#(or how xl constantly making out with hc but pretending it was ‘platonic’ because he didn’t want to assume hc’s special one

[mxtxfanatic]

@lifeofmysteries seeing as this post is about the characters staying true to their moral characters and not about how each of them view their respective love interests, this comment doesn’t apply here.

On this note, though, a major part of sqq’s character is not about him not acknowledging his care for lbh and therefore running away, it’s about him learning to prioritize how lbh feels towards him as the victim of his actions rather than what he imagines lbh “should” feel about him as the person who has continuously (been forced to) hurt lbh. That’s why every kind thing (if we can categorize literally sacrificing your life for someone as merely “kind”) sqq does for lbh post-abyss he specifically says he does in an attempt to give lbh peace of mind and a happy future, and why maigu ridge is the point where he finally realizes that lbh would be happier just being with him sans the grand gestures that ultimately harm both sqq (physically) and lbh (mentally as a result).

Sqq knew from the very first mission that all the “characters” were real people. He talks himself into “seeing” them as characters only as a coping mechanism under intense stress (such as when he kills the skinner demon). And that doesn’t even work because if it did, he wouldn’t have cared to change anything about the world of pidw. Sqq’s whole “lbh would’ve walked into the abyss had i asked” thing was about him finally realizing the extent to which lbh would forgive him for anything because of his love for sqq, not him realizing lbh is “real.” If anything, to go back to my post, the only thing sqq would have learned was that kindness is, in fact, a narrative-changing act, but the thing that puts sqq in league with the other protags is that he fully expects his kindness to mean nothing to anyone but he chooses to be kind anyways because transmigration did not change anything about him being a good person.

Tbh, I think if you read an mxtx novel with the expectation that the story’s hero is meant to learn some valuable lesson that fundamentally changes their character and views on life, then you are reading her books wrong. There’s not a single mxtx protag (currently) in existence who changes by the end of the story. It’s the world they live in that is changed because of their actions:

—Shen Yuan’s Shen Qingqiu transforms a toxic masculinity fantasy into a queer romance in which the unhappy stallion protagonist with a harem in the 100s is given his monogamous happy ending with a husband he actually loves and values with reciprocity. They fuck off to their forever honeymoon after exposing the corruptness of the cultivation world that ruined Luo Binghe’s life to begin with, and all of this was only possibly because Shen Yuan was just a genuinely nice fucking person. The world lives to see another day and a fuckton of people who died (or didn’t even get to exist) in the original stallion novel get to live long, more fulfilled lives in Shen Yuan’s revision.

—Wei Wuxian is killed for sticking up for a condemned clan, is resurrected against his will, and still stands by his actions in his first life while protecting those that continued to wrongfully condemn him. As a reward, the corpses of the people he died protecting save him and his loved ones (and the rest of the bystanders who killed them), he bags himself the most perfect and perfectly matched man in the cultivation world, and he continues to help others and do what he wants to the ire of the cultivation world who are now too embarrassed to fight him. The younger generation look to him as a beloved teacher, protector, and role model to aspire towards.

—Xie Lian rebelled against hierarchy as a beloved prince of a prospering kingdom, then as a beloved god against the older gods, then as a reviled scrap gods against the then most popular gods of the present day. He was always willing to lend a hand to anyone who needed it and to never hold resentment even if that kindness blew up in his face (and it often did). He gets to marry the man (ghost) who has seen him at his best and absolute worst and chooses him unconditionally, something no one else has ever done before. At the end of the novel, he is the god that all the other gods look to for guidance and strength.

None of these stories humble these characters for being good people. Even when their morally righteous actions net them unimaginably terrible results, even when they falter in the face of their failures, they ultimately remain true to their goodness. And none of the books humble them for that, because being good is not a character flaw. So in short: please stop talking about how mxtx protags “needed” to learn valuable lessons to “be good people” when they were already good people from the very beginning. These stories are not about how the world changes people but how genuinely good people can change the world just by actively being kind even with no benefit to themselves and especially if that kindness leads to detriment.