《下坠》
| Fanfiction | |
|---|---|
| Title: | 《下坠》 |
| Author(s): | MaiLeDiDiDi |
| Date(s): | 2020-01-30 to 2020-02-24 |
| Length: | 81,202 words |
| Genre(s): | AU |
| Fandom(s): | The Untamed RPF/BJYX |
| Relationship(s): | |
| External Links: | on AO3, Archived version |
Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
《下坠》 ("The Fall") is a 13-chapter Chinese-language fanfic by MaiLeDiDiDi for the RPF ship Wang Yibo/Xiao Zhan that was posted on AO3 and Lofter. The Weibo fic announcement post by the author[1], along with fanart, caused awareness of the story to spread beyond the fandom and resulted in a reporting spree by non-RPF fans that is thought to be responsible for AO3 getting banned in China.
The story is m/m, rated mature, and has archive warnings "No Archive Warnings Apply" and Underage. It is an AU featuring an age gap with Wang Yibo as a high school student and Xiao Zhan as a sex worker. Many sources describe Xiao Zhan's character in the story as having "gender cognitive impairment" (gender dysphoria?), but plot developments in later chapters suggest that Xiao Zhan is cross-dressing rather than trans. The fandom tag is 博君一肖, the ship name for gong Wang Yibo and shou Xiao Zhan.
The story is marked complete on AO3, but is unfinished and appears to have been abandoned. The last chapter ends with "tbc", and some of the comments ask for an update.
AO3 Statistics
As of December 2021, the fic on AO3 has 1,477 comments; 26,617 kudos; 473 bookmarks; and 1,177,454 hits. It has the most hits or kudos in The Untamed RPF tag. Site-wide, it has the 29th most hits and 53rd most kudos.
Much of the traffic to and engagement with the story seems to be sympathetic or curious readers who knew of the fic's infamy. AO3 was blocked on February 29, 2020, and on March 3, 2020, the story's AO3 metrics were 1,223 comments; 19,091 kudos; 252 bookmarks; and 872,811 hits.
Summary
The author's summary is （女装大佬）发廊妹x男高中生. Machine translation: "(Women's gangster) Hair salon girl x male high school student". 女装大佬 is Internet slang popular in animation/comics/gaming fandom for cross-dressing or "men who wear women's clothing": see Baidu entry, Archived version "Hair salon" is slang for brothel(?).
Apart from Wang Yibo and Xiao Zhan, the other characters in the story (teachers, students, sex workers, clients) appear to be original characters.
Wang Yibo (16) is about to start at a new school away from home and goes to stay for a few days with his aunt, who, he discovers, runs a hair salon/brothel. He is assigned to share a room with "Zan Zan" (22), one of the sex workers, who he believes at first is a woman. He finds Zan Zan attractive and spends a lot of time masturbating in secret. Later he pretends there are not enough beds in the dorms at school so he can stay with him again. They fall in love. Meanwhile, a girl at school tells Wang Yibo she likes him and then takes her shirt off, but he finds he doesn't like her or any other girl he meets, only Zan Zan. Wang Yibo and Zan Zan kiss a few times, but then he finds his male ID card (listed name: Xiao Zhan) and they have a dramatic fight. He cries, begging him not to leave, and tells him he's saving money for "gender surgery" so he'll be a "real woman". Then they have sex.
As Yibo and Zan Zan's relationship develops, the reader also learns the tragic stories of some of the other brothel workers, as well as a customer. On a date Zan Zan mentions that he, Zan Zan, is not a girl. Yibo goes home for summer vacation and comes back for the next school year. During a visit to the emergency room for one of Zan Zan's co-workers (a miscarriage), Yibo asks Zan Zan not to have the surgery, arguing that it's ok for men to love other men and that he, Yibo, will still love Zan Zan. Zan Zan doesn't believe him and says he's young and naive. They continue having sex and arguments, with Zan Zan displaying internalized homophobia. One night Yibo is dragged out to a disreputable club by his classmate, discovers a stranger about to rape Zan Zan, and rescues him. Then they have an argument about Zan Zan's profession and Yibo tries to rape him (??) but stops. They cry and make up. Life goes on at the brothel.
Zan Zan attends one of Yibo's school sporting events as his sister, so when parent-teacher conferences are scheduled and Yibo says his parents won't come, the teacher insists that at least his sister show up. Then they have sex in an empty classroom and are nearly discovered. Zan Zan describes an incident from high school when he wrote a love letter to another boy; the love letter was posted publicly, outing him to the entire school. "After that, I made up my mind that I must become a woman, so that no one will ever call me a pervert again," says Zan Zan. Wang Yibo thinks that's a stupid reason to transition.
An angry wife comes to the brothel, beats up her cheating husband and Zan Zan, and threatens to go to the police. Another worker bribes the police informant with her body. Later, the oldest resident and housekeeper at the brothel dies.
As of 2023, the story has not been updated since February 24, 2020.
Fan Reactions/Reviews
According to various second-hand reports, a lot of fans enjoyed it.
The comments on the AO3 fic are very positive and encouraging. People said it was well written and made them think. Some expressed the hope that the author would continue writing and would not let the incident on weibo affect her. Some said they were not BJYX fans, but still enjoyed the fic.
The reaction of many Xiao Zhan fans was to report the fic's author and AO3 to the Chinese government. They thought it was wrong, insulting, and an intentionally malicious act to portray Xiao Zhan as a woman and a prostitute. However, these fans were not shippers and likely not even fanfiction fans. Other fans accused them of not having read the fic before jumping to conclusions about its contents.[2]
Screencap evidence of the 227 incident was collected and posted to github. A few of the items in the collection are defenses of the work and its right to exist:
没事请多看书,少上网,学习一下什么叫对人类真正的尊重。同性恋、跨性别者、性别认知障碍、攻、受......这些都是中性词,不是贬 词。他们都是真实存在在世界上的角色,他们作为一个生命值得被尊重,不应该理所应当的承受异样的眼光。 某些文学、影视作品的存在很多时候就是孤独的美学,就好像绝大多数优秀的艺术创作亦绝不是表展现人人正气世界和平,把一些少数人剥给我们看,哪怕能让人有一分的共情,世界都会柔软一点。 共存。共存。共存。
Please read more books and surf the Internet less, and learn what it means to truly respect human beings.
Homosexuality, transgender people, gender cognitive impairment, gong, shou... These are all neutral words, not derogatory words. They are all characters that really exist in the world, they as living beings deserve respect, and they should not bear strange eyes as they should. The existence of certain literature and film and television works is often the aesthetics of loneliness, just like the vast majority of excellent artistic creations are by no means to show everyone's righteousness and world peace. Empathy, the world will be a little softer.
coexist. coexist. coexist.[3]
References
- ^ February 24th Evidence Arrangement, Archived version, Feb27HistoryMoment, github. (Accessed 21 August 2022)
- ^ "The conclusion is that I think some people didn't read the text at all, just saw that the heroine was a hair salon girl, and they climaxed, looking down on the suffering proletarian masses." Machine translation of: 结论是我觉得一些人根本没看文,只是看到女主是发廊妹,就高潮了,看不起受 苦的无产阶级群众。 XiaoZhanGate/evidence0227/evidence0227.md, Archived version, github. (Accessed 1 September 2022.)
- ^ Machine translation of 2月26日证据整理 (February 26 Evidence collation), Archived version, Feb27HistoryMoment / XiaoZhanGate, github. (Accessed 1 September 2022.)