#and this wwx is a dull pedestrian and less remarkable imitation of the yiling laozu

[llycaons]

this wwx is also so off. so unremarkable! I’ve posted before about how much I dislike how he’s feminized, but one of the most important things about canon wwx is how he changed the world - how he was brilliant and bold and singular  and defied convention, and lost everything for what he knew was right, and invented groundbreaking techniques used for decades, and how he died hated and alone and how he was a legend for years and years. and this guy had some rough stuff in his past and wants to have a home and belong somewhere, but these are common enough desires that this character just doesn’t stand out.  I don’t recognize him. you could change the names on any of these characters and I couldn’t tell it was supposed to be cql/mdzs. except maybe jc, but the author erased his greatest failures and the worst things he does to wwx and just makes him the most supportive brother who cut ties with his mother, so is it even jc?

once wwx comes back to life, I can understand him wanting a quiet and domestic life, and I think that’s what this fic is going for (and honestly, it rather succeeded, that last sex scene was genuinely very emotional and compelling). but since we didn’t see wwx go through all the hardship, and since he’s not really a well-known figure and we never see his actual impact, he just comes off a generic, if talented, 20something who smiles nice and has residual trauma from a childhood of uncertainty and a young adult life of poverty. and wwx in canon does have those traits, but he’s so much more than that! he’s a genius! he’s passionate! he gets into fights! he causes problems! he’s clever and proud and principled and he was always, always working towards something, keeping his mind busy, creating and inventing and improvising and solving problems and adapting and making a mark on the world, not always out of necessity but because his mind just didn’t stop. and I don’t see it for this guy! he is skilled and talented and hardworking, but the extent of his ambition is limited to the setting, which is a shame because I firmly believe that wwx should be able to break the pre-established genre conventions in every universe he exists in. that’s who wwx is, to me.