#tbh i LOVE that XY's fighting style is so wildly different than the rest

[deathfavor]

I don't think this is a detail many people focus on. Obviously Xue Yang is extremely skilled when it comes to impersonating Xiao Xingchen. He had a couple years to study his mannerism, his speech patterns, everything of the sort. But there's so many details tucked into his mimicking of Xiao Xingchen's fighting style.

I've done a big break down of Xue Yang's fighting style in the past. But in essence, Xue Yang wasn't every really TRAINED to fight like the clans were. He's a street fighter, he fights like an animal, he fights dirty, he fights to survive. He learned to fight using what strengths he has and using everything at his fingertips. He's a resourceful fighter rather than a trained fighter. He has PLENTY of experience fighting, don't get me wrong, and he's naturally gifted in it. But he never learned a lot of the details of grips and foot placement. Not to mention what he did learn was trial and error for HIS fighting styles and HIS weapon and so on and so forth.

So for Xue Yang to be able to learn that from observation alone is a STUNNING feat. Maybe Xiao Xingchen taught him a thing or two, but Xue Yang was playing a role those years in Yi City. Xiao Xingchen's fighting style was YEARS beyond anything basic, and not to mention that Xue Yang seemingly stopped with manipulating him into hunting humans after some amount of time. Being able to mimic that is HARD, even simple martial arts without weapons is extremely hard to mimic accurately, and weapons makes it even more complicated. Yet he pulled it off, and pulled it off well enough to fool everyone for a fair amount of time.

I just think its extremely fascinating that this feral street dog clearly HAS the capabilities to be able to master techniques that takes others years to master in a far shorter time. He COULD be a fancy, elegant fighter like most of the other characters. But he's not. He drops the fancy style as soon as he's exposed and lets HIS fighting style show the moment he no longer needs to, because that's his techniques and what's worked for him the best over the years.