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Hi there! I wanted to ask you a question
I noticed that some authors have Luo Binghe use both "yuan-ge" and "a-yuan" for Shen Yuan (in modern au) . So I was wondering:
1) Is this something that can happen in real life?
2) Would Luo Binghe be the person to address Shen Yuan like that (regardless of propriety)?
Hi there anon! To answer your questions:
1) It’s possible, just not very likely. Both are sort of weird addresses for your typical modern au. The “Ah” prefix is largely regional and can be sort of dated sounding to the majority of the mandarin speaking world, and “yuan-ge” is just a strange thing to call a romantic interest. It’s like calling your lover “bro”. I’m sure there are people who do that, but it’s just not a very typical thing. I can’t remember where I brought this up before—easiest way to explain, is to imagine “yuan-ge” as a cross between “yuan-sama” and “yuan-dawg” 🤣
2) I think it really depends on the context of their relationship. A typical Bingmei would probably say “yuan-gege” instead. A lot of people do just call their lover by their formal names, so you might not even need a diminutive
I'm posting all my svsss rimworld updates on a side blog to avoid spamming this one with those dumb posts lol. Things have been getting... interesting
I haven't been online as much lately, and when I finally got a moment to sit down I ended up spending the whole day making the sv cast in Rimworld because I found a collection of cultivation mods that turns the whole game into xianxia silliness.
(If you aren't already familiar with the title, Rimworld is a sandbox game where you manage a group of little pawns in a brutal colony building simulator where literally nothing is off the table. Wanna human stick a pawn? The game says go ahead. You might even be able to turn a profit reselling body parts...)
So I lost Sunday to Rimworld as well...
Bingqiu pawns are officially engaged!! Proposing in the rain smh
Sorry about all the Rimworld spam, I think I'm becoming obsessed. Today we had a Bingqiu wedding!
You might wonder, where is everyone and why is there a random pawn attending.
The random pawn just happens to be staying in town for a quest. As for where everyone else went, we have to back up a couple of days...
I haven't been online as much lately, and when I finally got a moment to sit down I ended up spending the whole day making the sv cast in Rimworld because I found a collection of cultivation mods that turns the whole game into xianxia silliness.
(If you aren't already familiar with the title, Rimworld is a sandbox game where you manage a group of little pawns in a brutal colony building simulator where literally nothing is off the table. Wanna human stick a pawn? The game says go ahead. You might even be able to turn a profit reselling body parts...)
So I lost Sunday to Rimworld as well...
Bingqiu pawns are officially engaged!! Proposing in the rain smh
I haven't been online as much lately, and when I finally got a moment to sit down I ended up spending the whole day making the sv cast in Rimworld because I found a collection of cultivation mods that turns the whole game into xianxia silliness.
(If you aren't already familiar with the title, Rimworld is a sandbox game where you manage a group of little pawns in a brutal colony building simulator where literally nothing is off the table. Wanna human stick a pawn? The game says go ahead. You might even be able to turn a profit reselling body parts...)
Hello! I have a question about SJ extra. I've been pondering about what exactly QJL family's social status was. He obviously must have been from higher standing families, having authority to free SJ as a slave. But what perplexes me was a snippet where QJL said to Shiwu that "his family build this street" as a comeback to Shiwu.
Yet from what i know, building streets, roads, canal or other menial labour was reserved as a corvee duty for the common folk ( or at least during Han dynasty which is my main source of info). That said, I don't think it could be used as sorta 'gotcha' moment against Shiwu were that sentence be taken literally so i sorta theorize that maybe his family was part of magistrate or officials that lead the constructions? or something adjacent to it.
That said, is there any further context in original chinese novel on what kinda social status QJL had, whether it be by explicit/implied wording or even vibes? I would love to hear your opinion or even some of your own theories as well :D
Hi anon, this is an interesting question! I don't think his family physically participated in building the road. I assume he meant they funded/oversaw the construction of the town, by being either a large landowner and/or government official, maybe a bit like the landed gentry of Europe, though I also think he's trying very hard to overstate his own importance and is just being an ass. The "freeing a slave" thing feels more like a plot convenience than anything else; realistically speaking, I feel like the whole social heirachy would collapse if some rich kid could just go around freeing slaves for fun. In actual history this would be an extremely complicated process.
That being said, we don't really know how the sv world operates in terms of civilian governance. It feels like the sects all exist in a state of tribalistic anarchy, which is popular in this type of power fantasy stories because it makes it convenient for bingge to just do whatever he wants lol. As for QJL himself, it really seems to me that he is only notable on a very local level.
Hello! Let's say that in a made up scenario SY!SQQ get's doused with a truth serum-type powder that makes him voice out his inner thoughts. A word vomit side-efects where he voices out his internalized thoughts without filter.Soo... how would his internal-now-external thoughts would sound like other characters from svsss? Since he mostly uses slang and modern chinese as opposed to traditional, and how you described his internal commentary as a 'deranged twitter thread' if i remember correctly, then it would have to make some kind of impression on other people. Would his thoughts be seen completely incomprehensible to others or would they hear him talk and go " how vulgar/uncouth🫣"? Would they clutch their pearls or would they just be really confused?
Hi there anon, sorry this took a while! I feel like the language of the pidw world (operating under the assumption that airplane wrote it to be as accessible as possible) is pretty straight forward and already fairly modern. There's some old timey traditional speak here and there, but for the most part people talk normally. That being said, I do think if he went on a proper peerless cucumber rant people probably wouldn't be able to follow much of it; it'd all be "skibidi toilet ohio". This guy's internal monologue is so Extremely Online that I feel like even non-internet gremlins from his own world wouldn't be able to make sense of half the things he says. I don't think he sounds particularly vulgar, in the grand scheme of things, but it's going to be a shock because he's supposed to be THE aloof immortal. (Though I'm sure original sqq could do way worse, not that he'd ever find himself in that situation. Guy's probably got 20 different formulations of various antidotes ready to go at all times lolll)
Hello! May I ask, is Shen Qingqiu/Shen Jiu described as an exotic flower? I saw a Tumblr user raging about how this means Shen Jiu was extremely gorgeous instead of just being one of the many pretty people and how they're upset with the official translation, which apparently used the term eccentric fellow
Hi anon, sorry it took me a while to get back to you! I think the exotic flower thing is a misunderstanding of the word 奇葩, which just means "weirdo", or "lunatic". It's a very common slang term that nobody associates with the literal meaning of the characters.
Hello! I know you got a question about this, but in the new svsss, were there any significant changes to the Maigu Ridge scene in the climax? It’s the only sex scene I remember from the main story, so I wanted to see how it was changed. Also, were any of the original extras included, or were they all cut?
"Oh also, I found your comments about calling Binghe a little white flower instead of white lotus interesting, so I was wondering about a different scene. In the 100 question extra, when Shen Qingqiu can’t think of an animal to compare Binghe to, he calls him a Black Lotus in English. What does he say in Chinese? I also remember Binghe being confused, saying something like “do lotuses come in black?” Is he saying a specific flower or just flowers in general not being black?"
Hi anon! I don't have a copy the new print edition so I can't comment on exactly how far the censorship went. Afaik, the original extras are all included except for the nsfw stuff that was in the taiwan print edition (such as the marriage extra and wine extra).
Re. the interview extra, yes it does actually say "black lotus" in Chinese, a play on the more derogatory "white lotus" term. The joke is that lbh has no idea what he means and thinks its a compliment lol
Came across an edit of the untamed and it struck me how even then the actors still had a full range of facial motion. Characters genuinely looked frustrated, sad, enraged etc. The romantic lead was able to ugly cry and crawl around in mud and gore and god knows what. At least for the men, there was no fear of looking too wrinkled or “unattractive” because their face was conveying normal human emotions, which you’d think would be the whole point of acting.
Versus most of the cdrama today where literally everybody has facial paralysis no matter the context. It used to be more of an issue for the women but now the men, too, must always maintain their frozen Instagram face. Forget AI, not even the humans look human anymore.
Speaking of harems, did you know that there were historical chinese emperors who were monogamous?
The most well-known one was Emperor Hongzhi of Ming (1470-1505). He became the heir apparent pretty much by a stroke of luck--all the other princes were killed off by another consort, and his mom also died to what was assumed to be a harem assassination. I imagine he was pretty traumatized by the whole thing, so when he became an emperor, he was strictly monogamous, though it's said that his empress was deeply enmeshed with her own family, which led to an extreme level of nepotism for the in-laws and a lot of political resentment.
Another example was Emperor Wen of Sui (541-604), though one might argue he was never a true monogamist. He and his wife, Dugu Jialuo, had been married since they were teens and were extremely close. After he became Emperor, his Empress, who was also extremely powerful politically, kept a very tight leash on him and basically prevented him from straying lol. The story went that he cheated once and the empress straight up executed the woman he slept with behind his back. The emperor was so enraged when he found out that he ran away from home in protest, and his officials had to beg him to return to his palace.
They'd be pretty shitty people by modern standards but their marital problems were still extraordinary in the sense that they were the problems of a "normal" couple, as opposed to the wild harem drama of most historical emperors. They even lived together like a regular married couple--normally, the emperor and empress would live separately. The Emperor did eventually say yolo and fuck around with a bunch of concubines after Empress Dugu's death, but his marriage remains an oddity throughout the thousands of years of chinese imperial history.
So yeah, despite the political pressure to build a harem, it was still possible to just... not. If you want to write a monogamous Chinese emperor even in a more grounded historical fiction setting, you definitely can. It'd be extremely unusual but not completely unprecedented.
Polygamy in Historical China
The most common misconception about chinese polygamy is that men could have "multiple wives". Under older Chinese legal systems, a man could have only one wife at a time, but many concubines. In some later dynasties, a concubine could potentially be uplifted to become a wife if the original wife had died, but replacing an actual wife with a concubine was considered a serious crime, no matter what certain harem dramas might suggest.
Concubines could be bought, sold, and gifted to other men, while wives could not. I doubt PIDW paid any attention to realism or social conventions, so its all whatever with Bingge's harem, but it's still more or less a given that a emperor's wife is the empress. Consorts are just fancier titles for royal concubines. The concept of a "first wife" seems to be a western fandom thing.
Another thing that isn't talked about as often is the practice of polyandry, where a women had multiple husbands. This usually only happened in impoverished rural areas, where individual men could not afford brides. Sometimes brothers would share the same wife, so any children they produced would belong to the same family. This also helped keep scarce resources such as land within the same household, instead of each brother going off on their own and dividing things up. This is distinct from matrilineal polyandry, which is confined to small matriarchal tribes.
#re: prev ->#i do wonder where the nth wife confusion came from#<- I have definitely found articles online that used this terminology so I don't think it originated in fandom#but I'm sure it probably did originate with western misinterpretations of what was going on
@porcupine-girl @westiec @grumpypotat
I think a lot of it has to do with lacking context; the word "concubine" can be similarly misleading if people don't already have some understanding of how chinese concubinage works. Is a "concubine" a mistress? Slave? Sex worker? "Lesser wife"? It's too foreign a concept so the term "wife" is sometimes used interchangeably. Honestly "concubine" is a bit of a weird translation too, but I think it helps make a clear distinction between 妻 (qi) and 妾 (qie), because historically they were very different roles. I also suspect that (especially in the olden days), many westerners'™️ first intro to the concept of polygyny comes from bible stories and muslim practices, where depending on where or when you are, you might actually be able to have multiple wives of equal status. In Ancient china though, treating concubines and your one actual wife as equals could literally be punishable by some pretty harsh criminal sentences. (Obviously, people being people, many have attempted to bend the law to varying degrees of success but this was still very far outside the norms of society.)
Also for early Chinese immigrants, attempting to communicate their family situation to a christian society was probably very weird for both parties and there was no standardized terminology for a role that doesn't really exist in the west. This probably left a mark on the west's understanding of chinese polygyny and how terms are used.
This might be a weird question so I understand if you ignore it. There is something that always bothered me about the Bingge/Bingmei extra and no one has ever been able to explain it. When SY brings Bingge back to the bamboo house, he takes off his shoes and sets them aside. Then in the morning when Bingge is getting dressed, neither of them can find Bingge's shoes. I don't know if the translation left something out or what but I want to know what happened to his shoes! It could be just something mxtx included just as an excuse for Bingge to get dressed in the white QJP uniform, but it seems like that's not something she would include and not explain it. A theory I had is that Bingmei came back earlier than he initially claimed and waited to reveal himself until SY realized that Bingge was an imposter. I don't think that's totally out of character for him since he had eavesdropped twice in the past. Stealing the shoes does seem kind of childishly petty though and canon Bingmei is not childish like fanon likes to depict him so that theory kinda falls flat (I also don't think he would stubbornly sit around while SY might have been in danger). Do you have any ideas about what could have happened to his shoeS?
Hi there @sqqismommymilf! I admit this is not something I've put a lot of thought in lol, I think I just assumed the missing shoes meant sy is so out of sorts after spending the entire night on a dream manipulation rollercoaster that he can't remember where the shoes are. Either that or he was so out of sorts when bingge showed up badly injured he tossed his boots somewhere extra random and forgot about them. I'm not sure what purpose bingmei stealing the shoes would serve since I assume he has a whole bunch of nearly identical shoes sitting around the house, and i don't think he'd be okay with sqq hanging around a dangerous stranger who was able to injure even a heavenly demon. Or maybe bingge is a neat freak like bingmei and simply took them to the entrance/shoe shelf lol
Do you know what changes have been made to svsss? Eeveryone talks about the mdzs mini changes, but no one actually specifies what got changed in svsss except for a vague "language got less vulgar"
Hi anon! This is the first time I’m hearing about this. I imagine they have to do with censorship but I’ll have to see a side by side comparison to know exactly what’s been changed, because after a quick glance I’m not noticing any obvious differences
What's your opinion on the Anzhe vs An Zhe controversy?
In case you don't know, the danmei Little Mushroom's protagonist is, well, a mushroom and gets named An Zhe/Anzhe by a human named An Ze. Previous translators have translated his name as An Zhe, but the 7seas official translator says that their choice to translate his name as Anzhe is because he's a mushroom and "like Jesus, has no last name".
Personally I think that even if he's a mushroom, he's a mushroom pretending to be a human, so I do consider An his last name 😅
Also, from my experience of my Mandarin teacher giving non-Chinese classmates Chinese names, she always includes/translate their last name when giving them a Chinese name. (To be more clear, she doesn't translate names in the sense of Helen -> Hailun or something, she straught up gives them new names. I can't remember an example off the top of my head though)
Hello anon, I’m not familiar with little mushroom, though going by what you’re describing, the character is explicitly named after someone and has taken his last name. In this case I’ve no idea why he’d be “like Jesus”. I suspect it’s impossible to do a reprint at this point so they’ll continue to double down
hi! a friend and I are cowriting a cumplane fic kind of inspired by the post you made a while ago about how airplane would definitely be making bazillions on zhongdian but also living in total misery writing every second of the day. we wanted to include the shen siblings a little bit, and we can’t seem to find the character that shen tang’s name uses anywhere on the english-speaking internet. (we are mostly ignoring the new extra but we are using xiang fei’s name, so). do you happen to remember how she spells it? hopefully this isn’t an annoying ask, please ignore if so lol
also: I wanted to say a huge thank you for all your work writing about chinese culture and the context surrounding svsss +danmei generally that western fans often miss. your blog is so awesome and everyone should be following it.
Aw thank you so much @genusplantago ! IIRC the sister is named 沈堂. I hope that helps and good luck with your story ^.^