yeah pretty much. you've summed up my thoughts pretty well, and the most recent thing about tiktok getting banned in the us and everyone jumping to xhs encapsulates that entire attitude of like china being treated as this mystical "other" land or something. it's really tiring, tbh. we really cannot be normal about east asian media and especially chinese media, huh.

i don't really have much else to say. what else is there to say? i'm bitter and frustrated, but like i'm only one person, and chinese at that. it's really hard being of chinese descent in a hoyo/danmei fandom bc it's such a double edged sword: if you have some knowledge about the historical & cultural context that these media are created under, people expect you to be an expert and will tear you to shreds if you get anything even slightly wrong. meanwhile non-chinese-speaking people will pull shit out of their ass with only a cursory google/wikipedia search and double down when informed that they are wrong. and people rush to defend them! it's immensely frustrating seeing people whose first exposure to chinese culture & history be through a gacha game or a danmei webnovel act like they're experts on this. meanwhile chinese diaspora struggle to reconnect with their heritage and learn chinese again.

but oh well. it is what it is, there's not much else to say about it.

for sure, people like to make so many comparisons between hoyo ships and danmei, especially with hsr jingrenheng, as they are all from the xianzhou luofu aka space china... but like. danmei just means "boys love" in chinese. it's just a genre of webnovel. it's all inherently, explicitly romantic BECAUSE THATS THE ENTIRE GENRE. hoyoverse games are an entirely different medium and thus are not comparable.

the genshin -> tgcf pipeline has absolutely poisoned the well because people conflate "danmei" with "xianxia" even more so now and also use danmei as like a point of reference for ALL chinese media when... danmei IN CHINA ITSELF is considered niche and weird and honestly illegal/dangerous. authors can and do still get arrested for writing it.

also for sure about the social control aspect too, i mean that's why all the daily/hourly/whatever gimmick accounts are so dogshit. people compete to be the first to make those because they just want to dictate how the character/ship is interpreted. the shift in genshin fandom specifically when sumeru dropped was bc of haikaveh specifically (i love them dearly but also. yeah.) and then it just carried over to hsr bc the same people jumped ship.

ayyy fellow tumblr vet, i wasn't ever actually in voltron fandom but i was in an adjacent one at the time (steven universe) and i was watching all the shit happen from the sidelines, so i'm not actually familiar with the term TJLC but i assume it was the "anti" group

oh anon it's always been like this with genshin and hsr. it was doomed from the start :')

as for why hoyo specifically, i have a 6 point theory on how this came to be ahahaHA...
1) genshin launched in sept 2020, aka during covid lockdown, aka everyone was cooped up at home and stuck with going online for their social needs
2) it's a lot of people's first fandom
3) it's a lot of people's first gacha game
4) it's a lot of people's first in-depth exposure to east asian media and chinese media specifically
5) the fanbase skews younger
6) it started on twitter. enough said.

the proship/anti nonsense and other trends in fandom behaviors had been going on for a few years at that point (coughs in voltron) but genshin really catapulted fandom into the mainstream. large numbers of new people were joining who had zero experience with fandom before, especially younger people, and bc of the way twitter is, they didn't get the same exposure to previous fandom norms about like shipping or interacting with other fans, etc. and now we have the worst toxic cesspit of a fandom you will ever encounter.

i started playing genshin dec 2020, 3 months after launch, and the fandom already had a Reputation by that point. and honestly genshin is patient zero much like voltron is, in that any and all hoyoverse titles going forward will become equally bad if not worse because people keep jumping ship from game to game.

and yeah, it's really unfortunate. despite hoyo's issues with character design and the inherent predatory nature of a gacha system, they still do make genuinely good games and people enjoy them for a reason. i still love hsr dearly, but i just can't deal with the fans anymore.

hi anon! thank you so much for supporting me the past year and a half, it means a lot to me!! i'm sad to say goodbye too, but i really think hsr isn't a place for me anymore. i love jrh dearly and always will and i'm glad for all the people i've met through hsr, but they've also caused me a lot of pain and these days i can barely make myself write anything.

about ship discourse... for the most part i don't talk about it on main besides some vague references to it, but oh man my priv is absolute rage AHAHA it's just so aneurysm inducing bc it's the same shit over and over again.

but enough negativity :') i'm glad you enjoyed my works!! i will not be taking them down because i really did enjoy making them, but i will no longer be updating any multichapter works or posting new things. there are two things i want to finish (rewrite of street racing au pt 1 & jy yearning hrs fic) but otherwise i think i am moving on towards clearer skies. thanks for being here, and hope you'll stick around!! <3

oooohhhh good question!! hehehe gremlin cackles

i think jing yuan is a bit of a brat in bed, it lets him stop thinking and feel younger and less like a weary old man. he mostly does this with blade regardless of who tops lmao and blade falls for it every time bc it also helps him feel more human and less like an abomination. with dan heng i think jing yuan would wait a bit until they're more settled in the relationship before he starts letting this side of him show. ALSO a hc that my friends made that i rly like was that jing yuan is absolutely a pillow princess and falls asleep if he bottoms so dh and blade have to force him to top LMAOOO

blade and dh either have the most nasty disrespectful kinky sex or they are cuddling. there is no in between 😂 /hj lmaooo sometimes blade needs to vent his more destructive tendencies and sometimes he just needs someone else to take control and wants to suffer. dh is more likely to oblige than jy, so when blade's mara flares up he tends to seek out dh

also something something blade & jing yuan thighfucking. HAVE U SEEN THEM???? BRO. dh loves their thighs JGKLSJLKS

hi anon! tbh i never really thought about selfcest before getting into hsr and in my early days i didn't really care for it much? but then ichor of two dragons came out and dan feng's design got revealed and i read some rly good fics and so i was like, ok i can be convinced bc i think of dan feng and dan heng as separate entities (its more complicated than that but ykwim) and then later i read yingren fics by a friend and was like ok.... i can be convinced.

so i do actually enjoy yingren and fengheng!! yingren is really interesting bc as we know yingxing has been called arrogant multiple times, and it was that hubris that led to his involvement in the sedition with dan feng (and whatever the fuck they did bc hoyo REFUSES TO TELL US), so i wonder how ren feels about his former self? does he hate him? does he resent who he used to be? or does he pity him? this is a question that is also very personal to me bc i self-reflect on my own life a little too much sjgklsds

fengheng i see a lot of nasty smut for, which is completely understandable (bc instead of one dragon twink now we have TWO dragon twinks!) and i do enjoy that sometimes but i think there's also a lot of potential for like different relationship dynamics that could happen. bc dan heng was reborn and then forcefully injected with dan feng's memories, so he knows those do not belong to him.

-- OKAY HELP I WAS ANSWERING YOUR ASK THEN I REALIZED THE THING ABOVE ABOUT DH BEING INJECTED WITH DF MEMORIES AND THEN I MESSAGED MY JRH SERVER ABT THIS REALIZATION AND THEN WE GOT COMPLETELY SIDTRACKED TALKING AND THEN SOMEHOW ENDED UP AT DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY ASGJKLSDJL

WAIT THAT EXISTS???? holy shit what. i’m ngl though the only two yanqing ships that i enjoy are with yunli or jing yuan (and fixed yanjing. my one and only fixed ship)

BUT HONESTLY I FEEL LIKE BLADE WOULD SEE HIMSELF IN YANQING ?? the like drive to prove himself and the arrogance of being the best from his yingxing days. a lot of interesting potential there (for me not in a romantic way but maybe for you it is lol)

ALSO bc you brought up jingliu i have to mention now: i have a like modern au version of jingliu training blade via stabbing him on the back burner. aka my jingliu/blade toxic bdsm sex fic. blame alyssa for that one bc we were talking about the fact that blade moans when he gets hit in cn dub and like his character stories in the jrh server and then alyssa was like “all i’m saying is that a modern au version would be her pegging him.” and then a lightbulb went off in my head and now i have 500 words of this monstrosity. this is also not romantic. this is purely in a sexual way BECAUSE I THINK ITS FUN AND INTERESTING. the basic premise of this is like self flagellation for both of them. anyways that’ll get finished… eventually……

TY FOR THE ASK THOUGH. I LIKE THINKING ABOUT CHARACTER RELATIONSHIPS.

YEAHHHHH omg. yingxing who once swore revenge on the abundance who is now infected with the power of abundance, and yet luocha has taken his place?? by jing yuan's side???

also idk if spider lilies have a scent but like both ren and luocha just like. leave behind flowers everywhere they go and OOOOH the contrast between them bc ren absolutely hates it and luocha is like okay with it... one signifies death and the other life... YESSS

this is such a fun headcanon though, being able to smell luocha before you see him. idk exactly what kind of flower he holds in his idle animation but YEAHHH intriguing

also 1.4 jingliu companion quest ren was ABSOLUTELY JEALOUS LMFAO i don't have a recording of it saved but i need to find one on bilibili and watch it again BECAUSE LUOCHA SOUNDED SO FLIRTY AND WHEN REN INTERRUPTED IT WAS SO FUNNY SJKSDL

honestly i am also a minor luoren fan bc like. why does luocha have a voiceline when you add him to a team with blade, and why is it "shame. i can't give you the burial that you seek." LIKE??? DID HE LEARN ABOUT THIS FROM JINGLIU?? WHATS THE CONTEXT OF THIS??? so basically, i think jing yuan, luocha, and ren should all hatefuck each other. thank u for coming to my ted talk.

INTERESTING DYNAMIC TBH that four star light cone is so :eyes_emoji: because like jing yuan's been aware of luocha for a while, but unsure of what his real motives are... and luocha is a repeat visitor of the luofu, so it's very curious what jing yuan already knows.

and then that 1.3 cutscene!! very sexy hahaha jing yuan youre so sexy when you're mad ;)

also 1.4 jingliu companion quest luocha's voice sounds so flirty for no reason. listen zhao lu i know you voice a lot of otome games but please omg

also just like the inherent angst of like jing yuan who is one of lan's arrows, and luocha who holds the power of abundance coming together like that. i once saw a fanart that was like NSFW WARNING where jy is fucking luocha and luocha is desperately whispering under his breath and clutching his necklace and jing yuan is like, "praying to your god? interesting" and OOOOH THAT MADE THE BRAINWORMS LIGHT UP. ahem. anyways. children avert ye eyes

overall i think the kind of battle of wits could be really cool!! ty for asking, anon

YELLING SDHJGKSD omg anon you're brutal. but truly... dan heng and ren have loved each other, hated each other, and now are ??? about each other.... and like it's hard to wipe away the long history between them, the betrayals and lies, that even though they may have accepted each other's existence, it can't go back to the way it was before...

and jing yuan is like "can you get along? for me?" while giving them the saddest pleading eyes omg and they're like... ok, fine (dan heng agrees almost immediately. blade closes his eyes and desperately chokes out a "yes"). and like over the years, they come to care for each other again, perhaps affection... because jing yuan waited for them!! he was always there!!! in fact it's been so long that they really can't imagine a luofu without jing yuan now.

but their time has always been too short, and oh, jing yuan knows that so painfully. he's happy they came back to see him, but the flutter of mara in his head, the memories that he's worked so long to suppress, they come tumbling back to the surface when he sees dan heng play with his finches, and blade practicing in the courtyard. and he sees flashes of the people they used to be overlaid their present selves. and then it gets worse. he hears their voices when they aren't there. he can't differentiate between dream and memory and reality. he needs to be touched a lot to ground him in reality. and then...

he becomes fully marastruck, but not violently. rather, he calls for blade and dan heng, and they hold him, and slowly gingko leaves grow and grow until they are only clutching empty air and leaves, fluttering away in the wind and his ribbon slowly drifting to the ground.

blade takes starfall reverie with him and dan heng takes the ribbon and returns to the astral express, and both of them think they can keep going as they used to live, but now...

the archives room is too cold now. dan heng tosses and turns, feeling the phantom warmth of arms around him and feeling safe.

blade throws himself into slaying abominations but he's forgotten what it was like to fight solo, without jing yuan covering his back. he keeps feeling the prickle of lightning behind him and turns to find no one.

ok anyways this got too long ty anon you're brutal and you made me sad and then i made myself even sadder. this is a beautiful idea ty for sharing!!!

aaaaAAAAAAAA dan heng seeing blade's gentle side for the first time.... like genuinely blade is so kind still when he's not marastruck (have u seen that one chart that someone made of like "insanity of blade" vs "proximity to dh" LMAO i can't find it again but ITS OUT THERE SOMEWHERE)

but anyways omg do you think ren ever gets like frustrated when his hands won't do what he wants and the braid comes out uneven and lopsided and jing yuan just like takes his hands and presses gentle kisses all over them bc to him even though blade has become this, he's still the same gentle soul that was once yingxing and jing yuan cherishes what he can create, even though his hands have become scarred and disfigured...

and dan heng is like, "this is so familiar... but are these feelings my own? or are they remnants of dan feng's ghost living in me??" and he wrestles with that for a long time until he eventually figures out that, yes, he would like to get to know the jing yuan and ren of the present..... thank u anon ;-; this is so cute and tender and i love it so much