machetedoctor

[machetedoctor]

Even better, this girl is filipina and she's batting for china???? And she's so mad she represents all the dead Chinese, apparently

Screaming bc JC stans are calling me a racist for telling them they're shaming their ancestors for using THEIR culture in fandom fights

[machetedoctor]

Screaming bc JC stans are calling me a racist for telling them they're shaming their ancestors for using THEIR culture in fandom fights

[machetedoctor]

He's the same dude whose favorite Les Mis character is FUCKING MARIUS, that's so cringe

I just want to point out to the MDZS fandom as a whole that regardless of what comes out of an actor's mouth, be it of a character or a ship, their statements are plainly fanon and does not support the context of the actual text from the novel. Scrambling for crumbs to prove your fantasies by using the actor's lying teeth as a mouthpiece does not, in any way, call for a celebration when it's not the author who has confirmed it. Neither does it debunk the arguments of those who are faithful to the original source, which is the novel.

For you to entirely change the original themes of the novel and calling it "canon" based solely on assumptions alone, it cannot be anything else but a poorly written fanfiction by someone who has no grasp of how MDZS works, and was only written because the person was drawn to bad takes, horrible metas, snapping of canon characterizations like fraying threads, silly headcanons and a couple other gifsets with cringy titles that bear no resemblance to the original text.

Believe whatever you want. Scream about antis being delusional fools. Promote abuse and classicism. Cheer for a homophobic asshole with no redeeming qualities. Stan an abusive, ill-tempered bitch and call her a "queen". Fantasize about a "brotherly" reconciliation that will never happen.

Do all of it. But never forget the most important part: MDZS was written by one person and she is Mo Xiang Tong Xiu. Not an actor, not a director, and certainly not by a "fan" in only name. This is her work and others have no right to shit on it and try rewriting a better fucked up version.

Whether you realize it or not, whether your actions are intentional or not, if you claim that you can understand Chinese culture and be a better writer than MXTX, then go ahead and write your own novel.

However, do not insult the one who has given you a media to consume and enjoy, the same one which has become your favorite, and one wherein you find it easiest to project your fantasies onto.

[machetedoctor]

I'm fucking losing my shit at op being big mad we're just being as BAD AS HIS DAD

People love to misinterpret what JC means when he says WWX has a hero complex and why he always scolded WWX for getting involved in things and helping others recklessly etc. They (ironically) literally end up doing the exact same thing as JFM. Aka they don't understand him at all and continue to insist he is just malicious, cruel, and not a Good Person™ like Wei Wuxian.

But guess who ended up understanding him (and then probably promptly forgot about it after his death...)

That's right. WWX himself. When WQ and WN went to hand themselves over to the Jin. When they did the same thing that WWX was always doing. When WWX was forced to be in JC's shoes...watching people you care for do what they will regardless of the consequences to themselves or others as long as they think it's the right thing to do.

It's actually sad that even as the protagonist realises this, the fandom does not. The fandom continues to paint JC in the same way JFM does. They just can't understand how harsh words may hide concern etc. Apparently everything must be literally spelled out or it doesn't exist. Yet even when it's literally spelled out...

[machetedoctor]

can anyone help me and send me a link for the liu simu callout post???? i gotta send it to a few aunties

[machetedoctor]

hemlo im back i got The Bug

[machetedoctor]

In a work that is so full of critique and mockery of the rich and privileged, it would make no sense for Jiang Yanli to be the exception.

She is meant to be the foil to Wen Qing, and together with her brother, they're foils to the Wen siblings. One pair sacrifices themselves for Wei Wuxian impulsively and have it go wrong (and one of them lives to regret it), while the other sibling pair does so knowingly and purposefully.

While WQ is prickly but ultimately good, she acts and stands by WWX; meanwhile JYL is nice and motherly, but she enables and does nothing until it's too late.

#jyl #mdzs #jyl is proof that nice doesn't mean good

[machetedoctor]

looking into selling my bone marrow so i can afford all 5 volumes of mdzs

[machetedoctor]

Plus he had the guy who won the war for them as his subordinate! If he couldn't claim a few dozen civilians after explaining they saved his life so he owed them, then he was a shit politician and should have resigned immediately lol

I so wanna go on a rant. Because no, I don’t believe JC and WWX would be the ‘yunmeng bros’ if everything didn’t go down the way it did.

If someone believes they will be chummy bros if Wens aren’t nasty, cool, you do you. Just don’t read a properly tagged fic then.

There are quotes from the novel sitting in my drafts proving it won’t happen. But I have shit confidence about writing metas as a newcomer here.

So I’ll leave that to more experienced people.

My point is - The ideological differences between JC and WWX are just too vast. You can almost say you’re pitting a conservative against a progressive here.

What I think would happen?

JC would turn out to be a leader WWX absolutely cannot, in good conscience, follow. They’ll clash ideologically on many factors, things that will be more serious and impact others. Like not sending help if there are no expectations of money or glory. Or giving political support to something even if it harmed someone, just because the proposal came from allies. Or not supporting someone from less noble backgrounds. (All of these things JC has done in canon)

WWX will eventually realize the ideological differences run just too deep and he will leave.

JC and WWX are almost as much a poor match as JFM and YZY. But WWX isn’t someone who can be worn down with constant bitchiness. He also isn’t someone who is stuck in a marriage.

I don’t believe that twin prides thing would ever happen, even in my worth of a good man au.

(no trying to screech in my Ao3 comments. I won’t give idiots airtime and will rant about their idiosy here)

[machetedoctor]

#this sort of poor miwwitawwy boys :( shit take #is EVERYWHERE #i've even seen it from leftists and anarchists i usually respect #like no girlies #they're signingup for murder and imperialism so they can get a degree #that's still bad

[machetedoctor]

unfriendly reminder that it's mentioned that AYuan teethed on Chenqing, he was straight up baby in the early days of the settlement

For all JC stans out there, I'm not even gonna finish the sentence: The fact that JC knew one of the Wen in the BM was a fucking baby--

Yeah, that is... such a thing. JC sees a fucking toddler and is like "Yeah, letting this kid die seems reasonable!" and the stans just. pretend that's fine? It's especially fun (and by fun I mean awful) when they talk about JC taking A-Yuan in and like. if he wanted A-Yuan to have a good, happy life he wouldn't have slaughtered his family what the FUCK-

[machetedoctor]

If these people want to make an argument for abuses of one's authority being totally cool and right in Ancient China they would be flat out WRONG. Do they have any idea of how many uprisings and rebellions there were in what is now China? Of course they don't, they're talking out of their ass.

We can also go and check The Analects of Confucius if we want something more concrete. (disclaimer: I'm not a scholar and I know the Analects are often contradictory, but I'm a life-long insomniac and have fallen down the Confucian rabbithole at 2am on a Tuesday more than once)

As an example, in the Analects (2:20) we have:

"Chi Kang Tzu asked, 'How can one inculcate in the common people the virtue of reverence, of doing their best and of enthusiasm?'

The Master said, 'Rule over them with dignity and they will be reverent; treat them with kindness and they will do their best; raise the good and instruct those who are backward and they will be imbued with enthusiasm.'"

And in 3:19

"Duke Ting asked, 'How should the ruler employ the services of his subjects? And how should a subject serve his ruler?'

Confucius answered, 'The ruler should employ the services of his subjects in accordance to the rites. A subject should serve his ruler by doing his best.'"

The Rites (lǐ) are basically the rules of how to behave in accordance to one's place in society to keep it harmonious and working. Some of those are about how rulers should behave. In Lǐyùn, The Conveyance of Rites, we have:

"What are 'the things which men consider right?' Kindness on the part of the father, and filial duty on that of the son; gentleness on the part of the elder brother, and obedience on that of the younger; righteousness on the part of the husband, and submission on that of the wife; kindness on the part of elders, and deference on that of juniors; with benevolence on the part of the ruler, and loyalty on that of the minister - these ten are the things which men consider to be right."

These are obviously only a couple examples that took me 15 minutes to find, but my point is clear: there was an aknowledgement that there are good and bad rulers, and that cruelty is not the way to go.

It actually angers me so much when people pull the “Oh you just don’t understand the culture” card when it comes to how YZY abuses WWX. Like yeah I don’t know much about ancient Chinese culture, but I feel like it’s common sense that what she did is ABUSE. I know this has been talked about to death, buts it gets me heated.

It's a tricky subject, because like... on the one hand as a white woman this is not my culture and I have less than no right to talk over Chinese people, but on the other hand... really...? Are we... entirely sure about this...? "She had the right to whip a child because that was the culture of the time-" And you're... totally sure that the modern woman writing this novel doesn't have different opinions on how okay or not okay that was...? ...Is that why she decided to make it clear that literally no one liked YZY and had her die a painful death due to the same character traits that had her whipping a child in the first place?

Let me put this another way. Imagine people insisting we're not supposed to judge a character in a story set in Victorian times for throwing a woman into an insane asylum for "hysteria" because she wasn't being the Perfect Wife because "that happened in real life and was part of the culture". See the problem? There comes a point where you have to consider a (modern) novel from the perspective of modern standards because the novel has been written by a modern person with modern standards. Without even getting into how something being acceptable in a culture doesn't mean it was generally considered okay, the author is not writing in whatever time period the story is set in. You have to look at how the story interacts with a character's actions, you can't just decide what's fine and what's not based on what the culture classed as acceptable.

#mdzs #meta #sort of

[machetedoctor]

idk. i think fandom could use a lot less of “every person’s interpretation of a text is valid and true!” and more of “reading a text means taking all parts of it into account, including the bits you don’t like or the pairings you don’t ship, to consider what the full picture is and what the larger themes are.”

projecting your fantasies onto a text, hyperfocusing on the characters you think are hot/shippable and building entire theories based on micro interactions that don’t take other competing dynamics and plotlines into account isn’t “analysis” it’s projection and fantasy. which is fine, but take responsibility for your desires and your fantasies instead of making fandom inhospitable for everyone. some readings of a text are plain wrong, others miss or willfully erase vital context just to rationalize romantic pairings. these are not accurate readings of the text. doesn’t mean they should be attacked or shamed, but neither can you expect people to validate every single headcanon and shipper fantasy as a legitimate “reading” of the text either.

[machetedoctor]

the thing is, you can tell me all the fanon characteristics of jiang cheng are canon now (hypothetically), and i'd still hate him for planning and leading the first siege of the burial mounds to kill "his brother" and the wen remnants.

he knew who the wens were. at this point in the story, both wen qing and wen ning were supposedly dead, the only people in the burial mounds were a toddler and older people/civilians.

and he planned the siege. he planned to go there and murder every single one of them. including the toddler. he instigated the other sects telling, or helping jgs tell people that wwx had an army.

but he had been to the burial mounds and he knew exactly who was there.

and he did it anyway.

i don't care that he wasn't the one that actually killed wwx, he wanted to, and got the game for it as well.

he also didn't suffer about it, because then he kept capturing/torturing/killing other "demonic cultivators" or people he thought could be demonic cultivators.

[machetedoctor]

also Jiang Cheng is the third most popular character in the fandom, there's no way he's "hated and misunderstood :("

similarities between jiang cheng (mdzs/cql) and sasuke uchiha (naruto/naruto shippuden)

[machetedoctor]

homophobia

why are people like 'top/bottom are just positions that have nothing to do with personality' and they're not,, wrong but. then they be like 'and wwx is so confidant and strong and YLLZ!wwx is a total alpha and he would totally top lwj!"

hmm. like,,,, ok. did you just hear what you just said orrr?

[machetedoctor]

All the works of MXTX contain many themes and she has been very deliberate in presenting them. No matter how subtle the text is, she has made it clear for us readers to be able to distinguish between right and wrong. Of the many themes her books contain, one of them is "the cycle of abuse and hatred will continue, so long as one learns to let go of past grudges and look forward to a brighter tomorrow." WWX and XL are the best examples.

Other such themes are: "No matter how shitty your backstory is, no excuse is explanatory enough to justify your wrongdoings. Countering violence with violence just spills more blood and destroys the harmonic bonds that you have created with your cherished ones".

And yet for reasons unknown, the fandom likes to glorify the toxicity of the antagonists and romanticize domestic violence, death threats, homophobic comments, gaslighting and child abuse as 'misguided form of love'.

Loving the antagonist is one thing and in doing so, it's not at all wrong. People have different tastes.

Justifying their crimes, like leading a siege against defenseless civilians just because their family started a political war and share the same surname as their cousin, however, is crossing a line.

Even after the novel explicitly states that the character committed mass genocide, and still claiming it as the writer being just 'biased' towards them is inarguable and only blackenes your image in the eyes of others.

It has reached to a boiling point that the tagging system on AO3 has been violated and used to trigger the victims, who were forced to grow up in such baneful environments, to mock their weaknesses and call it as a form of 'baiting the reader for fun'.

Please don't joke about such nasty things, especially not in public where people from various walks of life can see your post and comments.

#like we been knew jc stans were edgelords and kind of shitty #but today's mess went way too far #even for their low standards