#I ABSOLUTELY LOVE TO MAKE MXTX CHARACTER PARALLELS

[hualianschild]

the jade of lan clan and white lotus of xianle seems to have a type

I've been waiting to see how long it takes for others to talk abt the sqq erasure 💀

#I ABSOLUTELY LOVE TO MAKE MXTX CHARACTER PARALLELS #the world said 'red flag' and they went 'yeah red looks good on him' #they dgaf actually they're here to be the gays in a scandalous relationship #tgcf #mdzs #tian guan ci fu #mo dao zu shi #heaven officials blessing #the grandmaster of demonic cultivation #mxtx #mo xiang tong xiu #heaven official's blessing #xie lian #lan wangji #lan zhan #shen qingqiu #svsss #scum villain's self saving system

[habizuh-studios]

me gushing about tgcf for... idek-

Haha, don't ask why i'm making this post when I'm basically dead, BUT- TGCF is honestly was got me into the danmei fandom. Two of my friends were gushing about it so in order to not feel left out i watched the donghua and it was the BEST DECISION OF MY LIFE not only because the donghua was actually so beautifully animated and the story was so captivating, but also because i watched it in dub and got to see howard wang. Which was great, obviously. unfortunately, i spoiled a LOT. And i mean A LOT of stuff after finishing season 1. I spoiled the ghost city arc, the 800 year wait, and some of Xie Lian's trauma before even starting season 2. And i didn't even have to wait that long for it- some people were waiting over 2 years!! which is crazy to me. The character designs are so intricate and beautiful in all mediums, including the audio drama (which is actually my favorite art out of all of 'em), which HOW?!??!?!? ITS AN AUDIO DRAMA?!?!??! i ended up buying all the books, despite spoiling myself a TON. And i don't regret it at all- i even convinced myself (not really myself, but my dead bank account) to buy the special edition of TGCF!! The official art is gorgeous, the pop-up is gorgeous, the books\ mark is gorgeous, and- despite all the spoilers, after i got used to the writing style it was honestly A BLAST. I finished all the books in less than 2 weeks. I stayed up late reading them- and my favorite part was finishing a book so i could jump to the next one. And my greatest surprise was i didn't even spoil ALL of it to myself! The instigator of the war between xianle and yong'an (if ykyk, hint: family) was such a surprise to me i had to put the book down for a good second before reading it again! xie lians occasional sassiness was honestly really in character, but still a surprise. I have seen some who didnt like tgcf because of the character arcs and hualian- which is fine, but as long as you have the right expectations going into the book, you will not be disappointed. Xie Lian is honestly my favorite. Sue me for being basic, but i love him. Even before knowing all the trauma, i loved him. (Followed closely are Ruoye and Feng Xin, so i guess you can guess my type which i immediately attach to, haha) anyway, in case you weren't looking for my life story, then here: watch the donghua of tgcf, then read all the books, no spoilers. Trust me. Spoilers ruined some of the emotional moments for me yet i still felt empathy for all the characters, which is kind of hard to do. (it hurts, dream on, there is no banquet that does not come to an end). then consume the fan content. Literally all of it. We are the most blessed fandom in history. You may look up some things to expect for tgcf, because i believe the theme is actually quite different from mxtx's other works! I still love wwx tho ;) ----- PS: I also love the parallels. I'll talk about one since this post is so long already, but here- I absolutely love the quotes. A lot of times, popular quotes are remembered when Hua Cheng is saying them, but when you read the books, you realize he's just parroting what xie lian has said... im biased and this isnt for everyone, and obviously his tone and context are wayy different + he has great quotes on his own- but I think it shows his love for him. or maybe i just love Xie Lian, haha.

#tgcf #mxtx tgcf #xie lian #tian guan ci fu #no spoilers #i think #i needed to gush about tgcf so here we are #my rambles are great i swear #defintely something worth reading here #english is not my first language so uhhh pls dont attack me #did i mention i love tgcf? #read the fanfics. #you will not be dissapointed #parallels #ruoye is the best ribbon #yes he is #yes he is!! who is a good ribbon?? #you are #ruoye!!

[neuxue]

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....

I absolutely do not mind you asking; I will usually take just about any excuse to go on about stories/characters I enjoy, much as the fact that it’s taken me several weeks to respond to this may suggest otherwise.

So! Without further ado!

I can only answer for TGCF and CQL(/8 chapters of MDZS) but:

Favourite love interest: Hua Cheng

I love Lan Wangji, I really do, but Hua Cheng just hits so many buttons for me and has made a strong case for himself among my overall fictional favourites, much less by any particular category. There’s the obvious, for me: extraordinary competence and a particular brand of arrogance to go with it but at the same time extreme self-loathing, moral neutrality, a past (and to a certain extent present) full of pain, absolutely out of fucks to give (except for the things about which he does care, greatly), the sarcasm, the Aesthetic... you know, all the things designed to make a character My Type.

But also it’s some of the specifics. The whole relationship he has with his own... existence in general and personality in particular. The way he very much does have a strong personality and character and place he occupies in the world, when you’re looking at him from an external perspective, but from his own perspective all of that is... ephemeral, changeable, transient, bearing no value in and of itself except for how it can be shaped. That’s a hard thing to pull off even just from a technical/storytelling perspective - a character who treats their own personality as an extremely secondary afterthought, but who still has enough personality and presence to carry a story - but it’s also just. Man. There’s... probably an entire essay I could write here on the interplay between competence/capability/versatility and the tendency to then define yourself by what you think you’re supposed to be for whatever reason, and within that having to figure out who you actually are or want to be.

And then, the way the story isn’t about him having to change. Yes, there’s growth and self-recognition and coming to know as a person and equal the one he looked to as a god, but. Here is a largely morally-neutral character, perceived by most of his world as a villain, whose story isn’t about needing to be redeemed, or soften his sharper edges, or fundamentally change who he is - instead, it’s a character who goes into the story ready to change literally everything about himself to suit another, and whose story is instead more about accepting himself as he is. It’s about recognising what that self means, and the fact that he can be and is loved not for what he could be or what someone thinks he should be, but just... himself: ghost king and moral neutrality and sharp edges and oddities and all. It’s... I just feel like in so many stories it’d be about fixing him, or showing him another path, or whatever else, and instead it’s saying ‘no, you don’t have to change who you are, you just have to see it’.

I’m not sure I articulated that last bit very well but it really does just hit me like a metric tonne of bricks every time I think about it. What matters is you, and not the state of you, I just! Scream! A lot! 

Favourite protagonist: impossible tie between Xie Lian and Wei Wuxian

I really, truly, genuinely cannot choose between these two. I think perhaps what it comes down to is that we’re seeing them at different points in their own journeys. Yes, we see the absolute low point for both of them (and in each case it’s a favourite moment), and that’s a large part of the appeal - that, and the immediate aftermath, and the way they react to (and mask, and deflect, and hide) pain, the way they dismiss their own hurt and accept so much hatred or ridicule as no more than their due...

But then beyond that, Wei Wuxian’s story picks up... later for the rest of the world but not much later for him, whereas we pick up with Xie Lian eight centuries later. And we see almost none of that interim time except in offhand comments (ow) and whatever you can piece together from fragments dropped by other characters or implied by other events. 

And so where Wei Wuxian’s present-day story is a little more about a second chance and loose ends and consequences and finding a way to move on and all the ways the past clings to the present, Xie Lian is more... ‘settled’ isn’t the word I want, because when we meet him his life is about to be upended again, but with him we get perhaps a more unusual story in some ways in that he’s had some of that interim time, and while his coping mechanisms and how he views himself may not always be healthy, they’ve had a long time to develop. So we’re seeing a kind of... what happens when, after accepting your place in the world as an immortal drifter and laughingstock, after watching the people you loved leave or die or fade or pass beyond your reach, after learning to smile through anything and accept pain, something comes along and shakes that quiet, someone comes along and sees you. It’s just... fascinating and lovely and very different in some ways to Wei Wuxian’s story (for all that in other ways it has certain parallels), and makes it hard for me to pick favourites.

#idek how much sense any of this makes but #i simply love them all very much #which in and of itself is unusual for me! #it's rare that i like a) a main pairing #b) both sides of a main pairing #and c) the protagonist(s) #all in the same story #much less in all of the above in two! #it's a delight #asks #thanad-zid #tgcf #the untamed #hua cheng #xie lian #wei wuxian

[neverdoingmuch]

hello! I just wanted to ask, which do you think in the mdzs novel has the most questionable morality? like they have done more bad things but they still had kindness in them somehow (?)

oh!! this is a hard one for me anon! i’m always bad at ranking characters but i’ll do my best!  i’m not sure if you were hoping for like a quick answer or a long one but i’m gonna go with a long one bc that’s always fun and i’ll do a tldr if you don’t want to read through all that? yeah that seems like it’ll work because holy shit i didnt mean for it to get so long (and kind of away from the point of your ask too so sorry about that!)

okay! So, the three main contenders for morally dubious characters are, as far as I’ve seen, Xue Yang, Jin Guangyao, and Wei Wuxian. Not a big surprise, I’m sure. While they’re the more obvious options, they do have a lot of parallels and exhibit a lot of the themes and ideas that MXTX was getting at. I mean, I love looking at Jin Guangyao and Wei Wuxian as foils, and even other combinations of the three, so my answer will probably be heavy on the comparisons. I do think it’s worth touching on Jiang Cheng as well though. Also, I’ll try to stay as unbiased as I can because there’s a few characters on this list that I just don’t like … like at all.

Jiang Cheng tends to get brushed over a lot when it comes to some of the horrible things he’s done. From promising to protect Wei Wuxian from dogs only to immediately use them as a threat whenever he wants to to leading a siege on a group of people he knows are completely innocent of any crimes to torturing and killing people for thirteen years, he’s definitely not a good person. His concerns lie first and foremost with himself and his. That doesn’t seem like a horrible thing at first – he should owe his loyalty to himself, his family, and his sect – but it does mean that when the Xuanwu’s cave situation happened, his response was to get mad that Wei Wuxian helped Jin Zixuan and Lan Wangji. (And that’s why Jiang Fengmian got mad at him!). Later on, when pressure comes from the sects regarding Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng chooses not to stand with him, which, while understandable, isn’t exactly a kind move to someone who called Jiang Cheng his family and was trying to repay the debt the two of them owed Wen Qing. There’s no denying that he does care about Wei Wuxian, but when forced to make hard choices, he picks what’s easiest for himself. In general, I’d say that his sense of morality is selfish and somewhat flighty, but not necessarily questionable, so I’ll move on!

For the usual suspects, I’ll start with Xue Yang because I’m just going to immediately eliminate him from the running. I’ve seen people interpret his character sympathetically or try to justify some of his actions or the way he turned out, but I honestly just can’t. While you could feel sympathetic towards him because of his childhood, we have Wei Wuxian as a direct contrast to Xue Yang, as well as, to a certain degree, Jin Guangyao. Both Xue Yang and Wei Wuxian were street kids who had a horrible time in their youth, but Wei Wuxian was able to leave that behind him. That’s a lot easier to do when you’ve been adopted into a major sect and afforded comforts above your station (and also have terrible coping mechanisms), but even Jin Guangyao’s revenge isn’t quite as wide-spread and malicious. I know it may seem a bit obvious, anon, but some people really do try and treat Xue Yang like he’s morally dubious which confuses me a lot because how?? Even if we do say that he has suitable cause, one of the messages of the novel is that your past experiences don’t justify your future actions, so even within the context of the novel – a novel which is concerned with highlighting the grey areas of morality – Xue Yang isn’t afforded any sympathy. So, there’s really no way to construe him in a positive light. His only moments of kindness come with his time spent in Yi City with Xiao Xingchen, where Xue Yang doesn’t change much – he may have cared for Xiao Xingchen, but Xue Yang still tortured him as he did so. I never quite read that arc as Xue Yang learning to care or being allowed to be kind again so I’d just say that he lacks both morals and kindness. On that basis we can boot him from this competition. 

Jin Guangyao may have been one of the antagonists of the novel, but he wasn't a completely bad person or like The Worst. His main crimes involved getting revenge for slights against him or his mother – being from Nie Mingjue, Jin Guangshan, or any number of other cultivators. I think that, to an extent, his actions are justifiable. While you can contrast this to the way Wei Wuxian gets called a servant's son, they do differ in the fact that Wei Wuxian is afforded a higher level of protection due to him being favoured by Jiang Fengmian. Additionally, when Wei Wuxian does have his birth used against him, he's usually the person who acted out first anyway. Jin Guangyao was insulted for doing little more than exist and was never the person to act out first, yet still faced a near constant onslaught of insults. I'm not saying his actions were justified by any means, but the reasoning behind his actions is sound. The one thing I will note is that he doesn't let go of his grudges – even when everything is all done and dusted and he has everything that he could possibly want from life, he still holds onto that hatred. I remember seeing a post where someone mentioned that characters who were able to move on and change for the better were able to get their happy ending in MDZS, which isn't relevant here but definitely applies to Jin Guangyao when thinking about why he got the ending he did. I don't agree with the degree to which he enacted his revenge against certain characters and I loathe the whole Qin Su situation. I don't care how much he cries about it, he could've at least told her, but I mainly just pretend that part didn't exist. So, he has suitable cause for at least some of his actions, and his other victims can just be classified as necessary collateral rather than being intentional innocent targets, if that makes sense, but he's definitely vindictive and spiteful.

On the other hand, he did a lot of good, too. He's a side character for the most part so Jin Guangyao didn't get the most screen-time, but we do hear of some of the good things he's done. The main example would probably be the watchtowers. One of the interesting things about Jin Guangyao and Wei Wuxian is that while both of them are capable of kindness, the breadth and scope of Jin Guangyao's is much broader – the watchtowers are an idea that not only showcase how Jin Guangyao's upbringing allows him to see flaws in the cultivation world that the other privileged cultivators can't, but also show how he does care about the people. I've seen a few people try and play it as a spying technique but I don’t really believe that in the slightest. I mean, the point of the towers is to cover the areas where the sects aren't, so I have no idea what Jin Guangyao's people would even be spying on. Anyway, setting up those watchtowers really didn't benefit him any specific way – unless you consider him endearing himself to Lan Xichen and garnering a good reputation with the common folk something that outweighs the absolute nightmare it would have been to make the sects participate in the project to begin with. In a more specific case, Jin Ling's dog was given to him by Jin Guangyao. It's interesting that, despite Jin Ling spending the novel being trailed by Jiang Cheng, the gift that he obviously cares for deeply is from Jin Guangyao. In the Guanyin Temple scene I definitely got the sense that Jin Ling had loved and trusted Jin Guangyao before the truth came out so I'm firmly convinced that he would've been a wonderful and conscientious uncle to him and just generally good to the people who worked for him and/or the commoners.

Okay, now Wei Wuxian!! As far as I've seen, people are relatively good at staying true to his questionable sense of morality. Like with Jin Guangyao, we know that he can be vindictive and pretty excessive when it comes to getting his revenge, but I'm not going to deny that I was definitely rooting for him when he went after Wen Chao and his little gang. The main issue with Wei Wuxian is probably the demonic cultivation – the stigma against it tends to get reduced to it being bad for the user and their temperament etc. etc., but there's more to it than that. I'm no expert on Daoism by any means, but from my understanding desecration of corpses and disturbing the dead is a significant cultural taboo. This isn't just Wei Wuxian doing something no one else can do (though it certainly is true), it's also him doing something no one else should do. I've seen the massacre at Nightless City being added as another tally to his list of crimes, but I honestly think that that isn’t a crime worth adding – he needed to defend himself so he did, simple as that. 

As I mentioned above, Wei Wuxian's kindness is a bit more specific – where Jin Guangyao cares for the people, Wei Wuxian cares for individuals. We see his kindness more clearly, be it because he's the main character or be it because actions are clearer and stronger when it's for a single person or a small group. It's a bit easier, in my opinion, to care about people when you don't have to live with them and face them every day, but Wei Wuxian does. Even though Wei Wuxian led a lot more comfortable life than Jin Guangyao, we never really see Jin Guangyao get his hands dirty in the same way Wei Wuxian does. When a sacrifice needs to be made, Wei Wuxian’s the one who makes it. He doesn't relegate, he does it himself. We know that he would do absolutely anything for those he cares about and that's why he's able to commit a lot of the atrocities he does.

When it comes to deciding between Jin Guangyao and Wei Wuxian for most questionable morality, I think we need to look at the reasons behind their actions. Wei Wuxian’s sense of morality is definitely nowhere near that of the Lans but he has always been driven by his sense of justice and his love for those around him. In that sense, I've always read him as having a flexible sense of morality rather than a questionable one. I'm not sure how much of it ties in with his sense of duty, but it's definitely a lot. Wei Wuxian is, and always will, fill the role that is required of him – be it the childish and sweet younger brother, the talented but flippant older brother, the monster that wins the war, or the fierce protector that gives his all, Wei Wuxian will twist himself into whatever position he's needed in at that moment. Obviously, he went after Wen Chao for his own benefit, and the corrupting influence of the resentful energy does need to be factored into this, but at his core, Wei Wuxian will always value his duty (to his sect, family, friends, and innocents) and doing what is right over anything else. He may have stumbled along the way, but he did manage to form his own path to uphold all the values that he wanted to. Jin Guangyao, on the other hand, is similar to Jiang Cheng in how he's driven by his own motivations for betterment and revenge, albeit with more grace and intelligence. Jin Guangyao may masquerade as being motivated by any number of causes but he will never do anything at his own risk, and he will always be his top priority. So, while it's a close call between Wei Wuxian and Jin Guangyao, I'm going to have to go with Jin Guangyao on this one!

tldr; the fandom favourites for questionable morality are xy, jgy, and wwx so i mainly looked at them. I included jc as well but neither xy or jc demonstrate the dichotomy needed so they got eliminated from the running. Jgy and wwx both commit and are willing to commit horrible crimes as well as being capable of caring for others and being kind. but, where wwx is driven by his sense of justice and love for others, jgy is driven by his own motivations for betterment and revenge, making for a more questionable morality (as compared to wwx's more flexible morality).

#mdzs #mdzs text #mdzs meta #dfgrgt i was like hm but what if this post isnt good enough to tag as meta #modao zushi #wei wuxian #jin guangyao #xue yang #jiang cheng #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #asks #legal talks #i figured that since i wasnt giving a very interesting answer i might as well throw in some discussion too #i hope this answers your question anon!! #thanks for asking me i had a lot of fun answering this #in case you couldnt tell from the uhh 2k i wrote #Anonymous #but if you want to send any more asks please do!! i love discussing things like this

[esmeraldablazingsky]

I’ve finally hit my limit on the number of bad takes on the Lan parents I can see before I have to lay out all the reasons I disagree, so hello, I’m Blazie, and in this essay I will justify my visceral dislike of the assumption that Qingheng-jun married/imprisoned/had sex with Lan-furen against her will.

    Warning for mentions of rape (in context of Interpretations I Really Hate) and a very, VERY long post below the cut.

    Before I start going off about the finer points of all this, I want to make sure people are on the same page regarding what we actually know about what went down with Qingheng-jun and Lan-furen. What I say is based off the EXR translation of MDZS, for the sake of clarity, and although I don’t think the exact wording should be too important, feel free to let me know if you think I’ve missed an important bit of nuance or something (the whole story is in Chapter 64.)

    The story we get is told by Lan Xichen, and it goes like this: a young Qingheng-jun falls in love at first sight with Lan-furen, who doesn’t return his feelings, and at some point kills one of Qingheng-jun’s teachers over unspecified “grievances.” Although he’s understandably very upset over the murder, Qingheng-jun sneaks Lan-furen back to Cloud Recesses and officially marries her in order to announce to his clan that anyone who wants to hurt her has to go through him.

After that, he locks Lan-furen in one house and himself in another as a form of repentance. Wei Wuxian speculates that this was because “he could neither forgive the one who killed his teacher nor watch the death of the woman who he loved. He could only marry her to protect her life and force himself not to see her.” 

    A central detail of this story that I think people don’t give the import it deserves is that aside from marrying and protecting her, Qingheng-jun’s other option was to let Lan-furen be executed by his clan. His purpose in marrying her wasn’t just for kicks/out of a possessive sort of love, it was so she wouldn’t straight up die. How she felt about this arrangement isn’t stated, but I’ll get into that in a bit. In addition to that, Qingheng-jun and Lan-furen live separately, which was apparently purposeful on Qingheng-jun’s part, and runs counter to the interpretation that he intended to take sexual advantage of Lan-furen.

Though there aren’t many concrete details in Lan Xichen’s retelling, he does specifically inform Wei Wuxian that his mother never complained about remaining in her house. What exactly this signifies is unclear— whether she was simply putting on a brave face for her sons, or whether she was in fact at all content with the situation— but it at the very least serves to further muddy the waters on how she and Qingheng-jun felt about all this. 

Beyond what Lan Xichen and Wei Wuxian are saying out loud, there’s also quite a bit of subtext in this scene, especially in light of later events and revelations, like Lan Xichen’s confession for Lan Wangji at Guanyin Temple. 

So what is Lan Xichen trying to convey with all this? There’s a lot of memes about this scene, most of which err too far on the side of Himbo Airhead Lan Xichen for my liking, but one that I do find amusing emphasizes how Lan Xichen draws parallels between Wangxian and the story of his parents (Lan Xichen: [flute solo] please use your one brain cell to connect the dots.) If Wei Wuxian hadn’t completely lost his memory of Lan Wangji defending him against his own clan elders, one would assume that Lan Xichen’s story would have had a much better chance of hitting home. 

In hindsight and side by side, the parallels are much clearer— Qingheng-jun, “ignoring the objections from his clan… told everyone in the clan that she would be his wife for the rest of his life, that whoever wanted to harm her would have to pass through him first.” Similarly, according to Lan Xichen in Chapter 99, “for [Wei Wuxian,] not only did WangJi talk back to him, he even met with his sword the cultivators from the GusuLan Sect. He heavily injured all thirty-three of the seniors we asked to come.”

In that context, it makes a lot less sense to interpret Qingheng-jun as an aggressor towards Lan-furen, as in Lan Wangji’s case, the narrative clearly establishes that his actions are to secure Wei Wuxian’s safety. The action of Taking Someone Back To Cloud Recesses is— okay, actually, it’s a little more nuanced than I took into account when I started writing that sentence, so let me go a little deeper into Lan Wangji’s actions and how they relate to his father’s, story-wise. 

My intent is not to dive into the terrifying underworld of novel-versus-drama discourse, but simply put, Novel!Lan Wangji as he is written isn’t exactly the poster child for clear consent. (I’m going to entirely leave off the extra chapters for the sake of everyone’s sanity, so I’m just talking about the main body of the novel here.)

He means well, and I’m sure we can agree that he does actually love and want the best for Wei Wuxian, but his lack of communication on this point means that he accidentally gives Wei Wuxian the impression that he wants to imprison and/or punish him in Cloud Recesses at least twice off the top of my head (pre-timeskip, as we know, and post-timeskip immediately after Dafan Mountain when he actually drags Wei Wuxian back to his room.) 

That all likely has something to do with MXTX’s narrative kinks and regular kinks and all that, and can absolutely be taken with many grains of salt. However, these events establish how easy it is to misinterpret the action of Taking Someone Back To Gusu as an attempt to imprison rather than protect them (much to Lan Wangji’s chagrin.)

Failing to communicate his purpose to Wei Wuxian doesn’t mean that Lan Wangji actually had any intent of hurting or caging him— that was just a misinterpretation on Wei Wuxian’s part, and we, as the audience, find that out in due time— but as written in the novel, it can be really uncomfortable to read. Because of that, many people choose to accept CQL canon regarding Lan Wangji’s more possessive actions or mix characterization from different adaptations, which, to be clear, I completely understand and respect. 

However, Qingheng-jun doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt as often, which I frankly find baffling, because nowhere in the text does it state that Lan-furen objected to being taken back to Cloud Recesses, while even Wei Wuxian clearly objected the first few times. In fact, while we’re on this note, I’ll take it a step farther— I find it baffling that people seem to default to an unsympathetic view of Qingheng-jun, because nowhere in the text does it state that he overruled Lan-furen’s wishes in any way. The text doesn’t clarify a lot of things, actually, and that is part of the point. 

The narrators of MDZS are, in many situations, highly unreliable. This is, presumably, very purposeful! MDZS can easily be read as a sharp criticism of reputation and mass judgment and the concept of condemning people without knowing their motives! And I don’t want to sound mean, but guys… did any of us learn anything from that? Here, I’m going to put it in meme format for a second to convey what I mean. 

MDZS: It’s easy to condemn someone as a villain if you don’t know their story or the reasons behind their actions

MDZS: Anyway, here’s a character whose story and reasons behind his actions you know nothing about

Some Parts Of This Fandom: Ah, a villain 

    Memes aside, here’s what I want to point out. It’s entirely possible to assume Qingheng-jun was a bad person who disregarded a woman’s wishes in marrying and confining her when all you have is Lan Xichen’s (actually very neutral, thank you Lan Xichen for being an eminently reasonable and concerned-with-evidence character) account of what happened. It would also be at least that easy to assume Wei Wuxian was just an evil necromancer if he hadn’t un-died and brought his own story to light, or even to believe that Lan Wangji had somehow tamed Wei Wuxian into submission and being a respectable cultivator if you were an average citizen of Fantasy Ancient China with nothing but rumors to operate on. 

    The thing about Qingheng-jun and Lan-furen’s story, then, is that there is nobody left alive who knows the full tale. Nobody knows what they thought about anything, really. Nobody even knows why Lan-furen killed Qingheng-jun’s teacher. Wei Wuxian asks why, and Lan Xichen can’t tell him, but I think the best answer would be something along the lines of I don’t know, Wei Wuxian, why did you kill people? Your guess on the motivations of your own thinly disguised narrative parallel are as good as anyone’s. 

    So, while it’s not technically impossible to assign darker motives to Qingheng-jun, the cautionary tale of MDZS seems to warn against that exact assumption. 

    I’ve refrained from getting too salty on a personal level thus far, but now that I’ve said a lot of the more logical and story-based points of my argument, I will say that at least some of my annoyance with the interpretation of Qingheng-jun as a possessive rapist and Lan-furen as his victim stems from the fact that I just think it’s straight up boring. Where’s the nuance? Aren’t you tired of reducing these characters to the flattest possible versions of themselves? Don’t you just want to add a little flavor? 

    In a slightly more serious phrasing of that criticism, I find that making Lan-furen a helpless prisoner strips her of whatever agency she might otherwise have. To be fair, she’s more or less a non-character in keeping with the general state of the MDZS universe, but making her a damsel in distress only consigns her more deeply to hapless, milquetoast innocence. 

    It’s perfectly valid to enjoy ladies who have done nothing wrong, ever, in their lives, but like… Qin Su is right there, if that’s your ball game. There’s also really no need to make Qingheng-jun someone who doesn’t respect women. Isn’t Jin Guangshan enough for at least one universe? 

    Anyway, ultimately, you do you. I don’t like arguing on the internet, and will just ignore things I don’t agree with (or write an 1800 word vaguepost) like a mature human being. I’m just saying, if it’s a cut and dry tale of imprisonment and assault you’re looking for… you probably don’t want to turn to a woman who committed a murder and a man who loved her enough to forfeit everything to keep her safe. 

#mdzs #qingheng jun #madam lan #lan wangji #wei wuxian #(in a narrative parallels context) #blazie .txt #anyway without further ado here is my.... essay? #rape mention

[pumpkinpaix]

Hi.....do you mind if I ask a few questions?

Who is your fav main couple in mxtx novels (wangxian or hualian or bingqiu)? And why?

Who are your fav side couple (don't have to be canon) in mxtx novels (in each of the 3 novels)? And why?

Sorry if you have answered the questions before...

not at all! :D

fav main couple is i think.... wangxian alskdjf. not because i don’t love the other two, but because I find wangxian to be maybe the most... approachable? the most human? out of the three. hualian is beautiful, but like. god 800 years of love and devotion is like sometimes a little too overwhelming to really grasp, you know? it’s an incomprehensible amount of time. bingqiu’s relationship sometimes makes me nervous because like, there’s a part of shen yuan’s life that he never shares with luo binghe--that he’s NOT his original shizun and that he comes from a totally different world. and that kind of stresses me out a little.

they’re deeply imperfect as people, and I think they also feel like they live on the most equal footing, if that makes sense. god. wangxian.

and side ships!!

for sv: 79 Hurts meeeeeeee. i have a thing for tragic childhood friends. but I also love liushen or bingliushen ;A; love lqg a lot, the sort of unrequited pining he’s got going is. Excellent.

for mdzs: xiyao lol. i really like how easily you can parallel xiyao with wangxian, and also how interesting their dynamic is, esp in the context of 3zun. i think they have a really compelling relationship, and I also just love their characters individually a lot. :D

for tgcf: QUANYIN!!!!! QUANYIN!!!!!!! LOOK. look. *grabs u by the lapels* do u understand how much i love this ship. the ugly, tangled complexity of yin yu’s love and resentment. quan yizhen’s sincere admiration and devotion and absolute pigheadedness. “yes, i resent him, yes, I hate him, but so what??” god that GETS to me!! and also just like, quan yizhen’s inability to understand why people might not respect his shixiong because talent and ability has NEVER been his priority, and how he hurts the people he cares about because he’s unable to read between the lines. (while i normally get really leery of saying any character is “coded” a certain way, i will concede that mxtx wrote one (1) autistic-coded character and that character is quan yizhen and HONESTLY???? i love him so fucking mUCH)

ANYWAYS. i care them. thanks for asking!!

#cyan dlc #mdzs #svsss #tgcf #thanad-zid #asks and replies

[silvysartfulness]

I'm struggling on how to word this but I'll try Do you have thoughts on how the MDZS fandom seem to have an undercurrent of classism/elitism when it comes to the antagonists? I think MXTX create some three dimensional antagonists but its a bit uncomfortable to see some people mindlessly call them trash.

Hmm... I’m not sure I understand exactly what the question is..?

Elitism/classism as a driving force in the feudal world setting of the story, and its role in creating the antagonists, and how people in (modern, Western) fandom are sometimes blind to that as an important factor?

Or elitism/classism within fandom itself, with tiers of “acceptable” vs “unacceptable” character and ships?

In the first case, the stratified and hypocritical society of The Untamed clearly lays the foundation for what shapes the villains - the bourgeois privilege of the Wen and Jin who feel entitled to all the power they want no matter the cost, the “the rich can hurt you and get away with it without consequence” injustice that shaped Xue Yang, the “you’ll never be allowed to be anything but the son of a whore” that haunted Jin Guangyao his entire life... Again and again, the narrative revisits those questions from lots of different angles (Who is wrong, who is right? Who belongs, who’s cast out? What is acceptable, and what difference does it make who performs the actions in question?) I’d say it is very much a central theme to the whole story itself.

As for classism/elitism within fandom itself, I honestly have little interest in getting involved in discourse (I’m just here to have fun!) But yes, as a Fandom Old, I can see that there is absolutely a very unfortunate anti/purity culture infiltrating a lot of fandom spaces these days, with cries for censorship and loud performative condemnation of anything “problematic”, which almost always includes villains and their motivations (and by extension any people who enjoy that content). In short, bullying.

I will forever find it baffling, though, how fandom will love The Untamed and its clearly villain-coded protagonist (Necromancer! Killing thousands! Torturing his enemies, driving them to cannibalism, murder, insanity! In any other story, Wei Wuxian would clearly be the Big Bad) and go “Oh, this one is okay because we as the audience get to see that he’s mostly nice and charming, and gets to have a sweet love story!” and then look at the designated villains and condemn every last aspect of them without question, including the exact themes that were hailed as beautifully tragic and deserving of compassion in Wei Wuxian. It just... seems to lack nuance, and ignoring a lot of the cleverly crafted facets and parallels of this complex storyverse?

Of course people are allowed to simply like and dislike whatever they want in the media they consume, and not have to define or argue their right to do so! No one should feel forced to appreciate or condone ‘problematic’ content they don’t wish to engage with! It’s just a pity there has to be so much unnecessary antagonism toward fellow fans who just like different things.

#untamed artfulness #asksilvy #i have no idea if this is anything at all what you asked for #sorry #i just want everyone to have fun #the drama and fighting just ruins it for everyone #Anonymous

[spockandawe]

11, 12, 46, 60?

Coming right up! :D

11. Tags You Mostly Filter On Ao3 For

Ah, you’ve made a critical mistake here, which is that... my brain has been largely broken and I have not read much fanfic in a long while, I mostly add things to my ‘marked for later’ pile :p I’ve got one or two authors that I know I adore and can keep up with semi-reliably, and once in a while I manage to consume something, but it’s not often, and that limited reading capacity is spread across all of mxtx and meatbun’s books

I will say that something I see a lot of for mdzs and which I have severely limited patience for is the ‘modern au’ concept. I’m not super opposed to it, and every so often I see a setting that’s perfect, like the yi city coffee shop au, but it’s... not very much my jam. There are exceptions, like just yesterday I added an xy/nmj fic to the marked for later pile, or there’s a wangxian + a-yuan adoption/immigration fic that I read and loved, but I usually won’t dip into this tag unless someone I trust is specifically recommending it to me

12. Saddest Moment

Oh, I know that the cliff scene is an easy target, even though it’s only the show, and it is very good, plus earlier in the nightless city when wei wuxian starts laugh-crying on top of the roof, or even earlier before that when the yunmeng siblings are tied up and being sent away on the boat and they’re all crying and holding hands underneath zidian.

But I read the book first, and this line absolutely destroyed me. It’s not a sharp pain, more of a quiet ache that gets worse the more you linger, but it still hits me terribly hard.

“Suddenly, he felt that the world had no place for him, despite how large it was.”

46. Favourite Fanfic / A Fanfic You Want To Recommend

HMM. Well. As I said, I’ve been absolutely awful at reading for a while now. But one of those authors I’ve managed to keep up with is the lovely @veliseraptor, and I can’t recommend just one fic, so I’m recommending two (I’m recommending them all, but I’m talking about two). First! The songxuexiao slow burn enemies-to-lovers, morally grey epic, if living can be this. And second! the yunmeng reconciliation + wangxian wedding fic that I never knew I needed so desperately, With Absolute Splendor. Both of these are unbelievable, and they star my two favorite hopeless disasters from this story, xue yang and jiang cheng. They both take emotional side threads from the show that end on a sad note, and put in the time to turn things around and bring them to a solidly constructed, happy conclusion. I love the main story, but I also love being happy about my favorite not-wangxian children, and the book/show don’t necessarily put the time in to do that for me, but these fics absolutely do.

60.  Favourite Character Development

xue yang xue yang XUE YANG

Oh my god. I love him. I would love him as a one-note villain, but you know what I love even better? The growth from itinerant serial killer to contented homemaker. And... it’s not exactly character growth, but I love the gradual reveal of his backstory as he gets more entrenched in his home in Yi City. It gives so much more depth to his character, and adds extra flavor to his changing priorities in the yi city flashbacks. It’s sort of like... mxtx gave us a very simple, flat character in Shen Jiu at the start of svsss, and flashbacks gradually add depth that make me hurt terribly on his behalf, and Xue Yang isn’t as central to this story as Shen Jiu/Qingqiu is in svsss, but she really has this knack for setting up an unsympathetic character and then sucker-punching me later with feelings. 

The thematic parallels between Xue Yang, Jin Guangyao, and Wei Wuxian have been discussed in a lot of depth by other people, and I’m not going to retread that ground, but it does fascinate me to realize that of those three characters, all of whom come from disadvantaged backgrounds and are overflowing with potential, Xue Yang was the one who settled on the most reasonable life goals. Wei Wuxian set his heart on protecting the Wen remnants and became the Yiling Laozu, Jin Guangyao clawed his way to the top of a major sect, Xue Yang... wanted to live in boring poverty, but boring poverty with a house and a family that were his. I’m not going to rehash all the meta I’ve written about him before, and it goes without saying that canon hurts me very much when it comes to his ending (seriously, go read that fic I linked above), but I love seeing a character make that emotional journey through ‘what do i want? what will make me happy?’ and settling on something so quiet and domestic, especially someone with the background he has. I just. I love him, your honor

#the untamed #spock replies #ask memes/ #Anonymous

[anyrchyangel]

ATLA/MDZS

I never post here but here goes anyway xD

So ATLA has one of the best established “world rules” of any fictional series--imo it’s on par with Harry Potter in that the universal rules of the series could arguably be taken and transposed onto another story entirely.

And by all that I mean Avatar: the Last Airbender is rife for crossover material. So let’s go:

MDZS has some of the most complicated characters I’ve ever read--Wei WuXian and Jiang Cheng are arguably the most “human” characters I’ve ever read about, and I mean that in the best way possible. Jiang Cheng’s pride makes him so complex and yet so very relatable, and Wei WuXian’s self-sacrifice isn’t the most the relatable, but it’s mesmerizing in its own way and his journey of self destruction in the name of his morals and ideals is...breathtaking. Anyways, what I mean by all this is that MDZS characters are the perfect characters to put into a new world--a world with, say, amazingly establish “rules” like ATLA :3

You following? xD

So hear me out:

In ATLA, it’s mentioned by Iroh (Knower of All Things and Wisest of Firebenders) that the waterbenders are bound by a tight knit familial connection--that their bonds to family is what allow them to thrive in places as harsh as the North and South Poles. Familial piety is extremely important to JC and and Jiang Sect, so here’s my proposal:

YunMeng Jiang Sect as the most famous waterbending “tribe” (I don’t think waterbenders need to seclude themselves in the North and South Poles, and for this crossover I would most likely use the MXTX-verse Ancient Chinese map; but it is important to note that Yunmeng is canonically a port city/waterway intermediary) and the Jiang family is famous for producing powerful waterbenders. However (stay with me, it’s getting juicy now :3), Jiang Fangmien is canonically in a...rather unhappy marriage with Madam Yu of the  Ziyuan sect (her sect isn’t mentioned a lot in the novel, but let’s give it a little oomph, shall we? :3). 

What if we made Madam Yu and the Ziyuan sect famous firebenders, ones known most notably for their (hehe wait for it) purple lightning (you see where I’m going with this, right?). Madam Yu is a very interesting character but I think her effect on Jiang Cheng is even more interesting than her characterization. Madam Yu made JC believe that Jiang FengMian found JC lacking--that JC doesn’t understand the Jiang sect motto or what it means to be a true Jiang; let’s take that and amplify it. Let’s make JC a firebender and take after his mother--and even bigger and louder sign that JC and Jiang FengMian are intrinsically different.

If that wasn’t enough, let’s add some extra spice to this juicy tale (I’m enjoying myself so much right now xD): let’s make Wei WuXian a prodigal waterbender, descendant from two famous waterbenders (who had the same relationship with Jiang FengMian as they did in MXTX canon--and also their unfortunate ends). Which means that JC grew up with a waterbending master whom Jiang FengMian adores. Oof, poor JC--no matter how well he excels are firebending (come one, not everyone can produce lightning, especially not purple lightning! JC is a baddie too! ;A;) it will never matter to Jiang FengMian because...he’s not a firebender. He respects the element and its benders (his wife is a baddie too) but he’ll never love it the way he loves waterbending. That right there is some yummy angst and inferiority complex :3

So if WWX is a waterbender, you know for an absolute fact I’m gonna have to make him a bloodbender--come on, the parallel is like right there. 

But what about our honorable Hanguang-Jun? Don’t worry, I didn’t forget him :3 I think the Gusu clan would make excellent airbenders--their love of music and...well, their asceticism translates well to the nomadic and spiritual airbenders of ATLA. Aang was literally descendant of monks. Buddhist monks. LWJ’s ancestor, Lan An--who founded the Lan sect--was also a monk who (and correct me if I'm wrong, my MXTX-lore is...well it’s good but everyone makes mistakes) descended from heaven and found a partner to cultivate with (very romantic :3) and spend his life with.

ALSO (it gets better, I swear this crossover was meant to be [and I’m sure someone else has done it/will do it better than I ever could, but here’s my take on it]) the air nomads, at least from the temple Aang hailed from--and likely the rest of them, but I'm not sure if that’s canon confirmed--were vegetarians. Gusu dietary restrictions? Come on. It’s right there.

One more lovely little add-on: the arrow tattoos Aang is famous for? Those are given to airbending masters (fun fact, Aang received them because he invented a new airbending technique--the air scooter :3), but what if we take that lovely tradition and transpose it onto GusuLan? What if the arrow tattoos transform into cloud tattoos for the direct ancestors of the first air nomads? :3 And the guest disciples (such as Lan JingYi) wear forehead ribbons with the same pattern? This crossover was truly meant to be, I swear. 

So now we have:

 -Wei WuXian a waterbender/bloodbender (who is denounced by the world for his “heretical” and “demonic” technique)

-Jiang Cheng, a firebender leading a sect famous for waterbending with an intense inferiority complex to his shixiong (the cultivation familial honorifics are too lovely to leave out, but I will need extra research to make sure I’m using them right o.o)

-Lan WangJi, a master airbender (oh and for aesthetics, I’ll stick with the white and blue “mourning robes” of the MXTX Gusu sect instead of the...eye wateringly bright orange and yellow of the ATLA airbenders...sorry Aang, but LWJ looks downright ethereal in white and it's a crime to put him in orange) known for his love of music and righteousness. Oh and music + airbending is just ridiculously overpowered, which fits our icy Hanguan-Jun quite well, imo. (P.S. Lan Xichen is also a music lover and his Liebing is arguably just as famous as lwj’s guqin [zither? honestly I’m still confused about the difference]).

And now we need a plot to rip off :3

MXTX did such an amazing job with the cultivation world and the QishenWen sect, so why don’t we...merge the Fire Nation from ATLA with the Wen sect from MXTX? It fits better than you would think.

The Fire Nation sought to conquer the four nations under one banner (it was actually inspired by Imperial Japan in WWII) and that’s exactly what the Wen sect was trying to do (but honestly the Wen sect did a pretty...pisspoor job of it compared to the Fire Nation. Like, dude, the Fire Nation nearly won--if Aang had remained frozen for another year, the world would have been f*cked). 

The crossover wheels are turning :3 but, alas, I am riddled with writer’s block and the likelihood of this getting written is...well it’s not zero but it’s not very high either. I have a lot of other WIPs to work on >.<

So, I am sharing it with Tumblr (and,,,,idk whoever follows this account? Honestly I never post here so I doubt anyone will see this anyway but o.o whatever.) in the hopes that it either A) magically writes itself, B) inspires someone else to pick up the sad crumbs I’ve left behind, or C) somehow motivates me to work on this project. It’s by no means original--I’m sure other people have had this crossover idea, and I know I’ve seen some amazing fan art for it, but well, here’s my contribution ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

#mdzs #wangxian #modaozushi #atla #crossover #I should learn how to tag at some point #but oh well #WangXian in ATLA is hella cute #also scary BloodBender!WWX is...wayyy too seductive #water is an overpowered element btw #RIP earthbenders--maybe the LanLing Jing sect? #or Nie sect--da-ge is 1000000% an earthbender #as if I didn't ramble enough in the post #here's an insane amount of tags #Ana doesn't know how to be concise #Ana is also a living offense to the concept of brevity #Ana Fic Ideas

[touchmycoat]

HI good afternoon from here !!! I don’t remember when I sent the ask but I finished book one this Thursday so in a week and oh god oh god I’m loving everything soooo much I’m so djfkgkgk I’m so excited to know more about everyone 👀👀👀 every time I would read something I was left speechless and the QiRong reveal… aaaaa xl pls you burden yourself with and take the blame for so many things :’) and hhhh I loved the ghost city !! I couldn’t stop laughing about beating the half eaten bun and hc accepting anything just bc it’s gege his beloved~ and aaaaa how he goes to such lengths just so the truth can be revealed and xl doesn’t have to deal with thing he didn’t do TT I think for unexpected it was QiRong lolol especially the cousin part haha just really didn’t see that one coming and welp I know he might or might not cause more trouble in the future~

For some reason the whole banyue thing confused me in the donghua but I think I understand more after reading it

I really really like how much fx and mq care about xl but also I know I will get hurt when I know more about their past and what happened between them 🥲🥲🥲 im not ready Midoooooo

Im itching to start book two after I get some free time and oh boy oh boy I kinda spoiled myself some things, idk in which books they happen but I’m very *sweats profusely*

my ask is all over the place im so sorry djfkf i just wrote as I remembered stuff bc hhh everything was so good aaaaa

HUA CHENG IS SO FUCKING MUCH. he's literally the Xie Lian: *spits on the ground* Me: *licks it up* situation, he's the WORST.

Qi Rong....i stan a cannibal but also he's so fucking annoying lmfaaaoooo. part of MXTX's brilliance as a writer is how precise her characterizations are, imo, and she really said "I don't think I've done a character that's so inexcusably annoying that he's going to cross the line and then cross it right back and then take a huge stinking dump on the line" and then executed it to perfection. Also like, he's so nasty (affectionate) that I forget he actually looks...a lot like Xie Lian?? Like canonically he's good-looking????? My brain keeps deleting that fact from my memory

oooh yeah the banyue situation!! confused as in what happens? it's so funny 'cause Dafan Mountain and Banyue kind of exist in the same category in my mind, where the first and second times I read their respective texts, the thematic resonance didn't click for me, and they both felt like utility arcs than anything that stuck with me? But that's just 'cause i'm illiterate. The Banyue arc totally makes sense now w the revelations for XL and the parallels with Banyue herself. Maybe I still don't totally get Dafan Mountain but that's fine

I LOVE THE XIAN LE TRIO SO MUCH. Mu Qing is so fucking good. I reread the scene where he brings medicine to XL under house arrest, and he's like, 7000% schadenfreude "omg, you got revenge? you went out there and done did the dirty and you're not as glowing and good as i have an issue with you being?" He's Shen Jiu's best friend and that's just the truth, bitch boys unite.

AAAAHHHHHHHHH okay okay at least tgcf is one of those stories that doesn't diminish in impact even if you know the spoilers? well maybe, i don't actually know, i was lucky enough to know absolutely nothing going in, and i blazed through the book in like, 5 business days or something, so i didn't have time to get spoiled either. WHAT DO YOU KNOW I WANT TO KNOW but also it's fine don't look more into spoilers

#tgcf readalong #illusion-li #I'M SO HAPPY YOU'RE ENJOYING IT

[natsunoomoi]

Holy crap. So like with the previous post I was thinking about Fushigi Yuugi again and kind of checking up on what was up with Byakko Senki cuz I haven’t checked on it in awhile and it looks like it’s on hiatus right now and she’s working more on Arata Kangatari, which is cool cuz I thought she finished that, but I guess not and she just took a break to like finish Genbu and do Byakko or something.

But also I was scrolling through her Twitter to find that she is really into this Chinese movie “Legend of Luo Xiaohei” and so I was checking that out cuz so ironic that Japanese mangaka that got her big break writing manga about an ancient China setting is interested in a Chinese movie. So just looking through her Twitter thread and apparently she found out about Luo Xiaohei from watching a CM while watching Modao Zushi. LMAO It’s amazing, but this situation just feels like an ouroboros eating itself because I have a high suspicion that her work on Fushigi Yuugi imported into China back in the 90s was probably a huge influence on Chinese creators and artists to write their own stories about their culture and helped to popularize the xianxia and wuxia novel movements in more modern times. On top of that MXTX said she was inspired by a D. Gray-man fanfic and while she mentioned that title specifically, I think in the periphery Fushigi Yuugi itself and more recently Arata were probably an influence too. Growing up a number of my Chinese friends also said they got into anime overall because of Fushigi Yuugi because it was an anime and work from Japan about their culture and arguably done pretty damn well. 

In terms of the danmei movement as well, I’m pretty sure Fushigi Yuugi was included in what started the movement as the movement was influenced by Japanese BL that came in via Taiwan, and the beginning of Fushigi Yuugi had the whole thing between Nuriko and Hotohori even though that kind of went nowhere, Nuriko dies to everyone’s depression (I have several friends who refuse to watch the rest of the series after Nuriko dies because it’s not the same), and that whole ship goes off a weird deep end with Hotohori marrying a woman that looks like Nuriko. Also, the exact reasons for Nuriko being in the harem and all that. There was a whole lot of shipping in the 90s from Fushigi Yuugi and it was one of the first series that had a male cast that was almost entirely ikemen and I think the actual first reverse harem. A number of shows probably simultaneously popularized the female gaze in mainstream anime, but Fushigi Yuugi was definitely one of them. Like literally one or two years before there was a lot of manly men and guy’s guys kind of anime characters, but beautiful ikemen, no, not really. In 2021, there are some things about the series that are a bit problematic, but it’s influence on the world is pretty significant. It was one of the first shows I’d seen that had any kind of reference to homosexuality or transgender in it and although it’s not necessarily portrayed well, the fact that it was there and that Nuriko was such a beloved character it started a conversation and helped us to get to a time where the topics she represents can be more discussed. I’m actually not even sure what pronouns would be appropriate for Nuriko because of her reasons for what she did and in Japanese the pronoun problem is actually really easy to get around because you just don’t have a subject or speaking in 3rd person is totally normal. But still, without her the minds of thousands or even millions of fans around the world would not have been opened as early to LGBT topics. Her existence, even problematic as it might be, allowed people to consider and love a character of a different sexual orientation or gender identity than their own and just open their minds to just not being a homophobic, biphobic (cuz relationship with Miaka?), or transphobic piece of shit.

Then also Genbu Kaiden and Uruki’s powers. Yeah.... I mean, also kind of with the earlier discussion, the idea of dual cultivation I don’t recall even being brought up much before in most media, but such ideas were also banned and repressed in China at a certain point. Documentation shows it was more of an ancient practice that suddenly became known about again. The book I was talking about that has it more explicitly written is banned in China has its only original surviving copy in the Japanese National Library as it was one of the books brought to Japan by scholars escaping persecution in China and bringing with them books to escape one of the many episodes of mass book burning. According to my Chinese lit professor who had us read an English translation of that book as a part of our curriculum anyway. Supposedly the translator of said book had to go to Japan to read the original in order to write the translation. There’s apparently a number of ancient Chinese texts like that because book burnings were a thing at different points in Chinese history, so if you are a scholar of Chinese lit if you want a complete picture of your field for some texts you do actually have to come to Japan to do your research. But yeah, that power mentioned in that very book Watase-sensei gave to Soi, and also the story of Fushigi Yuugi takes place in that very library that contains that ancient copy of a banned and would have been lost to the world book. If you’re asking why a “dirty” book would be something a scholar would grab to save, ancient lit scholars do regard it as a rather well-written piece of literature even though the content of it is basically taboo.

But also the Fushigi Yuugi Suzaku Ibun game is a hot mess when it comes to this same issue because if you romance Nuriko you can save her from death and my friend Hikari said she wasn’t sure if she was happy about fucking with the universe like that. (I’m not either.) Nuriko’s death was such a huge impact on the story and everything. Also, notably, most of the Suzaku Shichiseishi died, but Nuriko had the LONGEST tribute. Like Chiriko and Mitsukake’s was like a tag on of a few minutes. Hotohori’s was too even, but it was addressed more in the later manga chapters the publisher pressured her to write and in the OVA series afterward.

Also, like Fushigi Yuugi other than the Neverending Story was one of the original sucked into a book holy shit how do I survive stories. Idk if SVSSS is influenced by it in that way, but it’s fair to draw the parallels because of the similar theme. It’s just canonically Taiitsu Shinjin is not behind the the system in the book and in a number of ways Shen Yuan is more competent than Miaka. Miaka gets a lot of shit though and when I re-watched FY a second time I actually found the gripes people generally have about it make up only a small part of the series. People just talk it up so much that it seems like a huge thing when it’s not. Plus the technical canon is only the original TV series because that’s where Watase wanted to end the story and that is an emotional rollercoaster that makes you cry so good. But like there’s some other kinds of parallels as well like how toward the end and like the last two episodes you hate Nakago up until the exact moment you find out why he’s an absolute asshole, and characters straight up criticizing him about how he’s an asshole the whole damn series just gives the same kind of feels that SY gave criticizing the original throughout SVSSS. Can’t say for sure, but Fushigi Yuugi has a lot of clout in a general sense.

But yeah, Watase-sensei said that she was really surprised by the animation quality of Chinese animation these days and she thought Japanese anime was going down in comparison. Same, yo. Same. But still, her work was probably a huge contributor to the movement that allowed MDZS to exist because her art is damn beautiful, Chinese influenced, and she had one of the first works in Asia to like bring the subject of LGBT issues into the mainstream after years of oppression from mostly Western influence because in pre-modern Asia no one gave a shit before and there’s a significant amount of classical novels that address some form of LGBT issues at least in Japanese lit and like even academic documentation that notes Confucius saying that doing it with a guy was better than with a woman. And the author of the work that probably was very influential to BL back in the 90s watches MDZS. She noted that there wasn’t any in the actual anime, which is true, but I think she helped that series to exist and she watches the anime so it’s kind of exciting.

I hope it influences her to go finish Byakko, but OMG I want her to finish Arata too because I like Arata. I should try to find time to read more of it because the anime is too short and the wiki descriptions of what’s happening are so damn confusing and incomplete.

[rigelmejo]

Some useful I found recently for reading cnovels, that work as Readers that provide translations, or Parallel Texts:

zhenhunxiaoshuo.com - A chinese site. has a ton of priest novels, a lot of other danmei novels as well including modaozushi, sleuth of ming dynasty, love is more than a word, etc. I adore this site. I found it by chance when someone recommended it for reading the sleuth of ming dynasty. I deeply appreciate whoever made this site. This site is visually simple and easy to look at, and if you know the titles of the novels you want to read then it is exceptionally easy to locate the correct one. (In addition, if you like any of these novels, please consider buying a copy of the official novels either on the sites they were initially sold on like jjwxc, or their print editions - this is a link to jjwxc, Priest’s Guardian page. jjwxc also has MXTX’s works on it, Meatbun’s 2ha on it, etc). 

This is a google doc guide by @anonflail on twitter about how to make an account on jjwxc and purchase the official novels: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ikGyfFiI4SQe2NmrNsJ3sgV71Iv6e5tGqN9i8SZbuSA/edit . If you happen to be reading any cnovel translations, most translation’s include a link in their intro page to the original official cnovel.

In addition, sometimes if the novels are published you can find print copies of them on YesAsia.com. If you find it this way, often they are traditional character book versions so check in the description. Also look up books by chinese title or pinyin, if the english title does not give you results. I got the mo dao zu shi books from this site, and The Untamed Drama OST. You can also find print novels on amazon, ebay, and aliexpress. Forewarning though I really... have no idea if the ones on these sites are official published copies or not. I got Zhen Hun off Aliexpress months ago, having no idea about anywhere else to find it at the time. The book is in simplified characters, and contains most of the novel but I think is missing all of the extra chapters, and my version has an intro featuring Kunlun that doesn’t exist in the jjwxc online version. Again, if you buy a book, check if the characters are traditional or simplified before purchasing. Be aware that often cnovels are more than 1 volume - don’t buy 1 and think you have the entire novel, actually check how many volumes it is... (Like Mo Du by Priest is 3 volumes?) I’ve found YesAsia to have the most genuine looking books...

Also, if I’m going to get nitpicky... if you want to guarantee you are reading a version of the cnovel with all the extra chapters - the official release is your only guarantee. I personally like to have some notepad copies of the txt to edit and look at, and often unofficial txt downloads will be missing chapters, be the older unedited and therefore less finished versions of chapters, and will be missing later chapters and sections. So if you really enjoy a story, you might as well enjoy the full thing by supporting the author, and getting their most complete official versions of the novels. 

daomubiji.org - If you’re a fan of The Lost Tomb series (the books or the multitude of dramas), this website seems to have most or all of the novels. Its absolutely huge. Like the last site mentioned, you can read them on here. If you’ve never read daomubiji, here’s a quick intro: its real well known sort of like Harry Potter. It’s very Lara Croft/Tomb Raider/Indiana Jones/Uncharted/The Mummy kind of stuff - with the fantasy elements being generally similar to other chinese-tomb-raider genre stories. So think adventurous tomb exploring plus some horror fantasy. It has a ton of drama adaptations you could check out if you wanted a visual introduction to daomubiji - some adaptations are better or worse than others. A fun fact - the two male main leads are probably the biggest ship/CP in the fandom, as far as I can tell. Despite them not being explicitly canonically romantic - compared to the danmei novels listed on the site above lol. I think its a tragedy tbh... that it is so hard to find daomubji fanfictions in english, given how huge this novel series is and how many adaptations it has, and how huge the chinese fandom is. There are some chinese fics on ao3, but I know there are some epic length well written fanfics for this series somewhere in the chinese internet. (Edit: here is the ao3 daomubiji tag). I just can’t find them lol ToT. Also there are tragically FEW english fanfics for daomubiji, despite how accessible the story is for english speakers (the first 6 novels already have official english translated books, and most of the drama adaptations have easily accessible english subs). If you know what chinese sites I can read daomubiji fanfic on, please let me know! I know some fanfics for this fandom are so HUGE, and well known, they have txt files floating around and are 100+ chapters and were once-upon-a-time recced on baidu (but the links are broken now :c ). Anyway, back to this site. You can use a dictionary/translator to lookup unknown words, use the free Zhongwen chrome extension to hover over words for a definition, or view this site in the Pleco WebReader/Chinese Zero to Hero reader/Idiom app, and click words for definitions as needed. Again, if you like any of the daomubiji novels, the author’s written a ton! Go support them! The Lost Tomb is actually published in english too up to volume 6, under the name The Grave Robber’s Chronicles (if you wanted a print english copy).

mtlnovel.com - useful in general as a way to read novels roughly-translated into english, if no existing translation is already being done. It’s also useful if, for example, the english translation you are reading is unfinished but you’re desperate to read more even if it’s machine translated lol. It has a large number of cnovels on the site. I feel this site’s coolest feature though, is the ability to enable ‘RAW.’ If you do that, at the top of the chapter you’re reading, then you will see the traditional character paragraphs above the english machine translated ones. This allows you to use any novel on the site as a parallel chinese-english reader. Right now you can only enable RAW if you are logged in. An account is free. If you run into unknown chinese words, you can look them up in the dictionary/translator of your choice. Or, if you have the free Zhongwen chrome extension, then you can just hover over unknown words for a definition on the same page. (If you like any of these novels, support the author’s official releases). 

https://dictionary.chinesezerotohero.com/#/reader - I’ve seen the site Chinese Zero to Hero before and its quite helpful. I think there’s paid areas, but this area is free. In the Reader, you can paste in any chinese text and it will provide pinyin above the hanzi, along with dictionary definitions if you hover over a word/phrase. I’m testing it right now, and their translations are pretty good! (This Chinese Zero to Hero Reader, or LanguageTools.io are free alternatives I would suggest instead of LingQ, for a reader). In addition, this site also has a lot of free graded readers with all these same features plus accompanying audio. I read The Monkey King on this site before. This site in general also has a large selection of grammar points, and a nice dictionary that breaks down words/characters by radical, includes links to related words, includes pictures of the word’s meaning (in case you’re a visual learner or are making flashcards), includes mnemonics (which I just realized!) and example sentences. It looks very useful and I should start using their dictionary more... (mnemonics seems to be the big benefit of this that Pleco doesn’t have). 

#reference #grammar #dictionary #reader #readers #webreader

[lansizhuis]

Out of all the novels you have read, which was has the best plot for you? >:)

oohhhh interesting question ahhhh In terms of pure plot alone, I think I’d have to go with TGCF. Personally, I love parallelisms and echoing of things said and/or done in the past to the present because it leaves such a strong impact on me when executed properly (and maaan is MXTX damn good at that). I think that TGCF is read best when you read it for the second, the third, and more time because the details of aforementioned type of writing becomes louder and louder as you reread. 

I absolutely love the theme on “just one person is enough” (and tbh MXTX does this to SV’s bingqiu and MDZS’ wangxian as well) and what made me go bias for TGCF’s take on it is one of my favorite scenes particularly in Book 4 where that one person for XL was not a love interest - at XL’s lowest point, at XL’s most desperate time, at that tip of the moment where he was going to make or break, it wasn’t a god, it wasn’t a ghost, it was a human that reminded XL of his humanity. THAT ONE PERSON WAS AN UNNAMED CHARACTER AND IT’S SO BEAUTIFUL /sobs i stan the bamboo hat man in case y’all still didn’t know  Clearing it up - there’s nothing wrong if that one person we have in our lives is a love interest but I just really liked how apt it was at that time in XL’s life that it was not HC. This goes on to show us that even us, as mere human beings, as mere regular citizens of the world, and as just one individual can actually have the power to create a wave of change with just one act of kindness.

#tgcf #text #anon #answers

[dornishsphinx]

mo dao zu shi

The first character I fell in love with: 

Jiang Cheng! Absolutely Jiang Cheng, and he still is my fave. It used to be a little bit of a tie between him and Wei Wuxian, but now it’s definitely Jiang Cheng up top. Best purple uncle.

The character I never expected to love as much as I do now:

Mo Xuanyu. I kinda forgot about his existence after the first episode (which I guess is how it’s supposed to be, given all the time that would be spent on him is focused on the introduction of Wei Wuxian as a character instead.) Given he’s more a plot device than actual character, I didn’t really end up registering him until after I fell in love with Shen Jiu’s character from Scum Villain and ended up noting all the structural parallels between them, and then going back to extrapolate stuff about him from there. Also, Lan Jingyi. I didn’t register him at all when first watching and even reading, but now I think he’s great! Not my favourite of the juniors, because there is no way of kicking Jin Ling out that spot, but I love him. Though I liked his design from the outset when I first watched the donghua.

The character everyone else loves that I don’t:

If this had been a few weeks ago, I would have said Xue Yang, but now I’ve been writing him for a bit, I’m a little softer on him than outright despising him. (This is your fault @mrmissmrsrandom :3) Though I feel he’s wayyyy controversial enough that “everybody loves him” might be an exaggeration. So, I guess… Lan Sizhui. The main reason for it’s not really the character’s fault, though—it’s that I’m more interested in the idea of Lan Jingyi/Jin Ling but it’s basically impossible to find stuff with them that isn’t a triad and it’s a little frustrating lol. And also, I find him a little bland.

The character I love that everyone else hates: 

Hmmmm. Su She. (I have a particular crossover headcanon with Scum Villain regarding the fact the character for his name is the same as Su Xiyan’s, so now I’m biased, but I really do like him quite a bit. He’s so petty, but the absolute loyalty to Jin Guangyao is an interesting character beat. Also, I suppose Jin Guangyao could go here too, but he’s also more controversial than loved or hated.)

The character I used to love but don’t any longer: 

I can’t really think of any characters I dislike now that I originally loved? I guess the closest I could put here is Wei Wuxian, since he was originally my joint fave with Jiang Cheng, where now he’s fallen down a bit. But I still really love him a lot.

The character I would totally smooch: 

Hmmmmmmm. Jiang Cheng. He deserves to be first choice for something, and he is the fave who constantly strikes out~

The character I’d want to be like: 

Hmmm, most of them have a lot of personality flaws that make them interesting characters but not precisely role models. Wen Qing, maybe? Or A-Qing.

The character I’d slap: 

Xue Yang.

A pairing that I love: 

It’s kinda strange given its genre, but tbh most of what I like about MDZS is the family dynamics and story rather than actual shipping. (I found when I was first watching the donghua, I ended up caring so much more about Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian’s relationship than… well, pretty much anything to do with Lan Wangji tbh. Though I don’t mind him, I just have a ton of other characters I prefer.) Now, THAT SAID, Jiang Cheng/Nie Huaisang is the best and I adore it so much. (The only way I’ve been able to break those two apart is via crossover ships with the one MXTX character I can pretty much find a way to ship with anyone and everyone. Seriously, I have more inter-MZDS-SVSSS ships than MDZS ships, it’s weird.)

A pairing that I despise: 

If I was to apply it the word despise to anything… Jiang Cheng/Lan Xichen. It just feels like pairing the spares and tying up Wei Wuxian’s happy ending by marrying his estranged brother to his husband’s brother, or on the other side, giving Jiang Cheng the prize of the more prestigious between the two Lan jades. (Actually, I think we discussed a while back how it’s replicating the dynamic of Jiang Cheng’s parents’ disastrous marriage too which… yeahhh.) Idk, I find it a little… not sure what the word even would be, but Jiang Cheng was the only major sect leader left out of the 3zun, so Lan Xichen getting with him after the other two he’s closer to are dead coupled with Jiang Cheng’s inadequacy issues… not a fan. And overall, I just don’t think they go well together personality wise. (Wow, I have a lot more negative feelings on this ship than I thought I did, huh. I guess I wouldn’t be so against it if it wasn’t Jiang Cheng’s main ship when I don’t really find any aspect of it appealing. Like, it’s second on the AO3 tags and I don’t.... understand....)

#ahhhh i thought i responded to this already!! i am a fool #asks

[peerless-soshi]

A, T, W, X please :)

A - Ships that you currently like a lot. (They don’t have to be OTPs because not everyone has OTPs.) Friendships, pairings, threesomes, etc. are allowed

Listen, I’m a very soft potato who falls in characters’ love easily, so listing all my favourite relationships is close to impossible, hahaha. Let’s see… BakuDeku remains my emotional support ship, in every possible version, and I don’t take constructive criticism. Maybe I don’t show it often enough, but TodoMomo is my second fav.  Even if they don’t have many moments together, I cherish every little one. They’re precious. From platonic relationships, All Might and Deku are always number one Hero Dad and Son. 

I might be boring but I love WangXian with all my heart, and BingQiu with my other heart. I’m also a big big big BeefLeaf fan. Now it’s time to throw rocks at me - be gentle - because it’s probably my most beloved HOB couple. Sorry. But I’m certain that I love every relationship in MXTX works? Recently I’m more and more found of FengQing. Don’t you think that Mu Qing and Bakugou have very different temperaments and yet very similar characters? As you can see, I have a pattern. BNHA and MXTX are my current fandoms, so I think I’ll stick to them but believe me. I have more. Much more. 

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending?

I have more than many headcanons, but choosing from all my fandoms is quite difficult. Hm. One of the ideas I’d shield with my own body is ‘Deku and Kacchan become partners as professional heros’. Shipping aside, I think we’re at this point where it was mentioned enough how they complement each other, learn from each other and can be better heros together. If it’s not going towards working side by side - and I think it does - I’m gonna be very disappointed. For a long time I was in the ‘If Deku is Midoriya’s hero name, Kacchan should be Bakugou’s hero name’ team, but recently I saw a very good commentary on how those two nicknames have different weight and though I still support this idea, I can also agree with other versions.

In this life, you can take away ‘He Xuan and Shi Qing Xuan work on their past and one day they’re happy together’ only from my cold dead hands. I’m not kidding, I have a very detailed story about them growing, mourning and living a happy family life. Oh, I know one more! Considering HuaLian are gods/demons and cultivators can be immortal, I adore the idea of the three main pairs living past their lifetimes and enjoying comfort of the modern society, where they meet the couple from the upcoming fourth novel. 

W - A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.

Ok, this is a very hard question because for me, tropes are nothing more than material and every trope can be done both good and bad? It depends on your author’s craft. MXTX gave me a lesson; there’s a bunch of tropes I usually dislike and yet I loved them in her writing. She portrays certain topics in way that is really enjoyable and believable. 

I have some tropes which are, in my humble opinion, usually done bad. One of them is jealousy shown as a sign of love. I get it, everyone gets a little jealous when they care, but morbid jealousy and making a scene because of any word said to somebody else is not cute or romantic. I can accept it only as a recognized issue and a character flaw. I dislike ‘strong and independent female characters’ - usually they have personality of a fly hitting a closed window. Give them a weapon, tell to attack glass and call it progressive. A sword is not interesting. A well-developed character is interesting. Double points if said independent woman criticizes feminine girls… don’t do it or I’ll bite you. I’m not the biggest fan of miscommunication creating conflict, or ‘opposites attracts’ as it usually comes down to ‘we have nothing in common but we spent some time together and apparently it’s enough to fall in love’. But look, WangXian was able to use both these tropes perfectly! So it’s really not about the topic, but about execution. I have mixed feelings about good character/bad character ships; it’s one of my favourite tropes (look: BeefLeaf) but usually it’s either a masochistic relationship where one side is treated like shit, or it makes the bad character look like a loser/idiot. This trope has potential, why does nobody use it right? 

X - A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.

Again, I’m the type who can love almost any trope but you already know it ;)

He Xuan is my favourite trope: a) a good betrayal with solid forshadowing, this is when angst hits the most, b) negative characters with human feelings who care about some people, yet in the end stay evil. What else… I absolutely love parallels. Give me history repeating itself, characters following up their parents’ mistakes, a hero and a villain portrayed as a crooked mirror. Any kind of hidden parallelism fires up my soul. I have also a soft spot for… give me a minute, it’s 1 am and I don’t know how to describe this trope. Characters who are very proud and ambitious but at the same time suffer from low self-esteem. Characters knowing that they’re talented, but never being good enough. I’m fine with zeros to heros, but I’m much more affected with characters who are almost there but who can never reach for the highest spot. 

#asks #bakudeku #and few more mentioned #thanks for asking! #I love you anon

[callanthea]

How Lan WangJi’s Character Could Be Improved

@arsnovacadenza​​ recently commented that Lan WangJi isn’t a super compelling character, and I wanted to share my thoughts on this subject!

First and foremost, let’s just make this clear: Lan WangJi is a very good and likable person. He’s always willing to help someone in need, he’s badass, he’s extremely hardworking and studious, he’s very generous and kind, he’s really warm and loving towards WWX, etc. etc. This point is pretty much undeniable. 

However, just because someone is a good person does not mean that they are a compelling character!! 

What do I mean by compelling character? I mean a character who has relatable thoughts, motivations, and development. A character with multiple sides and facets, with various flaws and strengths that are displayed over the course of the plot. A character who you could legitimately see as a real human being.

With these traits in mind, there are two areas of LWJ’s character that I take issue with.

1) LWJ never truly grows much as a character. His only real development was to fall in love with WWX and become less stuffy. This development happens extremely early (when he’s a teenager), and he never changes after this has finished. This is because LWJ never makes any mistakes, so he never has a chance to learn from those mistakes. 

[EDIT: Don’t get me wrong, I very much enjoyed LWJ’s development in the flashbacks when he learned to stop repressing himself. But in the present-day story, he really doesn’t go through any changes at all. Sure, you can say him having finished his character arc in the flashbacks is the whole point, but IMO it’s more than a little awkward for LWJ’s character arc to be over before the story has actually begun.]  

(By “mistake”, I mean something the story acknowledges as a mistake. Defending WWX at SPOILER LOCATION was not a mistake, being unsuccessful in taking WWX back to Gusu was not a mistake. The story never treats these like bad decisions, and LWJ never learns anything from them. LWJ has absolutely no regrets about these actions, and would gladly try to do them again.) 

By the time of WWX’s resurrection, LWJ is already too perfect and has nowhere else to grow.

[Compare this to another Kuudere archetype love interest, He Xiuyuan in Poor and Humble Sect. One of the key plot points in that story is how He Xiuyuan goes through immense struggles to suppress his inner shameful nature and desires. He Xiuyuan was also aware of his unintelligence compared to the MC, and initially wanted to be a mindless follower of the MC. These are real character flaws that must be overcome. And of course, it’s super fulfilling when He Xiuyuan allows himself to chase his true desires and gains the confidence to stand alongside the MC as an equal.]

2) LWJ’s motivations are all related to protecting WWX. The moment that WWX reappears, LWJ drops literally everything else in favor of making WWX stay by his side. Okay, don’t get me wrong--based on the sheer tragedy of WWX’s life before his first death, the only way he would ever get a happy ending would be if someone always stood by his side, believed in him, and supported him. But believe it or not, a person can have more than one motivation. It’s a little uncomfortable that Wei Wuxian is Lan Wangji’s entire world for literally all of the  present-day story scenes. The story would be more interesting IMO if a) Lan Wangji had other obligations/goals besides being so incredibly (almost slavishly) devoted to WWX, or b) Lan Wangji’s devotion to WWX was treated with at least some appropriate consequences by the story.

[Compare this to the love interest in MXTX’s previous novel: Luo Binghe in Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System. Luo Binghe was absolutely obsessed with the MC there, but the MC was realistically very uncomfortable with this level of obsession. This became a point of conflict between the two. Overcoming this conflict made their relationship much stronger and their character development more satisfying.]

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The combination of these two points leads to something strange: MDZS is not Lan WangJi’s story at all. It’s very very much Wei Wuxian’s story, while Lan Wangji kind of just... tags along. 

I mean, it’s really nice that MDZS is so focused on world-building and plot that the romance can take a backseat. But I find it strange that almost all the side characters are more interesting/complex (IMO) than the main love interest. Literally every other character in MDZS makes mistakes, and then develops and/or suffers as a result. Even Mianmian grows more than LWJ did, despite her very little screen-time.

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So how could LWJ’s character be improved in my opinion? Again, I have two solutions so far.

1) Play up and analyze LWJ’s flaws over the course of the story. 

LWJ does actually have flaws when you look closely enough, it’s just that the current story doesn’t really treat those flaws as flaws (LWJ doesn’t receive any negative consequences for them). I mentioned that all his motivations are related to protecting WWX--that kind of blind faith can be a flaw! In fact, Lan Xichen suffers because of a similar degree of devotion/faith towards Jin GuangYao. 

-What if the story played up that parallel between the two Lan brothers, and led to their relationship worsening (at least temporarily, before it got better)? 

-What if the public opinion of Lan Wangji went down the drain because of his defense of WWX? Imagine an arc where LWJ and WWX were /both/ on the run.

-WWX’s negative character traits are wonderfully examined through the use of Jin GuangYao and Xue Yang as foils, “what Wei Wuxian could have been.” So, what if LWJ’s negative character traits were similarly analyzed through an antagonist who was LWJ’s foil? (No, I don’t mean Su She. Fuck Su She, he is garbage both as a person and as a character. He has the stupidest motivation imaginable: “hurr durr I hate Lan Wangji for being too perfect, so I’m gonna be evil now.” His entire existence is such an obvious straw man designed by the author purely to make Lan Wangji look good in comparison.) 

I think a perfect third major antagonist would be someone whose main flaw is their undying devotion out of love, which drives them to increasingly villainous acts. Think someone like Wen Zhuliu, but with a bigger role in the story, preferably replacing Su She. Confronting this kind of antagonist would give LWJ the opportunity to grow and prove he won’t make the same mistakes as that character. 

2) Give LWJ a more complex character dynamic with WWX.

I think MDZS would be more interesting if LWJ and WWX disagreed more in the present day. If LWJ was more hostile towards demonic cultivation, if he and WWX legitimately fought over this issue. If LWJ felt more conflicted about WWX’s past crimes when he went berserk at Buyetian. If WWX wanted to reconnect with his old life but LWJ disagreed, and the two had an argument. 

As it is right now, there’s never any real conflict between WWX and LWJ besides the usual “hmmmm should we be a couple???” 

Seriously, just compare the complexity of the LWJ-WWX dynamic to the JC-WWX dynamic or the Three Brothers dynamic, it’s not even fair. 

I’m not asking that LWJ and WWX hate each other, hell no. But you can love someone without worshiping their every move. You can love someone and still think they are making a mistake. In fact, you need conflict in order for a relationship to come out more powerful and resilient than it was before.

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All in all, I like Lan WangJi’s character just fine. He serves his purpose in the current story very well. I just do not love him the way I love many other characters in MDZS. I’m disappointed that he didn’t get the full character depth/development/exploration he deserves, especially since so many other characters in MDZS do. Lan WangJi deserves to be more than just the “ideal perfect boyfriend” character. He deserves to be as deep as a real human being too.

#mo dao zu shi #mdzs #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #gdc