okay so! female shen jiu! let's talk about it! [long post warning]
so. i have a lot of thoughts about this concept/au. but like mostly in how it will affect shen jiu's general reputation/the rumours surrounding her (will be using she/her and feminine terms for shen jiu throughout this!). as well as the way her relationships with the people around her would change + the way shen yuan would navigate this world with the combination of his obliviousness + his perception of the genre he's working within + what potential romance with would look like in this au!
also you will have to forgive me in advance for the very western-centric arguments i will be making in this because. i am working off what i discuss at university which is unfair to apply to a chinese novel but! this isn't a serious critique as much as it is a fun thought experiment to run through because i enjoy applying these theories to things i read and enjoy. so take a lot of this with a grain of salt as far as serious criticisms go because i am not making any! just off-handedly discussing things i thought would be interesting to chew on in this verse.
one thing i think would be interesting would be the way shen jiu visiting brothels would be perceived in this universe. i felt that in pidw, it was a problem because it compounded with the accusation that he preyed upon his female disciples. but in a universe with a female shen jiu, i think those rumours would be squashed before they even started. i know that it's popular to assume that homophobia doesn't exist in the svsss universe, which i'm pretty sure is implied canon and not fanon. but i feel this doesn't really account for lesbianism, which is veryyy absent from the novel past fanon extrapolated from a few scenes here and there. which is fair! the entire genre of the series revolves around a male x male pairing. i just guess i want to know in a more meta sense if airplane, while writing pidw, kind of wrote in the same invisibility of lesbianism into the work that would carry over when shen yuan eventually shifted the genre to a bl.
what i mean by invisibility of lesbianism is that historically, while homosexuality was prosecuted both as a mental illness and a crime categorized under sodomy (mostly due to the disruption of social order) there was a lot less scrutiny placed on lesbian relationships. mostly because they were essentially non-existent in the eyes of the law in the early? 18th and 19th century (feel free to fact-check me on this). as far as i recall this was mostly because without the actual like. act of penetration there was confusion on how sodomy between females would necessarily work. as well as the fact that female sexuality was something that the law was unconcerned with in general. but that's a bit of a tangent.
anyway! i bring this up because while the utopian view of homophobia as non-existent in the pidw/svsss-verse is awesome, i don't think there's necessarily evidence to argue that misogyny is treated the same way. which is important! because the invisibility of lesbianism is tied into both homophobia AND misogyny! which is a very roundabout way of saying that were shen jiu a woman in the pidw/svsss verse, there wouldn't be as severe of a case to make for her supposed lechery if she visited brothels because of the invisibility of female sexuality. and that even if she was having sex there, would they even necessarily know how to legally prosecute that?
also like. i know it can be tempting to argue against this as a concept because the setting itself has no homophobia at all so how can lesbianism be invisible but like! on a more meta level we have to keep in mind that airplane (who i'm assuming for the sake of this argument is a cis man because there is no canonical argument for any other conclusion, as far as i remember) wrote this novel, and the original novel inarguably employed misogynistic tropes in the creation of luo binghe's harem. and despite how shen yuan eventually shifted the genre, the original world he landed in was very much pidw before it started to morph around shen yuan's choices. which is again a very roundabout way to say that misogyny very much could still exist in this world because of the biases of its creator and the lack of evidence against it.
i'd actually argue that the existence of the brothel itself implies misogyny exists in the pidw/svsss world but that's neither here nor there.
anyway! a very long way to say shen jiu's original lecherous rumours very well may not have existed. and rather than the problem being her sexual life, it would be the disruption of social order (which can also be prosecuted under sodomy!). because i'm assuming with the reputation of the sect on the line and the seemingly accepted view of immortal cultivators as beyond earthly desires, the problem would be less with shen jiu's presumed salacious desires concerning her young female disciples but rather the disruption of these social norms put upon cultivators. but also sodomy wouldn't necessarily exist in this universe because of the lack of homophobia! so maybe the only rumours going around would be of shen jiu being a man-hating prude in comparison to her canon counterpart's more serious and lecherous accusations.
relationships with people :
i feel that her relationships with the people around her would be changed, but only slightly. for example, with liu qingge, i recall that despite the two of them fighting and being at each other's throats most of the time, one of the most decisive moments for their rivalry/hatred of each other would have been when liu qingge dragged shen jiu out of the brothel and got in a fight over it. which i explained in the reasons above might not have been such a big deal now that shen jiu was a woman. but there would definitely still be animosity between them because of all the other usual reasons (mostly shen jiu's and liu qingge's attitudes and world views clashing).
which may even be exacerbating with shen jiu canonically being a woman in this verse! it's not stated too explicitly but i feel there is still like. a broader social acceptance of the fact that female disciples (ie ning yingying) need to be doted on and babied more. which could be misogyny in this universe rearing its head. so if you combine this with shen jiu's need to be strong while constantly lashing out at the world so she doesn't get taken advantage of in the way she was at the qiu mansion, you get a! very explosive, vindictive, delicate relationship that honestly probably fared worse than canon. i feel shen jiu would be twice as aggressive with men in this universe because of this perception of female disciples/cultivators. (i say cultivators but honestly i see less evidence of that here. maybe ning yingying was a fluke? though that begs the question of why there would be a peak of just female disciples if not for the existence of misogyny (specifically misogyny that affects cultivators as well) in this world!)
i think shen jiu's relationship with yue qingyuan would stay mostly the same. i don't have a lot to say about that, really. i think the devotion from yue qingyuan and shen jiu's hatred in return because of the misunderstandings between them is something that wouldn't be influenced by gender. though that could be a blindspot in my perception, hahaha.
there is a world where shen jiu is more aggressive with yue qingyuan for the same reason she's aggressive with liu qingge, though! maybe she sees his deference to her as something that is like. pity born of misogyny and mostly because yue qingyuan looks down on her on top of his guilt complex. in that shen jiu thinks that he assumes she's a weakling and thus needs his helping hand/his dismissal of her more abusive, violent and disruptive actions as a favour. i think maybe while they would grow up together and he might not necessarily ring the same alarm bells as other unfamiliar men for shen jiu, she would still be. slightly uncomfortable at the prospect of a man with so much authority over her paying her such attention. if that makes sense.
qiu mansion and that whole mess :
take everything implied in canon and make it like. nine times worse. is the general vibe i get when considering that era of time in this au.
because! if i'm going off the baseline assumption that qiu jianluo is still attached to shen jiu and the implied sa that she faces still occurs here, i believe the arranged marriage would be made not between qiu haitang and shen jiu but qiu jianluo and shen jiu. which i feel would give him a lot more access to her as there would be little excuse for shen jiu to be hanging around qiu haitang as much as she did. though she would be roomed with the female servants in the house rather than the male ones, there is also the possibility that qiu jianluo would just repeatedly summon her into his room. though again, no homophobia in this verse means there's no reason for him not to do that in the canon, non genderbent verse, so things on that front might not change much.
the aftermath of the qiu mansion disaster though! i think that would be interesting to see. because i feel there is (unfortunately) a very different connotation between male slave forced to marry young woman of the household and female slave forced to marry young man of the household. while i don't know the legalities of it in this verse, i'm assuming based on the shen jiu's perceived crimes against ning yingying in pidw that this would be frowned upon. though it could also not be! because of the intersection of class dynamics and how technically, because shen jiu was a slave, she didn't really have rights in the first place.
either way, i think a lot of that trial was born out of shen jiu's deviation from social order/social norms and the issue of her engagement with qiu jianluo wouldn't be seen as a strike against her in this case. because i think people would have enough sense to see the power dynamics and lack of consent more clearly when confronted with a marriage between a teenaged female slave and a young male master. especially when compounded with the fact that the original charge of lecherous behaviour with ning yingying wouldn't carry much weight because of what i discussed concerning the brothels
the murders, though, i think she would be held responsible for that. there would definitely be a harsher view of that, i feel. mostly because like. it would be out of a woman's place to commit such bloody acts on top of it being such a violent crime? so there would be an argument to be made that in breaking social order by not being kind and deferential enough on top of going through with the murder of the men, she would be faced with harsher consequences.
simultaneously though there could be an in-universe argument made on the side of cang qiong mountain to claim insanity on shen jiu's part. similarly to how hysteria is seen mostly as a female malady and is a gendered/misogynistic diagnosis. but that's a whole other (mostly western centric, i feel) can of worms to get into. but just know for now that i think the hypothetical defences that cang qiong could give for the murder spree would also be misogynistic in nature.
ps. if you want to read about the female malady check out the introductory chapter of the female malady by elaine showalter.
shen yuan enters the narrative :
now i don't want this to get super long. so i will try very hard to keep this short. i think shen yuan would have a misogynistic viewpoint that would affect his understanding of his place in the plot when he is transmigrated into shen jiu's body.
i already went over the more meta aspects of shen yuan (who for the sake of clarity, i will say, is still a male in this au) and his experience travelling through the world in a female body. but i didn't discuss so much the narrative implications of it. because i think there would be! many!
for one, i think shen yuan would constantly underpin a lot of the interactions he has with the (male) peak lords/cultivators with his very heterosexual worldview. in the sense that he would assume there were romantic undertones where there weren't any, which i feel would be a baseline assumption he would make considering the supposed genre of the novel-brought-to-life he was living. we see so many times how shen yuan will look at a female character and immediately identify her as a part of luo binghe's harem. which i feel will carry over in his perception of shen jiu's lived experience as a woman. if that makes sense.
i also think. hm. how do i explain this. the way he would view his role when it came to any potential romance would be coloured severely by his modern understanding of shen qingqiu (assuming she was a lesbian, perhaps, because of her visiting brothels in pidw/her aversion for men) but also in relation to the people around her. i think he would only really see the possibility of a romance between liu qingge and shen qingqiu mostly because of the time they spend with each other in svsss and how he would assume that it would be the type of fan service airplane would indulge in for his very heterosexual audience of pidw fans. but as far as luo binghe is concerned, shen yuan would fall back very heavily on shen qingqiu's role as the scum villain to separate himself from any potential romance there. in the sense that he would focus so heavily on the teacher-student, antagonist-protagonist relationship between the two of them that he would? in a way. de-sexualize shen qingqiu entirely in his mind's eyes. so that the possibility of romance wouldn't even occur to him because narratively it wouldn't make sense for the hero to fall in love with the villain.
though that isn't to say luo binghe's love for shen qingqiu would be contingent upon gender. there exists a world where luo binghe is still attracted to women but doesn't necessarily create the harem and still only wants his shizun. i feel that the harem, while in a meta sense fed into the male power-fantasy of pidw, also was only like. a way for luo bingge to fill a gap in his lonely life. while this luo binghe would still need that gap in his life filled, he would only need to fill it with shen qingqiu's love because the way he would be treated by shen qingqiu in his youth wouldn't suddenly make him want all women. (because it definitely doesn't make him want all men in svsss). rather it would just make him want shen qingqiu.
all the while shen yuan would assume that luo binghe still wanted to kill him or when he does realize luo binghe's feelings, assume that luo binghe was only looking for a woman to fuck, to put it crudely. which would be cleared up during maigu ridge (specifically thinking about the canon detail of shen yuan turning his back to luo binghe only for luo binghe to turn him around. which i've seen someone analyze as shen yuan assuming luo binghe just wanted anyone while luo binghe wanted shen yuan specifically).
which. very roundabout way to say that i think shen yuan's obliviousness would manifest in different ways and his misunderstandings of the world around him would be because of his somewhat misogynistic viewpoints and desexualization of shen qingqiu to boil themselves down to simply 'scum villain' and 'antagonist.'
anyway that is. most of what i've been thinking about when it comes to this au. i hope this wasn't too tangential or didn't make sense because i am telling you now that i did not proof read it. i wrote this in one sitting and i will, in fact, be posting it as soon as i finish typing this lil outro. but if it did make sense then! i hope you found the more in-depth narrative and meta things i lined out here interesting. i know i did when putting this together!
