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#and while wwx sympathizes with jgy at the end
symphonyofsilence · 11 months
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does Jin Guangyao play a villainous role in Wei WuXian’s story? yes. but is he also the Narrative’s special boy? also, yes.
I don’t remember the post, but the fact that Wei Wuxian, and by extinction, the narrative sympathizes with Jin Guangyao has already been brought up. He draws a comparison between himself and JGY when the crowd suddenly turns against JGY in Lotus Pier and wants WWX to deal with him, and again when the other Sect Leaders led by Sect leader Yao assume that the Guanyin statue is made to resemble JGY himself ‘cause he’s a narcissist, and when people are saying nasty things about JGY in a tavern after his death.
but another way in which the narrative sympathizes with JGY is that every time JGY is shown doing a shitty thing, it’s immediately followed by him being shown in a situation in which he is a victim, or has done something good.
he paralyzes Qin Su after she finds out some horrible truths about him and hides her in the creepy room where WWX finds JGY’s sworn brother’s head? A chapter or an episode after that we see him being trash-talked and cast out by other Nie soldiers when they’re drinking the water he brought, while he’s doing thrice the work they’re doing. we see him cleaning the battlefields and helping the commoners after battles, we see him voluntarily do the work of the servants as a deputy general when they lack staff, and pour people tea, while they rudely clean their cups when they take it from his hands (which NMJ does nothing about), we see him loyally arguing with LXC that he can't leave NMJ for his father’s sect after all NMJ has done for him, and learn that he has saved LXC. CQL shows him in his Meng Yao Era more. We see him repeatedly receive scorn when all he gives others is curtsey and smiles, we see beforehand the Nie Captain be an absolute bitch to him so I'm sure nobody in the audience regretted his loss, but even then we immediately get that jumping in front of NMJ and taking a stab to the chest to save him, and the teary banishment scene that cancels the "guy is now officially a scheming murderer" out.
He's being a bitch to NMJ in the Nightless City? He kills Wen Ruohan & turns out that he has been bravely spying for the Sunshot campaign all this time and they owe him their victory. But even then, he apologizes to NMJ, kneels down, and surrenders himself.
He's protecting Xue Yang? You have him explaining to NMJ why he can't go against his father's wishes, and how he's scared of everything and everyone because he was never given the luxury of safety, status & power, so he can practice that power freely. In the end, NMJ offends his mother and kicks him down the stairs (which he's well aware is a trauma for JGY). Which honor-bound ancient man wouldn't have killed the man who disrespected his mother and kicked him down the stairs? What would have NMJ done had this been done to him? But even then, in the book, the narrative does even more to make JGY sympathetic, LXC comes to NMJ to calm him down, and he says that JGY's in a difficult situation right now. His stepmother beats him & his father doesn't listen to anything he says anymore. Otherwise, he wouldn't have talked back to NMJ. & after that, NMJ's qi deviation happens when he drops eaves on this conversation between LXC & JGY:
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I mean if you've tried to murder him thrice, shoved him down the stairs, & called him a whoreson, taken any opportunity to scold him, & you don't like it when he talks back to you, at least let him talk behind your back. He's not even lying or being disrespectful or anything.
He retaliates against WWX & LWJ’s attack by showing WWX as a villain and the way he has killed NMJ comes to light? a few chapters later WWX is surprised that JGY hasn’t visited LXC to demand a search but to tell him that he has prevented everyone from searching the CR and thinks it’s best if LXC, whenever it’s convenient for him opens the doors of the CR so JGY can get this search over with and shut the other sects up. And reassures him that he won’t let LWJ’s reputation be tarnished in any way. (At the stairs of Jinlintai, JGY knew fully well that LWJ was doing what he was doing because he was in love with WWX, as we learn at the Guanyin temple, but he loudly suggested that LWJ is being deceived in front of the crowd to save LXC's brother reputation.) The Donghua even has a wartime flashback from a young Meng Yao saving LXC, feeding him, hiding him, washing his clothes, getting beaten up by the Wen soldiers to keep LXC safe, and even then bringing back food for him with a smile.
He takes everyone hostage, twice (his hostages are children the first time) and is at the peak of his villain moment? You have the whole Guanyin temple thing happening. (which, personally for me, was what really elevated him from an interesting character to my poor little mew mew in my eyes.)
When JGY kneels down, WWX feels uncomfortable. He feels embarrassed on his behalf:
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the same effect of inducing pity & sympathy for him is achieved in the show by somber music swelling in this scene, reaction shots, slow-mo, and a wide-shot of everyone in the temple as JGY kneels down to make him look especially small, while almost 2/3 of the shot is of the candles of the Guyanin temple. in the exposition scene when LXC kneels down to hear JGY out, the statue of Guanyin is between them. THE LOCATION OF ALL OF JGY TRAGIC EXPOSITIONS IS A GYANYIN TEMPLE! The temple of the bodhisattva of mercy who is considered to be the physical embodiment of compassion!
And the sympathetic reaction shots when he talks about JGS continue throughout the scene.
then we learn that he had to marry Qin Su because she was already pregnant and he didn’t want QS & JRS to have his and his mother’s fate and that the reason they had to rush things through like this and conceive a child was that JGS might have further caused problems for their marriage because he really disliked his son. and that if a political fall-out happened between Jin & the Qin clan, JGY would get the burn of it. (still a shitty act, but you can’t help but understand where he’s coming from & pity him), he goes on about his father kicking him down the stairs of Jinlintai on his birthday while celebrating JZX’s birthday, we learn about his childhood in the brothel, about JGS saying that he could save Meng Shi but he didn’t ‘cause she would be too much trouble, and that their son wasn’t worth mentioning, we see JGY & SMS deep connection, the show gives us some very good Xiao Shushu & A-Ling moments, & even though it’s been always clear & is especially clear during the whole Guanyin temple scene, we see truly see the depth of love, respect, and loyalty JGY has toward LXC. 
We see him in the Villainous Friends chapter telling Xue Yang that he can vandalize people's shops and restaurants for no reason, only under the condition that he doesn't wear the Jin uniform. But it's immediately followed by the mention of the bruise on his head given to him by his stepmother because she can't vent her anger on her cheating husband, who JGY has to retrieve from brothels every night to ensure his safe stay in Jinlintai for another day. We see him massacre the He sect, and right after that, he goes to retrieve his father from the brothel and hears those awful things and you can't help but sympathize with him.
Because what is really important is that you understand Jin Guangyao. There are about 14 chapters in the book and 4 episodes in the show of JGY explaining himself while crying on the floor because it's less about "Jiggy eVIL" & more about look what the society who turned his back on him & his mother when they needed their help, and sneered at them when they tried to improve their situation, and never forgave JGY for being born has done to this man to make him do such horrendous deeds. (And his sword's name is Hensheng. Meaning "hate to be born". They made him never forgive himself for being born either.)
So by saying that X & Y has happened to JGY, and so what he does is for self-preservation, nobody's JUSTIFYING his genocides, & nobody's denying that JGY had a choice in everything he did. Even if his other option was to accept his place, sit down, shut up, and suffer in silence, NOT murdering a whole sect that includes children by doing experiments on them is the better option. The point is that it's not the point. JGY's atrocities are only means in the story to tell the cautionary tale of a classist, cruel society. The things that JGY has gone through cannot be erased from the conversations because "JGY EvIl. Periodt." The Narrative doesn't want the reader to do that! It's specifically structured to put the reason JGY's got to this point on the forefront every time he does a crime. The fight with NMJ's fierce corpse ends as quickly as it begins. The Climax of the story is mostly JGY's monologues. 14 chapters of monologues cannot be dismissed as JGY gaslighting LXC & shedding crocodile tears.
in a story that has Wei WuXian as a protagonist, and literally starts with the monster the society has made of him through rumors and has this theme going on through the rest of the story, especially with JC, and baseless accusations are the first thing that happens when JGY's secrets are out in the Lotus Pier, and then ends with society making a monster out of JGY after his death through rumors when Sect Leader Yao speculates that the statue's face is modeled after JGY himself (which WWX especially comments on), and in the tavern when people made such crude remarks that even those who were participating in the conversation felt uncomfortable, I think it's clear what and who the real villain is.
MXTX could have written people talking about literally any real atrocity that JGY has done, but instead, they talk about what he hasn’t done and read the worst out of his every action in life.
And actually, with everything that JGY has been through, he’s not even the worst case that could come out of his situation. He did have good intentions. For all his genocides, unlike Xue Yang, he didn't actually want to see the world burn. He did help the innocent common folk. He helped them during the sunshot campaign, and with the watchtowers, he fought against systematic corruption, and he treated everyone with respect. He rescued LXC and QS. We don’t know how many others he has personally saved. It's that the means he had to use to have the power to help the poor was incredibly dirty because he was playing an unfair game that was especially designed against him. (I'm not saying helping the poor was his only objective when he tried to gain his father's approval and a secure place in Jinlintai for himself. Though it's sad that he had to fight for these things at all.) The best he could honorably do was be NMJ's deputy general, which didn't save him from being bullied and people cleaning the cups they took from his hands. He knew that if he tried to help the innocent without having the political power to do that, he would end up like WWX. But what he didn’t know was that he would end up like that if he, unlike WWX, played by the rules of the game and compromised his morals anyway. There was no winning for people like them.
Dismissing the good that JGY has done, the real desire he had for helping the poor, and what he’s been through cheapens the character, cheapening JGY’s character to a one-dimensional Marvel villain, and dismissing the commentary that he represents on society as a whole is a disservice to the story. And that’s a crime cause the story is great. 
his fall from grace, the heinous acts he had to commit to find himself the slightest bits of safety, security, and respect wouldn’t be that much of a tragedy if he didn’t want to be good and do good for people.
Then there is JGY's death and the framing of it. Here is a wonderful analysis by @sapphicdalliances of why his death wasn't justice and that was the point, how he died because of an act he didn't commit, and here are great analysis by @thatswhatsushesaid & @crithir about how his death is described as a gut-wrenching horrible scene framed through his horrified nephew & ward's eyes, both in the book and in the show, how it didn't bring the Nie brothers any closure either, and how through the lenses of LXC and JL, and by JC’s & WWX’s reaction we see his death as a tragedy.
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His death is because of a dishonorable trick. His last act in life, pushing LXC away is an act of love and of forgiveness. In the CQL before that, he pushes Jin Ling out of danger, too.
As said in the aforementioned posts, after it, we don't see a victorious Nie Huaisang or Wei WuXian. In fact, neither of them is victorious.
WWX, and by extension, the narrative blames NHS for his scheming & risking innocent lives. WWX is especially appalled by NHS' treatment of Meng Shi's body. He points out that JGY, being a big liar with a considerable criminal record, will be forever accused of lying, no matter what. While he immediately after brings JGY's last genuine act toward LXC as proof that JGY couldn't have been lying.
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In the CQL, he straight-up calls NHS the devil with the coldest tone he's ever had towards NHS.
NHS for his part doesn't seem victorious either.
Dare I say he even looks like despite years of scheming he was not ready for it when JGY pushes Shuoyue deeper inside his own chest. (Who would he be acting for at that moment? Nobody's looking at him. And he’s sweating!)
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And I think there's a "no, he didn't" in his last "I don't know." To LXC (at least in the show) when he's insistently asked whether JGY was going to attack LXC or not and he insistently answers "I don't know". It's a confirmation without confirmation.
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And then in, IMHO, one of the most beautiful and nuanced scenes, NHS finds A-Yao's hat, in the book, he bends down, picks it up, and quietly goes away (and that's the last we see of Nie Huaisang), in the show he wipes off the dust on it, and his hand finally gets bloodied, literally & metaphorically despite trying his best to not do his dirty work himself. And we get a flashback of A-Yao's childhood that I always assumed we're seeing through NHS because maybe JGY had told him that story. Not only does the order of the scene, combined with NHS' deep in thought look seem like it but also NHS cleans JGY's hat when in that memory A-Yao's mom tells him that he needs to take good care of his hat.
And that scene is especially beautiful because the show went out of its way to show their close relationship pre-time skip. And we see NHS keep A-Yao's principal by cleaning his hat when JGY himself is too dead to do that. Even when the reason for his death is NHS himself. And by NHS getting his hands bloodied while cleaning the hat, and staring at it with a deep, nuanced look, that combination of care & hatred is shown in that scene.
I think he feels empty. He's spent years after years planning this thing. It was his only drive. Now it's over. And it wasn't a grand, victorious moment. It just...happened. and it was something that needed to happen, in his eyes.
And he did love his san-ge for a long, long time before the betrayal came to light for him. And then he hated him for a long, long time. But at that moment with JGY's bloodied hat in his hand? I think that's the moment when love and hatred have both run their passionate course and they've finally reached each other in the middle and collided and ran out of strength and intensity and separate, clear meaning and they just take their exhausted leave together, leaving only a trace behind.
And most prominently we see a devastated LXC and JL. We see Jin Ling's flashback of when his Xiao Shushu gave him his spiritual puppy. We see him being the only one who could cheer JL up when he was down for days.
We see JL choosing to keep loving him despite everything.
His loss is felt and the memory of his good deeds keeps coming back in JL's narrative:
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The Narrative doesn't just sympathize with him. The Narrative mourns him.
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mariposakitten · 2 years
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I genuinely, GENUINELY don't understand MDZS/CQL fans who actively hate certain characters and their fans. "JC stans don't interact! JGY fans don't touch!" Like. How can you misunderstand a work you claim to be a fan of so badly? If the story means anything, it means that nobody is perfect. For all the good AND bad that that entails.
Look. For all that the main-MAIN story is a romance with a happy ending? So many of the stories being told are tragedies. And while I'm hesitant to put a Western lens onto Chinese fiction, I'd venture to say they're tragedies in the traditional Shakespearean sense: the tragedy is unavoidable, because the people involved could not have acted other than how they did and still been themselves.
The tragedy of Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng, for example, isn't that JC was cruel or intolerant, and it isn't that WWX was disloyal or irresponsible. It's that they sincerely, in good faith, held to incompatible value systems. WWX: "Protect the innocent, even if it endangers those I've sworn to protect." JC: "Protect those I've sworn to, even if it endangers innocent people." Neither of these mindsets are wrong, and THAT'S the tragedy! There's no villain. There's no easy solution. No matter how much they loved each other, there was no solution that wouldn't have involved one of them betraying everything they held dear; they tried their best to avoid that and it blew up in their faces, but can you blame them?
Or Jin Guangyao: I'm not telling anyone to be a jiggy stan, but if you could watch/read that scene at Lotus Pier and NOT come away with the cynical understanding that, guilty or not, this man was going to be blamed for everything bad that happened in the last decade or so because that's how mob justice works, I don't know what to tell you. (Quick vibe check: without looking, do you think JGY killed Rusong? Because. There's zero canonical proof that he did. Just accusations.)
The beauty of mdzs/cql, to me, is that it's a very human story. As such, it's important to remember that the characters ARE human. Your faves are imperfect and the ones you hate aren't all bad. That's why it's interesting, it's why it's compelling. Even if you personally don't like a particular character, it's not a bad thing if other people do, because that character is a person. With all the good, bad, and ugly that that implies. Hell, I've read fic and meta that's got me sympathizing with Su She and Jin Zixun, ffs. I've read stuff that's had me empathize with fucking Wen Chao. It's not a bad thing that someone can humanize a character you hate. So please, can we stop the fandom fights?
(NB: I still hate Jin Guangshan and probably always will; I'm open to having my mind changed but I'm not optimistic, lol)
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thatswhatsushesaid · 9 months
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NGL the fandom treatment of WWX vs JC and JGY especially has changed my opinions of them…I sympathize with WWX less these days as a result.
yep!! personally i just straight up am no longer moved by any of the stuff that happens to wwx anymore. which is a shame! the first time i experienced the golden core reveal while watching cql i was very “no!!! he didn’t!!! 😭”
now i just don’t give a shit. he gets his happy ending with lwj, his stans have wangxian tunnel vision, he doesn’t need me lmfao
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plan-d-to-i · 2 years
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I know what your coming from when you say Lan Xichen got manipulated and it wasn’t his fault and I sympathize with him also but I have 2 reasons why I just don’t like him.
1. When Lan Wangji went to Yiling and saw the Wen remnants I’m 100% certain he told his uncle and his brother that he saw old people and a toddler. Lan Xichen wouldn’t have believed him and I understand but when Lan Wangji came back with A Yuan he should have at least gave Lan Wangji the benefit of the doubt because their was physically an ill toddler in front of him. But he just never questioned where Lan Wangji got a toddler from??? To me it seems that he didn’t want to know if he was wrong.
2. He told Meng Yao about Lan Wangjis feelings toward Wei Wuxian. Throughout the text it was stated from everyone that Lan Wangji hated Wei Wuxian, no one should have known or suspected anything different, so why was he so certain that it was love, it just brings to reason that Lan Xichen told him. I understand that he wanted someone to confide in but to tell someone something so personal from his brother especially while grieving just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
To me Lan Xichen believed his sworn brother Meng Yao over Lan Wangji. He questioned Lan Wangjis morality but he himself saw how Lan Wangji scolded Wei Wuxian over demonic cultivation. He could have many reasons but he didn’t trust his own brother who he has grown up with and knowing him all his life. In the end he trusted Men Yao more and that’s why I don’t like him.
Re THIS post.
Hm...No. see I already linked a post there where item number 2 is addressed and dismissed. MXTX already clarified LXC is not to blame for JGY's conclusions RE: WangXian. She said LXC "actually doesn't really gossip", that's just JGY's skill gathering information NOT LXC just callously violating his little brother's trust by gossiping away about his love life w his sworn brother -I'll include it here again x
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As for number 1 the Lans didn't join the siege on the Burial Mounds bc they were out for the blood of the Wen remnants. They didn't join a siege while WWX just vibing out there farming those couple of years. LXC spoke up for Wen Qing more than jc did. Wei Wuxian’s own former martial brother that he’d grown up with not only did not reveal his personal life-debt to the Wens he went and CUT ALL TIES WITH WWX after visiting the BM. jc declared him the enemy of the entire cultivation world! Imagine being LXC and seeing the dude WWX grew UP WITH, studied at CR with, say he wants nothing to do w him and wants no association w his actions!!
Unfortunately when the ambush at Qiongqi path happens and Wen Ning’s power is shown for all to see it lends credence to the fears about WWX. Still LWJ is at Koi tower w Lan disciples when WN & WQ are there to turn themselves in to speak up for them. Unfortunately Wen Ning loses control (understandable </3) and both Lan and Nie clan end up loosing disciples. Then WWX uses the Yin Hufu at Nightless city. No matter what LXC or LWJ's feelings on the matter are, at this point WWX is not just the man his little brother has a crush on, he's a guy in control of an incredibly powerful weapon and capable of refining unbeatable fierce corpses... Now to me WWX did nothing wrong ever, but the optics are bad and that aspect is abused by those who want to bring him down- the Jins for power and jc out of hate and desire for vengeance. Still it's clarified in the story that the siege could have gone on without the Lan (and Nie) Clans and the driving forces were Jin second only to YunmengJiang.
I agree that LXC trusts JGY's opinion- because he had no reason not to trust him. Everything JGY had done until that point in LXC's eyes made him seem like an upright person just struggling to make it in an unfair world that always tried to maliciously slander him and hold him down bc of his birth and JGY has proven himself to be a thoughtful, immensely intelligent person. But I disagree that when push came to shove LXC chose JGY over Lan Wangji. LWJ knows that he can go to LXC with his suspicions and LXC will investigate and LXC does. LWJ knows that no matter what his brother's feelings are for JGY he will be fair. They take WWX with them to the discussion conference precisely to do that. LXC shelters WWX even after it's revealed he's WWX AND he revokes JGY's jade token entrance. So no, he didn't ultimately trust JGY more than LWJ.
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randomshipshere · 3 years
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MY OWN JGY headcanons:
JGY is the sole reason in all canon universes that JZX and JYL ever had a chance in getting together because of how much of a disaster JZX is. It's the very reason that JZX would come to refer to JGY as "A-Yao".
JYL and JGY were secret best friends because the Cultivation World wouldn't understand their friendship. They often teased each others disaster of a brother together, and in disguise would shop together. After her death, he harbored the blame and never forgave himself since.
JGY was actually born a whole two years before JZX was born but everyone literally assumed he was the younger brother because of his height and his flawless youthful skin. JGY doesn't correct anyone because of the complications it would have on the family line and honestly he gets a kick out of looking younger. (It's a brothel-learned thing.)
JGY actually has a strong Yunmeng accent that comes out when he's relaxed and irritated. The only few people in existence who heard him with that accent beyond childhood is Sisi, JYL, JC, JZX, Xue Yang, Su She and Mo Xuanyu. Each of them having different hilarious reactions. JC is the top contender because JGY doesn't speak like the men of Yumeng. He speaks like the women just as Sisi taught him, and you do not mess with the women of the piers.
In a modern reincarnated world, everyone hears that accent and the most horrified is WWX when JGY blasts at JC, making the former sect leader feel grateful he didn't go full Yunmeng woman on him at the temple, otherwise he'd be jumping into that coffin instead of him! And when he orders JC to "SIT YUR ASS DOWN YA DEFORMED-LOOKING LOTUS SEED REJECT, THAT EVEN A DYING HARLOT WOULDN'T EVEN SUCK ON!" WWX and JZX automatically sit down, too.
JGY identifies as androgynous, more specifically neutradrogyne so he (fine with any pronoun) isn't fixed on looking masculine or feminine, but will utilize society's view on gender to his advantage.
JGY didn't have a strong cultivation which held him back from being on the top 10 most handsome cultivators. But if he was, he wouldn't have made it anyway because he looked more 'Pretty' than 'Handsome' or as the female cultivators would put it, 'A Tragic Ambiguous Beauty', so they refer to him as the Special Exception.
JGY actually hates the color Yellow and gold (I don't take criticism) for how flashy and gaudy it can look. This being why he wears a lot of brown in order to neutralize the color. He actually very much prefers the Jiang's color purple. This being the reason why Su She's uniforms consist of both white and purple.
Unpopular opinion: JGY actually likes Su She a lot. Beyond the Lan Wangji hate, Su She is actually very humble, honest, compassionate, disciplined, loyal, etc. Su She learned these virtues from the Lan sect but had truly come to value these virtues throughout the war when he did the grunge work of helping citizens and the injured. It is also the time when he truly sees the flaws in the Lan sect for its detachment and so-called purity. In fact, his sect is made of a mixture of disciples and civilians without a home, so the Su sect isn't just a copy of the Lan sect but of other sects. But the copying of the Lan sect gets the most publicity so that is very much ignored. Of course Su She has his flaws where he has low self-esteem despite all he's accomplished and it fluctuates between having a superiority complex to self-sacrifice.
JGY always intended on murdering his father after WWX died because he didn't want another Wen Ruohan to rule the world, but he never had the courage to because he knew that even if he ran away, Nie Mingjue would hunt him down, possibly with the Cultivation World at his backing, to bring him to justice.
JGY knew from the start that NHS was gunning for him after his brother's death since he always made sure he knew where Nie Mingjue's body parts were. He just never expected for NHS to use LXC in the end for his vengeance, believing NHS would sympathize with LXC as a victim to his crime. He played the unknowing victim to NHS' vengeance and trapped himself with his brother so that NHS would continue to never have peace for a hundred years. (I think NHS intended for JGY to simply die by his brother's hand in order to find enlightenment but nope lol.)
JGY's work station is very organized, but if one were to look through it, they would find NOTHING in its intended places because JGY doesn't organize by dates, names or events. No. He organizes his work by how he feels. Like each section is organized by moods such as 'These old people I tolerate', 'the people I like', 'the people I love', 'these special facts and events that I would look back on when I'm bored', 'Papers that look important but it's really just to look like I'm working while secretly planning my perfect date or murder or both', and there's that very special section that is just 'BITCH'.
JGY, XY, MXY and SMS all have specific taste preferences. XY craves sweets. MXY loves sour. SMS has salt as his guilty pleasure. JGY is a freak who loves bitter food: Dark chocolate, Ginger, Alcohol, bitter melon, tea. That's because Meng Shi wanted him to remain as healthy as possible so a lot of MY's food growing up were very bitter.
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nyerus · 3 years
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Hi, nyerus.....If you don't mind me asking, who are your favorite MXTX characters (top 5 from each novel)? And why? I'm sorry if you've answered this question before.
Thank you so much for asking! I would love to! (Apologies for the delay, and also for how long this is lol....)
TGCF
1.) Xie Lian: I could write forever about why I love him, but XL is just a really great character who subverted my expectations. He's gentle and compassionate, but also funny and snarky on the inside. His character arc is the classic hero's journey but told out of order. So we meet him when he's already wise and world-weary, then get to see what he was like before, and how he finishes his journey later on. He's extremely inspiring, to show that our choices and our actions are what make us, and ultimately no one can take those from us.
2.) Hua Cheng: This is no surprise! I also just adore HC for being a very intense character! He's completely devoted to XL and that zealotry is very unique in a character. He's 100%, not 50, not 75. While he has a lot of relateable aspects, this part of him is utterly fantastical, on the level only myth and fable can achieve--which tracks. After all, he isnt a Ghost King for nothing. In the story, he is the embodiment of the purest devotion, no strings attached.
3.) He Xuan: I actually like him for the same reasons as HC! He too is a walking fable, only instead of devotion, he represents vengence. (They're actually like foils of each other, which is quite neat.) I really adore his arc, and how murky his whole character is. It tells a cautionary tale of how sometimes, our worst enemy--the one who makes us most miserable--is often ourselves. SWD wronged him greviously, but HX's obsession with vengence ultimately prevented him from getting the peace and recompense he wanted in the end. Absolutely stellar storytelling.
4.) Mei Nianqing: While I often question his motives and methods, he is still a really good character. Caught between wanting to be a mentor and protector to XL, but still loving (platonically or romantically, that's up to you) JW. He's the only father figure in XL's life that actually took him seriously, even if he did have to come around to it. But ultimately, he was proud of who XL became even before he ascended. He was just terrified of XL drawing the attention of the one man he shouldn't--and did. However his belief in superstition and fear of Hong Hong-er also makes sense, even if it's sad. MNQ is also just a quirky and fun dude lol.
5.) Mu Qing: I really like how complicated and murky MQ's is in terms of his inner turmoil. I'm somewhat similar to him in the way he thinks, and it's real work not to make things worse for myself by expecting the worse. His background makes him naturally suspicious of... basically everyone, all the time, and it's honestly understandable. Ultimately, he does understand that you can't make assumptions about people's intentions by projecting your own insecurities onto them--which I think is something everyone can relate to. I really like his subtle journey of self-realization and self-forgiveness, and he ends up far better for it.
MDZS
1.) Lan Wangji: I love the fact that LWJ was just so ready to Night Hunt himself to death upon the loss of his beloved. As you can tell, I really like complicated characters who have extreme traits, haha! That being said, I just also really like his stoicism and reliability.
2.) Wei Wuxian: Naturally, it's hard not to love WWX! He decided "yeah maybe the ends do justify the means" and went for it. To us, he is the hero. To the regular people of the world? Whose ancestors were dug up and disturbed to be used by the Yiling Laozu? His blackened reputation is not without cause! (Like... JGY literally has done more positive and helpful things for regular people than Wangxian, but those metas already exist lol.) Once again, his gray morality is what makes him so damn good, and can be debated at length!
3.) Jiang Cheng: JC gets a bad rep, but oh boy he doesn't make things easy for himself at all. However if I was in his position, I probably would be much worse off. He lost EVERYTHING, and still trudged on because there were people who depended on him. His hatred of the Wens also makes sense in the context that... that's often how humans react to and process extreme trauma. We find something to blame and *waves at literally every major conflict since the dawn of time.* (His rumored torture of innocent people due to that is reprehensible, of course, but given that MDZS is a book about how rumors can make or break someone's life... we should take that line with a grain of skepticism, much like all other hearsay.) He's not typically the type of character I like, but I found him really interesting to read.
4.) Jiang Yanli: I really love JYL, who decided to be the emotional backbone of her family from the time she was a child. It was an undue and extremely heavy burden to bear, but she did all of it without complaint. That's strength. I think many elder siblings can relate to her having to step up and be the third parent, when the actual adults fail at it.
5.) Wen Qing: I really like her arc in the novel, where she makes some of the hardest decisions anyone will ever have to make, over and over and over again. I don't typically love very "rough" characters, but she has ever right to be that way (and it makes sense for her character, and isn't just a tacked-on character trait like hair color or eye color in a CC), and honestly I want to marry her very seriously.
SVSSS
1.) Luo Binghe: Probably the most misunderstood main character of all of MXTX's works. LBH is neither truly a crybaby nor is he a ruthless maniac. He's right in the middle, in the valley of misanthropy. And yet, he knows just how to use his charisma to get his way. Cunning and devious, intelligent and ruthless. Meanwhile, he craves love and intimacy--something he could only ever dream of.
2.) Shen Qingqiu (Shen Yuan): Extremely refreshing to see an transmigrator know how to handle transmigration almost flawlessly. (Me reading/watching other works with this trope and wanting to tear my hair out at the protags = me sympathizing on a personal level with SQQ.) This also proves to be SQQ's fatal flaw!! His knowledge of the novel is both a boon and a obstacle to him, and prevents him from understanding the other characters as people until he lets go of his pre-conceived notions. And of course, his snarky as heck inner dialogue is amazing.
3.) Liu Qingge: I don't actually even know why I love LQG as much as I do. He's just neat.
4.) Tianlang-Jun: Honestly same goes for TLJ. He's just great though, and I have a blast reading about him. He wanted to see the good in humanity, and ultimately comes around after writing them off.
5.) Yue Qingyuan: He's a fascinating character. Harmless on the outside, but a quagmire on the inside. His love for Shen Jiu was quite... problematic, in that he saught forgiveness from SJ, without actually ever taking the time to understand him or to make amends. Patronizing and judgemental, yet willing to let SJ get away with literally anything because of his own unresolved turmoil, etc etc. Fascinating.
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babygray-dam · 4 years
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Thinking about this post for a while and, I found myself thinking about how compassionate and empathetic Wei Wuxian is.
He is a good man, one that tore himself apart to help others because he felt their pain, understood, and could not just stand aside and do nothing. Jiang Cheng’s pain was his pain, so he did not hesitate to tear himself apart to help his brother. The Wen remnants’ struggles were his, so he did not hesitate to tear himself away from his family because the Wens’ needs were greater.
He even sympathized with Jin Guangyao and the situation JGY found himself in at the end. Even when he learned of reasons why he should hate him, WWX never did, because he understood JGY.
Wei Wuxian is an empathetic person. I don’t think he would have been even half as good at demonic cultivation, or learned how to control spirits as fast as he did if he wasn’t. What are fierce corpses and monsters but creatures driven by strong emotions, and WWX, who able to understand those emotions, found a way to use those emotions to command the dead.
So it’s no surprise to me that one of the abilities he has mastered, one that he used multiple times in the story, is Empathy, a technique that puts him in the spiritual, emotional, and mental shoes of another.
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rughydrangea · 4 years
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So I finished The Untamed. I was all set to declare it a solid 8.5/10 (the main deductions being general silliness, letting Wen Qing die offscreen (not that I wanted her to suffer more, but she deserved a hero’s death), and the incomprehensible-to-me decision to have Mo Xuanyu and Wei Wuxian be identical twins--I get that they wanted Xiao Zhan to play the character throughout, and I sympathize with the impulse, since he’s great, but I’m sorry, it makes absolutely no sense that this character dies and gets a new body sacrificed to him that looks exactly the same as his old body, and people recognize him as BOTH people, but nobody ever even says ‘huh, it’s funny how MXY is a dead ringer for the Yiling Patriarch’), and then the last 10 minutes happened.
I’m going to be honest... I’m not sure WHAT exactly happened. LWJ tells WWX he’s not coming with him (which right off the bat is pure nonsense that goes against literally every single thing LWJ has done in the preceding 50 episodes), but then they BOTH decide to go to Cloud Recesses together, LWJ becomes the chief cultivator, they have a short but sweet conversation with my love NHS (I feel like I need to watch the movie to get more NHS, but if the price is that I also have to get more JGY, then tbh that might be more than I’m willing to pay...), then LWJ goes to accompany WWX off again, and this time decides that now that he has an actual clear job and responsibilities he’s going to blow all that off to galavant around with his boyfriend? That is how I understood it, but I was confused! And if that’s what it was, then... WHAT? Not only does that not track with LWJ as a character (he already gave up EVERYTHING for WWX! the idea that he would need some time to talk himself into spending the rest of his life with WWX is ridiculous), it’s just such a weirdly deflating ending that screams ‘the finale came in 10 minutes under and we panicked’. 
It’s a pity because the material leading up to that was all quite strong. The final episodes had some fantastic JC/WWX content, and somehow I honestly felt the plot flowed a bit smoother than in the book (possibly because they had to excise the hook-up, much though I hate to say it). Yeah, JGY took WAY too long to die (may we all have that much stamina with a sword lodged in our hearts!), but I thought his whole last-stand confessional was well-done. So it was just too bad that a drama so entertaining and gripping had to go out on such a flaily note--they were clearly trusting in XZ’s (admittedly dazzling and heartbreaking) smile to save them, and for me I confess it did not quite work. But still--it was a wild ride! I had a great time! 8/10!
Side-note: we all know that whichever censorship office was in charge of this drama clearly was not great at doing their job, but the last few episodes added some new wrinkles that really confused me. blatant homoeroticism--I’m looking at you, LWJ’s unexplained matching burn scar! which is to say nothing of course of the infinite number of longing glances those boys exchange as romantic music plays--is obviously allowed. ghosts are not, which gives us all the corpse puppets that are weirdly not-quite-dead. premarital sex is NOT allowed, since the detail of Qin Su already being pregnant before she and JGY got married was excised. but incest IS okay, because they still had a kid together (and in the book, at least JGY didn’t know they were siblings when they had sex--in the show he’s knowingly committing incest, which I think is a lot worse!). most confoundingly of all, JGY hiring a bunch of prostitutes to fuck his dad to death WHILE HE WATCHES is... apparently fine? what the fuck?
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thesporkidentity · 4 years
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The a-yuan broke my heart, I was crying like the final flashback battle all over again but they were happy tears, ya know? THE LEG HUG!!! Also is it just my dumb self or was his costume slightly different between the walking and then the final playing in those final 30 seconds? Not lying it's perfect either way but oh if it's like a little while later I can't with my child. Also oh my goodness can that boy smile like a sunbeam, my heart has been restored from the PAIN, SO MUCH PAIN.
Also with bby!Nie I literally called it, I knew something was up I was screaming and hollering. Don’t get me wrong there’s enough in the flashback that yeah they’re all dumb together but there’s enough hints there, just enough. It was very well done that section. I’m being extremely vague in case the other anon’s still around. I literally love everyone on the show even though in some cases I really shouldn’t because… jsdjcsd they belong in the garbage can.             
Don’t get me wrong I sympathize with them very deeply in some cases but in other cases like dude I wanna slam dunk them in the garbage where they belong for very good reasons. They seem to have added a lot more gray into the live drama from what I hear, which makes it a bit easier in every case but the consent issues (oh god the consent issues, that’s not going to be fun). I’m glad I might still get to try the AD! Apparently it’s the same voice actors so it’s like a rewatch but more canon ;)            
THE. LEG. HUG. he’s just such a precious baby duckling! and he’s ALIVE! and my god lan zhan fucking RAISED HIS CHILD FOR HIM like that is devotion right there and he did such a good job he turned out so well like even before knowing WHO he was he was ALREADY everyone’s favorite of the juniors.
if you’re talking about between lwj and wwx walking away and then the final thirty seconds with the silence and then the music then yeah it was a different costume. so even after lwj and wwx split to fulfill their own separate duties in the end they still come back together like, lwj tracks him down and finds him again (presumably when his duties are finished and the cultivation world has recovered from that chaos) because they’re fucking cultivation partners and after they do what their honor and goodness demands they finally get their happy ending of just wandering around and doing good together and it makes my heart so full.
nei huisang!!! my little dark horse! yeah i don’t want to spoil it but hot damn.
and yeah i’m not gonna judge you for loving the garbage people like, book jin guangyao is actually one of my favorite characters. (i just find him so fascinating because so much of him is so understandably human that, a few of his crimes aside, i can actually totally understand him. so you end up asking like, what was the tipping point? what number of his mistakes or which of his crimes took him from redeemable to unforgiveable? in a universe a little bit to the left could he have been a force for good or do you side with nie mingjue’s opinion that after his first crime that he could never be anything else?) i like that in most cases the villains in this story are so very human rather than a caricature, like aside from wen ruohan and wen chao they actually have reasons behind the bad things they do besides just ‘oh well they’re an evil character.’
as for the grey morality, the live-action actually took away a lot of that in my opinion (likely due to censorship reasons, so i wouldn’t blame the production for that they very obviously tried as hard as they could to be as faithful as they could) at least as far as the leads go. it’s like they polarized it so like wwx was better and jgy was worse, but at the same time those changes made some of the minor characters a little more gray though i guess because they were minor it was okay? skip these parts if you’re wary of spoilers.
**the villains are more evil, the heroes are more pure. like the show glosses over it but in the book one of jin guangyao’s biggest contributions to the cultivation world is a watchtower project where small groups of cultivators rotate through garrisons spaced out along the countryside in order to make it easier for the people under their protection to get help and to reduce reaction times when they detect surges of resentful energy. like, he fought a lot of the sect leaders on this since setting up garrisons could (and likely was) a first step towards consolidation of power, but at the same time it did protect the commoners and rural areas that a lot of the others deemed unimportant enough to really care about. but because that distracts from his misdeeds the show left it out to make him more explicitly evil. (also the whole NOT MENTIONING THAT HIS SON WAS CONCEIVED BEFORE HE KNEW SHE WAS HIS SISTER AND THEN HE NEVER TOUCHED HER AGAIN, WHY DID THEY HAVE TO TAKE THAT OUT AND MAKE HIM COMMIT INTENTIONAL INCEST??? anyway i’m fine it’s cool whatever) but for the most part everything he does isn’t about power just for power’s sake the way it seemed to be for wen ruohan or jin guangshan, it’s the impulse of someone who was abused and powerless amassing power because maybe if he gets enough he can finally keep himself safe (and the tragic thing is that it will never be enough because he cares so much about what everyone thinks about him that he could never achieve what he would view as “safe”)
and the live-action absolves wei wuxian of…basically all his crimes except maybe having a bit of a temper and a sharp tongue. the whole ancient ancestor of a destroyed clan creating yin metal? the wens already practicing demonic cultivation with xue yang? none of that was in the book. wei wuxian wasn’t just a demonic cultivator, he was the genius who invented it. xue yang didn’t even come in until much later as an imitator. it’s like the difference between someone who uses a gun versus someone who invented the gun and introduced that kind of harm into the world. and no one interfered with his usage of the tiger seal at the pass with jin zixuan or at nightless city. wei wuxian really was just emotionally compromised and he lost control and yeah it wasn’t intentional but it did kill people and it was very much on him.**
so like, there’s a lot more grey in the novel and who you decide to hate and who you decide to forgive is very much of the “when is a monster not a monster? oh, when you love it” variety. so if that’s your bag you might really enjoy that novel.
yeah the consent issues… the consent issues feel in my opinion  like…unnegotiated kink? at least that’s kinda how i interpreted it to get through the sex scenes (and also i’ve read in this series of posts that some of those consent issues are exacerbated by the translation and were not necessarily in the original text). like from POV you can tell that what he says and what he wants are two different things and he definitely wants, but it is not something that would be okay to do in your real life as opposed to in fiction without a pre-scene negotiation and a safe word so the lack of that might be a trouble spot for some people. and if you’re sensitive to that then definitely skip the incense burner extras. if it’s something you’re worried about then i’d say read that series of posts to make an informed decision.
and the voice actor for the AD is the same for wei ying, but different for lan wangji. but the same for some other actors. the live-action took a smattering of different people from the AD and the donghua. but it’s really good and it follows the book canon super closely and the scenes they add are really good.
okay i’ve blabbed on enough at this point i apparently like hearing myself…type? that expression works less well in this context. but yeah, done now lol
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clockworkspider · 5 years
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can you do one for lan xichen?
favorite thing about themLan XiChen is a good person. He doesn’t see the world in black and white, nor does he see it through his own lens, he tries his best to view an issue from multiple points of views, and is always trying to make the right decision. You can see this when you see him discussing his parents with WWX, he was thinking out loud, did his father do the right thing? What should he do? 
Nie MingJue’s morals operate on justice, because he grew up in such an environment. Jin GuangYao’s morals operate on credit, because he grew up needing to survive. Lan XiChen had a chance to see both worlds. The strict teachings of Gusu Lan, combined with what he had experienced while being on the run with his books. His morals operate on empathy and compassion. 
A lot of people blame him for his naivety, for being blind. I think it’s truly ironic that by pushing JGY and NMJ together, he destroyed them… But… from his view, how could he have known better? (LXC has done nothing wrong, okay?)  
least favorite thing about them
I ship XiYao all the way and I love LXC but GOD his POV is hard to read… It’s so… Melancholic and generic… It can get… a little boring… sorry LXC… 
I mean… I loved every single scene of LXC in canon but… I’m glad we never got his POV I would have hated him as a protagonist/narrator…
favorite line [1]
brOTPWith WangJi, and also with his sworn bros and HuaiSang… I’m especially interested in how his relationship with HuaiSang will be after the end. After all, they are the only two of the “brothers” that are sort of left… They’re the closest to the deceased. Yet there’s… nothing to say to one another. That’s… oddly even more tragic to me. 
OTPXiYao, but more platonic
nOTPXiCheng… Also… NieXi is okayyyy but… like… to an extent? I can’t stand it when NMJ calls LXC pet names okay??? I’ve seen A-Huan and Huan-Er and screamed like… pls do not NMJ would never… 
(Pet names only work when they come out of LXC’s mouth, he can call anyone pet names ‘cause he got strong Mom Energy. But still he never called NMJ any nicknames in canon… Cause NMJ is that kind of person, you know…) 
Also I just… despite my ship… I can’t picture any pair of the 3zun in a sexual relationship. I can picture attraction but I don’t think anyone would make that move so… 
random headcanon…asexual, or at least ambivalent about it. 
unpopular opinionI’ve already revealed so many in this post but… after thinking for a while, I don’t think “Do The Right Thing LXC” would have tried to hide JGY in Cloud Recess after all… 
song i associate with themCœur de pirate - CastawayAnd I don’t know if you’ve been hurt beforeAnd all the scars you bare are from a previous warBut if it’s fear of love that keeps you out of open armsThen I will leave the lights on any trail to comeAnd you will find your way in any given storm
favorite picture of themI’m linking to this again because it really is my favorite drawing of all of them… LXC looks very… soft and beautiful… yet he is still tall and has… (comparatively) masculine features? But his expression is so Soft. http://higga.lofter.com/post/1dbaa780_111f1495
Spoilers below this point
[1] “But you’ve done too much… I can’t even find an excuse for you.” Big same… LXC… As a fellow JGY sympathizer I relate. 
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