#and azure was like ''i did not sacrifice everything to be an idle deity''

[imminent-danger-came]

tbh you are so real for talking about the misogyny targeted to mei & other women in the lmk fandom. in general its like people only value mei as: a: the wingman to some basic mlm ship or b: macaque 2.0. its honestly crazy how so many male side characters overshadow her in the fanbase despite not even having a FRACTION of her screen time. idk chat i feel like the reason people dont care about mei but care about some random male side/background character is less because they're inherently more likeable but because some of you view women as inherently less likable. and everyone is always like "mei is so girlboss pussy cunt slay shes the only reason theyre still alive because she keeps them safe from their silly boy shennanigans shes their ultimate wingman shes so badass shes their lesbian best friend i totally paid attention to her when i watched this show LOL" and even ignoring the obvious misogyny here (ie. how people reduce her to being the male characters babysitter) its like... okay... i know mei is cool & badass already... could you name literally ANY other character trait she has. like people just value her as being "the braincell" who can get red son and mk together or something stupid and its like are we having fun still is this still fun. literally every day i go into the mei tag its like "look at mei shes red sons wifey and shes vaguely in the background of this drawing of red son and mk staring into each others eyes #trafficlighttrio am i right oh look shes macaques niece now this post is about ao lie why is it in the mei tag"

and thats literally JUST talking about mei and it doesnt even begin to cover the other female characters. chang'e constantly gets reduced to being red sons aunt/mom/big sister despite them like. not having any actual interactions in the show. lady bone demon constantly gets overshadowed by her minion who has like 2 seconds of screen time, or she gets made into a cartoonishly abusive madwoman who people call lady bitch demon. just in general people act like shes a horrible person for like. being a villain. liks yeah the trying to destroy everything was bad but also she was an antagonist and thats what antagonists do LOL. spider queen gets completely ignored. princess iron fan gets made into a cartoonishly abusive mother so that way red son can have a poor angsty backstory and some male character (usually nezha, macaque, swk) can take care of him.

(also theres just a great deal of ethnocentrism in the lmk fanbase? like im white so take what İ say here with a grain of salt but so many people will misconstrue aspects of chinese culture for their own personal hcs. people will say male characters are transfem or nonbinary while completely ignoring the time period/culture their from where thats the norm. like yippee youve implied that an east asian man is feminine/emasculine because he has long hair. how do you not see the negative connotations with this. people also turn pif (& lbd to an extent) into a dragon lady which obviously has negative racial connotations lol.)

anyway this is where my unhinged rambling ends have a good day have a good night İ had more to say here but İ reached the text limit. İ dont see a lot of people talk about the misogyny thats prevalent in the lmk fanbase so İm glad youre pointing it out lol.

Yeah, I totally hear you. The lmk fandom has plenty of issues with misogyny and, like you said, ethnocentrism. It's definitely something worth having a discussion about, along with these issues in fandom as a whole.

[imminent-danger-came]

something about mk brutally smashing his head against azures sword till it shattered. something about mei modeling her sword after azures (im insane)

I went ahead and gifed both scenes (which proves that I'm very clearly normal)

So, Mei shatters her family sword defending MK. She then models her sword after Azure's. MK later brutally smashes his head against Azure's sword, cracking it (and Azure) apart. Azure then uses that sword to stitch the universe together, losing his life in the process.

The first thing that comes to mind is the Curse's words, "Such pitiful creatures: cowardly, reckless, monstrosities; all doomed to play a roll in tearing this world apart! To cause nothing but chaos and destruction.", with 4x13 being titled "Rip and Tear" and Azure quite literally tearing the world apart. You trying to do what you think is right but that still leading to bad outcomes—to shattering and breaking and destruction.

Other bonus parallels/contrasts include:

Mei breaking her sword to defend MK, while Azure breaks his sword attacking MK

"But how am I supposed to protect everyone if I don't have my sword!" and then Azure uses his sword to save the entire world aka everyone.

Mei: "If you're not giving everything you have to protect the people you care about you are nothing!" Azure: "I would have done anything in my power to bring them back—but it wasn't in my power, it was in yours." (Using power for the people you care about) (Interesting to note however, Azure is fine with his friends as collateral ((love you 4x10 roar)) where as Mei will put a lot at risk for her friends ((she doesn't object when MK suggests going into the scroll even if it'll risk the curse being released)))

Mei: "What's the point of having power if you won't use it! [...] Inaction is careless! [...] Then maybe you don't deserve power!" Azure: "I did not sacrifice everything simply to be an idle deity! I will do what my predecessor did not!" (Aka those who deserve power are those who will use it)

Both were totally willing to sacrifice Wukong for their goals (Mei in 3x12 and Azure throughout s4, but especially in the special)

Mei: "Wukong knew the risks—that's the hard part of being a hero!" Azure: "Nothing is won without sacrifice!"

Jade Emperor Azure and Samadhi Fire Mei as containers for uncontrollable power (I talk about this one a lot)

Do we think "How could you lead us into this fight without a real plan!" applies to the Brotherhood's attack against heaven

They really did not need to have Mei model her sword after Azure's, so I wonder if this is building to an eventual "Mei V MK" fight (where Mei is most likely fighting MK to save MK) and Mei uses her sword to protect herself from one of the people she cares about.

I feel like there's more to the sword situation, but I can't put my finger on it.