#xie lian goes through absolutely fucking everything you could think of

[crimsons-whump-pile]

shameless promotion. read Tian Guan Ci Fu. you like whump? you’ll like it. trust me. read it. immediately. right now.

[itsjustelian]

BEEFLEAF THOUGHT (Mainly He Xuan thought but fuck it he's intertwined with Shi Qingxuan and therefore all He Xuan thoughts are beefleaf thoughts)

So so so, in my readings of tgcf and the wonderful mess that is all of the internet thoughts on it I've come to the personal conclusion that to become a supreme you have to have *big* feelings. Very big and very deep feelings.

Our big-brained, obvious example of this is Hua Cheng. Man's big feeling is devotion, love. He is absolutely besotted for Xie Lian. Would do anything for his God. We're so proud of him for it too.

But He Xuan? He's the only other real supreme we have aside from Hua Cheng (Jun Wu, I'm sorry, you're wonderful but Godhood fucks with a man) and the idea that his big feeling that turned him into a supreme was rage and hatred never sat quite right with me. It's not that hatred and rage aren't powerful enough emotions to make a supreme, and those being his emotions on the surface make him a wonderful parallel to Hua Cheng. But rage isn't really what fuels him. If it was, he'd have dissipated after the Blackwater arc. Taken his revenge and called it a day.

Yet, he sticks around. He *never* dissipates. He just sits at the bottom of the ocean for all eternity. Which doesn't sound like rage or hatred. I mean, you'd assume a calamity built on hate would continue his revenge path until all of heaven is gone and no one can have godhood because he couldn't. But he doesn't. He just... waits.

This isn't to say he wasn't angry, btw. He was absolutely angry, and he had every right to be. His desire for revenge had to come from somewhere, let alone the emotional payment to actually planning and pulling it off. I just don't think that was his greatest regret/feeling/desire at death. I mean, He Xuan had his whole life taken from him. All of it. His family, his fiancee, his passions, his work. Everything he worked towards and for got stolen from him by others. And while it's clearly very rage inducing for him (I mean he has a mental breakdown and kills everyone who's ever wronged him), the underlying feeling through it all was probably despair. He probably just wanted things to go back to how they were when his whole family was around and alive.

And this despair and longing doesn't just go away when he learns the truth of what's been done to him. He's still a person. He can't just throw away those emotions because new ones have taken center stage. But rage is a way easier feeling to work with than misery, so He Xuan defers to it. He jumps on the bandwagon of revenge against the people who wronged him once again and goes with it. And it gets him through Mt. Tonglu and up into heaven and right where he says he wants to be. Right up until he can execute his revenge. And then he just stops? And decides that he's going to be best friends with Shi Qingxuan for a few hundred years first? I'm no rage expert, but that doesn't sound very revenge like to me. Which leads very neatly into the point of this post, took me a while I know.

He Xuan's reason for sticking around is he wants to be loved.

I mean, look at it. He says he hates Shi Qingxuan's guts and wants him and his brother dead more than anything, but also spends hundreds of years hanging out with this person he hates so much when revenge is right there? He could have done it whenever. There was no logical reason I could wait to wait as long as he did. Unless he was enjoying Shi Qingxuan's companionship. And Shi Qingxuan clearly loved him (even just platonically. We love our friends in this house). And He Xuan hadn't had someone care about him that much since his death. It was probably insanely overwhelming and equally as wonderful.

And then he fucks it all by actually going through with the revenge but feelings are hard and he's clearly not great with them so oops. But but but, his great famous line during the Blackwater Arc is him telling Shi Qingxuan that they've used the wrong name. He, even if it's just subconsciously, wants Shi Qingxuan to see him as He Xuan, not Ming Yi. He, in some capacity, wants Shi Qingxuan to see and love He Xuan, not the mask he had on.

But then, after the revenge, he doesn't disappear. He straight up goes out of his way to return Shi Qingxuan's fan to them. To make something right. To return something to how it was before.

Except this time, he can't blame the people around him for the change. He can't turn his rage at the rest of the world because he's the one who ruined the only thing he wanted for himself. So he finally, *finally*, has to face this sadness and longing that's been plaguing him from the start. He got his revenge, he got all the anger out, and it still wasn't what he wanted. Because from the beginning, all he wanted was to be appreciated and loved and wanted and not have that torn away from him.

And he fucked it for himself in the end because lets be honest if he had a civil fucking conversation with Shi Qingxuan and didn't literally threaten their brothers life things would have gone SO MUCH BETTER.

Anyway, I'm crying now. If you read through my jumbled 2 AM thoughts all the way, thank you. I will edit this when it's not 3 am. and post it.

---

Editing me: wtf was I on? I don't remember half of these thoughts??? I'm posting it because somewhere in this hot mess is a point I'm trying to make, and I'm not going to deny 2 AM Elian the chance to share it.

[neuxue]

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....

I absolutely do not mind you asking; I will usually take just about any excuse to go on about stories/characters I enjoy, much as the fact that it’s taken me several weeks to respond to this may suggest otherwise.

So! Without further ado!

I can only answer for TGCF and CQL(/8 chapters of MDZS) but:

Favourite love interest: Hua Cheng

I love Lan Wangji, I really do, but Hua Cheng just hits so many buttons for me and has made a strong case for himself among my overall fictional favourites, much less by any particular category. There’s the obvious, for me: extraordinary competence and a particular brand of arrogance to go with it but at the same time extreme self-loathing, moral neutrality, a past (and to a certain extent present) full of pain, absolutely out of fucks to give (except for the things about which he does care, greatly), the sarcasm, the Aesthetic... you know, all the things designed to make a character My Type.

But also it’s some of the specifics. The whole relationship he has with his own... existence in general and personality in particular. The way he very much does have a strong personality and character and place he occupies in the world, when you’re looking at him from an external perspective, but from his own perspective all of that is... ephemeral, changeable, transient, bearing no value in and of itself except for how it can be shaped. That’s a hard thing to pull off even just from a technical/storytelling perspective - a character who treats their own personality as an extremely secondary afterthought, but who still has enough personality and presence to carry a story - but it’s also just. Man. There’s... probably an entire essay I could write here on the interplay between competence/capability/versatility and the tendency to then define yourself by what you think you’re supposed to be for whatever reason, and within that having to figure out who you actually are or want to be.

And then, the way the story isn’t about him having to change. Yes, there’s growth and self-recognition and coming to know as a person and equal the one he looked to as a god, but. Here is a largely morally-neutral character, perceived by most of his world as a villain, whose story isn’t about needing to be redeemed, or soften his sharper edges, or fundamentally change who he is - instead, it’s a character who goes into the story ready to change literally everything about himself to suit another, and whose story is instead more about accepting himself as he is. It’s about recognising what that self means, and the fact that he can be and is loved not for what he could be or what someone thinks he should be, but just... himself: ghost king and moral neutrality and sharp edges and oddities and all. It’s... I just feel like in so many stories it’d be about fixing him, or showing him another path, or whatever else, and instead it’s saying ‘no, you don’t have to change who you are, you just have to see it’.

I’m not sure I articulated that last bit very well but it really does just hit me like a metric tonne of bricks every time I think about it. What matters is you, and not the state of you, I just! Scream! A lot! 

Favourite protagonist: impossible tie between Xie Lian and Wei Wuxian

I really, truly, genuinely cannot choose between these two. I think perhaps what it comes down to is that we’re seeing them at different points in their own journeys. Yes, we see the absolute low point for both of them (and in each case it’s a favourite moment), and that’s a large part of the appeal - that, and the immediate aftermath, and the way they react to (and mask, and deflect, and hide) pain, the way they dismiss their own hurt and accept so much hatred or ridicule as no more than their due...

But then beyond that, Wei Wuxian’s story picks up... later for the rest of the world but not much later for him, whereas we pick up with Xie Lian eight centuries later. And we see almost none of that interim time except in offhand comments (ow) and whatever you can piece together from fragments dropped by other characters or implied by other events. 

And so where Wei Wuxian’s present-day story is a little more about a second chance and loose ends and consequences and finding a way to move on and all the ways the past clings to the present, Xie Lian is more... ‘settled’ isn’t the word I want, because when we meet him his life is about to be upended again, but with him we get perhaps a more unusual story in some ways in that he’s had some of that interim time, and while his coping mechanisms and how he views himself may not always be healthy, they’ve had a long time to develop. So we’re seeing a kind of... what happens when, after accepting your place in the world as an immortal drifter and laughingstock, after watching the people you loved leave or die or fade or pass beyond your reach, after learning to smile through anything and accept pain, something comes along and shakes that quiet, someone comes along and sees you. It’s just... fascinating and lovely and very different in some ways to Wei Wuxian’s story (for all that in other ways it has certain parallels), and makes it hard for me to pick favourites.

[mousehole5000]

tgcf again chapters 174-191. im now midway through book 4. pain and suffering. and yet also.... this is really good.... but also.... pain...

okay cave of ten thousand gods everythings coming out into the light.... xie lian pretending not to hear fengqing drop their act im emotional..... fengqing silently working together to separate xie lian and hua cheng im emotional..... every word that comes out of mu qing’s mouth im emotional....

honestly reading the xianle trio discussing hua cheng.. its very hard for me NOT to project all the times ive been in a friendship trio and someone got a boyfriend the other two didnt like (which was every time. theres never been a bf everyone liked. sometimes i was the one who had the bf. there were no winners then and tbh i predict there will be no real winners here as far as this friendship goes but such is life)

mu qing is so smart he’s clever he’s tricksy i love it i love him ugh

“A pair of arms had circled around him from behind, and hugged him with force all of a sudden. Xie Lian had buried his face in his back, and also didn’t speak. Though nothing was said, it was enough.” okay i cant get into every different way im feeling about whats going down bc it would get Too Personal but this..... im emo. also xie lian saying “something like this has to be said clearly“ and then proceeding to not say a word just going in for a hug is a mood

“He heard Hua Cheng’s staggering voice coming from above. “...Your Highness. You really…will be the death of me.” - ok well DONT SAY THAT!! now im worried!!!

“Hua Cheng, however, only snorted, appearing as if his eyes could see through the thick rocky walls. He said darkly, “Don’t worry. If he kills one, I’ll make ten more. Fast and furious like the storms, I will never back down. Let’s see who’s the one left standing in the end.” Xie Lian’s heart skipped a beat for some reason, and he mumbled inwardly, “... Oh no, this is bad.” Even though Hua Cheng’s expression was subconsciously displayed, Xie Lian really was quite weak to this aggressive and rebellious confidence of his.” - fjadskfajsl its okay xie lian honey you never know whats going to do it for you

okay so are the murals and statues are only from the xianle era? im hoping hua cheng didnt secretly follow xie lian during his time as a mortal during the entire 800 years and then pretend to a total stranger that would be too much imo lets see. i still really do get why feng xin and mu qing are like “...dude wtf lets get out of here stay away from that guy” (also tbh probably if theyd all managed to stay close... this probably wouldnt be happening which isnt a judgement im just saying bc thats definitely how ive felt about friendships) although this whole thing IS indeed tinged with homophobia which i still dont think makes sense in this setting but whatever i guess.

BOOK 4!!!! im scared

“A few days ago he nearly fainted, and it was only after that did he realize it was because he hadn’t had anything to eat for several days.” - unfortunately relatable but :(

“Ever since Xie Lian was young, he had never had to consider these kinds of affairs, and this was truly the first time in decades that this problem gripped him. However, if gods didn’t even know what starvation felt like, how could they possibly understand the feelings of a starving worshipper? How could they possibly empathize? At this point, he could only take this experience as a form of training.” - TRUE THO!!!!!!!! i like seeing this even tho the circumstances are sad

wait does xie lian get his bad cooking skills from him mom? im gonna cry...

“After returning to the city, Mu Qing’s stomach was still turning. He said as he stumbled, “I thought…that porridge, it smelled like bran water, but I hadn’t thought it’d taste like it too!” Feng Xin gritted his teeth. “Shut up! Don’t force people to remember that pot of stuff! The queen is…body of ten thousand gold after all…never cooked…this is already…UGH!…” Mu Qing humphed. “Did I say something wrong? If you didn’t think it was like bran water, why don’t you…go ask the queen to grant you another bowl! UGH!…” The two were heaving back and forth, and Xie Lian grabbed hold of the both of them, patting their backs.” - xianle trio.... including simply because it made me do the pleading emoji in real life..... also the way the queen wanted to feed all of them... weeping

i didnt realize that mu qing would still be around during this time.... god the fact that i know theyre all going to split......

“It’s precisely because it’s a time like this that money has to be brought up!” Mu Qing countered. “A time like this? What time is it? Time when we’re starving! It doesn’t matter if you don’t want to admit it, but nothing can be done without money! Can you both not just suck it up a little bit?” - mu qing i love you. god.... for real the fact that he comes from a completely different background than the other two is so important to his character and i think it shows so much in the way he continues to be in the present. he gives me the vibe of someone who is smart and hardworking but is bitter about it and tbh!!!! i get why he is!!! he’s very aware of these kinds of concerns bc he’s had to be, while the other two kind of think theyre above it and its a big difference between them. he’s still separated by the circumstances of his birth despite how much harder he’s worked to get to where he is.... ugh painful and delicious

i really am enjoying the xianle story tbh. xie lian going from his highness, favored by heaven, well-intentioned but lacking in experience and understanding to living in poverty and fighting with mortals who disrespect him. fucking delicious i mean this sincerely and respectfully im sad but i really like his character arc. and then to how he is in the present....

“Mu Qing looked at him, speaking not a word. Then he bowed deeply and really turned around to walk away.” - OH NO ITS HAPPENING AHHHHH ;_; honestly all of this hurts but it feels real like i think mu qing has every right to want to leave honestly and he DOES have other family and other ambitions outside of the trio... and i get why feng xin is mad about him wanting to leave when theyre suffering!! and i get why xie lian lets him go.... friendships are hard man and the pain of them splitting is rough!!!!

“Mu Qing’s departure had really shocked him to the core. First, he had never thought that someone so close would just up and leave. Second, Xie Lian had always believed in “forever”. For example, friends would always be friends forever; no betrayal, no deception, no breaking up. Perhaps there’d be times when they’d part, but it for sure wouldn’t be over reasons like “life is too horrible” - pain. just pain. same as above i get it but it hurts

“Xie Lian didn’t know too well just how much money would be considered normal when buying over ten lanterns, and he never looked at the price tag when he purchased things in the past.” - i feel bad kicking him while he’s down and he’s still trying to be kind even when it costs him but this is the first thing that came into my mind

but also oh?? spirits of soldiers from the battlefield you say?? hmmm i wonder... who.... could possibly be among them....

“If you remain forcibly, you won’t be able to rest in peace,” Xie Lian said. The nameless ghost didn’t seem to care. “I pray to never rest in peace.” -  i cant lie this legit gave me goosebumps lol

“Xie Lian himself was alright in suffering through it, since there were far too many other things to worry about. But his mother, who had lived a comfortable, luxurious life, when had she ever done such crude labour? But if the queen didn’t do this work herself, who else could take over?” - hmmmm!!! housekeeping!!!! it matters!!!! rich people dont appreciate how much until they have to do it themselves!!! but this still makes me sad

oh god THATS when they pawned hongjing?? with the king sick and mu qing leaving?? :(((( even more emotional about its appearances in the present day

“That passerby chuckled. “You don’t know? This is too exciting! The servant is beating the master!” - oh god the dramatic and ironic timing of it all

god..... this is just... a sad time....

“MU QING ISN’T LIKE YOU ALL. HE’S MY FRIEND, HE WOULD NEVER HELP YOU!!!” [cut to] “Those were the only words echoing in Xie Lian’s mind, but he couldn’t utter a single sound, and could only crazily grab at anything at his disposal to throw. He didn’t care who he was hurling at, either. Finally, Mu Qing couldn’t take this anymore, and he steeled his face as he swept his sleeves and left. Xie Lian panted harshly for a bit and fell back down, spacing out again.”- IM SAD!!!!!! tbh i wonder if on some level xie lian kind of felt like mu qing owed him? i know he said to forget about that stuff to both of them but its one thinig to say it and think you mean it and another to have to deal with it

white no-face what is your DEAL!! also all the little fire ghost bits im...

“After having exchanged so many words, Feng Xin finally got the gist of what had transpired. He widened his eyes and pointed at Mu Qing, unable to speak. A moment later, he bent down and grabbed a sack and flung it over, roaring. “SCRAM! SCRAM SCRAM SCRAM!” Mu Qing was hit in the face by the sacks of rice he brought and backed two steps away. All three of them in the house were panting harshly.” - this is it this is the part where i closed my laptop and said “noOOooOOOoooo” out loud to my room im so upset... and mu qing still tried to leave the rice even after the broom thing im ;_;

“Feng Xin was completely convinced that he would never do such a thing, but that was precisely why this had become the worst-case scenario!” - pain, suffering, dismay, etc

“Feng Xin continued, “If Your Highness thinks your life might be in danger, I can finish this for you, I won’t tell Her Majesty, haha.” - bless your heart for trying feng xin

“But it shouldn’t be like this. The Feng Xin of the past would have absolute faith in him no matter what! Even if there was only twenty percent doubt, it was still unbearable!” - AHHHHHHH okay idk if i really have much to say about their relationship other than im sad but IM SAD!!!!

the differences between feng xin and mu qing’s relationship with xie lian are so interesting. feng xin has clearly always idolized xie lian a lot while mu qing hasnt at least not in the same way and he seems like he has some resentment towards xie lian (thats how i read it anyway thats what i said about it at the beginning of book 2 and i think its understandable and can be a very real part of friendships) that feng xin doesnt and i just think thats neat!!

“He was firmly tied down upon the altar, that broken base of the statue under his body. There were many people squeezed below the altar, and pair after pair of round, unblinking eyes were watching him.” - hmmm dont think i like where this is going

“Yet, before he could finish, he realized that the white silk that he used to cover his face had been undone. In this moment, the thing that had him completely tied down was that exact white silk.” oh my god wait is this ruoye?? is ruoye that same ribbon???? ill cry

“The hand stained with blood, the one that ended a life, was immune to the Face Disease.” - ohhh shit okay. okay okay. okay. shit okay. i See now.... so if youre an innocent civilian the only way to escape this fate (and the faces are actually the souls of other innocent civilians) is to get rid of your innocence... and doesnt this disease not actually hurt its just horrific? god.............

“White No-Face pitied, “You think they don’t want to do it? Wrong, it’s not that they don’t want to, it’s solely because no one wants to be the first, that’s all.” - shut up!!! youre the one who created this situation dont fucking preach about the way you think the world is

“He forced down the mouthful of blood and hissed, “What are you laughing at? You think that you got what you wanted? This was all forced by you!” The ghost fire within the ghost’s hand flickered even more fiercely.” - yes exactly!!! you put people in extreme circumstances sometimes they do extreme things!! youve proved nothing!! god i do love when characters say exactly what im thinking. plus the first ones who caved were trying to save their child

“He felt that, if he was to let them do what they wanted, there was something in his heart that would never return to its original state.” - :( also i kind of feel that in my life sometimes and i just hope xie lian’s heart ends up in a state he’s happy with

“He didn’t dare to look at what had become of the person lying on the altar, because what laid there didn’t look human anymore.” AHHHHHH!!! :(((( i mean i get why this event is what made hc... level up??? thats not a good way to describe it fjasldkfjaslk but you know what i mean... that line about being powerless to help your beloved OOOOOOF

okay well finished that chapter im. pain. hmmm. pain. i dont know if i actually have any words rn lol but im gonna stop here for now

[lemoncakedesign]

okay the fun thing about this is that mxtx’s protags and love interests are similar in a lot of ways and so very different in others that it takes the story different places while hitting some similar emotional beats. compelling.

under the cut because it got long oops

i’m going to start with mdzs->sv because i have the most thoughts here. well, i had a whole thing written out here and then i realized i could just write the fucking fanfic so i’ll hit the beats. lan wangji is still absolutely devoted to wei wuxian, but in a “i’m very cold and standoffish, you are the first person to give me affection anyway” way, like in mdzs, and after the abyss he’s just like relentlessly courting wei wuxian. wei wuxian is oblivious (this is his adorable, icy disciple!) and thinks lan wangji hates him, and cries to nie huaisang (shang qinghua expy) about it all the time. 

nie huaisang, having just come from a demon meeting where he was asked to procure some “chicken nuggets” for wei wuxian as a courting gift: sure, jan.

eventually wei wuxian realizes he’s in love with his disciple, and has a long speech where he’s like “i know the ethics of this are kind of fucked, but i’m in love with you, lan zhan!” in the spirit of innapropriate timing, this is as he’s being exploded by xin mo. when wei wuxian comes back (as rogue cultivator mo xuanyu), he wants to try to romance lan wangji as a peer. lan wangji clocks him immediately, but thinks it’s really funny that he’s trying to do this (and struggling with the idea that he even deserves wei wuxian after killing him), so he lets him continue. after that things turn out similar in plot to sv, but they’re super in love and gross.

(also i need everyone to know jiang cheng is liu qingge. he is going to get his brother’s body back if it kills him. he will deny ever considering wei wuxian his brother. yue qingyuan is, of course, jiang yanli, queen of being indulgent to her didis.)

on to tgcf->mdzs!

i feel like the plot happens pretty similarly for a while. hua cheng, instead of being the respected twin jade, is the young, rebellious scion who has a poor reputation. when people come to lectures in hua cheng’s sect, he is usually ignored, but xie lian, respected first disciple of the heavenly realm sect, notices him and tries to connect with him. he falls in love immediately, and tries to make himself into the perfect match for xie lian.

xie lian ends up giving his golden core to...well, it’s either mu qing or feng xin, but i can’t decide who is more interesting. probably mu qing. he goes through the sunshot campaign with his new cultivation style, and he’s peak bai wuxiang mode. he ends up taking a few refugees, including ban yue, who he turns into a fierce corpse, to live on the burial mounds.

here’s where the plot diverges: the next day, hua cheng shows up with his bags.

xie lian: what are you doing here, san lang?

hua cheng: obviously i’m moving in, gege.

i think xie lian still dies, but as soon as he’s resurrected, he goes back to the burial mounds, hua cheng clocks him instantly, and the remnants of the refugees have grown into a thriving community. they help he xuan with his revenge quest against shi wudu, then peace out and go back to the burial mounds to live out the rest of their days in marital bliss.

(the key difference between hua cheng and lan wangji is that hua cheng doesn’t have a good relationship with his family, and absolutely no qualms about abandoning them to go live with his boyfriend on a hill of corpses. it is, somehow, a healthier environment for him.)

and finally, sv->tgcf.

actually i think this one has the most plot divergences. quite frankly, shen yuan is not nearly nice enough to most of the things xie lian does. but lets do some replacing here: instead of his country being wiped out, it’s his sect. (i think jun wu is the hua huan palace master, here.) he does everything he can to prevent it happening, but he ends up making things worse, and the guilt over it nearly breaks him, especially since the boy he rescued, luo binghe, was also killed. when he is tossed out of heaven, he and his two lieutenants (shang qinghua and liu qingge, i think. idk, i might adjust that) end up sort of adrift. shang qinghua dips immediately, like two days in, because he’s a bit of a coward, and ends up accidentally ascending on his own by some underhanded methods. liu qingge stays around until shen yuan literally forces him to leave, and then it’s just him, by himself, with a little ghost fire for company. he tries to make up for his wrongs but things keep going worse and worse, and he finally finds himself fed up with humanity. he goes through the bai wuxiang moment, and luo binghe appears and sacrifices himself to stop it, and shen yuan ascends and immediately descends. he doesn’t seal all his luck away like xie lian, actually—he seals away his martial abilities. he becomes a teacher, eventually becoming so reknowned as to ascend, finally, as a civil god. he ends up being sent to deal with relations with the ghost realm, and he meets luo binghe, ghost emperor. shenanigans ensue, with shen yuan assuming luo binghe blames him for him becoming a ghost (they are made of resentment, after all), while luo binghe assumes shen yuan hates him for being a ghost, all while they’re investigating whatever rogue gods are up to Nonsense that week. shen yuan realizes luo binghe doesn’t hate him when he uses his power to break through shen yuan’s martial shackle so he can kick huan hua palace master’s ass. when he comes back a year later, shen yuan smacks him with a fan all tearily, asks luo binghe to not make him watch him die a fourth time, and finally kisses him. then he resigns from godhood and becomes ghost emperor luo binghe’s trophy husband, because goddamn he is tired.

anyway these are some messy thoughts, but feel free to run with them however you like! i might write some of these. who knows

god i wish i could draw because i just thought of a mxtx swap. basically svsss->tgcf, mdzs->svsss, and tgcf->mdzs.

actually wait this is compelling story wise. like imagine if everything’s the same how would things change 👀

more on this when i get to my computer