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Snowflake Challenge #5
In your own space, promote a canon/talk about a part of canon that you love.
Well, I'm gonna talk about MDZS, obviously. I started with the live action canon (The Untamed on Netflix, CQL in Chinese) because obviously pretty boys with long hair is my thing. I then read the book (it's based on an internet boy love novel), then watched the donghua, have had a hard time finding the manhua, but would like to read it, and listened to some of the audio novel. I've heard arguments for why any version of canon is better than any other, and they all obviously have their high and low points. I like the visuals of CQL; I like the complexity of the novel; the art of the donghua (and what I've seen of the manhua); and the verisimilitude of the audio drama to the novel. I don't like how Wei Wuxian is less morally grey in CQL, some of the terrible effects, or the fact that it's so obviously censored; I'm not in love with the sex scenes in the novel (no moral objections, they're just not my thing); the donghua seems a bit weirdly paced?; manhua and audio drama are both difficult formats for me, attention-wise.
I don't mind people having a favorite version, but there's a lot of forceful feelings about it, and objections to other people's favorite version and I just... am not here for that. I don't care what other people like, LET THEM HAVE WHAT THEY LIKE. They aren't hurting anyone. I can like what I like over here. I mean - it's like, here's this cool thing! You can enjoy it as a cake, pudding, trifle, pie, or fruit salad. Why is having more versions of something anything less than absolutely fucking fantastic? I dunno. So anyway, no matter your medium, MDZS has a hook for you!
Now the canon itself in general is amazing because of the amazing political backdrop and plot that pervades what is essentially a love story. It is angsty up to eleven and I definitely cried in multiple places. I was also angry on behalf of the characters and frustrated... it definitely tapped into all of my emotions. Add into that really great family structures and relationships, a huge cast with characters that are all pretty well-developed and interesting, and it's just really great. I'll admit it takes some wherewithal to stick with it for the first couple of episodes, especially if you do not speak Chinese and have not seen a C Drama before, but I promise it is worth it. (And oh my GOD do not let anyone convince you that you can skip the first two episodes. NO. DO NOT SKIP. You will be lost 90-95% of the time, and that's fine! Teach yourself patience and the ability to go without knowing, it will be explained later, and when you go back and watch those episodes afterwards, you will be going O_______O - but not if you skipped them the first time around.)
Once you get into it a ways, there are a TON of resources in the fandom, so you can go looking for names/titles/clans etc. and find fairly exhaustive resources, and then there are a bunch of more detailed resources around hanfu, the timeline, Chinese customs and holidays, and pretty much anything you might need to research to produce fan content. Ahem. I'm just saying.
So anyway. The Untamed. I love love love it. I would love to earn my toaster by getting people into it, but I keep running into people from old fandoms that have joined CQL/MDZS so that's kind of amazing, actually. :D
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I didn't know they were all the same story- or I assume they are all telling the same story, just with different emphases? To be quite honest, I thought (for what reasons, I have no idea) that The Untamed was the fictional canon and MDZS was a C-Pop band that provided the actors in it, so MDZS was RPS? IDEK.
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There is an acronym for the RPF of the two lead actors, BJYX, and they are each part of Cpop bands (UNIQ for Wang Yibo (combination Cpop and Kpop) and XNINE for Xiao Zhan). Lots of acronyms, and lots of stuff to try and sort out. But yeah, there are just a ton of versions of the main canon which is pretty cool. :D
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This fandom made me realize that "tragedy, but with a happy ending" was actually all what I needed.
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You mentioned MDZS in the snowflake challenge's post and I had to come and read! I have been only on the periphery of fandom so haven't seen any forceful opinions, but I agree with you that there is something for everything and there's no need to compare what's better or whatnot. Each adaptation has its strengths and adds something to canon.
My interpretation of MDZS is a hybric of novel/cql, like sometimes I'll vaccilate between wwx having his own body or not.
Re: manhua, here's where I follow it (translated): https://ww2.mangakakalots.com/manga/ol917885 It has some dodgy looking ads but I've trained myself to ignore them lol. Enjoy!
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But yeah, it's one of a few major differences between the book and the live action and I use CQL mostly because I'm mostly familiar with it, but I do prefer some of the characterization of the novel for sure.
Thank you so much for that manhua link!!! I'm going right now!
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Haha, 100% agreed - those two eps were what hooked me. I would never have got through the interminable "school days at the Cloud Recesses" episodes otherwise; those are my absolute least favourite part of the drama.
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I enjoy the Cloud Recesses stuff, but mostly because I adore wee Wen Ning and I get a bit of a Jiang Yanli/Wen Qing vibe that I'm big into. I don't mind the cutesy WangXian, either, so it's fine for me. But I also love high school and college AUs, so. :)
My least favorite part of the drama is actually the Xiao Xingchen, Xue Yang, and A'Jing part of the storyline. I enjoy the juniors and the "current timeline" parts of Yi City, but I never really got super into the flashback for it. I like them all well enough, it's just kind of 'meh' for me.
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I don't like young Wei Wuxian much - his behaviour while he has no idea Lan Wangji even likes him hits some personal buttons, and I find it difficult to watch. But yeah, I wasn't really into the Yi City flashback either. My favourite parts of the story are all the non-flashback parts. *g*
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That's fair, I can very much understand his behavior being distressing. I always feel bad when I hear people say stuff like that, because I am very like Wei Wuxian in that way, and very much interacted with people like he did when I was in high school and college. I almost always made a beeline for the shyest person in the room and tried to talk to them. It also worked for us, most of the people I did that with became good friends. But now that I'm older and I often want to be alone and not interact, I find that if someone came over to do that to me, I'd be annoyed (so I understand the sentiment that Wei Wuxian is rude and annoying). Either I lucked out, where I picked people who wanted to be more social and didn't have the capacity, or, similar to Lan Zhan, they got over their annoyance with me and came to like me anyway.
I have lots of conflicting feels about this, too, it's pretty tough to live with the difference between my general belief system now (that everyone is allowed to interact in the way they want and that should be respected) and my behavior then (which, because it worked out for me, is hard to condemn - I would be out many good friends if I had just left them alone like they wanted (and I think they would say the same)). Some contradictions are tough to just live with.
ANYWAY, I agree, the non-flashback parts are the best of all of it! I am partial to them because I love the juniors, but the intervening years has matured all the characters so there is more depth, which is nice.
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Yeah, the problem is - it can work really well if the more introverted person actually likes the other! I would be fine with it if Wei Wuxian wasn't so convinced Lan Wangji hated him; that's what tips it over for me. I mean, I highly doubt you thought you were harrassing someone who hated you!
But yeah, definitely a complicated situation all around.
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It may be a book thing; I haven't read it in over a year now, so my memory of it is fuzzy. The way it is in my head (and no idea where this is from, could be fanon, could be from some remembered part of the book that overlaps with CQL, could be completely made up because I identify with Wei Wuxian): everyone tells Wei Wuxian all the time that he's annoying and people hate him and he's overly familiar so he just assumes that's true. The thing IS - Wei Wuxian actually has more sense than that. He HAS to, from his time on the streets. He has to be truly aware of people's feelings if he doesn't want to get beaten or shooed off or whatever. (This pings my "I'm adopted so I feel rejection EXTREMELY keenly and often know it happens ever before the person rejecting me does" thing.)
So my feeling is that Wei Wuxian is fully aware that Lan Wangji doesn't hate him (I mean, in CQL, it's obvious to me that Lan Wangji doesn't, and it's obviously clear to Lan Xichen), but everyone else tells him they think Lan Wangji does (in CQL both Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng tell him so) and he's got a massive (probably unrecognized) crush on Lan Wangji, and doesn't know what else to do, because all he wants is for Lan Wangji to pay attention to him.
I think if I ever went up to someone and had the feeling that it really just made them uncomfortable or angry, I would leave. But it always felt like surprise to me. Like no one ever bothered to do this, and they had to figure things out for themselves, so I just do what I do until they figure it out, and I always assumed if, after figuring it out, they still didn't want me hanging around, they'd give me clues to that effect. SO ANYWAY. I'm trying not to feel the need to justify myself but failing pretty hard at that, sorry, bb. :( If it helps, I'm better about this now (not to mention generally a more private person). <3
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For Wei Wuxian, I'm pretty sure in the book he does thinks Lan Wangji hates him. If I'm misremembering, my bad! (But he's massively more oblivious overall, in the novel, including towards his own feelings.) In CQL it was clear after a couple episodes that Lan Wangji did like him, but those first episodes were excruciating to me because a) I couldn't tell at first, and moreover b) my impression was definitely that Wei Wuxian couldn't tell.
Anyway, this is a very subjective impression of a character's impression of another, pretty difficult-to-read character, so it's probably not surprising there are different takes, LOL.
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Yeah, I remember novel!Wei Wuxian being more oblivious, too. Instead of covering with a smile, like in CQL, he literally forces himself to forget. His bad memory is definitely more present in the book.
Anyway, this is a very subjective impression of a character's impression of another, pretty difficult-to-read character, so it's probably not surprising there are different takes, LOL. Truth. And now I want to watch it again to look at it more closely from this perspective.
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Plus, which fandom can say that of its canon? This reminds me of the 'more cake' comic about creator anxiety. In essence, more cake is good!
I haven‘t watched it though after Guardian a lot of my flist fell into it. The part about being lost in the first episodes really remind me of my experience with Nirvana in Fire, another highly recommended Cdrama. Only then, it was about the first 10 episodes of the 54. They kept adding new characters without explaining! But it was SO SO worth it.
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It's pretty funny, there is a really interesting relationship between Guardian and CQL - I know a lot of people watched Guardian while they were casting about after CQL for something to watch. It's the first C drama I watched after I couldn't watch CQL one more time, and I was surprised to get into it as much as I did! I really love Zhu Yilong and also found family/team so Guardian really hit me in a lot of my feels. I haven't read the book for Guardian so I often feel like I'm missing something in the fic, but I do enjoy it. On the other hand I've only seen a handful of Guardian fans in CQL space; possibly it's just because I'm in weird spaces in these fandoms. I don't do twitter, so I miss a lot. :/
I have a friend watching Nirvana in Fire right now! She really likes it, so I will probably get around to it eventually. I went on to several others after that, a lot of them following actors of the shows I liked. I've watched a fair amount of C dramas at this point, actually, and I enjoy them all, but I haven't gotten fannishly attached to any of them in the same way as CQL.