#cql negativity

[jiangwanyinscatmom]

"CQL best adaptation"

#cql negativity #come on now... #i mean really #this is a good joke lol #this is probably on par of bad adaptation that Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon was for #was for Crane Iron #I liked it but it was BAD lol #good music #on both sides #and good actors that were done dirty by bad script

[grewlikefancyflowers]

mxtx: the flow of the story will be ruined if the flashback structure is changed

cql: but what if we changed it tho

#this is mxtx's authors notes #mdzs #it's like both funny and sad because mxtx repeatedly said she was worried people wouldn't like the flashbacks and people would abandon the #story #but she stuck with it because it was the best way to tell the story !! #and cql just came along and wrecked the plot structure in the name of a cheap cashgrab #cql negativity

[ouyangzizhensdad]

people like to give a lot of shit to mxtx for how she writes female characters but I think more shit needs to be given to the cql writers for how they handled the female characters

Thoughts in a bullet point format:

The way they did my girl Wen Qing so dirty. Like, so dirty.

They didn’t think for a second about what they were doing to MianMian as a character and it enrages me to this day. Like give me the number of the people behind the show and I will explain to them IN DETAILS--

And although A-Qing's actress was so cute, she was too old for the role.

I can’t say anything about Shijie because I love Xuan Lu too much, actually we were blessed to be able to see her smile at us.

Wang Lingjiao I think is given more depths in the novel imo, and the way the actress portrays her doesn’t quite match.

I don’t think they understand Lan Yi. Like. At all.

Or Yu Ziyuan.

#anon ask #cql negativity

[xiyao-feels]

hi! i always wonder why in the cql adaptation there is no explanation of what jgy is doing in the guanyin temple.. why do you think there's no mention of his mother? it's so confusing and so easy to fix

Sorry I took so long to answer this!

Honestly I can't actually know the answer and this is pure speculation. But that said it seems to me like it's a pretty clear case of "this would make JGY too sympathetic/the characters opposing him too unsympathetic"? Like, CQL is definitely not just purely committed to making JGY look worse, they even straight-up add the Guanyin temple giving out medicine and JGY pushing JL out of the way of the attack (thereby also, uh, making LWJ cutting off his arm 100% unnecessary, but hey), but they definitely do add things that make him look worse, from the "second flutist" nonsense to the extremely confusing conspiring with XY stuff.

Though that said thinking about it my actual guess is not so much that it makes JGY too sympathetic (think of that last scene with teensy JGY and MS! there's sympathy there!) as that it makes NHS too unsympathetic. If JGY is here to pick up his mother's body—if his mother's body was what was supposed to be in that coffin!!—then that really raises the question of what NHS did with that body. And that question on its own is pretty uncomfortable, especially given the completely awful novel-canonical answer—it really complicates the effort to paint NHS as complicated/literally at all to any degree remorseful or regretful about some of the stuff he's done, not to mention redrawing the line of what he would do and why way out there.

But honestly all this is a guess! I'm just speculating, I really don't know. If anyone knows of an interview talking about this, hit me up 🧐

#jin guangyao #cql negativity #? #I'm not actually sure if this counts but it seems worth tagging

[crossdressingdeath]

Once came across a poster advertising the Untamed and, while I don't watch the show, I was mildly baffled to see it featured one of the male leads in a loving embrace with a woman. I'm pretty sure this is a gay show, though? Anyway, I thought you might like to know.

Gay is a stretch when talking about CQL. It's gay in that it was based off a gay book. Beyond that it's about as gay as Supernatural was, minus the last minute confirmation of Actual Canon Gays. Which to be fair in this case isn't the writers' fault because censorship is very much A Thing, but like. I wouldn't call it gay. That might make people think it actually is gay and not... y'know, queerbait central. As for the poster, I've never seen it so I wouldn't be able to judge, but WWX does have two adopted sisters (WQ counts I'll fight you) and there was some talk about making WQ into a love interest in a panicked attempt to make it More Straight (before the novel fans freaked so hard at the idea that it got dropped as something that would absolutely hurt their profits), so I imagine it's related to that in some way.

#cql negativity #asks #anon

[wutheringskies]

If you sit down to analyze themes from CQL, Lan Zhan's character suffers so greatly.

me writing such a long post in my drafts shitting on cql lan wangji but the overall sentiment is such that:

MDZS! Lan Wangji: Wei Ying, will you allow me to be your husband, your daolu, your lover?

CQL! Lan Wangji: Wei Ying, be my casual, long distance, low commitment girlfriend.

#cql critical #cql negative #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #wangxian #lan wangji

[clearancecreedwatersurvival]

I am Literally never gonna get why the most popular mdzs side ship is xich*ng. Xiyao is right there with the most compelling doomed romance narrative possible. The sheer tragic drama of the guanyin temple scene? Unparalleled.

JC and LXC have like two polite work conversations over the narrative runtime?? Where’s the drama where’s the pizzazz.

#I censored the ship so it doesn’t show up in searches I’m not trying to rain on those fans’ parade. I just. don’t get the appeal. #xiyao #cql #mdzs #I listed cql first in honor of the finger caress scene in the early flashback 10/10 would ship again #caitie speaks #ship negativity

[ctl-yuejie]

loyalty and compassion

#the untamed #cql #wang zhuocheng #xuan lu #jiang yanli #jiang cheng #listen i was about to continue my series on lwj's garments but these two scenes popped up and i just had to #somehow it is easy to forgot how earnestly fond jc was of wwx before he died #i just love that his first instinct is to go and take him home #both as a brother and as the future clan leader #but we can already see the hurt at getting left behind or at least without an explanation or a goodbye #and don't get me into jy....she's definitely worried about wwx and i am not sure she agrees with her father's stance to let him go #but at the same time she has to calm jc down #however she also doesn't stop him when he sneaks out to finally get wwx back #also: look how insecure but happy jc looks at finally following through with the goal of getting wwx back #i like to believe that it takes jc always certain deliberation to go down a certain path which also makes him overthink the outcome so any #reaction by wwx that registers more negatively to him than the one he imagined will hurt him #someone rescue him from himself #ahhhhh

[veliseraptor]

Please tell me all the reasons xxc and nmj wouldn't get along, I'd love to hear that as a rant

I kept meaning to get back to this one and then forgetting and then going "oh I should answer that" and then going "but I don't want to be too bitchy" and then - and anyway that's why this took me like two months to answer.

basing this more on novel canon than cql, because that's where I tend to see the comparison being made more often, I think because they're more directly in contact in one specific scene.

so I think why people say this is basically because they see nie mingjue's "xue yang must be punished/killed" and xiao xingchen's "xue yang must be punished/killed" and also look at nie mingjue's relationship to jin guangyao and xiao xingchen's relationship to xue yang and go "oh so they're morally aligned and are parallel to each other :)" and that's just! not true!

for one thing, and I think this is something that gets lost a lot - xiao xingchen does not live within the hierarchy and structure of cultivation society at large, and is in fact not a huge fan of it. he and song lan are actively trying to do their own thing! that is part of xiao xingchen's problem specifically - he walks into great sect politics with the expectation of justice and runs headlong into, well, politics. and a big part of that is that he doesn't have a whole lot of respect for power if he sees that power as unjust or acting badly: despite pressure from the Jin, "neither coaxing nor coercion had budged Xiao Xingchen."

I think then people look at nie mingjue's showing up and arguing for the same and take those two things as equivalent, but they really aren't, because while nie mingjue is younger than jin guangshan and therefore owes him respect in that sense, he is also a sect leader and approaching from a far more equal position, which is why he can get away with actively threatening violence in a way that xiao xingchen...couldn't. nie mingjue has power, even if it ends up not working for him; xiao xingchen doesn't.

furthermore, I think another important distinction between the two of them is around the question of violence. specifically in the scene around xue yang's initial trial (ish), the distinction between xiao xingchen's bringing xue yang back to jinlintai to ask for him to be punished (by the sect whose responsibility he is), versus nie mingjue's attempt at direct personal execution, including an attack on jin guangyao when he doesn't get his way. again, some of this is likely based on power dynamics (nie mingjue, again, is closer to equal status and therefore has more allowance to step into jin guangshan's affairs), but I think some of it is a difference in approach, too, and inclination. I think it's also notable that (at least in translation) xiao xingchen doesn't specifically say that xue yang should die ("severely punished" is the phrase), as opposed to nie mingjue going for outright beheading.

so I think presenting them as similar/aligned in this scene, basically, is overselling it.

it's not that I think they would hate each other, or anything. I just don't think they'd be friends, or particularly see each other as allies. xiao xingchen occupies a space outside of the social order; nie mingjue, I would argue, is deeply wedded to the social order as it stands. xiao xingchen has a loose sense of the importance of traditional hierarchies of power; nie mingjue is very much embedded in those hierarchies of power and believes in upholding them.

furthermore, looking at the nie mingjue/jin guangyao dynamic versus the xiao xingchen/xue yang dynamic, I think the idea that they're narrative parallels really falls apart. nie mingjue is jin guangyao's superior officer and continues to perceive himself as an authority over jin guangyao; it is his job to correct his behavior and discipline him as he sees fit. xue yang is a criminal that xiao xingchen apprehends, and xue yang turns around and takes revenge on him for interfering. the latter are much closer to equals, at least in the way they perceive each other, and xue yang's revenge on xiao xingchen is considerably less motivated by self-preservation.

they're just not similar except in terms of very specifically both having the opinion "xue yang must be punished" and being willing to push against jin guangshan to do something about it, which isn't a lot to build on for a relationship of any kind, and I have a hard time seeing them vibe personalitywise.

boy this got long. you did ask for a rant though so I guess you got one? climbing down off my soapbox now and going back to my yi city cave where I belong.

#conversating #oddeyesight #sacrificing tags for the sake of not wanting to argue about it #alas. #should i tag stuff like this 'nie mingjue negative' maybe #i don't think i'm being unfair though #i don't think this counts as meta #i guess i'll tag this as #lise's aggressively bitchy opinions about irrelevant and unimportant matters #more mdzs than cql but for organization #the sad queer cultivators show #maybe i'll come back and tag it later

[absolutelyfibulas]

Reminded that tierlists exist, immediately go "ooooooh time for toku takes >:)", remember that I'm actively trying to be positive rather than negative in this fandom, put the tierlist down.

#dutch rambles #to clarify: i'm not overly negative on the shows in general #i just Disagree with a large chunk of the toku tumblr fandom i've seen about which shows are good and which suck ass #and am still scarred from mdzs/cql for disagreeing with people without it becoming A Thing

[sleepy-salami]

this is such a small moment, and I totally missed it the last time I read this chapter, but

if I had a nickel for every time Wen Ning went out of his way to save Jiang Cheng and got kicked in response, I would have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's kinda funny that it happened twice

#wen ning #jiang cheng #mdzs #disclaimer: i am a jc apologist hes my meow meow don't fight me #it's just curious #something something wen ning saving jiang cheng again and again even though jiang cheng hates him with a passion #and wen ning himself has plenty of reasons to hate him #except he just... doesn't? or maybe it's just another negative feeling that he decided to repress until the end of his existence #aside from the golden core drama he either delicately avoids jiang cheng or tries to help #and i still maintain that the biggest wen ning character moment isn't him going ham at jiang cheng #it's him shielding jiang cheng with his body the next day #(you can argue that he did it for jin ling but a) it can be both and b) jc was already shielding jin ling with his body) #(and jin ling's safety is more important to jiang cheng anyway) #jiang cheng's reaction to that was priceless tbh #like yeah the kindest man in the world first decided to end your whole career and then saved your life again. like what do you even do #special thanks to wang zhuocheng for acting this scene in cql #that facial expression was a+ #anyway i hope they enjoy bumping into each other while chaperoning juniors on night hunts bc i need this enemies to begrudging allies arc #if nobody got me mdzs q ep 26 got me

[jiangwanyinscatmom]

What are your opinions on The Untamed? I got into MDZS by stumbling upon the donghua whilst the first season was premiering and devoured fan translations of the novel and kept up religiously with the manhua. I found out I think a year and a half ago that a live action existed and tbh, I'm not that interested. I think it's because of all the changes I've heard were made to the story and the themes and tbh, I'm not very into the graphics 😅 But my primary gripe is it supposedly not being a faithful adaption and instead a very loose one. Since on Ao3 it's somehow impossible to escape the grasp of The Untamed and I've seen so many silly fanons floating around accepted as canon due to the influence of CQL, my feelings towards it are even less generous. So many fans take CQL as the canon story instead of the novel, and its like we've read two different stories, because in many ways, we have. Still, Wang Yibo and Xiao Zhan look gorgeous, and so do the rest of the cast so I'm a bit torn.

I LOVE the Untamed! (I say as I write up essays on why it's dumb and ruined themes and STUPID)

I only recommend it as a VERY loose retelling of what Mo Dao Zu Shi is. The Disney Ariel to the Hans Christen Anderson unrequited gay love letter to the world. So to speak. My one glowing compliment to it is that thankfully after fan pushback, the director, Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo were able to give us the scenes that stood out finally. And probably why we get the whole "Uncut" version of it that is solely focused on their scenes alone.

I don't recommend it as the first foray into the MDZS universe as it changes about all points of importance for a sanitized story. Themes and arcs are vastly lacking in the Live Action that the novel closes very neatly. Don't get me started how pairing Jiang Cheng with Wen Qing makes him EVEN MORE of an asshole regarding the entire Wen massacre and him letting her be burned to death. And somehow despite being an equal love story to the canon on screen Jiang Yanli/Jin Zixuan and the implied Wangxian, that just gets dropped from relevance??? BAD WRITING YANG XIA.

A lot of people of course came to fandom from the Untamed as of 2019, the book was very niche since it originally finished in 2016 and was issued physically and officially by Pinsin in 2018. A year before the Untamed aired. It was culturally a HUGE DEAL... due to it being danmei and so known as being such for it to be such a cashcow. But not for the West. For the West it was one of the biggest things since probably Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon for the genre of Xianxia and Wuxia to be renewed as an interest, or spotlighted once more. But a lot of its initial spark was because it was such an inversion of the usual standard xianxia and wuxia tropes. It places emphasis on the human of the genre over the fantasy.

CQL, tried to make it more in line with typical xianxia and wuxia out there. Doesn't quiet work as well when you have the original source turning all of these tropes and character arc expectations around and the Live Action drops those essentially for on air compliance.

The good the bad, can't be taken as the same between either because the intentions were different. Thematics cannot be scrubbed out from the original and the adaptation claimed to be the true source. The book is what the original intention was for, and worked. Sometimes adaptations lose out the canonical intention of the original but it is not the be end of it when it was reproducing what is already there.

#mdzs #mo dao zu shi #cql #cql negativity #I guess #it's bad and pales in comparison to the book #but damn if Wang Yibo isn't pretty #he's so pretty i want to cry

[leatherbookmark]

on one hand delighted by the zzj screencaps, on the other kinda headtilt eh in a way that like, it essentially doesn’t change anything...? regardless of what directions zzj/lhk got, what matters is how they played the characters. and they certainly made some choices! but at the same time i’m a bit... headtilt ehhhh about the “canon xi/yao” joy. isn’t it 2023 already

#whether a ship is canon or not is really the Least of my concerns #especially since like. what CAN be considered 'canon' in a series like cql... what's more important: the actor's interpretation and acting #or what was written in the screenplay... etc etc #i might be too negative -- unreasonably negative because i already have a ton of jgy haters blocked so they can't touch me -- but it just #Screams 'people will get into heated arguments about this' and i'm not particularly into that tbh #shrimp thoughts

[ibijau]

I can’t believe that when I unfollowed someone for their opinion of a mdzs character, it was over jgy

I did not expect that one

#jau rants #joking bc actually excess negativity of any character except jgs will piss me off #hmm maybe it's also fine to eternally look down on jfm bc he's the second shittiest dad in mdzs after jgs #yes I'm saying wrh is a better dad than jfm yes even in cql

[ackerslut]

Absolutely fucking wild to me that in certain post canon fics authors will elevate one clan over the other. And I'm not talking about fics that are fun aus exploring different endings to MDZS, I'm talking about fics that directly bash Lotus Pier or the Cloud Recess in favor of saying that the other would protect Wei Wuxian from the big bad cultivation world.

Which doesn't make any sense because the entire POINT of the books (and cql, manhua, donghua, etc) is that the cultivation world is fucked up!! They all fucked up!! If your fav is someone who ISN'T Wei Wuxian the wen renments or mianmian then they are culpable to genocide, which (btw) is fine, you're allowed to have problematic favs but like. Girl what.

Idk it's just WILD to me when someone writes Lan Qiren as defensive of Wei Wuxian (less so when it's Jieng Cheng bc like. At least that makes KINDA sense) when these are characters who, as well as ideologically not even being in the same book as Wei Wuxian, literally labeled him as evil bc of #classism.

#i say this as someone who has a couple of fic recs with these tropes but like #its EXHAUSTING reading through terrible characterization when the only purpose is to bash another character #like just say you don't like jieng cheng (which is fine and valid) instead of putting your whole pussy into a fic that makes the lan clan #into saviors of the cultivation world #when they are literally The Problem #anyway tldr: the cloud recess SUCKS and i hate people who defend it #mdzs #cql #mdzs discourse #? #idk i feel like i need to tag this as negative or discourse so that ppl who don't want to read my mildly tipsy rants don't have to

[crossdressingdeath]

I never understood why the writers never put in the Archery Competition in CQL. I understood it was low budget but they could've least mentioned it took place off screen to provide context as to why WC targets WWX, LWJ and JZX.

Yeah, they added all that nonsense ~Yunmeng siblings bonding~ and had that entire ridiculous Yin Iron subplot that really doesn't add anything beyond drawing even more attention to how stupid the evil rocks thing is and also making LWJ's failure to just ask WWX what was wrong when he started using demonic cultivation into him failing as a friend rather than them just not being particularly close, but they skipped over the archery competition? That's plot relevant! Apparently they thought replacing it with WWX antagonizing the Wens for absolutely no reason like a total moron was sufficient. It was not.

#cql negativity #asks #anon