#jiang cheng antis do not interact | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sandumilfshou · 4 months

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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

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evakant · 2 years

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au where wei wuxian comes back only to find out the backlash from the seal’s destruction killed jiang cheng

#'why didn't he know if they basically died in the same place at the same time?' you may ask #well he didn't see it because at the time he was too busy being ripped apart by resentful spirits. as you all well know #they lived together. they died together.#antis don't interact this is not for you this is for intellectuals only. yunmeng shuangjie appreciators <3 #untamed.txt #jiang cheng #wei wuxian #yunmeng shuangjie #i'd expand on this but i'm too lazy. too damn lazy!#jiang cheng not being able to save anyone or anything.#and then also dying and by doing so leaving his people.... jin ling.....#any timeline where jiang cheng dies is the worst timeline for me #fra.txt

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tidesreach · 1 year

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i think the issue with cql/mdzs fandom (specifically jiang cheng antis) is that it seems to have a very rigid view on a) what being a good person looks like and b) what trauma looks like, or significantly, what it should look like, and c) the meeting point of the two: what being a good person with trauma should look like. e.g. the way wei wuxian is held up as this sort of shining example of how to be traumatised the right way. so much of this fandom consistently frames wei wuxian as Good Traumatised rather than what he actually is, which is quite simply a person with various trauma responses and trauma-learnt behaviours that he did not choose and that have no actual bearing on his goodness. whereas jiang cheng is condemned as Bad Traumatised when actually he is just a person with different trauma responses and trauma-learnt behaviours that he also did not choose and that also have no actual bearing on his goodness. people categorising the way wei wuxian responds to his trauma as Good and the way jiang cheng responds to it as Bad (or even Evil) is a mindset that is deeply rooted in stigma whether you realise it or not.

like, i don't interact with jc antis if i can help it. which, yeah, is because i have no interest in reading endless hate posts. but i also steer clear predominantly because as someone with a heavily stigmatised mental illness a lot of the discussion around jiang cheng and the notion that trauma making you angry and hateful = Bad reads as "i support people with mental illness but only the people with symptoms that i personally find palatable" which is very reminiscent of frankly dehumanising real life debates around whether people who display certain symptoms (people like me) are worthy of help (or whether they even can be helped or whether they are just inherently terrible people etc.). and that is a horrible and damaging thing to read about yourself.

essentially, it all boils down to the wholly problematic idea that there are right and wrong ways to be traumatised—as if (in the absense of therapy and/or medication) you have any choice or control over your own symptoms/trauma responses—and that anything that doesn't fit into the "trauma made me kinder" mold is the wrong way to be traumatised. which is exactly what stigma is and why a lot of people have to fight so hard to get a modicum of help. so much of the language used around jiang cheng's trauma and his emotional responses to that trauma is rooted in real life stigmatising rhetoric that denies people the help they need and deserve because they're not the right type of mentally ill. this mindset that wei wuxian did trauma right and jiang cheng did trauma wrong is based on a made up concept designed to demonise certain mental illnesses.

it's like, there are so many takes which go something like, "well, wei wuxian has trauma too and he didn't do x, y, z." and sure, you're right, he didn't do x, y, z, but he did do a, b, c, if you see what i'm getting at. and arguing that a, b, c, are better responses than x, y, z shows a lack of understanding of the complexity of trauma and the way it can be informed by self-perception or perception other people have of you, i.e. it can become a bit (or a lot) of a self-fulfilling prophecy. because if anything the idea that trauma made wwx kinder oversimplifies the damaging effects it actually had on him. because it also made him reckless and (re)vengeful. it also gave him a messy saviour complex that repeatedly leads to ruin (like, man, when jiang cheng says to wei wuxian in anger, "wei wuxian, do you have a saviour complex?" he reads him very well. he knows him very well. in the same way wei wuxian knows that jiang cheng holds on to too much anger). wei wuxian's trauma is just as messy as jiang cheng's but it manifests in very different ways. different ways, not the right ways. wei wuxian's trauma responses hurt people too and you can acknowledge that. it doesn't make him Bad.

what seems to cause real issue though, is the differences in the way they respond to trauma. what causes real issue is that those differences are indisputably to do with certain symptoms jiang cheng displays being the more stigmatised ones. it's his anger and hatred and volatility. it's his very extreme fear of abandonment and equally extreme efforts to avoid it by furiously protecting what he has left because he cannot bear to lose anything or anyone else. it's his dichotomous thinking that can make him irrational. but those are not evil or wrong trauma responses. they're just trauma responses and they are actually fairly common trauma responses at that. certainly more common than "trauma made me kinder". i don't know who needs to hear this but a person's involuntary emotional responses to trauma are not an indication of whether they are a good person or not. you can struggle with anger and hatred and symptoms considered "less palatable" and still be a good person. trauma does not give "bad" symptoms to bad people and "good" symptoms to good people because there is no such thing as a morally good or a morally bad symptom.

people need to stop letting stigma inform their (mis)understandings of mental health and trauma and try to remember that there are real life people who suffer from the symptoms they are stigmatising and who face barriers every single day because of that stigma.

#i could say more but this is long enough #jc #jiang cheng #a nice day for a long personal jc post ig

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least-carpet · 4 months

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You know, I was thinking about something you wrote under one of my post about wwx having different feelings about the yunmeng sibs after his return, which is actually correct in the novel imo! But not for cql. Cql!wwx really seems to be missing yunmeng jiang, he's kinder in his thoughts Imo, less bitter. Which is kinda of fascinating because cql!jc is almost exactly like novel!jc in what he says/seems to be feeling. Like, Cql!wwx is seen to be worried about jc's safety during burial mounds 2.0, in a way novel!wwx isn't about novel!jc lmao. I don't have a point lol, just wanted to let you know that imo cql!wwx is quite different and thanks to this, there is much more room for a reconciliation than in the novel lol.

While in the donghua there isn't room for a reconciliation because the donghua is jiang family anti lol.

Whoops, sorry this took me a minute—I started answering it, saved it, and lost it in my enormous hoard of drafts.

I have not watched the donghua but everything I've heard about it is kind of insane, so I believe it!

I vaguely remember leaving that comment and I think what I meant was that Wei Wuxian has different feelings for Jiang Yanli and Jiang Cheng after he comes back—like he thinks pretty negative thoughts about Jiang Cheng, but not Jiang Yanli. On one hand, you can see how their interactions in the present day are pretty contentious and might lead Wei Wuxian to think badly of Jiang Cheng. On the other hand, Jiang Cheng is very reasonably angry about the deaths of his sister and brother-in-law and how that made his beloved nephew grow up an orphan, and Jiang Yanli might have been mad too, if she had survived! It's not unreasonable for both of them to be upset! But it's like Wei Wuxian can't even begin to start thinking about that post-resurrection. I think that's going to take him some time.

I do think novel!Wei Wuxian is deeply resentful of Jiang Cheng, and that really colours what he tells us about Jiang Cheng. I also think his feelings might change if he got some time to actually process any of them, but that would also require him to acknowledge the negative ones which... might take a minute! From what I've seen of CQL, Wei Wuxian does seem less resentful, at least, which might make reconciliation a little easier.

#asks #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #jiang yanli #mdzs +#least-carpet thoughts #yunmeng trio #yunmeng shuangjie

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mxtxfanatic · 14 days

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I checked out the "canon jiang cheng" in hopes of finding my people and yet all I've found are JC stans saying the weirdest of things were absolutely canon.

I am very tired.

Then I figured that I should just try my hand at the character tag and regretted it even more when I fell on an anti wwx post.

I didn't know those people existed and frankly, I am worried for them.

Seriously tho, this post was unreal, I can't believe I just read that with my own two eyes.

Can I rant with you please?

Yeah there was a whole thing when twitter users fled back to tumblr where twitter jc stans decided to “reclaim” the tag because they’re upset they didn’t successfully bully canon enjoyers out the fandom. They usually either fill it with fanon jc mess, jc thirst edits, or hate for any other character with the intention of antagonizing everyone else like they did in the main novel tag and the main jc character tag. I personally don’t use character tags to know how bad it’s gotten, but I use my mutuals to find new blogs to follow by paying attention to who they reblog from.

I don’t mind ranting, as long as it’s about a fandom trend and not about specific individuals* whose content you can trace back to.

*caveat to the “specific individuals”: sometimes I do talk about identifiable individuals, but usually it’s because they’ve either directly interacted with me or I am pointing out the disproportionate influence they’ve had on fandom in negative ways, so still fandom trend commentary. I don’t care about dissecting every individual jc stan fic or headcanon or “meta,” though, because they all say the same thing and jumping on one person for doing what the whole group is doing feels redundant.

#mdzs asks #anon #i also don’t use character tags #because the moment I start using them #is the moment I’m gonna turn into one of the biggest bullies on this site #and i am showing so much self-restraint #to not make this place more hostile than it already is #so i can enjoy a fandom experience for one rather than entrenching myself in the sewers with the rest of the rats #I’m very sorry about what happened to the canon jc tag tho #my friends created that #i watched it come into being #and it makes me very *angry* how it’s being misappropriated

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dilfyjilfy · 2 years

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The lengths Jiang Cheng antis will go to, to make it so that Wei Wuxian doesn't have to face the consequences of his own actions, is astounding. Are they really blaming Jiang Cheng for Wei Wuxian leaving Cloud Recesses, because he said 'Lan Wangji probably doesn't want to see you again'? Yeah, shame on Jiang Cheng for suggesting that Lan Wangji (who fought wwx almost every day, was usually the one getting wwx punished, whether it be copying the rules or getting a beating, was always annoyed or angry when interacting wwx, etc...) is probably tired of his behavior. It's almost like, if YMJ's head disciple getting in trouble, breaking the rules, and being disrespectful and dismissive of a other sects customs, hadn't been things to occur, then leaving the Cloud Recesses wouldn't have been on the table in the first place. It's almost like Wei Wuxian and Fengmian deciding that wwx leaving was the best option had more to do with wwx's disciplinary record, and wanting to avoid any future problems/punishments, than Jiang Cheng's word. I must have missed the part where it was revealed that Jiang Cheng had mind control powers that only worked in that one instance (because when else have wwx and jfm listened to jc😭). Every day, the clown behavior of JC antis triples.

#jiang cheng #this is why i think most jc antis don't actually like wwx either #they see wwx having a disciplinary record and being a dropout/getting expelled as a stain on his purity so the shift the blame #if you use the notes for foolishness then you will be blocked #not argued with #mo dao zu shi #the untamed #unless you say something particularly dumb #*they

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thatswhatsushesaid · 10 months

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mmmm

i just discovered that a person whose meta i occasionally enjoyed, even if i don’t necessarily agree with everything they’ve written, has blocked me, and i’m bummed because i really wanted to go back to their blog to find a piece they’d written about jiang cheng as a point of reference for something else i am working on atm. and now i can’t!

inb4 anyone decides to @ me on anon, yes obviously people can do whatever they want to ~curate their user experience~ and i know my vibe isn’t for everyone, but i reserve the right to be grumpy about information silos in fandom spaces, especially when it comes to silos created by users who write a lot of meta and seem to make a point of interacting with the fandom more broadly.

i just. mmmph. i don’t block people! 🤷‍♀️ unless they are aggressive towards me personally, rather than my ideas, or they ask me to block them. i don’t block because of disagreements and my hot take is that it actually isn’t a good thing that this has become such a fandom norm. i want to read words written by people i disagree with, i don’t want to be surrounded only by people who share my opinions on everything. i want to read stuff that makes me uncomfortable and makes me challenge my ideas about the text.

anyway, along these same lines, shoutout to the one or two jgy antis i know don’t like me but still haven’t blocked me and have interacted with me constructively in the recent past, you’re extremely valid for that and i appreciate being able to read what you write on your blogs, even if we agree on next to nothing.

#salty peak sect 🧂#i block for bots and harassment and extreme tedium #and i am considering nixing that last one and unblocking the tedious people because this is becoming a Thing for me #(also if people ask me to block them—an important point)#editing to add that there are other ways to assert boundaries and make your experience more enjoyable! i use tags and filtered content #and i similarly try very hard to be consistent about my own tagging so people can choose to filter out some of my posts if they wish to #blocking really does feel like something that should be a last resort #instead of something we encourage each other to do so readily and for such arbitrary reasons #*especially* for users who are interacting with a larger segment of the fandom in the semi-regular

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admirableadmiranda · 1 year

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omg someone pointed it out! This post bothered me a lot. I haven't actually interacted with the fandom in Tumblr and my twt is full of other posts from other mxtx works so this is prbly first time interacting with the fandom, and well I wanted to see what the canon Jiang Cheng hate was about. But, to argue that you should tag fanart canon is just... I'm sorry to call it like this but are they thinking properly? It's called fanart for the reason that a fan made it. Then you'll 'politely' ask for people to tag it as canon. Oh gosh help me.

Oh they don’t care what canon actually means in this case. They just want to steal the tag and bully my friends and I out of a second tag after we already got pushed out of the first one. It was a stupid post that got backlash and was entirely constructed to try and take away my tag.

Unfortunately for them, their proposed solution would have not had me going back to the anti jiang cheng tag as they’d hoped, but going back into the regular jiang cheng tag as - despite me often talking about his more negative actions without whitewashing or sugarcoating - it’s not bashing of any kind.

The way that the tag system was working before was fine. They had the regular tag, we’d conceded the battle to them there, and we had our canon jiang cheng tag and while yes, it’s a snarky name, it really did come from “make a tag to put all your talking about him if you’re supposedly really not antis” “okay! *we make canon jiang cheng*” “wait, no, not that name!” “You didn’t tell us what tag name to make so we made our own, now we’re going to keep using it” *everyone filters each other’s tags and we have peace*

So y’know, it has a storied history there, one that Twitter Jc Stan’s apparently have a problem with since they don’t get to steal my tag and push me out of a space again. Posts like that are just stupid. It’s a lack of respect for the people who were there before, it’s an egotism of thinking that you can actually control a group of people just cause you don’t like what they post, it’s just a bunch of annoying blocked people who are crying that I won’t stop doing a thing I was doing long before they joined tumblr.

And yes, it is very stupid.

#mdzs #canon jiang cheng #asks #anon #anon asks

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apyreally · 3 months

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Welcome !

Hola! It's apy here,

So nice to meet yall! As you can guess im starting up a new account on tumblr. Although i do write, i wont be writing here for a while (exams sigh). If you wanna check out my writing, you can visit my ao3!

about the user !

18 | she/her. asian. student.

bicurious. infp. capricorn.

likes to read, write, draw, play volley and skate boarding <3

into anime, donghua, danmei novels, manga, and bl. I do read self care books sometimes 👀

favs haikyuu, tokyo rev, death note, aot monster, naruto, mdzs, svsss, tgcf, 2ha, woh, the untamed (and many more!)

loves shoyo, noya, kenma, bokuto, miya twins, suna, kiyoko, mikey, kazutora, haitani brothers, sanzu, baji, itachi, wei wuxian, jiang cheng, mo ran, cwn, xue meng, luo binghe..(and so many more)

my preferences are sports, action, psychological thrillers and bl (so feel free to recommend some!)

can't stand homophobia, racism, horror, infidelity and antis of my favs! (dni if ure uncomfortable with my likes).

Rules !

I usually write my own ideas (since my head's full of em haha) but i do appreciate prompts or reqs. If i'll like the idea, I'll be writing it.

I dont write regularly since i have studies. So I'll be writing whenever i feel like it. (will be writing one shots, smau, smut and hcs usually. Multi ch fics will be rare)

If i do write multi ch fics, I'll be uploading it on ao3 too (and also the oneshots and smut i liked writing here). If i do write a fic over there, I'll either post the link or upload here (if i wish to).

I won't be writing on incest or infidelity. Also i wont be writing for characters/ships i dont like. (ill be replying to the request privately if i cannot write about it due to above reasons).

I will be writing for character x character or reader x character. Mostly my character x character ships will be bl, so if you cannot stand it, dni. As for the reader x character, I'll be writing f!reader mostly and gender neutral sometimes, but if you do want a m!reader you can request it.

Wont be writing heavy nsfw normally, but over the time i might 👀.

Also, i won't be engaging in fanwars and wouldn't appreciate any on my posts too. If you don't like it, then scroll past or unfollow.

Im currently not active on any other socials or my writing sites due to exams. But ill be active after may! Until then I'll be camping here and reading. I would also be interacting and would appreciate frens hehe <3 feel free to dm me! :3

Thankyou for reading. Have a nice day ahead 🎐🧡

#haikyuu #bingqiu #wangxian #mdzs #svsss #tokyo revengers #new acct

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asingularshieldmaiden · 1 year

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Can people stop using canon jiang cheng tag for pro jiang cheng content. It’s the anti tag so instead of trying to flood it and interact with the antis it would be better to just block and ignore the tag and same w the anti accs… the risk is them coming back to the mainstream tag bc their echo chamber is no longer an echo chamber.

It’s a separate ecosystem and yes it is annoying that it’s called canon jiang cheng bc it’s not actually canon behaviour but like if u block it you shouldn’t care because you won’t see it!!! The antis get off on interacting with the stans so if you stop interacting with them it becomes boring for them as they can only fume in silence and yell to each other. They are not going to go away and start magically liking jc. They aren’t going to read your insightful essay and go “yeah they actually have good points” bc if they are posting to canon jc they’re past the point of no return already!!!

It’s a delicate balance. It’s a good thing that they have their own tag bc the shit content is on it and easily blockable. We have the good stuff on the actual jiang cheng tag as should be. If you are posting to canon jiang cheng and it is pro jc content you are losing a large part of your possible audience bc seasoned jc tumblrs have made their peace with it and just blocked it. Tumblr’s unofficial communal policy is block and move on so please please just do that :-|

#jiang cheng #jiang wanyin #come on guys #i did not live through c*non j*ang ch*ng #being absolute shit garbage dumpster fire #for people to start legitimately posting to it #leave the antis alone #the point is not that it is called c*non jc #the point is that the antis have their own tag that is not the actual #jiang cheng tag #so please please just let it go it literally doesn’t matter #you are just losing audience by posting to it #im actually screaming why do I have to address this #jiang cheng is actually fake so u don’t have to defend his honour because he isn’t fucking real #we know we are right in our hearts and that’s enough lmao

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coffeeandritalin · 2 years

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About your last post about JC, what do you mean with WWX already moved on? Did you mean he already moved on in the sense that he won't allow the suffering of the past to be a ball and chain that would prevent him from building a happy future for himself or that he ceased to care about JC? Because the latter, despite being the favourite option of the delusional JC antis who clearly live in their twisted fanfiction world, couldn't be more distant from the truth.

In Guanyin Temple WWX clearly doesn't hold a grudge against JC, on the contrary he gives him a positive advice about not allowing the past to chain him down, because by doing so JC could never hope to look forward to a brighter future. The same thing WWX is gonna do from now on, that's the meaning of the let the past stay in the past line. How could ppl even remotely think this means WWX doesn't care about JC anymore is embarassing tbh.

Their ending wasn't 100% positive but it wasn't completely negative either, just like the epilogue between XXC and SL who parallel the Twin Prides a lot: sad but a little hopeful. Just as you said, after Guanyin Temple, JC seems to have learned the lesson. He doesn't blame WWX anymore, nor screams after him to get his attention, nor forces him to sit down and shove the actual reason why JC's golden core was melted in the first place down his throat so to give WWX another reason to feel guilty toward him. If he did, that'd be the proof that he was hopeless and no matter what, he'd have never learned the lesson and admitted his mistakes.

But for once he learned and that's HUGE progress from someone like him. So if JC from now on works on himself and bit by bit starts dropping his toxic attitude, I don't see why WWX should reject him, their relationship the way it turned out to be was toxic for the both of them but perhaps they could build a new relationship on a better foundation.

Thanks for the ask, Anon!

I'll start with this… I like the idea of JC fully redeeming himself and becoming a healthier and better person. I like the idea of JC and WWX eventually having a reunion of sorts. However, I don't think there will be a situation where WWX is put in a position where he needs to reject or accept JC. (This is in part because I want to believe that JC's own growth will mean that he won't ever put WWX in that position.)

I am of the following opinion - Neither of them needs the other in their life in order to be happy.

My short answer is: I mean WWX has moved on in both ways. (Fortunately or unfortunately, my answers are never actually short.) To clarify, I mean that WWX no longer cares to have JC in his life (not that he no longer has feelings when it comes to JC). I see their ending as both of them moving on from needing or wanting each other in their lives.

When WWX made his decision to save the Wen remnants in his first life, he still held on to his attachment to the Jiang family and the desire to be with them. However, in his second life, and especially by the end, WWX has moved on from this attachment. You can see it in his final interactions with JC.

Wei WuXian took the flute. Remembering that Jiang Cheng was the one who brought it, he turned over there and commented casually, “Thanks.” He waved Chenqing, “I’ll… be keeping this?” Jiang Cheng glanced at him, “It was yours in the first place.” After a moment of hesitation, his lips moved slightly, as though he wanted to say something else. However, Wei WuXian had already turned to Lan WangJi. Seeing this, Jiang Cheng remained silent. (ExR, ch 110)

In the past, WWX would have long since been by JC's side, probably poking fun at JC for 'stealing' ChenQing. Now, JC is almost an afterthought. (However, he is still a thought, and I believe that hesitation in WWX's speech shows that there is still emotion there.) The two of them talk to each other like acquaintances would. If there's any warmth or past affection in their exchange, it comes from JC more than it does WWX.

On the other end, JC has chased after WWX all of his life, refusing to let go even after WWX's death. WWX's shadow continues to haunt JC's heart and mind 13+ years later only because JC has insisted on holding onto it - whether it's to constantly compare himself against it or to put all the blame of his sufferings on it or because he actually misses WWX deep down inside. Regardless, JC's attachment to this shadow is unhealthy for him. Learning to let go of WWX and the shadow that he casts is critical to JC's own healing.

WWX and JC have too much history together for them to disentangle the person from the emotional and mental trauma the person's presence caused in their lives. JC is part of the ball and chain that would prevent WWX from building a happy future for himself, and the reverse is true for JC.

That said, I do think they will inevitably build some sort of relationship with each other due to their love for JL. However, I believe it would be a friendly acquaintance type of relationship. I believe there will be some warmth. I believe there will be some teasing. I believe there will be a lot of awkwardness and tension. I believe trauma will resurface if they get too close to each other. Some things, once broken, cannot be repaired. I also think that, initially, WWX will actively avoid crossing JC's path for many, many years.

I also want to add the following… If news of JC being heavily wounded is circulated, do I think WWX will be concerned and unconsciously keep an ear out for JC's state until JC is at least stable? Yeah. Do I think WWX will normally seek out news about JC on his own? No.

If the universe plotted to bring the two together on a night hunt and JC somehow ends up in danger, do I think WWX will give JC a hand? Yeah. Absolutely. Do I think WWX will choose to put himself in a position where he goes on a night hunt with JC? No.

So do I think WWX still cares about JC in some way? Yes. Do I think WWX wants JC in his life? No.

Do I still like the jokey posts about WWX breaking into Lotus Pier to spew off the rocker ideas and questions at JC? Absolutely.

Sorry if this response isn't what you're hoping for. These are just my own thoughts and interpretations.

#mdzs thoughts #jiang cheng #long post #sorry i don't know how to be concise

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lovingsakusa · 2 years

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i know this reiteration and dance bringing nuance onto the jiang cheng / wen survivor discourse has been done time and time again but i will do it anyway bc i want to rant. to be clear, anyone who thinks of themselves as an ‘anti’ pls do not interact <3 i think a lil discourse is fun for many people but i don’t have the energy to dedicate to fighting antis, jc or otherwise. no character bashing is tolerated on this post ! there is also a good chunk under a readmore bc i can’t do Long Posts w/o a readmore

i read a few replies that talked about how wen mainline (and distant lines) were killed for to avenge and honour your ancestors who were killed by them (its more complex than this but i am not the expert so im not going to elaborate) but ! not every wen disciple was a wen mainline member or even a distant member of the line. while the sunshot campaign primarily rallied to kill wrh and his tyranny and with that, end wen hegemony, *not everyone wearing wen sect colours was surnamed wen*

the sunshot campaign did not spare them regardless. it was worse for the people left of dafan wen bc they bore the surname no doubt, and what happened to them was atrocious, but like. are you getting what i’m putting down here? the whole cultivation world was not morally correct. the sunshot campaign in its methodology was not morally correct. war choices are not morally correct and you cannot square this blame solely on jiang cheng’s shoulders.

yeah what jc did and said to wwx about the wens was not an entirely morally correct choice but it was a diplomatically justified choice. y’all immediately point fingers at jc but you forget nie mingjue condemned the wens for being wens by name alone: he had a canonically black and white perspective on justice (which i personally headcanon as something different & more nuanced but lsdkjfs this is not about that & to clarify i love nmj w my whole heart).

in addition, where was the lan sect? arguably if the lan and nie sects together had worked, they *could* have saved the wen survivors. they had enough political power and money to do so and their sects had a presumably long-standing alliance already considering the closeness of lxc and nmj (also drawing on how nhs calls lxc ‘xichen-ge’). qinghe nie in particular was known for the opposition of jin guangshan — would it not be in good faith for jgy to have turned over the wens to his sworn brother, who probably would have treated them more fairly regardless of them being wens, to show that lanling jin honoured nmj’s late father and trusted them in this alliance?

nobody in the cultivation world did anything to help the wens. lmao the person who probably did the most was jiang fucking yanli. there is, so much more here than some individual choices and NOT to discount them but theres just. more nuance. more backstory.

did jiang cheng owe a debt to the wens? yes. contextually, is it different for him than nmj or lxc? yes. does it make him an *inherently bad and irredeemable person*? no.

jc had a sect to look after and major and minor sects on his heels. the lan sect initially helped him rebuild his disciples in numbers but you see how many died when wen chao came. after sunshot, there are so many expenses and yunmeng jiang was in a socially, politically and economically unstable position. i could go into how he probably really needed money but i won’t bc sldkfjs that isn’t the point here.

the point is that jin guangyao and jin guangshan would probably eat him alive if he fucked up and there were inevitably mid-sized sects rising to the top, particularly around lotus pier, that were swallowing up smaller subsidiary sects and eyeing the rest of yunmeng jiang. it was the wens and his brother , or his sect / what was left of it: the people he recruited in sunshot, who he probably promised a home and food to; a sect he had to rebuild from its ashes.

his brother was frankly being extremely unreliable atm (for, valid reasons bc this mans was coping the best he could but jc did not know what was going on) and not telling him very much. i love wwx and think he was simply trying his best and i feel so sad when i think about him during this time but since this man was very unwell, he was not exactly the pinnacle of diplomatic excellence in a unified political jiang front, for a variety of reasons.

then suddenly he had taken war prisoners from the only sect they were formally allied with (and once again, jgs and jgy would swallow lotus pier up if they could) and yeah jc could have stood up for the wens and im not saying he was right in not defending the wens okay im not saying that. he should have. so many others should have too. i AM saying this is not a ‘he was good’/‘he was bad’ thing. this is a nuanced discussion involving morals and people and sociopolitical situations

#ANYWAY I HAVE MORE JC THOUGHTS I’LL SAY LATER #on just. his general conduct. his trauma. etc #but this is what i got for now #mdzs #mdzs meta #jiang cheng #long post

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incarnadinedreams · 1 year

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One of the things that sucks about having such a divided fandom is that it kinda makes it feel like discussion 'across the gap' is pointless. This is the only fandom that I have ever actually blocked people in.

When someone comments on a post in a seemingly mostly innocuous way, and then you look at their blog and it's all anti stuff and it's like. Do you bother having the discussion knowing it'll go nowhere and they're probably just baiting you, or do you try to engage and hope it's the 1% chance it'll actually be an interesting discussion?

I still feel some sort of weird guilt over it because on principle it feels a bit wrong to cultivate an echo chamber. But also, it's fandom and it's just for fun and in this fandom it's not fun to engage.

I am just Old Enough to remember forum discussions where we'd spend 20+ pages debating something, it'd be knock down drag out and sometimes get heated, but it never felt bad or personal the way anti nonsense in the MDZS fandom does. I don't know if it's just different age demographics or taste preferences (most of my other fandoms have been dark to grimdark fantasy novels where literally nobody cares about morality that much, or anime/manga series where literally nobody cares about morality that much, or games in fantasy settings with dark themes... where nobody cares about morality that much... etc). Is it the romance element? The translation factor (being that I'm primarily interacting with English-language fans and so we're always a step or five removed from truly understanding the source material).

This is the only fandom I've been in where some people seem to impute some sort of moral judgement based on character preferences and it's wild to me. That's never happened with other books I've discussed. For example, one of the most universally loved characters in western dark fantasy is Glokta (from Joe Abercrombie's The First Law trilogy, which I read and enjoyed but am not like a super fan of - as a whole it was just okay for me - however Glokta specifically is an absolute stand-out as a character). Everyone I know loves Glokta, even my vegan friend who literally rescues bunnies as a hobby.

Glokta is just Literally Worse than Jiang Cheng in pretty much every way (love him for that). And yet 'I love Glokta' is one of the most unanimous, bland, and uncontroversial declarations you can make on a fantasy discussion board/subreddit. Even people who didn't particularly care for the books like Glokta. At best you'll have people say "eh, it just crossed a line for me when he did XYZ so I can't like him" but not "oh my god you're a horrible person for liking him, you're a TORTURE APOLOGIST!!!"

I don't mind being told I'm wrong about a point (with some sort of evidence) or 'hey, does this passage from page X change your interpretation if you reread it in Y context?' or whatever. Even among people who enjoy Jiang Cheng there are a variety of takes and flavors and points on various things and I enjoy the debates and different angles very much! Sometimes I find myself liking interpretations that directly dovetail with my own; not necessarily contradictory, but a reading that's going off in a very different direction.

But there's a certain point at which it feels pointless to engage, where it's just never going to be productive or interesting because the underlying reading is just fundamentally so different that it feels like a truly separate book.

Anyway the point is that I don't mind being disagreed with but sorry if I block you after seeing that all your reblogs are anti stuff because at this point taking the bait will just trigger all of my "someone is WRONG on the INTERNET!!!!" reflexes or whatever and ain't nobody got time for that.

Edit: oops, I left out a word...

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vrishchikawrites · 3 years

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Ok so like

This is by no means an insult, attack or anything of the aort to you personally, i enjoy your content and opinions and i fully mean this respectfully....

But i find it so interesting that some people can hate a particular character and not read fics about them?

Like, from my first interaction w fandom in general, i could read any relationship/ plot/ ooc as long as it is well written. Even if i hate canon characters, i can usually read them in a positive light. Hell, i can read any JC fix as long as i know if it's positive or negative so i know what to expect

And then i found tumblr discourse

Again, this isn't something I'm criticising, just an observation I'm curious abt, since detachment from the source material seems to be so scarce fandom wise

Ok, so - here's the thing. The problem isn't fans loving JC and writing him favorably. If that was an issue, many reasonable people in this fandom wouldn't be so miffed about it.

The problem is - we can't avoid them. You said it yourself, "as long as i know if it's positive or negative so i know what to expect"

We don't know what to expect.

Everyone wants to tailor their fandom experience. You mentioned you can read almost anything as long as it is well-written. That's a good thing because it opens up the entire fandom for you. But some people have specific tastes and triggers. They would want to look at the content they like and avoid what they don't like.

That isn't possible in this fandom.

I write canon characterization of JC. I am forced to tag is anti-jiang cheng. People write fanon characterization of JC. They don't tag it Jiang Cheng-friendly.

We get fics where JC is suicidal and people are gaslighting WWX - making him feel insecure - in the main Wangxian tag. And that is presented as ok for JC to do. They say it is suicidal JC, they don't mention that JC, Jiangs, and everyone is gaslighting the fuck out of WWX.

Then we have a perfectly good fic that we get invested in and find ourselves in a hole where WWX has crippling self-esteem issues, the Jiang family is abusive, but is brushed aside. There's no tag mentioning OOC WWX with self-esteem issues.

We have fics where Wangxian cheat on each other - with JC. And there's either one or more abusive partner involved. Partner abuse isn't tagged.

We have fics where all of WWX's morality is transferred onto JC. But JC isn't tagged as OOC.

THIS ISN'T TAGGED.

In fact, we have people using deceptive tags like angst with happy ending - Wangxian only for the happy ending to be for WWX to die at the hands of his abusive spouse. Again, no warning. The problem is so common and so many readers are blindsided by it that people have told me they clock out of the fandom because of it.

It isn't something as simple as an attachment to the source material. I am the last person to say fanon characterizations aren't allowed. I have been writing fanfiction for over two decades. Fanon characterization doesn't bother me at all.

There are fandom olds, good people, who will tag fics that are favorable to JC as JC-friendly and I don't think many of us have an issue with them. The problem starts when it becomes difficult to find a good fic where a canonical antagonist isn't allowed to walk all over the canonical protagonists. It is difficult to find a fic where everything that makes WWX so great in the canon is turned over until he only has surface characteristics of WWX but underneath that surface, he's someone we don't know.

Detaching yourself from the source material is one thing. But do you know many fics are out with WWX or LWJ having a bucketful of mischaracterizations? I have a near-crippling problem with depictions of severe self-esteem issues. I was drawn to WWX because, despite everything, he doesn't have severe self-esteem issues. So many fics include WWX with low self-esteem, severe self-deprecation without tagging? Because they consider it canon? I noticed that because I'm sensitive to it. But there are things I am not sensitive to, but other people want to avoid. Those things aren't tagged either.

It is frustrating for people who want to experience fandom, who want to be comfortable in fandom, but somehow have to deal with poor tagging, strange characterization, abuse justification, morality discussions, etc.

Fan content longer a favorable space for many fans. There are only so many fics you can clock out of before you start feeling completely disgusted by the situation.

So the response to all of that shit? Create a fandom vent space where people who do not like all of these things can come together, vent, and share their thoughts on. Venting in the story's comments section or in the author's space is bad form. A venting to people who have experienced similar things away from the creator's space? Fun and good form.

Also, added bonus, every time I see a meta, discussion, or answer an ask that forces me to think - my understanding of characters improves and I incorporate it into my fics.

to conclude - people can be detached from the original source material. But you bet people will rebel when someone tries to shove them in a particular direction. The more stans try to shove people in the direction of fanon characterization, the more people who like canon characterization will cling to it and defend it.

That's human nature.

All of this discourse? A response to being shoved and forced to bear fanon interpretations with complete disregard.

As people keep saying, the Chinese side of the fandom doesn't experience any of this shit.

Also, to clarify - I mean none spitefully or disrespectfully, despite my blunt language. This isn't a criticism of you or your ask, but of the state of this fandom.

#reader asks #long post #vent #re: jc #re: fanfic #re: fandom

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canary3d-obsessed · 3 years

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Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 20, part three(!)

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Stuff) (Previous Post)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

This episode has so much crucially important stuff in it I had to write 3 posts about it! Part one is here, part two is here.

Don't Start None, Won't Be None

Lan Wangji has never had a real fight with Wei Wuxian before--remember, in their rooftop fight Wei Wuxian never even drew his sword. And since this is going to be a verbal fight, Lan Wangji is going to lose, badly. He's an elegant and articulate speaker, but he's not quick with words, and he speaks directly and sincerely. Weaponized speech is not his area at all, so he's pretty much bringing a knife to a gunfight. A guqin to a flute fight. Whatever. He tries to turn it into a physical confrontation, twice, but Jiang Cheng holds him back.

This throwdown is 100% about religion and orthodoxy; something that is fundamental to both of these young men's lives. Lan Wangji has made it his mission to be as orthodox as possible, doing shit like volunteering to be beaten for drinking when he didn't choose to drink. He's constantly overwhelmed by emotion, and the Lan rules are a source of regulation and safety for him. His emotions around Wei Wuxian are among the most overwhelming he's got, possibly only second to his feelings about his mom.

Right now his feelings are extra overwhelming.

It's complicated because his relationship with Wei Wuxian literally started off with him punishing Wei Wuxian for heterodoxy. All that time they spent together in the library? Was because Wei Wuxian talked--JUST talked--about using resentful energy for cultivation. Which is precisely the ability he's just shown them, along with a style of killing enemies that's borderline evil and definitely, DEFINITELY unsportsmanlike.

So this is not, Lan Wangji is lovingly worried about Wei Wuxian and Wei Wuxian is pushing him away to avoid an uncomfortable conversation. This is Lan Wangji freaking out because his entire system of belief is being challenged and he's in love with the person who's challenging it.

Wei Wuxian has shown up to the party wearing an International Mr. Leather tee shirt with a enamel pin stuck to it that says "I get my kicks on route 666" and Lan Wangji just. cannot. deal.

Never Start a Fight But Always Finish One

Wei Wuxian has a couple of options here. One is to accept, kindly, that he and his friend can't be friends any more because of religion. In this option, in order to preserve his friend's comfortable sense of being right, he would have to tacitly accept that he himself is bad in some way, and allow his friend to keep having his value system, while walking away from him.

The other choice is to hit so hard that he makes his friend feel really, really bad, and potentially rocks him off of his comfortable foundation. In the short term, the friendship breaks, but if it forces him to actually question his value system, it might lay the groundwork for a new, more accepting friendship. Anyone who is queer with an anti-queer-religious best friend is probably familiar with this dilemma.

Wei Wuxian chooses the second option, and goes all in from the first moment, calling Lan Wangji "Lan Er Gongzi" and then upgrading to "Hanguang Jun" and even bowing. If it's possible to bow sarcastically, that's what Wei Wuxian is doing. Then he meets his eyes and sticks his chin out, essentially saying "how do you like them apples?"

(more after the cut!)

Lan Wangji's feelings are probably hurt, but he's too busy being mad to show it, and he goes straight to grilling Wei Wuxian, asking him about the killing, the talismans, and giving up the sword, all while Jiang Cheng stands by and wonders what the fuck is happening.

Lan Wangji is making a fundamental error here, which is he's speaking as if he's an authority instead of as a peer. Wei Wuxian has only ever accepted one authority in his entire life, and that was Jiang Fengmian. Jiang Cheng is the one who, for a change, is approaching as a worried friend, while Lan Wangji approaches as if he has the right to call Wei Wuxian to account.

Wei Wuxian won't answer his questions and is getting in his face, provoking him in a very quiet and controlled way, and Lan Wangji responds by just being really aggressive. It's interesting to see Wei Wuxian completely mastering his emotions while Lan Wangji is completely....not. Wei Wuxian pushes harder, saying he's being rude, saying he's being a bad friend. Which doesn't make any difference to Lan Wanji, who keeps pressing for an answer while Jiang Cheng wonders what the fuck is happening.

Come to Gusu

Wei Wuxian says he already explained, that it's complicated, it will take time to explain, so then Lan Wangji makes the utterly dumbassed demand that Wei Wuxian return to Gusu with him to explain it. What, exactly, is his plan? Bring Wei Wuxian to Gusu and have Lan Xichen (at the very least) and probably also Lan Qiren help him to convince Wei Wuxian that resentful cultivation is bad? How is that likely to work out? Let's have our own flashback, to that classroom interaction that led to the punishment in the library.

Lan Qiren: How will you make sure the resentful energy will only listen to you and not harm others? [Note: he's not wrong, Wei Wuxian] Wei Wuxian: I haven't figured that out yet ["details," as OP's dad used to say] Lan Qiren: If you did, the cultivation world would not allow your existence [i.e. we, the Lan Clan of Gusu, will kill your ass]

Lan Wangji probably doesn't think he's threatening Wei Wuxian with death by inviting him to Gusu, but he kinda is, if Lan Qiren was serious back then. Lan Wangji is so upset and fearful that he's not really thinking clearly at this point. He loves Wei Wuxian and he's certain that cultivating with resentful energy will destroy him. [Note: he's not wrong, Wei Wuxian] But Wei Wuxian is beyond fear. He's already been destroyed once.

Wei Wuxian rips on Gusu and then says, in a super-provocative way, that he prefers Yunmeng, which prompts Lan Wangji to say "don't joke around" as angrily as possible.

This part of the interaction always confuses me because...shouldn't he prefer Yunmeng? He's actually from there and lives there and belongs there and stuff? He's just saying "I think I'll go with my brother" yet WWX and LWJ both act like he said he'd rather go to Demon City.

Lan Wangji takes a big step forward and Jiang Cheng blocks him while Wei Wuxian continues to act unperturbed and puzzled while holding his demon flute out in between them.

Finally, FINALLY, Wei Wuxian calls him Lan Zhan, and asks him a serious question: What do you really want. Lan Wangji calms down for a second--although he keeps leaning into Jiang Cheng's sword block--and gets to the point, which is that the unorthodox path is dangerous, and harmful to his temperament.

Kill one turtle together and you think you're the boss of me

So, these dudes are talking about 2 different levels of unacceptable cultivation, in this episode and the next few. Netflix translates these as "wicked tricks" and "crafty tricks," which both sound absolutely ludicrous in English, so I'm going to use my own preferred terms, going forward.

I think what they are calling "Wicked Tricks," which includes spirit snatching and feeding people to the murder turtle on purpose in order to harvest their resentment could be translated as Heresy--adhering to a forbidden belief or practice; standing in opposition to Orthodoxy.

Edit: After rewatching Episode 35, in which Nie Huaisang explains why their whole blade thing doesn’t count as “wicked tricks,” I’ve changed my mind about what to call this. NHS says that “wicked tricks” specifically involve the use of humans & human spirits (killing, sacrificing, etc.). Which means Necromancy is probably the better term for this particular type of cultivation, although it is still (also) Heresy.

"Crafty Tricks," which is using resentful energy to raise and control already-dead people (ghosts and zombies) as well as just generally using resentment for basic stuff like beating Jin Zixuan's ass, could be translated as Heterodoxy--deviating from the accepted belief or practice, but not to the point of complete opposition.

Wei Wuxian laughs while Lan Wangji tries to be convincing, but since Lan Wangji is just repeating what he's been taught, he's not making much headway. Instead of saying "there's no exception throughout history" he could have, instead, gone with his own actual observations, such as "you are acting like a sadistic prick" or "you seem amazingly miserable" or "you aren't hugging your brother, what the fuck is that about?" But no.

Wei Wuxian responds to the charge of heresy by saying nuh-uh, and explains his methods, sort of, while going back to calling him Lan Er Gongzi. Lan Er Gongzi responds by actually literally yelling at him, and saying he's not allowed to decide for himself about what he's doing, as if the words "allowed to" have ever meant a goddamn thing to Wei Wuxian.

Temperament

At this point Wei Wuxian is done. He goes and gets right up in Lan Wangji's face and sticks a metaphorical knife right in his heart, smiling as he does it. "How do others know my temperament?" he asks; "and why should it be their concern?" i.e. you are not in my heart.

This makes Lan Wangji so mad he calls Wei Wuxian "Wei Wuxian" for possibly the only time in the show, and he also flashes a whole bunch of angry teeth. (Gifset here). In a callback to the JFM-YZY fight back in Lotus Pier before the war, Wei Wuxian just calmly says "Lan Wangji" back at him, and then tells him to go fuck himself.

Jiang Cheng still doesn't understand what the fuck is happening, but this is a sentiment he understands, so he also tells Lan Wangji to go fuck himself, reminding him that Wei Wuxian is Jiang clan property and it's not the Lans' place to discipline him. Adding "and I'm not going to discipline him any way, look how good he is at killing people!"

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji continue to stare into each others' eyes from a distance so close that it really should lead to making out, but they are both much too angry for that.

Wei Wuxian is as cold as we ever see him, smiling as he silently confirms: I do not belong to you. Lan Wangji glares back, his anger maybe finally giving way, a little bit, to being hurt.

Finish Him!

Wen Chao picks this moment to wake up and crawl over to the trio, begging Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng to save his life, since he presumably knows it's pointless to beg Wei Wuxian. Wei Wuxian turns around and gives him the EXACT SAME dead-eyed smile he just gave Lan Wangji, and kicks him.

Then he tells Lan Wangji to please leave so he and his brother can finish torturing this dude to death, and caps it with an official Jiang Clan eye roll.

Lan Wangji, poor bb, just throws in the towel, and turns and leaves, the anger finally starting to leave his face and be replaced with something else...chagrin, maybe? Or maybe just softer anger, for the moment.

After he's out of sight Wei Wuxian turns and looks after him sadly, all of the cruelty and hardness gone from his expression, while Wen Chao says "forgive me," possibly voicing what Wei Wuxian is thinking.

Lan Wangji walks out the front gate, troubled, and hears Wen Chao scream. He stops and replays the most pointed part of the fight in his head - the part where Wei Wuxian asked him, "who do you think you are?" Lan Wangji went into the fight believing he was completely right and was entitled to judge Wei Wuxian, but he's come out of it with his certainty shaken.

Family Time

The Yunmeng brothers go to the ancestral shrine in Lotus Pier even though the whole "reclaiming Lotus Pier" scene doesn't happen until Episode 24. So apparently they just kind of sneak into the the shrine, and then sneak back out. Or, you know, continuity error. Anyway Wei Wuxian is nothing if not adept at sneaking around death-related places.

Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng bow and offer incense. It's nice that the Wens didn't fuck up everybody's name plaques when they were in control of the place...or the tassels, candles, etc.

Wei Wuxian quietly tells Yu Ziyuan and Jiang Fengmian that he did what they asked--taking care of Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli--and they can rest now. Nosy parker Jiang Cheng wants to know what he's saying, but Wei Wuxian just changes the subject.

They talk about going to Qinghe for the final combat of the Sunshot Campaign. Wei Wuxian says that's why he returned, which...dude, you can't even pretend you came back to be with your loved ones? Ouch. Jiang Cheng doesn't really react to that, but he's happy when Wei Wuxian says he wants to see Jiang Yanli. Wei Wuxian wants to know if she's ok and if she's mad at him, and Jiang Cheng says wait and see, because direct answers are not the Jiang Clan way.

Jiang Yanli is helping tend to the wounded, and we see her telling a particularly fussy wounded dude to suck it up and stop complaining.

When Wei Wuxian shows up she totally stops paying attention to the wounded dude so that she can smile at Wei Wuxian.

He looks back at her tearfully, briefly managing to smile but then just trying to hold it together. He has been to hell and back, and doing his very best to hide it, but when he sees the person who loves him most--the person who will NOT spend 20 minutes yelling at him as soon as they see him--he starts to crack open.

#fytheuntamed #the untamed #the untamed gifs #wangxian #restless rewatch the untamed #my gifs #canary3d-original

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