Bashert

Fanfiction
Title:	Bashert
Author(s):	nirejseki
Date(s):	January 25, 2021
Length:	6459 words
Genre:	gen and m/m
Fandom:	MDZS
External Links:	tumblr (wayback machine copy); AO3 (wayback machine copy)
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Bashert is an MDZS AU written by nirejseki in which the Lan and Nie sects are Jewish. Many fans incorrectly assumed that nirejseki's fic was written in response to twitter discourse the month before about whether MDZS Jewish AU fanfic was cultural erasure. In reality the author had been unaware of the discourse. The fic and the author were heavily criticized, and the author decided to delete the fic after a few days.

The Fic

Author's Summary:

The story was well known, of course.

Lan An was born in a temple and died in one, but at a young age he became a wandering monk, choosing to cultivate as a musician. He quickly became famous for his virtues, but refused to settle anywhere, continuing his search for what he believed was his fated person – the love of his life, the completion of his soul. Many people laughed at him, reminding him that it was not uncommon to have four wives and five concubines, offering him up girls in an effort to lure him into their service, but he remained firm in his idiosyncratic conviction that there was a woman out there that would be the singular match for him.

And then, of course, he found her.

"I have requirements," she said. "For one, we don't eat pork."

(in which the Lan sect is Jewish)

As of January 25, the additional tags were: "Alternate Universe, Lan and Nie Sects are Jewish, Canon Compliant, in other respects, really this fic is an exercise in how many obscure Jewish traditions I can use to make MDZS jokes, not a reliable source of information as to Jewish traditions, also if they can have potatoes they can have Yiddish"

As of January 27, the "Canon Compliant" and potato tags were removed and replaced with "ahistorical conflation of traditions, complete alternate universe given the divergent traditions, canon compliant only in the sense that all the novel events take place, not meant to be canon compliant in any other respect"

Also as of January 27, the fic had 241 comments, 325 kudos, 40 bookmarks, and 3237 hits.

Deletion

The January 27 Wayback Machine capture of the fic has commenting disabled and a bolded note from the author:

EDIT: All - I’ve gotten a whole lot of comments, about half of which have asked me to remove the fic and the other half informing me that if I remove the fic, I will be “covering up” evidence of what happened. As a result, I’ve been extremely unsure of what to do.

In deference to those who believe it should be left in place because it needs to be preserved, even if only as evidence of me stepping where I shouldn’t, I’ll leave it up for another day or so, and then I’ll take it down. For now, I’ll close all comments on the fic, since I understand people are arguing back and forth on it (people who are attempting to defend me, please stop!) and I do not want to be a party to any more hurt. Thanks for understanding.

Controversy

The controversy started before the fic was even posted.

nirejseki was a prolific writer of short AU fanfics and frequently accepted fic requests submitted by readers through her tumblr account, robininthelabyrinth. The idea behind "Bashert" was one such request.

nirejseki mentioned the fic at least twice on her tumblr blog before posting the fic, once on January 2 and once on January 24. The first post was about her writing process; it had a few responses from users excited about the Jewish Lan premise. The second post was made the day before the fic was published; nirejseki asked her readers to vote on which of her unposted fics should be released first. "Jewish Lan Sect" was one of the options. The post has 100 notes of people trying to rank their favorite ideas or enthusiastically saying that they all sounded great and they couldn't decide.

Unbeknownst to nirejseki, who was active on tumblr, MDZS fandom on twitter had just undergone a different "Jewish Lans" drama in December, sparked by comments made by the author of Vespertine, jelenedra. Vespertine did not feature any Jewish characters, but did include a veiled reference to a Jewish cultural practice.

At some point between the first time nirejseki mentioned the premise and the time she posted the fic, she received some anon comments that were not shared publicly. Whether the comments were friendly advisories about the dangerous wank waters ahead or outright antisemitic remarks is unclear. In any case, the author interpreted the anon comments as motivated by antisemitism, which only strengthened her resolve: "I was unfamiliar with the prior incident and was surprised and offended by some of the asks I was receiving prior to me posting the fic (particularly ones that insisted that there was no room for any Jewish content whatsoever in the fandom)"

In turn, nirejseki's own angry responses prompted backlash, creating an unpleasant feedback loop of misunderstanding, hurt, anger, and defensiveness. The author was harassed, and the fic was inundated with angry comments, some antisemitic, from people who may not have even read the fic. (See the Wayback Machine's capture of the comment section.) It has been alleged that much of the backlash against the author was the result of a bigoted harassment campaign, possibly involving quigonejinn, who also spread misinformation during the earlier backlash against a different Jewish fanfic writer.

MDZS as Taoist

On the same day that "Bashert" was posted (whether before or after is unclear), nirejseki also posted some responses to an anon ask that became a major aspect of the controversy. Some of her comments dismissed the importance of Taoism to the worldbuilding in MDZS. The anon argued,

You can write an AU where the clans are Jewish, because AUs are AUs, but the concept of cultivation as it is found in Xianxia is rooted in Taoist culture and ideas so it maybe isn't totally accurate to say that cultivation/the genre is a generic culture-blind fantasy device? All things considered, MDZS is a work written in another cultural context. Just because it doesn't seem related to a non-Taoist doesn't mean it isn't, so maybe just keep that in mind while writing to stay respectful + safe.

nirejseki's answer, which argued the anon was holding MDZS to a different standard than Western fantasy novels, contained a phrase that angered many Chinese diaspora fans: "MDZS (a bunch of common cnovel fantasy tropes in an extremely well-written trenchcoat with exactly zero references to Taoist texts or customs or culture)"

nirejseki later deleted the post; as of 2023 a surviving reblog has 50 notes.

Around the same time she made another tumblr post on the same topic, but added further commentary in the tags that people objected to:

for fuck's sake, also MDZS is not DEEPLY TAOIST, are you kidding me???, it's about as Deeply Taoist as Harry Potter is Deeply Christian, Robin Hood is Deeply Catholic!, 99% of King Arthur Stories are Deeply Christian, THINGS SET IN GENERIC FANTASY THAT HAPPEN TO CONTAIN THE BACKGROUND MAJORITY RELIGION ARE NOT RELIGIOUS.

Again the original was deleted, but the surviving reblog has 111 notes as of 2023.

People argued against nirejseki's characterization of MDZS as generic fantasy.

shuflypie replied to nirejseki's posts:

Hey, so I think dismissing it as generic fantasy is kinda hurtful to a lot of diaspora folks, since the story is so specifically based on [Chinese] epistemologies? I don’t think it’s bad for people to ask for assurance that no erasure is meant in a racialized space? …

I’m always excited to see more fics, especially by other marginalized folks! I just don’t want my community to be painted in the wrong light when we are just feeling hurt being labelled as “generic” fantasy since Asian media is so rare and a lot of us have lived experiences tied to the Three Ways in our daily lives and being racialized means the specificity of this racialized media have particular value to us.

In a reblog of the author's posts, genderqueernerd explained several Taoist references in MDZS and that contemporary Chinese people still hold Taoist beliefs.

These. Still. Exist and for someone who knows nothing about the culture/religion to say that it’s just a bunch of fantasy cnovel tropes feels very much like cultural erasure.

soursoppi posted on tumblr:

I will just like to say that MDZS is a very Chinese story, with very clear cultural connections, that warms my heart as a Chinese Diaspora to see. If a person would like to do an alternative depiction of what MDZS could be- sure. But please do it with respect. Do not treat Taoism like a hat to be removed.

Peanut_Poppy on twitter posted A little thread on some of the religious Taoist things in MDZS., ^{Archived version}.

On fail_fandomanon, where anons were sympathetic to nirejseki being harassed, some people agreed that nirejseki had made false assertions:

Basically, people are mad that the author said that MDZS is a generic cnovel fantasy which doesn't grapple with religious concepts and doesn't reference Taoist texts or practices or culture, when it's kind of obvious to anyone with surface knowledge of Chinese culture that the characters and the book deals with Taoist and Buddhist customs. Like SL, XXC, the whisk weapon, etc are Taoist references. 不净世 The Unclean Realm is a Buddhist reference, etc.

QGJ is definitely making a mountain out of a molehill but I'm also not super impressed with the way nirejseki tried to defend her fic. We can argue until the cows come home about how MDZS is extruded xianxia product but cultivation very much has its roots in Taoism and nirejseki's wholesale dismissal of it rubbed me the wrong way.

However, not everyone agreed with the interpretation of MDZS as Taoist:

It's certainly not the case in cultivation stories that we're meant to assume all cultivators are default Taoists by faith and genuinely, I was very surprised to see people continue to take this stance. It's really up to the writer and in the case of MDZS, the only cultivators with hints of a religion are Buddhism, not Taoism. MXTX has in other canons distinguished between Buddhist cultivators and Taoist cultivators so I don't think it's a case where she's using Buddhism and Taoism as a religion interchangeably. So someone being a Jewish cultivator doesn't actually erase Taoism.

nirejseki apologized for the tumblr posts:

I’ve been reading the comments and asks people have sent me and I feel very bad that I hurt people with my words, especially in connection with what I said on my tumblr posts. I deleted those posts when I realized that, but upon further consideration, I do think I should apologize for speaking lightly on a subject that many people take very seriously and mischaracterizing things, including the origins of the xianxia genre and the connection of the novel to its religious underpinnings.

I wouldn’t want people to do that to me on subjects I feel strongly about, so I shouldn’t do that to them, period. Even though it was not my intention to hurt anyone, that is in no way an excuse; I said the words, people were hurt, that’s on me. For that, I very sincerely apologize.

Spitefic?

Before posting the fic, nirejseki made a tumblr post indicating that she would prioritize "Bashert" to spite the anons (who she had thought were being antisemitic):

okay, Delight in Misery was the actual winner of the voting competition but fuck it I’ll post the Jewish Lan fic today instead. say thanks to our kind anons who seem to think that Jews are weirder than a squid in a bucket

Other tumblr users seemed to share the author's view and encouraged her with replies like "Go for it!!!!! Honestly fuck those anons" and "SPITE POSTING FOR THE WIN!"

However, other tumblr users argued that the author was misrepresenting what the anons had said:

Hey, I’m not one of those anons, but I’ll comment off anon. How nice of you to mischaracterize people quite rightfully and politely pointing out that you might be stepping on a cultural minefield and erasing culture, and then doubling down on your position. Nobody said jewish lans were “weirder” than squid nhs. Culture swapping is so different from any other sort of au! I can’t imagine you’d be pleased if someone was culture swapping a jewish story.

Meanwhile, on twitter quigonejinn accused the author of writing racist spitefic:

in case you’re wondering what this is about, there is now a fic on ao3 where the Lans are Jewish, and it is specifically tagged as “canon compliant” it is only canon compliant if you erase many things about the Lan that make them specifically Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist.

further, this person was told that there was controversy about this, that Chinese heritage people had been hurt in a prior instance of this and you know what they did? the person wrote this fic anyways.

so many times in my life, i’ve been taunted by racists making noises that sound like Chinese to an English-only ear, while stripping the sounds of cultural meaning and context, all done with the knowledge it will hurt people like me. ask yourself how this is different

quigonejinn's twitter thread had 500+ retweets and over a thousand likes, with angry comments in the quote tweets like "If you are supporting this horrendously racist fic along with the actions of the author of the said fic, please go ahead and unfollow me" and "It seems the more ppl point out fandom racism, the more racists are doubling down & deliberately writing shit that they know will hurt. And they'll keep doing it as long as there are no real consequences to them."

When Is A Jewish AU OK?

Many Chinese diaspora fans were angry about the erasure of Taoism, but expressed very different views about what the author had done wrong - whether the problem was the author's tumblr posts, the tags on the fic, or the fic itself. Opinion was divided on whether the AU setting made a difference in whether it was OK to make the characters Jewish. Some of the comments were contradictory and displayed a lack of awareness that other people were angry at different things.

Some people argued that AUs were fine, but the problem was that the fic was tagged "canon compliant" (it was also tagged "Alternate Universe"). Some AO3 comments on the fic:

["Racism isn't cool. "]
This could've been very easily solved if the author just listened to the Chinese ppl of this fandom, who felt offended by their actions. Do you know what we're asking for? A simple change of tags. We only asked for this fic to not be tagged as "canon compliant" bc it clearly isn't. Instead of listening to us, do you know what this author did? They denied the cultural aspects that this novel has in it, and brush it off like our culture is a common book trope.

You truly shouldn't be defending the actions of this author. It makes you look just as racist as they look. They will only be remembered by the majority of this fandom for their racism.

["But... "]
...the tags *were* changed and the author's still received 100+ comments' worth of harassment in the past few hours claiming that it's racist to write Chinese people as Jewish (but not Christian!), that this is why there's antisemitism, and that Jews are trying to replace Chinese people.

["However... "]
Why do you always bring up the Christianity fics that erase Chinese culture as a way to justify Jewish fics to erase Chinese culture? Neither is okay. We don't accept it. Trust me when I say that those fics have gotten their fair share of criticism as well. I don't find it necessary to have the words "canon compliant" in the tags at all.

["lol, nope"]

I don't trust you, because I can see with my eyes that those fics don't receive hundreds of comments of harassment over the course of a few hours.

If it were tagged and acknowledge as an AU, NO ONE WOULD HAVE GIVEN A SHIT. But somehow the author put their foot down and insisted that what they've done could be canon when it can't without being massively insensitive. You're so stupid and wilfully ignorant. Go fuck yourself because I'm sure none of this is getting through your thick skull, because racists are incapable of thinking why they might be wrong.

Someone posted a similar criticism in a bookmark on the fic, emphasizing that the problem was the author's tumblr posts and not the story itself:

Let's be clear, minority groups are capable of contributing to systemic racism against other minority groups. This is a two-way street of respect and kindness that we're all capable of walking together. Comparing MDZS (a Taoist piece of fiction that cannot be clearly 1:1 classified as fantasy) to Harry Potter (a secular piece of western fantasy written by a TERF), making a unique post that blatantly claims false the key influence of Taoism in MDZS' original text, and comparing religious and cultural AUs to clear parody AUs (such as Nie Huaisang, The Squid) are all unacceptable behaviors for someone who intends to walk that road of kindness and respect in fandom.

Nothing is wrong with this story. Nothing is wrong with the presence of Jewish fans, Jewish beliefs, and Jewish ideas in the context of MDZS or this specific fanfiction. This story itself is very well written and has a right to exist here in this fandom and receive due praise.

However, some fans believed that the content of the fic itself was the problem. Replies to nirejseki's apology post:

Appreciating the apology, I understand that you spent a lot of time on your story and hold it very dear to your heart however even if you make it clear that it’s an alternate universe it’s still disrespectful to Chinese fans, the right thing in this case would be to just delete it -Even if it is AU! you are still writing a story about characters from a different culture, it would be different if these were your own original characters.. I have to agree with everyone else erasure is not OK even if it is AU!. The apology is appreciated but it would still be better to just get rid of the root altogether

Making it an AU doesn't mean it's still not cultural erasure if you set it in canon-verse. During the previous discussion a statement of this exact same issue, it's been said modern AUs are fine (including the Christian ones you keep using as a gotcha) but this one is set in canonverse.

On twitter, not_h8, who is Jewish, had this to say:

The moment in which it becomes wrong to make the characters as Jewish is when in the timeline of the canon universe it is incorrect for them to be jewish and when it erases another culture and religious experience from the canon itself.

Does it mean you can't make mdzs characters Jewish in a fic at all? Not exactly- you can make them Jewish in an au that could be either modern (since there are Jewish Chinese people and convertion does exist) or if you really want it ancinet you can make a different story

About them in a different setting like b'nei Israel setting or something since at the timeline mdzs is kinda is though we don't have exact time (for my knowledge) b'nei Israel lived in tribes in Israel

But never in a canon setting

Two other twitter users debated:

[soursoppi]

A modern AU =/= as a fic specifically set in the canon timeline with the characters as they are canonically with the sole exception of their religion being switched out. Again no one said they can't write Jewish AUs, they simply asked the author to consider the source carefully.

[superborb]

See, here is I think where we disagree: to me, the broad popularity of modern AUs that don't take into consideration source culture is MORE erasure. Not a single fic alone, but by their quantity and popularity. (This is the bit I'm interested in discussing)

[soursoppi]

The fact of the matter is that cultivation is at its core Taoist. That is why it is difficult to divorce canon from the religion. Modern AUs however do not go into the cultivation aspects, so for Modern AUs in general, I do not have any real issues with them.

[superborb]

But there's also a lot of Buddhist xianxia, and Buddhism and Taoism have conflicting beliefs. Is it any different than the widespread syncretic religious practices of most of China? If the argument was that it had to be done well, that's a bar that other fic doesn't have to meet

Antisemitic Double Standard?

Many other fans, including the author, were skeptical about why a Jewish AU was so heavily criticized in a fandom where generic Modern American AUs, stripped of all Chinese cultural context, were so popular:

please consider that if the ONLY time you are concerned about the ~integrity of the canon~ is when Judaism is involved, the problem is your own. Consider yelling at, oh, I don’t know, the myriad of Catholic priest AUs or, you know, the official donghua account that keeps posting Christmas-themed art.

Twitter comments about the backlash being antisemitic:

[shinrainc]

i Get the kneejerk wariness of chinese culture & religion being erased in favor of white people 's projected identities but this really ain't it and mdzs fandom needs to uhh be less antisemitic lmao

[allyspock]

boy, mdzs fandom is really out here trying to say that it's ok to be antisemitic on the grounds of "chinese culture". get a fucking life, you miserable fucking ghouls

People also took note that quigonejinn was involved in the discourse for both Bashert and Vespertine:

If a clique is going after multiple fics by Jewish authors involving some element of Judaism, and trying to run those authors out of fandom, it looks bad. It looks real fucking bad

Antisemitic Dogwhistles

In addition to pointing out the double standard of how only Jewish AUs were getting criticized, fans noted that some people were leaving comments on the fic that were antisemitic dogwhistles. Examples:

You wrote this with the intention of hurting Chinese people so you can flex how amazing your Jewish culture, tradition, religion is despite people telling you not to. You've hurt not only my people but your people by your greed to flex on others and think so highly of yourself. I hope you reflect on what you have done because you did this intentionally to hurt the Chinese part of the fandom.

chinese people - we just want to you to not invade our places and culture with western whatever it is/erasing it/trying to replace
westerner - iTs A mOb

Criticism of these comments by other fans:

[aroceu]
Hey, from a Chinese diaspora person I get what you're saying, but I would really advise against punching down on "Jewish culture, tradition, & religion" in your comment - there's nothing wrong with being proud of Judaism or showcasing it. I'd also really advise against accusing a Jewish person of their "greed" - I doubt it was your intention but this is an extremely harmful thing to accuse a Jewish person of being when it's already an insanely popular antisemitic stereotype. Please take this into consideration. Thanks!

"Jews will not replace us", almost word-for-word, jfc

[superborb]
I am so, so, so uncomfortable with anti-Semitism in a world where the alt right is resurging. Adding to the previous tweets I made a while back, characterizing Jews as "greedy," "taking over" are clearly dogwhistles. Please, I beg you, do not.

Additionally, some of the other comments from people on that "side" were really explicitly racist, like "Jews trying to replace Chinese people" and "why would you think your culture is worth putting in a story" and "Jews are oppressing Chinese people in China" racist, so even though those weren't from qgj and pumpkinpaix directly, they definitely were egging it on. (pumpkinpaix made a post allegedly criticizing some of the most extreme of the responses, but the same post basically stated that nirejseki deserved it for being an imperialist, so.)

Chinese Nationalism?

While the actions intersected at one point, one act was a wrong understand of Taoism which was apologised for and addressed.

The other is an ongoing violent anti-semitic harassment campaign hidden under a thin veneer of moral righteousness and nationalist sentiment.

These two are not equal.

As someone who's Chinese and has hung around Asian fandom spaces for the past ten years or so, everything about this takedown smacks of nationalistic sentiment. It's not so different from what I've seen from K-netizens on Naver/Pann or C-netizens on Weibo. And there's a lot of comments - in English as well in Chinese - asking the author to "repent" and "be ashamed" of what they've done. It lines up tonally.

I am super, super unhappy with the way Western fandom has completely ignored the very real, officially condoned racism that much of Chinese fandom is bringing to this, even the ones who weren't acting in bad faith. Mainland Chinese culture is a dominant authoritarian culture actively wiping out minorities and praising that behavior as righteous and Chinese fans have been bringing those assumptions and attitudes to fandom. That's not OK, and it's horrifying that non-mainland fans are either ignoring or actively using that.

Others pointed out that not everyone who participated in the backlash was Chinese or Chinese diaspora, and that this framing was itself reinforcing racist stereotypes of Chinese people as racist.

Aftermath

The incident may have contributed to the overall perception of MDZS fandom, especially the twitter fandom, as a wanky mess best avoided. There are unsubstantiated reports that fans left the fandom over this and related incidents. Some fans who had already been critiquing the prevalence of sinophobia in English-speaking MDZS fandom were disappointed that this incident only muddied the waters and did not promote productive conversation, while others thought the incident was simply yet another example of the fandom's sinophobia. Meanwhile, others were confirmed in their belief that MDZS fandom was antisemitic.

I’ve been trying to keep it together for over a year and a half now in this fandom, and I’m out of niceties to give. there is no fucking excuse for the shit I keep seeing, no matter which “side” of the argument someone is ostensibly on. I’m tired, I’m furious, and I slept five hours and cried on the floor of my closet today knowing that at this point, the end result here is going to be just the same as it was last time: everyone gets hurt, no one fucking wins, nothing is talked about, and in another week/month/season this shit is going to come around again because apparently even people who are supposedly on “our side” are more than happy to use someone’s pain as an excuse to scapegoat and punch down someone else for their own self-satisfaction....

this was a fucking embarrassment I hope everyone who participated maliciously in the feeding frenzy in the comments is ashamed of themselves. congrats! you’ve just made everything worse.

It is reasonable to assume, but is hard to verify that the incident had a chilling effect on other fans who would have wanted to write Jewish AUs or incorporate Jewish elements in their fic for this fandom. Jewish fics have been written in many fandoms, but the percentages are very low. A look at some large AO3 fandoms where someone also tagged their fic with a "Judaism" tag shows 0.14% Jewish fanworks for Harry Potter, 0.36% for MCU, 0.06% for Supernatural, 0.33% for Good Omens (TV), 0.09% for Star Wars, and only 0.01% for MDZS and The Untamed.

Further Reading

• fail_fandomanon
  • Re: Cnovels - MDZS, ^{Archived version} (2021-01-25)
  • Re: Cnovels - MDZS - Drama, ^{Archived version} (2021-01-26)
  • Re: Cnovels - Wank ( 2021-01-29)
• Thoughts For No Reason Whatsoever I'm Sure, ^{Archived version} by superborb (Jan 26, 2021)