I know that everyone, projecting, can have different interpretations about the same character, but I really can't understand some of them. For example "jc is an arrogant asshole" : I mean, he is an asshole, but arrogant? I personally disagree. Jiang Cheng is a kid who is grown been compared his own life to Wei WuXian, his perfect sect brother, by both his parents.
Kids like that grown with an inferiority complex, not being arrogant. And I think that the text proofs it enough :
Madam Yu stood up and mocked, "What do you want me to do? Like your father, you want me to hold my tongue? You really are an idiot. I've told you long ago that you'll never in your whole life be able to surpass the one sitting beside you. Not over cultivation, not over night-hunting, even shooting kites, you can't surpass him! It can't be helped. Who would change the fact that your mom is worse than another's? Worse it is, then. Your mom feels injustice for you, tells you countless times not to fool around with him, yet you are still defending him. Just how did I give birth to a son like you? "
Chapter 50
After a speech like that, something that seems usual for them, how in the hell jiang cheng could have ever get arrogant? How?? His mother, the one whose love he doesn't question, is saying to his face that he isn't enough, that he would never been enough. When a child grown hearing this all the time, how can become arrogant??
In fact, Jiang cheng's greatest wish in his youth is not to be the best, is to be enough, is to make his parents proud of him, is to been seen for his worth:
He raise his voice, "You killed the Xuanwu of Slaughter together with Lan WangJi, bathing in blood! How great is that?! But what about me?!"
He punched his fist into a pillar in the hall, clenching his teeth, "... I have also been running around for days, completely exhausted, with not one second of rest!"
Chapter 56
Jiang cheng is extremely upset not because he didn't kill the Xuanwu of Slaughter but because his efforts have been overlooked. "But what about me?" that's what he said and what tormented him. His father had praised wei wuxian and lan wangji, but what about jiang cheng effort? I see a kid who wants desperately love and appreciation.
I want to point out, that obviously his trauma influence his life. As anyone with an inferiority complex, he doesn't think himself good enough, so he behaves according to his belief (I strongly believe that people with inferiority complex don't always achieve everything not because they aren't able, but because they don't think to be able, - something very different - sabotaging themselves without even realizing it). For example, he doesn't think himself able to fight and win against lan wangji not necessarily because he isn't good enough, but because his inferiority complex runs deep. In fact, he is pretty good as cultivator and fighter!
When Jiang Cheng was unaware, he stuffed Zidian's ring back into his hand and sprinted toward the crowd, all the way up to the most dangerous area before the mouth of the cave. Jiang Cheng was about to chase after him when he managed to slice a few corpses, staggering. He felt that Sandu was no lighter than hundreds of pounds.
Jiang cheng, without his spiritual powers, managed to slice a few corpses. (Not having spiritual powers means that he can't heal readily and he gets tired easily)
Jiang Cheng chased over to fight Wen ZhuLiu. Wen Chao saw that his eyes were bloodshot and had on a terrifying expression. The rest of the disciples had also been excited, and there was still a gigantic beast inside the pool, the front-left claw of which had already stepped onto the shore. Wen Chao finally began to fear, "Retreat, retreat. Retreat right now!"
Without any weapon and knowing well what wen zhuliu was capable of, 17 years old Jiang Cheng chased him down. And he was so terrifying that wen chao called for retreat!
That's to say, his insecurities and fears don't ever stop jiang cheng from doing what he has to do. He doesn't feel enough because of his childhood but, nonetheless, jiang cheng is extremely hardworking and competent.
The most laughable one was the YunmengJiang Sect, the people of which either had been killed or had scattered, leaving only Jiang Cheng, who was younger than even Lan XiChen and was still a child born yesterday, who had nobody in his hands but still dared call himself sect leader, holding up the banner of rebellion as he recruited new disciples.
After lotus pier's fall, despite his young age, being younger than Lan Xichen, despite the fact that his sect has been destroyed and despite the fact that he was alone, he dared call himself sect leader, holding up the banner of rebellion recruiting new disciples! Jiang cheng worked hard every day to rebuilt lotus pier!
Within these few years, Jiang Cheng insisted on working late into the night every day. That day, just as he decided to rest early, he had to rush to Koi Tower overnight because of the thundering news.
Chapter 73
Thanks his efforts, lotus pier is reborn again as one of the greatest sect, despite her isolation. No one dares to insult lotus pier or jiang cheng himself!
So, jiang cheng is a strong sect leader, a man accustomed to give orders, but that, again, doesn't make him arrogant. He is probably proud of his sect! As every person who fights, works hard and makes every effort, he is probably proud of his achievements.
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at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"
like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.
"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."
... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.
and i'd still keep writing.
i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.
i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley
"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"
and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.
it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.
you create because you're greedy.
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one of the things about being an educator is that you hear what parents want their kids to be able to do a lot. they want their kid to be an astronaut or a ballerina or a politician. they want them to get off that damn phone. be better about socializing. stop spending so much time indoors. learn to control their own temper. to just "fucking listen", which means to be obedient.
one of the things i learned in my pedagogy classes is that it's almost always easier to roleplay how you want someone to act. it's almost always easier to explain why a rule exists, rather than simply setting the rule and demanding adherence.
i want my kids to be kind. i want them to ask me what book they should read next, and i want to read that book with them so we can discuss it. i want my kid to be able to tell me hey that hurt my feelings without worrying i'll punish them. i want my kid to be proud of small things and come running up to me to tell me about them. i want them to say "nah, i get why this rule exists, but i get to hate it" and know that i don't need them to be grateful-for-the-roof-overhead while washing the dishes. i want them to teach me things. i want them to say - this isn't safe. i'm calling my mom and getting out of this. i want them to hear me apologize when i do fuck up; and i want them to want to come home.
the other day a parent was telling me she didn't understand why her kid "just got so angry." this woman had flown off the handle at me.
my dad - traditional catholic that he is - resents my sentiment of "gentle parenting". he says they'll grow up spoiled, horrible, pretentious. granola, he spits.
i am going to be kind to them. i am going to set the example, i think. and whatever they choose become in the meantime - i'm going to love them for it.
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