Chapter Text
One day as Xiao Xingchen was searching for contents about his favourite character on this popular webnovel – 《Tragedy of Yi》 and was shocked to find that the page was crawling with all these horrible tags.
His jaw almost fell out when he scrolled through the tags containing beasteality, tentacles, non-con contents and most of them were written by this user going by the name of GiveMeGrass – a crude pun in Chinese that Xiao Xingchen found distasteful. (Basically “grass” has the same pronunciation as fuck.)
Anyway, Xiao Xingchen would have none of it, especially when...when it's written about his favourite character Song Lanlan! This “Grass” person wrote his beloved character in very compromising situations! Eg, MobXLanlan...and the worst of all, LanLan was being shipped with the villainous character!
Didn't they know it's toxic?! Xiao Xingchen was baffled as he painstakingly read the fics, feeling his heart ache at the mistreatment of his favourite character.
He decided to leave an anonymous comment telling the writer how wrong it was of them to write something terrible like this. “How could you romanticize their relationship?! Didn't you know the villain did so many atrocities towards Lanlan?!...” and the list went on, telling of a better option for the writer to ship Lanlan with someone healthier.
Satisfied by his statement, Xiao Xingchen hit the send button and went to sleep.
What he did not expect to happen was seeing a screenshot of his comment on his twitter timeline. And the user who posted it was @YangGrassYou – it didn't take long for Xiao Xingchen to connect the dots that this “Yang” is the writer for those terrible fanfics!
What was worse was scrolling through the comments in the thread and seeing everyone mocking him.
Face-flushed and obviously fuming, Xiao Xingchen typed in a comment who claimed that he was too cowardly to comment with his own account and was hiding behind anon.
“The comment was written by me. And I stand by what I say. This ship is toxic and all of you should be ashamed of romanticising it. Don't tell me it's fiction. Look at the Jaws effect!” He typed so long that it had to be split into three tweets.
After sending, he sighed satisfactorily and went about his day. To start off his day, he would first have to drop by the local cafe to get his coffee fix.
He needed a strong one this time, after what he saw that morning.
Thank goodness he did not download the app on his phone else he would be so so so tempted to check every minute to see if anyone replied to him. Even though he was really itching to check.
“Good morning there~” The barista flashed Xiao Xingchen a smile before continuing, “Lemme guess, ‘The usual?’”
The bad mood left Xiao Xingchen that very instant. Gosh... He just loves that smile – that PERFECT smile with those cute canines and a dash of mischievousness.
Xiao Xingchen’s heart was doing a mini somersault but he retained his composure. “Actually, I would prefer something stronger today. Do you have any recommendation?”
It was fairly early and Xiao Xingchen was the only one in the cafe with this barista that Xiao Xingchen had been crushing on ever since he entered his first year of college.
The cafe was only a walk away from his college and Xiao Xingchen would always go there for his coffee fix whenever he got the chance to.
He even memorised the barista’s schedule. It's not creepy or anything!! Xiao Xingchen convinced himself because he really had no ill intentions towards this cutie. 😤
But their conversations always remained brief as Xiao Xingchen would feel too nervous to even attempt to ask the younger man out.
In fact, today was the first time Xiao Xingchen even asked for a recommendation. He shifted his gaze away when the barista who goes by the name Xue Yang began to seemingly contemplate.
“I could fix you a cold drip, if you are ok with something cold?”
“Sure, please.”
Xiao Xingchen flashed a smile. It was then a chime of the bell🔔 signified the arrival of another customer.
Xiao Xingchen turned, “Ah you are here, Zichen.”
The man looked stoic, seemingly just woken up, but the barista knew no matter how much coffee the man had will not help. Zichen had what you would classify as the ‘resting bitch face’.
“Yo. Here for a coffee as black as your soul?” Xue Yang asked the customer who just entered the premises.
Zichen frowned, unamused. Xiao Xingchen was the one who chuckled.
“Just a black coffee will do.” Zichen said.
Xue Yang hummed. “Got it.” before going about preparing the coffee for the two customers.
Xiao Xingchen and his friend had both taken their seats while they waited for their coffee.
“Zichen, I really do not know what is going on with the world these days.” Xiao Xingchen let out a long sigh.
“What's wrong?”
“It's just...” Xiao Xingchen paused, contemplating how to explain the entire issue to his normie friend. “I know you don't really read any Xianxia novels and all...but I'll tell you the summary of the story anyway.”
KRING~
“Coffee's ready.” Xue Yang called out and Zichen went to get their drinks before Xiao Xingchen continued.
“So...the story is basically...”
Song Zichen nodded, sipping his coffee with the occasional, “I see.” and “Ah.” throughout the entire session.
“What do you think about this Yang Yang?” Xiao Xingchen asked suddenly.
“He's a terrible character.”
“Righttt??” Xiao Xingchen’s pitch turned higher. “I mean, you get that he's a horrible, terrible, no-good character, right?” Xiao Xingchen’s eyes beamed, feeling a sense of accomplishment when his friend had taken his side. “So the thing is, I went on to look for some fanfics about the hero of the story and guess what I found?!” He glanced to his side, as if making sure no one was listening in. “P-porn of him with that abhorrent villain! I could not believe anyone would write something like this.” Xiao Xingchen ranted on. “And to see people actually liking it. I fear for the new generation!”
Song Zichen looked at his friend and was debating with himself if he should speak...but then realized it would be better not to, not wanting to out himself for being in...another fandom that was totally different than the one Xingchen’s in.
Song Zichen was actually a secret fan of the 《Magical girls of Moon and Snow》 series...and Xingchen must not know. No! No one can know about this!
He remembered times the fans were accused of being pedos over those chibi fanarts of his favourite characters...Gosh! Those characters are 18y’o but because of their design...
Anyway, back to the situation at hand, Song Zichen merely nodded. “You are right, Xingchen. But perhaps just blocking them will do?” He tried but Xiao Xingchen merely gave him a ‘You don't get it’ look and sighed loudly.
“Sorry for the rant. But I'll figure out something. Anyway, let's go. Class is about to start soon.”
They bid the cute barista goodbye and left.
That night, Xiao Xingchen came home and eagerly turned on his laptop to find... Numerous replies to his comment and even some QRT with rude memes mocking him.
«Can't people just adhere to the ‘Don't like, don't read’ rule?» amongst others...
Xiao Xingchen was itching to reply to each and every one of them.
But of course he got some support as well, namely from a user who goes by the name @BambooQing with their : «Thank you for speaking up for us minors in this fandom. “We are so sick🤮🤮🤮of this person and their fics shipping Lanlan to his abuser!”
Xiao Xingchen smiled, feeling as if he had just accomplished something significant. He noticed the user also followed him so he followed back before writing a comment thanking the person for their support.
One week passed by...
“I'll never leave you!” The girl in pink said, holding hands with the girl in bright green.
Song Zichen watched the scene in 1080p on his 28 inch screen, audio blasting from the Boze speakers he bought. Tears were streaming down his face, yet his expression remained as stoic as ever. He had been watching this special episode for over a dozen times ever since its release.
Such beautiful dialogues. He thought to himself.
It was then, his phone rang. The caller ID flashing across his phone screen caused Song Zichen to panickedly click on the pause button and turned off the speakers.
He did it so fast fast that by the third ring, he was already picking up the phone.
“Hello, Xingchen.”
“Good evening, Zichen...”
Xiao Xingchen sounded gloomy.
“What's wrong?”
There was a long pause at the end of the line before Xiao Xingchen finally said, “I got blocked.”
Song Zichen raised a brow, “By that fic writer?”
“No...it's someone else.” The tone of Xiao Xingchen's voice was sounding more and more distressed as he spoke. “An artist I really like.”
“Oh...”
“What did I do?? I was just..”
Song Zichen was quiet, allowing his friend to rant. And finally Xiao Xingchen asked, “Zichen...do you have a twitter account? Could you please help me DM the artist and ask them why?”
“But I don't have a Twitter account.” The lie slipped out of his mouth so naturally, in the same old monotone manner Song Zichen usually speaks.
“Oh...”
“Perhaps you could open another account and follow the artist from there?” Song Zichen suggested.
“Oh! How come I didn't think about that?! Silly me. Ahaha, thanks Zichen, you are the best. And sorry to disturb you so late.”
With that the phone clicked shut.
“I think you should totally block all of them.” Jin Guangyao was rolling his eyes🙄 as he scrolled through the comments under his friend’s callout post one week ago.
“Pft...nahh, it's amusing to read sometimes.” Xue Yang said, laying down on his bed with a phone in hand. “Oh right, am almost done with chapter 6, help me BETA it.”
Jin Guangyao turned to his roommate, “No more threesome this time for fucks’ sake. I don’t even know who is doing what.” He rolled his eyes. “Why can’t you kill off the other guy and just stick to the main couple?”
“Tsk,” Xue Yang glared at his friend, “I write whatever my brain tells me to.”
“And I’m stuck cracking my brain beta-ing this.” Jin Guangyao facepalmed. “Why don’t you write something normal for once? Coffee shop AU, hello???”
“Oh! Speaking of that. I'm planning on a drabble involving coffee shops~”
“Lemme guess, you gonna have Yangyang bending Lanlan over the counter and–”
“Of course not.” Xue Yang chuckled. “You'll see what I have in store soon. But first! Chapter six~~”