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#Personality as lan wangji or shen wei
blueblurseptember · 1 year
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just utterly moved by the recurring theme of all three of mxtx's novels so far which is the power of having at least just one person understand and believe in the good in you.
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gothicakvtagawa · 1 year
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(perhaps controversial) opinion: people who dislike luo binghe solely because of his treatment of shen qingqiu while under xin mo’s influence only do so because he has the most fleshed-out personality outside of his devotion to his love interest, and will consequently place a medal of “healthiness” on the other two pairings (hualian especially) that ignores both couples’ very real, very important, and very character-defining flaws
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tossawary · 5 months
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Ranking power levels of the main MXTX couples is kind of funny to me, because I don't really see the point generally, because (there's no real reason for any of them to fight and) they're each working on completely different world-builds with slightly different genre rules. Also, even so, it seems relatively clear to me at first glance? (Obviously, this is all personal opinion.)
Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian are powerful and skilled cultivators, but still human, as is Shen Qingqiu. Wei Wuxian is probably the most "powerful" of the three of them due to sheer cleverness and destructive potential, able to raise armies of the dead and all that, though at great personal cost. But in any given fight, you generally just have to stab or hit someone once in the right place, so Lan Wangji and Shen Qingqiu are also able to potentially take on far more "powerful" opponents if they target weak spots quickly enough. Everything depends on circumstances.
Luo Binghe is interesting because, while he's able to be killed, he is an incredibly powerful cultivator and also descended from demons who "fell from the heavens". I tend to think of him as a "demi-god" of sorts and I figure it's potentially within his capability to challenge actual gods. The world of SVSSS is not the same as PIDW, so I am not counting "Protagonist Halo" as particularly relevant, but the fact that actual mountains and hellish abysses are getting shifted around in SVSSS using the Xin Mo sword is very relevant here.
I think cultivators like Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian, and Shen Qingqiu are definitely in with a shot against someone like Luo Binghe if they're sufficiently clever/lucky and the heavenly demon in question is sufficiently unstable/unlucky. (See: the sealing of Tianlang-Jun, Luo Binghe's birth father.) Especially Wei Wuxian, with the potential armies of the resentful dead (which he probably doesn't want to do) and all of the other inventions of new forms of cultivation that he can potentially do if given motivation and preparation time. (All of these characters are HAPPILY MARRIED NOW, they don't want to fight, leave them ALONE.)
Hua Cheng and Xie Lian are so incredibly fuck-off powerful and skilled that the sheer difference in ass-kicking abilities is actually incredibly funny. Do I think that Luo Binghe armed with the Xin Mo sword could give gods and ghost kings a lot of trouble? Sure. Do I think that Demon Emperor Bing-Ge could make the heavens shake? Yes. Do I think that Luo Binghe would ultimately win that fight? No. Hua Cheng picks fights with gods and ruins their fucking lives for funsies, essentially, and I like to imagine Xie Lian snapping the Xin Mo sword in half with his bare hands because it's funny to me.
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mikkeneko · 6 months
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Thinking about the ways that Scum Villain is about dualities, and in some ways the most important parts are in the spaces that are left undefined by those dualities.
Luo Binghe is of course himself a duality of two worlds - human and demon, angel and devil, but he’s also two men, the Luo Binghe of the original PIDW and the Luo Binghe of the new narrative. And Luo Binghe is also both the hero and the villain of his story (and also the love interest.)
But Shen Qingqiu is also a duality. Because he is both Shen Yuan and Shen Qingqiu, also a hybrid of two worlds, and neither of those persons would be who they are without the other half. Shen Qingqiu is also both the villain and the hero of his story (and also the love interest.) 
The story can sometimes feel oddly off-center and unbalanced because Shen Qingqiu, the most confusing and unreliable of narrators, refuses to center himself even in the story that he’s narrating about his own life. His attention is always on Luo Binghe; he is just as obsessed with Luo Binghe as Luo Binghe is with him.
Scum Villain is a story about Luo Binghe in a way that MDZS is not a story about Lan Wangji, and TGCF is not a story about Hua Cheng. If Lan Wangji or Hua Chang had never existed Wei Wuxian and Xie Lian’s stories would have been sadder, emptier, but their stories would still have existed. In Scum Villain, there is no story without Luo Binghe. (And when there’s Luo Binghe but no Shen Qingqiu, that’s when you get Proud Immortal Demon Way, and it’s very bad.)
Luo Binghe and Shen Qingqiu spend the entire story dancing around each other, changing places and even changing roles, one rising while the other falls, until they finally come in sync together at the end. They create their story between them. Neither of them could have done it in the absence of the other. They circle one another like a binary star, and the gravitational center of the story is the place where they meet in the middle.
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sunderwight · 1 month
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Bingqiu "Marry Me" AU where mega pop idol Luo Binghe's third marriage is set to be a hugely public concert event, only shortly before the segment where he is actually supposed to get married, footage goes viral of his fiance Sha Hualing swapping spit with rival starlette Liu Mingyan.
So when Luo Binghe gets on stage, he decides to point out a random person from the crowd and marry that person instead.
He picks out math teacher Shen Yuan, who ostensibly only came to this concert because his meimei is a huge Sha Hualing fan and didn't want to go alone. (Lies -- he bought the tickets well in advance, and is a madly obsessed Binghe fanboy.)
OR
Wangxian "Marry Me" AU where idol princess Jiang Yanli is all set to marry corporately-arranged match Jin Zixuan in a big public event, except Jin Zixuan jilts her at the altar.
To cover it up and save his foster sister's identity, controversial rockstar Wei Wuxian "hijacks" the wedding and declares that actually this whole thing was a cover-up so that he could get gay-married to his secret lover and former rival from their teen years, Lan Wangji! Otherwise their management teams would stop them! Of course this is a lie, he's barely been able to speak to LWJ for the past ten years, but he's planning for Lan Wangji to turn him down in disgust and to be like 'oh no he broke up with me' and keep the gossip columns focused on that rather than Jiang Yanli's humiliation.
Except, then Lan Wangji gets on stage and uh... marries him?
OR
Hualian "Marry Me" AU where famous celebrity duo Xie Lian and Jun Wu are supposed to get married in a big public celebration/concert, only for someone backstage to film Jun Wu locked in a heated embrace with Xie Lian's own manager, Mei Nianqing.
Midway through dealing with this public reveal and trying to decide if he's still going to go through with the wedding or not, some of the hastily-erected scaffolding above the stage gives out, and Xie Lian ends up catching the (presumed) production worker who basically drops out of the sky and into his arms.
Taking it as a sign from the heavens, Xie Lian marries this random 'San Lang' instead. (San Lang is in fact a wanted criminal named Hua Cheng who broke into concert.)
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professorsparklepants · 6 months
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I've been thinking about how the tcgf roleswaps are always god tier and the mdzs ones always fall flat (svsss being in the middle) and I have a theory.
Mdzs is fundamentally a Shakespearean tragedy; though you wish things turned out for the better, due to each person's nature and the circumstances they are in, there is literally no other choice they would or could make, and that is what the tragedy is built on. Hamlet takes five acts to kill Claudius because he is Hamlet. Wei Wuxian defends the Wen Remnants to the death because he is Wei Wuxian. Trying to put Lan Wangji in his shoes similarly doesn't work because of the nature of the tragedy, and also because though the hold the same values they are fundamentally different people with different ways of thinking, and would never take the same path.
Scum Villain's tragedy is not brought about by Shen Yuan or Luo Binghe. It is inherent in their circumstances, and influenced by their actions, but fundamentally the tragedy is within the narrative itself -- represented by shang qinghua's original draft and by the system. A roleswap between Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe changes the plot, sure, but the narrative remains the same. If that makes sense.
Tcgf however is built around the fact that Hua Cheng and Xie Lian are two sides of the same coin. Xie Lian is a god who almost became a calamity; Hua Cheng is a calamity who refused to become a god. Xie Lian was born blessed with luck and lost it all; Hua Cheng was born under a bad star and now has all the luck in the world. Xie Lian is a prince who became a beggar; Hu Cheng is an urchin who became a king. They're even more yin and yang than wangxian are, equal and opposite in every way. And THAT is why it's so tasty. They're distorted reflections of each other.
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quest-draws · 6 months
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[ID: three memes drawn over with MXTX characters.
Meme 1: The Catfish meme with Scum Villain characters.
Shen Qingqiu: Obviously I'm not gay.
Shang Qinghua, with Sha Hualing as his camera person: You were having a romantic relationship with a guy:
Shen Qingqiu, hiding behind his fan: You've got me there.
Meme 2: The Sonic "Woah, he's bisexual" meme with Wei Wuxian in place of Sonic, who says "Woah, I'm bisexual! I didn't know that!" Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng are in the background; LWJ has autism creature eyes.
Meme 3: The "could a depressed person make this?" meme with Xia Lian, holding up his hand to show his red string of fate and saying "Do you think a gay person would have this?" End ID.]
I've finally read all of them so here's my thoughts;
these bitches gay. good for them.
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atholia · 11 days
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I so understand why Lan Wangji fell in love with Wei Wuxian. WWX just really shines and he is so tender hearted. He's definitely that person you'll call a sunshine and sweetheart. Someone who can light a room. Someone who will always help. Someone who won't leave you no matter what. Someone who's loyal and who has your back. From the beginning, Lan Wangji noticed all of these things and he definitely has his eyes always glued on WWX. Our teenage Lan Wangji just didn't know how to show his affection, and of course 13 years later... when he saw his beloved, he's not gonna let go of him, ever again.
//art by Shen Lin
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muqingapologist · 2 months
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it’s kind of funny how i put off reading scum villain for so long after reading and consuming adaptations for mdzs and then reading tgcf. im not really a fan of the fan-service sex scenes in danmei because it just takes me out of the story emotionally, and i had a friend warn me that this was pretty much the case with svsss. but like….not so much? at least not the main story.
to back up, my first introduction to any danmei media was watching the untamed. i fucking LOVED the untamed. it consumed my every waking thought for like a solid month lol. it’s actually hard to describe in hindsight just how captivated i was by wei wuxian and lan wangji. and because i loved it so much, i chose to wait for the english translations to be officially released instead of finding unofficial versions online. in the meantime, i “read” tgcf (skimmed) for the first time (bad idea. i finally reread it though last month for real and damn. not quite relevant though). anyway, when i finally got to book 4 of mdzs, well i knew there was the infamous bathtub scene coming, but i underestimated how much this scene would just…cheapen the entire story for me. and this is my own fault, i know, for taking the untamed so much to heart and not being prepared to engage with such different characterizations of the two characters i adored so much. like nothing could’ve prepared me for the fact that lan zhan was actually a nymphomaniac who was determined to have rough sex with wwx every day…it just made the story feel less meaningful to me. it took away the gravity it developed for me.
so knowing how the sex scenes in mdzs affected me, of course i was skeptical of svsss based on what i’d heard. and well maybe it’s because svsss was so tonally different from mdzs and tgcf, and maybe because i knew something very graphic was coming, but shen qingqiu and luo binghe boning to save the world at the end of the main story actually made…perfect sense?? like it wasn’t even really supposed to be romantic at all and yet it felt 110% more earned and necessary than the scenes in mdzs. which was just really surprising to me.
anyway i don’t make this to start mdzs vs. svsss discourse but more so just to discuss my thoughts on the two as someone who doesn’t particularly enjoy gratuitous sex scenes and reads mostly for romance and plot (personal preference!). i still love mdzs and it’ll always have a special place in my heart, but watching the untamed and getting attached to that version of the story first definitely gave me unrealistic expectations for the source material.
im just rambling about this because im curious if anyone had a similar experience with how they read the mxtx novels? also in discussing the novels, im not giving tooooo much weight to the extras.
i’ll add another probably unpopular opinion that the lack of explicit content in tgcf (ik, due to censorship) actually worked in its favor in terms of emotional impact for me.
so yeah i just wanna know what people out there think of sex scenes in mxtx and their gratuitousness and how that affects the novel for you!!!
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least-carpet · 4 months
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Hiiii, if it's not too much, can you describe the biggest differences between the live action characters and the novel characters in MDZS? They are a lot, so I will love even the difference between few of them! I haven't seen the live action and I don't know if I will ever, but I am curious, considering all the meta. Anyway, thank you in general, even if you don't answer!
Hello anon! This has been in the inbox forever because there are soooo many ways to answer this! However, let me be transparent that I've watched maybe like 1/10 of CQL. Among other obstacles, I simply do not care that much about Lan Wangji and he's always there (even though Wang Yibo is giving it his all... it's not his fault I'm a hater...). Chewing through a book with Ms. Mxtx's commentary was just more enjoyable to me, and even then, to be honest, I still liked SVSSS better. (I just love Shen Yuan/Shen Qingqiu so much. That dude is wild.)
Still, the live action definitely affected how I understood certain characters (...primarily Nie Huaisang) and made me interested in relationships that I didn't pay any attention to in the novel. (I freely admit that the nieyao brainrot is 100% CQL's fault.) Also I found Wang Zhuocheng's Jiang Cheng very cute and loveable. It definitely contributed to my Jiang Cheng Brain Disease.
LISTEN. HE HAS BIG SAD EYES AND THE MEANEST SNEER AND HE MIGHT BURST INTO TEARS AT ANY TIME. HE IS A BABY. A baby who could kill you with his terrifying lightning whip! But a baby nonetheless, to me.
So if you want someone with a real and knowledgeable opinion on the live action, I'm probably not the right person for that! However, here's one difference that changed a bunch of stuff about the characters that I found compelling in the novel: the second flautist.
CQL adds Su She as a second flautist doing unorthodox cultivation in a couple of different places, including at Qiongqi Path, where he seizes control of Wen Ning and is therefore responsible for Jin Zixuan's death. Removing the responsibility for Jin Zixuan's death from Wei Wuxian creates a bunch of cascading character and relationship implications that I don't love.
Firstly, all of the people who cautioned Wei Wuxian against his unorthodox cultivation are now... wrong. If he never lost control, then actually his assessment that he could maintain control wasn't overconfidence, it was just true, and he was persecuted because the Jin needed a scapegoat and wanted the Yin Tiger Tally, not because his cultivation path actually involved significant risks and drawbacks. (To be fair, the Jins actively exploited those drawbacks, the public perception of his cultivation, and Wei Wuxian's failure to manage his reputation. But it matters whether the risks exist or are just made up.)
Secondly, removing his responsibility for Jin Zixuan's death transforms both Wei Wuxian's character and how we understand his relationships with Jiang Yanli, Jiang Cheng, and Jin Ling. Because, in the novel, he kills Jin Zixuan under duress but also after a lifetime of conflict with him. Like, he hates the dude, he doesn't think he's worthy of Jiang Yanli, and he's not willing to examine his hatred and resentment even though Jiang Yanli loves Jin Zixuan and wants to marry him, even after she marries him and has a child with him. (I would argue that a lot of the resentment is because of the eventual marriage; by marrying Jiang Yanli, Jin Zixuan becomes legally recognized family to the Jiang siblings, while Wei Wuxian's relationship with them has no social recognition; I think Wei Wuxian is deeply threatened by that but can't articulate it.) It's a huge failure! Like, dude, you loved someone and you killed that person's beloved spouse. That points to a certain degree of repressed jealousy, possessiveness, longing, arrogance, the list goes on... I am so compelled by that conflict, and the adaptation just erases it.
This also affects how we read Jin Ling's relationship with Wei Wuxian. In one scenario, a teenage Jin Ling is (eventually, minus one little stab) ending the cycle of violence by not seeking vengeance for his father's murder. In the other, it was actually someone associated with Jin Ling's paternal family that killed his father, and he's maybe just... coming to terms with that? One of these scenarios is so much richer and more interesting.
How it affects the relationship between Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian is a little more subtle. It locates the responsibility for a lot of the harm done to the Jiang siblings with the Jin sect, not with Wei Wuxian, removing some of Wei Wuxian's culpability in the devolution of his relationship with Jiang Cheng. If Wei Wuxian isn't guilty of wronging the Jiang family (and instead is also a victim of the Jin sect), then all of Jiang Cheng's rage and betrayal was misdirected. They were both tricked. In some ways, maybe that's easier to patch up after canon? (I wonder if this is why many CQL yunmeng shuangjie reconciliation fics have Jiang Cheng apologize to Wei Wuxian, but not the other way around?) But it's so much less interesting to me!
Finally, it removes Wei Wuxian's tragic flaw! Dude is legitimately a genius but he's got hubris coming out of his ears and it fucks him up big time! This is classic stuff. Please stop flattening my boy!!
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Some favourite 'characters being oblivious' moments from Mo Xiang Tong Xiu's novels:
Lan Wangji, drunk, looking straight at Wei Wuxian and saying 'Mine'. Wei Wuxian: 'oh he must be talking about his sword!'
Shen Qingqiu baffled when Luo Binghe is upset that SQQ doesn't want to wear LBH's robe.
Actually every time Luo Binghe does something for SQQ that he's 'supposed' to do for one of the women in his harem and SQQ's like 'how are you screwing this up so badly?! why are you not falling in love with women???'
Hua Cheng telling Xie Lian he's in love with someone and trying to win them over. Xie Lian: 'why am I inexplicably sad all of a sudden?'
Xie Lian telling Hua Cheng there's one person he trusts more than anyone else and Hua Cheng desperately trying to find out who it is.
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mxtxfanatic · 1 year
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Another pro-reader tip for mxtx novels: they are all stories with clear-cut good guys and bad guys and a strong moral message, BUT you have to actually read what the story has to say about characters without taking anything at face value, relying on genre tropes, or using identities and statuses as shorthand to your understanding of the moral system and themes of the story. So no, most characters in her stories are not morally gray (though some are, most can be definitively categorized as either morally good or bad, and ALL of her main characters are definitively morally good), and no she does not write morally gray plots where “morality is just subjective!” If anything, the term I think people are looking for is “morally neutral” (meaning that the thing is not assigned a morality in and of itself) in many cases.
An mxtx character is never designated as good or bad based off their backgrounds or class: Wei Wuxian, Jin Guangyao, Shen Jiu, and Mu Qing all grow up outside of the elite class, but Mu Qing (eventually) and Wei Wuxian are unquestionably good guys while Jin Guangyao and Shen Jiu are unquestionable villains. Shen Yuan, Lan Wangji, and Xie Lian all grow up within the gentry class but are all good guys while Jiang Cheng, Jun Wu, and The Old Palace Master are bad. Likewise, life circumstances or tools don’t determine morality. In mdzs, the sword path (which is the orthodox one) is used to commit genocide by the general cultivation world just as easily as Lan Wangji wields it to protect the forsaken commoners. Wei Wuxian’s ghost path was created to protect himself before being used to protect others, but Xue Yang and the Jin Clan pervert it to cause mass destruction for their own wishes. In tgcf, Xie Lian uses his god powers to attempt to help the Yong’an people while the other gods simply collect worshippers to increase their power and oppress lesser gods. Every character I’ve listed minus the Old Palace Master has experienced intense trauma that has informed their lives and colors their morality, but it does not define why they have chosen to take on certain moral stances.
(This is not to say that mxtx doesn’t have certain tropes she dislikes, as she clearly hates the “dedicate their whole existence completely to another person” trope. Su She, a villain dedicated to Jin Guangyao, dies. Zhuzhi-lang, a sympathetic antagonist dedicated to Tianlang-jun, dies. Hua Cheng, A WHOLE LOVE INTEREST dedicated to the literal main character, dies a whopping three (3) times before he learns his lesson.)
Mxtx does not condemn those who stray from orthodoxy. In fact, every story she’s (currently) written is about the dangers of entrenched and unquestioned hierarchy and status quo giving way to corruption every time. She wants you to question the dominant narrative of the benevolent group who descend from on high to “save the ignorant masses.” She wants you to question the idea that the only people with the right of choice are those at the top of the hierarchy. She wants you to question the idea that even the smallest decision of “powerless” people does not matter in “the grand scheme of things.” She wants you to actually think about the story conventions that you accept as infallible and question whether or not it would make for good shorthand by which to understand well-written characters and story arcs (and also, hopefully, how society is structured at large). So if you find yourself reading an mxtx novel and siding with the mob characters or lamenting how x character was locked into making certain choices “against their will” or being unable to reconcile how a recognized trope led to an unexpected conclusion because “that’s not how it’s supposed to go,” then it may do you some good to stop and ask yourself “was this idea supported by the narrative that I read in the book, or is this an idea I’ve come to entirely from my own preconceived notions of how I wanted the story to turn out based on how other, similar stories have panned out?”
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starry-stan-blog · 8 months
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mxtx couples singing:
wangxian: both of them have an innate talent for singing. lan wangji has a deep, rich tone to his voice whereas wei wuxian is a tenor. totally sweep the floor at karaoke. wwx takes every opportunity to sing (shout) love songs at his husband. lwj will sing for wwx when he can’t sleep or if he’s sad.
bingqiu: binghe likes to hum occasionally. he doesn’t sing often, but he can hold a tune. shen qingqiu is completely tone deaf and has barely any rhythm to speak of. binghe thinks it’s the cutest thing ever and begs his shizun to sing on the regular.
moshang: shang qinghua previously thought that mobei jun never sang, but was awake one time mbj thought he was asleep and caught him singing an ancient demon lullaby. sqh himself can’t sing for shit but enjoys crooning cringey songs at his king.
hualian: as a prince, xie lian was given singing lessons. he has a smooth, warm voice and is musically gifted. hua cheng dislikes doing anything less than perfectly in front of his husband but will sing if xl requests him to. contrary to his own personal belief, his singing voice is rather good. xl happily gatekeeps this, though.
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theworstfangirl · 11 months
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Something I find beautiful about all the MXTX love interests; all three of their stories are so deeply intertwined with the protagonists' stories that they just don't make sense on their own. Luo Binghe, Lan Wangji and Hua Cheng owe so much of who they became to Shen Qingqiu, Wei Wuxian and Xie Lian.
Luo Binghe without Shen Qingqiu is just Bingge.
Lan Wangji without Wei Wuxian loses about 90% of his characterisation and development.
You don't write Hua Cheng without Xie Lian. You just don't.
Without them, their lives would be so empty. Luo Binghe would have women, power and nobody who actually cares about him as a person, Lan Wangji would have a narrow worldview confined to the Lan rules and lacking passion, love and true righteousness and Hua Cheng would be a no name orphan with nothing to live for.
Shen Qingqiu, Wei Wuxian and Xie Lian made Luo Binghe, Lan Wangji and Hua Cheng's lives better, gave them meaning. And they know this; that’s where their devotion stems from.
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nemainofthewater · 2 months
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Welcome to the 'Best Character with [X] surname' polls!
This is where I take several characters from different Chinese media (mostly cnovels and cdrama) and run a poll on which one is the 'best'. What does best mean? It's up to you! Whether you love them, are intrigued by their characters, love to hate them, or they're your '2 second blorbos whose personality you made up wholesale', these are all reasons for you to vote for your favs!
NB: the surnames are not exactly the same in all the cases, as often they will be a different character. I am, however, grouping them all together otherwise things got more complicated.
If you can't find a surname, it's because I couldn't find enough candidates (at least 3 from 3 distinct medias) to compete. Feel free to submit candidates!
I will be posting several polls at a time, so do come back and check this masterpost to remember which polls are ongoing, who the winners are, and who's coming up next!
Currently ongoing polls: /He/Baili/Long/Duan/Zhen/Wan/Qiu/Dongfang/Du/Bi/Jiao/Zhong/Xing/Rong
Finished polls: Huang/Fei/Ruan/Dong
There's only a certain number of hyperlinks that can be added per post, so the rest of the completed polls can now be found here
All the details of the individual polls under the readmore
An - posted 15/03/24 WINNER An Zhe
Bai - posted 28/02/24 WINNER Bai Fengxi
Baili - posted 22/03/24
Bao
Bi - posted 26/03/24
Cai
Cao - posted 8/02/24. WINNER - Cao Weining
Ceng
Chang
Chen - posted 9/02/24 WINNER Chen Qingxu
Cheng - posted 10/03/24 WINNER Cheng Shaoshang
Chi
Chu - posted 12/03/24 WINNER Chu Wanning
Cui - posted 11/03/24 WINNER Madam Cui
Dai
Deng
Di - posted 16/02/24 WINNER Di Feisheng
Ding - posted 7/03/24 WINNER Ding Rong
Dong - posted 21/03/24 WINNER Dong Yi
Dongfang - posted 25/03/24
Du - posted 26/03/24
Duan - posted 23/03/24
Fan - posted 27/02/24 WINNER Fan Xian
Fang - posted 24/02/24 WINNER Fang Duobing
Fei - posted 20/03/24 WINNER Fei Du
Feng - posted 28/02/24 WINNER 'Other'
Fu
Gao - posted 13/02/24 WINNER Gao Xiaolian
Ge
Gong
Gongsun
Gu - posted 7/03/24 WINNER Gu Xiang
Guan - posted 17/03/24 WINNER Guan Hemeng
Guo - posted 9/02/24 WINNER Guo Changcheng
Han - posted 17/03/24 WINNER Han Ying
Hao - posted 16/03/24 WINNER Hao Du
He - posted 22/03/24
Hei
Hong - posted 8/03/24 WINNER Hong Qigong
Hou
Hu - posted 6/03/24 WINNER Hu Tianying
Hua - posted 21/02/24 WINNER Hua Cheng
Huang - posted 20/03/24 WINNER Huang Shaotian
Huo - posted 25/02/24 WINNER Huo Xiuxiu
Ji
Jia - posted 18/03/24 WINNER Jia Kui
Jian
Jiang - posted 12/02/24 WINNER Jiang Cheng
Jiao - posted 27/03/24
Jin - posted 29/02/24
Jing - posted 14/03/24 WINNER Jing Beiyuan
Jun
Kong
Lan - posted 23/02/24 WINNER Lan Wangji
Lei - posted 12/03/24 WINNER Lei Wujie
Leng
Li - posted 18/02/24 WINNER Li Lianhua
Lian
Liang - posted 13/03/24 WINNER 'Other'
Lin - posted 14/02/24 WINNER Lin Chen
Ling - posted 6/03/24 WINNER Ling Wen
Liu - posted 16/02/24 WINNER Liu Qingge
Long - posted 23/03/24
Lou
Lu - posted 5/03/24 WINNER Lu Guang
Luo - posted 24/02/24 WINNER Luo Binghe
Ma - posted 13/03/24 WINNER Ma Xiuying
Mei - posted 14/02/24 WINNER Mei Changsu
Meng - posted 29/02/24
Mi
Ming - posted 26/02/24 WINNER Ming Yi
Mo - posted 18/02/24 WINNER Mo Xuanyu
Mu - posted 22/02/24 WINNER Mu Nihuang
Nan
Nangong
Nie - posted 15/03/24 WINNER Nie Huaisang
Ning - posted 19/03/24 WINNER Ning Yingying
Ouyang - posted 5/03/24 WINNER Ouyang Zizhen
Pan
Pang
Pei - posted 20/02/24 WINNER Pei Ming
Ping
Qi - posted 22/02/24 WINNER 'Other'
Qian
Qing
Qiao - posted 10/02/24 WINNER Qiao Wanmian
Qin - posted 16/03/24 WINNER Qin Banruo
Qiu - posted 25/03/24
Qu
Ren
Rong - posted 28/03/24
Ruan - posted 21/03/24 WINNER Ruan Nanzhu
Sha
Shang - posted 3/03/24 WINNER Shang Qinghua
Shangguan
Shao
Shen - posted 23/02/24 WINNER Shen Wei
Sheng - posted 4/03/24 WINNER Sheng Minglan
Sima
Shi - posted 8/03/24 WINNER Shi Qingxuan
Shu
Song - posted 19/02/24 WINNER Song Lan
Su - posted 13/02/24 WINNER Su Zhe
Sun - posted 15/02/24
Sui
Tan
Tang - posted 12/02/24 WINNER Tang Fan
Tao
Tian
Tuoba
Wan - posted 24/03/24
Wang - posted 26/02/24 WINNER Wang Pangzi
Wei - posted 8/02/24 WINNER Wei Wuxian
Wen - posted 2/03/24 WINNER Wen Kexing
Wu - posted 15/02/24 WINNER Wu Xie
Xi
Xia - posted 11/03/24 WINNER Xia Dong
Xiang - posted 19/03/24 WINNER Xiang Liu and Xiang Nanfang
Xiao - posted 20/02/24 WINNER Xiao Jingyan
Xie - posted 21/02/24 WINNER Xie Lian
Xing - posted 28/03/24
Xu - posted 25/02/24 WINNER Xu Da
Xun
Xuan
Xue -posted 11/02/24
Yan - posted 19/02/24 WINNER Yan Wushi
Yang - posted 3/03/24 WINNER Yang Wuxie
Yao
Ye - posted 10/02/24 WINNER Ye Baiyi
Yi - posted 9/03/24 WInner Yi Bichen
Yin
Ying - posted 17/02/24 WINNER Ying Hecong
You
Yu - posted 11/02/23
Yun - posted 1/03/24 WINNER Yun Biqiu
Yuan - posted 27/02/24 WINNER Yuan Boya
Yue - posted 4/03/24 WINNER Yue Qingyuan
Yuwen
Zeng
Zhan - posted 10/03/24 WINNER Zhan Yunfei
Zhang - posted 17/02/24 WINNER Zhang Qiling
Zhao - posted 1/03/24 WINNER Zhao Yunlan
Zhen - posted 24/03/24
Zhi - posted 14/03/24 WINNER Zhi Xiu
Zhong - posted 27/03/24
Zhou - posted 2/02/24 WINNER Zhou Zishu
Zhu - posted 9/03/24 Winner Zhu Hong
Zhuge - posted 18/03/24 WINNER Zhuge Liang
Zi
Zuo
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tossawary · 1 year
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I'm re-reading PINTWILF and was suddenly wondering: considering how dense Shen Yuan is on SVSSS, how long do you think it will take him to realize Binghe has like, feelings, feelings for him?
I think he'll have to have it spelled out bluntly for him. But not necessarily because he's completely oblivious to the fact that he and Binghe are close and affectionate with each other in a "more than friends" way? I think by the end, even when he's still gently, jokingly encouraging Binghe to flirt with women, he'll have suspicions. Or... maybe... "he'll have hopes" is the better word?
See, one of the things I personally really like about MXTX's works is that while the protagonists are a little (or a lot) romantically oblivious sometimes, they're all capable of being very clever and observant, and I get a really strong vibe that their obliviousness is actually partly denial/disbelief that they would actually be allowed to have this thing (this person) that they come to really, really want. They often can't bring themselves to look at the idea directly. They know but also can't even bring themselves to think about it, because the rejection would hurt them too deeply, and rejection feels inevitable, by the world if not by the person they love, so they might as well blind themselves to the possibility of happiness.
It's a remarkably queer element that I vibe with on a personal level. It's also just one interpretation of things. Which is why, for example in MDZS fics, we get the spectrum of Genuinely Completely Oblivious Wei Wuxian to a Wei Wuxian who is so, so in love with Lan Wangji for so long but can't fully believe LWJ would ever like him back and, more importantly, doesn't want to "ruin" LWJ with everything that he is. (I am personally partial to interpretations which lean more towards the latter. I like obliviousness just fine, I like mixes of both, but the angst of love being known deep-down, but feeling unspeakable, being unthinkable, is delicious to me. The pining is so good.)
Now, Shen Yuan is a very different character to Wei Wuxian, just as SY is a very different character to Airplane. My personal interpretation is that each of the MXTX protagonists perform this "defensive obliviousness" in very different ways, to very different degrees, and for very different reasons. (I mean, for some of them, we're dealing with "loving me back would ruin your life and I love you too much to let you do that" and others are dealing with "if I reveal my love/lust to this person and they're not open to it, they might kill me for it".)
I actually went into SVSSS (SPOILERS) feeling really wary of the teacher-student angle, but my impression of their time together as teacher and student was that Shen Yuan's feelings for Luo Binghe were genuinely platonic. And while I make jokes about Shen Yuan being oblivious to LBH's feelings for him, he had a lot of really good reasons for thinking that Luo Binghe wanted to kill him at first upon their reunion. I think any romantic/sexual feelings only started to develop for SY upon their reunion and only became fully realized even later. My personal interpretation of Shen Yuan is that he's asexual (he reads as sooo ace to me), probably gay but possibly bi-romantic, sex-neutral or sex-favorable. (Though I also think that, in SVSSS, even married to Binghe, he still probably personally identifies mostly as "straight with an exception".)
I'm losing the thread of where I'm going with this because I'm desperately trying not to write like five different meta essays here.
In PINTWILF (SPOILERS), Shen Yuan is already in a different situation to SVSSS. Shang Qinghua is SY's mentor-figure and openly queer, openly in a relationship with a demon, and SQH has at least told SY that marrying all those wives in PIDW didn't make LBH happy. I can't remember if SQH ever directly hinted to SY that LBH might be into men, but the other family members aren't exactly 100% discrete or subtle about their teasing. Shen Yuan has a lot more space to get comfortable with his own queerness and LBH's queerness, though he has a lot of internalized homophobia to get through (and misogyny, my goodness, sometimes in SVSSS I really wanted to bop him on the head for his behavior around women even if he's simultaneously mocking the sexist tropes).
But there's still Shen Yuan's self-confidence and self-image to contend against. Even when he's not mentally slotted himself into the role of "teacher" and "betrayer", he's still had the time to mentally slot himself into the role of "older friend" and "confidant". Shen Yuan seems to view himself as a kind of boring person and he likes it that way, so while he would be happy to have Binghe as a partner, he likes him so very much, he can't quite shake the feeling that Binghe could do better and so it's best not to read too much into it. He's honestly happy enough just being friends (or so he tells himself) and doesn't want to "make it weird" unless Binghe takes the first step.
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