#see i can not call him jiggy; the post needs to be depressing enough for it to happen but it is possible
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what I’m still looking for more of in jin guangyao-centric fic (and if I just haven’t been reading the right jgy fic please lmk) is stuff that just hammers in the sheer tragedy of his whole life and like, doubles down on it. yes I want fix-its yes I want missing scenes and character studies and and and (and I’ve read a lot of great stuff!!), but what imho there is simply not enough of is both canon-compliant and canon-divergent stuff that just whacks the reader over the head with how every choice made leads to misery, how every facet of jgy’s character that was shaped to be that way by the society he lives in leads to a painful outcome, the catch 22 of his entire existence that is basically impossible to escape. I’m thinking time loops, I’m thinking meta kinda whacky stuff where jgy is forced to confront his role in a narrative where he ultimately cannot escape being cast as a villain, I’m thinking time-travel fix-its except it’s not a fix-it where jgy makes entirely different choices and still ends up utterly miserable. and dead. oh yeah I’m also thinking lxc being put through this same hell but from an outside perspective, where he gets the chance to ‘fix things’ and just fails and fails and fails because this son of a prostitute taught by society to be obsessed with status cannot stop chasing what will end up destroying him, how he is pushed down on a self-destructive path simply by existing... I want lxc to keep trying and trying to save jgy but just be gradually crushed by the sheer inevitability of it all. aborted redemption arcs, or actual redemption arcs where somebody just immediately executes him at the end of it because people like that can’t just be forgiven. let jgy be a better person and make less horrible choices but it to still not be enough to save him - or even worse(?), where he dies in obscurity, having never risen that high but also not falling so low. jgy hovering around/travelling through time as a ghost, hearing everything said about him and revisiting every choice that led him to where he ended up. AUs where everything is different except that jgy’s path still leads to an unaltered terrible ending - and every choice that led him there is crystal clear and horribly inevitable. the illusion that things might turn out differently this time that’s ultimately snatched away. yeah that’s right I want pain, I want tragedy, I just want to take that note of hopelessness in the canonical story and dig into it, make it really last. anyway yes that’s where I’m at these days
#physical pain is all well and good but you know what really makes my heart sing? that's right baby it's the good old emotional torture#ofc I could write this but that'd require my brain to let me choose what to work on rather than spitting out 10000 words at random intervals#jin guangyao#the untamed#leela watches the untamed#mdzs#leela reads mdzs#actually also#lan xichen#xiyao#txt#i'm usually a huge fix it kinda gal given the survival rate of faves but i think eight months of quarantine have fried my brain for good#but hey good tragedy can be really cathartic!! i want to cry but have learnt something by the end of it#see i can not call him jiggy; the post needs to be depressing enough for it to happen but it is possible#demonic cultivation for pros
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Who is your favourite character in The Untamed and why? Oh, and what is your take on Lan Wangji's character?
God anon, the thing here is that my answer is basically “I love everyone in this bar!”*
*other than, like, three people
There’s just so many characters I have such good feelings about. I tried to top five it but I kept ending up with six or seven instead and then remembering more characters that I love. I just have a whole lot of feelings. I mean, the thing about me is that my true love when it comes to characters is “emotionally dysfunctional people with terrible lives” and that’s basically what we’ve got going on here.
But I guess if I’m picking a few:
1. Wei Wuxian. I mean, I walked into this show because of him and I walked out of this show with a new adoptee (this one). There’s so many buttons getting hit here, and it’s not just “evil flute music sexy” or “narrative kink for stories about the way that the stories people tell about people shape a person” but it is also both those things.
Like, if ever someone gave me an introduction designed to make me go ‘oh, this one’s mine now’ it’s...well, both number one and two on this list.
It’s just...watching that opening scene, and then two episodes later getting slingshot back into the past with someone who seems completely different, and watching those cracks grow and form with each hit he takes...is really good for my narrative kinks.
But also...he’s such a determined-to-be-good boy, he’s such a conciliator in all of these ways that make me feel things, I’m always a sucker for someone who is self-destructive while not always realizing that they’re being self-destructive, who has this particular type of selflessness that becomes self-immolation and also leads to a whole bunch of collateral damage. I have a thing for people who are desperately hiding their dysfunction because they don’t want anyone to know that they’ve got any.
Like. He’s such a mess. He’s got a big heart and a lot of love to give and he’s an enormous fucking mess. And like. The family issues? The self worth issues? Just a whole bunch of things designed to hit me right where I live.
And evil flute music sexy.
2. Xue Yang. I know myself well enough that sometimes I can look at a character and within thirty seconds of their introduction go ‘oh I’m going to like this one’ and 90% of the time I am right and that is what happened with my new favorite gremlin. Yes he is terrible, I love him and I want him to have nice things.
This was true before we got to the Yi City arc and I was like. oh thanks for hitting me in my dysfunctional fucked up ship feelings, show, I needed another one of these! Which, I mean, I did need one, because I always do, but hoo boy.
I just...love a deeply feral and absolutely ruthless murder bastard. The sheer level of “fuck it” energy coming off him all the time. The absolute commitment to the psychological destruction of his nemesis slash boyfriend. The psychological fuckery of spending many, many years trying to resurrect the nemesis slash boyfriend you drove to suicide. The weird murder friendship with Jin Guangyao. (Friends help you be complicit in the murder of two of five sect leaders!)
I love it. And him. That Good Shit.
3. Lan Wangji. Possibly this is like. Transitive property of character love because I love Wei Wuxian so much and obviously Wei Wuxian is fucking head over face in love with Lan Wangji, so - but also I just think he’s a very good boy?? He’s a disaster gay primarily passing as a functional gay by virtue of not talking enough for people to notice how much of a disaster he is. He’s spending a good half the show having a whole-ass moral existential crisis, which while I don’t find it relatable I do find deeply endearing.
And just. I’m always going to be a sucker for ‘character who has a whole lot of emotions but doesn’t want anyone to know’ and that’s very Lan Wangji. He’s just! Very good. I am thinking about the scene with him drunk later in the show and that especially just makes me want to grab him and hug him only he wouldn’t like it.
I don’t know, he just gives me a lot of very squishy feelings where I want to tell him that he’s good and it’s not his fault that his boyfriend went over the literal edge.
4. Jin Guangyao. It’s funny because on my first watch I didn’t notice him all that much for a while (I was busy! having Wangxian and sibling feelings mainly, especially the latter tbh, and some bonus ‘adopting a new horrible gremlin’ feelings), and then we hit the Nie Mingjue flashback episode and I was like. oh shit I love you. you’re coming home with me now.
I mean, that’s not totally unexpected, I am weak to characters who are a) schemers b) have a lot of shit going on with identity and perception and c) do a lot of really certifiably horrible shit, and I just. pocket sized murder kitten and he belongs to me, I will continue to call him Jiggy forever but that is only because he is yet another of my terrible sons
5. Lan Xichen. Another character I was like - warm and positive toward through my first rewatch and then at the end when he was completely shattering was like “oh hey I love him now.” And then also seeing people in fandom talk shit about him and going “oh hey I love him more now.”
And then on my rewatch just like. Loving him even more because...yeah he makes some poor choices sure but he’s also just full of such...warmth and generosity? Like, this is a guy who, in a world where everyone is leaping to conclusions all the time, is like ‘maybe let’s not leap to conclusions and give people the benefit of the doubt sometimes, you guys.’ And I like that in a man. It seems like he’s almost compensating for everyone else by going maybe a little bit overboard.
But when did “characters making good choices” be something that qualifies anyone for a favorite of mine? The answer is never.
Also I deeply appreciate his commitment to Lan Wangji and by extension his position as the Founder of the Wangxian Fan Club (co-founder with Jiang Yanli, I’d say, but I think he did get there first). And his consistent expression of exhaustion through the whole thing. Characters who need and deserve a nap: Xichen, and not just the depression one he’s taking post-canon.
6. Jiang Cheng. Didn’t see that one coming but in retrospect probably should have! I’m always going to have emotions about emotionally dysfunctional people with inferiority complexes who have a whole lot of feelings but only really know how to express one of them. Also just like. The entirety of the relationship between Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng was designed to hit me right in the place where I live and boy howdy did it succeed in leaving me hurting a lot for them both.
And just. This boy is such a disaster! He’s miserable! Everything in his life kinda sucks and he’s not helping himself and definitely not dealing with any of his issues at all! I feel like he needs a nap and a five year hug in the worst way.
But also like. All my love for Wen Qing and Wen Ning both? I’m acquiring more Jiang Yanli feelings on the regular? The entire Yi City Disaster Crew is gold and their dynamics are *chef fingers* amazing? I love all of the juniors but maybe especially Jin Ling so much???
(I do not have as many Nie brother feelings, but I feel like I could get talked into them with very little effort on anyone’s part, especially with Nie Huaisang. I already have feelings about the NHS/JGY relationship, so.)
like this is very much one of those pieces of media where I’m like ‘yes maybe I have latched onto these two characters most but G O D I love them all so much, taking them all home with me for therapy and hot chocolate.”
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