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#theres definitely some 'you know I'm not good right?' when lwj says he is post res
ocdhuacheng · 2 years
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Hey, so can I ask about the thought process (idk words but anyway) behind why you headcanoned Hua Cheng as having OCD cuz I'm very interested? :0
KSJDNKSJDFN sorry it took so long to reply to this I promise I wasn’t ignoring you I was just overwhelmed this week and then after I actually sat down to write out my very long answer I accidentally unplugged my computer and I LOST IT ALL so sorry but this version Is going to be rather incoherent and missing stuff probably bc its pretty much just copied and pasted from one of my discord rambles/previous posts bc I don’t have the energy or memory to rewrite everything how I had it before.. but ive kept u waiting long enough so. Yeah. Sorry.
Also if I sound salty at all its not anything directed at you im just pissed at myself for writing like >3k words all in tumblr like a fool and not backing it up then accidentally yanking on my computer cord like RIGHT as I was going to post it. But I promise im actually very happy getting asks like these even if it takes me a long time to respond ;_;
So anyway basically the tldr version is that I have ocd and I love rubbing my terrible little projection paws all over my favorite characters, but also I do genuinely think that what we are shown of hua chengs personality and actions does naturally lead to the headcanon that he has ocd (and ocpd), kind of like how it seems very clear to me that wwx has adhd and lwj is autistic.
Longer version under cut bc. Well. Sorry in advance lol
So. To start off. my ocd got suuuuuper bad in my second year of college, like to the point where my parents and psychologist was considering putting me in a hospital, so i know how awful ocd can get. and because of that ive always been kinda annoyed that all the ocd """""rep""""" in media is just comedic relief kinda stereotypical clean-freak perfectionist haha look at this weirdo sort of thing. like I was barely functional I couldn’t do basic tasks the majority of the time. ironically, my room was extremely dirty and messy despite my main obsession being about contamination. so yeah not all ocd manifests as the spotless perfect room perfect closet perfect desk or whatever the fuck. sometimes its the opposite. I also got put on academic probation bc I failed all but one of my classes (the one I passed was an art class. Lowkey think that class was the only thing keeping me out of a psych ward that quarter. lol. But anyway. That’s a different conversation) BUT ANYWAY it was all around Awful. Like idk it makes me feel kind of stupid for being such a mess before my medications when everyone just sees ocd as a joke or something. like for example, i loove death the kid soul eater, and hes a good character to make fun of urself after you’ve been medicated for ocd, but i wouldnt exactly call him good rep lmao. But after that relapse episode, I kind of really really really desperately needed a character/story to relate to about it but yippee! there are approximately zero (0) canon ocd characters that aren’t comedic relief! but anyway, i know hua cheng isnt canonically ocd but i was actually able to project on him alot from what we got of his personality (and i do gotta say, sorry but despite my attachment to him i dont actually think hes written all that well, but thats another rant), and its part of the reason why i love him so much bc hes like, definitely my biggest projecttion in this regard. so anyway
i mean theres no argument that his personality and actions are very. obsessive, and rather unhealthy to a degree, especially when he was younger, not so much as he matured over literally 800 years lol but he still has some hella issues. so like, [gestures to all of him] with how he chose xie lian as. HIS PERSON, and proceeded to revolve his entire personality and life around him is obvi v obsessive, i think its very obsessive compulsive personality disorder, which is slightly different than just ocd, one difference being (besides ocd being an anxiety disorder and ocpd being a personality disorder.) in that with ocpd, you dont really think theres anything wrong with how obsessive or compulsive you are, while with ocd it causes a lot of distress. (i havent been formally diagnosed with ocpd, but i do think i definitely at the very least have tendencies in that direction too. Like with certain things i know what im doing/thinking is irrational and it upsets me, but with others im just like. why cant other people see this the way i do? why cant they just understand why this is important? like I just get so! Angry! all the time! with people or in general when things aren’t how I want them to be. I get so judgemental even when other people cant possibly know how specific my standards are like I know its bad and I know it makes me act like a bitch and im sorry) anyway……….. sorry about the tangent but back to hua cheng. he is never distressed by how much he fixates on xie lian, the only thing that distresses him is his own percieved shortcomings with how he cannot serve xie lian the way he wants to. im not sure im explaining this well but i do definitely think hua cheng has ocpd as well. his fixation on xie lian actively prevents him forming meaningful relationships with other people, and even causes a lot of antagonism between him and others (especially fxmq). he just doesnt think anyone else is worthy of his attention. which is obviously, very unhealthy and kind of sad. (i do like to think he grows out of this a bit like with yin yu and he xuan, even if he doesnt want to admit it. AND YUSHI HUANG, bc i am also a ysh/hc brotp propaganda machine as well, and well because she was the only one that was willing to help xie lian during the war too. gay lesbian solidarity mwah <3)
so this ocpd thing.. i believe it extends to things like how the temple in ghost city, or paradise manor, is set up, he'd be classic perfectionist for the layout of it all, probably gave yin yu a lot of grief over it every single time he changed his mind and decided to burn it to the ground or redecorate it because it didnt seem good enough anymore for the hypothetical day when he can bring xie lian there. i dont like to think hua cheng treated yin yu badly on purpose, i dont like thinking hes cruel to him for the sake of being cruel like ive seen some people imply or outright suggest, i mean yin yu is obviously overworked but i think part of that is just hua cheng is so perfectionist about certain things (how the temples and manors look, how theyre run, anything that can be used for or by xie lian in the future) and he just doesnt see that its become a large burden on yin yu because he thinks this kind of stuff is just the rational thing to do, and that everyone should put as much thought into these things as he does. and if he doesnt feel like he can get things to be set up the way he wants it to be it becomes. catastrophic lol
so thats more of the pure ocpd side, though there is a lot of overlap between ocpd and ocd obvi
one thing about ocd is like. its all about wanting to be in control of every tiny part of your life. like for me when certain things are out of my control it freaks me out so much that it basically disables me. Its why I hate planes so much despite cars being statistically much more dangerous. Because if something happens in a car I at least have some semblance of control over how I can escape the situation. In a plane youre just. Fucked. (sorry to all pilots its nothing personal I think youre braver than I will ever be but its basically impossible for me to trust you (and the engineers and inspectors) with my life like that) anyway, i despise ambiguity of any kind and i hate not knowing things or having concrete answers to any questions or worries i have. like. i couldnt decide on a hypothetical grad school because i was weighing the possibilities down to like, ridiculous perceived probability percentages of how likely a natural disaster were to occur in the area, and how dangerous said natural disasters could be, etc. (well. i didnt have to worry about any of that in the end bc i got rejected from literally every school i applied to LMAO RIP but anyway.) so you get the gist. its all just very irrational, and time consuming, and ridiculous to try to gain control of every single possible path your life can take. AND I HATE IT. that was kinda yet another tangent but, to apply this concept to hua cheng. one thing that i find super funny about him is how he always has his nose in everyones personal business like hes such a fucking gossip girl its hilarious. like jokes aside its obvi helpful as a ghost king to know whats going on in the 3 realms, but i think he takes his info gathering up to 11 like he definitely has these control issues about having to know about everything thats going on at all times, having to be on top of everyones business so he cant be caught off guard by anything. over those 800 years of sending his butterflies out recording things he was primarily looking for xie lian, but hes also just kind of. snooping. lmfao. Because If He Doesnt Know Whats Going On Everywhere He Will Die. (again)
and well. with his butterflies to help him, it does work, i mean. hes always on top of things hes always got a plan, hes always the one that people are going to in the book if theyre in trouble. He seems so put together but the things he cant get information on completely eat him alive sometimes. cant let others know that tho, bc hes Cool(TM), hes Chill(TM). cant let anyone know there are things that, god forbid, hes IGNORANT of. embarrassing. tch.
his hoarding im a little ? about because i dont exactly remember the details of it but i do know he has a ridiculous amount of like trinkets and weapons and magical items and stuff in paradise manor, but i also know he doesnt really care if they get destroyed or not, which is kind of strange but i do what i want and im making him a hoarder bc im somewhat of a hoarder and i love projecting. though now that i think about it. like if i have a big pile of something that i dont want to get rid of, but someone else does it for me without asking or something happens to it like yeah i get angry but sometimes i also just get kind of relieved……….. idk.
so now about intrusive thoughts, i bet he has suuper disturbing ones. Like we  know how he was debating slaughtering those humans on mt tonglu but ended up not because xie lian would have saved them. obviously that was already a stressful unusual situation but like i dont think that kind of thing gets any better even when hes just like. chilling. he gets visions of himself burning ghost city to the ground or attacking humans or destroying his own ashes or otherwise causing harm to others, like yin yu. like he pretends he doesnt care about yin yu and he xuan and stuff but i do think hes fond of them, but he tries to keep his distance because 1) hes dumb and 2) he gets really freaked out by these violent thoughts he has about them. the worst is, when he finally meets xie lian again he gets these thoughts about him too and it takes literally everything he has not to like. throw himself into a volcano, or something.
and its already been established his self image isnt. great. which is a kind way of saying it. he thinks hes worthless and ugly, esp if he does even the slightest thing wrong. I mean I definitely think hes better by the current timeline of the book, but it still reads as a kind of precarious thing to me? Like he wants to be a companion to xie lian instead of just a servant like wu ming, but even after 800 years he still feels this inferiority and disregard for himself u know? If im explaining in an okay way? and body dysmorphia is also something that can be ocd related. OH and i forgot to say this before but ocd/ocpd can also sometimes be a way that ptsd can manifest and id definitely say with all that he was said to have gone through as a child he has ptsd, leading to, well, exacerbated ocd symptoms, among other things. his body dysmorphia is obviously something he internalized (for 800 years!!!) from when he was a child, and i can imagine him absolutely agonizing for centuries over his san lang form, because it was supposed to be his most perfect form, he needed to make it perfect, and he never felt like he could
similarly, for the cleanliness side of ocd that i feel is kind of stereotypical? at least how its portrayed in most media, hua cheng has been show a couple times not wanting to get things (or xie lian) dirty. he was very poor and dirty as a child so now he has the connection of being dirty = being miserable, and this is taken to the extreme when he becomes a supreme bc now hes rich and able to be clean and any dirt or blood on him or something/someone he cares about (’cant let you down the ground is dirty’; shielding the flower, etc) is like. an attack on this power he has now ? iykwim
anyway sorry this is long and rambly. if you actually read it all… respect……. Also ignore those parts where I might get a little too personal :^) like idk if it is but I feel like I might regret some of this in the morning. honks. Anywayyyy as you can see im completely normal about hua cheng im saaaaaauuuuur normal and well adjusted and I just think hes neat oky byeee jumps out my window
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trans-xianxian · 2 years
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Random thought but I absolutely love the duality of wwx like he’ll say to peoples faces “I’m better than u sorry or whatever maybe u should try harder to do better :/“ but as soon as lan zhan is like wow ur actually really smart/talented he’s like “omg what no that’s sooooo not true ur so much better wat are u talking about like u better stop before u catch me 😳”
you know I actually have to disagree with you on this one. idk how it is in the novel but in cql that is very much not how wei wuxian behaves around lan wangji and I'm honestly pretty tired of that perception of him. the only time we see wei wuxian say something like that is at the second seige when he's like "won't hanguang jun protect this fragile, feeble man?" and I think that it's understood by both of them that he's not actually saying he's incapable or that lan wangji is More capable and he's certainly not trying to be... "flirty" or whatever. they both know that wei wuxian is incredibly powerful even after being resurrected without chenqing or the stygian tiger seal, it's just that he has no golden core (lan wangji doesn't know this yet but he Does know that Something is up) and his physical flesh and blood body is more susceptible to. you know. death
in fact wei wuxian spends the entire show either a) showing off to lan wangji, or b) insisting that he's perfectly fine when he's actually rotting from the inside out or being cursed. their whole fighting style as a pair is that lan wangji makes sure wei wuxian doesn't get Stabbed while wei wuxian wreaks havoc with demonic cultivation. for that to function successfully, which it does, they need to acknowledge to each other their own abilities and talents
at least in cql I don't think that wei wuxian has ever put down his own abilities in front of lan wangji or denied a compliment from him About his abilities, and this idea that he does is weirdly out of character at best and holds some very.... Uncomfortable implications at worst
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