#the antagonist’s behaviors as correct and laudable

[mxtxfanatic]

I need to vent and for someone to tell me if I'm crazy 😭 This might just be a generalization born from my interactions with some Jiang Cheng fans and knowing a few in real life BUT. Why does it feel like every single one of them just had this one more talented or naturally-good-at-something childhood friend that they envied or were resentful of. And now they are just projecting with their whole chest onto the biggest Less Talented Friend posterchild they could find.

I just read a post that said something like *All of you Jiang Cheng haters never had to grow up with someone constantly upstaging you and shoving it in your face and it shows* and my mind just OPENED!!! My IRL friend was the same way I used to constantly downplay everything I achieved so she wouldn't be insecure.

Did I just stumble upon something or am I projecting even harder than I think they are

I think you’re right about it being projection, but I think its projection independent of a lived experience. Like yeah, some of them probably had experiences of being “shown up” by someone they couldn’t immediately excise from their life, but I think the greater draw to their desire to protect Jiang Cheng from critique is that Jiang Cheng is the absolute shithead they wish they could be, and if people do not like Jiang Cheng—if the readers think he is an asshole, his author thinks he is a pathetic version of Xue Yang, and his fictional peers think he is an unpleasant agemate to avoid—then it ruins their fantasies of being able to act a complete ass to people around them while facing zero consequences. No, not just facing zero consequences, being praised as brave for lashing out at the people around him, friend and foe, alike. That’s what they want.