#and mxtx took that as a personal challenge

[lgbtlunaverse]

POV switches in chapter 108

This is generally me trying to figure out which parts of the novel are from wei wuxian's limited perspective and which ones are omniscient, as they switch pretty frequently and without warning. And also specifcally because @darkfalcon-z asked in a reply to a post I made earlier today!

Obvious disclaimer that this meta looks pretty closely into specific wording, and that my source remains a translation. I haven't read the original text and so can't attest to my accuracy there.

So MDZS gets real messy with its narration. It obviously starts in omniscient with celebrating Wei Wuxian's death, but spends a lot of its time in limited, most exemplary shown by the enduring obliviousness wei wuxians has towards lan wangji's feelings never being explicitly undercut by the narration.

The novel... does NOT telepgraph when it switches povs. Moreover, wei wuxian does sometimes make confident statement about how other characters feel. Prime example being him talking about how jiang cheng would react to finding out about his core

This being, notably... NOT what Jiang Cheng's actual reaction is when he does find out. That's because wwx is working with incomplete information here, he didn't know Jiang Cheng was willing to lose his core for him to begin with.

Also, he afformentioned obliviousness to Lan Wangji leading to him, multiple times, attributing the wrong motivations to lan wangji's actions.

The novel doesn't outright say "wei wuxian assumed/ thought that jiang cheng would react like that" in the screenshot above, but it DOES clearly show, by leading with him thinking about why he thought he coudn't tell jiang cheng about the golden core transfer, that we're in his head at the moment. And so the following statements are also his thoughts, not omniscient narrations. The difference is very subtle. But it's there

So we're in chapter 108. right before Lan Xichen stabs Jin Guangyao, an we're clearly in omniscient.

Lan Xichen's feelings are stated plainly and there's not very much focus on Wei wuxian at all. It switches over briefly to him and lwj checking up on Wen Ning but his feelings are not overriding everything else.

Then the stab happens

We're still in omniscient here. "Lan xichen felt his heart go cold" a detail Wei Wuxian couldn't know, stated plainly as a matter of fact.

However.

I think this part

Is where we retreat from omniscient back into wei wuxian's pov. We're not told anything about either of these character's inner worlds, but do get some extra litte commentary that jgy was so slow that even Jin Ling could catch him with his eyes closed! That's not something either Lan Xichen or jgy would be thinking of right now. It is, however, a comment Wei Wuxian's inner monologue might think to make.

In the context of my earlier post, which this was inspired by. It also makes some assumptions. Namely, that Xichen is just going after jgy to catch him. It doesn't explicitly say so, because we're not in omniscient anymore but it's clear Wei Wuxian thinks so as he'll feel the need to warn him in a few seconds. This is interesting, as it directly contradicts a popular fan interpretation of this scene, that's become explicitly canonized in multipe adaptations, which is that Lan Xichen is intentionally going along with and is willing to die with him. I'm not saying this theory is correct based on its popularity alone, obviously. I was actually surprised to find out it was so vague when I read the novel considering its popularity!

By the next chapter we'll be unambiguously back into wei uxian's head, and after "Lan Xichen could no longer persuade himself to silence him again" which is in the paragraph before the one in the image above, we are no longer told any other character's feelings or inner thoughts except for Wei Wuxian's. Specifically, this:

So this describes wei wuxian realizing a "something" what something? well, this something.

Again, the difference is subtle. The statement of "He was fighting with his last breath to lead Lan Xichen towards Nie Mingjue, so they could die together!" might seem like another one of those "other charcters' feelings" statements. But we're not IN Jin Guangyao's head right now. This is describing actions, not thoughts. He's not trying to get away (a visible action wwx would be privy to) which must be because...see statement above.

And all of this is framed under the banner of Wei Wuxian saying he realized something, and that being that Jin Guangyao isn't trying to get away and Lan Xichen needs to get away from him because... see statement above. This line basically starts as a repitition of what Wei Wuxian said, repeating his assumption, and then clarifying what Wei Wuxian DOES think is happening. The whole paragraph between is just buildup for the payoff of what that "something" of the realization is. MXTX could have writtern "wei wuxian, however, realized something. Jin Guangyao wasn't trying to get away! Instead he was trying to lead Lan Xichen towards Nie Mingjue so they could die together" and them describe the scenario, it'd be functionally the same in the manner of what information was conveyed, but the little gap in setup and payoff increases suspense and makes the reveal more engaging. It's a good little writing trick!

That wording above does make it way more obvious that that statement? Is one of wei wuxian's. That's what HE thinks.

In the line where jgy pushes lan xichen away, we're still not privy to their feelings or thoughts at all.

But we do get this curious litle "yet,"

That means this is a subversion, something that goes against what was previously established. Namely, that jin guangyao would want lan xichen to get caught by nie mingjue. The actual reality of the situaton conrasts hat we were told earlier. it's a surprise. to who? Well, to all the other characters watching this go down. wwx among them. We get other little commentaries, like how the sight of jgy being choked by nmj is frightening, placing us even further away from his inner world and into the shoes of someone watching him in the temple.

The style being used here is similar to the one in the next chapter, when nie huasang's plan is unveiled. First you get bit of dialogue with clear implications from Wei Wuxian, and then we go into wei wxuxian's head. In a few lines it's explicitly established that he's questioning things, and we are following his line of thought. And then a whle account of nie huasang's plan is given. With no further affirmation that we're still in wei wuxian's head. That's based on context clues given prior. Is this recount of the plan correct? Most likely, yeah! But we're never expicitly told. We are still in wei wuxian's head.

This bit on Jin Guangyao is similar. From the removal of stating other character's feelings (a possible exception might be the statement that "Nie Mingjue is not afraid of spiritual weapons" but that is something observable to wwx who's been seeing nmj not give a shit for a good few minutes now. We get nothing he's not privy to) and a clear indication that we're inside his head now. What we get next is his reocunt of the events, and they're fairly factul as he simply tells us what he sees, but when he gets into the reasons for why things ar ehappening? Well, if we wanted to, we could doubt that.

#mdzs #mdzs meta #wei wuxian #god perspective in this novel is EXHAUSTING #every writing advice blog and course i've ever seen is like DON'T SWITCH POVS MID SCENE IT'S CONFUSING #and mxtx took that as a personal challenge #narrator so unreliable you don't even know who's narrating half the time #apologies for not including alt text! it's midnight here and the site i'm using to get these screenshots doesn't allow me to copy-paste! #i'll add id tomorrow morning

[sonik-kun]

Reminder that WWX did use a homophobic slur (cutsleeve) before he found out he was, in fact, a "cutsleeve" himself.

I'd also argue that him taking advantage of MXY's body and the rumours associated with him by acting as a "stereotypical gay" to get out of situations was a form of homophobia in itself.

He assumed this was how crazy, gay people act - like sexual deviants. He used that stereotype on top of the rumours about MXY just to get out of sticky situations and avoid being captured.

Whilst this isn't aggressive homophobia, nor would I consider him a raging homophobe myself, he still took advantage of the world view he was raised in, which, in modern terms, was problematic in itself.

Think the harmful, stereotypical, predatory gay trope in anime that a lot of anime fans have taken issue with. That's the stereotype WWX was trying to perpetuate and brush off as a silly joke which is bordering that harmful stereotype territory mentioned above. And yet I don't see the moral "holier than thou" crowd talking about that in their analysis on "fictional characters in an ancient Chinese setting."

(Note before I get jumped on: I don't think WWX was being cruel or malicious when he did this. Nor do I think he purposely intended to sully poor MXY's image further. And I ofc don't think that WWX is a terrible person for doing so either. The guy was desperate and needed to pull tricks to avoid capture. But that still doesn't make things right by modern standards. Even if said stereotype was used to goad a load of "homophobes." Would also like to add that even after coming out, WWX didn't really challenge the societal standard or think ill of anyone who thought like that. It's not like he toured the CW with LWJ, promoting gay rights. He'd be very extraordinary for doing that and brave, too. But he didn't. Instead, he just got up to sexy times with his husband daily and lazed about living the good life. Which is valid of him, tbh, giving the shit he went through. But my point still stands. The social norm persists.)

Also, bare in mind, WWX was heavily in denial about his own sexuality at first and struggled to come to terms with it in the beginning due to the societal norms back then, anyway.

Homophobia was the norm. Stop denying that when you know most of the characters found it bizarre.

By their standards being gay was, unfortunate as it is, unusual and to them, perhaps even immoral in its own right.

By modern standards, we know now that it is wrong. And the moral consensus is that being gay is normal and should not be vilified (even then, not all cultures today have reached that consensus and LGBT rights still have a long way to go).

With this in mind and the notion of what morality meant to people back then, you mustn't hold the characters to modern standards because that was simply the world view. What was "right" back then.

You cannot say with certainty that you wouldn't be homophobic back then, in a world where people called it strange and immoral. As much as I'd like to believe that I would be one of the few who find it wrong to treat gay people poorly, most of us probably would find homosexuality strange because that was the moral consensus of that time. As such, it is unfair to hold characters like JC, JL, and JGY to modern standards for that reason. That's the point we've all been trying to make here.

(Even then, JC and JL both watched as WWX left with his hubby into the sunset and didn't speak illy of their relationship again, nor consider them social outcasts like the Jins and Mos treated MXY. It's almost as if people can change their world views entirely (or to some extent) after things become normalised. Hmm. 🧐

Furthermore, MXTX herself said that JC wasn't a bad person. She wouldn't say that if he's the "aggressive homophobe, incapable of change" like you all seem to imply he is.)

You all make this point about historical context when us JC fans criticise WWX for his clear breach of bodily autonomy with the core transfer and his own war crimes. You should apply that logic to the period typical homophobia too. Because as I have said before, you cannot say for certain that the characters would be homophobic had this taken place in a society where being gay was the norm whilst homophobia was frowned upon. Let's use some logic and context when talking about characters from an ancient time period, shall we?

#canon jiang cheng #jiang wanyin #jiang cheng #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #so sick of this tired ass argument smh #stop holding ancient characters by modern standards #to us modern folk they're ALL problematic in their own way 😂 #get over it

[veilchenjaeger]

back at you: MINGLING

MINGLING!!!!!! (for this)

I love them, I adore them, I have a playlist for them, I want 200k word epics written about them (and I count making you ship Mingling (apparently!) amongst my greatest achievements).

1. What made you ship it?

Initially, the fact that Mingling is the only MXTX F/F ship I've encountered that has legitimate canonical tension. (I just want MXTX to write a baihe so badly.) I was sorely disappointed that their fight wasn't described in the novel, so my lesbian heart fucking soared when Sha Hualing ended up ripping off Liu Mingyan's veil and had a visceral reaction to how fucking hot she is. Excellent vibes. What a homoerotic scene.

Still, my Mingling love lay dormant for a while, until I ended up analysing Sha Hualing's character for some reason and went, "...wait. She's pretty complex and I really think falling for Liu Mingyan would challenge her in a constructive way." Around the same time, I saw a post on Twitter (sadly now lost due to the fact that I didn't bookmark it) pointing out that the "righteous cultivator defiled by a demon" vibes of Resentment of Chunshan really do go very well with Mingling. That took care of the Liu Mingyan side of things and now I'm a Mingling truther.

2. What are your favourite things about the ship?

I am extremely into ships where the characters challenge each other and make each other grow, and I see a lot of potential for that in Mingling. Sha Hualing imo has a pretty weird attitude to attraction and love that is very tied to her ambition, and Liu Mingyan (the righteous and not unusually powerful human cultivator) might challenge that. On the other hand, Liu Mingyan writes a lot about demon sex but is also stuck in the role of the perfect saintlike innocent girl, and Sha Hualing as her ambitious, confident, sexualised opposite might inspire her. They could fix each other. It's just so soothing to have a ship like this where the characters are women, too.

Also, the more I think about it, the more I am stunned by the amount of Mingling vibes I get from canon?? The scene where they're described as natural opposites destined to face each other! Their Wangxian vibes! Resentment of Chunshan! The fact that Sha Hualing is the only one who has canonically seen Liu Mingyan's face! Mingling canon

3. Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

I have an endless supply of unpopular opinions about everything, but I'll pick one. (Although "unpopular" is relative when it comes to Mingling bc it's just not a ship that gets a lot of attention. I'll consider the things "popular" that I personally see the most, so I might be biased.)

I see a lot of Mingling where Sha Hualing pursues Liu Mingyan and is aware of and confident in her attraction to her, and I enjoy that a lot, but... I think it would be funnier if Liu Mingyan developed her crush way before Sha Hualing ever thought about Liu Mingyan twice. Think about it! Sha Hualing played an actual memorable role in Liu Mingyan's life, while Liu Mingyan is just a random disciple who lost to Sha Hualing once, completely forgettable when compared to Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe, who ruined her Cang Qiong Mountain expedition. My favourite Mingling vibe is "Liu Mingyan had her sexual awakening during her fight with Sha Hualing and has since thought of her as something between 'the evil seductive vixen whose charms I have to withstand/who I am NOT INTO AT ALL I SWEAR' and 'hhggnghgh hot demon'" + "Sha Hualing had no strong feelings towards Liu Mingyan except for a vague bitterness regarding anything Cang Qiong Mountain-related, until she kidnapped her and found out she's A) frustratingly cool B) extremely attractive". They'd both need some time to come to terms with their attraction to each other, and Sha Hualing might catch up even if Liu Mingyan did get a head start, but the point is that I think Liu Mingyan is WAY hornier for Sha Hualing than vice versa for a pretty long time.

#[epistulae ad atticum] #mingling #/thank u for enabling me to speak about mingling #/even more than i already do

[xiyao-feels]

i've seen takes that jgy started playing turmoil before the staircase, aka wwx comments that it would take 3months for turmoil to kill nmj (ch64) so obviously jgy started playing it a long time ago, causing all of nmj's anger, all of that was his fault.

but also the novel says that jgy made a decision on the stairs or gave something up then a few days later played for nmj (ch 49) and like...idk what that could be except for killing nmj, is there something else this could be?

is wwx right? is mxtx bad at timelines? is nmj kick 3 months in the past, what is the time between 49 and 50 (when nmj dies in 2mo)

idk this whole thing is fuzzy and if you have any clarification or insight i'd like to hear it

-🦊

Fox anon! I'm glad to hear from you, and I hope you're doing well. I'm sorry I took so long to answer this—I was trying to be thorough, you all can judge whether I succeeded.

Now, I think the first thing to note here is that WWX actually and explicitly observes the Song of Clarity working when JGY is playing for NMJ before the stairs (ch 49):

Since then, Jin GuangYao would travel from Lanling to Qinghe every few days, playing Sound of Lucidity to help quell Nie MingJue rage. He tried his hardest, without speaking even a single word of complaint. Sound of Lucidity was indeed effective. Wei WuXian could clearly feel that the hostile energy within Nie MingJue was being suppressed. And, when playing the guqin, the way that the two conversed and got along even had a hint of the peace they had before they fell out. He began to think that maybe the so-called busy reestablishing the Cloud Recesses was just an excuse. Perhaps Lan XiChen simply wanted to give Nie MingJue and Jin GuangYao a chance to ease their tension.

(emphasis mine)

I think this is pretty conclusive. WWX's observations on the spot override his conclusions after a) being extensively soaked in NMJ's anger/resentment (ch 48-50) b) the entire drama afterwards at Jinlintai including being stabbed through by Jin Ling (ch 50) and c) resting and recovering for four days (ch 63).

Moreover, let's look at what WWX actually says in chapter 63:

Wei WuXian, “Jin GuangYao’s spiritual energy isn’t high. He wouldn’t have been able to take someone’s life with just seven notes. And killing him this way would’ve been too obvious. He definitely wouldn’t have chosen a song so powerful. But, if he could use the reason of playing the Song of Clarity for ChiFeng-Zun to calm his temper and continued to play it for three months, would the song be able to act as a slow poison and catalyse ChiFeng-Zun’s outburst?”

He's asking LXC questions about Turmoil, because it's new to him and he doesn't understand everything about it. I think it's pretty clear here that he's starting from how long he saw JGY play for NMJ, and asking if that would be long enough, rather than definitively stating that it would have to take three months; nor is there anything in LXC's response ("… Yes") that suggests three months is any kind of necessary minimum.

So those are the facts at hand. And imho if you look at the text in the later Empathy, there's a great deal of supporting evidence as well. There's the moment you mention, where JGY seems to be making a decision:

Nie MingJue, “Then why don’t you sacrifice yourself? Are you any nobler than them? Are you any different from them?”

Jin GuangYao stared at him. A moment later, as though he had finally either decided on something or given up on something, he replied calmly, “Yes.”

He looked up. In his expression were some of pride, some of calmness, and some of a faint insanity, “I and they, of course we are different!”

I agree with you, he's deciding to give up on NMJ—and if it's something else, what is it? If JGY isn't giving up on getting through to NMJ here, what function does this line serve in the text?

And I think it's worth noting here, as I've noted before—when JGY is talking about how different his and NMJ's positions are, he says "Your background is noble and your cultivation is high"; and the "Your background is noble" part is 你出身高贵, with the 高贵 being the "noble" part. When NMJ is asking him "Are you any nobler than them? Are you any different from them?" the "Are you any nobler than them?" is 你比他们高贵吗—so the "noble" part is, again, the same word, 高贵.  Given that JGY has just spent a great deal of breath explaining that he is different from NMJ precisely because of his less-noble background, this is very much a pair of questions that might quite justifiably make JGY feel like NMJ is just completely not understanding anything he is saying here at all. 

Besides that moment, there is the way he approaches or interacts with NMJ, which is quite noticeably different after the stairs. If you look at the beginning of the stairs, he's trying to convince NMJ to let the XY thing go: he says that if XY is locked up for life and can't hurt people, this isn't too different from him being executed, and then when NMJ does not accept this, points out that it's JGY's father's command and he cannot simply go against it as NMJ wishes. Once JGY loses his temper, he is still presenting arguments for his position—which granted is now approximately "you're being a hypocrite and you don't understand things", but he is still arguing for it—that is, he is still trying to reach NMJ; he is acting as though on some level he believes he can get through to him. 

But in attempting to convince NMJ about XY, he is not acting like someone who expects that NMJ is right about to die; because if he were expecting that, he could simply say whatever he likes to put NMJ off, knowing that he won't actually have to pay up. Similarly, in attempting to get through to NMJ via argument, however angrily, he is not treating NMJ as purely an object to be manipulated; NMJ's beliefs matter to JGY separately (I am not saying /only/ separately) from what those beliefs lead NMJ to do. To put it another way: he cares about what NMJ thinks. This too is something that prevents JGY from simply telling NMJ whatever he wishes to hear, and this, too, is lost at the stairs.

For after the stairs, telling NMJ what he wants to hear, and just telling NMJ something that will put him off because he knows or hopes he won't have to pay up, are exactly what JGY does. When he shows up at the Unclean Realm a few days later, he tells NMJ he's here to acknowledge his mistakes and that he's realized NMJ is "doing this" for him; he promises to bring NMJ XY's head in two months, and tells NMJ he can do whatever he likes with him if JGY does not. This is a significant change in behaviour from before the stairs, and in consideration with all the other evidence it seems to me that this is because, post-stairs, he no longer values what NMJ thinks of him, and he is now gambling on his killing NMJ before NMJ kills him.

The only area where he does push back now is NMJ's treatment of NHS, I suspect because he worries about what NMJ might do or continue to do to NHS in his remaining two months of life.

So: I really do think the evidence is pretty clear that JGY starts with Turmoil after the stairs, in that it is directly signalled by the text and in that all the evidence around it backs this up.

That said, I have seen other objections raised by various anti-JGY folk, and while some of them have more merit than others I think it's worth taking the time to go over them.

-JGY couldn't possibly have prepared the Turmoil music in the few days between the stairs and him starting to play for NMJ after.

Yes, I agree; he must have had it prepared earlier. But that only means that he had it prepared, not that he was using it, and while there are certainly people who will only prepare a weapon if they are sure they will use it, I really don't think JGY is among them. He might also have prepared it as evidence for his father that he was working on solving the problem.

-WWX didn't notice a difference between the music JGY was playing before the stairs and the music he was playing after; therefore, it must be the same music.

Honestly, I think that WWX just didn't notice. It's explicitly described as very subtle, and indeed he can't tell the difference between the altered passage and the rest of the song (ch 63):  

Wei WuXian withdrew the flute from his lips, “It really is this section? But I don’t find this section different at all.”

And he again observes how similar they are in chapter 64:  

And he combined them so well. They sound as though there were the same. His musical talent is indeed excellent.

His repeated observation that they sound just the same suggests that he could very well have failed to notice, I think, and indeed he would have heard the altered version more often.

There is also another explanation, entirely compatible with JGY only using Turmoil after the stairs. WWX says of JGY playing Turmoil that he must have "used little spiritual power" during the Clarity sections, and "only exerted power" during the Turmoil section (ch 64). So if we think WWX would definitely have noticed the difference, there is an explanation for how he nevertheless very clearly observed NMJ's hostile energy suppressed by the music; JGY might have been using his power during the (much longer) Clarity part, and only used a very little during Turmoil. Personally, I think that it fits better with the overall emotional arc if JGY didn't change the music he was playing until after the stairs; but I accept this isn't ruled out as a possibility.

I feel obliged to note that at one point, after I was challenged on the issue of JGY changing the music after the stairs and pointed out WWX noticing NMJ's hostile energy being suppressed, as above, I was offered as an explanation for the passage that JGY couldn't possibly have abruptly switched to Turmoil right away when he started playing for NMJ, because NMJ would have noticed that he was suddenly feeling worse; and that therefore WWX clearly feeling NMJ's hostile energy being suppressed was not really evidence that JGY was playing Clarity and not Turmoil before the stairs. But I disagree with this, on two counts.

First, it is not clear to me that NMJ would in fact notice. He does not seem to be very self-aware about the effects of the sabre curse. He explicitly denies it at the stairs, for example: "I am not [in turmoil]. I know what I'm doing" (ch 49). After he burns NHS' things, when JGY asks him if he's told NHS about the sabre curse yet, NMJ asks "Why would I tell him so soon?" even though at this point he is quite clearly being affected (ch 50). And when he kicks open the door to kill JGY in chapter 50, he seems not to think about the curse at all. Of course this last is moments before he qi deviates and dies and is therefore perhaps not representative, but it fits with the general pattern; I don't believe we ever see him consider whether his anger might be because of the sabre curse, and indeed he is hardly given to questioning the righteousness of his anger in general.

Secondly, and more abstractly...WWX observing the hostile energy being suppressed—"clearly feel[ing]" it being suppressed (ch 49)—may not be /literally/ incompatible with the idea that JGY changed music after the stairs. But a story isn't just a collection of facts, and I think by far the most natural interpretation of this, in context, is that JGY is playing Clarity and not Turmoil. Which is not of course to say you can't have a resistant reading here, but I think it's generally good practice to acknowledge when your readings are resistant readings, and especially if you have a resistant reading not to say it is the only possible reading of the facts.

-JGY has no motive for playing for NMJ other than wanting him dead.

If we assume rather that he doesn't want him dead, he pretty clearly has a motive to help keep NMJ's temper under control, both on a personal level (so NMJ doesn't attack or embarrass him) and on a political level (so NMJ doesn't lose it and embarrass JGS). I would also like to note that although it was some time ago, and it seems likely that even before the stairs JGY's feelings about NMJ are not as positive as once they were, we have seen JGY go to quite heroic lengths to save NMJ's life before, when he saves him from Wen Ruohan by misdirection and assassination then drag/carries his unconscious body rather than leave him there and make good his own escape.

-The stairs and the fan burning both happen before JGY starts playing for NMJ after the stairs; NMJ wouldn't do either of those things in his right mind…

I agree; the Nie have to deal with the sabre curse. I think it's worth pointing out, too, that aside from Clarity we don't see NMJ take any measures to try to deal with the curse, either directly in addressing the curse itself, or by preventing himself from acting excessively under the influence of the curse; it shouldn't be surprising, then, that the curse can cause such drastic incidents.

-…and the sabre curse wouldn't be strong enough.

This one really confuses me as an objection, I'm going to be honest. We can be pretty sure NMJ would have qi deviated eventually, Turmoil or no. NHS says this in chapter 26:

"The sabers of our past sect leaders were all heavy with hostile energy and killing intent. Almost every single sect leader met a sudden death from a qi deviation explosion. Their irritable tempers also had a lot to do with this."

(As a side note: the missing paragraph in the ER translation right after this has I think occasionally led people to the conclusion that it is the qi deviation and such that WWX suggests is similar to demonic cultivation, as opposed to the sabres turning murderous after the deaths of their owners—you can see the Taming Wangxian and the MDZS Translation versions for the full context of the exchange.)

So NMJ was almost sure to qi deviate eventually! Moreover, he would have greatly strengthened the sabre spirit through his extensive use of Baxia during Sunshot, and after the war he continues to pursue cultivating with the sabre, without, I think, any sign of moderation. And it seems likely that he is already showing recognizable symptoms of the curse by the time JGY starts playing for him alone, as Clarity seems intended to slow the progression of the curse and also like something relatively newly introduced—they don't seem to have been doing this since Sunshot just in case, or anything. So how then could we be sure that the sabre curse on its own would be insufficient?

-NMJ wasn't at all violent before JGY started playing for him

This is simply not true. Unfortunately we don't see much of him outside of Empathy, but looking exclusively at things that happen before JGY starts playing for him:

His reputation in Sunshot is about his destroying the Wen, contrasted with LXC's which is about saving people (ch 48):

During the Sunshot Campaign, stories of praise were told about all three of the Venerated Triad. The ones of ChiFeng-Zun were about how he swept over all obstacles, leaving not even a trace of the Wen-dogs after he finished. ZeWu-Jun—Lan XiChen—however, was different from him. After the situation of the Gusu area had settled down, Lan QiRen was able to defend it with great tenacity. Thus, Lan XiChen often travelled to aid others, saving lives from danger. In all of the Sunshot Campaign, he had countless times recovered lost territory and assisted narrow escapes. This was why people were ecstatic whenever they heard his name, as though they gained a ray of hope, a powerful trump card.

The description of his reaction to seeing MY kill the Jin captain pretty strongly suggests his initial reaction was to attack MY on the spot (ch 48):

Nie MingJue saw all of the scene. Without saying a word, he unsheathed his saber by an inch. A sharp ring pierced through the air.

Hearing the familiar sound of unsheathing, Meng Yao immediately trembled. He spun around, his soul almost evaporating, “… Sect Leader Nie?”

Nie MingJue pulled all of his saber out of its sheath. The body of the sword glared brightly, yet the blade itself vaguely glinted in the red shade of blood. Wei WuXian could feel the billowing anger from him, along with emotions of disappointment and hatred.

Meng Yao knew Nie MingJue’s character more than anyone else. He dropped the sword with a clang, “Sect Leader Nie, Sect Leader Nie! Please wait, please wait! I can explain!”

Even after he's listening, he ends up grabbing MY by the collar and lifting him up (ch 48). 

When he's explaining what happened with MY to LXC, he announces his intention to kill MY if he ever sees him again (ch 48), and after MY kills WRH, saving NMJ's life in doing so, and is carrying him out afterwards, he grabs his sabre from MY's hand and tries to kill MY again (ch 49). He only stops when LXC physically blocks him, and changes his mind after LXC explains that MY was in fact a spy, and I think it's worth noting that WWX believes that MY would probably have died under NMJ's attacks before LXC arrived if NMJ hadn't been heavily injured (ch 49). We're also told the brotherhood oath 3zun swear is unusually violent, in a way JGY suggests, and which LXC notably does not refute, was decided by NMJ (ch 50). Finally, while this summary of NMJ's interests is arguably from WWX's perspective, it is still notable that the only two things he's apparently interested in are "training his saberwork and killing Wen-dogs" (ch 49)—which is to say, the study of violence, and a particular and fatal application thereof. 

(Totally unrelated fun fact: I was looking at the entrance to the Phoenix Mountain Hunt for this too and apparently NMJ is seventh on the young cultivators list (ch 69). The more you know!)

I want to be very clear that I am not saying that all of NMJ's violence is unreasonable or not understandable. But that it can be reasonable and understandable does not mean that it is not violent; and it is certainly not the only reaction a person could have to the events he's reacting to. Contrast LXC, as someone rather on the other end of the spectrum.

-If NMJ were violent, JGY wouldn't risk his life killing him via Turmoil (and therefore NMJ must not be violent)

Even aside from the extensive textual evidence for NMJ's violence, I don't think this holds together. As shown above, I think it's quite clear that NMJ was in fact always a violent man, but there is absolutely no question that he's violent to JGY in his last months of life, and if you think JGY started playing Turmoil for NMJ before the stairs, then it's really extremely clear that JGY was willing to risk NMJ's violence in killing him! I think the clash between JGY's desire to live and the evident risk to his life from killing NMJ with Turmoil actually supports the position I am arguing here. Assuming we are agreed that JGY is attached to his own life, and as it's clear that as NMJ approached his end he was a danger to JGY (regardless of how that end was induced!), why was JGY playing him Turmoil?

I think the stairs make it clear to JGY that his life is not safe while NMJ is still alive. Using Turmoil, therefore, becomes a gamble he is willing to take, though still an enormously risky one: on the one hand, it appeases his father and enables him to promise NMJ he can do whatever he likes with JGY if he doesn't kill XY in two months (ch 50), a promise he obviously and understandably has no intention of keeping. But on the other hand, if NMJ doesn't die within the two months, he probably will simply kill JGY—and more than that, given his focus on JGY, he may kill JGY anyway, for some much more trivial reason. Indeed, this is exactly what almost happens just before NMJ's death, when he kicks open a door and attempts to kill JGY on the spot because JGY was complaining to LXC about NMJ's treatment of him; if LXC hadn't blocked NMJ's sabre, JGY would almost certainly have died (ch 50). But as risky as this gamble is, it is still a better bet than waiting around and hoping LXC always saves him when NMJ tries to kill him—especially taking into account the risk from his father should he do so.

-The stairs incident was good for JGY and bad for NMJ, which is evidence that JGY arranged it on purpose

...I have a lot of things to say about this position. None of them are very nice. However, as I am in fact trying to argue in good faith, I will attempt to address it as an argument.

I think this comes from a confusion of the fandom reaction to the stairs with the in-universe reaction to it. To people now, yes, looking at this makes NMJ look bad, and inspires sympathy for JGY. In-universe, however—when NMJ publically assaults JGY and tries to kill him, when he calls him Meng Yao, when he shouts he's the son of a prostitute, it's not /NMJ/ who looks bad. NMJ of course is righteous in his anger; really he's only putting that boy in his place, don't you think? I knew Chifeng-zun didn't really accept him. Etcetera. It /weakens/ JGY's position, because the cultivation world does not have the same beliefs and priorities and value judgements that we do!

Certainly if he'd actually managed to kill JGY he would suddenly have found that he had killed JGS's beloved son, the only remaining son of the Jin, a war hero, his own sworn brother who had saved NMJ's life etc etc etc. But only because then there would have been political advantage in it for JGS, and quite substantial political advantage too, and he wouldn't have to deal with JGY being around anymore. As it stands, all NMJ's actions at the stairs do for JGY is tell the world that he is vulnerable and weak and disgusting. The only significant person in-world who would find JGY more sympathetic after this incident is LXC, and frankly a) he is already deeply in sympathy with JGY and b) we don't see JGY playing it up—after LXC's appearance at the stairs rather he minimizes and soothes things, and even when we overhear his complaints to LXC around two months later he is talking about what NMJ thinks of him, and not the physical danger NMJ poses.

I will also observe that while JGY does end up losing his temper, he starts off soothing even through NMJ's first attempted assault, and only loses it after NMJ calls him Meng Yao and says "your whole thing stopped working on me since a long time ago" in front of everyone; this attempted conciliation seems an odd thing to do were he in fact trying to manipulate NMJ into assaulting him, trying to kill him, embarrassing him and weakening his position in public. You could argue that NMJ would be more angered by JGY's attempts to be soothing than he would by JGY's directness, and thus the soothing could be read as provocative, but this simply isn't backed up by the text; while NMJ was obviously already angry before JGY lost his temper, he nevertheless escalates significantly after JGY talks back.

Moreover...I think what NMJ actually does and tries to do at the stairs, in terms of violence, is sometimes not fully grasped.

The first thing he does once they're properly outside is try to hit JGY, though fortunately JGY manages to dodge. When NMJ kicks him down the stairs, even aside from calling JGY the son of a prostitute, JGY ends up rolling down more than fifty steps and acquiring a head wound—/another/ head wound, because he already had one, apparently from the physical abuse he receives at Jinlintai from Madam Jin. And finally, NMJ actually /unsheathes his sabre/ and, after LXC approaches, announces his intention to kill JGY:

Lan XiChen, “Brother, sheath your saber first—your mind is in turmoil!”

Nie MingJue, “I am not. I know what I’m doing. He’s beyond hope. If these keeps on going, he’ll do the world harm for sure. The earlier he’s killed, the earlier we can relax!”

(ch 49)

When I say that NMJ almost killed JGY at the stairs, I am not just talking about kicking him down the stairs, although that certainly could have killed JGY. I am talking about drawing his sabre on JGY with the intention of killing him. JGY would very likely have died if LXC hadn't thought they were taking too long and come to see. 

JGY can certainly take enormous risks when it's necessary—but for a risk like this he would have to be gaining something extremely significant, and I remain unconvinced he was gaining anything at all, let alone anything worth the cost.

-NMJ's actions at the stairs and his burning NHS' things are completely unrelated to any of his previous actions and motivations.

In fact, although they're certainly both significant escalations, I think that in both cases NMJ's motivations and actions draw extensively from preceding characterization.

Consider the stairs. The direct classism is certainly new, but there are several other elements that have already been established as part of NMJ's characterization: the tendency to violence, the investment in JGY behaving correctly even while ignoring incorrect behaviour around him, the approach to justice both in his particular and frequently-retributive idea of it and in his commitment to that idea, and a failure to understand the realities of JGY's position.

The violence I discussed above, and the failure to understand JGY's position has I think been discussed sufficiently elsewhere and besides would be a full post in its own right. As to NMJ's approach to justice, you can see both idea and commitment to it in his anger to the men speaking badly of MY (ch 48) and his appreciation and promotion of MY for his accomplishments (ch 48); his initial intention to kill MY after he catches him killing the Jin captain (ch 48), his subsequent insistence that MY turn himself in to the Jin (ch 48) and his intention to kill MY for his betrayal after MY tricks him and escapes (ch 48); his initial insistence that MY should pay for killing the Nie cultivators, even as he acknowledges that MY saved his life and says he will kill himself after he kills MY (ch 49); and of course in his insistence that WQ and WN should pay for their complicity with WRH, even in the face of LXC and JC's defense of them (ch 73). And in describing LWJ as "absolutely [unable to] stand wrongdoings, possibly even more than Nie HuaiSang’s brother" (ch 30), WWX implies a great deal about the extent of NMJ's inability to stand wrongdoings. Of course, not all of these instances involve NMJ seeking violent retribution as justice, but a significant portion do—about half—and it is certainly a recurring theme. This approach to justice, I should add, is certainly involved in attempting to punish JGY for his misdeeds by killing him, but it is also part of why he is so upset in the first place: in NMJ's view of things, holding XY in prison instead of executing him for his crimes is failing to see justice properly done.

The investment in JGY behaving correctly, even while caring less about the behaviour of other people around him doing the same, is likewise an established character note. WWX concludes that NMJ's desire to guide JGY is one of the main reasons he agrees to the brotherhood (ch 49); we see his disapproval of JGY associating with XY, who already has something of a bad reputation, at the Flower Banquet (ch 49); at the conference after WWX rescues the Wen, when JGY backs up his father's lie about what WWX said about JC, NMJ seems to mark it more heavily than JGS' initial lie (ch 73). And then, of course, there is this, from the scene just before JGY starts playing for NMJ (ch 49):

In reality, it wasn’t that Jin GuangYao could calm Nie MingJue’s anger, but that since Jin GuangYao came, all of Nie MingJue’s anger would be directed at him alone, having no time to scold others. Thus, there was nothing wrong with saying that he was Nie HuaiSang’s knight in shining armor.

While NMJ's actions at the stairs are certainly not something he'd have done without the sabre curse, and again the direct classism is new, it nevertheless very much ties in to his preexisting characterization.

What about the burning of NHS' things? Again, many elements of the situation derive from NMJ's preexisting characterization; in this case, his tendency to release his anger on physical objects, his desire for NHS to be a strong cultivator and his angry displeasure with NHS' actual interests and capabilities, and his threatening to burn NHS' things.

Although prior to the burning of NHS' things it seems to be usually a momentary lashing out, NMJ definitely has a history of releasing his anger on physical objects. When he is annoyed at the men speaking badly about MY, he knocks down (or carves up? the English is unclear) a boulder at the front of the cave (ch 48); when he decides not to kill MY after LXC explains MY was their spy, he carves a boulder in half (ch 49); and he cracks the top of a table by bringing his palm down on it in the scene just before JGY starts playing for him (ch 49).

As to NMJ's desire for his brother to focus on and do well at cultivation, and his displeasure at NHS' actual areas of focus, this is perhaps one of his most consistent beats of characterization. We see it in our introduction to NHS at the Cloud Recesses lectures (ch 13); in NHS' plea for WWX's help with the test (ch 14); in LXC's message to NHS from NMJ and NHS' reason for staying in CR instead of going to Caiyi Town (ch 16); in WWX's reminiscences about NHS after discussing the "Man-Eating Ridge" with the "know-it-all of Qinghe" (ch 21); in NMJ and LXC's discussion when NMJ brings LXC NHS' sabre during in Sunshot (ch 48); and of course in the scene just before JGY starts playing for NMJ, both in his initial anger at NHS' preoccupation with the fans and uncertainty about his sabre's location, and in his dismissal of NHS as a "good-for-nothing" even after his temper had faded (ch 49).

The threatening to burn NHS' things, on the other hand, I believe we only see once, and really in the form of "instructing NHS to burn certain specific things of his"; but it is in the very scene before JGY starts playing for NMJ, as NMJ tells NHS to burn the fans he has just been going over tenderly before JGY interrupts (ch 49).

Indeed, I think that scene in general is very much worth a look here, for what it has and for what it doesn't. On the one hand, we do see NHS' fear of NMJ—he literally falls to his knees in terror, and stutters even after getting up! But he also seems fairly comfortable after the worst of NMJ's anger passes, and when NMJ sends him off he goes not to his room as instructed, but to the living room for the gifts JGY has brought him. Yet many of the elements of NMJ's later destruction of NHS' things are present here, and to my mind one of the most important things about the scene is its illustration of what prevents NMJ from carrying out the threats he made in his anger. It's not that he's convinced he's being unreasonable—indeed, he doesn't seem to consciously change his mind at all. Instead it is simply that repeated interruptions and NHS's ridiculous appearance as he greets JGY end up draining his temper, and with his temper drained he no longer pursues punishing NHS. But this has obvious implications for what might happen if NMJ's anger did not diminish, and I think it's quite clear how the behaviour NMJ exhibits in this scene could lead to NMJ burning NHS' things simply by giving him a more sustained burst of temper, even as it is not something NHS ever expected to happen, or something that would happen had NMJ's temper not been worsened by the sabre curse.

To conclude this section—while NMJ's actions at the stairs and in burning NHS' things are certainly unprecedented in themselves, they are nevertheless solidly rooted in NMJ's preexisting characterization, and it's easy to see how the sabre curse could lead to these extreme escalations. 

To conclude the post, I think the direct evidence is quite clear that JGY was playing Clarity before the stairs, and I think the indirect evidence also significantly supports it; nor am I convinced by various objections I have seen, for reasons I hope I have conveyed.

#more than one tag could contain #anger burned in his heart #we can't change places #long meta #and thank you very much to confusion-and-more for looking it over + their extremely helpful suggestions and revisions #this post would not be the same without them

[iztarshi]

Identity and Hua Cheng

I’ve been trying to write this one for a while only to be stymied by the fact that Hua Cheng deliberately obscures his identity to such an extent that it’s difficult for readers to get a solid grip on. Hua Cheng’s identity, as he presents it to the world, is smoke and mirrors. He’s a shapeshifter who doesn’t use his true form, all his names are equally false, and his insincere smile and presentation of himself as acting on a whim obscures what he actually means seriously. Hua Cheng is a butterfly trying to hide that he was ever a caterpillar and to that end anything that relates to his past in any way comes with layers of misdirection.

What he hides, though, is who Hua Cheng is, not that he is Hua Cheng. His symbols and colours are consistent enough that everyone meeting him usually knows who he is. For instance, in the gambling hall they’ve never seen his true skin before but find it unremarkable he’s wearing a new one. Nor does it give them any difficulty in recognising him.

It’s only around Xie Lian that he actually tries to disguise himself and even then it doesn’t seem as if he’s trying very hard. He’s just trying to be non-threatening and that’s tricky if you present yourself as a ghost king.

*

Xie Lian

Hua Cheng’s love for Xie Lian is at the core of who he is. As a ghost it’s his driving obsession, even as a human it shaped him. Xie Lian once told Hua Cheng “live for me” and Hua Cheng took him precisely at his word.

It’s not something Hua Cheng advertises, though, at least not before Xie Lian himself is back in the picture. If he decided to make it obvious then, given his general level of subtlety, everyone in the three realms would know. It’s not that he’s ashamed to love Xie Lian, although he might feel like Xie Lian should be ashamed to be loved by him. Mostly, I think, it’s just too close and vulnerable a thing for Hua Cheng to let other people near. He Xuan and Yin Yu seem to know, but before Xie Lian’s visit to ghost city (where Hua Cheng was not subtle at all) that seems to be it.

Despite keeping it to himself Hua Cheng does surround himself with symbols that evoke Xie Lian in ways discernable only to him. The coral pearl. The butterflies for someone seeking a flower-crowned god. The scimitar because Xie Lian said he should use one. The red umbrella because Xie Lian once gave him one.

He also acts on Xie Lian’s words - perhaps because they had so few interactions he tends to put a lot of weight on every one of them before getting to know Xie Lian as more of a person. Someone else’s meta suggested that Ghost City is at least partly a reaction to Xie Lian saying that things like the ghost lanterns should be sold in a specialised place to people who know what they’re getting - and Ghost City very much runs on those lines. Hua Cheng’s approach to the 33 gods he challenged was likely not just revenge but because Xie Lian said they were bullies who didn’t deserve to be gods.

*

Maio Heritage

There isn’t much attention drawn to this in the book - I think MXTX was worried about the implications? - but Hua Cheng’s use of silver jewellery points to this. Some of the motifs he uses, like the butterflies, have roots in maio culture as well as symbolic connections to Xie Lian.

It’s a shame we don’t get more of this, because it’s implies a choice on Hua Cheng’s part to reclaim a heritage he seems to have lost his connection to as a human. The jewellery is part of his ghost king persona, part of the self he crafted and chose to be.

*

Red

An important colour for Hua Cheng and one he seems to have reclaimed after people reviled him for his red eye. The eye itself is turned into a weapon, its curse into something under his control (... somewhat, E-ming is a wilful sword). The colour is worn almost as a warning, reclaiming the implications as well as the colour itself. Yes, seeing him probably is going to fuck you over. Yes, he is evil and demonic. He’s a ghost king! What are you going to do about it?

*

Wealth and Beauty

Hua Cheng is rich. He has a ridiculous amount of things which he doesn’t seem to care about at all beyond having.

Hua Cheng’s forms are always beautiful, to the point he’s referred to as appearing as “a seductive woman” despite having zero intention of ever seducing anyone except Xie Lian.

These are also the things he lacked as a child. Things he was ashamed of lacking - he hates the ugly, wretched child he used to be.

*

Lone Wolf?

This is one where he says he is but he is not. He grew up with no one on his side, ostracised by everyone, and it’s made him determinedly self-sufficient. He won’t let anyone have power over him and he keeps people at a careful distance, but he doesn’t actually like being alone.

With the ghosts of ghost city his bark is decidedly not worse than his bite but he does always bark before biting. They can mess around with him as much as they like up until he says “scram” - and then they are gone.

Having He Xuan in his debt seems like a way to keep the power balance on his side in a relationship that’s a bit more friendly than he intended to let it get. I strongly suspect he’s not getting paid back.

While Xie Lian’s not snarly about it, he’s also inclined to claim he’s fine on his own when he actually doesn’t like being alone at all. Put them together and no wonder they’re incredibly clingy.

#tgcf #tgcf spoilers #tgcf identity meta

[jeriafterdark]

2021 - Year in Review - Let me tell you how I fell into this pit

It's New Year's, and I know it's a happy occasion, maybe? For me, I'm just really anxious due to personal family things, as well as ZZH things, so I'm writing this to distract myself haha. Let's talk about how I fell into this danmei pit~ (LONG POST)

1. It was early 2021 - Heaven Official's Blessing - TGCF

I was browsing on Netflix looking for things to watch when it recommended me Heaven Official's Blessing, the donghua. I watched it, thoroughly enjoyed the visuals/story/music, and then I checked out the manhua. And realized Starember's work is THE MOST BEAUTIFUL WORK I'VE EVER SEEN.

So then... the manhua wasn't updated that quickly, so I decided I'll just look up the novels and read them, I can read pretty quickly, so no big deal, right? WELL. I ended up spending 2 solid weeks reading ALL of the TGCF novels lol. My god, I fell in love. The writing was just -chefs kiss-. Hualian invented love, as they say. So I ran out of material and was slowly going insane...

2. I looked at MXTX's other work, MDZS + The Untamed

I was desperate for more, so I saw The Untamed was rec'd to me on Netflix. I used to watch old wuxia shows when I was a kid with my mom, so I thought I could get back into it lol. AND THEN, i couldn't even finish the first two episodes, the CGI killed me haha.

I ended up reading MDZS (Mo Dao Zu Shi), and then I came back to watch the Untamed. And I got HOOKED. HOOKED. Absolutely destroyed. I fell in love with the world, the stoic Lan Wangji, the chaotic good gremlin Wei Wuxian, and their forever-love. So sweet.

I checked out the BTS of The Untamed, all of it. Everything. And I became a turtle and started shipping RPF for the first time in my entire life. Yizhan / BJYX SZD stan here. I spent about three months just devouring every candy I could, honestly, where did my life go???

3So, I slowly went more and more insane... and then I heard about what happened to a certain actor in August.

3. Zhang Zhehan / Gong Jun + Word of Honor

I really didn't want to watch WOH/SHL because I was so obsessed with the Untamed, and my initial impression of ZZS's makeup was just too spray-on tan lol. It killed me. So I read a bunch of danmei like Thousand Autumns/reread TGCF, etc, until I gave in in September 2021. I started WOH and it took a few episodes, but when ZZH's face was revealed in that make-up remover lake, I just died. He was so beautiful. Their chemistry was off the charts, the flirting was so cute, the STORY itself - about older men falling in love and finding their own family, starting again. It's just such a rare story to see, I've never seen it. Usually media depicts really young people falling in love, or older people, or people who aren't Asian and queer. And this couple, WenZhou, was just so sweet. I loved it.

I even loved all the outrageous nut advertising, honestly. I still have to finish my 28 day LLD challenge about how much I love WOH/LLD/JunZhe.

After I demolished the show, I decided to watch the behind-the-scenes for funsies. I was thinking, how possible is it that ANOTHER couple, both men, fell in love on the set of a BL show??? Like YiZhan? No way. But damn. Those two are so loud, I don't know how you can deny it.

Ah god, I love them so much. I watched all their shows/interviews/the concert a thousand times. I just loved their love, it was so sweet, pure. I followed all the sagas/the ring saga/one night in x, etc. --which I want to do a write-up on this blog later too. When I discovered the saga of the ring, that convinced me 100% that they're together. It's not so uncommon for actors and actresses to fall in love on set, happens all the time in the West. So why would it be weird for these two boys to fall in love in CN?

Anyway, I fell in love with their love <3. And After what happened to ZZH, I couldn't leave. I want to stay on the mountain, and support him from afar, waiting for the day he'll come back. And maybe the day where they'll both be in the same stage again! Now with Uncle Li's help, that future isn't so far off, I think.

Conclusion

Thank you for joining me on this journey :) I've only started this blog a few months ago because I was feeling very alone in my love for them, and my grief for ZZH. But I see that there are a lot of new followers, and people who like the same things I do, and like them the way I do. So great to have a shared love of something so pure :) Thanks all! Let's hope for a brighter 2022.

#tales from the mountaintop #meta #about me #tgcf #woh #yizhan #bjyx #junzhe #lld #long post

[cheyla-v]

February Round-Up

I was going to post this last weekend, but then I figured that it would make more sense to wait until the end of the month because I missed three of the four weeks already. Oops? 

All in all, February was a very productive month. I think I’ve got my insomnia to thank for that, because I was awake during what are apparently my peak writing hours. So, here goes.

Writing

My original monthly goal was 15k and I wrote over 21k, so yay! Then again, I really shouldn’t be surprised because there were several days that I was awake between 1am and 5am and was cranking out to 2-3k in that time period.

My main focus of the month was to finish my YOI Big Bang project, since submissions are due in March for that. I’m close, y’all! Close! 9k currently (it’s going to definitely be over my 10k estimation though...)

Soul’s Scream updates - Chapter 18 is at 5.5k right now, so progress! I also wrote a scene that’s currently 1.5k (and will probably end up a lot longer, because Gheyos!) for one of the Friday/Introduction day chapters, as well as a 4k scene that’ll take place at some point in the fic introducing Kai and some of Brishen’s backstory.

I wrote 3 fics for the YOI Olympics - Beijing 2022 event. I was going to write more, and I actually started a 4th fic, but then Olympic figure skating just became so emotionally draining. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t want to work on anything YOI related, unfortunately, which really sucks, because that fandom was what broke my 3-year writing hiatus and saved me during the pandemic and my last year of law school. 

I also wrote 3 drabbles for the February Ficlet Challenge. I wanted to write more because there were some great prompts, I just didn’t have the right muse at the time. I might do some late additions for when muse does strike if I can. 

Because my normal muse and WIP list isn’t enough, I signed up for the HP Next Gen Fest. 😅Super excited for the prompt though! Also considering joining another fest, but that’s currently TBD right now, since the prompts haven’t been released yet. Prompts are out in a few days, so I’ll know fairly soon. 

Reading 

I needed fluffy and I needed funny during this month, and luckily I found plenty of both. I think I’m officially a MXTX fan now as well, considering for three of the four books I read by her, I didn’t go to bed until 2 or 3am and for two of the three series, I promptly watched the animated series that same day or the following day (it would have been all three, but watching The Untamed and Mo Dao Zu Shi is what got me started down this path in the first place 😂).

Finished:

At First Bloom by Chera Carmichael

Call to Water by Chera Carmichael

Under the Water by Chera Carmichael

Mo Dao Zu Shi/Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, Vol. 1 by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

Tian Guan Ci Fu/Heaven Official’s Blessing, Vol. 1 by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

Tian Guan Ci Fu/Heaven Official’s Blessing Vol. 2 by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

Ren Zha Fanpai Zijiu Xitong/The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu

(Also Idan and Minh are totally not loosely based on the personalities of Xie Lian and Hua Cheng or Lan Wanji and Wei Wuxian... 😅)

Other Projects

Here’s the long awaited photo of what I was working on in January! I got it done in time to qualify as a late Christmas/early birthday gift. Book colors of course, because I’d never live it down if I used movie colors, lol.

It took a few weeks, but I’ve decided what my next big project is going to be and I took a trip to the craft store for yarn. Since this next project will be something for personal use, I can actually post progress photos. I’m five rows in currently and oh my stars, there’s so much yarn switching. I can’t tell if I’m weaving or crocheting half the time.

I’m proud to say that I also FINALLY bought a coffee table. It only took ... six months? 😅But I’m happy, because it means I can unpack a few more boxes, can use my lap desk for its actual purpose again, and my cats are happy because a) it gives them a new surface to explore/lay on and b) they’re no longer getting squirted by the spray bottle for climbing on the boxes I was using as a makeshift coffee table these past few months (one was a very determined little bugger when it came to doing that and it was a whole hour-long morning ritual for several weeks, which didn’t help the whole insomnia thing...). I also bought and built a bookcase this week, so my arms and wrists are currently hating me and my tendinitis is flaring up... Next on my list of furniture to get are a nest-couch and side tables. Might take another six months for me to get them though, lol.

#weekly roundup #just to keep the tag consistent #crochet #writing things #Soul's Scream

[nyerus]

Hi....how are you? If you don't mind me asking, who is your favorite love interest in MXTX three novels (luo binghe, lan wanji, or hua cheng)? And why?

And who is your favorite protagonist in MXTX three novels (shen qingqiu, wei wuxian or xie lian)? And why?

Sorry if you've answered this question before....

Hello again, and thank you very much for sending in another ask!~ I love answering these as a little break from work, so no worries! <3

I think I mentioned before that Hualian are my fave characters and my fave couple, so I guess that answers both questions haha. But I do always love a chance to talk about why I love them so much, soooo....

As for some of the reasons why Hua Cheng is my fave love interest:

He is very extreme in his devotion. He doesn't just love Xie Lian, he is 100% comprised of his love for Xie Lian. It's incredibly intense, and I really like seeing this type of impossible intensity in fiction. I have a very pragmatic view of real-world relationships, but this type of all-encompassing and unconditional love is super fun to read!

His aura is unmatched! Not only is he sexy as hell, but he's also a sweetheart and sometimes like a spoiled brat vying for gege's attention! It's not even two sides of him -- he's both at once, and it's really wonderful to see that duality. Towards Xie Lian, he is a stalwart sword and shield; towards others, he's a dangerous threat.

He's not afraid to be affectionate towards Xie Lian. He is supportive, caring, and just so open with how happy he is to be around his beloved. Plus, he is mindful of Xie Lian's boundaries, and if he ever oversteps, is quick to apologize. He has his moments of insecurity, but they are never about how he feels, but rather what he thinks he deserves/doesn't deserve. He is always sincere in his actions.

Even though we don't get much of it, I really like his backstory. What we do have is enough to piece together something very concrete and heartbreaking. And despite the hardships he faced, Hua Cheng didn't let that define him -- though it is indeed something that will be with him forever. He took matters into his own hands, and decided to carve out a path for himself, and no one could stand in his way. If I had even 1/10th of his conviction, in anything, I think I'd be rich lmfaoooo!

And then coming to darling Xie Lian as my fave main:

I tend to adore calm and sweet characters in most media. (Actually if I don't like the main character in a story, I don't tend to really get into the thing!) Xie Lian is also reckless in his good deeds, which is wonderful. At first I was afraid that he would be a bit of a doormat, or a damsel, etc -- but he's not! He's very cognizant of his choices. He's not perfect, but nor does he try to be. He just wants to do good. There are times where he doesn't even want to do certain things/gets annoyed/has reservations/etc, but he does so anyway because he decides it's the Right thing to do. And I think making those choices, while still being true to yourself (even the ugly parts), is incredible. You can't have perfect thoughts all the time, but you can decide what you're going to do/react to a given situation.

He's actually very snarky and funny -- and I looooove him for it! At the same time, you can tell there is a lot of repressed trauma lurking behind every corner in his present-timeline inner narration, and it's... idk? Realistically heartbreaking? In a way that doesn't feel forced, I mean. Xie Lian ignores a lot of his own stuff because he knows there is nothing else he can do about it. Normally we'd say that it's unhealthy to do that, but the trauma in his past is in fact *so* bad that he really doesn't have a choice, does he? And it's less that he hasn't confronted it, but more that he's decided there is no point for him to dwell on it. "Why would I think about how I was horribly butchered when I can instead think about the delicious meat bun I had for dinner?" His attitude of looking for the small pleasures in life, amidst all the sorrow and anguish, is as inspiring as it is heartbreaking in all the right ways. He's just incredibly well-written.

His character progression is pretty amazing. He learns a lot -- maybe even too much -- over the course of his story. He starts out as a noble but naive prince, raised in the lap of luxury, not understanding of the true plight of the common people he wants to help. And he ends up knowing what it really means to save someone, to help others, and why it's personally important to do so. His biggest failing was that he was too young, and too inexperienced to understand how the world worked. Xie Lian's heart was ALWAYS in the right place (he was even abnormally progressive, even daring to challenge heaven -- which may seem par for the course for us readers, but is like... assassination-worthy for his time), and proved that he was not all talk. He genuinely believed in what he said, unafraid to defy the powers that be, and was ready to face whatever consequences resulted.

As someone who gets easily flustered and doesn't know how to handle overt affection too, I relate to him a lot hahaha!

These are super disorganized thoughts, but I hope they make sense! I just love these two to bits, and don't see myself getting off the Hualian train anytime soon~

#asks #thanad-zid #as u can tell... i lob them.... xD

[gravitydefyingtears]

“Did you hear? The Yiling Patriarch is dead!”

“What? How? Who killed him?”

“His shidi, Jiang Cheng, brought a hundred dogs up the mountain and scared him to death!”

I think I made a post before wondering how exactly JC took advantage of WWX’s weakness to kill him in the seige. What weakness was it? Hmm...and of course the first thing that came to mind was dogs. Pfft.

😂😂😂

Though actually I was reminded of this because I was listening to an old MXTX interview (from 2016). They actually mentioned this very thing!!! It was during a reader question segment. Rough, paraphrased translation below.

Reader: That day, when JC led the siege, did he really bring a dog?

MXTX: He didn’t bring a dog, he really didn’t.

Interviewer: Why didn’t he bring a dog? If he really wanted to lay siege, he should’ve brought a dog.

MXTX: That’s very understandable. If we talk about [JC] as a person, because he knows Wifi has always been scared of dogs... So if he brought a dog at that time, he wouldn’t have defeated Wifi with his own power. He would be borrowing Wifi’s natural fear. To him, with such a competitive personality, he doesn’t like that kind of method. So he didn’t bring a dog. Also, if that comes out...

...

MXTX: Also, if he... Because, in the cultivation world, people don’t normally bring dogs during warfare. If he insisted on bringing one and people ask “Sect Leader Jiang, why are you bringing a dog?” and he says “Wei Wuxian is scared of dogs”, no one would believe him. Everyone would think he’s got mental issues.

Interviewer: Oh, actually when I was reading [MDZS] it did cross my mind for a second that, wow, if there was a dog during the siege, the Yiling Patriarch’s entire image would be ruined.

MXTX: Right, right. So no one would believe it. Even if you spread that around, no one would believe it. You would be seen as intellectually challenged. Of course, that’s not the main reason. It’s mainly because [JC] wouldn’t be able to bear using a dog to help defeat Wifi.

This is hilarious to me. I’m still laughing about it.

#mo dao zu shi #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #the untamed #yunmeng bros #mxtx interview #mxtx #radish translations

[lansizhuis]

not that i didnt find sv hilarious (sqqs internal monologue has me crying all the time) but the way lbh essentially strongarms sqq into an r/s with him was really... offputting? especially after id just finished 250 chapters of hc being the biggest sap alive

Took me so long to answer this bc I didn’t know how to phrase myself but then I realized no matter how long I drag it out, I can never phrase myself properly hahahahahaha whelp im sorry

Okay, first of all, I understand where you’re coming from AND YOU ARE VALID. The rest of my response isn’t to challenge your point of view but more on to share my own thoughts. Also, requesting everyone to not hate on differing opinions, ayt?

Personally, I think it’s a mistake to compare MDZS and TGCF/HOB to SV. SV was the first one so we can safely assume that MXTX was just testing the waters then esp given that it’s the typical formula of a transmigration novel. SV was never meant to be a masterpiece - it was ridiculous, it was for fun, it was what MDZS and TGCF/HOB is not. The latter two of her works were written to be great and we see that. Again, SV was not written with that in mind. So in my opinion, comparing them leads to no solid conclusion bc they’re def different in that sense.

The couples of MXTX have their own personalities and dynamics in it’d tick to differing preferences. For example, WangXIan is my favorite couple bc I’m particular to shameless and hyper bottoms partnered with a passionate and devoted top. HuaLian is that couple that’s so assured from the start and calm that we already feel that they’re established early on compared to the chaos of WangXian and BingQiu (not saying that they don’t have angst or own challenges bc that’s the understatement of the century since TGCF/HOB has the longest knife of all 3 novels which is why I keep putting off from reading the latter half of it haha) - and there are people who prefer that kind of quietness and maturity they exhibit (hello, 800+ years old here lol). 

Then we have BingQiu and we get back to the main topic. LBH is the youngest and has very strong abandonment issues compared to all the other couple characters of MXTX. I’m pointing this out to give an explanation to him but as I’ve always said, one’s past only serves as an explanation and never an excuse; and as such, I believe there’s room to grow for LBH here too. A perspective I’d like to introduce is actually more on SQQ. His character is very, very good at adapting bc he’s amazing at compartmentalization (I can only hope to develop my outlook just like his tbh) and so we rarely see emotions seeping out on his funny thoughts. It does look like LBH strong arms SQQ but the thing you have to understand is that between them (as of the moment in canon ending of novel) is that SQQ has so much power over LBH. He cannot just be “strong armed” if he didn’t want to be there. Yes, we see SQQ go craycray in his monologue about “fck fck i dont wanna get caught in this situation” etc but that’s SQQ compartmentalizing stuff again since he knows that understanding his feelings and emotions would require him to open up and if there’s one trait he shared with original!SQQ is how uncomfortable they are with vulnerability. In terms of communication and relationship, BingQiu is the pair that has a lot to improve on if you’re after “perfect, healthy” relationships bc of LBH’s abandonment issues and SQQ’s communication issues. However, that doesn’t mean they don’t truly love each other. But I do understand that this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.

#svtext #scum villain #shen qingqiu #luo binghe #anon #answers

[ouyangzizhensdad]

Perhaps you'd like a an ask that's not discourse related? If so, then I wanted to ask you if you know what jin zixuan thought of jin guangyao?

Hi anon,

I appreciate your non-discourse-related ask 😉. Your question made me realise that the novel seems to explicitly avoid giving us any real sense of what Jin Zixuan thought of Jin Guangyao, or how he reacted to the ways other people treated JGY. It seems that JZX remained unaware at the time that Meng Yao came on his birthday--and literally got kicked out. At Phoenix Mountain, JZX stops being mentioned after JGY appears and while his mother mistreats him--he’s only brought back into the narration at the very end to scream at JYL. JZX is also absent the night that WWX goes to Jinlintai to confront the Jins about Qiongqi path and in the direct aftermath. But let’s dig for crumbs and make sense of gaps, and let’s see what we can infer from them.

We know that, originally, Jin Zixuan was the epitome of the proud Jin: “The ways of the Jin Sect were proud, and Jin Zixuan inherited every single drop of this. With his high standards, he had been unsatisfied with this engagement since a long time ago.“ We could wonder if the circumstances of JGY’s birth would have been something JZX would have judged him for. We know that he took offense to WWX’s persona, although it is not spelled out exactly what offended him specifically: “Because of this engagement, Jin Zixuan had no positive impressions of the YunmengJiang Sect, and had frowned upon Wei Wuxian’s behavior since some time ago.“ However, it’s unclear whether the circumstances of WWX’s birth influenced how he perceived his behaviour. All we know for sure is that two other Jin family members--his father and Jin Zixun--never forgot about it and brought it up. We also know that in the past, JZX felt comfortable ignoring people’s good will towards him if he felt he was motivated in his view of them, as he did with JYL in the past:

Jin-furen had brought him to Lotus Pier a couple of times. Neither Wei Wuxian nor Jiang Cheng liked to play with him; only Jiang Yanli wanted to feed him the food that she made. Jin Zixuan, however, didn’t really like to pay her any attention.

At the same time, we do know that JZX had a sense of righteousness, what with him standing up against Wen Chao at Dusk-Creek Mountain. Likewise, we see with the soup incident that at least when it comes to a low-level cultivator who is a servant, a good deed done towards him without trying to gain his gratitude is enough to earn his respect, and for JZX to take action to raise the standing of that person:

Cleverly, the woman never acknowledged anything, but instead denied it ambiguously, her cheeks flushed, making it sound as though she was the one who did it, but didn’t want Jin Zixuan to know how much trouble she went through. And thus, Jin Zixuan didn’t force her to admit it any longer. However, in action, he had began to respect the cultivator. He began to pay attention to her, even raising her from a servant to a guest cultivator.

JZX even tells JYL: “Don’t think that just because you come from a powerful sect that you can steal and trample other people’s feelings. Some people, even if they come from poor backgrounds, their character are much better than the former’s. Please watch your conduct.” This underlines that, regardless of his upbringing, and perhaps even views that he might have held at some point in his life, at this point JZX seemed to want to judge others based on their character rather than their background. Of course, we can wonder if that reserve of good will would have extended to his half-brother, especially one that could try to take his place as the heir. However, considering the circumstances, from JGY’s birth to JGS’s decision to give him a name that did not align him with the same generation as JZX, we can wonder if anyone ever perceived then JGY as someone who could potentially become the next sect leader, as seen in this exchange between WWX and JC:

Jiang Cheng smirked, “Don’t carry your sword, then. It doesn’t matter. But don’t provoke Jin Zixuan from now on. He’s Jin Guangshan’s only son, after all. The future leader of the LanlingJin Sect will be him. If you beat him up, what should I, the sect leader, do? Beat him up with you? Or punish you?”

Wei Wuxian, “Isn’t Jin Guangyao here now? Jin Guangyao seems so much better than him.”

Jiang Cheng finished wiping his sword. After he scrutinized it for a while, he finally put Sandu back into its sheath, “So what, if he’s better? No matter how much better he is, no matter how clever, he could only be a servant who greets the guests. That’s all there is to his life. He can’t compare with Jin Zixuan.”

At Phoenix Mountain, while we do not see JZX say anything out of line to JGY, he is present while his mother and Jin Zixun disrespect him: and we get no reaction written for him while that takes place--he’s mostly licking his wounded pride. We also know that this disrespect by his family towards JGY was the norm, so we have to assume that JZX would have been a witness to it in other situations. In the context of that specific scene, it’s difficult to to infer something concrete from that silence: is it agreement? complicity? a certain indifference to JGY’s situation? an unwillingness of rock the boat or to seem to publicly challenge his mother? or simply him just being too self-absorbed by his romantic woes?

The next scene that would have made for an interesting case study is the night WWX comes to confront the Jins about the camp at Qiongqi Path. However, JZX is absent that night. Conveniently, or as a means to maintain a sense of ambiguity between him and WWX, we thereby do not know how JZX feels about what happened. He is also absent during the aftermath:  “At midnight, in the Golden Pavilion on JinlinTai sat over fifty sect leaders from sects of all sizes. Jin Guangshan sat in the foremost seat. Jin Zixuan was away [...].” (interesting that CQL added JZX to that scene). Which means he is not there to react to the mistreatment of JGY by others or to react to the way JGY is clearly lying for the purposes of manipulating the general opinion on WWX and save the Jin’s reputation.

We also do not get to witness the conversation that leads JZX to come to Qiongqi Path to try to stop Jin Zixun. All we get is a sentence of dialogue from JZX explaining that he thought JGY looked strange which prompted JZX tp questioned him questions (we of course know that JGY was purposefully acting that way to get JZX to go to Qionqqi Path, so it’s hard to take that as a sign of clear familiarity between them that would have allowed JZX to read hidden emotions from him). Did JZX ask out of specific concern for or suspicions of JGY? We don’t know! It is interesting to note though that, in this scene, Jin Zixun refers to JGY as “A-Yao”, which the narration contextualises by telling us that Jin Zixun started calling him in a more intimate manner despite the original contemps he had held for him. However, when JZX mentions JGY to Jin Zixun, he calls him “Jin Guangyao” (for reference, Jin Zixun calls JZX “Zixuan”).

All in all, we get very little from looking at JZX. However, there is something to be said in the absence of any specific grievances expressed by JGY towards him in terms of framing how JZX may have acted towards him when they were both at Jinlintai. Indeed, when Jin Ling asks JGY why he arranged for his father to go to Qiongqi path, meeting his death, JGY mentions the unfairness of the situation of both sons, but never brings up anything JZX did specifically to him. And we know that JGY has a great memory which allows him to hold grudges.

Suddenly, Jin Ling screamed, “Why?!” He stood up from beside Jiang Cheng. Eyes red, he rushed toward Jin Guangyao as he shouted, “Why did you have to do this?!”

Nie Huaisang hurried to pull back Jin Ling, who seemed as though he wanted to fight with Jin Guangyao. Jin Guangyao returned the question, “Why?” He turned to Jin Ling, “A-Ling, then could you tell me why? Why is it that even if I face everyone with a smile, I might not even receive the lowest form of respect, while even though your father was extremely arrogant, people flocked to him? Could you tell me why we were born from the same person but your father could relax at home with the love of his life playing with his child, while I never even dared be alone for long with my wife, shivering out of fright at first glance of my son? And I was ordered to do such a thing by my father as if it was natural—to kill an extremely dangerous figure who could flip out and conjure up a bloody massacre with his corpses anytime!

“Why is it that even though we were born on the same day, Jin Guangshan could host a grand banquet for one son, and watch with his own eyes how his subordinate kicked his other son down Jinlintai, from the first stair to the last!”

He finally revealed the hatred hidden deep within him. It wasn’t directed at neither Jin Zixuan nor Wei Wuxian, but rather his own father.

As a result, we might infer that, at the very least, JZX never directly acted towards JGY in a way that reflected how JGS or Jin Zixun (at some point) treated him. At the same time, it’s difficult to suggest that he stood up for him when other people disrespected him, and we know that JZX’s mother disrespected JGY in lieu of directing her anger toward the real culprit, her awful husband. Little seems to suggest that they grew intimate after JGY came to Jinlintai. It’s really hard to divine, as a result, what JZX might have thought of JGY.

The most interesting thing to take away from this is that it seems absolutely deliberate on MXTX’s part to show us as little as possible in terms of interactions between JZX and JGY. We can speculate as to why that is: to separate JZX from the machinations of this sect? to avoid giving us more ammunition to guess that JGY was behind JZX’s death? to ensure that WWX remains ambiguous towards JZX? or just as a means to avoid having to figure out how to work this dynamic into already complicated scenes and character relationships? etc.

#mdzs meta #mdzs #jzx #jin zixuan #jgy #jin guangyao

[ouyangzizhensdad]

Hey I enjoy your metas and even ramblings so I just wanted to ask a question and let you have at it. How do you think NMJ would feel about NHS avenging him? Proud that he could pull it off? If not proud at least impressed? Or completely disappointed that he would stoop to such a level?

Hi anon, 

Glad that you are enjoying the meta and (even!😉) the ramblings. 

That’s a very interesting question. In the novel, we are shown that NMJ takes revenge and the idea of justice very seriously, especially when wrongs were done to a member of his family. So I think it is fair to say that Nie Mingjue would have no quarrels with the abstract idea of his step-half-brother avenging his death. 

Lan Xichen knew that because of what happened to his father, Nie Mingjue abhorred Wen-dogs more than anything, especially with how intolerable he was toward evil.

But, as the same passage mentions, he also cannot tolerate evil. Something reiterated more than once in the novel.

No matter dead or alive, the person Jin Guangyao was most scared of was none but this sworn brother of his whose temper tolerated no evil.

He has a very rigid understanding of right and wrong, and feels very confident that he can determine right from wrong. He is portrayed as someone who sees a single path to righteousness, and lives his life making sure he never strays from that path. If doing the right thing requires him to talk back to an elder, for instance, then so be it. 

In spite of Nie Mingjue being a junior to Jin Guangshan, he conducted himself in a strict manner and refused to tolerate Xue Yang no matter what. With an angry lecture, Jin Guangshan was left with no words and a great deal of embarrassment. Nie Mingjue, as the irritable person he was, unsheathed his saber on the spot with the intention of killing Xue Yang. [...] The LanlingJin Sect was indeed the sect with the thickest face. Although, on Jinling Tower, it promised in front of all of the sects that Xue Yang would be executed, when it left Nie Mingjue’s sight, it immediately shut Xue Yang into the dungeons and changed the original decision to a life sentence. Hearing about the matter, Nie Mingjue was enraged and pressed on them again. The LanlingJin Sect rambled about, refusing to give him Xue Yang no matter how hard he tried. All of the other sects watched them from the sidelines, but, shortly afterward, Nie Mingjue passed away from a qi deviation.

And of course he is uncompromising in his judgement of others who does not follow the same path and believes in such cases that punishment is always deserved/a form of justice. Of course, the narration also underlines that this has not only to do with NMJ’s strong sense of ethics, but also his emotional intensity and temper. NMJ is prone to anger and it is said that people know not to argue their cases because “the more one tried to explain, the angrier he was”. As well, NMJ is also short-sighted in that he believes that others follow a righteous path, that justice and fairness will prevail as if other concerns and matters didn’t end up factoring in the balance.

Meng Yao looked up at once. Nie Mingjue continued, “On your own, go confess to the LanlingJin Sect and receive your punishment. Let them deal with you whichever way they deem fit.”

With a moment of hesitation, Meng Yao replied, “…Chifeng-Zun, I can’t give up now that I’m already here.”

Nie Mingjue, “To get here, you took the wrong path.”

Meng Yao, “You’re going to be sending me to my death.”

Nie Mingjue, “If your words are true, it won’t happen. Go, reflect, and turn over a new leaf.”

Of course, it’s not like we only see him push for punishments: he is shown to be as willing to reward righteousness.

Under such circumstances, Meng Yao, the one whom relentlessly cleared the battlefield and helped the commoners after each battle, received more and more attention from Nie Mingjue. A few times later, Nie Mingjue directly promoted him to his side to be his deputy.

That path to righteousness is also seemingly about the methods used. He values those who stand up for their beliefs, head on, without artifice. He is, himself, someone who does things in a “direct, forceful fashion".

[Talking about MianMian] “The woman has much more backbone than the mob of her sect,” said Nie Mingjue.

And, of course, he judges those who use cunning, underhanded ways.

Behind the sea of Sparks Amidst Snow, the Venerated Trio gathered. Lan Xichen spoke, “Brother, you have worked hard.”

Jin Guangyao grinned, “It wasn’t hard work. Who had to work hard was Jiang-zongzhu’s table. He clenched a few of its parts to crumbles. Looks like he really was angered.”

Nie Mingjue walked over, “All clever talk—hard work indeed.”

His relationship with Meng Yao disintegrated because he could not respect or trust the way he operated. He despised his lies, his two-facedness, the calculated nature of his plots. 

Nie Mingjue looked at him, who shivered as tears gleamed in his eyes. The contrast between the scene and how he calmly killed someone was too stark. The impact was so great that the image still hadn’t faded from his mind. He spoke, “Meng Yao, let me ask you. The first time I saw you, did you purposely act for me in that pitiful way, so that I’d come to your rescue? If I didn’t, would you have done what you did today and killed all of those people?”

Meng Yao’s Adam’s apple bobbed, where a drop of cold sweat rolled off. Just as he was about to speak, Nie Mingjue ordered, “Don’t lie in front of me!”

Taking all of that into account, I think it’s fair to extrapolate that NMJ would have completely disapproved of NHS’s revenge plot. If NHS had gone to stand in front of JGY, exposed all he knew and challenged him to a duel--then NMJ probably couldn’t have been prouder. But the lying? The long con, the two-facedness of hiding behind his yiwensanbuzhi persona? The collateral damage? The manipulation of others to achieve his means? NMJ wouldn’t have stood by it, would have probably seen it as evil, and I think that this is something that NHS must at least be aware of, deep down. But considering that NHS never managed to meet NMJ’s standards in terms of his schooling and cultivation (even if NMJ loved him all the same), it probably wasn’t too difficult to justify doing things in a manner that would absolutely contradict what NMJ valued. After all, he could never be the kind of man that his brother wanted him to grow up to be, never could be the same kind of sect leader he or their father were. 

And I think that was absolutely intentional on MXTX’s part, to have this sort of dramatic irony to the revenge that NMJ’s resentful corpse ultimately gets to have. His corpse gets to attack and straightforwardly take revenge on JGY, but the methods needed to bring him there made his step-half-brother into the very sort of man he despised and distrusted.

#anon ask #mdzs meta #nmj #nhs

[ouyangzizhensdad]

WWX is an “unreliable” narrator but he’s not that unreliable either

I’ve come across takes within the fandom which disregard certain information conveyed in the novel by invoking the fact that “WWX is an unreliable narrator” in instances where there are very little to support the idea that this element was a discrepancy reveled to be so later in the text or through subtext. It made me reflect that the fandom’s tendency to repeat that WWX is an unreliable narrator (which is not unfounded!), especially in jokes, has perhaps landed a hand in over-emphasising the impact of the ways in which MDZS’ narrative is framed through WWX’s perceptions and experiences, thereby allowing people to cherry-pick certain information given by the narration. So here’s my bone to pick: WWX is an unreliable narrator to a degree, sure, but he’s not unreliable to the point that everything presented in the narrative can be put into question indiscriminately.

All narration, outside an omniscient narrator, will present a limited perspective. In fact, it is easy to argue that writing always offer a limited perspective in that, just like a camera lens needs to point towards something, the written form can only convey a limited amount of information at once. When the “lens”  or the frame through which we make sense of the events taking place is a character’s POV, the way our perspective is limited is further shaped by who the character is, their internal life and to what they bear witness. 

While it creates many challenges for a writer, framing offers as well many possibilities. It can amplify the characterisation or the work’s thematic discussions (we can think of a story being told through the perspective of a child to further explore themes around the loss of innocence, for instance). As readers, we don’t just see what the character-narrator is able to see of the world, but we also come to understand how they perceive the events that happen to them. Moreover, it can also be used to withhold information from or deceive the readers in an coherent or “organic” manner which espouses the psychology of the character and the work’s thematic explorations in order to create narrative tension. Framing will at times get categorised as a work featuring “an unreliable narrator,” although it tends often to be in the cases of more extreme examples. After all, not all books told through the perspective of a child are inherently said to feature “unreliable narrator,” but certain works which mobilise a child’s naïve/innocent perspective on the world to great narrative or thematic impacts will be said to feature an unreliable narrator.

MXTX clearly has a penchant for using this type of framing to withhold information from readers (as seen in her other works), but it is important to point out that it is not the only way she chooses to conceal information. The fact that MDZS contains a detective mystery plot further explains why it would be important to ensure that readers become aware of certain elements in a manner that maintains suspense and creates narrative tension that feels organic. However, the use of framing as a device in MDZS is not total. Not only does the narrative shows us at times things that WWX would not be able to have seen,  readers also often find themselves in the know in moments where WWX is still in the dark. WWX’s limited perspective never fools us into thinking that, for instance, it was a guniang who kissed him at Phoenix Mountain. On a subtext and metatextual level, there is not necessarily always a lot being withheld from us. All these suggest that WWX is not really a pure example of an unreliable narrator. 

With this preamble, here are the reasons why I have until now called WWX an “unreliable narrator” beyond the use of framing which limits, at times, the information we have access through because of WWX’s perceptions and experiences:

the fact that there are gaps in his memories (some of which he regains after a period of time and some which we never see him recover by the end of the novel)

the fact that he “conceals" to himself and others (and thereby to the readers) some of his feelings, suffering and, perhaps more importantly, his motivations (the core transfer and all the being the most striking one). 

It is important to remember that, when it comes to unreliable narrators or this form of framing more generally, savvy readers are provided the necessary tools to reconcile the discrepancies in the narrator’s account (unfortunately, perhaps the most important tool of all, reading comprehension, cannot be provided by the text itself). Novels with unreliable narrators are thus always more than the sum of their parts, since knowledge of the entirety of the work is generally necessary to reconcile these discrepancies. This is where fandom’s convenient mentions of WWX’s “unreliable narrator” status when questioning details within the narrative often ends up falling short for me, since these takes rarely explain how the novel suggests these elements need to be questioned. 

Further, I’ve noticed that some people seem to read “unreliable” to mean “untrustworthy” or “deceptive”. There are certain types of unreliable narrators who are deliberately deceptive, but this is not really the case of WWX. Extreme examples would be types of narrators who are lying, deluded or mentally ill, and this is not what we’re playing with wrt WWX. Instead, WWX is mostly unreliable in the same way we all are unreliable narrators of our own lives. The only times in the novel WWX’s concealment is deliberate is when he’s concealing his motivations or the true extent of his suffering and sacrifices. 

TLDR: Although the narration in the novel is in the 3rd person, it is almost always framed through WWX’s voice and limited perception as an individual player in all the events that took place in the narrative. As such, while it is important to consider how MXTX uses this framing as a device to create suspense and withhold information from the reader as well as strengthen her characterization of her main character and colour her thematic explorations, the fact that many people in the fandom call WWX an “unreliable narrator” should not be taken as a blanket permission to view him as someone whose perspective is not credible across board or that we need to question indiscriminately all the information we get from his POV.

#mdzs meta #mdzs #wwx #wei wuxian #i am vagueing at the takes i saw but i hope it still makes sense

[ouyangzizhensdad]

I like the idea of Wei Wuxian taking some time for himself because he died when he was like twenty one and his entire adult life was a shitshow. I don't think being a ghost for 13 years grants you the same perspective most people have in their thirties, and plenty of older people benefit from taking a break from dating after major upheavals anyway. Sometimes you need a minute. WWX is very decisive and in love, so I get why that wouldn't appeal to you, but I don't think it's odd that I like it.

Hi anon, 

If you like it, hey, you like it. That’s your right and your prerogative, and my opinion on the topic is probably not going to change that. But you’ve come to my blog to share your counter-arguments, so I’ll respond to them. 

I just still don’t think it holds up, personally, with the story and the characters.  People sometimes need a time out from their everyday life, sure, but why would WWX need a time out from LWJ? When did the idea of being totally on your own to process major upheavals became suddenly framed as more “healthy” (keeping again the context of these interpretations being framed against the novel canon as being more ‘healthy’)? I mean, if we want to stay with the ‘what’s healthy argument,’ having some sort of support network, him not being on his own, would be the opposite thing to be suggested by any type of health care professional? In this scenario WWX is not trying his hand at dating a random person while emotionally fragile (which I agree, would be dumb)--we’re talking about his best friend, confident and ‘love interest’ of many years, the one who stood by him through all these challenges he faced and who already loves him in CQL!fans interpretation of the subtext. If the argument being made was that since LWJ decided to be the Chief Cultivator it would be best for WWX not to be with him at that time because WWX needs a time out from the cultivation world politics it would make more sense? Or if at least, I don’t know, they had CQL!WWX leave with WN and LSZ to give the Wens their final rest and grieve with them or something--maybe I’d buy into that positive interpretation of WWX and LWJ being separated for a while. But as it, even within the caveat of CQL, that positive interpretation does not hold up for me. Especially since LWJ is the one who decided not to go with WWX--not WWX making the decision for LWJ (as we saw with their discussion after the Guanyin Temple Resolution). As a result, this interpretation feels more like people trying to find any possible way to spin a decision that was motivated by the need to keep the romance on a purely subtextual level. 

People often point out that WWX was dead for 13 years to explore the idea that he’s stuck in a sort of “arrested development” phase during the present timeline of the story, and I suppose CQL allows more room for that interpretation, but I’ve never felt like that actually works with the novel at all, and not only because MXTX confirmed it wasn’t the case in an interview. First because WWX just feels different from his younger self and acts like an older adult--in the way he acts with the kids or the way he reacts to situations happening, but also in the way he thinks back on the behaviours of his ‘younger self’ which took place when he was in his early 20s. The novel also suggests that WWX was 'aware’ during the time he was dead (when in his inner monologue in the first chapters he points out that he was a perfectly well-behaved spirit) even if that would be different from being alive during those years of course. Finally, the novel shows us that during the present timeline, before the resolution at guanyin temple, WWX does a lot of self-reflection about his feelings, about his relationships, about what he did, about what he wants. This translates as well into what we see in CQL, but not to the same degree, I will concede. In a different story, I do think it could have been something that could have been explored in interesting ways and brought a lot of drama to the character--but that’s just not the story we have in MDZS or the narrative we get with WWX. 

#anon ask #wwx #cql vs mdzs

[ouyangzizhensdad]

unpopular opinion: most of the mxtx critical discourse happens becouse people cant let go of their prejudes against bl genre

Somewhat agree? I know you used “most” so you already acknowledged that there are other factors at play, but I do think it’s important to consider that reactions like these generally do not have a single, easy answer. 

While people tend to conflate danmei and BL, we can’t ignore that there have been larger discussions about how women *should* or *should not* engage or produce m/m content, in and out of fandoms, in ways that even people who haven’t drunk the anti-fujo kool-aid are inherently suspicious of “straight women” writing m/m stories (the Love, Simon controversy is an example of that where the author was forced out of the closet for the crime of writing a m/m story as a presumed straight woman). But danmei/bl being non-western, non-white genres certainly accentuate many of these tensions. Racism funnily both play into the patronising/otherising takes regarding how ‘terrible’ danmei-bl is compared to other m/m content, but also in the criticisms of westerners who engage in danmei-bl: ‘so you guys just want to fetishise asian men/asian gay men’.

As well, there’s been so much discussions about what *should* or *should not* been written when it comes more broadly to romance and sex, about what is problématique or not, the conclusion of which seems to lean toward the idea that any content that is not a safe, sane and consensual PSA or entirely wholesome simply should not exist. And that’s not even mentioning the sort of “psychologisation” or “trauma-turn” of these discussions, where people assume the psychological states of people who write or engage with problématique content, or propose that only people who have the right list of traumas can produce or engage with these types of content. And that hangs heavy not only in the mind of people who produce content but the person who consume it. If the only reason you could possibly want to engage with anything problématique would be that you are, in a way, deviant or broken, then perhaps you will start consciously avoiding these types of works or people who produce them. And all these relate to large discussions about how “””fiction impacts reality””” and discussions about social justice and consent, etc. etc. Once more, we have overlapping discourses and so, so much intertextuality. 

And the thing is that, generally, it’s not like these discourses are “rotten to the core,” ie that there is not important conversations to be had about these topics or that real issues did not spark these conversations in the first place. However, many people tend to want to collapse these complex discussions with complex and sometimes contradicting conclusions into a single, convenient answer by going to the extreme. And we have to recognise that there is something rewarding about feeling like you’re in the right, especially when these discourses become moralised. The trade-off between giving up entirely on something for the reward of taking the moral high ground seems very appealing! And it’s a lot less difficult than to navigate on a case-by-case basis works of fiction or fandom discussions, or to figure how to like something you might also disagree with or question regarding certain aspects. 

However, not only is it a vain effort, it is also denies art its capacity for meaning. It is vain because, well, the sources of the issues are unlikely to disappear and will probably only move onto a newer manifestation, and because humans be problematic 🤷‍♂️ and we be living in a society 🤷‍♂️. It doesn’t mean we should not be critical and have debates and conversations and expect better--but it means that this belief that the internet will be a good place if only we can squash fandom group X is just..... a fantasy. A comforting one, perhaps, but one all the same. I wouldn’t mind it as much if there wasn’t harassment and aggression resulting from these beliefs, and if it didn’t stifle art and creativity, the latter relating to an underlying assumption that there is nothing of worth in exploring in fiction difficult or shocking themes, or relationship dynamics that are not perfect or healthy. And that is just..... fundamentally misunderstanding the point of art and fiction. 

As well, somewhat in relation to these discussions, it’s important I think to accept that a lot of people who engage with MDZS in bad faith do so after they have been exposed by takes demonising the work that they took at face-value. It takes a lot more energy, good faith, critical thinking, and good reading comprehension to end up finding arguments against a perception of a work that you already accepted as true before you read it. Especially since social media has made it so much more dependent on other people’s opinions to decide what we engage with, and in which manner we will, I don’t think it can be understated. If you have already been served an opinion, it is easier than having to form your own, and easier than challenging it. Especially if people frame that opinion as morally right, and the people who disagree with it as degenerate sickos. Wouldn’t want to side with the freaks!!!

Finally, MDZS is not a work of fiction that can be read on the surface, and is a work that likes to play with tropes in a manner than is not necessarily a complete and total subversion, things that make it easier for people to miss the point of many of its elements. It’s even harder considering the level of the available translation and the framing of said translation--and the fact that many of the readers are not part of the intended audience and lack many of the cultural or literary knowledge that would help them navigate the novel. And, let’s be honest, it’s easier to miss the mark at times when a writer decides to handle more complex and controversial topics. It’s not like I don’t think MXTX could have not done some things better.

#unpopular opinion ask #anon ask #fandom discussions #long post #because i can never shut up