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
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We're at one of my favorite parts of the story (and probably one of Vash's least favorite parts 😬😬), where we get to see how much Vash's family means to him
In book 1 of trimax, the Doc tells Brad that Vash's concept of family extends to the entirety of the human race
...So a Man revenge-killing a murderer isn't just 2 humans committing various levels of violence against each other (at differing levels of justifiable), it's 2 families members hurting each other and Vash can't bring himself to not try and stop it. Even if you understand *why* they fight, you probably wouldn't want your cousins to kill each other in front of you, right? And Vash struggles with it, because some of these people he's saving really do deserve the bullet reserved for them; but at the end of the day he still doesn't want to watch them to die.
And over the course of volume 1 and 2 of trimax, the story repeatedly brings up the question (either overtly or through subtext) "What would you do if you your family was in danger? What lengths would you go?"
Which leads us to the first big fight for this question when Vash's actual, closest living thing to a loving family is under attack. His anguish is palpable to everyone alive in the room with him, his wrath is close to deadly, and every new room he finds with more puppets just hurts him further. But even when he's faced with a monster that has destroyed his one vestige of safety in the world, even if that monster has talked about how he wants to do the same to him, he still can't bring himself to kill him! He even goes so far to try and spare him!
Not because of any specific moral reasoning (even though he's given one to Dominique before), but because before he was Leonof the Puppetmaster, he was a little boy named Emilio that loved his father's bread and had a crush on a girl named Isabel. He was someone that Vash knew, someone he recognized, and someone he undoubtedly cared for greatly at one point. And even if he couldn't save him, he at least had to try, because he was family at one point too.
And of course, it's not all pain and suffering for Vash, because when he wakes up in the hospital ready to blame himself for not being able to save everyone, Luida cuts him off: He did the best he could, he saved lives despite the losses, and at the end of the day he's still family to them, too. Even if the rest of humanity views him as a menace, there's still someone out there who reciprocates his love in a way that doesn't hurt him.
And boy, you can see how much of a relief (and source of stress it is for him) on his face lmao
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(personal post, need an opinion on falling out with a friend. tw for description of childhood physical abuse and forced alcohol consumption.)
Recently I found out that the most destructive trauma symptoms I had were due to repressed rage, and I decided to try and work on expressing the rage, mostly via writing since I'm currently not in a shape to do anything physical. I've talked about it to a childhood friend, who is usually very kind, and they offered if I wanted to talk about the trauma, and express my anger to them, I should.
So I spoke about it a little, with not much detail, and the friend started asking me questions like, 'well, why did the abusers do this to you?' which already was annoying, I dislike greatly having to put myself in the abuser's head, because then I lose my own sense of self and have to see myself thru their eyes, which is the worst possible way to see myself. But, I've tried to explain their intentions (control, power, sabotage, keeping me captive and helpless). Then at one point, I talked about an incident where I was pinned down and pressed on the floor, my arms were held still, my head was held upright, one person held my nose closed and another poured strong alcohol down my throat, while I was screaming, shaking and crying. I was terrified and the alcohol hurt my throat. Afterwards I just went into shock and went numb and lost memories of anything that happened afterwards.
And my friend goes 'Well, why did they do that?' and I try to remember and it's like 'well they thought I had some disease and the alcohol was apparently, the cure' and my friend goes 'oh, well they were well-meaning then!'
And I just completely lost my nerve. The words struck me like lightning because that cannot be well meant, pinning a child down while they're crying, terrified and shaking, and forcing something in their throat. I could have been taken to a doctor and healed normally. It wasn't even a cure, they were experimenting and using any kind of excuse to hurt me 'for my own good'. Next time I had any kind of problem I simply didn't say anything to anyone because I understood that if someone found out, I would be tortured.
I told my friend that it 'wasn't well meant' and they 'should have taken me to the doctor', but my friend, insisted that the intention behind the act was good, even if it wasn't 'very pleasant for me', which also, struck me like a minimization of what I went thru. It was not 'unpleasant', it was traumatic. I dissociated and lost memories.
I ended up shutting down the conversation, and I told my friend I need space. My friend continued to send me messages over the next few days asking me to talk to them, but I feel livid and disappointed every time I even think about talking to them. I don't know what to do, I feel almost kind of dumb because this friend always acts like that, it just usually doesn't hurt me that badly. Usually when they go 'well maybe this person who hurt you had good intentions' I can just go 'lol nah' and not linger on it. I shouldn't have spoken about trauma to them - but I was also not in my right mind, affected by inner rage and desperate to talk to someone.
I need a third person view into this situation, because I'm still not in my right mind. I've been trying to write my anger down and figure it out and I ran thru a pen already and filled half a notebook and I got absolutely nowhere except that I feel dreadful.
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Tagged by @plushmon in a 'know people better' tag game (thanky!!!)
Last song: Wriggle by Cosmo Sheldrake
Favorite color: It's a tie between teal & royal purple. Or whatever this splendid guy (aka purple glossy starling) has going on:
Sweet/spicy/savory: Sweet. My sweet tooth knows no chill.
Relationship status: Happily single not looking to mingle
Last movie/show/game:
Re-Animator for movies (remarkably my first viewing despite my love for mad science in horror)
It's been a few months but I think the last show I revisited was Star Trek The Next Generation? Because I wanted to see space-god Q being a petty little dumbass again?
Minecraft for games
Last google search: local science museum's job openings board. Not exciting, I know.
Current obsession: I'm in between what I'd consider 'current obsessions' but I've been dedicating a fair bit of of thought & research into improving my cosplays as well as doll-making techniques for some monster dolls I'd like to start making eventually
I never know who to tag & who not-to, so if you want to give this a go- I choose you!!! Tagging a few peeps but of course it's only if/what you want to: @tielesiti-eftu @slenders1ckn3ss @atticofthings @toomuchdickfort @snugbug @halloweenedition @toonfanstars @ghosttcryptids @solitarysketcher @nicxan @sodalite-lite @wenek-jajecznica @werewolfautism
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