Does Not Obey the Laws of Physics

【景恒/景枫】红妆
Drunk sex. BE.

Pros:

• Super sweet and gentle TOP!Jing Yuan. I don't even have words for how much I want gentle top to exist in this freaking ship.

• Young!Jing Yuan behaving like an adult for the most part.

• Dan Feng is a demanding bottom, lol.

Cons:

• Not clear why this fic is tagged with Dan Heng since he doesn't appear in the story.

• Pacing a bit too slow.

• Mangina...

I've basically resigned myself to reading pseudo het-smut because apparently gay butt sex is beyond this fandom's ability. (Seriously do not even try to excuse this with trans id pol talking points. There is nothing trans-inclusive when writers slap a vagina on a male presenting character when nothing else in the story deals with gender politics.)

In other news, I've started watching 御赐小仵作(The Imperial Coroner) in an attempt to find a silly period drama with slashfic potential. While I'm enjoying the silly show (even the really bland cliché het romance is mildly amusing) and find the mystery deduction stuff genuinely engaging, the slash ship (瑜翊) is even less popular than 景枫. Shockingly, I think the writing of HSR fic is actually better on average.

Seems like I'm better off sticking to HSR and 景枫/景恒 to satisfy the craving...

For now though, giving Imperial Coroner a recommendation for being a fun mystery. Romance is standard, but the mystery is pretty satisfying.

Edit to add: OK, I'm at episode 11 and the romance is starting to get in the way of the mystery. I don't understand why writers are always failing at writing when romance is involved.

Having given up on 御赐小仵作 in disgust, I've moved on to 君子盟(League of Nobleman) (sic). The show has no female lead, thus no romance, and is significantly better both in terms of acting and writing. It's really a sad state of affairs in pulp entertainment when shows can't seem to figure out how to write a decent story featuring a female lead. It absolutely sucks for women right now.

Also annoyed a bit when I realized while watching 君子盟 that if the main dective was re-casted as a woman, the show will still work just fine. When are writers going to figure out all you have to do to write good female leads is write them exactly as you would write male characters?

【景元x丹枫】枫落无声
Filler fic, mostly focusing on Quintet era, BE.

Pros:

• Heeeey, someone decided to do something with Jing Yuan's self-sacrificing nature.

• Jingliu ordering Jing Yuan to fight Dan Feng on their first meeting. XD

• Hurt-comfort!

• Dan Feng pissy about Jing Yuan being good at predicting him.

• War logistics!

Cons:

• Unrequited romance.

• BE

• Don't really agree with the assertion that the only reason Dan Heng saved Jing Yuan was because of past life's muscle memory. I feel like gratitude alone should motivate Dan Heng to save the guy who saved his life, what with him being a heroic character and all...

【景恒】情有独钟
Imperial AU; Grow up, go to war, get married. WAFF.

Pros:

• Very good writing

• No random feminization of either character

• Interesting integration of Luofu names into Imperial setting

• WAFF

Cons:

• I feel like this story is more suited to Dan Feng than Dan Heng, especially when Dan Heng started using healing magic... NGL, definitely replaced Dan Heng with Dan Feng in my head as I was reading

【景恒】純情貓貓糕俏青龍
Cat cake Rice Dumpling falls in love with Jing Yuan and makes Dan Heng jealous.

Pros:

• Crack

• I'm so behind cat cake crushing on Jing Yuan, I need more cat cake pining

• Pining

• Jing Yuan TOPS! (Not that it actually matters for this fic...)

Cons:

• Jing Yuan feels slightly malicious... (minor complaint)

【景恒】请成年龙担负起成年龙的责任
Dan Heng trying to work up the nerve to have sex with Jing Yuan, during this process an accidental time travel three-weeks into the past happens and kinky porn is had.

Pros:

• Crack

• Jing Yuan TOPS

• Dan Heng turning into a full sized dragon during foreplay and destroying Jing Yuan's house

• 龙性本淫 😝

• Accidentally kinky

Cons:

• Mangina... although this time there's also a plot justification, so it's just more an eye roll at the trope rather than becoming a peeve

• I don't buy Jing Yuan would disregard his bed partner's request to stop, I don't care how "turned on" he is in the moment

名声最败坏的时期
Dan Feng gets his period. Reputations (and clothes) are ruined.

Pros:

• Crack

• Meaningful female genitalia on masculine presenting characters!!! This is when mangina is justified!

• Frantic Jing Yuan and Teng Xiao consulting the internet for menstrual cramps advice

• Dan Feng just wants the cramps to stop

• Baiheng brought pads! Jingliu did not...

• Jing Yuan is older than Dan Feng!

Cons:

• Mood whiplash at the end with Dan Heng

Also, I'm noticing there's been a slow trickle of 景元/椒丘 fic. Yay!

【景枫/景恒】半面妆

Locked in a room that can only open after sex trope. Emotional torture porn.

Pros:

• Jing Yuan tops!

• Biologically male bottom!Dan Feng!

• Gentle emotional sex!

• Emotionally torturing Jing Yuan for the entire PWP!

• Talking awkwardly about feels and still not being able to resolve anything because they'll just forget about everything as soon as they leave the room!

• Self-sacrificing Jing Yuan's biggest concern is making Dan Feng comfortable (both physically and emotionally)!

• Dan Feng has no fucking clue what happens in the future but can tell Jing Yuan is suffering. Maaaaangst.

• Metioning Jing Yuan's 300-years long military campaign backstory during the 721 year time gap. (I cannot find English references to this, so here in this Chinese article, screencaps show 青镞 explaining that Jing Yuan had to leave Mimi behind for 300 years after being sent out on a military campaign and, when he came back, an aged Mimi walked up to him and died in his arms. 〒▽〒 WTF miHoyo, what's your problem?! — But also, 300 YEAR MILITARY CAMPAIGN. So much angst!)

Cons:

• References to Jing Yuan being a kid during Quintet era... boo.

I...I like this fic. I can even forgive the minor drawbacks because holy shit, I love this emotional torture porn. Of course, the super tragic aspect is that despite the feelings being returned, all of this is will just get re-set back to the status quo, so no actual progression of the relationship.

Was it worth digging through literal hundreds of crappy fic for this? Um... I don't know but this fic makes me happy.

A slight follow up to the Mimi backstory: Since there's canon confirmation that Jing Yuan was leading a military campaign that lasted 300 years as the general, I think it's pretty reasonable to assume that the Cloud Knights are actually kept pretty busy. If they're not defending themselves, then they're out there pre-emptively fighting something. So my headcanon persists that the "peaceful" years Luofu experienced is not "no active military campaigns" so much as "no invasions from enemies", but the Cloud Knights are engaged in a prolonged external war to keep the enemies at bay and too busy to organize an invasion of Luofu.

In other words, the Cloud Knights have been fighting this whole time. It's just the fighting was moved off of Luofu rather than taking place on Luofu while Jing Yuan was the general. It also makes more sense for the Xianzhou people to be in a relatively constant state of war, because why the hell else would they maintain such expensive war machines if they didn't have constant on-going military operations? Given the immensely high militarization of Luofu, it's hard to imagine they've been living "in peace". Also, I've noticed the Chinese descriptions actually never used "peace" to describe Luofu under Jing Yuan's leadership. They used things like "prosperity", "supremacy", or "stability".