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douqiMpreg in slash has never done very much for me. I would go so far as to say that pregnancy in fic has never done very much for me, as I cannot stop the nagging worry about who is going to look after the offspring that will ensue, and how terribly overworked they're going to be. Look, I'm one of nature's jiejies, this is just how my brain works all of the time.
And then, while scrolling idly through JJWXC, I came across a plot synopsis for a xianxia yanqing that ran basically like this. A young, powerful female cultivator has just beaten her male nemesis (and eventual love interest, though she doesn't know it yet) in a duel. She's about to deliver the coup de grace when he screams 'DON'T DO IT I AM PREGNANT WITH YOUR CHILD.' The female cultivator, shocked by this news but determined to take responsibility for her eventual offspring and their gestational parent, stops short of killing her male nemesis, installs him in a comfortable house and tells him in what I imagine is a gruff male lead voice, 'Don't worry about anything, just focus on taking good care of yourself and the baby.'
In that moment I thought: yeah, I get it now.
I don't really want to interrogate too deeply at this point what this says about how I think of pregnancy and how I think of 'straight' relationships. I do want to note that my favourite f/m pairings across c-media are the ones in Eldest Princess Above and Dong Lan Xue. Yes, they are mini-dramas and there are issues with production quality and plotting and pacing, but I utterly love that gender role subversion and the fact that the female leads are allowed to be wild and violent and sexual in a way I have not really encountered in all my years of drama-watching.
And then, while scrolling idly through JJWXC, I came across a plot synopsis for a xianxia yanqing that ran basically like this. A young, powerful female cultivator has just beaten her male nemesis (and eventual love interest, though she doesn't know it yet) in a duel. She's about to deliver the coup de grace when he screams 'DON'T DO IT I AM PREGNANT WITH YOUR CHILD.' The female cultivator, shocked by this news but determined to take responsibility for her eventual offspring and their gestational parent, stops short of killing her male nemesis, installs him in a comfortable house and tells him in what I imagine is a gruff male lead voice, 'Don't worry about anything, just focus on taking good care of yourself and the baby.'
In that moment I thought: yeah, I get it now.
I don't really want to interrogate too deeply at this point what this says about how I think of pregnancy and how I think of 'straight' relationships. I do want to note that my favourite f/m pairings across c-media are the ones in Eldest Princess Above and Dong Lan Xue. Yes, they are mini-dramas and there are issues with production quality and plotting and pacing, but I utterly love that gender role subversion and the fact that the female leads are allowed to be wild and violent and sexual in a way I have not really encountered in all my years of drama-watching.
