#like reading this play and acting in it changed me so deeply and fundamentally

[trans-labyrinth]

thinking about her a lot today

why we have a body, Claire Chafee

[lunar-years]

okay. at risk of being too harsh on Ted...

I genuinely do not think he's a very good coach. And I do not mean that just in the obvious "well he doesn't even know anything about the sport he's head coach for" way, even though like, yeah, duh that really is a crucial point. I mean it in like, he's genuinely not as good at managing and delegating and working alongside his fellow coaches! The way he acts and the ways he manages the team so rarely feels...collaborative? I've been thinking about it a lot after reading posts from other blogs about how he constantly brushes off/ignores Beard's advice and also sends Jamie mixed messages and stuff and it's like. YEAH. It's all very "Ted makes the final decision" about everything and that's deeply goofy because Ted literally knows the least about the game out of all of them!!

We see him ignoring Beard's advice to bench Roy, and ignoring that Beard is actually trying to help the team win, as it is their job to do, until Beard finally snaps at him in s1. When he decides to reject Jamie he doesn't pause to consider it or discuss it with anyone, and even afterwards when he does have the coaches "take a vote" it feels...very performative? Like no matter what they said, it was always going to be Ted's decision in the end, and if they disagreed with what he'd already decided he wanted to do, he was just going to do it anyway.

Then he gets in Jamie's head about being a team player and passing the ball a to the point where it's actually hindering Jamie's role on the team and the strength of his performance. And even though Roy recognizes that, rather than going to Ted about it and making different suggestions, he comes up with the whole signal thing which in hindsight sort of feels...very much like Roy trying to package his complaint in a way that will be digestible to Ted's approval? Like, "oh we'll give him the signal so he doesn't feel bad about playing the way we need him to play. but ONLY when we give him the sign don't worry we'll still control it!" Instead of just being like Ted, look, I don't think your strategy for Jamie works at all and here's what we need to do instead.

It almost feels like none of the assistant coaches really feel comfortable questioning Ted's judgement...because he doesn't foster a space for them that welcomes that kind of feedback from them. Even with the Zava thing, he doesn't listen to Jamie, and Roy and Beard don't question it, BUT Roy offers to individually coach Jamie. Because Roy knows what's happening with Zava is bullshit, and he'd rather pull Jamie aside and deal with the problem himself in the way that he can, rather than talk to the head coach about how it's bullshit. And the ONE time Beard and Roy go off and try something against Ted's wishes (showing the Nate video), it massively backfires and they scramble over themselves to apologize while Ted feels even more vindicated in never valuing their input. It's like a never ending cycle of bad management. and the WORST part is that Ted will TELL them he wants to know their thoughts and hear their strategies, but then he doesn't follow it or he just goes off and does his own thing, so it results in like...a level of unintentional condescension, I think.

At the end of the day, I do not think Ted has bad intentions or is going into this stuff intending to walk over the other coaches, but it happens because his purpose and goal for the team is fundamentally misaligned with what the other coaches value. Ted wants to make the team better by changing the culture at Richmond (at least until he checks out and loses interest in even that) and Beard & Roy (& Nate) want to focus on helping them win matches. I also DO think there's something in all of this that could have been a very compelling major factor in Nate's downward s2 spiral. I've always said that to me the most lackluster part of Nate's arc was not his redemption but his downfall--which had a basis that was severely under-explored onscreen. When he leaked Ted's panic attacks, it felt so severe and sudden a leap because there wasn't enough to back up Nate's headspace throughout the season, even thought the basis is THERE. The foundation for Nate feeling ignored as a coach and having his input constantly undervalued is THERE. They just don't ever let the characters properly explore it, or god forbid allow Ted to reckon with how he's ostracized all of his coaches to some extent.

[broodwoof]

cole—spirit or human? 

this, like all my meta, is just my personal feelings or interpretation: I am not trying to claim any kind of objective correctness, or to dismiss those who feel otherwise. I remember conversations about cole being somewhat strained so I'm hoping ppl aren't going to be super weird on this post. 

so—cole. I've played both routes and I actually enjoy both of them, but I'm strongly inclined towards making him more of a spirit, and my reasoning comes down to three primary aspects: 1) respecting cole’s autonomy and his choices up to this point, 2) acceptance of an “other” way of being as equally valid to a “human” way of being, and 3) making him more human feels weirdly to me like asking him to replace the real cole in full rather than be himself

1—respecting his autonomy.

cole states early on that he became more of who he was and less human, and that it lets him help. that's a choice he made. on a personal level, even though he's just pixels, I find it deeply uncomfortable to unmake the choice he made about his nature. I understand that he's shown as happy and fulfilled regardless of which path you choose, which is part of why I like both, but this is why I prefer the spirit path: making him more human feels, to me, like the inky is making him more… palatable. or like the game is giving a “comfortable to the player” option. I felt this way when I first played dai when it was new, and I continue to feel this way now

he is happy in both and that's nice, and i like that there's no strong delineation of a right v. wrong choice. at the same time, i've always gotten the sense that cole wants to be more spirit—maybe not because it brings him joy or satisfies him, it could well be that he just believes he will be more useful/functional as a spirit, but even making "bad" decisions (which i don't think this one is, but for the sake of argument) is an individual's right and part of their autonomy

2—acceptance of an “other” way of being as equally valid to a “human” one

in a watsonian, in-text view (which does tend to be my approach), I think it's very important to accept the personhood of spirits, even when they're so fundamentally different. spirit!cole forgets things, can erase negative experiences, etc.—there's a lack of what we'd see as typical growth and maturity going on there, but I'd argue that we can't really effectively apply human (or “mortal” ig, bc elves, dwarves, qunari…) norms to a spirit. 

cole as a spirit of compassion is the way a spirit is supposed to be. the way a spirit is supposed to be is not the way a mortal is supposed to be. and to me, it does feel like his preference throughout the game is to act as a spirit. he stays "pure" and "clean," and that allows him to help without becoming corrupted or changed. it's tempting—and not wrong—to view this through a human lens and to find it unhealthy for him, but i tend to defer to solas' explanations of how spirits are in this case. they can easily be corrupted because they are a Single Thing. that is their nature. wisdom is wisdom; changed by perception, expectation, memory, or pain, it becomes something fundamentally different. spirits are malleable in a way mortals are not

3—replacing the “real” cole 

tbf, this one isn't really supported by anything in game, just a personal discomfort. but he “became” cole after the young man's death. honestly, I find that a little uncomfortable, but I can understand it: the textual “simplicity”/purity of spirits makes sense of that kind of reaction to compassion’s “failure,” its inability to help the real cole (according to its own standards where help=fix: it did help the real cole by being there) 

so, to me, it reads a little like you're confirming that direction when you have cole become more human. ik it's not presented that way, but yeah, personally just makes me uncomfortable bc it feels like I'm encouraging cole to view himself as a replacement of the real cole 

spirits can come back, but they are the sentiment that gave rise to it in the first place, not the individual being itself. compassion taking on cole's name in the first place feels like that to me, but becoming more human feels like it's taking it a step too far. bc then cole becomes a young man who's taken on the face and name of a dead man and it's… it's a lot. for him to grapple with down the line, for the people around him, for everyone. but as a spirit, that kind of behavior feels more like a way of recognizing and respecting the being that came before 

and of course, cole isn't 100% either—he's more human or more spirit. so it's fair to say that it'd still be a sign of respect and acknowledgement of the real cole even if he becomes more human, it doesn't turn automatically into a Bad Thing, and the complexity can honestly be fascinating to explore, bc i imagine as more-human he will develop some complex feelings about all of it

[bobbole]

Playing with dolls: the Corinthian and "this dream people call Human Life" - part I

Written for The Sandman Book Club

Since at The Sandman Book Club we are re-reading The Doll's House, and since the first chapter of this story marks the entry of the Corinthian, I would like to dwell on some of the distinctive traits of this character, how he is the embodiment of one of the great symbols of American and Western pop mythology (the serial killer) and how the netflix adaptation, while excellent, has completely deprived him of precisely those elements that made him so distinctive, while enhancing other important aspects.

Murderer vs. Killer, or when killing is a "work of art"

In The Dreaming, the spin-off series immediately following the canonical Sandman, there is a panel that I think is emblematic in defining what the Corinthian is, even before his being nightmare, black mirror, etc

Judging Cain like he's on Dancing with the Stars

There is a passage in which the Corinthian states that Cain is definitely a murderer, but not a very good killer. This because the word murderer here is linked to a primordial concept of homicide. Yes, Cain is the first murderer, but his act is something instinctual, part of his nature. Cain kills because he cannot do anything else and murder for him is an inevitable act, demonstrating his being part of a story from whose narrative he does not escape.

For the Corinthian, on the other hand, killing theoretically is not in his nature: he is after all a nightmare, which must terrify, unsettle, reflect the deepest fears and secrets of the human subconscious. A means to an end, not the end itself. For the Corinthian, killing is a deliberate act by which he tries to carve out a space of his own within a predetermined story.

The serial killer is a planner: in the Corinthian mind, an artist too. Even the fact that he appears on the scene not already in his nightmare function but primarily in that of being ready to kill a young man leaves no doubt about it: the Corinthian, in the way he perceives himself, is first and foremost a serial killer/artist.

This is not Vogue: comics vs show

In the netflix Sandman, episode one, the Corinthian has sensed that Dream is free. He wipes off the blood from his eyes and stands up, sensually stroking the head of his...victim? It would be better to say a model without eyes. Death here is not horror: there is something glamorous about this scene that irritates me deeply, not least because we are watching it from a spectator's pov, comfortable in our chairs. We are in a hotel room but the space is open, and the screen of the devices from which we are watching the episode gives us

1) an escape route

2) a way to dilute the horror of the scene (there is always hope if there is an escape route)

This Corinthian is elegant and sensual. He could disturbs us, if he wants, but definitely he's not scary.

Let's compare the netflix scene with the comic. First, fundamental change: the reader's pov, which coincides exactly with that of the Corinthian. We do not see the Corinthian in the panels, and we will not see him until after a long time. We look at the scene through his eyes, we read the words through his voice. From this perspective, it's as if behind the glasses, together with him, we were there, an active part of this crime.

Paradoxically, this scene should be less scary than the one in the TV show. There is no blood and the boy still has his eyes. But we perceive his terror, we see him tied up and helpless like a doll. We see his pimply face making ugly grimaces of fear (in the netflix episode the victim's face is perfect). There is no hope for this boy and while he begs for mercy in vain we brandish, together with the Corinthian, the knife that will kill him. There is no sensuality, there is no seduction, there is no sex here (better, sex and death are the same thing but I will return to the relationship between death and sexuality in the second part of this little essay). We are in a room with no escape, the scene in front of us is dirty, not at all glamorous, in which we readers are actively participating. This Corinthian is fucking scary.

The waking world: a big doll's house to play in

This title takes on a different meaning depending on the various characters involved in this Sandman story. From my point of view, I believe that the characters who most of all are linked to the concept of a doll's house are Unity and the Corinthian.

Unity appears near an old doll house, and her clothes are also similar to those of an old doll

Unity was literally a doll for most of her life: her condition was caused by an external event and external people decided about her life, including her motherhood.

The Corinthian doll and the surrealist doll of Hans Bellmer: both obscene and disturbing toys

The Corinthian, on the other hand, is a sort of doll maker and the dolls are the human beings he kills and whose physiognomy he transforms with his knife.

This last thing is perhaps one of the elements that most differentiates the netflix Corinthian from the one in the comic. The Boyd Corinthian is almost a romantic character, a bohémien eager to savor human life in every sense, moved by contrasts and ambiguities that make him decidedly more similar to the Second Corinthian of the comic than to the First. He looks at humanity with a curiosity that is sometimes almost paternalistic: ruthless, but not cruel. He embodies a type of socially well-integrated serial killer, the "unsuspected type", who knows how to contain his impulses when necessary. Most important, with him sex is not always synonymous with death.

The Corinthian of comics, on contrary, never escapes this binomial: in him, sex and death are always intrinsically linked because they are the same thing. He is always cruel and brutal, seeing humans as meat to be cut. Humanity is nothing but fresh clay in his artist's hands: shaped dolls to play with in his new dark stories.

[inhonoredglory]

i dont know if you partake in any of the doctor who comics at all - i certainly dont. i like keeping my sanity safe (its a mess of strange stories and paradoxes from what ive been able to tell. as are most comic series). but recently there was one that elaborated a bit on rose and the metacrisis’s life post journeys end, and its one of the few pieces of media we have for them. i didnt care enough to read the whole thing, the only interesting part to me was apparently they had a little girl named mia, and ive been thinking abt that dynamic nonstop since. cant decide how realistic it is for them, but on the otherside augh its so sweet. anyway, i just wanted to ask how you feel about rose and the metacrisis in general, and whatever that entails. curious abt ur thoughts on them!

- armin anon/lesbian anon/whatever you feel like calling me lol

OMGG my anon (of many names lol)! OK first off, I drafted some of this way back but forgot to add on and post, so in the words of our beloved Doctor,

🌹 But onto the DW comics and Meta-Crisis/Rose!!

I only recently started reading the comics, starting with the ones about Gabby Gonzalez by Nick Abadzis, and I have to admit:

They make me yearn pretty fucking hard to run away and travel with the Doctor. There's some killer art by Elena Casagrande that feels so much like the Doctor we know and love (that kindness, that earnest love.... god!! my heart and soul!!).

But I warn ye (any readers of this post), DO NOT TOUCH Volume 2 by Robbie Morrison. He takes Ten blatantly out of character, making him out to be an arrogant bastard who belittles his companion and is flippant in the face of suffering. (Morrison watched too much Eleven, methinks 🙈)

I haven't read the Rose/Meta-Crisis comic yet (part of the Empire of the Wolf series), but I did see the important panel from that series, showing Rose's daughter Mia:

I think the Meta-Crisis settling down to have a family with Rose is pretty in-character and very much what the Tenth Doctor would have wanted, as much as it hurt him.

Because Ten fundamentally felt unworthy of Rose.

💔 The Doctor's Trauma

Rose was strong and compassionate and amazing, and Ten had done so much, seen so much, experienced so much tragedy and guilt. He's a man wrecked by PTSD, depression, shame, and self-blame. He felt like it wasn't fair to her that she'd sacrifice her life to someone who would go on living and changing and becoming a different person, while she grew old and died in a world without a home and away from everyone she knew.

He didn't want her to become like him, homeless and without the love of friends and family, because to be him is to be alone. And he didn't want that for her. Because he wanted her to be happy, not just momentarily, but for the rest of her life.

Ten is a man who loathes taking life, and it weighs on him every time someone sacrifices who they are because they love him.

It's no surprise Ten's entire decision about the Meta-Crisis took place after Davros massively guilt-tripped him into thinking it was his fault that all those people died. (It wasn't.) But Davros played on Ten's depression and trauma, manipulating Ten into thinking he had done unforgivable things to the people he loved. (when in fact those people died because they were inspired to be selfless like him, or were killed someplace beyond the Doctor's reach)

I've actually been doing a lot of research on Ten's trauma (including invaluable insight from Judith Lewis Herman's famous book Trauma and Recovery). This journal article about Major Depressive Disorder speaks so deeply to Ten's character, especially post-Time War and post-Davros:

"Guilt promotes altruistic behavior via acting out reparative tendencies, whereas shame reduces altruism by means of increasing social and interpersonal distance."

This explains so much about Ten's choice to sacrifice his own happiness and ask Rose to take his Meta-Crisis as her life partner. He's pushing her away, isolating himself. He's rejecting the people he loves the most because he's in a very, very dark place.

🖤🤍💜 An Asexual (Meta) Reading

There's so many reasons that Ten felt he couldn't give Rose the life she wanted (his trauma, his values). There's one angle I've been sifting around in my head in the past couple years, and it's more of a headcanon than anything: For me, because of the way the Doctor's character has been established since 1963, the Doctor's own asexuality is an almost meta-conceptual reason why the Doctor in general can't have a "normative," family life.

He couldn't say "I love you"—not because he didn't love her. (He loved her more than he ever loved himself.) But also because he knew what saying those words would mean: the expectations, the responsibility, the behaviors he felt she deserved to have from him because those words carry so much weight in human culture. All those things he could not give her.

But the Meta-Crisis could. I personally headcanon that the Meta-Crisis is not asexual like the Doctor. (Just like John Smith may not have been asexual either.) The point of both John Smith and the Meta-Crisis is showing how much they differ from the Doctor—and I think sexuality is one of those differences. It's why it was so easy for John Smith to imagine a traditional life, why it was so easy for the Meta-Crisis to promise his entire world and his entire self to Rose on that beach.

🌹 The Meta-Crisis and Rose Tyler

Which brings me back to the Tentoo himself. He was born in battle and he can die, but what does that exactly mean for his life with Rose? It's fascinating because to imagine the Doctor feeling mortality and knowing he cannot cheat death anymore—that's a horrific, terrifying thing.

There are actually two Big Finish Audios that explore this traumatic realization for the Doctor, and what that does to him. (They're both one-shots from Jackie's POV and narration, and you can listen to them here: Part 1, Part 2).

It makes Tentoo lean into his Ninth-era darkness, a ruthlessness to villains driven by the fear that he cannot protect Rose because he is not indestructible. But luckily for him, there are people he loves around him (Jackie and Rose) who keep him from that darkness.

Additionally, the Big Finish stories lean into the fact that Tentoo and Rose aren't sitting idly by. Both of them work for Torchwood and are growing their own TARDIS to continue to defend the Earth.

They don't settle down into a domestic life, at least not right away, and I think that suits them both. We know how much Rose didn't want the life of eating chips and watching telly. But listen to what RTD's Doctor Who has always tried to say: How deeply important the everyday things are, how much the Doctor, for how amazing they are, craves for a life of simplicity and the stupid little things that define humanity.

Because here's the key: It wasn't the everyday things that bothered Rose. Like she told Mickey in "Parting of the Ways":

ROSE: But what do I do every day, mum? What do I do? Get up, catch the bus, go to work, come back home, eat chips and go to bed? Is that it? MICKEY: It's what the rest of us do. ROSE: But I can't! MICKEY: Why, because you're better than us? ROSE: No, I didn't mean that. But it was. It was a better life. And I don't mean all the travelling and seeing aliens and spaceships and things. That don't matter. The Doctor showed me a better way of living your life. You know he showed you too. That you don't just give up. You don't just let things happen. You make a stand. You say no. You have the guts to do what's right when everyone else just runs away

Rose didn't hate the domestic, everyday life. She hated how life had no meaning.

She hated how people let things happen to them, without challenging anything or standing up for anything. She didn't want to travel as much as she wanted to live, to be something and do something with her life.

And that's the magic of Doctor Who, particularly RTD's era. Because you can be amazing and you can have meaning even without the Doctor, but the Doctor shows you how.

You stand up for what you believe is right and you choose to give meaning to what you do in life. You don't need to travel the stars to do that. You can make choices that give your life meaning right here and now. You can believe in something. You can find meaning in your place in the universe. You can give your enthusiasm and time to something that is important. Meaning and purpose comes from how we see the world, and that change in perspective is what Rose finds with the Doctor.

If Rose is with someone who can fill her life with meaning, who inspires her to see life as a beautiful adventure, then it really doesn't matter what she's doing with them. In The Impossible Planet, Rose was completely willing to settle down with Ten to "find a planet, get a job, live a life, same as the rest of the universe." Why? Because she'd be with him.

ROSE: This lot said they'd give us a lift. DOCTOR: And then what? ROSE: I don't know. Find a planet, get a job, live a life, same as the rest of the universe.

If I imagine Tentoo as a dad, I can't help but imagine him like Tennant himself. Kind, giving, selfless, and loving. I think Tentoo would be so afraid of letting someone hurt his child, because he hasn't had a family in so long, and he isn't the same man he was in those ancient days when, as a completely different man, he had a family.

He's a man still afraid of himself, still keenly aware of the inhuman things he's capable of. I think this fear would drive Rose and him closer together, like it did when he was Nine. But Tentoo is more self-aware now, more willing to grow and change and be different. Because he's the Doctor who was given a second chance, to live the life he thought he'd never have with the person he loves. He wants to be different to make this work.

I also think Tentoo would be the Doctor who passes on his title after he's gone. Not that I like to think about Tentoo dying one day, but let's be real: Where would his TARDIS go? As a half-human, I think Tentoo could imagine Mia taking on the role of Defender of the Earth when he and Rose have passed on. She would have been there to see it grow, and she would have been there when Tentoo and Rose first stepped out into the stars with this brand-new TARDIS. Because of his mortality, I think it would make Tentoo more open to sharing the secret, sacred things of his Gallifreyan people with the family he chose to start. He's not alone anymore, he has someone to share it with, someone who will pass it on after him and keep the world safe in his stead.

Which is all to say, I think it's a gift that Rose has the Meta-Crisis. Because when Ten regenerated and became, as he said, a completely different man, she was able to stay with the person she fell in love with and explore what that life was like, to have him with her for all of her life, and all of his.

[wutheringheightsfilm]

I'm wondering how the progression of wx will look in odd geometry compared to canon (as in, they get together sooner? different dynamics?), and if/how the elemental magic is used in complementing each other. sorry this is super specific im just like. what about the wangxian 👀

HOT DOG. well :) let me crack my knuckles here this is gonna probably be a long answer!! i'll go bit by bit here...

to be honest, odd geometry is a huge divergence from canon. i have four fundamental things that change the story in absolutely huge ways, being:

elemental magic (obvi)

wei wuxian wasn't raised in lotus pier/as part of yunmeng jiang

wei wuxian doesn't die at the siege of the burial mounds thus isn't dead for 13/16 years and have to be resurrected

i have the sunshot campaign begin later than it does in canon. at the start of the story, all of the characters are slightly older; as in, i've aged all of wei wuxian's generation up to be closer to my age (most of them are in their early 20s) and adjusted their older siblings/the older generations accordingly (so, for example, jiang cheng is 20, wei wuxian is 20, and jiang yanli is 22)*

*so this means that classes at the cloud recesses still would have happened when everyone was 15, but the sunshot campaign just doesn't begin until jiang cheng, wei wuxian, and lan wangji are 20

which, it is so fun to play around with the implications of all that but it's also challenging. SO, how all of this impacts wangxian...

so just by virtue of what's going on here (namely wwx not being dead for over a decade) they definitely do get together sooner. since wei wuxian wasn't raised in lotus pier, he doesn't attend the classes at gusu when everyone in his generation were teens, he doesn't meet lan wangji until they're both 20 at the wen indoctrination camp (which through a series of events, wei wuxian gets roped into sneaking into attend).

as for their dynamics, there's layers to this!

because of how wei wuxian has grown up, there are two things: 1) his personality is not the exact same as it is in canon--how could it be, when he's grown up in such different circumstances?--however, his core traits are the same: he's still inventive, clever, and creative, he's still extremely compassionate and cares deeply about justice, especially for those who are disenfranchised, he still has an extremely strong (to the point of, at times, it being debilitating) sense of duty and a habit of putting others before himself, and being secretive and at times repressive about his emotions. he just doesn't act as...idk, childish? as he might in the show or the novel. he's a bit more grounded, a bit more serious.

because of that, i think it's maybe a bit easier for lan wangji to be more open with wei wuxian, or to accept his friendship sooner. they aren't such polar opposites as they seem in early in the show/in the novel.

2) there are slightly different class dynamics here that actually make a huge difference: wei wuxian didn't grow up in lotus pier and was not raised within polite cultivation society. no matter how much of an outcast madam yu made wei wuxian feel by trying to alienate him from her "real" family, he still was generally accepted by Society at large and was looked at and mostly treated with respect. he still gets called gongzi, and within yunmeng jiang called da-shixiong,--though, of course, coming from some people it can be read as sarcastic... i highly doubt wen chao was calling him wei-gongzi out of any sort of respect--and is overall accepted. of course, people still try to ostracize him for his status, but the cultivation world at large doesn't actively bully him much (and in all honesty, they don't really bully him at all while jiang fengmian was still alive) until he does something they don't like. apart from a few scenarios, wei wuxian wasn't given the disdain that you might expect the son of a servant to receive---honestly, i sort of wish class was talked about more in regards to mdzs and cql because it really does fascinate me. wei wuxian occupies such an interesting space within the cultivation world and i wish people discussed it more.

in my fic, though, since he wasn't raised within lotus pier and was never brought into the yunmeng jiang sect, he doesn't have the fallback of jiang cheng and jiang yanli being able to officially call him their brother--not yet, anyway. he doesn't have a sect leader to point to and be like, "i've been accepted by someone of experience and reown" and have the support that can come from that. he and lan wangji have been raised in very different spheres, and it changes how they interact with each other. there's an extra layer of formality that they now have to chip through. it's no longer lan wangji being extra formal towards someone of exactly equal standing towards him, there's now an extra layer that they have to reckon with. of course, wei wuxian is still lan wangji's equal in every way that matters--they are still the same age, they are still both incredibly talented with their areas of cultivation and respective fighting styles, they both have a mutual respect (and eventually love) for each other etc etc, they just don't belong to the same circles of society and this has to be dealt with.

of course, when the sunshot campaign is over and wei wuxian will have assisted the rebellion against the wens in winning, his status changes. he will be respected, if not feared, because eventually the cultivation world will figure out what he's able to do and fear it being used against them.

which brings us to their elemental magic and how that affects their dynamic as well !! AHHH!!!

so, wei wuxian can control qi (i can clarify any questions you or anyone else might have about this if needed) and lan wangji's affinity is water. at the beginning of the story, wei wuxian pretends to also have an affinity with water, and claims he heals with it--this backfires on him hard during xuanwu cave, when he has to heal lan wangji's broken leg and obviously, as someone with an affinity for water, lan wangji would know what healing someone using water is like and this is not it.

ultimately, wei wuxian is a healer. that is his favorite thing to do, it is what he prefers to do---despite having the powers he does (which, for a while, even he doesn't fully understand), and the demonic cultivation he will be able to do, he doesn't actually enjoy using his qi controlling abilities negatively on people much. he will do it if he has to, and will definitely enjoy using it to enact revenge on people who deserve it, but at the end of the day, he just wants to help and heal people.

i honestly think this suits lan wangji's temperament quite nicely--they would make a very good team, what with lan wangji's habit of going "wherever the chaos is" and helping people out with resentful spirits and night hunts.

even in the original odd geometry from 5 years ago, they were never opposing elements--though that would certainly be interesting LMAO!!!

as a reward for getting thru all of that... i shall leave you with... A SNIPPET <3

(from chapter 5, time is the movement of grief. context: this is at lotus pier, post xuanwu cave) He looked up, and saw Lan Wangji. Wei Wuxian moved over on the dock to make room for him to sit, which he did, cross-legged so he wouldn’t get wet. They sat in comfortable silence for a while, listening to the crickets. The golden light of the setting sun made Lan Wangji look devastatingly beautiful. It took Wei Wuxian’s breath away. When Lan Wangji turned his head and met Wei Wuxian’s eyes, there was nothing Wei Wuxian wanted to do more than kiss him in that moment. It was a startling thought. He looked away as calmly as he could. 

THANK YOU FOR ASKING COR I REALLY LOVED ANSWERING THIS!!!!!

[possibilistfanfiction]

Genuine question, how did you figure out or realize the whole being butch thing? What does being butch mean to you?

idk if it was like… figure out? more so just putting a name to something i’ve always felt or known about myself. i came out as a lesbian, then i came out as nb, then i was like well i want gender affirming care so that must mean i am Trans™️, & it’s like… none of those words or kind of… vibes (lol sorry) quite fit? i don’t feel like a cis lesbian, & i actually kind of despise non-binary as a concept (don’t send asks abt this i won’t answer them lol, do ur own thing if u love it that’s cool); i think for me personally Transness is a little too serious & intense & limiting to how i feel. & im a white afab person in a smaller body, & honestly…….. we are often the wooooorst demographic of trans ppl lmao so i just didn’t even rly like some spaces i was in. i got the most important gender affirming care i wanted, i moved & i got married, i got to work remotely etc

& so just sitting with all of that it was like. ok well a lot of neoliberal queer spaces piss me the fuck off; i’m not cis, but i’m not TRANS in the way a lot of ppl (very validly) feel; i do Not like nb. i’d read stone butch blues before, i have a degree in critical theory where i worked a loooot w queer theory, obviously i’ve written abt queerness for ages lol. so then i was just like ah. butch. dyke. YAH! sweet. 100/10 feels amazing i love it

& i think for me i love those words most bc they’re rooted in really radical belief that i have. they carry an ethic with them that, at its best & most intersectional ofc, i want to act on, all the time. i want to show up for people & be protective & tough & strong but i also so deeply want to be nurturing & nourishing. i want to allow myself to be nourished & cared for. i think it feels rly wonderful to have a word for transgressive gender that sums it all up bc people lived it before me. they made that very specific & particular space to experience femininity in a way that doesn’t feel like a noose.

i think also butchness is so expansive! something that never sat right w me abt the way we talk abt transness in the west is that i don’t think there are ‘pre’ & ‘post’ transition selves. like… i’ve never been Not Me? like i came out of the womb a dyke. all i did my entire childhood is run around in the mountains, catalogue leaves, play w my dog, read nancy drew, & avidly watch + play any women’s soccer i could. i loved to fish & mountain bike, i grew up in the desert so gardening to me was a miracle. i never cared abt gender at all beyond like ‘well i guess i’m a girl & the women i admire just won a world cup, they’re badass’ & that was it. i liked boys clothes bc they were practical & felt better, but i just. didn’t think about it. ppl called me a tomboy which was fine, i liked scout in to kill a mockingbird so whatever. but i never felt “non-binary” & i certainly never felt like a boy.

& i am… still just like that lmao. i hated my boobs, point blank day 1 lol, but that doesn’t have to mean i’m trans, or that i’ve somehow changed in a way that requires separation from who i’ve been my whole life. i HATE the language of ‘dead/lived’ name; i hate the weird expectation that u should allow the state to have all of ur gender stuff on record (no fucking thank you, y’all can keep my legal name & i will be flying under the radar lol). so i think western transness rly just. irritates me. doesn’t fit. hasn’t ever fit.

so butchness is like. i am 8 year old jude, i’m just older now. if this makes sense ur butch lmao but. it’s this rly free space to play w masculinity in a way that doesn’t necessitate western transness, & also doesn’t necessitate a separation from maternalism, which i fundamentally believe in. i don’t even rly think of my own care as “gender affirming” & more just like… essence affirming. i didn’t want top surgery so my body could be read as male; i wanted it so i could look like me. i want my clothes to feel & fit in a Very particular way bc that’s how i like them. it’s abt practicality, efficiency, comfort.

& lastly to me butchness has a remarkable space for tenderness that masculinity on its own just cannot hold. like. it’s abt being protective & strong, sure, but it’s in service of others. always always always. so sometimes that looks like communicating calmly, sometimes that looks like infinite small acts of service for ur friends or ur partner. when i think of settling into myself it’s more about returning to who i knew i was when i was a kid, when i was the only person my dog liked & how it felt to sit on the swings when the sun was setting after the monsoon; it’s allowing myself to love like that — caring, & quiet, & full.

ultimately to me butchness is about devotion, more than anything in the world. devoted to safety, devoted to community. no one is devoted the way dykes are bc it’s how we survive. it’s how we have always survived — the steadfastness, the faith, the joy, even thru suffering, to not be boxed in. to help each other. to be funny & kind & thoughtful & not reject the absolute best parts of womanhood for the sake of a western box. to demand care. it’s so beautiful. devotion.

tldr it’s the best

[gamesception]

Let's read rgu, chapter 15

Last time Miki & Utena refused to duel, so Touga(?) kidnapped Kozue and threatened to not return her unless Miki challenged Utena and wins, and now he's also saying they can't get Kozue back unless Utena fights for real with the power of Dios.

This is stupid. "I won't give Kozue back unless Miki wins, but you also can't have her back unless Utena wins". Utterly contradictory, completely muddled, and all to set up a duel with theoretically high stakes but also absolutely zero meaning behind it, because there's no real conflict between Utena and Miki to play out in allegorical conflict. This is literally Dawn of Justice tier writing, in that it's literally what happened in BvS Dawn of Justice, and for exactly the same reason - the good guys have to fight because cheap drama, but the writer can't think of any reason why, so I guess the bad guy just kidnaps and threatens a family member so they have to.

I've complained a lot about the manga being /different/ from the anime, not because the manga was bad but because I just liked what the anime did better. But this is different. This is just bad.

So they fight.

And Utena summons the power of dios

and miki loses

And Kozue is rescued.

But shock! It wasn't Touga who kidnapped Kozue, but Anthy! Presumably acting on the previously mentioned letter from EotW.

That's... kind of a twist, I guess. Though it could still be Touga's doing - he did fake just such a letter in the anime.

This doesn't really change my feelings about the entire set up. Whether it was Touga kidnapping Kozue or EotW acting through Anthy, either way there was still no actual reason for Utena and Miki to fight, so the fight itself - even if the art for it was very cool - feels meaningless.

Especially - and I'm sorry to keep doing this - but especially compared to the anime, where Miki's fights were some of the most meaningful in terms of characters and core themes - Miki's idealized fantasy of his sister projected onto Anthy leading up to the first duel foreshadowing Utena's own failure to comprehend how deeply Anthy was committed to being the rose bride, and in the second duel the way miki is distraction when Anthy doesn't explicitly reject Kozue's sexual advances leading to his loss reveals his fundamental failure as a prince & how he could never save Anthy. Just like he looks down on and rejects his sister for failing to live up to his childish princess ideal by being 'sexually impure', he'd fail to stick by anthy when inevitably confronted with her relationship with / abuse by Akio.

That's a lot going on! And not even all of it, like before the first duel, after talking with Utena, Miki parrots exactly her criticisms of the rose duels to the student council, and it comes off as childish since he's just imitating Utena rather than actually understanding the ideals he's professing, but that only highlights how Utena herself is just imitating her prince, and will inevitably have her own convictions tested.

And there's so little going on with manga Miki so far. If the manga had time for two more arcs, maybe we'd eventually fill in some more, actually flesh out and do something more interesting with these versions of the characters to fill up space if nothing else but I'm on chapter 15 out of 27, more than half way through, so I don't have a lot of hope for that.

Unless my source is incomplete, but if that's the case I'm /really/ not sure what I'll do.

Anyway Touga says something cryptic & leaves while Utena yells at him.

Unlike me, the scanlator must have thought all of this was very impressive and dramatic because the whole issue is scanned in double page spreads. It's certainly very well drawn, the panels are good, it would have been a cool fight scene if it meant anything. The art is fantastic.

As much as I actively dislike the scenario for this duel, and don't feel the twist at the end fixed it, at least it's maybe a reason to finally have a real conversation between manga Anthy and Utena? Please?

Changing Chuchu to look a bit more like his anime design. Honestly, I thought the manga design was fine, I liked floofier chuchu.

We are maybe getting that frank conversation though.

It's not much, but this does seem to be the first time manga Anthy is realizing Utena actually thinks of her as a person.

Anyway, Anthy has another EotW letter, this one for Utena, asking her to meet him in the rose garden. Akio reveal?

But no. It's Touga. Now I really am convinced that we're doing the 'fake letters' thing.

But that's where the chapter ends. Sorry for all the complaining and not a lot of other commentary. I didn't much care for the manga Juri or her duel, and while I don't mind Manga miki I liked his duel even less. But the manga has been about Touga the whole time, so I'm actually looking forward to his duel / duels. There's enough going on with him - especially if he faked one or more of the letters - for a fight with Touga to actually mean something.

[msvorderofoperations]

More dream journaling

I was living with my family again, but we were in the midst of packing everything to move. We were moving because the home we currently were in was haunted...I think. Details were vague at this point, and there were definitely other factors in play. Once everything was packed away, we were deciding what to do to kill some time because the move was happening the next day. The idea of seeing a movie is floated, and we happen to be right next to a theatre.

We go to see a movie (I think it was TMNT: Mutant Mayhem, of all things) and as we're filing into the theatre, I see a content creator whose work I used to follow (The Spoony One, if you're familiar). And it also just so happens that a group meetup for the Rooster Teeth community is happening at the same time. After the movie is over, I get recognized by someone who is documenting the whole event. They then pivot the narrative to talk about my contributions to the community, which were not numerous but were very significant. I had fundamentally changed the meta of several of the games that the community played and/or created. I created a style of sign off in a community content driven show that a lot of people ended up using. I made a bunch of animations using assets provided by Rooster Teeth and other members of their forums that a lot of people found inspirational. It is worth noting at this point that none of the things I was being cited as influencing actually exist, but it carried a very powerful feeling of being real.

And after all of this deeply moving and happy reminiscing, I then run into a former friend that I cut off some years ago. He has changed very much as a person, but along the lines of why I had to distance myself from him. He is deeply bitter about the fact that I stopped being in touch with him, and has made hating me a big part of his identity and he has a whole group of people with him dedicated to the same. He doesn't even ask why I stopped hanging out with him, but just assumes that everything was done out of malice. But as he does in real life, everything he says and does is passive. Snide remarks and heckling are all he can muster.

Not wanting to put an end to the "this is your life" style presentation the Rooster Teeth documentarion has put together, it continues despite my former friends interruptions. It then moves to the times long before I joined the RT forums, where I had done things like enter robot fighting tournaments, been tech support for a lot of people, and built my own computers and laptops, all while being in elementary school. It even goes into how I railed against and maliciously complied with disciplinary efforts made by the schools I was in at the time that were downright dystopian. All of these things were done with style and panache that I absolutely did not have as an early child, much less as an adult in real life. As none of the people who will read this will know, I did not do any of the things being showcased in this dream, apart from cutting off my friend. I don't doubt there are a few people who miss my presence on the Rooster Teeth site, but I was first and foremost a lurker, and only posted very occasionally. And it was never anything as ornate and involved as the things being remembered here. All the same, I was deeply awash in nostalgia for the early internet, and this is something that has happened a couple of times in my recent dreams.

Once the whole remembrance had wrapped, I was asked to join in on the rest of the day's events. As I did, slipping back into old behaviours felt as natural as breathing and as comfortable as a pair of perfectly sized gloves. The entire time I felt so at home and complete that I began to wonder why I had ever left. In reality, I stopped being part of the community because the staff (in ways I was never able to confirm or really even investigate beyond hearsay and second-hand accounts) had mistreated a number of my friends. I will not go into details as I don't actually know for certain that these things happened, and this was many years ago at this point.

All while this is happening, my former friend is standing at the sidelines and endlessly shittalking. At this point I take him aside and go over why I stopped being around him (he was entirely passive about everything in his life and would never take any actions to improve or change his situation and I couldn't be around someone like that even in my 20s), and why I think he needs to move on from me to start growing as a person. He finally relents and leaves to do some reevaluation of his life.

The idea that having this single conversation and fully changing someone's life is egotistical to the point of narcissism, but I won't deny that the idea of getting closure on this whole thing felt very satisfying. And around this time, I woke up.

[virginiathegray]

So context bc everyone approaches these characters from a different angle and I don't know that I even count as a solavellan in the fandom sense: I didn't romance Solas until a second playthrough very recently, didn't initially care for it, then came around after reading some fanfic to the point where I do enjoy it now. Basically, I am hardly the spokesperson for solavellans here lol, but here's my two cents anyway.

First and foremost, I do think a big part of it is the angst and a little toxicity. "I can fix him," "I love you so much that I must leave you for your own protection," and "Imortal being falling for a mortal" are all pretty established and beloved tropes in fiction. Of course the real-world implications of these tropes happening in real life are toxic at best, but fiction allows us a place to explore these ideas apart from those realities. In Dragon Age, you get to live out a fantasy where a literal god loves you so much that it fundamentally changes him, and for some, the fact that this is unrealistic is precisely the appeal.

That doesn't mean we HAVE to sever fiction from reality, and if you come into the romance cringing over the way Solas acts toward a romanced Lavellan due to your own personal experiences or feelings IRL, that's absolutely fine! In fact, I'd argue that one of the best things we can do when engaging with media is to bring our unique perspectives to the table (just so long as those perspectives aren't treated as gospel).

Is Solas deserving of Lavellan's love? Does Solas even truly care for her if he's willing to let her world die? Does the fact that he wants to give up his purpose for her excuse the fact that he ultimately doesn't? These are all interesting questions, and ones that can be supported in-text for whatever reading you fancy.

I choose to read their romance as a great mythic love. I enjoy interpreting his initial flirtation as cunning, shortly followed by genuine emotion as he gets to know Lavellan and she (as well as the rest of the Inquisition) pick away at his prejudices about this new post-veil world. It's interesting to me to imagine him struggling against his purpose (tearing down the veil) and being afraid to turn from it, and exploring his ultimate cowardice when he doubles down and breaks things off rather than face the reality that he is past the point of undoing his mistakes. I like how Veilguard's themes play into that and allow him to make the choice to atone instead, and view my Lavellan joining him as the first choice she's made in years based only in her own pursuit of happiness. The mirrors to Andraste and the Maker are also cool, and it's fun to think of a girl from a Dalish clan turned into the Herald of Andraste against her will ultimately become a mirror of Andraste herself.

That doesn't minimize Solas's faults, and I absolutely see how reading the romance in another way would be deeply toxic or at the very least unappealing to folks. That's ok! I like that Solas inspires so many vastly different readings, because it's the sign of a well-written character (especially an antagonist or antihero). Your Solas might be uncaring and toxic, and that's a valid interpretation. My Solas isn't. He's in love and post-veilguard is finally in a position to explore that love properly, to atone for his mistakes not just to the world but to his love, and that's also cool!

Asking sincerely

I see posts where people drop gifs and pics of Solas around the Inquisitor and saying he truly loves her and like-

Does it matter if someone loves you if they dump you because they're on a crusade, and loving you might stop them from committing atrocities.

I am truly trying to understand the appeal of this love story, because while I think Solas is a dynamic antagonist, it's hard for me to give a shit how he feels about anyone if he's too prideful to do much that's meaningful about that love.

I've seen so many posts about how "his name is pride, but look how he kneels for her" - why does this matter? Kneeling in and of itself is not an act of contrition when he stands and walks away from someone and continues to hurt the people he claims to care about.

If the answer is "I just really love tragedy and angst" (and maybe some toxicity) then absolutely fair enough. I'm more asking anyone who appears to think this is ultimately romantic in some way.

Maybe it's just my age talking, but all I wanted to tell any Lavellans willing to follow him into the Fade was that they don't have to be a rehabilitation center for broken men.

[bestworstcase]

Something about redemption is how some mistake humanizing people who've done some damn bad things (slavers, abusers, the worst you can imagine). That is, they might change but for now we're getting into the head of who has been framed by the show as "the worst." A descenter claimed that it's because we're tired of the news humanizing monsters and letting them get away with awful crimes, especially when they're people in power who'd get far more than a slap on the wrist otherwise. 1/

2/ Sorry if that sounded too vague. It's just a thought. We seem to like uncomplicated, easy-to-hate villains because we desire catharsis we never get in real life. Villains who are shown to be human in tandem with being despicable seem to feel like it's Fox News trying to make a martyr out of a monster.

it’s the christian hegemony

um my feelings on ‘redemption’ are pretty negative because conceptually it centers forgiveness as the mechanism for emotional and moral change (and in fiction very often skips over the actual. changing. to go straight to the absolution-through-forgiveness and gag if i wanted to read a morality play i would just read a morality play you feel me?)—ANYWAY

the thing about having a problem with news stories “humanizing monsters” is that the. the monsters in question ARE, in fact, human; human beings who chose to do terrible, depraved, repulsive things yes but to deny the humanity of evil people is to suggest that humans don’t have the capacity for evil, which we do. every person on this planet has the possibility of evil inside them and it doesn’t do anyone any favors to pretend otherwise. and while there is a legitimate and very widespread problem with human interest pieces and basic empathy being weaponized in a propagandistic fashion, the issue is not “humanizing monsters” it is entrenched systemic and personal bigotry that affords humanity only to members of the hegemonic classes. gkdhshk we fix it by challenging the dehumanization of marginalized victims, demanding empathy and acknowledgment of personhood for the people harmed by this, not by trying to expand the categories of people who don’t get to be human.

(also frankly a society that can’t hold someone accountable for evil acts without stripping away their humanity first is a society that is deeply, deeply sick.)

as it pertains to fiction and fandom redemption arc #discourse the whole discussion inevitably plays out like this:

AGAINST: this character did horrible things and is irredeemable! 😡 how can you even suggest letting them off the hook?!

FOR: but this character has suffered so much 🥺 don’t they deserve forgiveness?

AGAINST: no!! fuck this character! they deserve to be punished for what they did! [optional: insert unhinged revenge fantasy]

FOR: but this character’s past suffering is already punishment enough! 🥺 they deserve a chance to heal

AGAINST: what about all the people they hurt, huh? HUH? why should those people have to forgive this character just because this character had a bad life?

FOR: but this character just needs love and then they can be a better person 🥺

on and on and on. in every fandom. about every character. even the laundry list of irredeemable wrongs the “against” side always comes out with sooner or later tends to sound the same. eventually someone on the “for” team will bring up zuko and everyone against will produce a list of all the reasons this character isn’t like zuko and could never be zuko. kshfbsh fundamentally both sides of this argument agree that forgiveness is earned through punishment/suffering and the point of argument is always, always whether the villainous character has been sufficiently punished.

fun game: every time you encounter redemption arc discourse—whether for or against—start mentally replacing “redemption” and “forgiven” with the phrase “try to become a better person.” like: does cinder fall deserve redemption? does she deserve to try to become a better person?

see how that changes the meaning of the question? how it reframes the discussion such that the villainous character is no longer a passive receptacle for redemption or punishment or forgiveness but an active participant in their own character development? and how by focusing on the agency of the villainous character we place the onus for moral change on them rather than on the heroes?

does cinder fall deserve to be forgiven WHO CARES WHY DOES IT MATTER—but if she wants to do better? if she decides to crawl out of the darkness she’s burrowed herself into, what does that look like? what does she do? how can she atone for the terrible things she did? how do her changing goals and different choices shape the world she lives in and what do the other characters do in reaction to that? what does healing mean to her? if the possibility of her joining the heroes arises, how do the characters navigate that situation and the countless fraught, painful, contradictory emotions that it’s bound to inspire? like—hfbfks i’m using cinder as an example here because she’s the locus of most of the redemption discourse happening in the rwby fandom, but these are general questions. fundamentally i just don’t care about the bizarre moral calculus of whether a character’s personal suffering does or doesn’t outweigh their wrongdoing and entitle them to forgiveness.

tbh personally i don’t—i never have—find any catharsis in uncomplicated evil villains; like, they can be really FUN? love a character who’s just a complete fucking shitheel for no reason. and it can also be very satisfying to watch heroic characters defeat them, but for me that satisfaction is no different from the satisfaction of watching a character overcome any serious obstacle. like, uh—i got the same sense of satisfaction out of jaune grieving in front of pyrrha’s memorial as i did out of blake and yang taking adam down, you know? it’s about the culmination of the emotional arc, irrespective of whether there’s a bad guy to defeat or not.

(and then there’s also the secondary issue a lot of stories have of like, is this actually an uncomplicated evil monster or is this a character who challenges a legitimately bad status quo but the story is written by neoliberals so they’re also going to like shoot a baby or something so the audience will know that challenging the status quo is something only #evil people do?—or the subtler but no less obnoxious variant of is this actually an uncomplicated evil monster or is this just some guy who has been designated #evil for having goals that don’t align with what the protagonists want? nothing will get me to sympathize with a villain faster than a narrative double standard or a narrative that is constructing a cartoonishly evil strawman because it wants to wibble about how challenging systemic evil is even worse than systemic evil.)

hdjfhdjs not to say that people don’t or can’t feel catharsis over seeing villains get their comeuppance because plenty of folks do! it’s just a very big Can’t Relate thing for me haha

i just go wild for characters who are interesting, and what interests me is emotional complexity and dynamic character development. morality doesn’t really… come into it except for characters who have fraught relationships with their own morality, in which case the fraught internal conflict is what interests me irrespective of the actual moral inclination of the character. (this is also part of why redemption discourse exasperates me SO much; all ethical bones i have to pick with redemption conceptually aside, making forgiveness the focal point and fulcrum of change just totally ignores all the interesting junk in favor of treating the character like a static object and it’s BORING.)

[zevranunderstander]

i dont really wanna start beef w this but the companions from dragon age inqusition are all so shallow in how they are written tbh?

like. in dao you had characters like zevran, who never expresses his real thoughts and emotions and who you could read as a completely diffrent person if you didn't put actual effort in getting to know him and who has so much complexity to him and his own relationship to his past is *so* interesting to explore. or anders, who slowly develops from a person who wants to help and do good into a deeply resentful and bitter representation of vengeance who sees no other way out than to commit a brutal act of terrorism. or alistair, who is almost a complete inversion of the "rightful heir returns home" trope, who is nothing like you imagine him to be when you first meet him. or isabela, who lies to you from the moment you first meet her and who starts to regret what she did and actually trust you enough to put her life in your hands.

i could go on forever with this, actually, but in the first two games, almost every companion has a very insteresting depth to them that makes them a fully diffrent person than you might expect them to be

and in inquisition, all characters feel lowkey shallow in comparison? first of all, almost nothing the characters do ties into the main story? the stories in dao and da2 would be fundamentally different without your companions, especially da2 is almost entirely character-driven. and the character quests in dai are literally just random, plot un-related stuff. like. its cool that blackwall was a grey warden or that the iron bull secretly is a spy, i guess, but what does it add to the plot of the game? what made it so cool that isabela and anders were lying to you was how *you* suffered their consequences. what they did didn't just tie into the main plot, *you* were associated with them and *you* had to deal with the fallout of their actions. and it's like, cool that blackwall has this dark past but there are no stakes for you in this. why *wouldn't* you sympathize with him and forgive him? the game tries to paint these moments as "*gasp* you lied to me!", but really, this is nothing like the betrayal you feel when isabela basically hands you out to the qunari and runs away and you have to work this out with her

and there is so little to discover about the dai companions, too? like, i think the only character i really like in dai is vivienne, because she is the only character that has some depth to her you can explore. i still don't think vivienne can hold up to most characters in older games, but she actually has motives and if you get to know her, you actually change your opinion of her a bit and while her character quest also has zero impact on the main plot, she still made sense to me as a character and didn't feel completely one-dimensional.

im mainly making this post, because dai was my first dragon age game and i found a lot of old fanart recently and back then i *really* liked dorian. and that got me thinking for a moment because now, like 5 years later, i don't really give a shit about dorian anymore? like, i played dao and da2 after dai and there is so little to his character. his whole plot basically revolves around him being gay, his only character traits actually seem to be that he's a genius mage and, more importantly, that he's gay.

and like, his character almost feels regressive to how sexuality wasn't even a topic in romance in dao and *especially* in da2? and dai almost post-adds homophobia and coversion therapy into a series that didn't really need to have a homophobia problem, just to be like "see? we're being deep and serious right here!", and his story is, like all character quests, very predictable and very generic? and aside from that, there isn't that much to learn about him. most of his other dialogue is either sassy disses of other characters or lore dumps about tevinter that aren't all that related to him

this also brings me to my next point. you don't have an actual group dynamic? like, yeah you can sometimes *ask* a character what he thinks of another character but there isn't much interaction between the companions? like, yeah, some characters are friends/like each other, like sera and blackwall or dorian and the iron bull, but? like, you don't really intiutively know what cassandra thinks of vivienne or what blackwall thinks of dorian or if they have ever even been in the same room or spoken to each other.

da2 obviously excels at the whole group dynamic writing, but also dao (which was way less character driven than da2) put a lot of effort in the dynamic characters had. like, banter in dao usually was used to show how 2 characters interacted with each other, like zevran's and wynne's interactions being about them trying to make eachother incredibly uncomfortable, or alistair and morrigan berating each other - it gave you a very clear idea of what it might be like when you all sit by the campfire and talk. you know stuff like that alistair doesn't trust zevran, that leliana tries to be friends with morrigan, that ohgren feels like wynne is looking down at him, etc. there is very little like that happening in inquisition and banter often is just one continuous joke, like vivienne and dorian making fun of solas' clothing and demeanor or sera making silly jokes to everyone she talks to and somehow you feel like these people just dont talk to each other at all when you aren't around.

say what you want about some characters in da2 hating each other for 10 years straight and still being in the same friend group but when you went to do a quest for merrill, she would be chilling with isabela or anders and varric would be playing cards or your family was up to some shit again, but it felt like all of these people would actually regularly hang out with each other? and in dai these people all live in the same fucking castle and you see them being away from their standart spot maybe once? there is one scene where they all play cards together but tbh for me it did the opposite of what the game wanted me to feel in that moment because i was confornted with "wait, dorian and blackwall really exist in the same world and in the same building? sera and leliana exist in the same game?"

like this game sucks at writing characters and tbh im bitter and i have actually zero hopes for dragon age dreadwolf bc dai feels like a cheap copy of the other two games that really is frustratingly mediocre in every way. like, there is really no aspect of inquisition that it actually excels at or a thing it does better than the older games and dreadwolf seems to want to go in the same direction like dai with the plot being suddenly all about solas and the end of the world and. tbh. i don't think they will pull this off in a way that won't genuinely frustrate me

[blind-alchemists]

Inquisition’s Codex on Pride Demons

Spoilers for: Tevinter Nights

I recently dug into blind playthroughs of DA:I on Youtube (an extremely funny activity, I promise you) and came across a guy who ��� in an effort to rp’ his character properly – reads all codex entries in the game. All of them. Without fault.

Anyway, after the prologue he read the one on Pride Demons and I immediately thought, ‘huh, that’s interesting; I wonder if it’s deliberate’. Like Mother Giselle saying the Chantry teaches that pride is evil. (I posted about it.)

The Codex entry in question:

The most powerful demons yet encountered are the pride demons, perhaps because they, among all their kind, most resemble men; as clever and manipulative as the desire demon, with a penchant for cruel irony that is almost human. While the demons of desire largely engage in the bribery of mortals, pride will use mortals' own best nature against them. Clever men outwit themselves. Strong men crush themselves. Humble men forget themselves. Jealous men fear themselves. They turn corruption and ruin into an art.

[source]

See? It’s interesting; a bit of a shame this is only a Codex Entry.

Anyway, let’s start taking it apart.

The most powerful demons yet encountered are the pride demons,

For one, there is the first part about pride demons being the most powerful (yet). I never really thought about it until now (or until I started my Nightmare playthrough), because the first boss Inquisition throws at you is a pride demon and on lower difficulties, it’s a joke – but looking back at Mother Giselle’s comment (“We teach that pride is evil”), it’s curious, especially if you take into consideration what roles Pride demons have played in earlier games. (Merill’s companion quest comes to mind.)

I’m not denying that Pride Demons may have the standing they have in the hierarchy of strong demons because of the Chantry’s teachings: Much in the Fade is about believing in something, so many people believing Pride demons to be the strongest will obviously give them a huge buff. On the other hand, it’s reasonable to me to assume Pride has always been a strong form of corruption and thus makes strong demons.

I could get into ‘Pride is one of the Worst of the Seven Deadly Sins & the writers obviously borrowed a shit ton from Christianity, so That Has Implications’ but …

(There is a quote I found when re-checking some facts: “It was Pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.” (St. Augustine), and Solas being set-up as being prideful in this context of the Sin Of Pride & Chantry = Christianity specifically makes me fear for the turn DA4 will take, and, … no, I’ll already said I’m not opening this can of worms.)

Anyway! Moving on.

perhaps because they, among all their kind, most resemble men;

It’s an icky part. Don’t the other demons and forms of corruption not also resemble humanity? Desire, Sloth, Despair, Rage, Fear, Terror? I’d argue all of these are more often – and deeply – part of human nature than pride is, but maybe that’s just the Christian Influence. (I think some of the writing has also been pushing ‘All Mages Are Arrogant’ narrative too much, especially with the Evanuris, since everything needed for setting up an interesting plot point featuring religious arrogance stemming from fundamentalism is right there, but I digress.)

Another interpretation is that “most resemble men” part is related to the way they act and think. While I do think every demon has some capacity for communicating, especially with mages, Desire and Pride have been shown to be the most “human-like” in that regard. Meaning, high intelligence that allows them to propose deals or try to divide people. Outside of Inquisition, at least; I think a quest involving such a demon would have done some small wonders for the plot.

as clever and manipulative as the desire demon, with a penchant for cruel irony that is almost human.

Now we’re getting to the parts that I find most interesting. Note the traits mentioned here: clever, manipulative, and cruel irony. Note also the comparison to Desire demons. And note the ‘almost human’ part (when has cruel irony ever been not human?).

Trickster archetypes are often set-up as clever and manipulative; I already said in another post that Solas, himself, doesn’t fit that. The Evanuris made him look like he did.

Sure, he’s clever, and maybe you could argue a good case for him being manipulative to some degree because he lies by omission and makes the Inquisition think he’s some he’s not, but I don’t think this part is necessarily about that: It is more about the nature of Pride.

Which doesn’t bode well for the future of Solas’ arc, since the following paragraph in the codex says this:

While the demons of desire largely engage in the bribery of mortals, pride will use mortals' own best nature against them. Clever men outwit themselves. Strong men crush themselves. Humble men forget themselves. Jealous men fear themselves.

Personally, I’m a big supporter of the ‘the greatest enemy you’ll ever face is yourself’ narrative because I have found it to be true. In the same breath, ‘your greatest strength could become your greatest flaw / your greatest flaw could become your greatest strength’ is an engaging way of setting up characters: Having a deep trust in the people you care for is a great strength … until you become so blind you deny their misdeeds, flaws, crimes, etc. Similarly, never trusting anyone at all is terrible for cooperating … until the new member of your group is a spy and you avoid getting your team killed because you never trusted the newbie to begin with.

In the context of DA:I, this takes on an especially interesting turn in the narrative. Through Solas, we know that Wisdom can be corrupted into Pride. Now, putting aside whether you think Solas is a spirit of Wisdom who took a body or not, the man’s name still means “pride”.

And while there is nothing wrong with being proud, Solas looking for the Red Lyrium Idol when he knows how much it’s going to fuck him up is a clear-cut sign of being arrogant. In DA:I, he’s shown himself to be wise and knowledgeable and reasonable, especially in the one banter with Dorian where he says Elvhenan wasn’t any less innocent than Tevinter.

He has also never been boastful about his abilities as a mage (mostly, anyway). But Pride, as the Codex Entry says, will use people’s best nature against them: Solas may think himself wise and knowledgeable and reasonable, and he may think he knows the dangers of Red Lyrium well enough, but despite knowing it’s going to fuck him up, he’s still going to use it. (He’s not happy about it – “I’d rather not have you see what I become” – but this is his regret about the lack of other options since his orb broke; this is not acknowledging that his pride makes him think he could handle it.)

It comes also down to what you interpret his motivations as, and what you think he’s going to do. I believe there is also an element of desperation to his actions, but, ultimately, he is named “Pride” and that will be his downfall.

(I know I said I’m not going there but: In Christian mythology, Lucifer is turned into a fallen angel because of his pride. It is, literally, his downfall. I can guarantee you Solas’ story will show parallels indicating his pride will ruin him – whether it is through the corruption of the Red Lyrium, or whether it is because he’ll fail to tear down the Veil as he imagines it, or whether it is because he has failed to consider the horrors that come after abolishing the Evanuris’ prison I can’t say. I can just guarantee you he will fuck up even more than he did when he raised the Veil and that’s what will cause regret to eat him alive.)

They turn corruption and ruin into an art.

There’s not much I have to say about this except that it’s kind of funny. Kind of, because Solas is an artist and if anyone knows how to turn something into art, it should be the painter.

But it’s also tragic because it’s not going to be one of his murals/frescoes that’ll show his corruption; it’s going to be Solas himself.

I don’t think corruption and ruin is an art form, and I don’t believe there is anything artistic about it; I think it’s just an allegory. Maybe also a little hint and nudge towards the elf named “Pride” who has a hobby of painting in-game, like his line about the Dalish chasing him away due to superstition and the jawbone of a wolf and his excessive knowledge about things no ordinary Dreamer or elf could know.

The breadcrumbs were there; we just didn’t think about picking them all up because what were the chances we’d get a supposed god as a companion? (In all fairness, DA:I being such a vast game where you can spend +30hs avoiding the main plot didn’t help putting all these subtle leads together.)

TL;DR: The Codex entry holds several interesting clues about Pride demons and, further, the nature of Pride (as a form of corruption). Applying that to Solas, though, makes his future arc in DA4 look very grim.

[a-stone-in-flight]

@orangeswithsquirrelfaces I'm CACKLING and losing my mind at the image of a lamp stealing quesadillas but goddamn did this fabulous reply get me thinking! plz scroll past now if u don't want to read a lengthy and semi-coherent post on evil lamps

wtf turns a lamp, of all objects, evil? sure, there are comical ways that wouldn't be out of place in a calvin and hobbes strip — maybe casting hungry shadows, refusing to turn off, hissing or screeching when parents aren't around.

or maybe like in a horror movie — the lightbulb singeing flesh, the lamp flickering ominously, not turning on no matter how many times the doomed side character desperately pulls the cord or flicks the switch when there's an unfamiliar presence in the room.

or maybe a symbol in a one-act play, the centerpiece of a chapbook poem, anchoring down feelings and thoughts, on or off with the character's distress or content, witness to salty tears and sweaty love and sleepy cuddles and susurrating slumbers.

because what is a lamp, when you get down to it? a manmade object that provides light. to soothe us, to illuminate our nights, once meant to be dark, meant to be silent, but now, so often, they're neither. heck, even this long winded response is being written late at night. lamps are a constant in any bedroom, a fixture of any home, from story to story, from film to film, always there, that unnatural, calming light.

so what does it mean to reverse that? to not only change but reverse the effect, the connotation, of one of our most pleasant and ubiquitous inventions. to make a lamp evil requires a new conception of evil. it's not evil like a storybook villain, not evil like a cackling ceo (fuck bezos btw), not evil like small acts of violence — it's evil in a way that's odd, off-putting, unsettling because it rips away a fundamental, reliable, uncomplicated comfort. as Amity said, what's the first thing you do after a nightmare? you turn on the light.

what if there's no light to turn on? what if the light itself betrays you? what if, in seeking reassuring reality, your concept of reality is further dismantled? what if it rips you apart just as much as tearing claws or piercing fangs, but more deeply, more insidiously, a corruption of that which humans have always sought — light.

And in the context of this show, it takes on a whole other meaning. From the beginning, the story of a plucky protagonist named Luz (luz! light! *flaps hands excitedly*) is a story full of light and love and hope and weirdness. The first spell she discovers, that fills her with glee at first and guilt later when she unknowingly hands over her greatest discovery to her greatest enemy, is light. And the finale, of course, had so so much light, almost a heavy handed use of it, in so many ways, and if I dwelled on all that then this post would be twice as long.

but let's talk about the Collector. that one scene that I jokingly captioned with that one post that I'm thinking abt now. think abt how the Collector, an immortal being of near-infinite power, clings to childhood, constructs a facsimile of a child's bedroom in a void, accompanied by their only friend. think abt the way he asks King for Francois, asks him to leave the light on, because at the heart of it they're scared, and they were made of shadows before. And then King brought them out and they clung to the light until Belos entered the darkness. how much pain that caused.

idek what I'm getting at here and this is probably very distant from op's intent (tho there is smth interesting and funny to dissect there) but they are sadly deactivated :(

oops this went on longer than expected. anyway tldr EVIL LAMPS 😍

characters of all time

[bungou-stray-haikyuu]

I Finally Read BEAST - Here Are Some Thoughts

...pretty much entirely on Dazai. I got carried away.

I just finished reading BEAST (can’t believe I put off reading it this long) and I very much enjoyed it. It was great to get a different perspective on Atsushi and Akutagawa and what would happen if their roles were reversed. It was also interesting to gain an insight into Dazai’s mind - as he was the only one who knew about his life in the original world - and his, I think, more genuine self.

Writing Dazai on a superficial level has become quite easy for me. He’s sadistic, he’s an asshole, he’s a suicide enthusiast, he fools around, he’s always a few steps ahead. I can write Dazai. But I can’t write Osamu. I think that’s the best way to say it... When would he be genuine? At what point would he be outmatched? When is it correct to write legitimate surprise? These are all things I’m unsure of because Dazai is layers upon layers of lies and hidden secrets. I certainly can’t read past them, all I know is what Asagiri shows me. However, I think we saw a glimpse of Osamu in the bar in BEAST and that was flagged in my head as something I needed to take note of for writing purposes.

Dazai and the Dark Era is the only light novel I haven’t read as it’s near-impossible to get hold of a physical translated copy for some reason. I've seen the anime adapation of course, but reading descriptions is sometimes more telling than seeing those expressions on an animated - or still-drawn - face. I’d very much like to read it now that I’ve read BEAST and compare Dazai’s interactions with Oda in the two novels. Is he more genuine in BEAST as he’s saying goodbye? Or are there things he doesn’t say because Oda doesn’t know him?

Writing Blood is forcing me to think a lot more deeply about how Dazai acts and reacts to things. I’ve already displayed frustration and a sense of being trapped but how far is it realistic for that to go? Is it even realistic to create a scenario that he can’t escape? He cared about Odasaku, that much is certain, but does he really care about anyone else? Is anyone at the ADA truly his friend? If he chooses to protect them, does he do it because he cares? Or because he believes that it’s the ‘good’ thing to do? The ‘Odasaku’ thing to do. Or would it only ever be because saving them is the strategic thing to do?

I don’t actually know how much Dazai has changed since he left the mafia. He still hides behind walls of lies and he still manipulates people like it’s nothing. Was saving Atsushi a genuine act of kindness on his part? Or was it a fundamentally meaningless gesture meant to help him convince himself that he was following Odasaku’s last request?

Perhaps I’m just untrusting of Dazai. Perhaps I’m not giving him the credit he deserves. But I can’t help but wonder if anything he does is genuine. When he consoles Atsushi after the Director died; when he praises Akutagawa after taking down the Guild; are either of those genuine on his part? Or is everything he says part of one huge plan?

In BEAST he explicitely states that everything was set up by his design...so who’s to say it’s not the same in the original world too? Dazai is Atsushi’s saviour...but is Atsushi someone Dazai cares about beyond ‘the next Double Black’ or ‘the vessel for an ability he must ensure is used in a certain way’? How much did Dazai know when he found Atsushi? Would he have taken him in if he wasn’t an ability user? How does his knowledge of The Book play into this? We know Atsushi is key to finding it - is Dazai nurturing Atsushi (and by extension Akutagawa as well?) specifically with The Book in mind?

There’s so much that’s unknown about Dazai that it’s incredibly difficult to come to definitive conclusions on why he does things. Kudos to Asagiri for doing such an amazing job at keeping Dazai’s true feelings and intentions hidden, but it sure does make it difficult to write Osamu when I want to push Dazai out of his comfort zone.

Perhaps Dazai and the Dark Era will shine a little more light on Dazai’s true self, but I’m not hopeful it’ll be much help when I’m writing my fic. I suppose I’ll have to make a decision, whether it be right or wrong, and stick with it. Perhaps it could even be something I explore (I mean, this entire fic is exploring a ‘what if?’ anyways...kinda like BEAST...) but too little decisiveness would probably make the story inconsistent so there’s a limit I’ll have to adhere to.

Anyways, I’d actually be very interested to hear other peoples’ opinions on Dazai. I’m, er, not the best at interpreting people...so maybe someone has picked up on some things that I’ve missed. Otherwise I guess I’ll just have to do some more thinking on how I think Dazai will react when shit hits the fan in my fic.

[pumpkinpaix]

Hi! Loving your meta on suibian :)) Just wondering what were your frustrations with cql, especially considered you've watched this in multiple mediums? (I've only watched cql)

Hi anon! thank you so much!

Oh boy, you’ve unlocked a boatload of hidden dialogue, are you ready?? :D (buckle up it’s oof. Extremely Long)

@hunxi-guilai please consider this my official pitch for why I think the novel is worth reading, if only so you can enjoy the audio drama more fully. ;)

a few things before I get into it:

I don’t want to make this a 100% negative post because I really do love CQL so much! So I’m going to make it two parts: the changes that frustrated me the most and the changes I loved the most re: CQL vs novel. (again, don’t really know anything about donghua or manhua sorry!!) Sound good? :D

this will contain spoilers for the entirety of CQL and the novel. just like. All of it.

talking about the value of changes in CQL is difficult because I personally don’t know what changes were made for creative reasons and what changes were made for censorship reasons. I don’t think it’s entirely fair to evaluate the narrative worth of certain changes when I don’t know what their limitations were. It’s not just a matter of “gay content was censored”; China also has certain censorship restrictions on the portrayal of the undead, among other things. I, unfortunately, am not familiar enough with the ins and outs of Chinese censorship to be able to tell anyone with certainty what was and wasn’t changed for what reason. So I guess just, take whatever my opinions are with a grain of salt! I will largely avoid addressing issues related to how explicitly romantic wangxian is, for obvious reasons.

OKAY. In order to impose some kind of control on how much time I spend on this, I’m going to limit myself to four explicated points in each category, best/worst. Please remember that I change my opinions constantly, so these are just like. the top contenders at this specific point in my life. Starting with the worst so we can end on a positive note!

Henceforth, the novel is MDZS, CQL is CQL.

CQL’s worst crimes, according to cyan:

1. Polarizing Wei Wuxian and Jin Guangyao on the moral spectrum

I’ve heard rumors that this was a censorship issue, but I have never been able to confirm or deny it, so. Again, grain of salt. 

The way that CQL reframed Wei Wuxian and Jin Guangyao’s character arcs drives me up the wall because I think it does a huge disservice to both of them and the overarching themes of the story. Jin Guangyao is shown to be responsible for pretty much all the tragedy post-Sunshot, which absolves Wei Wuxian of all possible wrongdoing and flattens Jin Guangyao into a much less interesting villain.

What I find so interesting about MDZS is how much it emphasizes the role of external forces and situations in determining a person’s fate: that being “good” or “righteous” at heart is simply not enough. You can do everything with all the best intentions and still do harm, still fail, still lose everything. Even “right” choices can have terrible consequences. Everyone starts out innocent. “In this world, everyone starts without grievances, but there is always someone who takes the first blow.”

It matters that Wei Wuxian is the one who loses control and kills Jin Zixuan, that his choices (no matter how impossible and terrible the situation) had consequences because the whole point is that even good people can be forced into corners where they do terrible things. Being good isn’t enough. You can do everything right, make every impossible choice, and fail. You can do the right thing and be punished for it. Maybe you did the right thing, but others suffer for your actions. Is that still the right thing? Is it your fault? Is it? By absolving Wei Wuxian of any conceivable blame, it really changes the narrative conclusion. In MDZS, even the best people can do incomprehensible harm when backed into corners, and the audience is asked to evaluate those actions with nuance. Is a criminal fully culpable for the harm they do when their external circumstances forced them into situations where they felt like they had no good choices left?

Personally, I feel like the novel asks you to forgive Wei Wuxian his wrongs, and, in paralleling him with Jin Guangyao, shows how easily they could have been one another. Both of them are extraordinarily talented sons of commoners; the difference lies in what opportunities they were given as they were growing up and how they choose to react to grievances. Wei Wuxian is adopted early on into the head family of a prominent sect and treated (more or less—not going to get into it) like a son. Jin Guangyao begs, borrows, steals, kills for every scrap of prestige and honor he gets and understands that his position in life is, at all points, extraordinarily unstable. Wei Wuxian doesn’t take his grievances to heart, but Jin Guangyao does.

To be clear, I don’t think the novel places a moral value on holding grudges, if that makes sense. I think MDZS only indicates that acts of vengeance always lead to more bloodshed—that the only escape is to lay down your arms, no matter how bitter the taste. Wei Wuxian was horribly wronged in many ways, and I don’t think I would fault him for wanting revenge or holding onto his anger—but I do think it’s clear that if he did, it would destroy him. It destroys Jin Guangyao, after all.

(It also destroys Xue Yang, and I think the parallel actually also extends to him. Yi City, to me, is a very interesting microcosm of a lot of broader themes in MDZS, and I have a lot of Thoughts on Xue Yang and equivalent justice, etc. etc. but. Thoughts for another time.)

Wei Wuxian is granted a happy ending not because he is Good, but because public opinion has changed, because there’s a new scapegoat, because he is protected by someone in power, because he lets go of the past, and because the children see him for who he is. I really do think that the reason MDZS and CQL have a hopeful ending as opposed to a bleak one hinges on the juniors. We are shown very clearly throughout the story how easily and quickly the tide of public opinion turns. The reason we don’t fear that it’s going to happen to Wei Wuxian again (or any other surviving character we love) is, I think, because the juniors, who don’t lose their childhoods to war, have the capacity to see past their parents’ prejudices and evaluate the actions of the people in front of them without having their opinions clouded by intense trauma and fear. They are forged out of love, not fire.

In CQL however, it emphasizes that Wei Wuxian is Fundamentally Good and did No Wrong Ever, so he deserves his happy ending, while Jin Guangyao is Fundamentally Bad and Responsible For Everything, so he got what was coming to him (even if we feel bad for him maybe). That’s not nearly as interesting or meaningful. 


(One specific change to Jin Guangyao’s timeline of evil that I find particularly vexing, not including the one I will discuss in point 2, is changing when Jin Rusong was conceived. In the novel, Qin Su is supposedly already pregnant by the time they get married, and that matters a WHOLE LOT when evaluating Jin Guangyao’s actions, I think.)

2. Wen POWs used as target obstacles at Baifeng Mountain

I know the first point was “here’s an overarching plot change that I think deeply impacts the narrative themes” and this second one is “I despise this one specific scene detail so much”, but HEAR ME OUT. It’s related to the first point! (tbh, most things are related to the first point)

Personally, I think this one detail character assassinates like. almost everyone in attendance, but most egregiously in no particular order: Jin Guangyao, Jin Zixuan (and by extension, Jiang Yanli), Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen.

First, I think it’s a cheap plot device that’s obviously meant to enhance Jin Guangyao’s ~villainy while emphasizing Wei Wuxian’s growing righteous anger, but it fails so spectacularly, god, I literally hate this detail so much lmao. I’ll go by character.

Jin Guangyao: I get that CQL is invested in him being a ~bad person~ or whatever, but this is such a transparently like, cartoon villain move that lacks subtlety and elegance. Jin Guangyao is very dedicated to being highly diplomatic, appeasing, and non-threatening in his bid for power. He manipulates behind the scenes, does his father’s dirty work, etc. but he always shows a gentle, smiling face. This display tips his hand pretty obviously, and even if it were at the behest of his father, there’s literally no reason for him to be so “ohohoho I’m so evil~” about it—if anything, this would only serve to drive his sympathizers away. It’s a stupid move for him politically, and really undercuts his supposed intelligence and cleverness, in my personal opinion.

Jin Zixuan: yes, he is arrogant and vain and likes to show off! But putting his ego above the safety of innocent people? Like, not necessarily OOC, but it sure makes him much less sympathetic in my eyes. I find it hard to believe that Jiang Yanli would find this laudable or acceptable, but she’s given a few shots where she smiles with some kind of pride and it’s like. No! Do not do my queen dirty like this. She wouldn’t!

Wei Wuxian: where do I start! WHERE DO I START. Wei Wuxian is shown to be “righteously angry” about this, but steps down mutinously when Jiang Cheng motions him back. He looks shocked and outraged at Jin Zixuan for showing off with no concern for the safety of the Wen POWs, only to like, two seconds later, do the exact same thing, but worse! And at the provocation of Jin Zixun, no less! *screams into hands* The tonal shift is bizarre! We’re in this really tense ~moral quandary~, but then he flirts with Lan Wangji for a second (tense music still kinda playing?? it’s awful. I hate it), and then does his trickshot. You know! Putting all these people he’s supposedly so concerned about at risk! To one-up Jin Zixuan! It’s nonsensical. It’s such a conflict of priorities. This is supposed to make him seem honorable and cool, I guess? But it mostly just makes him look like a performative hypocrite. :///

Lan Wangji: I cannot believe that Lan Wangji saw this and did not immediately walk out in protest.

Lan Xichen: this is just one part of a larger problem with Lan Xichen’s arc in CQL vs MDZS, where his character development was an unwitting casualty of both wangxian censorship and CQL’s quest to demonize Jin Guangyao. One of the prevailing criticisms I see of Lan Xichen’s character is that he is a “centrist”, that he “allows bad things to happen through his inaction and desire to avoid conflict”, and that he is “stupid and willfully blind to Jin Guangyao’s faults”, when I don’t think any of this is supported by evidence in the novel whatsoever. Jin Guangyao is a subtle villain! He is a talented manipulator and liar! Even Wei Wuxian says it in the novel!

(forgive my rough translations /o\)

Chapter 49, as Wei Wuxian (through Empathy with Nie Mingjue’s head) listens to Lan Xichen defend Meng Yao immediately following Wen Ruohan’s assassination:

魏无羡心中摇头：“泽芜君这个人还是……太纯善了。”可再一想，他是因为已知金光瑶的种种嫌疑才能如此防备，可在蓝曦臣面前的孟瑶，却是一个忍辱负重，身不由己，孤身犯险的卧底，二人视角不同，感受又如何能相提并论？

Wei Wuxian shook his head to himself: “This Zewu-jun is still…… too pure and kind.” But then he thought again—he could only be so guarded because he already knew of all of Jin Guangyao’s suspicious behavior, but the Meng Yao before Lan Xichen was someone who had had no choice but to suffer in silence for his mission, who placed himself in grave danger, alone, undercover. The two of them had different perspectives, so how could their feelings be compared?

Chapter 63, after Wei Wuxian wakes up in the Cloud Recesses, having been brought there by Lan Wangji:

他不是不能理解蓝曦臣。他从聂明玦的视角看金光瑶，将其奸诈狡猾与野心勃勃尽收眼底，然而，如果金光瑶多年来在蓝曦臣面前一直以伪装相示，没理由要他不去相信自己的结义兄弟，却去相信一个臭名昭著腥风血雨之人。

It wasn’t that he couldn’t understand Lan Xichen. He had seen Jin Guangyao from Nie Mingjue’s perspective, and so had seen all of his treacherous and cunning obsession with ambition. However, if Jin Guangyao had for all these years only shown Lan Xichen a disguise, there was no reason for [Lan Xichen] to believe a famously violent person [Wei Wuxian] over his own sworn brother.

Lan Xichen, throughout the story, is being actively lied to and manipulated by Jin Guangyao. His only “mistake” was being kind and trying to give Meng Yao, someone who came from a place of great disadvantage, the benefit of the doubt instead of immediately dismissing him as worthless due to his birth or his station in life. Lan Xichen sees Meng Yao as someone who was forced to make impossible choices in impossible situations—you know, the way that we, the audience, are led to perceive Wei Wuxian. The only difference is that the story that we’re given about Wei Wuxian is true, while the story that Lan Xichen is given about Meng Yao is… not. But how would have have known?

The instant he is presented with a shred of evidence to the contrary, he revokes Jin Guangyao’s access to the Cloud Recesses, pursues that evidence to the last, and is horrified to discover that his trust was misplaced.

Lan Xichen’s willingness to consider different points of view is integral to Wei Wuxian’s survival and eventual happiness. Without Lan Xichen’s kindness, there is no way that Wei Wuxian would have ever been able to clear his name. Everyone else was calling for his blood, but Lan Wangji took him home, and Lan Xichen not only allowed it, he listened to and helped them. To the characters of the book who are not granted omniscient knowledge of Wei Wuxian’s actions and circumstances, there is literally no difference between Wei Wuxian and Jin Guangyao. Lan Xichen is being incredibly fair when he asks in chapter 63:

蓝曦臣笑了，道：“忘机，你又是如何判定，一个人究竟可信不可信？”

他看着魏无羡，道：“你相信魏公子，可我，相信金光瑶。大哥的头在他手上，这件事我们都没有亲眼目睹，都是凭着我们自己对另一个人的了解，相信那个人的说辞。

“你认为自己了解魏无羡，所以信任他；而我也认为自己了解金光瑶，所以我也信任他。你相信自己的判断，那么难道我就不能相信自己的判断吗？”

Lan Xichen laughed and said, “Wangji, how can you determine exactly who should and should not be believed?”

He looked at Wei Wuxian and said, “You believe Wei-gongzi, but I believe Jin Guangyao. Neither of us saw with our own eyes whether Da-ge’s head was in his possession. We base our opinions on our own understandings of someone else, our belief in their testimony.

“You think you understand Wei Wuxian, and so you trust him; I also think I understand Jin Guangyao, so I trust him. You trust your own judgment, so can’t I trust my own judgment as well?”

But he hears them out, examines the proof, and acts immediately.

I really do feel like this aspect of Lan Xichen kind of… became collateral damage in CQL. Because Jin Guangyao is so much more publicly malicious, Lan Xichen’s alleged “lack of action” feels much less understandable or acceptable.

It is wild to me that in this scene, Lan Xichen reacts with discomfort to the proceedings, but has nothing to say to Jin Guangyao about it afterwards and also applauds Wei Wuxian’s archery. (I could talk about Nie Mingjue here as well, but I would say Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen have very different perspectives on morality, so this moment isn’t necessarily OOC for NMJ, but I do think is very OOC for LXC.) This scene (among a few others that have Jin Guangyao being more openly “evil”) makes Lan Xichen look like a willfully blind bystander by the end of the story, but having him react with any action would have been inconvenient for the plot. Thus, he behaves exactly as he did in the book, but under very different circumstances. It reads inconsistently with the rest of his character (since a lot of the beats in the novel still happen in the show), and weakens the narrative surrounding his person.

None of these overt displays of cruelty or immorality happen in the book, so it makes perfect sense that he doesn’t do or suspect anything! Jin Guangyao is, as stated, perfectly disguised towards Lan Xichen. You can’t blame him for “failing to act” when someone was purposefully keeping him in the dark and, from his perspective, there was nothing to act upon.

This scene specifically is almost purely lighthearted in the novel! If you take out the Wen POWs, this just becomes a fun scene where Wei Wuxian shows off, flirts with Lan Wangji, gets into a pissing match with Jin Zixuan, and is overall kind of a brat! It’s great! I love this scene! The blindfolded shot is ridiculous and over-the-top and very cute!

I know this is a lot of extrapolation, but the whole scene is soured for me due to you know. *gestures upwards* Which is really a shame because it’s one of my favorite silly scenes in the book! Alas! @ CQL why! ;A;

3. Lan Xichen already being an adult and sect leader at the start of the show

This is rapidly becoming a, “Lan Xichen was Wronged and I Have the Receipts” essay (oh no), but you know what, that’s fine I guess! I never said I was impartial!

CQL makes Lan Xichen seem much older and more experienced than he is in the novel, though we’re not given his specific age. In the novel, he is not sect leader yet when Wei Wuxian and co. arrive at the Cloud Recesses for lectures. His father, Qingheng-jun, is in seclusion, and his uncle is the de facto leader of the sect. Lan Xichen does not become sect leader until his father dies at the burning of the Cloud Recesses. Moreover, my understanding of the text is that he is at most 19 years old when this happens. Wen Ruohan remarks that Lan Xichen is still a junior at the beginning of the Sunshot Campaign in chapter 61. (If someone has a different interpretation of the term 小辈, please correct me.) In any case! Lan Xichen is young.

Lan Xichen ascends to power under horrific circumstances: he is not an adult, his father has just been murdered, his uncle seriously injured, his brother kidnapped, and his home burnt to the ground. He is on the run, alone! Carrying the sacred texts of his family and trying to stay alive so his sect is not completely wiped out on the eve of war! He is terrified, inexperienced, and unprepared!

You know, just like Jiang Cheng, a few months later!

I see a lot of people lambasting Lan Xichen for not stepping up to protect the Wen remnants post-Sunshot, but I’m always flummoxed by the accusations because I don’t see criticisms of Jiang Cheng with remotely the same vitriol, even though their political positions are nearly identical:

they are both extraordinarily young sect leaders who came to power before they expected to through incredible violence done to their families

because of this, they are in very weak political positions: they have very little experience to offer as evidence of their competence and right to respect. if they are considered adults, they have only very recently come of age.

Jin Guangshan, who is rapidly and greedily taking the place of the Wen clan in the vacuum of power, is shown to be more than willing to mow people down to get what he wants—and he has the power to do so.

both Yunmeng Jiang and Gusu Lan were crippled by the Wen clan prior to Sunshot. And they just fought a war that lasted two and a half years. they are hugely weakened and in desperate need of time to rebuild, mourn, etc. both Jiang Cheng and Lan Xichen are responsible for the well-being of all of these people who are now relying upon them.

I think it’s very obvious that Jiang Cheng is in an impossible situation because he wears his fears and insecurities on his face and people in power (cough Jin Guangshan) prey upon that, while we, as the audience, have a front row seat for that whole tragedy. We understand his choices, even if they hurt us.

Why shouldn’t Lan Xichen be afforded the same consideration?

I really do think that because he’s presented as someone who’s much more composed and confident in his own abilities than Jiang Cheng is, we tend to forget exactly what pressures he was facing at the same time. We just assume, oh yes, of course Lan Xichen has the power to do something! He’s Lan Xichen! The First Jade! Isn’t he supposed to be Perfectly Good? Why isn’t he doing The Right Thing?

I think this is exacerbated by CQL’s decision to make him an established sect leader at the start of the show with several years of experience under his belt. We don’t know his age, but he is assumed to be an Adult. This gives him more power and stability, and so it seems more unacceptable that he does not make moves to protect the Wen remnants, even if in essence, he and Jiang Cheng’s political positions are still quite similar. He doesn’t really have any more power to save the Wen remnants without placing his whole clan in danger of being wiped out again, but CQL implies that he does, even if it isn’t the intention of the change.

It does make me really sad that this change also drives a further thematic divide between Lan Xichen and the rest of his generation. Almost everyone in that generation came of age through a war, which I think informs the way their tragedies play out, and how those tragedies exist in contrast to the juniors’ behavior and futures. Making Lan Xichen an experienced adult aligns him with the generation prior to him, which, as we’re shown consistently, is the generation whose adherence to absolutism and fear ruined the lives of their children. But Lan Xichen is just as much a victim of this as his peers.

(the exception being maybe Nie Mingjue, but it’s complicated. I think Nie Mingjue occupies a very interesting position in the narrative, but like. That’s. For another time! this is. already so far out of hand. oh my god this is point three out of eight oh nO)

(yet another aside because I can’t help myself: can you believe we were robbed of paralleling scenes of Jiang Cheng and Lan Xichen’s coronations? the visual drama of that. the poetic cinema. it’s not in the book, but can you IMAGINE. thank u @paledreamsblackmoths​ for putting this image into my head so that I can suffer forever knowing that I’ll never get it.)

I said I wasn’t going to talk at length about any changes surrounding Wangxian’s explicit romance for obvious reasons, but I will at least lament here that because a large percentage of Lan Xichen’s actions and character beats are directly in relation to Lan Wangji’s love for Wei Wuxian, he loses a lot of both minor and major moments to the censors as well. Many of the instances when he encourages Lan Wangji to talk to Wei Wuxian, when he indulges in their relationship etc. are understandably gone. But the most significant moment that was cut for censorship reasons I think is when he loses his temper with Wei Wuxian at the Guanyin temple and lays into him with all the fury and terror he felt for his brother’s broken heart for the last thirteen years.

Lan Xichen is only shown to express true anger twice in the whole story, both times at the Guanyin temple: first against Wei Wuxian for what he perceives as gross disregard for his little brother’s convictions, and second against Jin Guangyao for his massive betrayal of trust. And you know, murdering his best friend. Among other things.

I’m genuinely so sad that we don’t get to see Lan Xichen tear Wei Wuxian to shreds for what he did to Lan Wangji because I think one of the most important aspects to Lan Xichen’s character is how much he loves, cares for and fears for his little brother. The reveal about Lan Wangji’s punishment in episode 43 is a sad and sober conversation, but it’s not nearly as impactful, especially because Wei Wuxian asks about it of his own volition. I understand that this isn’t CQL’s fault! But. I can still mourn it right? ahahaha. :’)

I’ll stop before I descend further into nothing but Lan Xichen meta because that’s. Dangerous. (I have a lot of Feelings about how there are three characters who are held up as paragons of virtue in MDZS, how they all suffered in spite of their goodness, and how that all ties directly into the whole, “it is not enough to be good, but kindness is never wrong” theme. Anyways, they’re Xiao Xingchen, Jiang Yanli, and Lan Xichen, but NOT NOW. NOT TODAY.)

So yes, I’m a Lan Xichen apologist on main, and yes, I understand my feelings are incredibly personally motivated and influenced by my subjective emotions, but no I do not take concrit on this point, thank you very much.

4. all of the Wen remnants turning themselves in alongside Wen Qing and Wen Ning

Okay, back to plot changes. This change I would be willing to bet money was at least partially due to censorship, but it hurts me so deeply hahaha. It makes literally no sense for any of the characters and it completely janks the timeline of events post Qiongqi Dao 2.0 through Wei Wuxian’s death.

It’s not ALL bad—this change makes it easier for the Peak Wangxian moment at the Bloodbath at Nightless City (You know. Hands. Cliff. etc.) to happen, which I did very much enjoy. It’s pretty on-brand for CQL to sacrifice plot for character beats that they want to emphasize, so like. I get it! This moment is a huge gift! I Understand This. CQL collapses the Bloodbath at Nightless City and the First Siege of the Mass Graves into one event for I think a few reasons. One, Wangxian moment without being explicitly Wangxian, which is excellent. Two, it circumvents the Blood Corpse scene, which I do not think would have made it past censorship.

I’ll get to the Blood Corpse scene in a minute, but despite being able to understand why so much might have been sacrificed for the impact of the cliff scene, I still wish it had been done differently (and I feel like it could have been!), if only for my peace of mind because the plot holes it creates are pretty gaping.

The entire point of Wen Qing and Wen Ning turning themselves in is specifically to save their family members and Wei Wuxian from coming to further harm. That’s explicit, even in the show. Jin Guangshan demands that the Wen brother and sister stand for their crimes and claims that the blood debt will be paid. The Wen remnants understand that Wei Wuxian has given up so much for their sakes, that he has lost his family, his home, his respectability, his health, all in the name of sheltering them. To throw all of that away would be the greatest disrespect to his sacrifices. Wen Qing and Wen Ning decide that if their lives can pay for the safety of their loved ones and ensure that Wei Wuxian’s sacrifices matter, they are willing to go together and give themselves up.

So. Why did they. All go?? For… moral support???? D: Wen Qing says that Wei Wuxian will wake up in three days and that she’s given Fourth Uncle and the others instructions for his care–but then Fourth Uncle and the others all go with them!! To die!! There’s also very clearly a shot of Granny Wen taking A’Yuan with them, which like. Obviously didn’t really happen.

Wen Qing, who loves her family more than anything in the world, agrees that they should all go to Lanling and sacrifice themselves to…. protect Wei Wuxian? Wen Qing, pragmatic queen of my heart, agrees to this absurdly bad exchange?? Leaves Wei Wuxian to wake up, alone, with the knowledge that he had not only killed his brother-in-law but also effectively gotten everyone he had left killed also??

I can’t imagine Wen Qing doing that to Wei Wuxian. Save his life? For what? This takes away everything he has left to live for. You think Wen Qing doesn’t intimately understand how cruel that would be?

(Yes, I’m complaining about all of this, but I’m still about to cry because I rewatched the scene to make sure I didn’t say anything untrue, and  g o d  it manages to hit hard despite all of that, so who’s the real clown here!!)

Anyways. So that’s all just like. Frustratingly incoherent. It’s one of several wrongs I think CQL committed against Wen Qing’s character, but my feelings about Wen Qing in CQL are pretty complicated (I love her so much, and I love that we got more Wen Qing content, but that content sure is a mixed bag of stuff I really enjoyed and stuff I desperately wish didn’t exist) and I decided I wasn’t going to get into it in this post. (is anyone even still reading god)

This change also muddles Lan Wangji’s choices and punishment in ways that I think diminishes the severity of the situation to the detriment of both his characterization and his family’s characterization. The punishment scene is extremely moving and you should read this post about the language used in it but. sldfjsljslkf.

okay well, several things. In the context of CQL, which really pushes the “righteousness” angle of Wei Wuxian (see point 1), I think this scene makes a lot of sense in isolation: both Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian are painted as martyrs for doing the right thing. “Who’s right and who’s wrong?” The audience is asked to see the punishment as “unjust”. That’s perfectly fine and coherent in the context of CQL, but I don’t think it’s nearly as interesting as what happens in MDZS.

Because CQL collapses both the First Siege and the Bloodbath into one event, Lan Wangji’s crimes are sort of unclearly defined. In episode 43, when Lan Xichen is explaining the situation, we see a flashback to when Su She says something along the lines of, “We could set aside the fact that you defended Wei Ying at Nightless City, but now you won’t even let us search his den?” (of course, this gives us the really excellent “you are not qualified to talk to me” line which. delicious. extremely vindicating and satisfying. petty king lan wangji.) Lan Xichen goes on to say something like, “Wangji alone caused several disturbances at the Mass Graves. Uncle was greatly angered, and [decreed his punishment]”. (Sorry, I’m too lazy to type out the full lines with translations, just. trust me on this one.)

Lan Wangji’s actions are shown to be motivated by a righteous love. Wei Wuxian is portrayed as someone innocent who stood up for the right thing against popular opinion and was scapegoated and destroyed for it, having done no wrong. (See, point 1 again.)

In MDZS, Lan Wangji’s crimes are very specific. It isn’t just that he caused some “disturbances” (this is just Lan XIchen’s vague phrasing in CQL—we don’t really know what he did). He steals Wei Wuxian away from the Bloodbath at Nightless City, after Wei Wuxian killed thousands of people, and hides him away in a cave, feeding him spiritual energy to save his life. When Lan Wangji’s family comes to find him, demand that he hand over Wei Wuxian (who is, remember, a mass murderer at this point! we can argue about how culpable he is for those actions all day—that’s the whole point, but the people are still dead), Lan Wangji not only refuses, but raises his hands against his family. He seriously injures thirty-three Lan elders to protect Wei Wuxian.

I don’t know how to emphasize how serious that crime is? Culturally, this is like. Unthinkable. To raise your hand against members of your own family, your elders who loved and raised you, in defense of an outsider, a man who, by all accounts, is horrifically evil and just murdered thousands of people, including other members of your own family, is like. That’s a serious betrayal. Oh my god. Lan Wangji, what have you done?

Lan Xichen explains in chapter 99:

我去看他的时候对他说，魏公子已铸成大错，你何苦错上加错了。他却说……他无法断言你所作所为对错如何，但无论对错，他愿意与你一起承担所有后果。

When I went to see him, I said, “Wei-gongzi’s great wrongs are already set in stone, why take the pains to add wrongs upon wrongs?” But he said…… he had no way to ascertain the rights and wrongs of your actions, but regardless of right or wrong, he was willing to bear all the consequences with you.

I think this is very different than what’s going on in CQL, though the differences appear subtle on the surface. In CQL, Lan Wangji demands of his uncle, “Dare I ask Uncle, who is righteous and who is wicked, who is wrong and who is right?” but the very act of asking in this way implies that Lan Wangji has an opinion on the matter (though perhaps not a simple one). 

Lan Wangji in MDZS specifically says that he doesn’t know how to evaluate the morality of Wei Wuxian’s actions, but that regardless, he is willing to bear the consequences of his choices and his actions. He understands that his actions while sheltering Wei Wuxian are not clearly morally defensible. He did it anyways because he loved Wei Wuxian, because he thought that Wei Wuxian was worth saving, that there was still something good in him, despite the things he had done under mitigating circumstances. Lan Wangji did not save Wei Wuxian because he thought it was the right thing to do. He saved him because he loved him.

He is given thirty-three lashes with the discipline whip, one for each elder he maimed, and this leaves him bedridden for three years. Is this punishment horrifyingly severe? Yes! But is it unjustly given? I think that’s a much harder question to answer in the context of the story.

Personally, I think that question underscores the broader questions of morality contained within MDZS. I think it’s a much more interesting take on Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji as individuals. This asks, what can be pardoned? The righteous martyr angle is uncomplicated because moral certainty is easy. I think the situation in MDZS is far more uncomfortable if you examine its implications. And personally, I think that’s more meaningful!

(Not even going to touch on the whole, 300 strokes with a giant rod, but he has whip scars? And they were also sentenced to 300 strokes as kids for drinking alcohol…? CQL is not. consistent. on that front. ahaha.)

God, every point so far in this meta is just like “here’s one change that has cascading effects upon the rest of the show” dear god, okay, I’m getting to the Blood Corpse scene.

So in MDZS, the Wen remnants (besides Wen Ning and Wen Qing) do not go to Lanling. After the Bloodbath at Nightless City, Lan Wangji returns Wei Wuxian to the Mass Graves. Wei Wuxian lives with the Wen remnants for another three months before the First Siege, where he dies and the rest of the Wens are killed (except A’Yuan).

(Sidenote that I won’t get into: I love the dead spaces of time that MDZS creates. There’s very clear gaps in the narrative that we just never get the details on, most notably: Wei Wuxian’s three months in the Mass Graves post core transfer, and Wei Wuxian’s three months in the Mass Graves post Jiang Yanli’s death. They’re both extremely terrible times, but the audence is asked to imagine it instead of ever learning what really happened, what it was like. There’s something really cool about that narratively, I think.)

The Wen remnants are not cremated along with the rest of the dead. Their bodies are thrown into the blood pool.

At the Second Siege, when Wei Wuxian draws a Yin Summoning Flag on his clothes to turn himself into bait for the corpses in order to allow everyone else to escape to safety while he and Lan Wangji fight them off, there’s a moment when it gets really, truly dangerous—even with the help of the juniors and a few of the adults, they probably would have been killed. But then a wave of blood-soaked corpses come crawling out of the blood pool of their own accord and tear their attackers apart.

At the end of it, the blood corpses, the Wen remnants, gather before Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian and Wen Ning. Wei Wuxian thanks them, they exchange bows, and the blood corpses collapse into dust. Wen Ning scrambles to gather their ashes, but runs out of space in his clothing. Several juniors, seeing this, offer up their bags to him and try to help.

It’s just. This scene is so important to me. Obviously, it couldn’t be included in CQL because of the whole undead thing, but it’s such a shame because I maintain that the Blood Corpse scene is one of the most powerful scenes in the whole goddamn book. It ties together so many things that I care about! It’s the moment when the narrative says, “kindness is not a waste”. Wei Wuxian failed to save them, but that doesn’t mean that his actions were done in vain. What he did matters. The year of life he bought them matters. The time they spent together matters.

This is also the moment when the juniors finally see Wen Ning for who he is—not the terrifying Ghost General, but a gentle man who has just lost his family for a second time. This is the moment when they reach out with kindness to the monster that their parents told them about at night. It matters that the juniors are able to do that! That they see this man suffering and are moved to compassion instead of righteous satisfaction.

(Except Jin Ling, for very understandable reasons, but Jin Ling’s moment comes later.)

It’s also the moment that we’re starkly reminded that many of the adults in attendance were present at the First Siege and directly responsible for the murders of the Wen remnants, including Ouyang Zizhen’s father. We’re reminded that he’s not just a comically annoying man with bad takes—he also participated in the murder of innocent people and then disrespected their corpses. But what retribution should be taken against him and the others? What retribution could be taken that wouldn’t lead to more tragedy?

There’s someone in the crowd in this scene named Fang Mengchen who refuses to be swayed by Wei Wuxian’s actions. “He killed my parents,” he says. “What about them? How can I let that go?”

“What more do you want from me?” Wei Wuxian asks. “I have already died once. You do not have to forgive me, but what more should I do?”

That is the ultimate question, isn’t it? What is the only way out of tragedy? You don’t have to forgive, but you cannot continue to take your retribution. It is not fair, but it’s all you have.

okay. so. those were my four Big Points of Contention with CQL, as I am currently experiencing them.

Honorable mentions go to: Wen Qing’s arc (both excellent and awful in different ways), making 13/16 years of Inquiry canon (I think this is untrue to Lan Wangji’s character, though I can understand why it was done), Mianmian’s departure from the Lanling Jin sect being shortened and having the sexism cut out (there’s something really visceral about the accusations against Mianmian being explicitly about her womanhood that I desperately wish had been retained in the show), cutting the scene where Jin Ling cries in mourning for Jin Guangyao and is scolded for it by Sect Leader Yao (my heart for that scene because it also matters so much)

but now!! onto the fun part, where I talk effusively about how much I love CQL!! this will probably be shorter (*prays*) because a lot of my frustrations with CQL are related to spiraling thematic consequences while the things I love are like. Simpler to pinpoint? If that makes sense? we’ll see.

CQL’s greatest virtues, also according to cyan:

1. this:

[ID: Wei Wuxian, trembling in fear, screaming “shijie!” as Jiang Cheng threatens him with Fairy in episode 34 of The Untamed drama. /end ID]

I understand that this is like, a very minor, specific detail change, but oh my GOD, it is like. Unparalleled. Every time I think about this change, I get so emotional and disappointed that it’s not in the novel, because I think it strengthens this scene tenfold. In the novel, Wei Wuxian calls out for Lan Zhan, which like, I get it. The story at this point is focused on the development of his romantic feelings for Lan Wangji, so the point of the scene is that the first person he thinks of in a moment of extreme fear is Lan Zhan, which surprises him. That’s fine. Like, it’s fine! But I think it doesn’t have nearly the same weight as Wei Wuxian calling for his sister to save him from his brother. 

Having Wei Wuxian call out for his sister drives home the loss that the two of them have suffered, and highlights the relationship they all once had. Jiang Yanli is much more relevant to shuangjie’s narrative than Lan Wangji ever was, and this highlights exactly how deeply the fracturing of their familial relationship cuts. Wangxian gets so much time and focus throughout the rest of the novel. I love that this moment in the show is just about the Yunmeng siblings because that relationship is no less important, you know?

Calling out for Jiang Yanli in the show draws a much cleaner line through the dialogue. “You dare bring her up before me?” to “Don’t you remember what you said to Jin Ling?” It unifies the scene and twists the knife. It also gives us more insight into how fiercely Wei Wuxian was once beloved and protected by his siblings. Jiang Cheng promised to chase all the dogs away from Wei Wuxian when they were children. It’s clear that Jiang Yanli did as well.

Once upon a time, Wei Wuxian’s siblings defended him from his fears, and now one of them is dead and the other is using that fear to hurt him where he’s weakest. The reversal is so painfully juxtaposed, and it’s done with just that one flashback of Wei Wuxian as a child leaping into Jiang Yanli’s arms and calling out her name. Extremely good, economical storytelling. The conversation between shuangjie is much more focused on their own stories independent from Lan Wangji, which I very much appreciate. Wangxian, you’re wonderful, but this ain’t about you, and I don’t think it should be.

2. Extended Jiang Yanli content (and by extension, Jin Zixuan and Mianmian content)

Speaking of absolute goddess Jiang Yanli, I really loved what CQL did with her (unlike my more mixed feelings about Wen Qing). Having her in so many more scenes makes her importance to Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian a lot clearer, and we get to experience her as a person rather than an ideal.

On a purely aesthetic level, Jiang Yanli’s styling and character design is so stellar in CQL. The more prevalent design for her is kind of childish in the styling, which I don’t love (I think it’s the donghua influence?). And even I, someone who’s audio drama on main 24/7, personally prefer her CQL voice actor. There’s only a few characters in CQL that I look at and go “ah yes, that’s [character] 100%” and Jiang Yanli is one of them. I was blessed. I would lay down my life for her.

I’m really glad that CQL showed her illness more explicitly and gave her a sword, even if she never uses it! Her weak constitution is only mentioned once in the novel in chapter 69 in like two lines that I blew past initially because I was reading at breakneck speed and was only reminded of when my therapist who I conned into reading mdzs after 8 months of never shutting up oof brought it to my attention like two weeks ago. /o\

We never read about Jiang Yanli carrying a sword in the novel, though we are told that her cultivation is “mediocre”, so we know that she at least does cultivate, even if not very well. Highlighting her poor health in CQL makes her situation more clear, I think, and explains a little more about the way she’s perceived throughout the cultivation world as someone “not worthy of Jin Zixuan”. The novel tells us that Jiang Yanli is not an extraordinary beauty, not very good at cultivation, sort of bland in her expressions, and, very briefly, that she’s in poor health. I really love that description of Jiang Yanli, because it emphasizes that her worth has nothing at all to do with her talents, her health, her cultivation, her physical strength, or her beauty. She is the best person in the whole world, her brothers adore her, and the audience loves and respects her for reasons wholly unrelated to those value judgments. We love her because she is kind, because she is loyal, because she loves so deeply. Tbh, her only imperfection is falling for someone so tragically undeserving of her. (JK, I love you Jin Zixuan, and you do deserve her because you are an excellent boy who grows and changes and learns!! I can’t even be mean to characters as a joke god.)

Anyways, I just think the detail about her health is compelling and informs her character’s position in the world in a very specific way. I’m happy that CQL brought it to the forefront when it was kind of an easily-missed throwaway in the novel. It does mean something to me that Jiang Yanli, despite her poor physical health, is never once seen or treated as a burden by her brothers.

Something partially related that really hit hard was this:

[ID: two gifs. Jiang Yanli peeling lotus pods, looking up uncomfortably as her mother loses her temper about the Wen indoctrination at the table from episode 11 of The Untamed drama. /end ID]

D8 AAAAHHH this was VISCERAL. The novel is quite sparse in a lot of its descriptions and lets the audience fill in the missing details, so Jiang Yanli’s expression and reactions are not described when, after Jiang Cheng quickly volunteers to go to Qishan, Madam Yu accuses her of continuing to “happily peel lotus seeds” in such a dire situation.

“Of course you’ll go,” she snaps to Jiang Cheng. “Or else do you think we should let your sister go?”

This scene triggered me so bad lmfao, so I guess it’s kind of weird that I love it so much, but I felt Seen. Something about the way her nail slips in the second gif as she breaks open the pod is like. Oh, that’s a sense memory! Of me, as a child, witnessing uncomfortable conflict between people I cared about. I know this is an extremely personal bias, but hey, so is this whole meta. Because Jiang Yanli is often silent and quiet, it’s more her behavior and expressions that convey her character. It’s why the moment she lets loose on Jin Zixun is so powerful. We don’t get to see a lot of it in the novel, but because CQL is a visual medium, her character is a lot easier to pin down as a human as opposed to an abstract concept.

Anyways, in this moment, which I also think is a tangential reference to her weak constitution (it doesn’t feel like, “your sister can’t go because she’s a girl”; it feels like, “your sister can’t go because she couldn’t handle it”), we get to see Jiang Yanli’s own reaction to her perceived inadequacy. We see it in other places too—like how upset she is when Jin Zixuan dismisses her in several scenes, but this is the one that hits me the hardest because it’s about how her weakness is going to put her little brother in grave danger.

Last Yunmeng siblings with focus on Jiang Yanli scene that isn’t in the novel that I’m just absolutely wrecked over: the dream sequence in episode 28, when Jiang Yanli dreams about Wei Wuxian sailing away from her, but no matter how she shouts, or how she begs Jiang Cheng to help her, she can’t bring him back home.

I’m not going to gif it because I literally just like, fast-forwarded through it and started sobbing uncontrollably in front of my laptop, dear god.

I don’t know where the CQL writers found the backdoor directly into my brain’s nightmare center, but?? they sure did! IDK, I can see how this might be kind of heavy-handed, but it just. The sensation of being in a dream where something is going terribly wrong, but you’re the only one who seems to see it happening? But there’s nothing you can do? I feel like it’s a very fitting nightmare to give Jiang Yanli, who is acutely aware and constantly reminded of how little power she has in the world: not good enough for the boy she likes, not healthy enough to cultivate well, not strong enough to keep her family together.

The whole, elder siblings trying and failing to protect their younger siblings pattern is A Lot in the story, but there’s something particularly painful about seeing it happen to Jiang Yanli because of that awareness. All the other elder siblings are exceptionally talented or powerful in obvious ways. All Jiang Yanli has is the force of her will and the force of her love, and she knows it isn’t enough.

I care a lot about the Yunmeng siblings, okay! And I think CQL did right by them!

I’m only going to spend two seconds talking about Jin Zixuan and Mianmian, but I DO want to mention them.

Anyways, because we get more Jiang Yanli content, we ALSO get more soft xuanli, which is Very Good. Literally my kingdom for disaster het Jin Zixuan treating my girl right!! CQL said het rights, and I’m not even mad about it! I’m really happy that we get to see a little more of how their relationship plays out, and how hard Jin Zixuan works to change his behavior and apologize to her for his mistakes. The novel is from Wei Wuxian’s POV, so we miss the details, alas. Jin Zixuan covered in mud, planting lotuses? Blessed.

I think part of making Mianmian a larger speaking role is for convenience’s sake, but oh boy do I love that choice. Especially the Jin Zixuan & Mianmian relationship. Like, they’re so clearly platonic, and Mianmian is never once portrayed as a threat to Jiang Yanli. They just care about and respect each other a lot? Jin Zixuan’s distress when she defects from the Jin sect gets me in the heart, because it’s just like. God. I think there’s a lot of interesting potential there for her own thoughts re: Wei Wuxian. After all, she leaves her sect in defense of him, but he later kills a friend that she respects and loves. The moments shared between her and Jin Zixuan are minor, but they hint at a deeper relationship that I’m really glad was in the show.

3. To curb the strong, defend the weak: lantern scene (gusu) + rain scene (qiongqi dao 1.0)

I think I basically already explained why I love this so much in this post (just consider that post and this point to be the same haha), but just. Okay. A short addendum.

As much as I love novel wangxian, I really think that including this scene early on emphasizes why Lan Wangji loves Wei Wuxian so deeply. Of course he thinks Wei Wuxian is attractive, but this is the moment when he realizes, oh, this is who I love. Having that moment to reflect upon throughout Wei Wuxian’s descent is so excellent. I have enumerated all of my issues with the “perfectly righteous Wei Wuxian” arc that CQL crafted, but having this narrative throughline in conjunction with the novel arc would be like. My favored supercanon ahaha. (It would need some tweaking, but I think it would work.) It shows us exactly who it is that Lan Wangji sees and is trying to save, who he thinks is still there, underneath all the carnage and despair and violence and grief. This is the Wei Wuxian Lan Wangji loves and is unwilling to let go. This is the Wei Wuxian that Lan Wangji would kill for, that Lan Wangji would stand beside, that Lan Wangji would live for.

4. Meeting Songxiao

As much as I love the unnameable ache of Wei Wuxian never meeting Xiao Xingchen and learning only about his story through secondhand sources in the novel (and the really cool parallel to that where Xiao Xingchen tells A’Qing the story of Baoshan-sanren’s ill-fated disciples: both Xiao Xingchen and Wei Wuxian learn of each other only through the eyes of others, and that is Very Neat), I think the reversal that this meeting in episode 10 sets up wins out just slightly.

I said once in the tags on one of my posts that “songxiao is the tragic parallel of wangxian” and like. Yeah. Basically! If we take songxiao as romantic, the arc of their relationship happens inversely to wangxian, and that parallel is so much clearer and stronger when we have wangxian meeting songxiao in their youth.

The scene of their meeting really does have that Mood™ of uncertain youth seeing happy and secure adults living out the dreams that they’re afraid to name. Wei Wuxian’s eager little, “oh! just like me and Lan Zhan!! Right, Lan Zhan??” when songxiao talk about cultivating together through shared ideals and not blood is. Well, it’s Something.

When they meet again at Yi City, there’s a greater heaviness to it. So this is what happened to the people you once dreamed of becoming! Wangxian have already come to a point where they have an unspoken understanding of their relationship, but Songxiao have lost everything they once had. When Song Lan looks at wangxian, it’s like looking at a mirror of his past, and everyone in attendance knows it.

To me, that unspoken parallel is really emotionally and thematically valuable. All that good, and here is the tragedy that came of it.

okay, look! I managed to keep it shorter!! here are my honorable mentions: that scene where Jin Guangyao tries to hold Jin Ling and Jin Guangshan refuses to let him (it’s hating Jin Guangshan hours all day every day in this household), the grass butterfly leitmotif for Sizhui (im literally crying right now about it shut up), the Jiang Cheng/Wen Qing sideplot (look I know it’s wild that I actually liked that given that I headcanon JC as aspec, but I actually really like how it played out, specifically because Wen Qing and Wei Wuxian are NOT romantic—it sets up an unexpected and interesting comparison)

um. Anyways. I uh. really care about this story. And have a lot of thoughts, which I’m sure will continue to evolve. Maybe in 8 months I’ll return to this and go well, literally none of this applies anymore, but who knows! It’s how I feel right now. I cried literally three times while writing this because MDZS/CQL reached into my chest and yanked my heart right out of my body, but I had fun! *finger guns*

and like, I know I had a LOT to say about what frustrated me about CQL, but I really really hope it’s clear that I adore the show despite all of that. I talk a lot because I care a lot, and my brain only has one setting.

anon, this was like 1000% more than you bargained for, I’m SURE, (and I’m still exercising some restraint, if you can. believe that.) but I hope that you or someone out there got something out of it! if you made it all the way to the end of this meta, wow!! consider me surprised and grateful!!

time to crawl back into my hovel so I can write Lan Xichen fic and cry

(ko-fi? ;A;)