cashew | I remain ambivalent to fandom (Reply)

Although technically two works, is practically Part I/Part II of the same story.

General setup: Imperial drama AU, featuring crown prince Dan Feng, adopted male princess Dan Heng, royal nephew Jing Yuan being sandwiched and pulled around by these two while trying to keep the politics from brewing into a bloodbath as factions split the empire.

Pros:

Heavy on the drama and plot advancement.
Very poetic descriptions.
An "if back court drama got brought to the front court" type of story set up is kind of fun to read.
An absolute mess of presumed unrequited love in every direction leading to melodrama that gets exacerbated by the imperial family succession politics.
Dan Feng is an asshole and makes everyone's lives miserable. Glad to see someone not sympathetic to the guy.
Dan Heng suffering his jealousy quietly. I enjoy emotional torture of Dan Heng more than I probably should.
Jing Yuan kicking ass, taking names, half-dying every other scene trying to salvage the situation. I rarely like to torture characters I like, but man I love to see Jing Yuan suffer in this way. It makes his triumphs that much sweeter after each major upheaval.
Jing Yuan gets to play the socially masculine role for once, being referred to as the "husband"...

Cons:

Jing Yuan still bottoms and also gets pregnant, despite being the husband. WTF Chinese fans?
The change from poetic expression to suddenly vulgar smut is...jarring to say the least. Definitely laughed out loud a few times because it's so ridiculous.
Smut is overall un-sexy. Do not like.

So, was talking out this symptom of poor JY constantly being made to bottom regardless of his ship partners (WHY IS HE BOTTOMING TO YAN QING WHAT IS HAPPENING?!), and I've come to the conclusion Chinese authors just cannot conceptualize how a non-toxic, non-violent man tops during sex. Like...what is wrong with this country? Apparently happy consensual sex is unimaginable. Or just not kinky enough...

Meanwhile, I think I found one fic of JY topping, but like...it's very...meh. So...anyway.

On the more canon side of things, I'm highly amused at this line from JY's personal story: "景元出生于世代效力地衡司的家族中……家长会在幼儿周围摆上种种物事玩具任其抓取，以卜前途。其父母原本指望孩子继承衣钵，成为地衡司的学者或是执事官，景元却独独抓起了玩具刀剑。"

One, confirmation that Xianzhou people do have family units and babies are not popped out of petri dishes. Two, JY comes from a civil officer family, so him going down the martial path...man, that shit is ripe for angst and drama, but also explains JY's temperament.

Like...gah, this guy. He's basically every awesome Chinese hero archetype squished into one person. It's like...if you took 诸葛亮, 赵云, 岳飞, 包公 and threw their traits into a blender, this is the guy that comes out. (诸葛亮's tactical genius, 赵云's beauty and battle prowess, 岳飞's leadership and self-sacrifice, 包公's political savvy and moral compass...add to that his Buddha level zen at approaching basically everything...🥰😍) Maybe fans just have no idea how to deal with him on a fic level.

Edit to add: The more I'm reading into Imbibitor Lunae's character dialogue clips, the more I'm questioning "does Dan Heng actually like JY (as a friend or otherwise) or is that just like...pure civility?" Because man he is cooooold. He seems to at least have slightly more emotion when talking about Blade, whereas with JY, he's just kind of ... "meh, not my problem".

Edit to add 2: Dan Heng's clothes has a line from the poem that inspired JY's weapon. Dan Heng is a tsundere confirmed. HE'S TRYING TO WEAR THE GUY'S WEAPON, OMFG YOU LOSER!