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It was a completely normal day in the pro chat when the very important, life-changing mistake was made. Su Mucheng and Chu Yunxiu had left off a normal, friendly conversation, the tail end of welcoming some of the newer women to the Pro Alliance, and likely into their own private support chat for the Alliance’s ladies. Not much was said for some time; Chu Yunxiu had to leave, she said, but she’d be back soon.
When she returned, the post was this:
WindyRain: I can’t believe Huang Shaotian ruined the moment like that! Ye Qiu and Han Wenqing were finally going to have a normal conversation!
She recalled the message fairly quickly, likely having noticed it was posted to the wrong group.
Not as quickly as Huang Shaotian could find and respond to it, though.
TroublingRain: DON’T JUST RECALL THE MESSAGE @WindyRain @WindyRain @WindyRain
TroublingRain: WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY I RUINED
TroublingRain: WHO ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT
TroublingRain: GET BACK HERE @WindyRain @WindyRain @WindyRain @WindyRain @WindyRain @WindyRain!!!!
WindyRain: It had nothing to do with you
TroublingRain: IT HAD MY FULL NAME YOU LIAR
TroublingRain: AND IT MENTIONED @OneAutumnLeaf AND @DesertDust TOO
TroublingRain: @OneAutumnLeaf @OneAutumnLeaf @OneAutumnLeaf @DesertDust @DesertDust @DesertDust GET IN HERE
Ye Xiu, being disinclined toward social media in general and Huang Shaotian’s spam in particular, did not respond.
DesertDust: Stop tagging.
TroublingRain: Tell me what I ruined then, hm? Hmm?? What kind of thing did I get in the way of @OneAutumnLeaf @DesertDust?? How come I don’t know about it????
WindyRain: It’s a fictional story, of course you don’t know
TroublingRain: DON’T DODGE THE QUESTION
WindyRain: @DancingRain back me up
DancingRain: It’s fictional
TroublingRain: @OneAutumnLeaf @DesertDust Do you believe this crap? Do you do you do you??
OneAutumnLeaf: I believe Mucheng
Ye Xiu wasn’t inclined to respond to his own messages, but he actually had Su Mucheng’s name set as a keyword. She was his little sister, and quite a force in the Alliance—if people were talking about her in public, he wanted to know what they were saying.
TroublingRain: Oh yeah?? What kind of fictional story then??
WindyRain: Were you born yesterday? What kind of fictional story talks about real people in the Alliance?
OneAutumnLeaf: The media.
WindyRain: You’re supposed to be backing me up!!
OneAutumnLeaf: You were too vague! Just say RPF
TroublingRain: What’s RPF
DoubtfulDemon: lmao rip
And that was how a discussion of real person fic for the Glory Alliance began. Once Huang Shaotian was in on something, escape from it was near impossible, and everyone pretty much resigned to their fate.
Of course, there was a huge difference between “mentioning various fic occasionally” and “wholeheartedly spamming the chat with reactions to a single, long-running fic that everyone’s into.” Which, with the advent of Life in Silhouette, was what became the case.
When updates came, absolutely no one was safe from the onslaught. The story was an extremely thorough exploration of relationships between pros in the Glory Alliance, starting from “what Ye Qiu is like amongst friends” and spreading eventually into a complex web of relationships between all of the different pro players, on and off stage. Not everything was accurate, especially in regards to Ye Qiu’s character, but it wasn’t far off, either. Reading it was a sort of surreal experience for many of the pros, like looking through a window into a completely plausible alternate reality. An alternate reality that everyone was, unwillingly, eventually, extremely invested in.
By the time the story turned explicitly romantic in nature, not only did no one feel it was weird, they felt it was seriously overdue.
TroublingRain: @DesertDust finally accepted @OneAutumnLeaf’s confession! Fuck fuck fuck I’ve been waiting for this for so long
WindyRain: Stop tagging them every time
TroublingRain: Fuck off I do what I want ok
OneAutumnLeaf: @TroublingRain still in the doghouse after he pissed off @Swoksaar one time too many
TroublingRain: DON’T TAG CAPTAIN YOU SHIT
OneAutumnLeaf: Fuck off I do what I want ok
Han Wenqing closed QQ again. More of this mess.
From there, though, the tagging only got worse. Ye Qiu and Han Wenqing’s relationship in the story had gotten to the point that even between updates, people were avidly discussing what Han Wenqing and Ye Qiu should do next.
“Does this not bother you?” asked Han Wenqing, at one point.
“I don’t check QQ” Ye Qiu said; a lie, since Han Wenqing had occasionally seen him respond. “Did you want to PK or not?”
Of course he wanted to PK.
Eventually, on a slow evening, Han Wenqing read it. He read it right up until he caught himself thinking “if Ye Qiu wanted to date me, there’s no way I’d take this long to agree.”
He stopped.
He started again.
Surely the Han Wenqing of this story wouldn’t be oblivious forever.
DesertDust: Are you really reading Life in Silhouette.
OneAutumnLeaf: Mucheng insisted, and it’s not bad. Why?
DesertDust: You’ve actually done at least half the things this fic’s Ye Qiu has.
OneAutumnLeaf: yup. Pretty impressive of them, really
DesertDust: …
OneAutumnLeaf: What, are you asking about accuracy?
OneAutumnLeaf: They got my whole backstory wrong
DesertDust: ……
DancingRain: Han Wenqing and Ye Qiu are finally dating!
TroublingRain: How can you be so behind??? They got together at least ten chapters ago!! It was such a big deal when they started going out, everyone was talking about it, where have you been???
TroublingRain: Hey hey hey what the fuck in hell is this?? What is it with you people and recalling your messages???? Answer me answer me answer me answer me @DancingRain @DancingRain @DancingRain @DancingRain @DancingRain @DancingRain