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I just wanted to talk a little about these three dumbasses, and what a complete disaster trio they're displayed as during the Cloud Recesses days, and how it's meant to act as a foil for the people there were shortly to become.

We all know the shenanigans they got up to, and the shortcomings of them all; the untamed genius, the emotionally stunted heir, the lazy fop; and despite this you're looking at the people who achieved the greatest feats of their generation.

One resurrected a sect from near-decimation to become one of the most powerful in the land in a single decade, one brought into being an entirely new type of cultivation that arguably won the Sunshot Campaign against the Wens, and the other schemed and achieved a stunningly elaborate revenge plot against the most powerful man in the cultivational world.

And every single one of them did it in total isolation. Strong, silent, and alone.

And what a foil for the venerated triad these stupid little boys are meant to be.

Three war heroes from the three most powerful sects of the time, the hope of a generation. Three men who couldn't change, couldn't bend, couldn't adapt themselves, and who ended in tragedy, ripped apart by their own sworn brotherhood.

And these three boys who started from tragedy, shouldered the burdens left to them and did what needed doing, entirely by themselves.

Did any of them grow as people? Absolutely not, MDZS is most definitely not a story about personal growth; its a story about war and politics, power and corruption, and people doing what they thought needed to be done, and all the reasons that might be so: personal codes (Wei Wuxian), duty and responsibility (Jiang Cheng) and revenge (Nie Huaisang).

Ironically those are motivating factors we see reflected in the 3zun too, but with very different outcomes.

Although that only stands to the end of the book, who knows what would happen in the future?

Was Wei Wuxian happy by the end of the book? Short term? Yes, Wangxian got the riding off into the sunset, but Wei Wuxian's trauma has trauma, and trauma doesn't just vanish for a happily ever after.

Nie Huaisang? Revenge is sweet, but after devoting yourself to that kind of darkness for so many years, after isolating yourself and eating, breathing, sleeping your revenge, what can possibly come next in life?

Jiang Cheng? Destroyed by the core reveal and struggling with the knowledge that he's in Wei Wuxian's debt, and shadow, once again. What did his own sacrifice mean if it just caused Wei Wuxian suffering in a different way? It would be no surprise if Jiang Cheng is feeling an immense amount of guilt, like he is the reason Wei Wuxian suffered as he did, because of the core loss. All those old insecurities rising back to the surface. He couldn't even save his Shixiong in the end.

Obviously it really isn't that simple in reality, but those kinds of emotions don't really care about that. Guilt isn't always logical, and we know how much Jiang Cheng loves Wei Wuxian.

It's fair to say none of the three have an easy immediate post canon future coming up.

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The Untamed | Episode 04 // Episode 50

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i just want what they have..

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I mean I think that's one of the things that really gets to me about the JGY-antis—I've said it before, but a narrative isn't just a random collection of facts; if something's in the story, that matters, and it matters when we learn the information, too.

Like, god, when I think about everything we see at or after the temple... that the stairs happened on his birthday, that he was treated horribly even at the brothel, that he spared Sisi because she helped him and his mother, that the entire temple was for his mother and he made the statue in her image, that the only reason he was even at the temple was that he was there to bring his mother's body with him—and god how much does it kill me that NHS' plan only worked because of that, that he must have been counting on it—that he saved LXC's life after Cloud Recesses burned, and it always kills me that this is where we learn it in the novel! I think the other adaptations tend to reveal it earlier but god, can you imagine getting through all this and then only at the end, after LXC has stabbed JGY, only THEN learning it—that he helped rebuild Cloud Recesses after the burning! Not that he gave JL Fairy, because we already knew that, but seeing the actual scene where it happens, and the kindness of it, and JL's explicit rejection of the idea that JGY was only evil and blackhearted and so on—

Anyway, I really don't understand how you can look at all that and go: the point of this narrative is that JGY is a pure and uncomplicated villain.

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While Jiang Cheng managing to rebuild his clan is amazing, how exactly was he able to recruit enough people? With everyone but his siblings dead (and WWX presumed dead for a while), wouldn't it just have been easy for any other clan to take their place?

That’s probably part of what we have to give Jiang Cheng a ton of credit for! It’s annoying/funny to me that so many fanworks mischaracterize him as misanthropic, awkward, and grumpy even as a teenager/young man, when he clearly has the charisma to rally many, many people to his side.

My understanding is that part of what makes the four/five great sects great is not only their size and power, but also their land and wealth. Now, Jiang Cheng has obviously lost control of these, too, but at least there’s a narrative he can build of “once we win the war, we’ll get it all back and you’ll be a member of the largest/richest/best sect in Yunmeng.” Any smaller sect participating in the Sunshot Campaign would have trouble competing with that argument, and the Wen does not seem to be distributing lands or power to subordinate sects, so there isn’t a path to advancement there, either.

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A strike, it seems, directly to the heart.

A papercraft Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao at Guanyin Temple! This is such an intense moment in the story overall and so climactic in their relationship specifically; I really wanted to do it justice to it, which of course means plenty of dramatic windswept hair and billowing robes. But I also took extra care with their facial expressions - there’s so much betrayal and anger in the moment, and yet still so much leftover love too! All of that needs to show in their faces!

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Word of Honor + Text Posts (20/?) - Hanwenzhou Edition

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💚💙💛 Long story short, I drew 3zun as cats (picture below!) and then, i was thinking again about this modern AU where Lan Huan owns 3 cats and he cherishes them very much but his two bfs are just jealous of all the attention he gives to his cats but ofc it's not like they have choice anyway so in the end, all three of them take care of the cats ... and i swear i'm melting just thinking about them god 🤧

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Baxia the cat, giveaway commission for @poiverine

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(Abel speaks)

I am not. The brother did something to me that my eyes didn’t see. He veiled the light. He hid my face with his face. Now he is alone. I think he must still exist, for no one does to him what he did to me. All have gone the same way: all are met with his rage, beside him all are lost.

I sense my older brother lie awake as if accused. Night offers itself to me, not to him.

— Rainer Maria Rilke, Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, tr. Anita Barrows & Joanna Macy

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Mdzs pkmn au but make it teen wangxian

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some thoughts on the jiang family and classism:

i feel like the jiangs’ have one of the most interesting relationships with classism in MDZS, because the beliefs they espouse don’t necessarily align with their actions.

there is this perception that ymj is kind of this wild and free (…untamed perhaps? ba dum tshhh) land that doesnt subject itself to the same standards of classism as the rest of the jianghu, which is why wwx was able to thrive there. but there is also a cognitive dissonance because wwx is not treated particularly well due to in part his status (there are many other factors but thats a different post!)

one of yzy’s most constant criticisms of wwx is that he’s the son of a servant, and although jfm elevates his status–he never expresses any illusions of actually making wwx his heir or attempts to adopt him. jfm is the cause of most of the contradiction here.

jfm doesn’t actually elevate wwx, not in the way he thinks he does. he gives wwx the status of being jc’s personal attendant, expecting him to grow alongside and take care of jc and jyl. however, this is the status wwx wouldve already had if his father wcz had stayed in ymj. so he wasn’t really giving wwx anything that he wouldn’t have already had rights to. but at the same time he elevates wwx’s status in other ways: allowing him to eat with the family, letting him study in gusu with the other young masters, letting him choose whether or not he wants to go to the wen indoctrination camp. (notice i do not list him being head disciple here. that’s because i very much so believe wwx earned his position as head disciple through his own merits.)

and the reason i think jfm gave wwx these privileges is because they’re the privileges he wishes he could give to wcz. removing social barriers between himself and his best friend so that they could be as close as he wanted. and this goes along with jfm believing that he isn’t classist. 

but the thing is jfm doesn’t realize that he is actually just practicing exceptionalism. he doesnt actually take issue with the system itself, he just thinks that wwx (and wcz and cssr) are too great to be limited by the system. they’re the exception to the rule. and this internal dissonance causes further issues with his family, particularly jc and yzy.

yzy has no illusions about her stance on classism. she IS classist in the way society would expect her to be and she shows no desire to change that. she is sticking to the status quo!

jc however recognizes that he (and his father) are practicing exceptionalism. he just doesnt care. he shows favoritism! he doesn’t treat all people equally because 1) he doesnt care about all people and 2) society doesnt expect him to either. it is not unreasonable of him to have a vested interest in the people closest to him and to prioritize them over other people (His Family+WWX –> YMJ –> Literally everyone else.). In fact this is what most people tend to do. But this causes tension between him and jfm, as well as tension between him and yzy!

bc jfm is an idealist who thinks jc should do MORE and be more like him, and yzy is a realist who thinks jc is already doing TOO MUCH. he is caught between them both physically and philosophically, because he is actually representing the middle ground between them.

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it’s been suggested to draw fav character in this and I did not deny myself to do so

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barista!au Jiang Wanyin come visit my twi @jashcher_draws!!!!

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Florence + The Machine, Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)