Fandom is so nice to Jiang Cheng's inferiority complex because in reality every single thing he gets accused of is something Wei Wuxian is better at than him.
Jiang Cheng killed Wei Wuxian? Nope. Didn't even get close. Wei Wuxian's own spirits tore him apart before jc could even get there. wwx:1 jc:0
Jiang Cheng tortures people? We get two and a half rumours and a mention from jin ling that jc has 'captured' demonic cultivators before, but who is also apparently confident that just letting wwx run off will kill the issue even though those earlier rumours said ~no one who sandu shengshou captured was ever seen again~
The word jiang cheng uses when he tries to talk big game about 'beating the truth' out of Wei Wuxian's is a word that carries the context of pestering someone to do their homework. Doesn't exactly strike fear into my heart.
Wei Wuxian? Excellent at torture. A prodigy. Did you fucking see what he did to Wen Chao? Dude didn't have fingers anymore because wei wuxian made him eat them. He ripped out his hair, burned his skin off, and then stalked him for several days just to prolong the pain. He forced Wang Lingjiao to bite Wen Chao's dick off and then made her shove a stool leg down her own throat! 10/10, no notes. Absolutely horrifying.
Meanwhile Jiang Cheng's idea of torture is getting a dog to bark at Wei Wuxian for a few seconds. Weak, unoriginal, I bet fairy was literally wagging her tail the whole time. 2-0
Jiang Cheng made the entire cultivation world believe Wei Wuxian was up to no good on the burial mounds and ultimately orchestrated his downfall? lol. lmao, even
It's a big thing in certain corners of the fandom to really zoom in one one particular phrase at the end of chapter 73, where after wwx and jc have their staged duel to make the world believe they hate each other jiang cheng tells everyone wwx has defected and become "a public enemy'' or "an enemy to the cultivation world" or whatever the translation you're familiar with decided upon.
(As an aside, something I really like about this line is that the last half of it is almost exactly the same, like verbatim, as what wwx told him to say. like, the chapter is really hammering home just how much jc is speaking from a script here. wwx tells jc to say "今后魏无羡无论做出什么事,都与云梦江氏无关." and jc says "今后无论此人有何动作,一概与云梦江氏无关" the only meaningful difference is that he says 'this person' instead of wwx's name)
I've seen it said that this bit, the use of 'enemy' was said without wei wuxian's approval, that jc deviated from the script just to hurt his ex-shixiong for leaving him. And that this is what caused all the other clans to turn against wei wuxian. Regardless of if this is what jc and wwx discussed, or if jc had malicious motivations for it (considering my conclusions above, you can guess where i fall) it doesn't really matter, because the novel tells us when the clans completely freak out and become convinced wei wuxian is out to get them (though of course they've been wringing their hands about it since the literal day wwx ran off with the wen, months before jiang cheng visited) very neatly in chapter 75!
It's when they find out about Wen Ning.
And how do they find out about Wen Ning?
Because Wei Wuxian took him on nighthunts! And they kicked ass!
...Wei Wuxian, my man, why are you on nighthunts??? Why are you showing off your incredibly cool sentient fierce corpse buddy, who is way better and stronger than all the other fierce corpses, in front of the whole cultivation world??
Whatever his motivations (extra money, maybe?? they were strapped for crash) I can only draw the conclusion wwx had already given up on appearing calm or non-threatening and didn't care if the clans thought he was a threat, because they'd believe whatever they wanted anyway. Which he seems to clearly be aware of the whole time.
Regardless, we know that this is what created the myth of the Yiling patriarch. It's literally when the title first shows up!
Even if you really believe jc was secretly plotting against wwx in chapter 73, he's clearly doing a shit job of it because nothing he said made anywhere near as big an impact as this. Flopped!
The other point people use to argue Jiang Cheng caused wei wuxian's downfall is Jin Guangyao's speech in Guanyin temple about how jiang cheng could have saved wei wuxian if only he stood by him. Setting aside that jin guangyao is trying to get into jiang cheng's head here, and isn't necessarily saying what he really believes (though it very well might be! who knows with a character like jgy. assuming he's always lying is just as misleading as assuming he's always saying the truth) the fact is, if you read the speech closely, what he's talking about is not the 'public enemy' line, he's talking about the bond between them. The fact that people wanted wei wuxian out of yunmeng jiang, because the two were too powerful together.
He's talking about that one time Jiang Cheng very publically kicked wei wuxian out of the sect!
Which, unbeknownst to Jin Guangyao, was in fact Wei Wuxian's idea the whole time.
final score: 3 for you wei wuxian, you go wei wuxian! And nothing for Jiang Cheng bye.
563 notes
·
View notes
The thing is I do get the, like, instinctive suspicion of JGY? Or—well, no, I think a lot of it is classism. But suspicion is honestly a really reasonable response to JGY's activities under JGS! It's worth it to ask: was he really in danger of his life? And even if he was, having had to do this to survive—what will he be like, when he doesn't have to anymore?
They're fair questions! The problem is they're questions we can answer from the text. He absolutely was in danger of his life. And as to what he'd be like when he didn't have to anymore—
I've talked about the watchtowers a lot because they're such a good example, and the kind of thing that would never have happened without him. But sometimes I want to shake people and say, look at the result of his governance! Look at the world WWX wanders through, post resurrection! Look at the peace, look at the way the juniors really get the chance to be kids!
This isn't something that happens automatically. Or really what I want to say is, it means something about the powers of the cultivation world. You can't just treat it as an interesting background fact to the juniors' characterization, with no depth beyond that! The cultivation world under WRH was the way it was because of WRH; the cultivation world under JGS was the way it was because of JGS; the cultivation world under JGY was the way it was because of JGY, and the way it was was better than any other time we've seen it.
208 notes
·
View notes
One-Punch Man Season 3 Special Announcement (with English captions)
Saitama character visual
Cast
Makoto Furukawa as Saitama
Hikaru Midorikawa as Garou
Daisuke Namikawa as Doctor Genus (Narration)
Staff
Original Creator: ONE and Yusuke Murata
Series Composition: Tomohiro Suzuki
Character Design: Chikashi Kubota, Shinjiro Kuroda and Ryōsuke Shirakawa.
Music: Makoto Miyazaki
Animation Production: J.C.STAFF
137 notes
·
View notes
Jiang Cheng is such an icon.
No, 'cuz like– what is everybody else's reaction to fucked up shit happening in their lives?
Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji after their most important person dies? Hide the fuck away from society. Wei Wuxian? Also hide away from society but with a healthy dose of denial. Or, you know, dying. Jin Guangyao? Sweep everything under a rug and hide behind a smile until the rug becomes a mountain. Other characters? They simply Die. Quite tragically might I add *side eyes Yi city*
What does Jiang Cheng do instead? He puts his big boy pants on and rebuilds his sect while half-raising another sect's heir, and basically successfully giving the biggest fuck you to the cultivation world (and his dad let's be real). Does he move on? No. Does that stop him? Fuck no.
He's one of the most dramatic people there, and yet he has absolutely no time for anybody's bullshit. Jiang Cheng would tell Lan Xichen "boo fucking hoo, your dear murderer got what was coming to him, now stop moping and go lead your damn sect so I don't have to see Hanguang-jun's face in every meeting" and think he was helping.
Jiang Cheng's method of dealing with trauma is simply saying "it happened, i'm alive and got shit to do" and I feel that.
359 notes
·
View notes