#‘damn jc is such an asshole; he def deserved worse than he got’ is character discussion

[mxtxfanatic]

I already explained the history of friction between different readers on Jiang Cheng’s character, but now I’d like to address the “neutral,” “idk what’s happening but why can’t we just get alone?” readers: mdzs may be a book with raunchy sex, comedic moments, an over-the-top drama queen, a group of cute ducklings, a cast of goofy-at-times adults, etc etc, but at the end of the day, this is a book about how a bunch of grown ass adults, victimized by a system of normalized injustice that orphaned most of them as children, got together to defend that very same system of injustice. If you are in this fandom and consider any discussion on how every adult save for like 3 actively aided and abetted the repeated massacres of innocent people that happens throughout the story to be “anti” or “negative” behavior, then why are you here? If you are upset that people enjoyed reading about a canonical villain and decided to discuss him and his canonical villain role in a public forum meant for that discussion, then why are you in the public forum???

Not everyone enjoyed the book because they wanted to get in on what roles this new set of characters would fill in a coffee shop au. Not everyone read the book just to figure out what new ship they wanted to obsess over. Some of us read the book because we liked the heavy themes, and we want to discuss said themes with others. The tags should be for everyone, regardless of whether or not you like a character in a “positive way,” but if you don’t want to see certain content that is relevant to the book, it is up to you to filter it out or form your own space. You don’t get to police fandom as a “positive vibes only!” space, especially not ones founded around a source material dealing with themes of war and genocide. Ain’t shit positive about that! This isn’t The Care Bears!