#it's just that trope where that character is underestimated bc they don't look physically strong but they are

[illumiru]

People on twitter and tiktok once again on tgcf manhua because “hua cheng is canonically a beanpole and xie lian a buff Dorito”

they're allowed to not like the depiction if they want but it's so funny when tgcftwt and tgcf tiktok claim to tout canon when they happily ignore it for headcanons because that's what it is at most, a headcanon. you're not superior for liking one over the other.

hua cheng at most is described as slender but he's not canonically lanky. there is also a suggestion that he is built in some way when he's described as being hard from top to bottom. so, like, the basic ideal male build that you commonly see in a lot of CN media where it's not too much or too little of anything.

as for xie lian, there's nothing to suggest that xie lian is buff or not within the canon novel. you're pretty much free to speculate but i do think it leans more on him being lean or having the same build as hc. you have to keep in mind the genre of media that he's in and what are chinese aesthetics when it comes to BL.

maybe xie lian does have some muscles in some way, he's probably lean and androgynous enough that he's able to convincingly crossdress as a woman.

canonically, he has a small enough waist to fit into a woman's bridal clothes but his shoulders are wider than a petite woman because he still has a figure of a man. sqx also forgot that he was also a martial god until he saw xie lian fight with a sword. he's been described as being a little skinny by female ghosts.

and a buff bodybuilder didn't believe that someone who looks tender and delicate like xie lian would be able to compete with him. so canonically to me, xie lian does not outwardly look to be physically overly muscular in any way and passes off as lean or skinny.

that's the extent of it. i know a lot of stans act holier-than-thou about skinny/twink depictions of xie lian and act like it's an invention of the manhua artist but it's funny how that they never confront the fact that he's never ever been depicted as being buff in any derivative of the novel, even the official illustrations from pinsin do not depict him as such. it's not exclusive to the manhua.

we can even see from the design of LQQ in the donghua - he's a martial god but he looks incredibly young and probably the most twig-like in the cast. it really shows that in both adaptations - being a martial god does not automatically correlate to being actually buff within the xianxia genre.