#jcs meta

[disregardcanon]

there are so many moments in jesus christ superstar that i LOVE, but one of my absolute favorites is the way that jesus backtracks in gethsemane

"why, then, am i scared to finish what i started? what YOU started. i didn't start it." jesus in jesus christ superstar is bearing the weight of everyone's expectations and just. doing his best to try to manage them. judas wants him to stay grounded in his humanity and the opinions and thoughts of people on the ground. respectability politics is how you stay under the radar long enough to make lasting change. make the money to give to the poor, keep our reputations up strongly, we can make a real impact here and now if we don't get too loud.

simon wants him to rise up and lead a revolution. the people in need want him to heal all of them right now immediately even though he's just one guy with only so much ability and time and focus.

mary magdalene wants him to chill out and let her take care of him. peter and the background apostle gang want to be his posse as he gets big and use him to get big and famous. "then when we retire we can write the gospels and they'll still talk about us when we've died"

herod wants him to do his magic as a party trick to gain his salvation, as though that could save him

pilate wants him to deny what he's being accused of so that pilate "can save him", as though that was an option.

and then, of course, we have the absent god the father wanting him to die "far too keen on where and how, not so hot on why". and in the 1973 movie version we get this montage of different images of the crucifixion that implies god sent him this vision of how impactful his death will be, but he still doesn't necessarily tell him WHY, and in other versions there's no evidence that jesus gets... any answers. whatsoever.

different characters TRY to be attentive to his needs and thoughts during the musical, but even those who try very hard (mm, judas, pilate) just.. can't get through. because even if jesus told them.... there isn't anything any of them can do. the story was written long before any of them got here. and there are no answers left in its wake

#jcs #jcs meta #jcs 1973 #jcs rewatch

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

#poorly drawn mdzs #mdzs #wen ning #wei wuxian #wen qing #jiang cheng #Truly Massive disclaimer here: I am a Jiang Cheng enjoyer. I like his character. I enjoy that he is very flawed and volatile. #This episode of the audio drama has a lot of great breakdown scenes featuring JC - and they all deserve a feature. #But underlying this comic is a small meta comment of 'ah man I have too many comics of JC just wailing sadly' #My goal is to draw 6-8 comics per episode - I sometimes have to truncate and cut good scenes out. #Especially when a large majority is just different flavours of trauma and toxic relationships to your self-worth. #I would also like to make a note here that just because you lose the ability to do something that is very tied to your core identity- #-does not mean your life is over. It will feel like the end of the world. It will send you into a spiral of grief. It will hurt so badly. #Sometimes we do not realize how tied up our identities can be in certain things until we are cut loose. #You don't lose yourself. I promise the pain will fade in time. I promise you will find other things to tether you. I promise you will be ok #Life moves forwards. Time moves forwards. You move forwards. #Ego death just means an opportunity for ego rebirth. You are never committed to being the same person forever. #To wrap this around to JC: Yeah I love the twist with the core transfer but man I would have loved to see JC accept the loss. #Obviously it happens for a reason (story) but I can have my AUs. I can have these 'what-ifs'. #described in alt text #I'm trying it out! *please* give me feedback - I want to eventually Add image ID to all of these comics one day

[rubberbandgirlme]

so. i've replayed the demo once more, and this scene baffled me at first, his indifference and displeased face like?? hello??? what happened to our knight in shining armour?? and then i realized it's one of the very few moments he lets himself be real.

it's clear that leander doesn't like getting involved when he might look bad to one of the parties, so this is such an honest and raw reaction when he has to act, when he has to choose between the loyalty of his followers and the potential gain of doing 'business' with mc, and he hates it. also the way he slides back into his good guy mode in the last sprite is just so tasteful 🤌

i think he chooses to take mc's side not because he likes them so very much, but because it's the path of least resistance: bloodhounds are most likely to stay loyal anyway, someone mentioning the senobium is obviousy not a big deal — well, not big enough to go into a fight with your leader, — and the bandaged hands, on the other hand (what a lame pun!!!!!!! sry), are a very promising tidbit (remember that information is currency). like i'm sure leander guessed there was something wrong with mc from the start, just didn't know the details. btw mc noticed his act — the practiced speech of help offering and his suspicion about mc needing a magical solution.

also i'd like to pinpoint that he's the only one eliciting that vital piece of information from mc to potentially gain leverage. it's not like we as players have any choice here but hear me out: even ais and vere (!!!) are showing some kind of respect regarding mc's hands. ais stops mc before they undo their bandages and vere is 'careful not to disturb them' when grabbing mc's arm. did leander reaalllyyyyyyy have to go that far (also if mc hesistates to touch him, he will grab their hand himself :DDD)??? he wants to make sure you need to trust him and him only like dude. i'm still not over the piece of a dialogue below i mean how can he be so honest and manipulative all at once?!?????

"you were right to hide this from me (but now i know). that curse of yours... it's unlike anything i've ever dealt with (i can't help you). i can tell you're discreet (praising) but you'd best not go showing that off to anyone else (so that only i know your secret)"

and the most fascinating thing? i don't think he's a genius mastermind or anything of sorts, he just gets people, operates on an intuitional level, it comes to him naturally, and most of the times he believes that he's doing good.

tl;dr leander is one of the most interesting characters i've ever come upon and it's captivating to see him slip out and back into his goody two-shoes persona and i hope we'll get more moments when he's raw and real soon 👀

#touchstarved #touchstarved game #touchstarved leander #ts leander #obv i didn't break the news but woud be glad if you share your thoughts!! #im dying to talk about the game and leanhoe in particular #bring aaaalllll the theories #i think i can talk about my malewife for hours he's just!!! so!!!! #also tf this got SO long jc #ts meta

[gardensofthemoon]

Jiang Cheng is so. Is just so. He’s WWX’s shidi. His Sect Leader. His brother. His not-brother. His best friend. His enemy. His executioner. His most important person. His chance at forgiveness. His childhood sweetheart. His estranged acquaintance. His wife. His ex-wife. His home. Always, always his.

#chengxian #wwx perceives him as this sum of all these boxes he put jc in #bcs he still can’t see jc as a person #wwx loves jc so much but the way he loves him is uh. malegaze-y. jc is so loved and so objectified #sometimes i feel like wwx treats jc the way a misogynist treats a woman(?) #assuming what he thinks assuming he knows best assuming he’s the only one who can protect him. denying his agency and his personhood #and it comes from a place of love? of so much love. and devotion. and obsession #uhhhh this got out of hand #im not good at writing meta #jiang cheng #deep into cx brainrot send help

[rejectedfables]

in awe of the donghua for slapping "Jiang Cheng had to give up his dogs as a child so that Wei Wuxian could live with him in Lotus Pier" into the same episode as "Wei Wuxian refuses to give up the Wen dogs Clan Remnants so that he can live with Jiang Cheng in Lotus Pier".

Really hammering that nail home about how Jiang Cheng has repeatedly given up everything he reasonably can for Wei Wuxian, and how Wei Wuxian (with one major exception) simply does not do the same. Wei Wuxian does whatever he thinks is right, and does not evaluate the collateral damage of those choices.

His major exception, his one major sacrifice that's done explicitly for Jiang Cheng, is something that he grapples with for the entire rest of the story and which Jiang Cheng is barred from knowledge of until the end, preventing Jiang Cheng from being able to feel that there's been any kind of reciprocity between them. From his perspective, he has given and given and given while Wei Wuxian has simply done whatever the fuck he wants forever, and the second that interfered with the Jiang Clan he... simply left the Jiang Clan. From his perspective, actively prevented from knowledge that would prove him wrong (which he WANTS, by the way, he WANTS to be wrong), Wei Wuxian has taken and taken and taken, and then fucking left.

Anyway they're both right and they're both wrong and I love their messy complicated relationship and the donghua's choice to put these two scenes back to back was HUGE brained

#mdzs #mo dao zu shi #jiang wanyin #jiang cheng #wei wuxian #mdzs meta #the grandmaster of diabolism #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #JC antis can clown on my post if you wanna but that won't protect you from osteoporosis or shingles

[mxtxfanatic]

Hm, I know I said at least in my first reading of mdzs that I felt like Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng were actually friends as kids, I would like to remind folks that the catastrophic breakdown of their friendship was not because of some misplaced care but because Jiang Cheng is a stagnant character whose whole role in the story is to be the one who never learns, changes, and grows past his insecurities and resentments. They were always going to fall out with each other, even if the Sunshot Campaign never happened, even if the Wen Clan didn’t exist as a subjugating force terrorizing the other clans, because no matter how much Jiang Cheng cares about anyone, he will always place his personal resentments first.

I’m so serious: reread the pre-fall of Lotus Pier parts of the novel (flashback extras included), and tell me how many times Jiang Cheng says something genuinely nice about or to the benefit of Wei Wuxian without prompting. Point to me places where Jiang Cheng puts himself on the line for Wei Wuxian that is not him distracting the Wen. Compare the number of unambiguously positive interactions they have to the number of interactions they have in total, and I bet you’ll see that the positives are laughingly scant. Most every interaction they have together, Jiang Cheng is being a negative nancy. He’s the type of friend who, if you said “Today is a good day!” would snidely respond back, “What’s so good about?” before loudly complaining about what a nuisance your happiness is. Jiang Cheng is the type of friend that tells you that everyone else hates you because you’re so annoying, and you need to do something about that because he also finds you annoying so you should be lucky he “puts up with” you. And all of this negativity can be directly traced back to the resentment Jiang Cheng feels caused by his own mother projecting her insecurities onto him. Jiang Cheng, who cannot grow, learn, or change, is unable to extract his own self from his mother’s insecurities, ending up inheriting them as his own, instead.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like teen!Jiang Cheng is some irredeemable monster (that is reserved for his adult self), but Wei Wuxian already shows signs of being tired of his attitude as kids. He snaps at Jiang Cheng rudeness in the lotus pod seeds extra. He constantly admonishes Jiang Cheng about his blatant disregard for the lives and safety of other people. Most of the time, Wei Wuxian won’t even engage in the petty little remarks that Jiang Cheng makes, just treating it like nobody had spoken at all. The only times Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian move as a unit is when they have a common enemy—like Jin Zixuan—but without that, they are only held together by the fact that…they’ve been friends for a long time.

And this kinda leads me back to the point about the yunmeng friendship not being able to withstand the test of time even without an outside conflict: I would place the point of no return for their relationship at Wei Wuxian killing the xuanwu of slaughter, not at the fall of Lotus Pier. Wei Wuxian is one of two individuals that killed a mythological bloodthirsty creature responsible for hundreds of deaths, spent a week in a coma from his injuries and lack of immediate care, and what does he get for it? Jiang Cheng shows up with soup gifted to Wei Wuxian by Jiang Yanli, except he’s eaten all the meat out of it. Jiang Fengmian gives the most lukewarm praise to Wei Wuxian for his achievements—which Wei Wuxian neither complained about nor called him out for—because they were both trying to be mindful of Jing Cheng’s insecurities, and Jiang Cheng still made it about himself. When Madam Yu storms in to yell about how Wei Wuxian is a “bastard child” and he’s just trying to show off, Jiang Cheng consciously and unambiguously sides with his mother. Wei Wuxian had to drag his feverish body out of bed—after just awakening from a week-long coma—to placate pity-party Jiang Cheng, and the only thing that makes him feel better is not promises of continued friendship but of servitude. Even if at this point Wei Wuxian was still viewing Jiang Cheng as a—admittedly caustic—friend, Jiang Cheng’s view had fully transitioned from “annoying friend my mother hates” to “the servant I need to keep in line lest he overshadows me.” If anything, the fall of Lotus Pier, the debt placed on Wei Wuxian by the Jiang leaders, and the subsequent war probably allowed their friendship to last longer than it naturally would have (remember, they are only united against outside forces).

All this to say that while Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian may have started out as genuine friends in their childhood, their transition to enemies has absolutely nothing to do with that care. Sometimes we fall out with people because we just do not like them as people. Jiang Cheng’s resentment prevented him from appreciating Wei Wuxian as a person, leading to the end of their friendship and their descent into eventual enemies. Not misplaced or warped care, just pure, undeniable resentment.

#human metas mxtx #mdzs #idk i think the mdzs fandom can stand to analyze #why they feel so uncomfortable with people genuinely disliking each other #why every conflict has to be about ‘but deep down x really cared!’ #when we are told and shown over and over again in a variety of different scenes and narrations #that the ‘care’ literally does not exist #mxtx does not fault genuine love or care for why shit goes south #and it’s weird to push the idea that positive feelings towards people is what leads to negative relationship outcomes #it was always jc’s resentment that did him in #his care or capacity for it is not even in the equation #because the resentment has pushed it out

[lgbtlunaverse]

A slightly unhinged case for jin guangyao knowing about the core transfer while WWX was still alive

Ok. SO. In chapter 101, during guangyin temple, Jin Guangyao clearly knows about the golden core transfer. He uses it to bring Jiang Cheng off-kilter and stab him and simultaneously reveals to wwx that jc himself now knows about the golden core transfer.

I've always wondered exactly when he figured it out. The most obvious explanation is that he pieced it together after hearing about Jiang Cheng asking everyone to unsheathe suibian (also? jgy? how the fuck do you know that? You were already going to/at Guanyin temple at this point! Did you just have people listen in on rumours from Yunmeng and report back to you for that?? Did you tell your spy network where you were going? My whole kingdom for a retelling of this arc from the pov of these random jin disciples seeing their sect leader start spiralling. He's diggin up random tombs? Fleeing the country? And threatening the heir's life?? What was random Jin cultivator #6 thinking of this before Nie Mingjue turned him into minced meat?)

BUT.

The first time I read that line I was like "oh so he's known for a WHILE." I mean, the line "I've always found it peculiar [that wwx never took his sword anywhere]" does indicate he's been thinking about this for a while, but it doesn't have to mean he knew back then. So I absolutely can't say with certainty that my instinct was right. But I DO have some decent canon backing for how he might have potentially figured things out as early as before Wei Wuxian's death. Specifically, after the discussion scene that takens place when wei wuxian does his thing with the wens and dissapears.

Cause, see, Wen Chao would definitely have bragged about Wen Zhuliu crushing Jiang Cheng's core to his father. He killed the current sect leader, and then permanently disabled the only heir. He did it! the Jiang are gone! I bet he was very loud about it until, a few weeks later, Jiang Cheng suddenly strolls up to the battlefield, with Zidian on his finger, cultivation very much intact, looking for Wei Wuxian.

That must've been fucking baffling if you were Wen Chao and/or Wen Zhuliu and/or any other cultivator who was there and definitely saw Jiang Cheng's core get crushed. They must have assumed something went wrong, or he faked having his core destroyed, but we've never heard of something like that happening before, and they tortured him for hours! It wasn't a quick batle where Wen Zhuliu must have missed in haste, he would've noticed!

Now, by the time Meng yao arrives, wen zhuliu and wen chao are both long dead, but that kind of thing would at least still be a source of gossip among the other Wen. The only time the core melting hand ever failed!

It might be something that, say... a very careful spy with a perfect memory looking for information... might pick up on in his stay with the Wen, no?

So, Meng Yao has heard the rumour that sect leader Jiang got his core crushed but somehow managed to... still have a core.

Independantly of his, Wei Wuxian is being really weird and refusing to carry his sword. His primary concern there is wwx stirring shit up, he has no reason to believe these things are connected yet.

But then Wei Wuxian runs off with a bunch of Wen, and before he is cut off, Jiang Cheng tells everyone that after the siege on lotus pier, he and wei wuxian were helped by Wen Qing and Wen Ning! Jiang Cheng doesn't get to say how, which is good for jgy in this moment because he's trying to steer the conversation as such that no one gets mad at the Jin sect for all the war crimes, but even if his goal is for everyone else to forget Jiang Cheng said that, he'd remember it.

So... after the moment where jiang cheng, according to rumours that were contained to the wen, lost his core, he was helped by wen ning and wen qing, who is a really good doctor. And, in canon, had written theoretical proposals on core transfers before, just never experimented on them. Were these available for others among the Wen to read? Did jgy read them? We have no way of knowing. But if he did, he remembers them. Either way, he knows her reputation.

And Wei Wuxian disappeared right round that same moment, only to resurface with his demonic cultivation, at which point he never touched his sword again. Not even in the middle of a dangerous war. Not even when he was public enemy number one and it would do wonders for his reputation if he was seen cultivating the traditional path. When doing so would have made not just him but the 50 people he was shielding safer! if Jin guangyao was somehow in his position, he'd immediately do everything he could to counteract the narrative of beign a dangerous madman who'd left the straight path. Wei Wuxian has been in absolutely desperate situations and still refuses to pick up his sword...

The saying doesn't exist yet, but i'm sure someone like jgy, more competent than everyone around him, is intimately familair with at least the sentiment of "never ascribe to malice what is adequately explained by incompetence" He is helping spread the narrative of Wei Wuxian as a violent madman, sure, but does he believe it? If it makes no sense for wei wuxian, no longer a privileged young master but an outcast, to not pick up his sword again out of arrogancy, the most reliable explanation is that he... can't.

So Jiang Cheng, who got his core melted, got help from Wen Qing, an incredible doctor, after which he coud cultivate just fine but Wei Wuxian, no matter how desperate, never used traditional cultivation ever again...

Hm. interesting!

It's likely no one else in the jianghu outside of the wen even knew Jiang Cheng lost his core to begin with. And Jin Guangyao was never given wwx's excuse of Baoshan Sanren owing him a favor like Jiang Cheng was. He has all the puzzle pieces in front of him and... if anyone as gonna put them together, it'd be him.

And that's my unhinged case for why I believe Jin Guangyao knew Wei Wuxian didn't have a golden core anymore years before anyone else did. He just never told anyone, because why would he?

I think this adds a whole other level to his speech to Jiang Cheng about how everything could've worked out if he'd just trusted Wei Wuxian more and stood by his side. He saw it all play out in real time knowing there was more going on beneath the surface!

Now the really interesting question becomes: When did he figure out Jiang Cheng himself wasn't in on it? Did he piece it together immediately from remembering seeing jiang cheng berate wwx for not carrying a sword, a thing he should've known he couldn't do? Or was it not until later, maybe the fake yunmeng bros fallout, or the REAL fallout when Jiang Yanli died? Or was it still the news of Jiang Cheng going around and asking everyone to unsheathe subian that made him realize that oh my god this stupid bitch had no idea the whole time.

#mdzs #meng yao #jin guangyao #wei wuxian #wen qing #jiang cheng #mdzs headcanons #mdzs meta #<- tagging both cause it's like... in between #i don't think this is clear-cut canon i'm theorising but i'm also not just throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks #i am looking at the wall very carefully to see what places are the stickiest #the concept jgy thinking jc just. let wwx put his core in him and then didn't protect him from the fallout. #would really color their relationship like he would not show it but ohhhh there'd be resentment there! #yeah no sect leader jiang he's NOT letting jin ling go alone on a nighthunt with you he might not get back with all his organs intact! #i do think it's more likely he did at some point realize jc had no idea tho

[sandumilfshou]

still kind of insane to me that people talk shit about jiang cheng without fully understanding what he has been through so lets just understand what his mental state is like BEFORE canon begins:

born via a dysfunctional marriage to be the sect heir

father doesnt care for him, mother expects too much from him/everything he does is not enough

has his three dogs just kicked out randomly with no notice because of some kid he's never heard of by the father who never gave him love and/or attention

said father then favours this kid more than him, to the point that the entire world basically thinks that this kid is biologically your father's son as well, which causes even more family dysfunction

despite this still learns to love this kid as his unofficial brother

works his absolute hardest but is always second-best because his new shixiong is naturally talented

nobody appreciates the hard work he puts in at being second place despite the fact wwx literally doesnt work hard for it

masks his emotions with anger as a coping mechanism to minimise the amount of hurt he feels

ok great so now lets actually take all of the above and apply this mental wellbeing to canon events FROM HIS PERSPECTIVE (keep in mind this is literally what jc is seeing/experiencing because he DOESNT KNOW what the reader knows):

brother is off being the protagonist and getting in trouble and gets their sisters marriage ruined

comes home from a year away and then almost immediately has to go and be a hostage where brother continues his protagonist behaviour

gets trapped and nearly dies in a cave with a 400-year-old monster, is in charge of finding a way out and making sure everyone else escapes

brother and a guy who maybe hates him get stuck behind in the cave so now jiang cheng has to boost it home ON FOOT, without food, to get manpower to rescue them, which takes a minimum of a few days likely without any food or sleep

no appreciation or thanks for doing that since brother was more heroic and killed the 400-year-old monster

gets scolded by his father for being annoyed by this

parents immediately get into another fight about father loving wwx more than jc

because of the above shenanigans their sect is targeted next

tries to defend brother against being whipped to death and/or having his hand cut off by mother

witnesses his entire sect being burned and murdered

loses both his parents

decides to sacrifice himself to save his brother's life, instead of dying he is tortured and has his golden core melted

on top of his inferiority issues, the ONE THING he was expected to do was be the sect leader for the yunmeng jiang. the sect that no longer exists. he is now a sect leader with no sect and no golden core. no shit he wants to mcfuckin die

miraculously gets a new golden core but loses his brother

immediately plunged into a war and he's only like 17

spends 3 months trying to find his brother only for his brother to show up doing the Forbidden Magic and necromancy which is Super Disrespectful in their culture like holy shit what are you doing

brother refuses to use his sword in favour of the Forbidden Magics and kind of keeps undermining jc's orders as sect leader which makes jc look weak in front of all the other sect leaders when he's actively trying to rebuild their sect and be respected as a leader

fights a war for [handwaves] an amount of time, certainly a few years minimum, while watching his brother descend further into Unhealthy Behaviour but brother refuses to do anything or talk about it

ends up lowkey being a war hero

the other three great sects (of which there are now only four) swear brotherhood, leaving out ONLY ymj/jiang cheng, which, what the Fuck dude

is now a teenager who has lost his parents who now has to rebuild his sect from scratch with fuck all money, supplies, and support

brother, who promised to always be at his side helping, is not helping, and in fact is actively just getting drunk and being a nuisance and STILL REFUSING TO SAY WHY

entire cultivation world starts to turn on his brother who is now looking like a loose cannon bc he has Forbidden Magics that are Terrifyingly Powerful and also it has been proven that he does not give a fuck about jc's opinion since he's constantly doing whatever the fuck he wants

literally out of nowhere said brother decides to piss off everyone, start fights, and then KILL JIN GUARDS at a camp and MAKE OFF with like fifty people who are part of the family that he just fought a war against and were responsible for slaughtering his family/sect

go to the terrifying haunted mountain where wwx and the wen remnants are and sees that he's essentially starting a new family with a kid and crops, doesn't seem to care that jiang cheng is still trying to keep the ymj afloat and look like they have any strength

brother is still doing Forbidden Magic and refuses to explain why, and now says he'll secede from the ymj so his bad reputation doesn't reflect on jc like he HASNT BEEN DOING THAT THE WHOLE TIME

so now shixiong wants to just abandon jc completely after jc has lost his parents, had to rebuild everything from scratch, while ignoring the promise he's made their whole life? ok fuck you

jc also can't defend him in public because that would turn the ymj into a target and please keep in mind he is a teenager who was expected to do this ONE THING by his parents and he has poured his heart and soul and blood and tears into rebuilding the ymj and they are So Vulnerable Right Now

uhhh what the fuck suddenly wwx kills their sister's husband ?? bro what the FUCK?

everyone rallies to go and attack wwx for this and again jc literally cant do anything about it and refusing to go will just make everyone assume he's on wwx's side and their sect can't afford to be attacked rn

bro what the fuck now THEIR SISTER IS DEAD?????

oh even better now said brother is DEAD

jiang cheng literally has NO ONE LEFT. no friends. no family. no parents, no siblings, everyone he knew growing up is dead. its literally just him and his infant nephew, who by the way, is living with the sect who are the most powerful and also most likely to be super fucking shady so jc has to tread very carefully

so jc spends over a decade raising his nephew ALONE while trying to make ymj powerful and also hunting/killing demonic cultivators that now p much only exist bc his brother invented/popularised the technique

oh yeah and also this whole time the guy who maybe hated his brother is now like EVEN colder and more antagonistic towards jc like it was HIS FAULT that wwx is dead? get fucked lan wangji you didnt even like the guy (or if this is cql/untamed canon: you literally did nothing either so where do you get off on acting like you're better than jc)

over a decade passes and suddenly his dead brother is alive again and causing more problems and acting like the things he did were not major contributors towards jc's entire family and sect dying

More Political Drama Happens and jc has to manage it

suddenly its revealed that the guy he's been co-raising his nephew with is the major villain who caused the entire world to turn on wwx in the first place oh and also it turns out that the fucking miraculous core jc has IS HIS BROTHER'S, WHO NEVER SAID ANYTHING, AND THIS IS THE REASON HE STARTED THE FORBIDDEN MAGICS AND STOPPED HELPING AROUND THE SECT, but he didnt even BOTHER to tell jiang cheng about it

by the way did i mention this was done via an entirely unconsented experimental surgery

and now the brother of the doctor who did the unconsented experimental surgery is ?? mad at jiang cheng about it ???? like he was supposed to KNOW ABOUT THIS when wwx was KEEPING IT FROM HIM ON PURPOSE???

and now theyre all nearly dying in this dumbass temple - and the ONE family member jc still has is literally being threatened with a garotte

oh cool now jc's brother is saying forget the past let's just leave it all behind !!! as though THAT ISNT JC'S ENTIRE LIFE AND TRAUMA and the ONE THING he EVER wanted was for him, wwx, and jyl to be alive and happy, and now wwx is saying just forget it! like FUCK YOU???? does jc truly mean NOTHING???????

oh and now his brother is off gallivanting with the guy who hated him - who it turns out doesn't hate him - and now they're getting married

and jiang cheng is meant to just. pretend all of this never happened and live his life normally. while wwx is out there. being happy and married.

like... if you can read all of this and still treat jc like he's the bad guy, i'm sorry, but you have literally zero empathy. dude had it probably more rough than any of the other main ensemble cast, and i am including jgy in that, because jgy Made His Choices. jc literally just had to let things happen around him helplessly

#did i make this bc ive had a bunch of jc antis in my mentions? yes #jiang cheng is beautiful and flawed and i love him so fucking much #he is my lil meow meow my gorgeous wife and hes so so so strong #i wouldnt have even gotten through half this shit before i'd kms lmao #jiang cheng #mdzs #cql #the untamed #jiang cheng antis do not interact #seriously you will not convince me otherwise and i will just block you. do not waste your time on me #this includes you mfs who were in my reblogs recently. you know who you are. #jiang cheng defense squad #jiang wanyin #sandu shengshou #mdzs meta #cql meta #also i call wwx his brother in this bc lbr that is the role he played even if he was always shixiong instead of gege #but also i am a chengxian/xiancheng shipper #so looking at this through shipper goggles is somehow MORE painful

[piosplayhouse]

The Yunmeng bros trauma response theory

#i mentioned this in a reply to kaya forever ago and was going to draw it out but then . forgor #so here it is #my personal interpretation of wwx and jc ! if you disagree bls be nice at least #this is just a theory. a fantasy ancient china frat boy theory #yunmeng bros #yunmeng twin prides #mdzs meta #gdc meta #jiang cheng #jc #wwx #wei wuxian

[whetstonefires]

jiang cheng is a funny character because i fully support either liking him or not liking him, but i see so many takes (especially when he shows up in a supporting role in fic) that seem completely unhinged until i pin down which of what i consider the fundamental facts of his character are just not being applied at all.

it’s like:

1) this is not a mentally well guy, especially after Plot starts happening, and he spends the entire story getting less okay. the only time we ever see any improvement happen in jiang cheng is when wei wuxian piths himself getting the guy out of his suicidal phase, causing many more problems going forward but fixing that one. jiang cheng is not okay and it’s all downhill.

2) he cares so fucking much. like you can write a jiang cheng who is a deeply selfish bastard and you have an excellent textual basis, but it's not because he doesn't care about other people, at least the ones that are his; that's a different kind of problem than the one he has.

he would in fact be less of a problem a lot of the time if he cared less, because he does not have the emotional management tools to be useful about it. also the narrative is conspiring against him but like.

(there are a lot of ways to be selfish and jiang cheng and lan wangji are actually remarkably similar in the basic type of selfish impulses they have. they just have very different childhoods and values shaping how they act about it. and then lan wangji manages to become a mostly functional adult, while jiang cheng is generously an electrified pile of bad coping mechanisms. he's functioning! but like. at what cost.)

3) jiang cheng is dutiful. even the most selfish jiang cheng is someone who perceives and values himself in terms of his function and obligation; he and wei wuxian have different personalities and worldviews, and for that matter expectations placed on them, but they both learned that lesson, presumably together.

4) sort of an extension of 1 and to a lesser extent 2, Jiang Cheng is emotionally insecure as a base state. his parents made some major errors, at least half of which should have been avoidable except they would have had to deal with their own shit first.

it's not out of the question, in a different lifetime where he didn't get several years of compounded irresolvable traumas as his coming-of-age present and then left alone to stew in pain and denial for over a decade, for him to have learned to handle it better and even mostly get over it! that could have happened! it just didn't.

to an extent he's insecure about different things as a grown man than he was as a boy, life experience makes a difference. he's built confidence about some things and become absolutely shattered about others. but he's a person who is easy to wound, in all kinds of complicated identity-related ways, especially by Wei Wuxian specifically, and his kneejerk response to that is to lash out in reply, whether the wounding was intentional or not.

the fact that Wei Wuxian spent most of their lives giving every evidence of being completely immune to being harmed by this reaction masked its toxicity until things got real ugly real fast.

jiang cheng absolutely has the capacity to not do this! it's a deeply rooted bad habit, not actually a fundamental of his character. but it requires self-awareness, will, and (if he's going to keep it up) a lot of practice. it's not the kind of thing that just goes away on its own, even with a bunch of alterations in context.

i don’t have like a closing argument here i just keep finding that takes on jiang cheng that don’t work for me, whether generous or condemnatory, always seem to disagree with me on one of these main points.

#mdzs #cql #jiang cheng #hoc est meum #meta #honestly i'm unable to interpret wangxian entirely in isolation from #the way parts of wwx's character were formed by codependency with jc in their youth #so i keep coming back to jiang cheng even when i don't intend to #i wasn't going to post this lol #but then my browser crashed #and i pieced it back together using textarea cache plugin #and now i don't want to waste the effort #i earnestly believe that jiang cheng is the deuteragonist of the tragedy #that gets superceded by the gay romcom where lwj is deuteragonist #which i think is the funniest use of genre meta as character subtext i have ever seen

[disregardcanon]

just got done watching the 50th anniversary touring production of jesus christ superstar. here are The Thoughts

i've watched either the movie or a different bootleg of jcs during the week of easter for the past 8 years. i LOVE jcs and am very familiar with the material, so this was not a first for me except for seeing it live

i'm not sure if the setup for the staging was unique, but there were 3 big parts: 2 two level bits that were set up towards the back (one that was used almost solely for the instruments) and then in the middle was a very large, elevated cross made of grated metal. it was where the smoke machine bits came through and it had bright lights that hugged the edges.

the way that the cross elevated a bit in the middle of the stage and bisected it was really cool. it let different actors (a lot of the time jesus pre-arrest) elevate themselves over the rest of the scene, and created a pretty clear divide between two different events/sides.

costumes- most of them were what i'd expect from a jcs production, but i was impressed by how lowkey and modern jesus's civilian clothes were (the khaki shorts, the loose white top, the light gray hoodie) and then the way that the leader guy of the I BELIEVE IN YOU AND GOD SO TELLLL ME THAT I'M SAVED! has jesus's exact same outfit but with the colors of the shirt and hoodie swapped. i dunno that worked for me. judas's look, of course, SLAYED in the don't you get me wrong number. sparkling like a star, with his hair all done up in this brilliant and gorgeous updo... *chefs kiss* and then pilot's crown was good and subtle and i love love loved herod and his gang. herod had a big goofy overcoat that gave him a cartoony frame and then he took it off and was in this straight up cabaret bright gold high boots outfit with french revolution aristocracy era face paint and get up. the lackeys had on these striped outfits and harem pants and the like, big circles that surround your head kinda like a dog cone? and at the very end of the number when he's encroaching in on jesus and about to kick him out he kicks the head of every single lackey who's on the ground in a line, like waiting for a beheading? and then it like SPEWS BLOOD along their neckline and the cone. visually appealing, horrifying, and interesting, especially with the french revolution imagery.

they did this really interesting thing with guitars and microphones with the actors. so jesus had a guitar that he carried around with him a lot and peter did too. jesus took it out during emotional moments and the way that they framed the gethsemane number to start with was him just working out his emotions through song? he plays the number himself (and he and peter were playing on pilot's first little number, which is interesting symbolism) and then as he finally builds to a point where he can't keep going he unplugs the guitar from the amp and goes to cry and finish the number with no mic.... just him.

additions on gethsemane- as he was winding up to the FIIINNNNEEEEE I'LLLLLL DIIIIIIEEEEE bit, the lights started flashing from all different directions. in the divine intensity. you will be doing this. you don't have a choice. then jesus, who's mainly performed in a much more.... traditional? style than neeley's jesus finally DOES take it into that piercing, 70s rocker falsetto belt.... and to have that happen right before he finally... does give up. just collapse into a little pile of just him, no more lighting anymore but this single spotlight on this sad, tired little man... the heart. it wrenches. then judas comes in from the Super Secret Suprise Entrance Cross and everything just keeps going.

super funny when we got all the apostles looking between each other when judas and jesus have their fight and judas leaves and then peter strums a cord and restarts" ALWAYS THOUGHT THAT I'D BE AN APOOOOSTTTLLLEEEEEE"

caiphas was, unfortunately, hot.

thinking about the shift of the ensemble so quickly from We Are The Sinful Temple Fuckers to We Are The Ailing of the Earth and how the ailing surround and overwhelm jesus and the way that it just. is visually even more in person

the use of the mics was also interesting. the high priests had mic stands that they always came in with as props and the dancing with them was cool and worked well, and then jesus/judas/mary passed around a mic some, both on the mic stand and without it. and especially when it was on the stand it gave this sense of... presence and importance. a lot of the judas-mary altercations were spent moving the mic back and forth and it was +++++ especially since we saw the microphone taken away from jesus when he was arrested (taking away his power along with his guitar, his ability to express himself). the mic's cord was ALSO used in really interesting ways. the first time it really comes up is when judas is realizing that he's been duped by the narrative and he's been left with the bag... and then he stretches the bright red cord out to its full length as he climbs up to the second story and threads the cord to stage the hanging... with the microphone. the lighting in this scene was great and just UUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHH watching judas send the microphone over the edge and leaving IT hanging as the symbol of judas's death. fucking. fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck

the other time that the microphone cord itself comes up is in pilot's last number, when the crowd is getting increasingly YOU HAVE NO CHOICE CRUCIFY HIMCRUCIFY HIM! and pilot's like. uh. how about i beat him? will that satisfy your blood lust? and he fucking wraps his mic cord around jesus's hands and holds him in place with it??? like oh my god. that made me feel some kind of way.

peter brought his guitar back out when he and mary magdalene were singing about how jesus should probably make things stop sucking now, please? then them on the smaller, more cut off scene watching jesus get beaten and sentenced to crucifixion. the powerlessness of that staging

jesus spends most of that number physically on the ground. he falls off the cross to the ground. he's so bloody and broken looking and it was painful.

the way the crowd shifts from being the taunting crowd to the JESUS CHRIST! SUPERSTAR! background singers. but. this staging... it had jesus. out during this number. and the chorus kept on hurting him as they KEPT DEMANDING ANSWERS? just like the way that they made every character who did that a guard (they had different roman emperor heads, it was great) and then. jesus is still there. he is still broken and beaten and Not Yet Crucified. and they're passing him around like emma perkins in inevitable.

(and his horror keeps going on)

something about how they gave judas's actor bright white hands after touching the blood money to contrast against his dark brown skin. something about how in this show he gets both pilot and jesus's symbols of being doomed by fate (pilot's bloody hands, jesus's crown of thorns).

like. they do not crucify this poor motherfucker until after the entire staging of "don't you get me wrrrroooonnnngggggg". and then we have to watch him raised onto the cross and his painful cries and everything. a few murmured notes from the crowd. then it's just a few actors helping to take jesus down off the cross and judas sitting on the edge, looking forlorn and regretful and just. so lost.

and a tattered jesus manages to move to the spot across from him, and sends him a tiny smile. he takes the crown of thorns off his own head and passes it over to judas.

the lights go down and the show is over. judas is forgiven. he's elevated! he's trapped!!!!!!! he and jesus are here together in this story that neither of them can control. they share that knowledge, and then the lights go down.

i am no longer the same. i don't want to be

#jcs #sarah watches jcs #jcs 2024 #jcs meta #jcs 50th anniversary

[your-local-granny]

i know there's many interpretations of klapollo and they're all valid or whatever all are welcome to dine at the lords table ect ect but to ME. it is integral that:

a) apollo doesn't give a single shit that klavier is famous and

b) that apollo isn't insecure abt his looks

because if you don't have that then it's just a 1directioner insert fic which. I can accept but it's hard for me to return to those grade school recess conversations in full sincerity. and if you DO have those things then klapollo is the greatest modern successor to roger and jessica rabbit

#i don't mean that he doesnt think klavier is hot. OBVIOUSLY he does thats canon #but he cant be intimidated by the gavineers fame and/ or actively disparaging his own looks bc thats just sad imo #that corviiids tweet about 'im sure the red carpet will think ur JC pennys suit is as charming as i think it is' 'no i know that' #THATS THE DYNAMIC OKAY #sorry i feel like im huffing carbon monoxide rn #okay anywyas #klapollo #aa #aa meta #aj #klapollogies #portal of rambling

[tiredbitchposts]

Fine, this may be a conspiracy theory, but does anyone else thinks that after seeing the popularity of the non-canon ships in the scum villain fandom MXTX decided to write her next protagonist to be completely isolated on purpose? Because that has been on my mind a lot. Like, it's a fact that she hates it when people ship her MCs with anyone other than their canon love interest, MXTX wrote her first book with an MC that had a long list of people who adored him and were willing to die to protect him in-work, people ate it up, she noticed that a great part of the fandom ships her MC with basically anyone, she hates it, but no matter what she says the ships keep going, then she writes her next book. In that work her MC is a charming, popular cultivator, who suffers a terrible fall from grace and by the end of it he's lost pretty much everything from his past, except his canon love interest. Even if we take away all the love, respect and adoration Wangxian has towards each other it's pretty clear by the end of MDZS that Lan Wangji is the only one left for Wei Wuxian, everyone else is either dead, distant or just hates him

#shen qingqiu #luo binghe #wei wuxian #wei ying #Lan Wangji #lan zhan #bingqiu #wangxian #svsss #scum villain #scum villain's self saving system #mo dao zu shi #the grandmaster of demonic cultivation #mdzs #the untamed #cql #meta #this is not wangxian criticism #i'm just pointing something out #it's like that thing where Jiang cheng is the evolution of the tsundere shidi she had going on with Liu Qingge but in a non-shippable way #that she then decided to tone it down in her next work with Mu Qing because ppl ended up hating JC

[rejectedfables]

Today I’m thinking about parallels.

I’m thinking about how Wei Wuxian, by doing the right thing (standing up to Wen Chao in defense of Mianmian), upset a powerful member of a powerful sect (Wen Chao of the Wen sect), who retaliated against Wei Wuxian by wiping out the home (Lotus Pier) of the man Wei Wuxian planned to spend his life with (Jiang Cheng). Wei Wuxian, out of guilt and love, had a physical part of himself (his golden core) transplanted into Jiang Cheng without Jiang Cheng’s prior knowledge or consent. Wei Wuxian then disappeared for an extended period of time, while Jiang Cheng desperately searched for him.

I’m thinking about how Xiao Xingchen, by doing the right thing (attempting to bring Xue Yang to justice for the Chang clan, and verbally standing up to injustice in the face of the Jin clan), upset a powerful member of a powerful sect (Jin Guangshan of the Jin sect), who retaliated against Xiao Xingchen by encouraging or allowing Xue Yang to wipe out the home (Baixue Temple) of the man Xiao Xingchen planned to spend his life with (Song Lan). Xiao Xingchen, out of guilt and love, had a physical part of himself (his eyes) transplanted into Song Lan without Song Lan’s prior knowledge or consent. Xiao Xingchen then disappeared for an extended period of time, while Song Lan desperately searched for him.

Later Wei Wuxian spends a couple years living in a remote haunted area (Yiling Burial Mounds) making house with the beaten remains of their previous enemy (the defeated and abused Qishan Wen clan remnants). 

Later Xiao Xingchen spends a couple years living in a remote haunted area (Yi City) making house with the beaten remains of their previous enemy (Xue Yang, injured from having narrowly escaped execution).

In the end it’s heavily implied that Wei Wuxian kills himself, and it’s stated that no matter who tried to call on his spirit in the following years, until Mo Xuanyu, he never answered. 

Xiao Xingchen certainly killed himself, and no matter how many times or in how many ways his spirit was called upon, he never answered. 

#mdzs #mo dao zu shi #Yi city #Xiao Xingchen #xue yang #wei wuxian #Mdzs meta #cql #chen qing ling #the untamed #Jiang Cheng #mdzs parallels #xxc #xy #wwx #jc #song lan #song zichen #wei ying #jiang wanyin #xue chengmei #szc #sl #sunshot campaign

[space-blue]

Na'vi anatomy meta post

For almost as long as I was in it, fandom was under the impression that Avatar and Recombinant characters have their tswin, or neural queue, attached lower than Na'vi, right above the neck, when Na'vi have it from the top of the head.

I drunk that kool-aid and defended it myself. However, further inspection proves it's wrong.

Firstly : Metkayina very clearly have their tswin starting at the back of their skull, on a low point. It's most evident with kids :

But we can also see it in these two, especially the bully, who has his tswin literally sticking out :

Shots of the Ta'unui completely nail the coffin :

The top of his head is braided but there is no sign of a bulge and the tswin sits under the bulk of the hair, and is gripped near the neck.

This of course takes the cake :

So it seems the tswin comes from the back of the head for them. Could the Omatikaya be different? I don't think so.

Neytiri clearly doesn't have the very low placement we see in other, but there is also no indication that her tswin comes from the top of her head. No bulge to accomodate this.

This shot of her after dismouting her ikran is the best view of it poking out and the attachment point is clearly bellow the back of the cranium.

Looking at Omatikaya fashion in general...

I feel like it's pretty clear that they favour heavy braiding with shaved sides. The men in those shots have very thick braids at the base, from gathering hair all the way from the top of their heads. I think this provides extra protection for the weak base of the tswin that we know has brainy bits...

But my conclusion is that this is a fashion style!

Na'vi, recoms and avatars all have tswin origination from the back/lower back of their head and the differences aren't great, and obfuscated by hairstyles.

The more you know.

#avatar #na'vi #omatikaya #metkayina #atwow #avatar 2 #jc avatar #avatar meta #na'vi anatomy #recombinant #recoms #anatomy #tswin

[in-danmei-hell-send-help]

I think what kills me about Jiang Cheng antis is that a lot of their talking points reek of anti survivor rhetoric. As someone who is a survivor and has done a lot of advocacy for victims and survivors of power based personal violence, I want to be the first to inform you that the narrative of the “pretty survivor” (which is steeped in cishet normative, white supremacist, and ableist ideas) is an extremely rare case. Trauma survivors are rarely pretty. The Wei Wuxian’s of the world are incredibly uncommon. 

Trauma--especially intense, horrific trauma like what Jiang Cheng went through--often leads to intense issues of anger and hatred. It makes you deeply emotional and can often lead to you becoming unstable. Jiang Cheng lost his entire family and community in the span of a few years. He didn’t have access to therapy (something that literally anyone would need to heal from that), he had to rebuild his entire sect, likely had to fight an uphill battle in order to be a significant part of Jin Ling’s life, all while cleaning up the mess that Wei Wuxian left behind.

This is not to hate on Wei Wuxian, he’s my third favorite character (after Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji) and I love him deeply, but he left behind a legacy that Jiang Cheng had to clean up. Whether or not he realized this would happen, Wei Wuxian created a cultivation path (gui dao/ghost cultivation) that is extremely dangerous and horrific. While I still don’t know if I believe that Jiang Cheng killed every demonic cultivator he came across, I don’t know that it was necessarily a bad thing that he did kill them. We’ve talked a lot in the cxc server about gui dao and demonic cultivation and just how much it harms the mind and body. Wei Wuxian is the exception to the rule in having such control over it and even he eventually succumbed to it. If demonic cultivators are causing great harm, then a cultivators job is to stop that harm and the source of it. That may mean killing the demonic cultivator. I think people get mixed up when (I think it was Jingyi) said that Jiang Cheng kills the wrong person. I believe it was @twilightarc-gm who said that “wrong” doesn’t imply innocent but rather the fact that the person isn’t Wei Wuxian. We know that Jiang Cheng spent thirteen years trying to find Wei Wuxian and when he does find him, he doesn’t kill him despite having literally every reason to.

Like idk y’all, if the guy that got my entire clan wiped out, my sect burned down, and caused the deaths of my sister and her husband died and came back from dead, I wouldn’t just threaten him with a dog and yell at him. I would kill him. But he doesn’t he has every opportunity to in multiple instances after confirming that it’s Wei Wuxian, but he never does. He seems more interested in dragging Wei Wuxian home (literally stating that he’s going to bring Wei Wuxian home to Lotus Pier to kneel before his parents’ graves). Like that doesn’t imply that he’s going to kill Wei Wuxian, but rather make him repent. 

I think it’s telling that despite a lot of Jiang Cheng’s hurt and pain, he still chooses to not severely hurt or kill Wei Wuxian, it would be within his right to do so, but in the end after it’s all over, he let’s Wei Wuxian go. He doesn’t tell Wei Wuxian that he sacrificed himself for him, because he knew that Wei Wuxian would feel guilty and obligated to him, just like Wei Wuxian knew Jiang Cheng would feel guilty and obligated. That to me shows a survivor choosing to break the cycle of hurt and pain and I have to question why Jiang Cheng antis so often choose to ignore the side of him that does love Wei Wuxian (it’s up to the viewer whether they see that love as romantic or platonic), enough so to let him go and not burden him with pain.

Jiang Cheng’s story and character arc is at it’s core about trauma, survival, and rising above dire circumstances despite the odds. He attempts the impossible and manages to succeed in it. And to ignore that is a disservice to his character, survivors of trauma, and the effort MXTX put into creating such a complex and interesting character.

#Jiang Cheng #canon jiang cheng #jiang wanyin #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #yunmeng shuangjie #the untamed #cql #this sounds like a fucking essay #tell me u were a lit major without telling me u were a lit major #mdzs meta #jiang cheng meta #stop being shitty to characters that are ugly victims #it's fucking telling to a lot of survivors that u aren't a safe person #and that u don't care about survivors if they aren't a 'good' victim #news flash #the way abusers isolate their victims is by acting like pretty survivors #if ur gonna pull the the shit u do #and say with ur whole chest that characters like jc are irredeemable #then maybe don't say ur a safe person for people with trauma