#like my favorite part in the mdzs novels were the massacre of lotus pier and then wwx's downfall

[waitineedaname]

I've finished book four of tgcf! Definitely my favorite so far, which is funny considering the focus was on side characters instead of the main pair. Black Water Arc fucking ruled, i love horror and doomed yuri and sinking dread

[songofclarity]

Hi cat anon back again I absolutely loved your response to my ask though I doubt WRH sleeps 16 hours a day lol. On the contrary I think he's more likely a workaholic who rarely if ever gets a full night of sleep. even if he delegates a part of his workload, leading a sect as large as qishan wen is still a very hard and demanding job and there are things that just can't be delegated and there's also his cultivation that he must put a lot of work in to be that powerful I would be surprised if he ever gets time to rest. If I were to compare WRH as a leader to anyone it would be Miranda Priestley from "the devil wears Prada", all those working under him are terrified of him not because he's needlessly cruel but because he's extremely strict, demanding, and has very high expectations of everyone starting with himself and the higher you go in the hierarchy of the sect the higher his expectations of you will be and if you can't meet his expectations you will be kicked to the curb without mercy (srsly if you haven't watched that movie you absolutely should especially if you're looking for inspiration for WRH because Meryl Streep slays the role of the demanding and tyrannical leader in it).

Also I'm curious what kind of parent you think WRH is. We never get to meet WX in the novel so there's no way to know what he's really like but WC strikes me as a sort of spoiled kid who was used to getting all his demands met without question and was never disciplined for anything ever in his life but also there are WQ and WN whose upbringing WRH had more or less involvement in depending on the adaptation and who seem to be far better adjusted people than WC even if WN seems to suffer from near crippling social anxiety and stage fright. I personally think he has no idea how to parent because he was mostly raised by nannies and tutors and barely had any relation with his own parents if he had any so his idea of being a father is buying his children anything they ask for no matter how extravagant and having dinner with them once in a while.

Sorry for the rant but you're my favorite writer who writes WRH I just love the way you write him ❤️

Ahaha, 16 hours is indeed much too much, he needs to have time to work on his cultivation! I'm so happy you love the way I write him and I love hearing you talk about him, so thank you for sharing your thoughts with me!

I will confess I, too, have a soft spot for workaholic/insomniac Wen RuoHan. It’s a big sect and there is a lot to do! At the same time, I also have a soft spot for well-rested and idling Wen RuoHan who is purposefully kept oblivious to most things happening in his sect, either because other people are doing a good job taking care of it all, because they just don't want to look bad in front of the boss and so don't tell him, or both lol

To be honest, I don't see Wen RuoHan as someone who is that critical of people! I just don't see him dropping people simply because they make a mistake. The way he lightly jokes with Meng Yao after Meng Yao nearly gets himself killed is kind of something I can see Miranda Priestly doing though lol But she knows she's top brass and has the attitude for it. There is an arrogance about her that when she says something disparaging, it's really not a joke even if she might smile and laugh. By comparison, I don't think Wen RuoHan is nearly that arrogant or, if I may, that rude. I think politeness and proper manners are actually very important to him (and there is a whole essay in me about that lol). Wen RuoHan says "you good-for-nothing" only after Meng Yao was being self-deprecating, and then they laughed and carried on with Wen RuoHan going along with Meng Yao's ideas. Meng Yao's status doesn't falter in the slightest.

(So yes, The Devil Wears Prada is a great movie and I have definitely seen it!)

Instead of Wen RuoHan creating a toxic environment where he plays an active hand in making people fight for privileges and status, I can better see people around Wen RuoHan vying for his attention that it becomes a dog-eat-dog situation. It's like with the guest cultivator who threw Nie Dad under the bus. Wen RuoHan did not pose a question that needed to cause a sect-sect incident, but the guest cultivator made it into one. No one is quite sure why he would say such a thing, although one of the assumptions is that he said it simply to stand out and gain attention.

Although I may just have some rose-colored glasses on lol Wen RuoHan just kind of has that personality, to me, that draws people in. They see Wen RuoHan, recognize his power, and are like, "If I can have 5 minutes of his time, my whole life will change for the better." I do think Wen RuoHan thought he was making things better with his policies. The problem is that some bad people are taking advantage of this offer, and it in turn reflects badly on Wen RuoHan. I will say this though: I think there is some room to argue that Wen RuoHan does follow the teachings of Wen Mao.

For the record, I like to completely ignore what CQL did to the Wens, tbh LOL Wen RuoHan is Yikes, Wen Chao is more just evil asshole rather than pompous asshole, and Wen Qing and Wen Ning are like desolate orphans for some reason. I love the younger actors, acting, and the aesthetics (although white and red will always be Wen colors to me!) but the changes to their story line and their relationships with each other made a complete mess and I don't like to see it ;;

But man, I wish we knew, like, anything about Wen Xu! Wen Chao is absolutely spoiled though. Although one thing I like is how he's being given opportunities to practice leadership, management, and organization skills. He's the one arranging the Wen Sect team for the archery competition and he's put in charge of indoctrinating all the juniors when he himself is the same age as them. We see evidence that he's getting the right education and opportunities to maybe even become Sect Leader one day (Wen Xu, who are you!?), but we also know he's a rather rotten, arrogant person who seems to enjoy his power and privilege more than anything. Wen Chao is also the second son and we get a nice comparison with Nie HuaiSang, who also enjoys all the wealth and the pretty things of his station but doesn't want the responsibilities that come with it.

My headcanon is that Wen RuoHan adores children and is very good with them. I want to believe he was very good to Wen Xu, Wen Chao, Wen Qing, and Wen Ning. This is in part because every other parent in MDZS is awful so statistics says at least one of them needs to be good, so let's give it to Wen RuoHan LMAO

But for the actual teaching of said children, I can definitely see them being given tutors and Shifu and all that good stuff. Then when they have learned something, they show it off to Wen RuoHan, who I think is someone who likes seeing others learn and improve. I don't think utilizing nannies and tutors would make him a bad parent though! It might make him somewhat distant, however, which might explain why Wen Chao lies about killing the Tortoise of Slaughter. That would be a great way to get his father's attention! But it might not be because his father is distant. That lack of attention could also be because he's competing, as I mentioned before, with all the other people vying for Wen RuoHan's attention.

Considering Wen RuoHan gave Wen Chao his strongest bodyguard, a whole ton of disciples to lead, and opportunities to prove himself, I think Wen RuoHan is arguably a decent father. That Wen Chao was desperate to get back to him when it all went south shows that his father is someone he knows will protect him, which no other kid in the series (except Lan SiZhui who has the benefit of being from the next generation lol) ever displays. Considering how Wen RuoHan protected Meng Yao in the Sun Palace with Extreme Force, I like to think Wen RuoHan really doesn't mess around with the safety of his kids (with Meng Yao as honorary kid). Even Wen Qing and Wen Ning had ZERO fear running around as they did right after the massacre of Lotus Pier. No one and nothing is going to harm them--not with Wen RuoHan around.

(As a side note, Wen Qing said she wouldn’t be able to protect Wen Ning from Wen Chao if Wen Chao really wanted to kill him, but there is no mention of harm coming from Wen RuoHan. It really does sound like a sibling spat of “He’s going to fucking kill you when he finds out you ate his pudding and there is NOTHING I can do to stop him.”)

With all that said!! I really like your headcanon that Wen RuoHan wasn't close with his own parents and thus having no idea how to parent. It makes me sad, but in a good way lol So I'm definitely willing to run with you on it! Although I love the idea that Wen RuoHan is trying to be different than the generation before him. His parents weren't close to him, so he is close to his own children. He cultivated to a high level because no one was around to protect him, so he makes sure he's around to protect them. Wen ZhuLiu is an extension of Wen RuoHan and it shows when he protects Wen Chao, despite not liking the kid in the slightest.

So Wen Chao grows up spoiled and Wen Ning grows up fearless and Wen Qing grows up prideful because Wen RuoHan is just one letter away and no one wants to mess with Wen RuoHan.

[incarnadinedreams]

Probably pretty obvious just from looking at my obsessively Jiang Cheng-themed blog where I stand on him opinion-wise, but since I'm procrastinating on actual work this fine morning I'll see if I can beat some of my thoughts into some sort of coherency.

I'm primarily an English-language (translation) novel fan, though I have also watched the donghua. I actually haven't even watched The Untamed, though I've read about the changes the show made and of course seen some great gifsets etc. I do think that my perspective on him is colored a bit because of how I got into it in the first place. I'm a fan of a lot of dark/grimdark western fantasy novels; a friend of mine who is a native Mandarin speaker thought I'd like to check out MDZS because there's a necromancer in the book and there was a translation available. (Yeah I'm That Goth Bitch who plays a warlock or necromancer in every game that has one as a class option)

So when it comes to genre expectations, I'm here for a dark fantasy novel with a necromancer and some politics and a little torture and murder mystery whodunnit sprinkled on top to keep it spicy, and the romance element was more like a nice sub-plot. So I went into it with different expectations and interests and tastes than someone primarily here for a romance novel, and so my tolerance for Side Characters Speaking Slander Against the Main Couple is higher than it may be if I read it in a more romance-focused mindset.

The Yunmeng Shuangjie relationship was by far the most compelling part of the novel for me. And Jiang Cheng is the more interesting side of it to me, surprisingly, even though the whole reason I came here in the first place was sexy flute guy with zombies. What's that saying, come for the necromancy, stay for purple electro-whip bdsm? A lot of my early Jiang Cheng focus was actually because I saw people making some wild-ass claims on the MDZS subreddit about him and I was like "wait... that's just... not true, though?" and then sort of going back and compiling quotes and re-reading and learning more about various cultural/historical aspects of the setting, cultivation, etc. along the way.

Anyway, I kinda just liked Jiang Cheng straight away. He has so many of the funniest lines in the novel, or at least the translation. 'Now who is this renowned cultivator? Could someone please introduce him to me?' will never not be the funniest line in this whole damn book to me.

He's incredibly realistic and relatable to me. The depictions of his grief after the Lotus Pier massacre rang very true. He's generally practical, though of course imperfect; in particular, he's often painfully aware of political machinations yet still utterly unequipped to be able to change them. He never really struck me as unlikeable or horrible the way he does some people, which is again mostly a matter of taste. Much of what people point out, he's commenting bluntly (or cynically) on what is, not advocating one way or the other. (For example, his blunt commentary about Jin Guangyao's status)

One of the things I appreciate the most about Jiang Cheng's character is that he's not the cheerful sidekick that happily goes along with whatever the hero wants, no matter the sacrifice required of him. When faced with the choice to risk the sect becoming Wei Wuxian's collateral damage, he says no. He refuses. It's that delicious death-spiral of conflicting priorities, the way you can just feel the centrifugal force of it inevitably ripping them apart as the cracks that were there blow open... And that's why the cave scene in ch. 73 (the 'flower that blooms alone' conversation) is my favorite scene in the novel.

But despite his duty to his sect, he still is willing to risk death and other nasty things for Wei Wuxian - not only when he's captured by the Wens, but quite a few times before and after that, even in Guanyin Temple after everything between them is revealed. That sort of constant internal conflict between duty and love makes it spicy.

I gobble that shit up like fresh chicharrones tossed in cheese dust powder and hot sauce.

We all know Jiang Cheng is a controversial Character in the whole fandome where either many seem to hate or love him also there a few partys like me who does kind of both in some ways

But i want to know your Opinion about him and why you think the way you think

Feel free to be as bluntly honest as you can be

Please also write which view you take the most from novel,donghua,manhua,c-drama