay Chinese people find comfort in. Again, I love and appreciate CQL (and even love CQL LWJ!) but your post is extremely tone deaf when you consider the realities for Mainland Chinese people and diaspora.

I also took a look at your other posts and was unsurprised to see fujoshi discourse, which of course misused a term in a language that you do not speak, shat all over a genre that (again) many LGBTQ+ Chinese people find comfort in, and assumed that MXTX is a cishet woman just because she writes danmei. There has been a lot written by both Chinese and Japanese LGBTQ fans about how this type of discourse is misguided at best and racist at worst.

Lastly - as a bisexual, I find it biphobic that you assume WWX only ends up developing feelings for a man simply because he was summoned into MXY’s body… If you don’t see how that is a biphobic assertion, then I cannot help you.

alright so originally i wrote this for twitter, but i felt like tumblr could benefit from it too. today we’re finally getting the long awaited “deconstruction of racism in the danmei fandom” post. and lemme preface this by saying- i’m chinese-american. i’m nblm. i do, in fact, have the cultural and historical background to know what i am talking about. so let’s get into it. 

this is gonna be a long post, because we have a lot to talk about. first, racism doesn’t have to be as blatant as calling me a chink, or saying all asians look the same, or not wanting to consume asian media, or making ching chong jokes.racism can be as subtle towards asians as it can towards any other race. if you think i shouldn’t have to say that, join the club, bc same. 

second, racism towards asians, especially in the west, has a long history of being overlooked and accepted. now, let’s talk about how racism dictates some of the takes you see in the fandom. firstly, what originally inspired this thread- the mxtx rumors and the jokes being made about her and censorship. now, obvs some ppl are gonna say that they were just jokes made in poor taste. and, sure. but they were jokes made in poor taste, steeped in racism. the jokes being made about mxtx going to jail happen bc ppl do not view her as a real person. not rlly. she’s an author, sure, the author of one of their favorite novels, but she’s not, like. a person with thoughts and feelings and a life. and that sort of casual lack of humanhood and agency given to danmei authors is rooted in the severely racist dehumanization of asians that’s prevalent in the west. this is something that can be seen other places, too- a good example being when parasite was notably nominated for every oscar category *except* the acting ones. 

it’s this lack of personhood, this lack of agency, that allows ppl to have takes like “censorship isn’t actually bad, and here’s why”. yes, this is a real take that i saw. this take argues that the cql is better than mdzs, bc it is “softer and less graphic”. in general, a lot of ppl have the take that mxtx’s works in particular are too graphic, with problematic sexual elements. now, i’ve talked before about how that’s a homophobic take bc gay relationships should also be allowed to be messy. but it’s also deeply entrenched in racism. it’s why white gays can have the take “this is Problematique and here’s why” and claim it’s not homophobic. 

racism against asians has long since created a trend of sexualizing them- thinking asian men are sexy while also removing their sexual agency. asian men can be sexy, but they can’t actually *have sex*. not explicitly. there’s a historical, real world element to this. “not fats no femmes no asians” could definitely be seen on ppls grindr profiles, back in the day. asians can be sexy, sure. look at kpop boys. but they can’t be sexual. they’re infantilized. they have to remain pure and wholesome, or they’re dragged as problematic and homophobic and fetishizing, a word that’s thrown around so often it’s practically lost meaning. fetishizing is my ex-bf telling me i’m sexy bc* i’m asian, it’s bl/yaoi fans approaching a gay couple on the bus and gushing over how “cute and yaoi they are.” fetishizing is *not* showing your 2 male main charas having explicit sex. if it is, then every white fan in danmei is fetishizing asians. 

but i digress- back to the point about racism. the fact that ppl can argue about censorship shows that they, as a whole, aren’t considering the ramifications of censorship on the literal country it exists in, and it’s citizens. i, obvs, do not live in china. but i’ve got relatives who do, and who did. i’ve got relatives who fled china. not everything is about you and the media you want to consume. and then, of course, there’s the casual racism. the everyday racism. the racism that lies in things like saying all the names are too similar and it’s hard to keep track of them. the racism in saying things like “i’m just here to have fun,,,like sure, i’d persevere through dostoevsky, but this is danmei”, as if danmei is somehow inferior, as if danmei isn’t meant to be critically engaged with, as if danmei doesn’t tackle and critically explore some of the deepest and darkest issues. 

asian media is often presented that way, from kung fu movies to danmei. there is a type of racism, of eurocentrism, that exists in the belief that western media has deeper, more engaging morals. asian media is more “fun”. asian media is almost entirely based on morals and deep thought, it’s just not based in western ones. for example, two of my favorite authors are haruki murakami and kazuo ishiguro. both are japanese authors, who’s works i’ve heard westerners describe as weird and without a point, when in fact they are simply telling stories with innately eastern asian morals and teachings. it’s the same type of racism that causes ppl to make jokes about asian food, to not view it as a craft the same way they do french food. it’s asian- it must be “less than”, be inferior, be inherently not worth as much. 

casual racism about asians is normalized, which isn’t a word i use often. it’s normalized to the point where ppl don’t even realize they have that sort of implicit bias, and we know ppl don’t rlly come on the internet to think critically. but unintentional racism is still racism. it still has an impact, still does damage. ppl need to think intentionally and critically in how they consume and interact with media not made for them, but they don’t, instead choosing to come in with their preexisting biases, and bc of that, it’s easy for fandom members to dismiss the cultural concerns of chinese ppl within the fandom. it’s easy, for example, to say “calling them martial brothers is incest apologism”, ignoring the inherent cultural roots of martial brothers. 

now, we’re gonna get in to the current “drama”. i do not ship chengxian. i think that even bears repeating. i Do Not ship chengxian. i have written them, in a modern au, as adopted brothers. but there is a real historical and culture relevance to the idea of martial brothers, of community, that westerners willfully refuse to hear, claiming instead that “you’re disregarding adopted families!” no. that’s not what’s happening at all. what’s happening is ppl are refusing to look at their own, western bias, and placing western values on an eastern idea. community raising of children, community family bonds without being adopted families, is important in east asian culture. there is a long history of community being whats important, and ppl don’t get that you can be a “communal/community family” without being considered familial. jyl choosing to view wwx as her brother, bc he is a martial brother, and chengxian being in love, are things that can technically coexist. whether or not you choose to perceive them as such, refusing to acknowledge the real history of martial brothers, and scremaing “incest apologism” whenever someone tries to explain it, is inherently racist. it’s you assuming you know my culture better than me. it’s you assuming your western ideas are the only ones that exist. which is, at its core, the basis for most racism in the danmei fandom.