#we don't talk enough about how funny mxtx can be

[adragonthatwrites]

Mood.

[phoenixcatch7]

Honestly I'd really like to see a mxtx3 story where wwx and xl work with Sqq to reveal sqq's true backstory and the system to lbh.

I mean, think about it!! One of the biggest problems with scum villain is how even though they get together, unlike the other couples bingqiu is still left with all these huge secrets that massively affect them both. Lbh is left believing he married his mercurial abuser, that his suffering passed some sort of indefinable test that proved him worthy of basic rights. That Sqq threw him in the abyss of his own volition. That Sqq was really sacrificing his life and not faking his death with intent to survive.

Sqq is left knowing all these things but unable to act on them, unable to tell his husband about his own past, unable to explain his actions, never able to fully let his guard down because he's supposed to be shen qingqiu. He can't even tell his own husband his original name!! If he could have, he would have, even if only in the extras!

But can you imagine???

A meeting of bingqiu, wangxian, Hualian, for whatever reason, and as the three (actual) protagonists chat and gossip and get to know each other, as they talk, Sqq is at ease enough to slip up and finds out he can talk about the system to anyone from outside pidw! Not just sqh!! Maybe not completely, but he can mention some, and the other two, concerned for their new friend, are clever enough to tease the rest out. They're horrified. Sqq is resigned but freshly hopeful.

And so begins Mission: Save Sqq's Marriage!

(Sqq would very much like to contend the title but he is out voted.)

I'd just love to see the three of them (with unquestioning aid from their husbands) get up to hijinks and face existential horrors on a quest to help bingqiu get the closure they need. And moshang too, I guess XD.

It'd also be very, very funny to have them all in the middle of the latest traumatic and/or mortifying scene look around at the other two like 'hey, aren't you supposed to be freaking out now? This is normally the part people start screaming' and the other two are like 'I mean I guess?? We've got things to do though' like kings of unflappable repression right there.

(and lbh and lwj having vinegar-offs while hc is sighing dreamily watching his husband make semi decent friends for once)

Like there's a bunch of crossovers but none really scratch that itch, you know? The main characters of all 3 mxtx?? There's so much potential for Truly Unhinged Shenanigans!! Wangxian visiting pidws wife plot filled world and disappearing into the wilderness for a full week, coming back with every single piece of clothing they brought ruined. Hualian go visit mdzs and and no one believes xl is a diety and hc chomping at the bit to kill them for the injustice. Bingqiu going to tgcf and lbh getting mistaken for a calamity, or Sqq falling into the one wife plot kidnapping or something intended for a diety.

But seriously imagine Sqq complaining about something and wwx and xl immediately going 'that's not right! You deserve better!!' and Sqq is like 'no it's fine I'm used to it' and the other two slam their fists on the table like 'no!!! If [husband] was forced to keep that kind of secret I'd hate it!! You two deserve to be properly happy!! Let us help! We can fix this!' and start working with zeal and vigor while Sqq trails along embarrassed half heartedly muttering 'it's not that bad >:/'.

And when it works (presumably some clever loophole they stumbled on) and bingqiu are tearfully kissing they share a low five without looking. Or that one meme where the person getting kissed holds their hand back and their wingman enthusiastically high fives it but there's two wingmen XD!

I don't knowww but it'd be such a good premise! Ripe for character interactions!! Fluff! Crack! Angst! Daytrips and pouring their hearts out to people who'd really understand! Xl wwx and Sqq bestie team up! Meeting moshang! Wwx info dumping about his monster index categorisation to an enthralled Sqq! Xl and Sqq bemoaning etiquette while wwx laughs at them! Xl and wwx having intense discussions about morality and righteousness! All three of them laughing at how oblivious they were about their husbands, each trying to one the other two for Dumb Moments They Should Have Realised (Sqq wins by horrifying the other two)!

Forget cross country kidnappings and being locked in a room! Where is my protagonist trio getting into trouble on a self imposed mission to help their friend! Let their magnetism for insanity shine!!

[incarnadinedreams]

I frequently see people saying that the list of traits Jiang Cheng gave to the matchmaker are "impossible standards", ridiculous, unreasonable, outlandish, absurd, nobody could ever possibly meet them, etc.

Anyway the translation that's up on the wiki is:

His requirements in his partner are: 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.

First off, the list comes from a random trivia answer MXTX gave in an interview, not the novel canon. So whether you even consider it canon at all is up for grabs to begin with. Though I think there was a scene in CQL with a similar list so it would be canon there, minus the Jin Ling point (due to the point in the story the scene was set)? (So I believe the matchmaker blacklisting point still wouldn't be CQL canon though, just the list?)

But if you do take it all as a Super Serious Canon Thing, well... to be honest I just don't think that list is at all unusual, given the setting? I believe many of the points in the list are just traits considered generally good for ladies of the time period (intentionally vague as that time period may be). (I am absolutely not an expert though so please correct me if I'm wrong about that.)

To me it seems that it's not that they're unusually high or unattainable standards, they're just so generic that they're sort of unhelpful. That he has like no idea what he wants at all outside what he's supposed to want.

The only points that actually seem to have any specificity are things like cultivation level not too high. Which some people could interpret negatively, and fair enough. But personally to me that seemed more like a flashing neon sign of 'please someone not like my mother', given her strength in cultivation was one of her defining traits (and something that he may have felt led to her disappointment in him). Even though Jiang Cheng may carry forward some of her traits himself (for better and for worse; this is not a YZY hate zone but there's... a lot there), he does seem to have at least given some thought to choosing a partner to counter some of the pain points of his own childhood and aim for something different (and we see him trying to do that himself in specific ways as well, like his staunch support of Jin Ling when he was crying after the Second Siege, even if he doesn't always fully succeed).

And, of course, 'must treat Jin Ling nicely'. Which seems obvious and not like a big deal at first, but I think actually could reasonably be a big sticking point in a potential marriage. My understanding is that he was wildly more involved in Jin Ling's life than a maternal uncle would normally be. Including this as a specific requirement seems to send a particular type of statement, as if it was important to him that any potential match would not take offense to him treating an orphaned child that wasn't his with a lot of attention and gifts and favor... hmmm, how could he have possibly decided that could be a problem in a marriage...?

(Obviously, the scenario would be very different than his parents' - none of the salacious rumors and the humiliation that came with them that really drove a deeper wedge between YZY and JFM - but he was obviously going to be doing a lot more for Jin Ling than an average uncle so it makes sense to have that be a specific point upfront.)

I'm ultimately in the 'it was MXTX making a joke and not meant to be taken nearly this seriously' with a side of 'the clan leaders of this generation aren't in a hurry to get married because MXTX just didn't feel like writing their wives in and also it was funny' camp so I think there's a limit to how much insight can be gleaned from this, you know? It is fun to play with it in-universe and explore the implications on the society and political system going forward in the decades post-canon, but I do try to keep myself from taking it too seriously when it's clearly not a well-thought-out plot point or anything, just a fun offhand jokey trivia bit.

But I like the vibes of it all well enough to accept it as 'semi-canon' or 'canon enough' for myself anyway because I think the 'must treat Jin Ling nicely' point is cute and the rest is just standard for the setting and the blacklisted by matchmakers part is funny, and I'm much more willing to subsume random bits from interviews into my brain's blorbo blob if it's something funny.

[tavina-writes]

i find it extremely funny that we (mxtx fandoms in general but mdzs especially) will get into huge shouting matches about timelines and research and accuracy and meanwhile she was like "the death of the nie bros' dad, an event extremely important to explaining the buildup to the war that affected literally every single member of the cast, could have happened anywhere in these five whole-ass years" and "yeah they totally had potatoes don't worry about it lol". truly airplane was an autobiographical character.

You know nonny, I DO find this intensely funny at times. My uh, main source of "shaking my head at this" happens when inevitably, meta goes around and we rush back and forth going "X WAS A GOOD PERSON" and "X WAS EVIL! EVIL!" etc, which happens every now and again and always makes me a bit like "ah, yes, it's difficult to convey nuance and also differing points of view that may in whole or in part also be legitimate and valuable to discuss on a place like tumblr/the internet in general because it is difficult to grapple with uncertainties and we often want to nail things down one way or another so we can figure out if we're right or not" <- but this often comes out as me writing a joke post. Or a saltier post than I intended. Sometimes because I'm tired and sometimes because I just happen to be a salty individual on main.

And I do think fandom is a place where like, multiple interpretations of an event or a statement or a character's "morality" and themes and choices are often equally valid. And fandom should be a place for that, that's what makes fandom fun. If there was a One True Interpretation of the text there'd be no need for interpreting text at all, and that's distinctly sad for me. That's no fun. Anyone who tries to use their knowledge to cudgel people into the One True Interpretation is wrong, btw.

Though I think, and here's where I feel that research and accuracy is a nuanced thing and should actually be of consideration for meta/fic/engaging with fandom in general, and why perhaps people strive for it -- the "lol, potatoes" and "poetry from whatever era I want" is fun! MXTX, however, is still writing about a fantasy version of her own culture, which offers along with it a foundational basis of knowledge that makes this...easier? And again, here's where the part of me that does enjoy these anachronisms and inaccuracies (because they're fun and since we have flying swords why not potatoes) wars with the part of me that's also like, "okay but there is a difference between 'not knowing enough to be respectful of the background surrounding the characters and why that might inform their actions' and 'I've decided that peppers, which did not exist in Eurasia prior to the Columbian Exchange are a big thing here now.'" The difference is respect. Different members of fandom will draw this line in different places and it hits different on different days.

And this is one of the struggles of engaging with foreign language media a lot of the time - we try to strike a balance between engaging with it based on our own experiences and backgrounds and not accidentally saying anything offensive or strange or 'that would totally never happen' or 'he would not fucking talk like that' and I've found, with my time in this fandom, most people who are concerned with accuracy and research are largely trying to be respectful and avoid such gaffes.

Over the two or so years I've been here, I've also reacted to people who've insisted their interpretation is the correct one when it was definitely a case of 'the version Chinese culture that I'm familiar with 200% does not work like that', and saltily wandered off to vent about how 'this is inaccurate and also rude' or try to explain why it wouldn't happen like that. Maybe this comes off as preachy at times, or overly concerned with "accuracy," but that is typically where that sort of reaction comes from for me. I expect this is probably true for other people as well!

And by no means like, do we only engage in fandom because we want to be educated or educate others, and by no means is that an obligation of any fic writer or meta writer or casual fandom goer. We engage with media because it engages us, and we engage with fandom because we love community, and sometimes its no more complex than that.

I enjoy research and art history so that's typically why this appears in my fic, and I started out on doing it to better connect with my own heritage, which I've found more important to me as I've gotten older, so that's where it comes from for me.

Apologies nonny, this was probably not the answer you were looking for and I do commiserate, I'm just chronically unable to be funny on main. 😔

TLDR: there's always nuance in everything unfortunately. Even if this is the no nuance webbed site.

[cqlfeels]

Liveblogging time! #4

That's right folks we're already on post #4 and I'm still only halfway through chapter 1 🙃

I'll do my best to get all the way to chapter 2 today since I've got some unexpected free time

The contrast between WWX going "Well these kids didn't personally besiege me even if they're Lan" and the Lan going "Well Yiling Laozu's inventions are still useful even if we besieged him" is TASTY

WWX's first proper interaction with LSZ is so funny. "What a nice boy. I wonder who raised him. I want to give him a gold star and pat his head."

I feel like people don't make enough out of the fact WWX spends a good chunk of the first chapter (which is all about establishing stuff!) meditating. That's not something fanon WWX would do, and yet here we are

Love WWX going "Wooow MZY looks so awful. I mean he was always ugly but now it's worse."

Favorite part of today's reading section is, undoubtedly: "After all, he had boasted about slaughtering entire sects, laying waste to millions, making blood flow like rivers, and other such things when he was younger. But that was all talk, most of the time. If he really could do all that, he would’ve tyrannized the world already."

I love how he's like "I don't tyrannize and destroy the world!! ....most of the time. I mean if I could I would, I just can't." I love CQL WWX but man, casually evil novel WWX is just great

"Madam Mo wasn’t trying to avenge her son at all. She was only looking for someone to vent her anger on." I sure hope this isn't foreshadowing anything 🥰

Okay but can we talk about the implication of this phrase here? "The teachings of the Lan Clan of Gusu were extremely strict: they forbade raising a hand against normal folk, and not even rudeness was allowed." Cultivators as a whole really can just do whatever they want to normal folk. That's not just implied in this, but also reinforced by the narrative many times

I love how MXTX establishes how cool WWX is by having the juniors handle the entire crisis so much better than the Mo household, and then having WWX handle it so much better than the juniors

WWX kicking LJY to save LSZ will never get old. It's the weirdest Save The Cat moment I've ever seen

We're translating 剑 as longsword? Is it so that 刀 will be sword? 🤔 I don't know if I vibe with that because while I'm no weapons specialist, iirc 剑 are usually one-handed, while longswords are by definition two-handed, no? So it makes me picture the action scenes in a very different way. But I'm not checking this against the actual Chinese text, just going off memory here, so I might be missing something

WWX siccing corpses on anyone is always cool, but happily telling people who were alive half an hour ago to tear apart the very dismembered arm that killed them? Up there in the sexiest Yiling Laozu moments, I don't make the rules

Having said that, this scene, what with the hanging intestines and the biting corpses is one of the creepiest in the novel as far as I'm concerned. I'm not good with gore

I join the juniors in their chirping "Hanguang-jun!" This entrance is so awesome. The way two notes of a faraway guqin subdue the fighting that's been out of control for so long?? I love it. Especially the way he contrasts so well with WWX? The etheral clear sharpness of winter and pines vs WWX making corpses fight each other and crawl on the ground

Also thanks for keeping guqin untranslated, translators! Zither or any other translation just doesn't work for this particular novel, imho

Ah yes WWX's noble steed. Little Apple, the Temperamental Donkey.

Hey look! I'm done with chapter 1!

[nyerus]

Hi....how are you? If you don't mind me asking, who is your favorite love interest in MXTX three novels (luo binghe, lan wanji, or hua cheng)? And why?

And who is your favorite protagonist in MXTX three novels (shen qingqiu, wei wuxian or xie lian)? And why?

Sorry if you've answered this question before....

Hello again, and thank you very much for sending in another ask!~ I love answering these as a little break from work, so no worries! <3

I think I mentioned before that Hualian are my fave characters and my fave couple, so I guess that answers both questions haha. But I do always love a chance to talk about why I love them so much, soooo....

As for some of the reasons why Hua Cheng is my fave love interest:

He is very extreme in his devotion. He doesn't just love Xie Lian, he is 100% comprised of his love for Xie Lian. It's incredibly intense, and I really like seeing this type of impossible intensity in fiction. I have a very pragmatic view of real-world relationships, but this type of all-encompassing and unconditional love is super fun to read!

His aura is unmatched! Not only is he sexy as hell, but he's also a sweetheart and sometimes like a spoiled brat vying for gege's attention! It's not even two sides of him -- he's both at once, and it's really wonderful to see that duality. Towards Xie Lian, he is a stalwart sword and shield; towards others, he's a dangerous threat.

He's not afraid to be affectionate towards Xie Lian. He is supportive, caring, and just so open with how happy he is to be around his beloved. Plus, he is mindful of Xie Lian's boundaries, and if he ever oversteps, is quick to apologize. He has his moments of insecurity, but they are never about how he feels, but rather what he thinks he deserves/doesn't deserve. He is always sincere in his actions.

Even though we don't get much of it, I really like his backstory. What we do have is enough to piece together something very concrete and heartbreaking. And despite the hardships he faced, Hua Cheng didn't let that define him -- though it is indeed something that will be with him forever. He took matters into his own hands, and decided to carve out a path for himself, and no one could stand in his way. If I had even 1/10th of his conviction, in anything, I think I'd be rich lmfaoooo!

And then coming to darling Xie Lian as my fave main:

I tend to adore calm and sweet characters in most media. (Actually if I don't like the main character in a story, I don't tend to really get into the thing!) Xie Lian is also reckless in his good deeds, which is wonderful. At first I was afraid that he would be a bit of a doormat, or a damsel, etc -- but he's not! He's very cognizant of his choices. He's not perfect, but nor does he try to be. He just wants to do good. There are times where he doesn't even want to do certain things/gets annoyed/has reservations/etc, but he does so anyway because he decides it's the Right thing to do. And I think making those choices, while still being true to yourself (even the ugly parts), is incredible. You can't have perfect thoughts all the time, but you can decide what you're going to do/react to a given situation.

He's actually very snarky and funny -- and I looooove him for it! At the same time, you can tell there is a lot of repressed trauma lurking behind every corner in his present-timeline inner narration, and it's... idk? Realistically heartbreaking? In a way that doesn't feel forced, I mean. Xie Lian ignores a lot of his own stuff because he knows there is nothing else he can do about it. Normally we'd say that it's unhealthy to do that, but the trauma in his past is in fact *so* bad that he really doesn't have a choice, does he? And it's less that he hasn't confronted it, but more that he's decided there is no point for him to dwell on it. "Why would I think about how I was horribly butchered when I can instead think about the delicious meat bun I had for dinner?" His attitude of looking for the small pleasures in life, amidst all the sorrow and anguish, is as inspiring as it is heartbreaking in all the right ways. He's just incredibly well-written.

His character progression is pretty amazing. He learns a lot -- maybe even too much -- over the course of his story. He starts out as a noble but naive prince, raised in the lap of luxury, not understanding of the true plight of the common people he wants to help. And he ends up knowing what it really means to save someone, to help others, and why it's personally important to do so. His biggest failing was that he was too young, and too inexperienced to understand how the world worked. Xie Lian's heart was ALWAYS in the right place (he was even abnormally progressive, even daring to challenge heaven -- which may seem par for the course for us readers, but is like... assassination-worthy for his time), and proved that he was not all talk. He genuinely believed in what he said, unafraid to defy the powers that be, and was ready to face whatever consequences resulted.

As someone who gets easily flustered and doesn't know how to handle overt affection too, I relate to him a lot hahaha!

These are super disorganized thoughts, but I hope they make sense! I just love these two to bits, and don't see myself getting off the Hualian train anytime soon~

[incarnadinedreams]

What do you think about jyl's death? And how it's described? I have always find interesting how she doesn't talk to jc

Aaah, this is a tough one. It's another one where I go back and forth and change my mind or feel a bit differently each time I read it and can definitely be swayed by persuasive arguments!

On the one hand, I do think it's one of the areas of the story where she actually gets to show more agency and one of the very few scenes we actually get to see any of her thoughts directly. But on the other hand, it also feels a bit… fridgy. From like an out-of-universe level I did kinda feel like the setup for it was pretty weak. It does feel a bit like MXTX just needed to set up her tragic death that's kinda-but-not-fully WWX's fault, and there's a littttttle too much handwaving about how she got there, why she made the decisions she did, and so on. So that ends up making it feel not quite as impactful or fully fleshed-out for me as maybe it could have.

With the way the scene plays out, even though she's the one dying it still feels like her death scene is really more about WWX than it is about her, and even more about giving Jiang Cheng the final snapping point, the singular crystallized moment when his faith in Wei Wuxian truly shatters, when he realizes that Wei Wuxian really can't control it after all, that things won't be fine. So even in her death it still feels like it's a little too much about other people for my taste.

Because of that, I do go back and forth a lot about what to take from that scene and their interactions. I do appreciate that she didn't just forgive WWX for killing JZX, that what glimpses we do get of her thoughts are so interesting, I just wish it felt like it came together in a way that didn't feel quite so much like the author going "welp, time for Dutiful Elder Sister randomly show up and die tragically." Part of what I think feels awkward about the scene (again, from a more meta standpoint) is the way we've got her being seriously injuried (but not fatally) by one of the uncontrolled corpses, then a small interlude, and then her actually dying from an attack from someone else entirely.

But all that aside, I do think it is sort of the culmination of a pattern of interactions throughout their lives. Wei Wuxian at the center of a whirlwind of events, Jiang Yanli the self-sacrificing attempted mediator, and Jiang Cheng is either not involved, shows up late and confused, or is left cleaning up the pieces at the end. It ramps up throughout the pre-ressurrection timeline: first in fun, innocent ways (childhood shenanigans, their hijinks in Lotus Pier and at Cloud Recesses), then escalating again and again in scenes like the soup catastrophe at Langya or the Phoenix Mountain night hunt, until it culminates in this scene.

I don't think it's evidence that she loved Wei Wuxian more than Jiang Cheng (which I've seen floating around before, sometimes in a 'proof that JC is so awful even his sister doesn't care about him at all' sort of way), but I do think it plays into a common pattern we see playing out throughout their lives, where Wei Wuxian is simply more… attention grabbing, I guess? At least in the scenes we're shown (biased narration and all that). So much of Jiang Cheng's efforts are to follow the rules, succeed in very traditional and in-the-box ways, to be responsible and fulfill his duties, to do well enough to keep his mother happy (or at least not actively angry) without drawing too much attention or trouble. Cautious, steady, hardworking, but not flashy.

Wei Wuxian was always the opposite of that, the shining star that can't be ignored no matter what. Flashy, attention-grabbing, shameless, charming, funny, talented, all the things that set him apart in the best of times. And in the worst of times, he's the one she's there to talk to, he's the one who killed her husband (if unintentionally), he's the one with the zombie horde he can't fully control, he's the one with the Extremely Overpowered Magical Artifact, and he's the one she just sacrificed herself for. So in some ways it does naturally follow that she would be more focused on him. And as a side effect of all that, Jiang Cheng is once again just kind of… there but not the focus.

I do like to headcanon that it does bring him a lot of grief and insecurity, mostly because 'grief and insecurity' are basically Jiang Cheng's calling cards. And grief brings nearly inevitable anger, and there's a ton of juicy potential with him dealing with his secret anger at her for the choice she made, dealing with the feeling of being a helpless bystander, and feeling always second-place, even then in that moment. And of course the most forbidden question of all, why would she rather die for him than live for us?

So I think in the context of how Jiang Cheng might have felt about it (and exploring that in headcanons/fic/etc) there's a ton of potential to go absolutely buck wild with all kinds of repressed anger and resentment and have it still feel totally authentic to me, because grief is just Like That.