#so mdzs is kind of like if there was a side character who was like raven except it was raven whose dad hated her and she wanted his love

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I know those eyes.

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[qiu-yan]

i'll write a more in-depth post later, but imo one of the reasons for the level of disagreement in this fandom is that many of us readers can see what mxtx is trying to imply about ethics through her work and simply do not agree with her base premise. like i think that there are some conclusions about the various characters in mdzs that mxtx wants you as the reader to draw. you can kind of tell even if you don't agree with those conclusions. more importantly, though, you can also tell exactly what kind of moral philosophy mxtx (consciously or unconsciously) favors, and what she treats as the granularity of morality, so to speak. the most commonly-held positions in the fandom are those mxtx intends for the reader to reach using her own beliefs about ethics as fundamental axioms.

the problem, then, is when the reader does not agree with mxtx's unspoken axioms of morality. if you come into mdzs with a moral framework different enough from what mxtx has (consciously or unconsciously) used to write mdzs, then of course you're going to come to different conclusions regarding the characters or even the object lessons of the story.

or rather, in simpler terms: the rammies, mxtx....the rammies....

[meat-loving-meat]

I’m thinking about Modern!AUs in fanfiction and why sometimes they’re some of my favorite fics and also sometimes the Worst™️. (<-that is a joke. There is no such thing as bad fanfiction, just fanfiction I don’t personally like.)

Because I LOVE Modern!AUs that ask interesting questions about how the setting of a story impacts the characters—how much of the setting can you remove while still being able to recognize the characters in question? All of it? None of it? What new problems would living in a world with planes and phones create for these characters? How are the social and political tensions of the original canon reflected in our own world?

The “problem” (again, not an actual problem, just a personal preference) is that most Modern!AUs COMPLETELY refuse to engage with any of that. They instead become a stale rehashing of the original canon except with lower stakes. Nothing about the modern setting adds interest, and everything interesting from the original setting falls away.

I think that a lot of people write Modern!AU fics to deescalate the conflict of the original canon and give the characters more relatable problems, which isn’t universally terrible, but it can so easily become boring. I don’t WANT to know what it would be like if one of these characters was a florist and the other was a tattoo artist; I want to know what would happen if you gave one of them a gun.

[theballadofmars]

RANKING SVSSS CHARACTERS BY HOW LONG THEY WOULD LAST IN FNAF

8. ZHUZHI LANG: the moment he sees an animatronic moving he hides under the table and gives up. Dies night one.

7. SHA HUALING: survives the first night by sheer stubborness. Second night she tries to fight the animatronics. She gets to destroy the cupcake but Chica kills her.

6. YUE QINGYUAN: he listens to the instructions and survives three nights. The fourth night he tried to do it as perfect as possible, gets overwhelmed and dies by a heart attack.

5. LIU QINGGE: he fought lbh for five years and survived he can survive at least four nights. The last night he gets a bit overwhelmed by all he has to do and forgets to check Foxy.

4. SHEN JIU: you could say that for someone who starts the novel dead he would be in a lower position, but sj can multitask and he's not intimidated by the animatronics. He probably kills William Afton the last day.

3. SHANG QINGHUA: I think he would be insecure during the first nights, but by the ends he's just like "meh". He spends the last night writing PIDM.

2. MOSHANG: they don't have the protagonist halo, but again, sqh is great at multitasking and with mobei at his side he has more confidence in his skills. Would survive the five days.

1. BINGQIU / SHEN YUAN / LUO BINGHE: Protagonist halo lbh makes him impossible to kill + millenial sy who probably was a teen when fnaf got out. Both of them survives the five nights, if they're together they complete 20/20 mode and burn the place down when they finish. Sy infodumps and the animatronics are kind of afraid of lbh.

HONORARY MENTIONS:

-MOBEI - JUN: sqh isn't here? Not interested. Doesn't go to work.

-LIU MINGYAN: she's writing toxic yaoi porn the animatronics doesn't want to approach her.

-MU QINGFANG: survives one night, tries to solve the mistery and ends up in the hospital as the victim of the bite of 87.

-QI QINGQI: I think she would come back the second night with an gun ready to shoot the animatronics. She gets fired.

-TIANLANG - JUN: would probably try to fuck Phone Guy. "Oh, the animatronics are possesed? Ha, ha, you're so funny, I love your voice, why don't you help me pass the time? ;)". He gets fired.

RANKING TGCF

RANKING MDZS

[randomness-is-my-order]

you know what is genuinely heartening for me about wei wuxian’s character? we can very easily discern that throughout the course of the series, countless people are ready to kill wei wuxian but on the flip side?? wei wuxian is also someone who is capable of inspiring enough loyalty and love that people are willing to die for him. this is a random reference but i remember having a discussion about a kdrama (strongest deliveryman for anyone who’s curious) and this one person said that it is easy to tell how good of a person the main character is because he has all these people surrounding him, ready to listen, ready to lay down their lives for him. and that is exactly the case with wei wuxian–it is a testament to his character that people like wen qing, wen ning, jiang yanli made the sacrifices that they did, just so he could live on. it is a testament to his character that lan wangji, an absolute paragon of virtue, would 100% die for wei wuxian. and yes, wei wuxian would stick his neck out for each of them as well but it’s the fact he doesn’t have to–that this loyalty is not transactional but something he has inspired within these people simply by being himself and doing the right thing and proving that he is deserving of their loyalty.

it’s the fact that other “leaders” of their world did not only fail at earning loyalty but they were such horrible people that instead, they inspired betrayal within their subjects. it’s so fascinating how wei wuxian’s effect on people compares against the cultivation sect heirs and leaders because, despite all the odds stacked against him, he did a better job at actually leading the cultivation world (the war victory, the advocation for the wen remnants, the inventions that advanced the cultivation society) than any of these political figures at their peaks (and this includes jin guangyao with his watchtowers and lan wangji’s arriving where the chaos is stuff, though these are validly debatable).

okay but point is: it is very easy to make people hate you and want to kill you, atleast in the mdzs world, but it is far more difficult to inspire the kind of loyalty that would make people want to die for you and wei wuxian, somehow, managed to do just that and not just once. also, that the people loyal to him, are some of the most morally upstanding characters–as perceived either by the cultivation world and/or the fandom. isn’t that so telling?

[luanna801]

Despite me joking about Lan Xichen not reading the room re: NMJ and JGY, I actually disagree with the idea that the Sworn Brotherhood was inherently a terrible idea and he should have known it would make things worse. I think it's a classic case where because we as the audience know how it turns out, that outcome seems like an inevitability and the characters end up being called dumb for not predicting it. But I think with the information Lan Xichen had at the time, it wasn't unreasonable for him to think this might work and was at least worth trying.

And I think in a different story, this is the kind of idea that could easily have worked and led to a heartwarming story about redemption and healed relationships. MDZS is just sadly not that story, at least for these characters, but as always fictional characters don't know what story they're living in and can't be expected to predict the future. All they can do is act based on the information available to them, and I would argue Lan Xichen didn't really have enough information to predict how this would turn out:

(1) At this point, the only time Nie Mingjue has tried to kill Jin Guangyao is when he mistakenly thought JGY had actually betrayed them and defected to the Wen side. Once the truth was cleared up, NMJ is still furious but backs down from trying to kill him. (JGY, meanwhile, has made no attempts to kill or even harm NMJ yet, and in fact actually saved his life.)

From Lan Xichen's perspective, he has every reason to think this incident was just an anomaly based on a very extreme situation where NMJ was acting on faulty information. He has no reason to think Nie Mingjue would try to kill Jin Guangyao again, or vice versa, so as far as he knows the worst case scenario for the sworn brotherhood is just... that it won't go great. That maybe they'll never really get along again, but they'll still collaborate politically for the sake of the Sworn Brotherhood, and there will be no real harm done that they tried. There isn't really a way he could have predicted things would escalate to them trying to kill each other.

(2) Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao used to not just tolerate each other but get along/work together EXCEPTIONALLY well, and Lan Xichen saw them during that time. He also knows they're both pretty closed-off people who canonically don't have a lot of friends and are hurt by the way things fell apart. It makes total sense for him to think they might be able to get back to how things used to be if they just got a chance to clear up misunderstandings and be reminded of the things they used to like about each other. And it makes sense that as someone who cares about them both he would want that for them.

(3) Lan Xichen sees both Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao as fundamentally good people. We can argue that he's mistaken in one or both of those evaluations, but based on what he knows, and indeed what they're respectively actually guilty of at that time, I don't think it's unreasonable for him to think so.

Most of JGY's worst actions are still in the future at this point. His only real crime (other than the things he did undercover, which LXC doesn't condemn) is killing the captain, which is an ambiguous enough situation that it makes sense for Lan Xichen to not consider it conclusive. Especially when weighed against what for LXC is far more substantial proof of JGY's goodness, like JGY having saved his own life when he was on the run, his time loyally and effectively serving NMJ, his incredibly brave and critical contributions to the war effort, etc.

Likewise, Nie Mingjue has yet to start acting as violent and unhinged as he later will on account of the saber spirit. While he's gotten angry, it was typically in rational ways that are largely proportional to the situation. He isn't doing anything comparable to the way he later flies off the handle at both Jin Guangyao and Nie Huaisang in largely irrational ways.

(We could argue that LXC should have known that he'd eventually end up there because of how saber cultivation works, but considering even Nie Huaisang apparently didn't know about it, I don't know that a member of another clan would have that kind of in-depth knowledge of the effects of Nie saber-wielding. LXC presumably knows the basic idea, but that doesn't necessarily mean he knows the specifics or how bad it can get.)

Therefore, from LXC's perspective these are two fundamentally kind, good people who all other things being equal should be able to work things out. And on the whole, he has far more evidence backing that up than contradicting it at this point in time.

[jiangwanyinscatmom]

I like how you talk about novel accurate Jiang Cheng a lot. It's a breathe of fresh air from the cringe fanon view on him. I would like to ask you a question about him.

I rmb reading a mdzs fanfic, bad idea I know since most of them are full of fanon 😭, and it was about kid Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng.

In the fic, kid Wei Wuxian had just arrived in Lotus Pier. Apparently, Wei Wuxian was looked down on by everyone in the class because he didn't have any education prior and he was also bullied for it by nearly everyone in the class.

Jiang Cheng, in the fic, passionately defended Wei Wuxian from the bullies.

And that part made me think. Would kid jc really defend kid Wei Wuxian from his bullies? Especially against a crowd? Because if I rmb correctly, Jiang Cheng, as far as I can see, kind of likes to side with the crowd.

I think canon Jiang Cheng wouldn't defend Wei Wuxian from the bullies. I feel like he would most probably be embarrassed to be around Wei Wuxian at that point and avoid him.

But I wanna know what you think, you seem like an expert on Jiang Cheng's character XD.

Good day anon!

I think this runs into the issue of needing to change Wei Wuxi himself, who doesn't let himself be bullied and very much makes decisions based on that. Remember he was set to run away from Lotus Pier the first night he was brought in due to Jiang Cheng kicking him out of the room they were supposed to share, and Wei Wuxian trying to het along without being pushy. It was Jiang Yanli who found him out of worry, while with Jiang Cheng we are told he went to find him because HE was scared of potentially getting in trouble for doing what he did, with no mention of sympathy towards Wei Wuxian or guilt for his actions and words.

A running prevalent theme with Jiang Cheng and Jiang Fengmian's warning to not say cruel things so casually because it will have consequences. Wei Wuxian says he will not say anything as to why he broke his leg incriminating Jiang Cheng (out of genuine kindness and worry) and Jiang Cheng is the one to frame it as I have your back you have my back repayment with saying he will protect Wei Wuxian from dogs as thanks.

We see Wei Wuxian being demeaned in front of Jiang Cheng, first with the Jin Zixuan Cloud Recesses incident and Wei Wuxian using his servant status to punch him over Jiang Cheng who is letting his own sister be insulted despite being angry for the benefit of clan ties instead. To Xuanwu Cave and Wen Chao targeting Wei Wuxian for being fed up with trying to use Mianmian as live bait (with Jiang Cheng unsuccessfully trying to hold him back and insisting on him keeping his head down). To after the Sunshot Campaign when Sect Leader Yao was gossiping how others only came to Yunmeng Jiang due to Wei Wuxian's (a servant can't forget they always stipulate with this like it's a shame) prowess. To the rest of the culitvators decrying Wei Wuxian and beginning to call him power hungry. And Jiang Cheng doesn't say a thing in defense for Wei Wuxian to the public outcry.

The entire Gate Crasher extra is a summarization of this relationship between not just them, but the rest of cultivator gentry:

"Did you know that fierce corpse when it was alive?” Wei Wuxian asked.

After a long silence, Young Master Qin finally answered, “Yes.”

The couple exchanged a look, while Lan Sizhui perked up.

“Please elaborate,” Wei Wuxian said.

It was only after some contemplation that Young Master Qin slowly said, “There isn’t really much to explain. I don’t know much about him. I grew up in my grandmother’s house, in a mountainous village in a faraway province. He was one of the household’s servants. Because we were similar in age, we played together growing up.”

“That’s called a childhood friend,” Wei Wuxian said. “How can you ‘not know much about him’?”

“Because we drifted apart when we got older,” Young Master Qin said.

"Think back,” Wei Wuxian urged. “Did you ever do anything that offended that servant in any way?”

“There was one instance,” Young Master Qin answered, “but I don’t know how badly I offended him.”

“Tell us,” Lan Wangji said.

"The servant had served year-round at my grandmother’s side,” Young Master Qin began. “He was efficient and similar in age to me, her grandson, so my grandmother liked him and often praised him for his intelligence. For that reason, he grew a bit arrogant. He often tagged along behind our clan’s juniors with no understanding of the distinction between master and servant. Later, my grandmother even let him attend school with us.

One day, the teacher had given us a difficult assignment. Someone came up with an answer during discussion, and everyone in class was praising it when that servant suddenly said it was wrong. He’d only been attending class for a month or two at the time, while the clan juniors had been studying for two or three years. Naturally, there was no need to discuss who was right or wrong, so someone promptly dismissed him. But he was stubborn—adamant that the previous person was wrong, wanting to show us how he had achieved his conclusion. Eventually, the dispute annoyed everyone in class, and we all booted him out.”

At this point, Lan Sizhui couldn’t help but say, “Young Master Qin, even if he had annoyed the rest of you, he hadn’t done anything unreasonable…Why boot him out?”

“It sounds like a bunch of juniors from your clan provoked him,” Wei Wuxian commented.

“Did you play a special role? Otherwise, he’d have sought out the entire group, not just you.”

"I was the first to tell him to get out,” Young Master Qin answered. “It was just an offhand comment, but everyone had long been unhappy with him, and the situation got out of hand. That guy had quite a temper too. After he returned home, he told my grandmother he wouldn’t be attending school anymore, and true to his word, he never went again.”

“I’ll ask two more questions, and you must answer them truthfully,” Wei Wuxian said.

"Go ahead,” Young Master Qin said.

“First question,” said Wei Wuxian with a particularly bright glint in his eyes. “You said that ‘someone came up with an answer.’ Was that someone you?”

After a pause, Young Master Qin asked, “Is that information relevant?”

"Well then. Second question—whose answer was right, and whose was wrong?”

Looking sour, Young Master Qin shook out his sleeves and answered dispassionately. “It’s an old story from years ago, please excuse me for not remembering everything vividly. But in all fairness, who has never let their feelings get the better of them in their youth—or done inexplicable things, or met strange people? Let us not dwell on it. I merely wish to settle this case once and for all, and as soon as possible.”

"Sure thing,” Wei Wuxian answered with a happy smile. “I get it, I get it.”

Much like Master Qin, Jiang Cheng did look down on Wei Wuxian aptitudes because he should have been just a servant that knew his place. He says on page Wei Wuxian is troublesome, agreeing with Jin Guangshan implicitly to attack Wei Wuxian's character and refusing to help protect Wei Wuxian because what is right and wrong, is very apparent, yet Jiang Cheng does not care about that next to his face in front of other leaders who think like him. And this was when they "were children" up to their young adult lives when Wei Wuxian is targeted with Jiang Cheng's help. Like Master Qin to his former servant Jiang Cheng blamed Wei Wuxian for something out of his hands and was exceedingly cruel to him. And just like Master Qin, Jiang Cheng adamantly tries to defend his own hate and reason why his former servant was always in the wrong or beneath him.

Wei Wuxian as well was the one to stand up for himself, even when it was not liked by the ones demeaning him. Just as the servant did leaving and never coming back because of his own morals. And yet neither sought out Master Qin's or Jiang Cheng's deaths, despite their excessive bullying of the former. They got a metaphorical slap on the wrist, a punch to the face, told to move on, a sword and jade pendant. You cannot be the protector when you are the bully.

[whetstonefires]

to continue my tradition of mdzs height posting, another character besides mo xuanyu who is routinely and unjustly described as tiny: Wen Qing.

according to the officially released heights, she and jin guangyao are roughly the same size. about five and a half feet tall.

which is on the small side for a man even in china, though not in medieval china, and is ofc loads smaller than the ridiculous giants making up most of the cultivator elite, but is not actually a small person.

that's statistically above average for a woman even in the modern US; in modern china it is often hard for women that height to find off-the-rack clothes. in a historical chinese setting she is mildly gargantuan. five foot six is a positively unmaidenly height.

wei wuxian (as i've previously discussed) is slightly over six feet tall at his original full growth, which is stupid tall even when you're an aristocrat who didn't starve as a child. wen qing is, in turn, too tall for wei wuxian to hook his chin over her head, even if he stands on his toes, unless she ducks.

he's got maybe more than half a head on her. she could headbutt him in the nose from a standing start, as could most adult men because he's a freak.

wen qing would walk among a group of normal-in-context women like a turkey among hens. she is not tiny.

i know cql kind of made her look that way, but in fairness their version of lan wangji is a stick of no great height also. and even on cql she's not particularly small, just exceedingly pale and slim with big eyes. i truly do not know why it's so popular to conceptualize her as teeny-tiny, except maybe for the contrast value. it's not even hornyposting.

[esoteric-oracle]

//long rambles ahead!

I think what really lingers with me about MDZS is that it's not a novel with a cathartic ending at all. It's a bittersweet story that leaves you slightly hollow. Yes, it's a beautiful and epic romance. It's a piece of social commentary interwoven with a love story and murder mystery. It's a cautionary tale. But it is also very much a tragedy. It's a story about being too late, second chances, and moving on.

By the time the truth of everything JGY and JGS did comes to light, it's 13 years too late. Everything that mattered has already happened. Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan are long dead. Jin Ling is still an orphan. Wen Ning is dead, and sometime in the future, his death will be permanent. Wen Qing was burned to death at the stake for no fault of her own. Nie Mingjue has already spent ten years in a no-doubt agonizing state of un-death, and Lan Xichen will have to bear the guilt of loving both Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao, and by doing so, forsaking them both. Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng's once-close bond is irrevocably broken, and the woman who sowed the seeds of resentment when they were still children will never face the consequences of her vitriol.

People sometimes say MXTX was too hard on the side characters, and only gave the Wangxian a happy ending, but what stuck with me after finishing the story is how… sad things are. Yes, Wangxian finally get the happy ending they've deserved for nearly 20 years - but at the same time, it's not a happy ending where the people who've wronged them get the consequences they deserve.

Wei Wuxian will spend the rest of his life haunted by guilt and loss, over what happened to Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan, over the loss of the Wen remnants. The rest of his years won't even be lived in the body his parents gave him.

Lan Wangji will spend the rest of his years wondering if he'd chosen to stand with Wei Wuxian when it mattered - would his son have had to grow up without his birth family?

Nie Huaisang is left wondering if his brother had been a little less trusting and had never taken Meng Yao in as a Nie deputy, would his brother have died a less wretched death? Would he have been forced to stoop to ruthless machinations and manipulations to seek some semblance of justice?

Wen Ning will have to live with the knowledge that if he'd been a little less kind, if he'd let Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng die that fateful day - his family would still be alive. The Wens would've won the war; Wen Qing might've even succeeded Wen Ruohan.

No one really gets the ending they deserve. MDZS isn't a story where good people get happy endings, and bad people get their dues. Sure, Jin Guangyao's crimes are revealed and he faces the consequences of his actions. But what about the people who stood by and made him into a monster? If anything, the side characters and antagonists who survive get better than they deserve. The real villain of MDZS - society - will never face retribution. Those cultivators who always believed in their own bigotry and righteousness over and over again, will never face justice.

Do you think those cultivators and the public will ever feel any regret for the innocent people they condemned to death in their own prejudice and blind self-righteousness? Do you think the people who gathered at Nightless City to call for Wei Wuxian's death considered for one second that he was the biggest reason they won the war? When the cultivators who sacked the Wen settlement at the Burial Mounds threw the bodies of the Wens into the blood pool, do you think that was a sign of shame?

Do you think Jiang Cheng will ever regret leading a siege on a small settlement of innocent farmers? Do you think he's haunted by condemning to death the same people whom he owes his life to?

Do you think those people like Yao-zongzhu will ever feel an ounce of remorse for so easily believing rumours and hearsay, and spreading speculation and vitriol about innocent people?

Do you think that unnamed cultivator out there will ever lose a single minute of sleep over smashing in Wen Popo's head?

In the years that follow, Wen Ning will have apologized a hundred times for lives he did not take, crimes he did not commit, because of the name he bears. People, both in-universe, and even readers, will condemn him for actions he could not help, for doing the right thing. But did Jiang Cheng ever apologize for killing his family? Did the Jins ever apologize for their horrific treatment of people in the labour camps?

People will continue to demand that Wei Wuxian apologize for causing the deaths of their friends and family. But how is Wei Wuxian meant to do that? No one ever apologized to him for taking his family away. No one ever apologized for condemning the Wen Remnants to death for crimes they took no part in. The Wens were his family too.

There's so much potential for bitterness and corruption in MDZS. Instead of saving everyone, Wei Wuxian could've stood aside and let the people who tried to kill him die. MDZS could've been a story of succumbing to hatred and grief, but it wasn't. MXTX could've gone on and on about how society wronged the protagonist, but she didn't. The narrative is one of forgiveness and moving beyond past grievances. The story chose to close the story on a positive note. I truly love that aspect of MDZS, where MXTX leaves just enough room for hope and love at the end.

A-Yuan will finally get his closure about the family he lost as a toddler. Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian get their happy ending together after being separated by nearly two decades by war, miscommunication, cruelty, and death.

Wei Wuxian will never regret protecting survivors of an attempted genocide, because it was the right thing to do.

And Wen Ning will still stand in the way and take a fatal blow meant for Jin Ling, despite everything the Jins and Jiang Cheng did to the people he loved.

Because they chose love. Characters like Wei Wuxian and Wen Ning and Lan Wangji have the chance to move on and live a happier life because when they could've succumbed to hurt and fury and resentment, they chose to be kind and do the right thing. Wangxian get their happy ending because they learn to recognize the toxicity of the cultivation society's self-cannibalizing prejudice, and chose to pursue righteousness above personal benefit.

MDZS isn't a story about good people getting good things. Just look at what happened to Xiao Xingchen. There's really nothing satisfying or cathartic about everyone's fates at all. There's no promise about society facing the consequences of their mob mentality or Wangxian actually changing the world together. Even in TGCF, for all its makings of a love story, we get the promise of societal change once Jun Wu is deposed.

It has all the makings to be a tragedy or tale of vengeance of epic proportions - but instead, it's a love story. It's a story about making the best of what you've got, and staying true to yourself and your morals, even if that's sometimes a bitter pill to swallow. It's a story where everything that could go wrong went wrong, but the characters still managed to fight their way to a better ending by choosing kindness. At its core, MDZS is a testament to choosing compassion over cruelty no matter how tragic and hopeless life gets, no matter how long the journey gets. Even though the happy ending is more personal and only applies to the specific characters, even though we don't actually get the promise of their society becoming a better place - we still have the hope that Wei Wuxian's second chance brings. The hope that sometimes, no matter how cruel the world is, some people who deserve it still get their happy endings. That's what makes MDZS such a memorable work of art. That's why it stays with you.

[letteredlettered]

Hi!! Out of curiosity, which MDZS character do u think about the most and why?

The answer is, without a doubt, Wei Wuxian.

Part of what makes WWX special to me is he feels really archetypal and yet the archetype doesn't actually appear in most of the western media with which I'm familiar. The archetype may be super common in eastern media or perhaps, more narrowly, Chinese media, but my point he feels singular to me and therefore interests me, and I'm familiar with mostly western media. The comparisons in this post are all comparisons to western media, since that's what I'm familiar with, and I tried to pick popular examples so that people would understand what I mean.

Wei Wuxian is a protagonist who does bad things. Very bad things. We see that in plenty of western stories, but it's less common in western fantasy. That is, you can read a million stories about professors sleeping with their students and making a very bad muck of their lives; you can watch Breaking Bad and The Sopranos, but more often in western fantasy you're going to have a Good Guy who does good and Bad Guys who do bad.

But, okay. There's certainly a significant portion of western fantasy in which no one is a Good Guy, and everyone is a little corrupt: Song of Ice and Fire, Interview With the Vampire. Wei Wuxian feels very different to me than the protagonists of these media, because Wei Wuxian is trying to be the Good Guy. He's well-intentioned. He is willing to stand against all of society to defy corruption and protect those who are weaker than himself. That kind of protagonist isn't very common in the kinds of "dark" genre fiction that are about the corruption of humanity or the political intrigues of society. If they exist, they're usually martyred and disappear from the narrative because they are too good for this world, too pure.

But the point of WWX is that he is not too good; he is not pure. He is good; he is brave; he is righteous; he stands up for the little guy--but he is also over-confident in his own ability. He overreaches. And people die because of it. Lots of people. And then, after he accidentally murders people due to losing control, he goes mad. The Nightless City massacre occurs not due to an accident but because WWX is careless and angry. He kills a lot more people then.

I will say that western fantasy is full of characters who turn to "the dark side. The threat of "going dark" has become, in fact, an integral part of most portrayals of the hero's journey. But in the media with which I'm familiar, when someone does go dark, they become the villain. They are not allowed to live, or if they live, they must still be vanquished. Star Wars is a quintessential example: Luke Skywalker is tempted by the dark side but resists; he is the hero. Darth Vader is tempted by the dark side and gives in. Even though he turns back at the end, he must still be eliminated.

Of course, there are plenty of villains who reform in such stories and then manage to survive. I think you could say that once resurrected, WWX is reformed in this way. He knows he lost control. He knows he hurt people. He's very sorry about it, and while he still has a drive to put his hand in to help others, I can't imagine him coming to the point where he would lose control again, and I also do not think he has the kind of anger or resentment that would allow him to be so careless and wanton with his cultivation again.

So, in this sense, WWX holds the place of a reformed villain, like Zuko or, say, Angel, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. One thing to note about both of these examples--Zuko is shown to be "on the dark side" because of the family and culture in which he was raised, and also, he was a child. Angel was "on the dark side" because he didn't have a soul. That is, the excuses for why these reformed villains were ever villains at all exonerate them to some extent.

Meanwhile, WWX was a villain because he was full of himself. Like, it's still understandable why WWX was a villain: he sacrificed all the power he had for someone he loved; he still needed power to protect his own life when he was being tortured, and this took him down a dark path; he needed even more power to help the world fight corrupt fascists; he was villainized by society even before he became an actual villain because that society feared and desired his power; he was literally ostracized and rejected by his own family for doing the right thing. But in the end, it wasn't like he had no other choice when he caused the death of JZX. He didn't feel like he had another choice to save the Wens, but if he had not been so over-confident in his ability to control himself, JZX would not have died. And while I find the massacre at Qionqi Pass maybe excusable considering the pressures WWX was under, WWX goes mad after that. Also understandable, but there is no way in which the massacre at Nightless City is excusable. There's just no way to say it wasn't his fault.

Okay, but there are some reformed villains in western fantasy who really were villains because they just made some wrong choices. They were arrogant like WWX, or they were petty and small, or they had a sucky childhood but nothing that should've led them into darkness. These characters do exist, but I find them few and far between (and I will fully admit here that maybe I just haven't read enough western fantasy to come up with enough examples). When they do show up, they are not usually the protagonist (Snape); they more often play side roles.

And the point with these guys is that they did bad things because they were not well-intentioned. Their intentions change, and therefore their moral alignment changes. But WWX was always trying to do good. It's only at the very end that he is no longer trying, and he loses his mind partly because all of his efforts to do good have flown up in his face. I just feel like I never get to see someone who was honestly trying to help people so earnestly, and fucks it up because he was trying to do too much. The closest example is Xie Lian, and I think we can all agree Xie Lian never becomes anything close to a villain.

However, now comes the trait that really does make WWX different from any other protagonists I've ever read, and most I've seen on screen: he is all of the above, a reformed villain who was well-intentioned throughout his descent into villainy, who doesn't brood.

Everyone I mentioned above--Zuko, Angel, Snape--are all very serious people who are consumed by their pasts. If they're not dour or bitter, they're still unable to be light-hearted or carefree. Meanwhile, WWX is the definition of light-hearted and carefree. He has a lot of regrets and some guilt, but he really doesn't dwell on it. Like, he fucked up. He died. How else can he atone? He knows he can't make it up to the people he hurt. Might as well move on and not get in their face about it.

In general, WWX's personality is unusual for the kind of hero he is. While it's true that the wise-cracking, smart-talking hero is a staple of western fantasy (Iron Man, Spider Man), these aren't the kind of heroes who can make the serious mistakes that WWX makes--or, though they do make mistakes that lead to the deaths of countless bystanders, they are never really confronted with the enormity of those crimes. I know that some people will say that WWX is not confronted with them either, that his crimes are not dealt with seriously enough in the text. I admit that I was very surprised that WWX blames the death of JZX on JGY during the final showdown in the temple. In the end, however, I think there are enough questions about whether WWX is actually a Good Guy that the story of MDZS seems quite different than, say, many western superhero stories, in which yes, superheroes do bad things and make mistakes, but are still ultimately our heroes.

But the other thing about WWX's personality that is unique for such a protagonist and also further distances him from heroes like Iron Man is this: WWX is pathetic. He's allowed to be pathetic, on quite a few occasions. He pretends to be a child. He pretends to be a damsel in distress. He purposely harasses and teases others in a way that is actively annoying to them. He's laughable. The closest parallel I can think of to how deeply WWX is willing to abase himself and annoy the fuck out of others in Deadpool, but the thing about Deadpool is that he is ultimately comedic. You know you're going to laugh if you're reading a Deadpool comic or watching one of his movies. Also, while Deadpool is a badass, need I remind you that WWX is the most powerful and the most feared person in the entire world, perhaps in all of history. The fact that WWX is as powerful as he is and still throws himself on people he likes and pretends to weep is only matched by Luo Binghe, but LBH is different in that his willingness to be pathetic is a tactic of manipulation. Meanwhile WWX is pathetic for fun; he likes to annoy people; he's ridiculous; he's laughable.

He's also lovable, but imo, like Deadpool and like LBH, I don't think we're always supposed to find him charming. We're supposed to recognize that these characters sometimes go too far for a joke. We're supposed to be annoyed at times, at least imo.

But in the end, we are supposed to like WWX. We're also supposed to feel really sorry for him and sympathize with him for what he did. He's an enormous woobie, while at the same time he massacred thousands and then laughed it off. Who does that? Who does it like the Yiling Lazou? When you add in the fact that he's super gay, but all his gay fantasies consist of farming and eating Lan Wangji's cooking and talking about fishing and keeping house, I'm just left asking, Wei Wuxian, who the fuck are you? Who the fuck can match you?

This is why I spend so much time thinking about this character. I can't actually wrap my head around him, and frankly, the way MDZS is told doesn't help. MXTX actually does not really get into WWX's head very much once he starts his path of demonic cultivation, and while we get some insights as to what is going on with him through flashback and his dialogue at the time, I am still somewhat in the dark about why he made the choices he did.

The only character I've ever encountered who even comes close to WWX is Spike from BtVS, and WWX is still on another level.

Lastly, I'll say that the relationship between Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng is another thing I have never witnessed in western media. It is so complex and interesting to me that I could make a whole post on it, which is why even though the answer to your question is by far Wei Wuxian, if WWX didn't exist, Jiang Cheng would win this question by a landslide.

[tavina-writes]

I saw someone say that Jiang Cheng is written like a classic Jin Yong wuxia villain, thoughts?

Hi Nonny!

I guess, if they meant that Jin Yong always writes his villains as also complex people who are gripped and shaped by their lives and the tragedies that caused them to end up more "villainous" then... that's accurate? Most of Jin Yong's villains are highly sympathetic and tragic people in their own right (most, not all, given that the other flipside of Jin Yong's villains are those who stand in a position of terrifying power and then proceed to punch down socially in brutal and horrific ways.)

Jin Yong's tragic villain characters are often defined by their relationship with the power axis in his works -- you see this especially starkly with Lin Pingzhi in Xiao Ao Jiang Hu, who through no fault of his own (though he thinks its his fault) falls from a gentry young master to someone whose family is massacred, hunted across the landscape, and then sees his parents brutally tortured and is tortured himself before realizing that the shifu who adopted him is a hypocrite who would sacrifice all his students for ultimate power and has in fact, purposefully picked up Pingzhi himself to steal a very important part of Pingzhi's inheritance. After that he goes insane! But the guy genuinely went through the world's worst trauma conga line before he decided fuck it he wants revenge.

The other side of the Jin Yong villain spectrum is a guy like Feng Tiannan from Young Flying Fox who uses his money and relative power to force a peasant woman into gutting her own five year old son in front of witnesses to prove he didn't steal and eat a goose of Feng Tiannan's because he wanted...their family's property. Which was a tiny drop in the bucket of what Feng Tiannan already owned. He just felt like it should be his so fuck it who gives a shit about five year olds! (Feng Tiannan also brutally rapes one of his servant maids and later his friend tries to sell the daughter born of that rape into sex slavery, but y'know.) Does he sound like anyone in MDZS? Jin Guangshan perhaps?

The central thesis of any Jin Yong work (and what I admire the most about his writing) is how he frames societal corruption and writes about power structures, and how concisely and brutally he outlines and defines those reasons people in power do horrific things.

As for the tragic villain situation, I mean, I guess in one of Jin Yong's worlds Jiang Cheng could be a tragic villain. So could Wei Wuxian. Or Lan Wangji. Or Jin Ling. Or Lan Sizhui. Or any of the characters. They've all experienced trauma that's shaped them, it just kind of depends on what kind of story Jin Yong wanted to be telling with that one tbh.

If we're talking about the "socially corrupt bully who punches down and ruins the lives of regular people" and the person you're quoting is using that to refer to Jiang Cheng they might just be a Jiang Cheng hater lmao.

I'd be really curious to see the original context of this claim tbh, because it strikes me as kind of... "I'll say this to cause outrage among Jiang Cheng stans and make them like Jin Yong less and not because I actually like Jin Yong books or Jiang Cheng." when it's being dropped into my inbox with zero context like this.

[qiu-yan]

I think if MDZS was truly about moral good, then Cultivation Society would have been fundamentally changed and everyone who tried to change it wouldn’t be dead. The fact that XXC and SL wanted to change cultivation sects from being dynastic to more merit based and they got such horrible fates is tragic. JGY wanted to use his power to help the more common folk, but he was struck down and any good he’s done is going to be tainted. WWX and LWJ choose to walk away rather than do anything in the novel, so I’m not sure if their actions can be considered a net positive. There’s only so much good they can do as wandering cultivators, there needs to be some kind of structure to help the community but most sects are unwilling to put in a lot of effort if it doesn’t benefit them specifically. There was no social change in MDZS.

thank you for the message! and sorry it took me five million years to get to it...

from a utilitarian point of view, i think you're completely correct: the one individual the novel holds up as the most righteous out of everyone has a far greater negative than positive impact on the world at large; society and the plight of the common folk are in a worse state at the end of the novel than they are at the beginning. postcanon, no matter how much individual nighthunting wei wuxian and lan wangji do, the life of your average commoner is probably going to get more dangerous. you are correct that there was in fact no social change in MDZS. shit did not change on a major scale.

two comments about this: first, the moral framework employed by MDZS is decidedly non-utilitarian. second, as you said, MDZS is not About Moral Good.

first, the moral framework employed by MDZS is not utilitarian at all. wei wuxian and lan wangji are not "righteous" in the way that someone who pulls the lever in the trolley problem can be called "righteous" via utilitarian reasoning; rather, wei wuxian and lan wangji are "righteous" in the way that someone who walks away from omelas is righteous. from a utilitarian perspective, walking away from omelas doesn't accomplish shit because the child is still suffering and one person's absence is not going to change that. from a non-utilitarian perspective, though, walking away from omelas isn't about bringing about a certain result but rather is about living in accordance to your own ideals and code of honor. it's not about helping as many people as possible or about bringing about the best possible outcome, but rather about living your own life without any regrets.

this isn't a philosophy i (a utilitarian) really buy into, but many people do find it persuasive. and though there are still some logical holes induced by protagonist-centered-morality, i do think that MDZS is overall thematically cohesive if analyzed through this non-utilitarian lens. unfortunately, one side-effect of this lens (as well as the general non-utilitarian sorts of philosophies this lens is based in) is that the story ends up somewhat handwaving actual negative consequences.

second, MDZS is not Purely About Moral Good. it has an internally consistent moral framework and it has a lot to say about what it thinks is righteousness, but it isn't a "ringing endorsement of the Correct Course Of Action" book in the same way many other works of fiction are. MDZS is about a certain kind of righteousness, but it's also a cynical condemnation of society, a remark upon the role and unreliability of rumors and hearsay, a subversion of typical xianxia/wuxia genre tropes, an interpersonal tragedy of love and duty and sacrifice and hubris, and a thorough rejection of the just world fallacy. it's also a romance.

i say that MDZS is also a social critique and a rejection of the just world fallacy because, in my view, we aren't meant to read characters like jin guangyao as "unambiguously evil characters who got what they deserved." i do think we're meant to see the way in which society turns on jin guangyao, the way in which that parallels wei wuxian's unfair downfall, and the way in which the genuine good jin guangyao did for the world is now at risk, as a tragedy. as a rather depressing insight upon the morally bankrupt nature of society. MXTX wrote it that way on purpose. you're not meant to read jin guangyao's downfall and go "he got what he deserved;" rather, you're meant to look at the black-and-white, hypocritical, and classist way in which society turns upon jin guangyao as a criticism of that society - one that builds off of the social criticism baked into wei wuxian's character arc.

there is no structural change in MDZS because MDZS is a criticism of society, not a story about how society got better. MDZS posits that this polite society is classist and morally bankrupt, and then does not fix said society. MDZS says "this polite society was hypocritical and self-serving then, and it still is now." in that sense, then, the ending is deliberately rather tragic.

in that sense, then, wei wuxian stepping away from the cultivation world does also feel like him giving up on society. which, from an interpersonal perspective, is fair: he already set himself on fire and literally died trying to do the right thing, so i don't think we can really begrudge him for not wanting to risk it a second time. maybe this time someone else can try to fix things (and die in the process). also, given his and lan wangji's absolute lack of any political ability, it's probably also for the best that they not try to involve themselves in politics to better the world, because realistically they'd probably just make a bunch of enemies and solve zero of the problems.

MDZS tries to give us some hope for the future of its fictional society: both the novel and the fandom (including me myself) posit that said hope for the future lies in the juniors, by whom wei wuxian's generation tried to better than their parents did for them. jin ling's generation certainly seems kinder than wei wuxian's generation. i think we're meant to conclude that things aren't completely hopeless because jin ling's generation, kinder and nobler than the previous one, will try to fix things.

but personally, i'm not sure how i feel about placing the hopes of social reform on the specific personalities of citizens and leaders, rather than the structures those people exist in. instead, i'm reminded me of what i wrote a few months ago about the granularity of morality in MDZS being the entire individual and not the action, by which i mean that MDZS seems to assess and conclude entire characters as "good people" or "bad people" or "complicated and morally grey people," rather than analyze the morality of specific actions. and i think it's because MDZS treats the unit measurements of morality as people rather than actions or policies, that MDZS is ultimately able to posit that the future will be better because a specific group of individuals from the next generation have kinder personalities - even though there was no structural reform. as if the state of a society is determined purely by the personalities of a select group of future leaders within it, rather than the laws and institutions that bind it and the material conditions its populations live in. to put it in other words, this is peak "we replaced the evil king with a Wise And Just king (and made no other changes), so we've saved the day!!!" thinking.

.

i feel like i rambled a lot in this response, so i apologize for its relative lack of cohesion. i hope i haven't misinterpreted your points and that i've continued the conversation in a relevant manner.

[bloopitynoot]

Reading SVSSS: Bonus- Chapter 32

For those who don't know, I am reading SVSSS for the first time and sharing my thoughts!

If you have not read it, there will be spoilers! Consider this a warning.

Also- if you want to follow along, I am aiming to post updates daily. You can find all the posts in the tag bloopitynoot reads SVSSS. You can also check out the intro post for context on my read.

Yes it is 8 am and yes I am eating chicken gnocchi soup for breakfast. I stand that soup is and always will be a breakfast food.

No hot drinks today! This wedding required a feast :'3

I can't believe this is it! The series finale if you will.

I have been waiting 32 chapters for this moment. at last!!!

This man (SQQ) has been sleeping with this other man for what- months(?) years(?) at this point and he is STILL over here totally bewildered at the fact that LBH does not want to marry a woman. p355

This is kind of sweet though. I'm so glad Cang Qiong Mountain sect has embraced these two absolute weirdos. I love that they can visit now! It warms my romantic heart that they can travel for a while and then come "home" for a time. p355

omg these two are so embarrassing. The way in which LBH is asking him to marry him is so awkward. p359

oh no, now I feel like an asshole because LBH was SO NERVOUS the days leading up to him asking. (granted totally fair with how SQQ acts towards him/about their relationship- I too would not know if he wanted to actually marry me or not in this situation). I just want to pinch LBH's cheeks though, why is he so cute. p360

aaaaaah- this is so cute. SQQ being actually happy about him asking instead of trying to gaslight himself and side step his feelings or "reluctantly" agreeing to marry LBH pp360-361

my heaaaaaaaart LBH's confession pp362-363

The fact that LBH had wedding outfits ready. I need to know two things; 1. where/how did he get them and 2. how long has he had them and had this planned. p363

I truly don't know if MXTX has written a tender sex scene. Why does it always have to be a little traumatic? Granted I have only read SVSSS and MDZS BUT both of these series have either uncomfortable (SVSSS) or just have freak4freak energy (MDZS-but I will take this over crying and bleeding) there's never something soft and lubed. I hope that TGCH has something (no spoilers pls) but my bar is so low. (okay but wangxian was fine for the most part- they just were also dry and mutually unhinged). pp366-367

NO LOL the wife-ing of SQQ. p370

Okay okay- the ending was so sweet. The little shy embarrassed SQQ calling Binghe husband and him pretending not to hear. My headcanon is that eventually over time SQQ feels less and less embarrassed, works through his internalized homophobia, and learns to say what he actually feels more often. Even without my hopes and dreams, I still think this ending was such good character growth for SQQ.

Holy shit we did it!

Thank you to everyone who joined me on this reading journey. It has been so fun getting to read the books along with you and talk about the experience.

I am a little bit sad that it is over :'3

I do however, now have a pile of fanfic to start working through and am so stoked to continue this journey via fan works. Thank you, thank you to everyone who sent me fics to read!!

In terms of what is next- I will likely spend some time reading SVSSS fanfic- if I get to a point where like Wangxian, I have hundreds of fics in my collection, I may start recing Bingqiu!

BUT in terms of danmei, I am hoping to read TGCF next and round out my MXTX collection (likely end of December start)!

This has been such an amazing experience that I will continue to live blog future danmei series :)

Thank you thank you again!

[web-novel-polls]

WN Rarepair Tournament

Please consider each rarepair and vote for the ship you like the best / find the most interesting / that compels you the most / etc.

[Please be kind and respectful in the notes. Anti-Propaganda is NOT allowed.]

🔽 Propaganda below 🔽

NieWangXian from Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (MDZS)

Characters: Nie Huaisang x Lan Wangji x Wei Wuxian

No propaganda submitted

NingSang / SangNing from Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (MDZS)

Characters: Nie Huaisang x Wen Ning

Submission: Pair the spares, yeah, but I think they'd be adorable together. Wen Ning needs someone to talk to so he's no longer the sad third wheel to Wangxian (thankfully he has A-Yuan and the juniors, but still) and Huaisang needs someone since he's now completed his revenge and that often leaves people feeling empty inside.

SangXian from Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (MDZS)

Characters: Nie Huaisang x Wei Wuxian

Submission: They were already bestie in their teen years and i really love the headcanon that when everyone had forsakes the yiling laozu, nhs had looked after him, squashed rumours, spread some to keep wwx safe, sent supplies, kept in touch via letters... lets also not forget if he wanted revenge for nmj, he couldve gotten it another way...bringing his long dead friend to life and making sure the resurrection terms were easy to fulfill, making sure the body oferre to him had potential to cultivate...yea i love that ship!

Fic Recs: heresy of the sun by tunnelOFdawn, when the caged bird sings by Laxruar

SangYu from Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (MDZS)

Characters: Nie Huaisang x Mo Xuanyu

No propaganda submitted

WangSang from Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (MDZS)

Characters: Lan Wangji x Nie Huaisang

Submission:

NHS uses LWJ's birth name to refer to him when introducing him.

“Not that old man,” Nie Huaisang replied. “The one you have to be careful of is his favorite disciple, Lan Zhan.”

Excluding him and Wei Wuxian, no one uses his birth name to refer to him. There's always a chance that they knew each other before they got their courtesies, perhaps due to the shared friendship between NMJ and LXC.

NHS brings that friendship up when explaining the Sabre Hall where he focuses most of the conversation in referring directly to LWJ, since it is his word he requires so that his clan secret does not get leaked. It implies a show of trust in him, considering his words that Lan Wangji has always been a man of his word. Feel free to imagine what other promises he is keeping for him!

It also bears true that it was also Lan Wangji who first recognises the scrap of clothing to belong to Nie Huiasang when they were investigating the Man Eating Castle rumors and it was in fact Lan Wangji who brought him to the inn for interrogation.

Nie Huiasang's plan for starting the investigation for his brother's death involved endangering Lan disciples when they would be out helping the Mo Manor to take care of the walking corpse issue. Obviously, this was to bring Lan Wangji into the fray. His reputation of going after all cases without prejudice, and of being ruthless in executing his own ideal of justice are all well known. Nie Huiasang planned for him to solve the case and gain the ear of Lan Xichen and the wider cultivation world, so that they would side against Jin Guangyao and hopefully end him, effectively completing his revenge.

Outside of that, the personalities are more of opposites at first glance. Lan Wangji is diligent in his cultivation training while detesting laziness and has a very straightforward approach to how he approaches problems. Nie Huiasang fools around all the time and doesn't seem to care about the values Lan Wangji holds close, and has a twisted way of solving things.

Yet, when their loved one is harmed, they would go to all lengths to right the wrong as they personally see fit. Lan Wangji fights 33 elders to keep Wei Wuxian safe, and later in the present time he always sticks to him and stands against the world out of love and faith. Nie Huiasang brings down one of the most powerful people in the cultivation world by years of methodical planning, not caring about the wider consequences of his actions.

They are deeply selfish people, who when they care for one thing, the world ceases to exist for them.

Narrow minded focus, and a case between them and a ruthlessness in their actions and an implied past—I think they could have great chemistry if explored further.

XiSang from Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (MDZS)

Characters: Lan Xichen x Nie Huaisang

No propaganda submitted

[mdzs-fanon-exposed]

MDZS Fanon VS Canon: 2/?

Wen Ning fits Jiang Cheng's list of requirements for a wife

Rating: FANON – NEUTRAL

A lot of ships involving Jiang Cheng will use a list detailing the characteristics of his ideal woman as evidence for one pairing for another, and the character brought to me to evaluate as a suitable match was Wen Ning. Unfortunately, I have to rate this as fanon because Jiang Cheng's wife requirements... aren't canon to the novels.

In terms of the official adaptations, Jiang Cheng's requirements for his perfect wife seem to be Untamed-only canon, as part of the Jiang Cheng/Wen Qing subplot the drama invented. However, the MDZS Fandom Wiki (which, side note, is a horrible source for anything) credits the following list of requirements to a since-deleted Tumblr post:

Naturally beautiful, graceful and obedient, hard-working and thrifty, coming from a respected family, cultivation level not too high, personality not too strong, not too talkative, voice not too loud and must treat Jin Ling nicely. (source)

Using the Wayback Machine, I managed to find the original Tumblr post in question (seen here). According to the user who posted it, this is a translated excerpt from a Weibo post written by MXTX herself, listing 10 supplemental facts about the books – supposedly posted a year before The Untamed was first announced.

I do not have Weibo and cannot verify this claim, but regardless, I do not consider "word of God" to be canon for the purposes of this blog. Whatever MXTX's intentions were when writing this list, Jiang Cheng's requirements are not mentioned anywhere in the actual text, and so I cannot rate this suggestion as anything but fanon. You, the reader, are free to choose whether you think MXTX's supplemental material is canon-accurate.

As for Wen Ning himself: Canonically, Jiang Cheng "could never tolerate" him (Seven Seas Ch. 19, p. 251), and so unfortunately this ship cannot officially sail. Even if Wen Ning does fit every entry on this list, Jiang Cheng would not consider him a prospective match. I do not consider the list canon, and so any attempts to figure out if Wen Ning fits the letter of the list (if not the spirit) can not be anything but subjective.

But, well, this post is about the list itself, not Jiang Cheng's feelings about it. So while I'm here, I might as well have some fun with it.... Feel free to use the notes to debate whether or not you think Wen Ning is secretly right for Jiang Cheng's dubiously-canon standards.

Naturally beautiful: Wen Ning is ADORABLE and I LOVE HIM. You can't look at him and NOT call him cute; even Wei Wuxian thinks his "side profile [is] delicate and refined" (Seven Seas Ch. 12, p. 141). Would Jiang Cheng think this? Um,

Graceful and obedient: He's pretty meek and he's described as a yes-man (Seven Seas Ch. 16, p. 22), and he does what Wei Wuxian says a lot (under magical flute coercion or otherwise), but he can be pretty stubborn when he wants to be. I wouldn't call him falling off a roof "graceful," but I suppose that was after he was zombified.

Hard-working and thrifty: Yes – I can't imagine he got all those Wen subordinates by being completely lazy. And if anything he's kind of the pack horse for the Burial Mounds crew lol.

Coming from a respected family: Technically? Yes. The Wens have historically been a powerful and influential family, and Wen Ning is the younger brother of someone of "a rank on par with Wen Chao" (Seven Seas Ch. 12, p. 148). Functionally? Uhhhh

Cultivation level not too high: This one is debatable, but probably a yes. We don't receive much information about Wen Ning's cultivation level, since his fighting prowess isn't really plot-relevant until he dies, but he is described as "unremarkable" in comparison to Wen Qing. Just like, in general, I guess. (Seven Seas Ch. 12, p. 149)

Personality not too strong: See #2. I would say yes with some caveats. Especially (and ironically) when Jiang Cheng is involved.

Not too talkative/voice not too loud: Also a match! Wen Ning stutters a lot and doesn't really raise his voice unless he's angry, so he's pretty quiet. Remember that time he and wangxian were on that boat and Wei Wuxian straight up didn't notice him for like five minutes? Poor guy. Can you believe this happened to him twice.

Must treat Jin Ling nicely: Do we count murdering his dad? Because if we don't, then Wen Ning treats Jin Ling very nicely. He even saves his life multiple times!

In conclusion: ?????????

[lewiscarrolatemybrain]

Took a glance at the Canon Jiang Cheng tag today out of curiosity and got a free blocklist for my trouble but I did notice something really interesting

That is to say: Most of the stans “reclaiming” the tag literally outright admitted that their main reason for liking Jiang Cheng was that he’s attractive. The vast majority of the stan posts that I saw talked about his appearance first and foremost, and the other batch admitted they were woobie-fying him. Art was either hypersexualized or soft chibi shapes and all of it focused on either his suffering or him raising Jin Ling (specifically in a way that seemed Milf-y. He was drawn with exaggerated hips a lot.)

Most interestingly, almost none of the fanart was of CQL Jiang Cheng. Almost none of the gif sets showed CQL Jiang Cheng. This was Manhua and Donghua design Jiang Cheng, sexually exaggerated and squished into an UwU Woobie Baby Sadboi shape, palatable for consumption.

I’ve long had issues with the way fandoms — and the world at large — rank characters based on visual appearance. Wen Ning is to Wei Wuxian what so many fics depict Nie Huiasang as being; his best friend and closest confidant, the person who is in his corner no matter what, who sees and supports him and stands up for him even when it’s scary. But it’s hard to picture Wen Ning as the booty-shorts-wearing white-girl-wasted gender-ambiguous party friend, so Nie Huiasang gets that roll. If Wen Qing shows up at all, she must be The Mean Lesbian, because if she’s straight then her crisp no-nonsense attitude (which is literally just the way every trauma nurse in the world acts) isn’t attractive, it isn’t fun. And of course if she IS the mean lesbian, then her vulnerability and her fear and her deep compassion and desire to help people needs to be shoved to the side, because the mean lesbian doesn’t feel those things. That’s not sexy.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this. This problem isn’t unique to MDZS or Jiang Cheng Stans or anything like that. It’s a pervasive issue I’ve seen everywhere for as long as I can remember; beauty exclusively means fuckability. There are no versions of attractiveness that don’t lend themselves to sexual consumption. Beauty also means morality and value. If someone is not beautiful — that is, if you don’t want to fuck them — then they are unworthy. Characters that are extremely important to a story get either erased (if the fandom doesn’t think they’re hot) or rewritten (if the fandom does think they’re hot) because hot people can’t do bad things, or at least they can’t do bad things that aren’t kind of thrilling and exciting. Because they’re hot.

It reminds me of people who are into Slashers, actually? Although from what I’ve seen slasherfuckers are more self-aware than Jiang Cheng Stans.

Boy was that a sentence.

Update: the fun thing about this post is that it also comes with a free blocklist