Discussion (Slight rant) Is it too much to wish fan writers would do some amount of research?

for me, as long as the fanfic is not too disrespectful to the original, anything goes.

 

Ai-chan totally agrees with Example 3 and Example 4.

Once Ai-chan screamed, "Don't name your boy Shou Yun! Boys can't get pregnant!" and this was not a BL story. It was written by a white guy who wanted to write shianshia but without having any knowledge about Chinese people, culture or language. He probably got 受 (shou) and 运 (yun) from some other shianshia and decided to grab random characters and string them together. He didn't know that Shouyun (受孕) means 'to be impregnated'.

And then there's also westerners who thought they're being stylish by giving a Japanese character three names. Japanese people do not have three names! Not even in the Sengoku era where nobles have multiple names, those naming schemes are vastly different from westerner's 3 word names. Japanese people have only a given name and a surname, that's it. There is no nickname included in the official name because there is no room to write it down on the family registry.

 

When Eastern authors write stuff set in medieval Europe but introduce clan politics and young masters and Jade skinned beauties and fucking harems, I'd say what you're complaining bout is practically peanuts

 

As a reader, i agree with you, but as a potential writer, I would like to say "FUCK THIS SHIT!" to the story that I was planning to write. The fuck that I actually studied more than when I was in school and at work. The story I create is supposed to be for leisure, but the fucking amount of time I spend on wikia and internet to ensure the story flows correctly is just damn long. Which is why I rage quit and stop trying to create the story ffs.

 

that name!! I like it secret bl writer

I guess I'm lucky and haven't come across a three name jpn character yet??
But... Are you writing xianxia like that for fun or on purpose

 

But... Don't western Kings also have to deal with family politics between nobles and such? And just had unofficial harems (mistresses) rather then official ones? Or i guess this is something not normally focused on for medevial settings?

 

Your third point makes a tiny bit of sense but rest is meh. If it is not a story that is specifically written as "Ancient China's History" being the main focus, it having some asian (be it ch, kr or jp) undertones doesn't really matter. Setting being "Ancient China like" doesn't also matter. I just consider them as "alternative universes" and voila, everything is perfect. I mean, you don't mean to tell me that people in "Ancient China" had chi/gu/mana etc. was running in them and they had potential to become gods or something right? IT IS ALL FICTION and unless you are setting your story as "period drama/romance/novel", your points doesn't make any sense.

 

I can relate to this way too much.... When i want to write something and then find myself with 10tabs of wikipedia ...

 

That makes sense... But i mean it in the case where it is clearly following a specific country (in this case china), i feel like just waving away things you don't know about is disrepectful/lazy depending on the situation. You might as well make the whole world to start with Chinese inspired but make it different enough/ not an attempt of China and that would be a different story that I'm totally ok with. (And i think it's is what you are referring to)

However, my points were aimed for ancient china, fantasy ancient China or period ancient china, that does not conflict with the "China culture" part

Like...its fantasy...but chinese historical fantasy can be considered to have a clear setting for chinese ppl since A LOT of it is based off of chinese folklore . seriously, its not as open as i feel some ppl think....
now that i think about it...maybe this is part of the problem... some things like this you just won't know about unless you are part of the culture and just won't understand even if you read novels...

Tdlr: chinese fantasy and Chinese historical fantasy...there are differences & different expectations...

Point 4 was vague, but what i meant was, the groom had bamboo blossoms embroidered on his wedding clothes...like bamboos do have good meanings in china...but thats not normal for wedding clothes...and it would just look weird if you know how bamboo blossoms look like... That point was just about...weird things writer is making up that is oddly jarring ... And makes you wonder what they were thinking when writing that....

 

Western politics is what you see in Game of Thrones - there are clans and bloodlines, but they are motivated by wealth and power games. Not saving face and getting all the beauties. And Western themed novels also prefer an everyman coming of age and inheriting responsibility through trials theme. Also, in medieval Europe it's not just men having mistresses, women had lots of lovers on the side too

Chinese novels set in a medieval European setting ignore this in favor of a chosen one, and his giant Dick's harem power. But strangely the women were all devoted to MC dick and everyone fights over face.

Japanese Western novels are the worst. They throw the baby out along with the bathwater, and make it a cliched world with an adventurer's guild, some corrupt nobles who were corrupt for the sake of being corrupt and generally dumb females

 

i haven't read western fantasy in a while... But For since reason i feel "the chosen one" theme was very common... Maybe too much king arther and Harry Potter influence...
But I'm glad i usually avoid cn western novels... Sounds like it would be very weird.

Jpn western always just feel like rpg stories nowadays not always a bad read but i agree... Definitely not medeival

 

Research is boring, people sometimes want to write because its fun.