#for the love of god what did mxtx put in this story to make it so insanely good | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tbgkaru-woh · 3 months

Note

hi! i was just wondering what it is specifically that you dislike about wangxian? i'm kind of intrigued, because while i get how someone could find them boring, i've never really considered anything about their dynamic (and as you mentioned in response to a previous anon, their confession scene) particularly off putting. no pressure to answer this, and this is in no way hate towards you i'm just genuinely curious <3 (i love your art by the way it's gorgeous)

Thank you for the compliment! ♥ This is gonna get ranty so I will hide it below read more as not everyone has to deal with reading this, so proceed with caution :'D

Wangxian is the weakest WWX dynamic. On god, even if I'm not fond of Yanli, they have very loving relationship where they are protective of each other and gentle with each other in a harsh world. I don't ship WWX/JC but their story and complicated love of someone you grow up with and care for deeply but clash constantly with is more interesting than anything wangxian ever had. Nie Huaisang and Wei Wuxian clicked together so naturally, they are chaotic and are similiarly not too interested in being up to rules. Jin Zixuan and WWX had a potential of going from enemies to partners in crime, to become family and have each other's backs but JZX was cut short and WWX never really cared afterwards either. WWX with the wens took time to build up but his YLLZ farmer era was one of the best WWX's in the story. Damn, even Lan Xichen who's always amused with WWX's temperament and secretly has a drink with wwx and is altogether looser with the rules while still being lawful matches with him way more than LWJ where there's... nothing. They were smashed together for convenience and we were suppossed to just go with it cause they are the two main characters. LWJ feels like he was just made so WWX has a "hot stoic top" to fuck him and the rest of the characters are actually build with the story and therefore feel more natural

Wangxian don't feel like they are in love, not in the way the fans make them out to be into some romantic picture perfect angsty deserved lovestory. LWJ's personal space is constantly disrespected, he's punished constantly for WWX's mistakes, he constantly needs to be the one to adjust to how WWX is instead of the other way around and after all that, LWJ doesn't really /know/ WWX so his attraction feels very idealized. WWX is the bad boy that goes against the rules and LWJ wishes he could be that (or with that) but it's almost a childish infatuation from their Gusu days that never evolved into something more mature. And WWX? I can't see how he'd like LWJ as anything more than in a physical sense. Even their obnoxious "Back then I wanted to sleep with you" confession scene is purely physical. He doesn't really know LWJ or respects him, LWJ is just a familiar face in a world that is against WWX and he's a hot body that likes him. LWJ is an easy score in a way, he's a safe option. And it'd be SO interesting if they went into that, but instead it's played like the only true love (dont forget, they are meant to be as the ONLY gay pairing in MDZS which I find insane when everyone else has more chemistry and in the end gets shat on so wangxian can fuck in a bush. I mean, LWJ leaves LXC to be depressed and alone after everything LXC stands for and did? Fucking ridiculous.)

It tries to "subvert" tropes but ends up being more stereotypical than anything. WWX was almost meant as this jock-y rebellious hotshot but instead we got a quirky twink, early 2000s shonen protagonist and every yaoi's Uke I've been seeing since like 2008. Are they suppossed to be different because the "stoic white-coded" one is not the bottom? Is the bar this low? If anything, this ornament top is the most usual top, let's be real, LWJ barely has personality or growth or focus, he's there to fuck WWX.

This is a petty reason but MXTX's "wangxian is the only gay couple" everyone else being implied straight as if to highlight just how real their love is that they are gay in time period where it's frowned upon, even though Yi City and 3zun combinations had more chemistry than anyone is. Annoying. And so is the "Don't ship them with anyone else and don't switch their dynamics" that fuels some of the most obnoxious people in the fandom to go after fanwork creators that do/like things differently.

All in all Wangxian is THE face of danmei, they are the most known even outside of danmei circles and they are extremely mediocry written for that. I mean, fuck, you put straight couple in their place and I guarantee no one would like it, it has the depth of a high school hormone-riddled couple who have different classes and "only" get to see each other during breaks and make out during lunch with others at the table, idk it's so fucking annoying to me when I know there were better options, when WWX had so many interesting dynamics that got shat on in favor of bland ass ship and I'm tired of having to like it/tolerate it just because it's gay.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk, this was extremely healing 🤣

#hcs #hc #this is of course my subjective perception of it #i just can't believe this is the most popular couple #if it was less so or not the main one i wouldnt even mind them #also i'm fine with them as standalone characters #just not together.#i will still make them together as a scenery to MY ships cause it makes it feel more canon #but i definitely dont go out of my way to interact with that ship #which is fine #there's more than enough of it y'all dont need me

85 notes · View notes

phil-lesterfan · 2 months

Note

yaoi scholar….. pls i finished the untamed and word of honor what should my next drama be 👀 (happy endings only pls)

also i wanna know your fav bls. if you’ve the time!!

hallo! i didn't mean to let this sit for so long, but i've been using my phone more and don't like answering asks there. i don't actually know many cdramas, but i've got other dramas to rec, if that's alright!

(C/K/J)DRAMAS/LAKORNS:

sotus & sotus s (thai)*

history3: trapped (taiwanese)

seven days (japanese)*

manner of death (thai)*

restart after coming back home (japanese)*

together with me (thai)

long time no see (korean)

semantic error (korean)*

you can watch 2moons2 for the full story, but honestly, the original 2moons mingkit cut is everything to me (thai)*

*based off novel/manga/manhwa

20 of my fav bls under the cut :)

initially, i was going to call it my "top 10", but it's not my top ten, it's just favs that i really love or think you (sara) would also enjoy. so it's just 20 "random" favs. if you (general) want, i can upload the 200+ long list and even include "reviews" of my favourites, but i'll only do that upon request. also here's my blanket rec for mxtx's works. svsss is my fav. i'm very easy. thank you <3

20 OF MY FAV BLS:

sotus is very dear to my heart. i watched it right before i went to university, so it really set that mood for me lol it's not a perfect story, the audio is shit at some parts, and the acting was sometimes stiff, but when the show hit, my fucking god did it HIT. of course i roped all my friends into watching it. it was based on a novel, but the novel didn't particularly stand out to me (sorry). there's also a manga now (3 vols) but i'm just loyal to the show, y'know? it also has a sequel, and that one made one of my friend cry (i actually had to pause the show lol), but for me, the first season is what's rly stellar. (lakorn / rewatches: 4? 5? a lot?)

sasaki and miyano by syou harusono is such an easy read, with lovely art, cute characters, and the softest, sweetest romance. it makes me feel like i've been hit by a car, then the car backed up and drove over me again. sasaki is the light of my life (and also if i looked like him, i'd never shut up. and i project just a little bit too bc oh he just like me fr), and everyday i think about making him my pfp. i owe syou harusono my life. i want to say more about this bc it rly is my fav manga perhaps of all time but that also means i can't say more about it LOL (manga / rereads: 6)

the cat proposed (bakeneko katatte sourou) by hayane dento is quite possibly the best manga i've ever read. the writing is so beautiful, and it's a really relatable and inspiring story for me. plus it's got catboys. *motions to my dnp catboy pfp* but in all seriousness, it's a genuinely great story that squeezes my heart and leaves me in tears (manga / rereads: 5)

doukyuusei is a certified bl classic. i've not read the entire manga series, but i've got the anime film saved to my laptop. that was another thing i roped all my friends into watching, and yes, everyone was gagged (animanga / rewatches: 4?)

koimonogatari by tagura tohru is incomplete, and the "love" part isn't there yet, but my fucking god. i think i just picked it up for funsies at the bookstore, but man was i unprepared. it's not a fun read by any means, nor is it easy, it's actually pretty brutal, but it's a good story, so i felt i should include it. (it is one of my faves) (manga / rereads: none bc i will kill myself.)

summer of you (kimi wa natsu no naka) by furuya nagisa changed me. it was one of those manga that was in my to read list for a really long time, but i just never did it. when i finally did, i totally regret putting it off. i think i cried. it has a sequel (summer with you), and that was good too, but that first one just really got me (manga / rereads: 1)

fools by yeongha has an art style i will forever be jealous of. the original, that is. i'm sure the remastered version is great, and probably the one i should read, but i'm just way too attached to the original and the art is (in my opinion) way better. the story is fun and sweet, and i read it at another formative time in my life. *jazz hands* (manhwa / rereads: 3)

my darling signed in by dimang and new lung. if there's one thing about me, i'm gonna read a video game catfish story. this manhwa is so fucking ridiculous, but i love it. it actually gets pretty dark, which took me by surprise the first time i read it, but it's not between the main cp, if you're worried about that (manhwa / rereads: 3)

dasadanan by herb mandu also has just lovely art. i can just stare at it for ages bc i'm so obsessed. also there's side gl, and i love those two girls so damn much. the story is very easy to read, fluffy, and it's just good feelings all around. it also has some really silly extras. (manhwa / rereads: 4)

history3: trapped is so... it is also dear to me. the main couple is funny and cute; however, it's the side couple that really gets to me. they're so ridiculous and fun, and the actor for zhao zi is an acrobat? does acrobatic dance? i'm not sure exactly, but they wanted to showcase that so he'd just be doing some random gymnast shit for no reason and it's so funny. and jack was made in a lab for me, so. y'know. (drama / rewatches: 2, about to be 3)

glasses cloth and playlist by gwak jonpil was recommended to me by a friend i believe, and i'm so glad i read it. it's another easy read and also very ridiculous, but when i say something is "ridiculous", that's usually a huge compliment. i LOLed at, like, every other panel. the main cp is so damn ridiculous, and i adore them. (manhwa / rereads: 1)

starting with a lie by liang azha has the softest art i've ever seen. that manhua is like a warm hug, if a warm hug also had you gritting your teeth and clenching your fists because GODDAMN JUST GET TOGETHER FOR REAL ALREADY! i love it. oh, but i don't like qiu tian. sorry. (manhua / rereads: 2)

how to survive as a villain by yi yi yi yi is... look, i'm sure it has flaws, right? every story has flaws, but wherever they are, i did not see them. i mean, it's a little bit ridiculous at times, but again, "ridiculous", and the mc was transmigrated into a once-good now-trashy harem novel. and he's also smart but oblivious. bound to be a little bit silly. but also this novel ripped out my heart and stomped on it. and i thought it wouldn't happen with the manhua, but i cried then too. what the hell. i really enjoyed this story, and i think it's what got me into transmigration stories in general :P (danmei / rereads: 2)

a shoulder to cry on by dongmul. okay. OKAY. this is not a "happy" story to most. also the ending without the extras/epilogue is bittersweet to ambiguous. the issue here is that I LOVE ENDINGS LIKE THAT!!!!!!!!! this story is so damn good and i like the art a lot and god, some of the quotes? every time i reach certain scenes i have to pause and stare at the wall because no fucking way. it's just too good. i should go ahead and warn that the couple doesn't have the healthiest of dynamics and their relationship starts bc one of them lies and accuses the other of sexual harassment, so. i'm just letting you know now. but i let myself have toxic yaoi. as a treat. tbh to me it's not that bad, but i know everyone has different intensity levels, so. (manhwa / rereads: 3)

never understand by bbong is an... interesting read. arguably more toxic yaoi, and everyone at times can be kind of awful and annoying, but i think that's fun. sorry. i vividly remember reading this for the first time. for some reason. also, as with a good amount of manhwa that i read in my more formative years, i like this art style. (manhwa / rereads: 1)

semantic error by j soori and angy kim is a lot more graphic and hardcore (sex-wise) than the kdrama, which makes sense, but like... DAMN! my toxic trait is that every three panels i pause and go "hey does anyone else think these guys look like jaedo?" and the sniper that's supposed to shoot me any time i bring up rps lets me live because i'm objectively right. the characters are so damn infuriating, but i like watching car crashes, so it's alright. plus the art is good and, well, i never said i don't ship jaedo. *glass next to me explodes after a bullet cuts through it* whatever! (rereads: none bc it ended not that long ago. but i'll probably reread it soon)

no.6 by asano atsuko and here comes all the haters being like, "oh, that's not bl!" "that's more than bl!" "[some more dumb shit i don't care about]!" suck my pussy. i don't care. i loooove the novels and hope we get a printed official english translation. people are right to say the romance isn't the focus, but it's there, and honestly, i love plotty shit. i've heard it's supposed to be the "happy version" of banana fish or whatever the fuck, but damn if that's not a fucked up version of happy. i sobbed my fucking eyes out (novel & animanga / rereads: 2)

snow fairy by serizawa tomo. i'm not gonna lie, i don't remember this story, but on my big list it has a heart next to it, and i feel like i cried when i read it. i've said i've cried about like half of these, and i cry when i see something cute or when i think about my blorbo or when a song is pretty, so that means nothing. but this one really got to me! i think it was just a simple story with lovely art. it aches, maybe. actually, i've just found my initial review, which reads: "im so miserable....." (rereads: none, but i'd like to reread it asap)

bj alex by mingwa. insert loud and disappointed "ooh" from the crowd bc really, phil-lesterfan? i thought you were a scholar? with taste? LOOK. i know this is a basic manhwa, and i couldn't give a rat's ass about the side cp, but ahn jiwon somehow became pookie. it is agonising, though, 'cause like i said, i don't care about the side cp, but oh my fucking god, it feels like everyone else only cares about them. shoot me. also the side cp is into bdsm, but you can skip over their shit honestly. (rereads: 2)

aien catharsis by oshima kamome was another manga that'd been in my tbr list for ages. i really like how the story feels. aaaaand i just reread it and ah. i see why it affected me. (if you can guess what line stuck out to me, lmk, i'd love to hear it heh) it's historical fiction and has lovely art. tw for sexual assault, but it's not between the cp and it's also not shown. (manga / rereads: 2)

like i said, i have a lot more favs, so if anyone wants the full list, just ask. or if you don't want the full list, i can give rec lists for certain genres or just manga or just danmei, etc, etc. i know i'm in batman hell right now (ah. western yaoi....), but i've been fujoshing since i was like... ten. okay this is of course way longer than it should be. hope u enjoy if you read any of these ^_^ <3

#ask #it was SO HARD not to give honorable mentions #bc it's like. well . it shouldn't be a mention if it's another fav #anyway i'm sorry for having questionable tastes and liking unhealthy pairings. well. i'm not sorry but i'll say it anyway

3 notes · View notes

nyerus · 2 years

Note

If you don't mind, can I ask something from TGCF, nyerus? What do you think are Xie Lian and Hua Cheng’s greatest personality strengths and weaknesses? And, what do you love about Hualian's dynamic that differ them from Wangxian and Bingqiu? Of course I don't mean one of them are better than the other, because all of the couples of MXTX works are amazing in their own way......And anyone can have their own favorite.... I just love to read your metas and your answers, nyerus.... Also thank you, because of you, nyerus, I start reading TGCF..... 🤩 Sorry if you've answered these questions before.....

Hello there! I'm so touched that you got into TGCF because of me!🥺Hopefully this answer is not too long, but anyway….

I think Xie Lian's greatest personality strength would be his resilience. He is uncommonly resolute to his beliefs and ideals. It's understandable that he wavered at his lowest point after all he went through, but incredible that he ultimately came out still holding fast to his beliefs. Many would not be able to, even if they had help to see them through. I can't understate how profound it was for him to declare "I will never change!" at the end of book 5. Not that he didn't change and grow as a person -- he certainly did, and he knows that. But he will always hold fast to his values and his reasoning for doing what he does, no matter what anyone else wants of him.

As for his weakness, I think it's tied to this same resilience. As a consequence of this, he is the type to -- as MXTX put it -- "work hard and please no one" at times. He will do what he thinks is right, even if it lands him in trouble, and even if he doesn't personally want to. He just… still does. It often ends badly for him, but he isn't the type that can just turn away and close his eyes to problems he sees. He also isn't one to ask for help. As a teenager, he was heralded as a prodigy by all, so Xie Lian himself didn't think he needed any help for anything. This resulted in him never learning how to ask for it, or open up to people in that way, so when the time came where he actually needed to, he couldn't. It's what led to his downfall. When Hua Cheng enters his life in earnest, it's difficult for him to learn to rely on someone else, as it makes him feel like a burden. Both of these weaknesses are things he slowly begins to overcome by the end of the story! As he begins to open up to Hua Cheng, and lets Hua Cheng carry some of his burden, Xie Lian also learns how to forgive himself and live for himself a little bit more.

Coming to Hua Cheng: I think his greatest strength is very very similar to Xie Lian's resilience. They share this trait, albeit in a slightly different flavors. While Xie Lian's version is more self-sacrificing, Hua Cheng's is borne out of sheer stubbornness. Once he sets his mind to something, there is nothing that can get in his way. He will not waver, no matter what. It's actually rather extreme. But it's because of this that Hualian are so well-matched. It's hard for others to fully wrap their heads around this level of tenacity or intensity of belief. But since Xie Lian is so similar, he understand this perfectly, and vice versa.

Hua Cheng's greatest weakness meanwhile is his propensity to deny his own desires in lieu of what he thinks is best for Xie Lian. He holds himself back because he struggles with letting his desires be known, versus wanting to honor and cherish Xie Lian in the way he thinks Xie Lian deserves. That his "shameful" romantic feelings for Xie Lian would sully his beloved and his god, which to him would be a grave sin. But he still can't stop himself from wanting -- so it's a bit of a congitive dissonance for him. We can even combine that with his years of trauma from his childhood that he never really recovered from (it's why he genuinely thinks he's a monster, as that's what he was told his pretty much his entire life until the day he died). Ultimately, it's not hard to see why he feels unworthy. Ironically, another thing Hualian share.

That brings me to what I love about Hualian's dynamic in particular! They are actually very similar people. They share the same strengths, and the same intensity, so they are able to intimately understand what drives each other in a way no one else around them can. Both of them are one-in-a-million type of passionate for what they blieve in (like to an impossible and dangerous degree), so it would be hard for someone actually normal to get either of them on the level they want to be known. They also share some of the same weaknesses, and by seeing those in each other, they are able to help each other grow and overcome. Xie Lian learns to depend on someone else for once, and also to live a little more selfishly, instead of sacrificing his own happiness and well-being for the common people. Meanwhile, Hua Cheng also learns to depend on someone else (esp when he was kid-ified, for example), and that he is allowed to be selfish and want things for himself without locking away his desires. It's a very nice sense of symmetry, and really shows how they're very complimentary, rather than opposites.

Other than that, I really just enjoyed their dynamic and banter. They fell into this easy and warm companionship immediately! We didn't have to wait for that as a "pay-off" at the very end, and yet their relationship still had so much excitement as it developed and unfolded. They felt like an old married couple right off the bat, and it's just so lovely to see that sweetness -- especially in a novel that is otherwise quite dark. Their love was the lifeline that kept me going through the roughest parts of the novel! Not every couple has to have internal strife and drama between them to make it interesting to read, so it was a breath of fresh air!

I also want to add: since I mentioned that Hualian uniquely suited to each other's quirks, I've always thought it's a bit of a shame that said quirks get swept under the rug so often in fandom! They seem like this really "healthy and pure" couple on the outside, which is understandable because of how well they get along and respect each other. But they're both completely abnormal people, and as a couple they're genuinely unhinged. 😂 I think it's for all these reasons I gravitated towards Hualian, though I certainly do love the other MXTX couples as well!

#tgcf #tian guan ci fu #heaven's official blessing #hob #hualian #asks #elaine2895 #meta #kind of lol i actually mentioned some of these points on a twitter meta more recently

47 notes · View notes

spockandawe · 3 years

Text

Well, this is interesting! So, in that post yesterday, there was one line that really baffled me, a thing about people brushing off a character as an asshole “because he shows literally zero growth.” I kind of set that aside because it was such a weird non-sequitur, and guessed that it was just someone’s sentences not quite keeping up with their train of thought, which has happened to me many times. Apparently I was wrong! I already spent long enough on that one post, I’m tired of talking about that, but this is new and interesting.

Okay. I kind of wanted to see if I could talk about this purely in terms of abstracts and not characters, but I don’t think it’ll work. It would be frustrating to write and confusing to read. It’s about Jiang Cheng. Right up front: This isn’t about whether or not he’s an abuser. Frankly, I don’t think it’s relevant. This also isn’t about telling people they should like him. I don't care whether anyone else likes him or not. But I do like him, and I am always fascinated by dissecting the reasons that people disagree with me. And the process of Telling Stories is my oldest hyperfixation I remember, which will become relevant in a minute.

I thought I had a good grasp on this one, you know? Jiang Cheng makes it pretty obvious why people would dislike Jiang Cheng. But then the posts I keep stumbling over were making weird points, culminating in that “literally zero growth” line.

So! What happened is that someone wrote up a post about how Jiang Cheng’s character arc isn’t an arc, it’s stagnation. It’s a pretty interesting read, and I broadly agree with the larger point! The points where I would quibble are like... the idea that it’s absolute stagnation, as opposed to very subtle shifts that still make a material difference. But still, cool! The post was also offered up as a reason why OP was uninterested in writing any more Jiang Cheng meta, which I totally get. I’m not tired of him yet, but I definitely understand why someone who isn’t a fan of his would get tired about writing about a character with a very static arc. Okay!

Now, internet forensics are hard. I desperately wish I had more information about this evolution, because I find this stuff fascinating, but I have no good way to find things said in untagged posts, reblogs, or private/external venues. But as far as I can tell, that “literally zero growth” wasn’t just a slip of the tongue, it’s become fashionable for people to say that Jiang Cheng is an abusive asshole (that it’s fucked up to like) because he doesn’t have a character arc.

Asshole? Yes. Abusive? This post still isn’t about that. This is about it being fucked up to like this character because he did bad things and had a static character arc.

At first, that point of view was still deeply confusing to me. But I think I figured out the idea at the core of it, and now I’m only baffled. I’m not super interested in confirming this directly, because the people making the most noise about this have not inspired confidence in their ability to hold a civil conversation and I’m a socially anxious binch, but I think the idea is: ‘This character did Bad Things, and then did not improve himself.’

Which is alarmingly adjacent to that old favorite standard of ‘This piece of fiction is glorifying Bad Thing.’ I haven’t seen anyone accusing mxtx of something something jiang cheng, only the people who read/watched/heard the story and became invested in the Jiang Cheng character, but things kind of add up, you know?

Like I said, I don’t want to arbitrate anyone’s right to like/dislike Jiang Cheng. That’s such a fucking waste of time. But this is fascinating to me, because it’s like..... so obviously new and sudden, with such a clear originating point. I can’t speak to the Chinese fans, obviously, but exiledrebels started translating in... what, 2017? And only now, in 2021, do people start putting forth Jiang Cheng’s flat character arc as a “reason” that he’s bad? I’m not going to argue if he pings you in the abuse place, I’m not a dick. I’m not going to argue if you just dislike his vibes. I’m just over here on my blog and in the tag enjoying myself, feel free to detour around me. But oh my god, it’s so silly to try to tell other people that they shouldn’t like him because he has a static character arc.

I want to talk about stories. I don’t know how much I’ll be able to say, because it’s impossible to make broad, sweeping statements, because there are stories about change, there are stories about lack of change, there are all kinds of media that can be used to tell stories, and standards for how stories are told and what they emphasize vary across cultures and over time. But I think that what I can say is that telling a story requires... compromise. It requires streamlining. Trying to capture all the detail of life would slow down most stories to an unbearable degree. Consider organically telling someone ‘I made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich’ versus the computer science exercise of having students describe, step by step, how to make one (spread peanut butter? but you never said you opened the lid)

Hell, I’ve got an example in mdzs itself. The largely-faceless masses of the common people. If someone asks you to think about it critically like, yes, obviously these are people, living their own lives, with their own desires, sometimes suffering and dying in the wake of the novel plot. But does the story give weight to those deaths? Or does it just gloss by? Yes, it references their suffering occasionally, but it is not the focus, and it would slow the story unbearably to give equal weight to each dead person mentioned.

Does Wei Wuxian’s massacre get given the same slow, careful consideration as Su She’s, or Jin Guangyao’s? No, because taking the time to weigh our protagonist with ‘well, this one was a mother, and her youngest son had just started walking, but now he’s going to grow up without remembering her face. that one only became an adult a few months ago, he still hasn’t been on many night-hunts yet, but he finds it so rewarding to protect the common people. oh, and this one had just gotten engaged, but don’t worry, his fiancee won’t mourn him, because she died here as well.’ And continuing on that way to some large number under 3000? No! Unless your goal is to make the reader feel bad for cheering for a morally grey hero, that would be a bad authorial decision! The book doesn’t ignore the issue, it comes up, Wei Wuxian gets called out about all the deaths he’s responsible for, but that’s not the same as them being given equal emotional weight to one (1) secondary character, and I don’t love this new thing where people are pretending that’s equivalent.

When Wei Wuxian brutally kills every person at the Wen supervisory office, are you like ‘holy shit... so many grieving families D:’ or are you somewhere between vindicated satisfaction and an ‘ooh, yikes’ wince? Odds are good you’re somewhere in the satisfaction/wince camp, because that’s what the story sets you up to feel, because the story has to emphasize its priorities (priorities vary, but ‘plot’ and ‘protagonist’ are common ones, especially for a casual novel read like this)

Now, characters. If you want to write a story with a sweeping, epic scale, or if you want to tightly constrain the number of people your story is about, I guess it’s possible to give everyone involved a meaningful character arc. Now.... is it always necessary? Is it always possible? Does it always make sense? No, of course not. If you want to do that, you have to devote real estate to it, and depending on the story you want to tell, it could very possibly be a distraction from your main point, like the idea of mxtx tenderly eulogizing every single character who dies even incidentally. Lan Qiren doesn’t get a loving examination of his feelings re: his nephews and wei wuxian and political turnover in the cultivation world because it’s not relevant, and also, because his position is pretty static until right near the end of the story. Lan Xichen is arguably one of the most static characters within the book, he seems like the same nice young between Gusu and the present, right up until... just before the end of the story.

You may see where I’m heading with this.

Like, just imagine trying to demand that every important character needs to go through a major life change before the end of your book or else it didn’t count. This just in, Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg go through multiple novels without experiencing radical shifts in who they are, stop liking them immediately. I do get that the idea is that Jiang Cheng was a ~bad person~ who didn’t change, but asdgfsd I thought we were over the handwringing over people being allowed to like ““bad”” fictional characters. The man isn’t even a canonical serial killer, he’s not my most problematic fave even within this novel.

And here is where it’s a little more relevant that I would quibble with that original post about Jiang Cheng’s arc. He’s consistently a mean girl, but he goes from stressed, sharp-edged teenager, to grief-stricken, almost-destroyed teen, to grim, cold young adult (and then detours into grim, cold, and grief-stricken until grief dulls with time). He does become an attentive uncle tho. He..... doesn’t experience a radical change in his sense of self, which... it’s...... not all that strange for an adult. And bam, then he DOES experience a radical change, but the needs of the plot dictate that it’s right near the end. And he’s not the focus of the story, baby, wangxian is. He has the last few lines of the story, which nicely communicate his changes to me, but also asdfafas we’re out of story. He was never the main character, it’s not surprising we don’t linger! The extras aren’t beholden to the needs of plot, but they’re also about whatever mxtx wanted to write, and I guess she didn’t feel like writing about Jiang Cheng ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But also. Taking a step backward. Stable characters can fill a perfectly logical place in a story. Like, look at Leia Organa. I’m not saying she has no arc, but I am saying that she’s a solid point of reference as Luke is becoming a jedi and Han is adjusting his perspective. I wouldn’t call her stagnant, the vibes are wrong, but she also isn’t miserable in her sadness swamp, the way Jiang Cheng is.

Or, hell, look at tgcf. The stagnant, frozen nature of the big bad is a central feature of the story. The bwx of now is the bwx of 800 years ago is the bwx of 1500+ years ago. This is not the place for a meta on how that was bad for those around him and for him himself, but I have Thoughts about how being defeated at the end is both a thing that hurts him and relieves him. Mei Nianqing is a sympathetic character who’s also pretty darn static. Does Ling Wen have a character arc, or do we just learn more about who she already is and what her priorities always were? I’m going to cut myself off here, but a character’s delta between the beginning of a story and the end of a story is a reasonable way to judge how interesting writing character meta is, and is a very silly metric to judge their worth, and even if I guessed at what the basic logic is, for this character, I am still baffled that it’s being put forth as a real talking point.

(also, has it jumped ship to any other characters yet? have people started applying it in other fandoms as well? please let me know if this is the case, I am wildly curious)

(no, but really, if anyone is arguing that bwx is gross specifically because he had centuries to self-reflect and didn’t fix himself, i am desperate to know)

And finally. The thing I thought was most self-evident. Did I post about this sometime recently? If a non-central character experiences a life-altering paradigm shift right near the end of the story (without it being lingered over, because non-central character), oh my god. As a fic writer? IT’S FREE REAL ESTATE. This is the most fertile possible ground. If I want to write post-canon canon-compliant material, adsgasfasd that’s where I’m going to be looking. Okay, yeah, the main couple is happy, that’s good. Who isn’t happy, and what can I do about that? Happy families are all alike, while every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, etc.

It’s not everyone’s favorite playground, but come on, these are not uncommon feelings. And frankly, it’s starting to feel a little disingenuous when people act like fan authors pick out the most blameless angel from the cast and lavish good things upon them. I’m not the only one who goes looking for a good dumpster fire and says I Live Here Now. If I write post-canon tgcf fic, it’s very likely to focus on beef and/or leaf. I have written more than one au focusing on tianlang-jun.

And, hilariously. If the problem with Jiang Cheng. Is that he is a toxic man fictional character who failed to grow on his own, and is either unsafe or unhealthy to be around. If the problem is that he did not experience a character arc. If these people would be totally fine with other people liking him, if he improved himself as a person. And then, if authors want to put in the (free! time-consuming!) work of writing that character development themselves. You would think that they would be lauded for putting the character through healthier sorts of personal growth than he experienced in canon. Instead, I am still here writing this because first, I was bothered by these authors being named as “freaks” who are obsessed with their ‘uwu precious tsundere baby’ with a “love language of violence,” and then I was graciously informed that people hate Jiang Cheng because he experiences no character growth.

#jiang cheng #mdzs #the untamed #disk horse #long post/#abuse/#only tangentially #but better safe than sorry i hope

76 notes · View notes

its-miichan · 3 years

Text

TGCF criticisms

Spoilers and unpopular/critical opinions ahead! Beware! I tried to like this, I really did, but this novel really makes me frustrated. It clearly has so much potential, but so much of that potential was wasted on pandering romance and shallow caricatures of main characters. Overall 1.5-2 stars because it gets worse the more you think about it. CHARACTERS: 1. The main character, Xie Lian was wildly bland and boring. He is presented as the kindest, purest, most selfless person in the world, but really he was just a bland white lotus. With Xie Lian, his personality can be described in just a sentence or so, while the author's other two MC's (Wei Wuxian and Shen Qingqiu) are both charming, funny, and deep with their own motivations. Xie Lian just walks around in the story with no purpose and he says that he wants to help the common people, but he really hasn't done that! He's barely helped anyone at all, and those times he did help people are quickly followed by flirting with the ML and forgetting all about the people he was supposed to help. Honestly, in the past, Xie Lian was also the biggest jerk ever. He gave up his own friends and family's well being for his own sense of justice and was stubborn to a fault and refused to listen. What's worse is that none of these flaws are actually addressed, and the story just lets him roll with it and never actually calls him out on it. If you want to see all the reasons why he's a poorly written character, check out this reddit post: https://www. reddit. com/r/MXTX/comments/j2l9ye/why_xl_is_a_poorly_written_character_in_my_opinion/

2. The ML, Hua Cheng, is equally as bad. He is extremely shallow and such a static character, with his development in the present times being nonexistent and his development from the past to the present being wholly nonsensical. His personality is very cliche and his motivations and thoughts are left entirely up to the reader's imagination, which significantly reduces character depth. He could've been such a great character, a ghost king who rules over hell and is morally grey, but instead he is dumbed down to a Xie Lian fanboy. Everything about him not related to Xie Lian is thrown at us in a few paragraphs if at all, and what little motivation and thoughts about him we do get always fall flat. [Like apparently this guy saved him once, and he fell in love with him and became devoted to him for 800 years? Like people get saved all the time and we don't see them going 800 years and 3 deaths for a guy they've barely talked to] Also, he is wildly unlikable. Of course, this is purely subjective, but he is irritatingly smug and lords over literally everyone he meets. It doesn't help that he's an insufferable Mary Sue with an endless array of powers, intelligent as hell and knows literally everything, really good at painting, sculpting, woodworking, and on top of that the richest, most powerful, most handsome, and most charismatic man in the book. His biggest flaw is supposed to be his insecurity and inferiority complex, but that barely ever comes up and 90% of the time he is arrogant and smug. More information on why he's badly written here: https://www. reddit. com/r/MXTX/comments/iskkp5/why_hc_is_a_bad_character_in_my_opinion/

3. The side characters in my opinion are written far better, but obviously quite underdeveloped. They are all three dimensional and have their own thoughts, emotions, and feelings as well as a believable backstory, but so many of them are quickly offed to make way for the main couple, some of them not only not becoming better, but actually getting quite a whole lot worse. Qi Rong, who was supposed to be super strong demon that is one of the 4 great evils becomes a comedic relief gremlin who just shows up for some comedy and then leaves. Feng Xin and Mu Qing, the MC's childhood caretakers disappear for like 100 chapters after we're given their backstories and then once they reappear, they don't do anything either. Shi Qingxuan, who in my opinion is by far the best character in the book, has his arc left open with no ending at all, only to be forgotten about for 80+ chapters only to reappear completely the same with no character growth at all. All of this is because the main couple take up so much of the book, and the rest of the side characters and their character growth is sabotaged for the author's ego so that the main couple can look better and get more screen time.

4. I lost interest in the story pretty quickly due to the bland characters and their out of place romance and how unlikable they were. A lot of this novel was very surface level, and it's pretty on paper, but when you think about the characters a bit longer, the more bland and shallow they become.

PLOT: 1. The plot was... There was no plot. It was just a collection of monster of the day arcs that aimlessly meander about and then everything returns to the status quo once they return to Xie Lian's temple/home. Obviously books 4 and 5 were a lot more to my taste because the writing was a lot more concise and the pacing was less slow and pointless, as well as actually incorporating fantasy elements and shaking up the status quo. However, the other 3 books, especially books 1 and 2 had way too much fan service, pointless romance, and plot lines that don't go anywhere and don't contribute to the story.

2. The past plot line, or the flashbacks were pretty interesting, except for how b*tchy the MC was. Book 2 has a lot of important information and some action, but a lot of it was boring fluff that didn't really contribute to the story other than introducing the villain and showing how XL and HC met. The rest, we're literally told already and there's no new information. Book 4 was supposed to be suffering heavy, and I agree that the character development was alright, but it was too brooding and oppressive. In the end, I just stopped feeling bad for Xie Lian because of how bad the story was trying to make you feel for him. I was not invested in him, and although he was significantly more deep in this book than in the other 4, the bad logic is still there. [you wanna kill people but then someone gives you a bamboo hat and you're all sunshine and rainbows again?] The suffering is excessive in my opinion, and although it's supposed to provide contrast to the romance, it just feels done in poor taste. seriously, 20 chapters straight of suffering is not necessary, and the pacing and tone suffers because of this. The flashbacks really don't contribute too much to XL or HC's character development, but is just there to be angsty and cryp*rn.

3. The final battle was the most unbelievable thing I've ever read. All the gods got together and the first part seemed pretty epic as we got to see all the side characters finally showcase their powers.... Until the MC and ML show up. The MC and ML show up, and instantly the background extras—excuse me I mean side characters, go back into hibernation as the main couple show off how cool and powerful they are. And then we get to the final confrontation, which has our MC, ML, and MC's two friends face off against literally the most powerful being in the freaking universe. I thought it would be a tense fight scene with lots of close calls, but I was so disappointed. Instead the ML is so OP that he breaks the spells binding MC's powers, and MC becomes so overpowered and slams the big boss into the wall with the power of love while his two friends just stand there doing nothing.

4. A lot of what happens in the flashback is directly Xie Lian's fault, but the book never seems to register it? I won't go into detail on this point since it's already covered in the first Reddit thread, but basically because of XL's s*upidity and refusal to listen to anyone else, the people around him suffer.

WRITING: 1. The writing wasn't great. It was very choppy and as I said previously, very monotonous and monster-of-the-day. Yes there were great scenes which got to me, but most of it was really boring and descriptions and dialogue dragged on and on with no end, and with the bland MC, it wasn't even interesting such as the dialogue in MDZS was. Side arcs were introduced with no warning and ended with no warning, leaving the reader wondering "Why was that even there in the first place if it was just going to be forgotten about?"

2. The water demon/wind god arc. The opening and most of the middle of this arc was extremely good, the logic and mystery was written well, and Shi Qingxuan's (the wind god) antics were funny. But after the big reveal and the tense climax, the story just... stops. Like it's literally forgotten about. [The MC gets dragged out by his all powerful lover, they romance some more, and forget all about Shi Qingxuan who is literally left in the hands of the second or third most powerful demon ever who is also his mortal enemy]

3. The incessant flirting really got on my nerves. The tension and tone of the entire story got completely ruined because of the MC and ML flirting and the MC blushing and giggling while the ML teases him and everyone else is literally fighting for their lives. This felt very fan-service like, and it felt like the author stopped trying and just fed us dog food after an emotionally taxing arc so that she wouldn't have to close out the arc properly, completely destroying the tone. Speaking of the tone, the tone whiplash was just... wow. You're fed fluff and romance during or after a high tensity and highly emotional scene with no connection at all, and you're just supposed to accept it instead of wondering what's happening to the characters you actually care about.

4. Romance and side arcs quite disconnected from the story. Quite frankly, most of this book is just romance with the plot and characters put in second place because "lOOk hOw CuTe the COuPLe iS!" You could literally take out all the side arcs and the story would literally be no different. The romance overtakes the entire plot and becomes the main point of the story. With her other two books, the romance is like the icing on the cake. With this book, the icing overtakes the cake and becomes the cake.

5. Perhaps one of the biggest reasons I was uninterested through most of the book was due to the lack of tension and suspense. The flashbacks were better in the sense that Xie Lian was helpless and couldn't figure anything out, which was why he was just as likely to get hurt as anyone, making the stakes significantly higher. But in the present, with the existence of Hua Cheng, that tension is completely gone. This is because HC knows basically all there is to know, and what he doesn't know he can figure out in seconds. Additionally, he is super powerful to the point that anything that can harm XL can be one shot K.O'ed by him. At this point the conflict becomes trivial to the point where I'm just asking "why are we solving this mystery anyways when HC can just blast it into oblivion?"

6. The fact that HC does the bare minimum in arcs frustrates me. If you're going to include a character with powers that will basically deem any threat against them null, then actually use them at least! HC's apathy does not feel like a coherent part of his character, but an excuse for MXTX to drag out plot lines and make things unnecessarily long and winded. Additionally, his apathy is contradictory. On one hand, he is super overprotective of XL and wants to make sure he won't get hurt a single bit, but on the other hand, he has this advanced ideology of the 21st century that he believes XL is capable so won't constrain him as much. If anything, they should start out with HC as this overprotective follower and have a dysfunctional relationship, and end up with XL teaching HC that he is able to do things and doesn't mind doing them, and that HC can live a life outside of him as well. That would've introduced some narrative stakes and romantic tension, but no, MXTX just had to make these characters perfect in every way.

ROMANCE: 1. The logic is so flawed here. The reason that HC started loving XL is literally because Xie Lian saved him once as a child and therefore he will devote his entire life to XL, not caring about literally anything else. The reason that XL started loving HC is even more so. The thing is someone like say Shi Qingxuan has done every bit as much for XL as HC has, but we don't see XL fall in love with SQX, do we? HC literally listens to him talk and XL falls in love with him, and although it does make sense due to XL being lonely for 800 years, how low the bar is set really bothers me.

2. The constant blue-balling was annoying. At some point, the ignorant MC became annoying and self indulgent instead of cute, and having it be drawn out over nearly 200 chapters makes it even worse. The MC is supposed to be super intelligent, but he literally misses all of the super obvious hints the ML drops at him, which is so weird.

3. It felt like MXTX (the author) went overboard on the romance here. Like she tried way too hard to the point where it was obvious she wanted to make this "the most romantic CP ever". The aesthetics went so overboard with butterflies and flowers as romantic themes, thousands of lanterns, the red string of fate (which didn't even do anything in the actual story), poetry, etc.

4. The romance could almost be described as kind of creepy. Like the ML obsesses over the MC for 800 years, isolating himself from the world and not taking any side of the story besides MC's is supposed to be romantic, but it really isn't. The ML carves thousands of statues of the MC, which is sweet in a way, but also really, really creepy. To quote someone from NovelUpdates who put it 100x better than I could: " They don't feel like equal lovers, HC obviously worships XL to an unbelievably amazing degree while XL only knew he existed from only a while ago (Is this obsession? Stalker-ish? I know his stalker-ish tendencies are usually played for laughs, but realistically?) HC very very very rarely calls XL by his given name but with GeGe or CrownPrince, dude has a name you know. I know you feel lower than XL, but seriously man, the guy's your life partner. HC would destroy the world if XL said to. He'd probably try to talk to XL first, confirm things, but if at the end XL really does want it, HC would do it. He lives for XL, he has no other reason to do something aside for XL. No reason to say NO for himself. They're not equals in which one wanna do something bad, the other would stop him because they have their own convictions. You can't tell me one only lives for one person's sake, will do anything for that guy, and has no attachments in the world aside from that guy, is a healthy person. It may seem romantic, but when you actually think about it, it becomes uncomfortable."

5. The romance was really cheesy. There were some powerful moments, but it was mostly flirting and "he fell on top of me" or "he needs mouth to mouth". Most of it was just the ML flirting with the MC, which you may like if you like this kind of stuff, but I really didn't enjoy it. Overall, I was desperate to love this novel, but I couldn't because of the shallow characters, unlikable main pair, and the constant abandonment of great plot lines in favor of the shallow romance. It felt like MXTX was constantly trying to one-up MDZS in angst, drama, and romance, but at the same time it felt like she didn't know what to do with the characters and world, and therefore fed us fan service and took the easy way out. This review is purely subjective, and if you want to read this go ahead, but I'll be seeing myself out.

#tgcf criticism #tianguancifu #tgcf #mxtx critical #xie lan #hua cheng #ok but this kinda sucks

57 notes · View notes

eldritch-elrics · 3 years

Text

more svsss notes! from “shen qingqiu’s short but aggravating time in jail” to “shen qingqiu Fucking Dies” :]

...this got long. oops

so the book does this a lot but i’m always a huge fan of when a character (in this case little palace mistress) spouts off a cliche and sqq internally goes “oh my god here we go again. cringe.” it’s like... the reader gets to experience the drama of the cliche but also laugh at it

airplane has gay and homophobic vibes. or like...... araki jojo vibes. it’s so funny

the system keeps forcing sqq into plots that were originally meant for binghe’s harem members, which is of course hilarious (more so now that binghe’s not a teen anymore) - but i’m thinking about the fact that the system is literally powered by binghe. i wonder if binghe’s feelings are subconsciously influencing the system/the rest of the plot? like we know he has plot armor; does he also have enough influence to shift the story’s genre without knowing it? shit like this is why i love this novel. i’m really curious if it’ll be addressed

more of sqq being absolutely terrible at communication <3 please sir. say your FEELINGS. i’m sure you could figure out some way to explain without revealing that you know how the og plot goes...

another thing i find super interesting about sqq’s character is how sure he is that lbh’s gonna turn out how he did in og pidw. he’s just refusing to accept that lbh’s changed in any way, or that he cares about sqq at all anymore. there’s some line somewhere where sqq is like “oh no, being nice to him just made it worse... i’m stuck with him hating me even more now...” like NO. you’re just refusing to see all the signs of lbh’s hidden feelings. love unreliable narrators lmao

fate/destiny is such a big theme i keep noticing stuff about it

the system giving him a multiple choice answer to binghe’s “do you regret it” question, dating sim style, is of course hilarious, but it’s also a fascinating moment for a couple reasons. first, it shows how much of a crutch the system is for sqq - sqq’s leaning on it to fix his problems instead of actually putting in the work himself to get better at interpersonal communication. i hope that in a key moment later he’ll choose to defy the system. i think that would be a nice pivot point for three themes: first, accepting that sometimes he needs to fix problems on his own, without any omniscient outside guidance, second, accepting that not everything is written in stone (either by airplane or by the system), and third, recognizing that binghe and the rest are “real people” (ymmv on whether or not you think they are, but i think this is where i think sqq’s arc is headed) rather than video game objects to be manipulated.

i think that some shifts in his attitude do start to happen in chap 43 though when he sacrifices himself

back to slightly less analytical observations! sqq getting his clothes torn up. oh my god. and lbh’s REACTION...

dying at shang qinghua’s “coded” letter and the fact that its content basically amounts to “i fucked up, please escape from jail asap thanks bro”

gongyi xiao my BELOVED that prison break was pretty great. also i am so fucking sad about him. binghe WHY

so lbh wasn’t actually a disciple of meng mo? huh...

seems like the words of sqq’s vengeful ex weren’t completely true. i very much doubt the trial’s gonna happen now but i bet this will come up later

seriously losing it at sqq’s tavern disguise? smeared his face with dirt and drew on whiskers?? CATBOY SHEN QINGQIU???

love this development ning yingying’s gotten. the disciples’ relationships with their shizun in general are so cute omg

liu qingge keeps saving sqq from situations and it’s very fun. bros :)

also how lqg was like SO down to fight binghe at the end of that chapter?? king shit

binghe held out his hand to sqq when they were on the roof..... what was he planning to do.........

oh my god that whole confrontation. what is it with mxtx and Climatic Fights On Roofs

here is where the fate theme gets REALLY clear. sqq uses “we can’t avoid fate” as an excuse/coverup but lbh is like “no. was it fate that made you do all those horrible things to me?? i’ve decided that fate doesn’t actually exist. fuck the world i do what i want!”

which like. YEAH. protag energy. the rules of the world don’t apply to lbh so much do they???

im so excited for these themes to be explored more

also like. hell yeah. binghe finally sharing his emotions at a super climactic moment

and then sqq SACRIFICES HIMSELF...

god damn.

it’s a bit out of nowhere but also like. i kinda love it? because sqq knows he can’t talk his way out of this. he can’t say “hey it wasn’t me who abused you/made the choice to push you off the cliff.” so he goes and does the most drastic action he can think of. and it WORKS

now initially i was a lil mad about lbh changing his mind so quickly but i actually think it fits for 2 reasons. first, he’s a webnovel character. they do that. second, his mind has just been cleared of xin mo’s influence, which had been plaguing him during his most angry/violent moments, so with all that anger suddenly gone it makes sense for his feelings to shift. and deep down, he really does care about sqq!

sqq fuckin DEAD and finally binghe is sharing his feelings,,

i do think that lbh should be allowed to feel mad about what og!sqq did to him in the past though? like. it was wrong, and though sqq may feel like he’s made up for it, i do think he owes lbh a proper apology and (if possible) an explanation. there’s much more work (and communication) to be done between them but i’m glad they’re finally getting somewhere...

but of course i don’t think they’re gonna be seeing each other again anytime soon :]

#svsss #svsss spoilers #my post #analysis #oh god this is so fucking long. sorry #after i finish the novel i might come back to some of this analysis and clean it up and post it as its own thing #because i have a lot of thoughts #finn reads scum villain

54 notes · View notes

elencelebrindal · 3 years

Note

If I'm not mistaken you've now read/watched the three mxtx works and WoH. How would you rank them following personal preference? Which main couple did you like the most? Favorite plot twists in all four?

Yep, I did. I still have to read Faraway Wanderers though. Can't wait to.

This came out to be quite a long post, so I'll put it under the read more thingy.

Now, how would I rank them?

I'll have Tian Guan Ci Fu at the top, no doubts. It's my absolute favorite among all these four, and will probably remain my favorite even after I finally get to read the huge thing that's 2ha. It's the perfect balance of a story with no characters left unexplained (except for the minor ones and RIP Hua Cheng's backstory, why did mxtx rob us so much), of characters being unique all in different ways, and of a romance that, while being absolutely the main focus of the novel, is not overwhelming. For me, an aro/ace person, the romance written in TGCF is so good that it made even me stupidly happy. I don't get such big smiles on my face while reading my own romantic content.

This is the ONLY novel I've ever read that doesn't have a single character I hate in it. Only one, maybe two at most, that I dislike. That's it. Everyone's good. Everyone.

Then I'll definitely have Word of Honor. Just like TGCF, it's a really good balance between an interesting story (I was literally squirming in my seat while impatiently waiting for things to be revealed, enjoying every second of it) and a subtle romance that was still obvious enough to make me wonder what the hell happened with censorship in this drama. Not that I'm complaining though.

Almost all the characters are incredibly good. They have depth to them, all the main ones have either a satisfying backstory or a beautifully crafted development.

And this is it for the ranking. I wrote way more than I should have, but oh well.

After that, it's a tie between Mo Dao Zu Shi and Scum Villain. I don't want to favor one over the other, because I genuinely like them the same. Scum Villain is really underrated, and while I understand it somewhat, it's really unfair.

MDZS (and The Untamed) has a story that draws you to it, especially if you (like me) have an obsession with all things dark and spooky and terrifying like the demonic cultivation in this, like the whole mystery they have to solve with body parts leading them to the solution. The drama, as good as it was, really didn't do justice to the spook factor of using dismembered parts of a corpse to move around.

SVSSS is straight up weird, literally an isekai but make it Chinese. I think the best part of it is Shen Yuan panicking and cussing everyone out every time something happens around him, though... I really loved the story and the way it played out. I especially liked how the novel kept mentioning Proud Immortal Demon Way and compared the events of that book to the events that were happening in that book's world.

But why do I prefer Word of Honor to them? Well, it's simple. There's some aspects of the romance that don't resonate well with me.

WangXian is a beautiful couple, and they deserve all the happiness in the world (they have a canonic son!!!!!!!!), but Wei WuXian's initial obliviousness made me really uncomfortable at times. Not because he didn't know Lan WangJi was in love with him (the fool! thank goodness for Guanyin Temple), but because he kept teasing Lan WangJi about it while the latter was drunk. I mean, I get it. If you don't know, you don't realize what you're doing. But as a person that easily suffers from people making fun of me behind my back... it kinds struck a nerve. I still love them to pieces, though, they're so good together.

BingQiu, well... this is a rollercoaster of a couple. Again, I absolutely love them together, but some parts come off almost as scenes where consent is thrown to the wind. As a reader you know Shen QingQiu is willing and in love (gods, they married each other, I'd be a fool to say the opposite), but there should be a limit to how many times a willing person should say "No" in such a novel. This is mostly me being my aro/ace self, though. I don't really understand what goes on in the world of intimacy between people because I (literally) don't give a fuck, so I'm probably reading too much where there's too little. Don't take this as me not liking BingQiu, I'm in love with them and I desperately need more content.

Favorite plot twists, eh? Okay, big SPOILER ALERT from here onwards. And I mean it. BIG. SPOILER. ALERT.

Now, which main couple did I like the most?

Hualian. I don't even need to think about it. Bonus point because they're both out of their minds and the extras show it.

I said it before, and I'll say it again. I never have smiles so big and goofy in front of anything else, not even my own stuff. Hualian genuinely makes me happy.

Stop reading if you haven't finished all four of these, please.

...

Okay, here I go.

WoH:

Wen KeXing faking his death and telling basically everyone but Zhou ZiShu.

The villain being Zhao Jing; I was actually fooled and thought the main bastard of the series was Gao Chong.

Episode 35, and I'm not saying anything else. Although, as soon as that son of a bitch put his hands on Cao Weining's face like that, I genuinely knew what was going to happen.

The hairpin being the key for the armory. That was so stunning I had to pause the episode for a second and take a walk around the house.

MDZS:

Jin GuangYao being the villain. And being an amazing villain, on top of that.

Nie Huaisang. Fuck's sake, that man fooled the entire fandom just like that. I don't think many people realized he was the one behind everything.

The golden core transplant reveal. I'm sure that more experienced readers and viewers (aka people that had read/watched a ton more cultivation world stuff) had hints of it, but when I watched The Untamed I never read/watched anything remotely close to this genre. It hit me like a brick and I sat in front of the screen in shock.

SVSSS:

Shang QingHua being Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky. It's such a silly thing, but it made me pause for a good five minutes. I wasn't expecting it in the slightest.

The whole thing with the Old Palace Master. The man belongs to the dumpster he never got thrown into.

Tianlang-Jun not actually being the villain. Poor demon, he just wanted to continue with the questionable hobby of reading porn and daydreaming about Shen QingQiu's relationships.

I think I had another one, but it's late and I'm probably forgetting it.

TGCF:

Oh boy, where do I belong? Ah yes, the entirety of book 4. Took me out on the spot.

Jun Wu being Bai WuXiang completely blew me away. That was probably the biggest plot twist in the history of plot twists.

Also, Ling Wen knowing, and her being the creator of the Brocade Immortal.

Fu Yao and Nan Feng being Feng Xin and Mu Qing. For some reason, even if it's kinda obvious when you take a good look at them, it never clicked before being revealed.

On the same note, Ming Yi being He Xuan, and the Earth Master being actually dead. What a ride that arc has been for me.

One of the most important details, however... I got it myself. The ring Hua Cheng gives to Xie Lian. I see so many people saying that they didn't expect the ring to be his ashes, but I did something I generally can't stop myself from doing. I guessed something tremendously important by accident, something I do with many many books so I can ruin the experience for myself. I was literally sitting down, taking a break from reading (I devoured TGCF in 3 days, I needed that break lol), and all of a sudden this goddamn revelation descend upon me like the holy spirit, completely out of the blue. I just sat up, looked at the screen, and went "the ring is is fucking ashes, isn't it?", and completely ruined the surprise for myself.

And this is it.

If there's more I forgot (probably) I don't know. For now, this is my answer. Way too long, as always.

#word of honor #woh #tian guan ci fu #tgcf #heaven official's blessing #svsss #scum villain #mo dao zu shi #the untamed #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #danmei #mdzs

26 notes · View notes

mercyandmagic · 3 years

Note

Hi, mercyandmagic....If you don't mind me asking, who are your favorite “villains” (or antagonists) in all of MXTX novels? Whether it’s a final boss like Jun Wu or more of a side character like Xue Yang. (Whether you want to do a ranking or just write out in no particular order)...Sorry if you've answered this question before....

Aghh sorry I haven’t responded all through the month – I’m a university instructor and this past month has been h e l l. Ahem. I will start working through your asks now!

These are solely my opinion, from most to least favorite:

1. Jin Guangyao (was there any doubt?)

I firmly maintain he’s an antagonist and not a villain because he really just wants to live safely. He only goes against Wei Wuxian because Wei Wuxian is in his way; otherwise, he wouldn’t have harmed him. And Jin Guangyao did so much good for the cultivation society once he was free of his father. Not that I’m excusing what he did with his dad, but it really does seem his misdeeds were 95% during his father’s reign, 5% when Wei Wuxian returns, and 5% the mystery of Rusong.

Plus he’s kind, humble, defies tradition by allowing his dead brother’s murals to be treated as equal to his, and... look, to be motivated to do evil to earn your father’s love is a compelling motive. The pain of realizing he isn’t loved by a parent is... awful, and that makes me want to cry over him quite a bit.

2. Xue Yang

He’s charming in an wicked way. Not that I actually think he’s evil – he’s not. But I do think there’s undertones of text that support him as a clinical psychopath, and I don’t mean that in the way of “he’s an irredeemable monster.” I mean his lack of response to pain or risk, his difficulty with relationships, and his difficulty with empathy make me think he has a brain condition. I agree with MXTX that he’d always be different, but so what? I think if someone had intervened earlier or helped him along the way he could have found happiness. Instead, he was asked to do demonic cultivation (which definitely affected even Wei Wuxian’s mood by the end) and a knife to slay political enemies without repercussions was put in his hands by Jin Guangshan. It’s tragic.

3. Shen Qingqiu (original)

Look, his backstory and lack of resolution breaks my heart.

4. Tianlang-Jun

It’s debatable if he’s even an antagonist, but I’ll include him. He’s sad and his story of love and heartbreak made me sniffle.

5. Wen Ruohan

Mysterious, formidable, overwhelming in the one scene we have of him (novel-verse). He drips style and is fodder for so many fanfics.

6. Old Palace Master

Go f**k yourself, Harvey Weinstein of the SVSSS cultivation world.

7. Jun Wu

I grew more and more sus of him throughout the story and was truly delighted to learn he was, indeed, the Big Bad. I do feel empathy, sure – actually more so than for Old Palace Master. But Jun Wu went so far over the line and his torment of Xie Lian was so bad that I don’t care for him personally. He can have his redemption since he’s still alive and I hope he does, but stay far away from me in fanfic. I think the fact that he’s also the head of the gods turns me away from him – religious hypocrisy is something I have a harder time with personally due to experiences growing up.

8. Jin Guangshan

The real villain of MDZS, am I right? Oh, the sexist hatred of talented women, the predation, the manipulation, the lack of love for his son, the murder of political enemies. At least the Old Palace Master kind sorta cared for his daughter. Jin Guangshan reminds me of so many men. Go f**k yourself, Harvey Weinstein + [insert many potential autocrat names here] of the MDZS cultivation world.

#jin guangyao #xue yang #shen qingqiu #tianlang jun #wen ruohan #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #svsss #tgcf

43 notes · View notes

holmesgone · 2 years

Text

books read 2021/a creative review

Wow!!! I have no idea what I tagged this in 2020, so continuity is for smart people with actual working and short term memory, but I did check OTHER documentation, and I can safely say I read way more books that I enjoyed in 2021.

Before we get into the RECOMMENDATIONS, here are the stats:

Books read (novels, poetry, nonfiction, etc): 78

Comics read (webcomics, anthologies, collections, manga, etc): 99

Books/comics reread: 85

this was written after a whole five minutes searching my tumblr- maybe I haven’t done this since 2018? ANyway, I read way more than 2018, perhaps due to the whole student thing.

My creative writing really tanked because of going back into school but i did write a heck of a lot of poetry. the goal is to get back into a schedule because I really miss fiction writing!!

RECOMMENDATIONS:

Comics

Giant Days by John Allison

so fun! so pure! The faces! The YOUTH.

Cherry Magic! by Yuu Toyota

Listen. It’s the funniest conceit in the universe. Lack of boning makes you a touch-telepath???? TELL ME MORE.

Speak: the graphic novel by Laurie Halse Anderson and illustrated by Emily Carroll

I love Emily Carroll and have always meant to read the novel! I hopefully will get there one day, but this was such a impactful read that also was BIG OUCH.

Books

God I read a lot of excellent books this year so whittling this down is going to be hard!!!

Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey

look. Im such a sucker for noir detective. Is this set in modern north america? Probably. Did my imagination make it a series of greyscale images and our lovely protagonist talked like she had hardboiled eggs rolling around in her mouth? Also yes.

Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt

Some really fun worldbuilding! A witch wandering town! ROLLICKING GOOD TIME.

A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear by Matthew Honglotz-Hetling

HONESTLY, such a fun and interesting read! It is exactly what the title promises but also so much MORE.

Heaven’s Official Blessing by MXTX

Hua Cheng INVENTED romance and I don’t want to hear a word otherwise.

The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard

Miz Goddard isn’t messing around. She says, hey, want cool fantasy worldbuilding based off of Pacific Islander culture? Got that. Want to somehow reveal this beautiful world one unfurling petal at a time via FANTASY BUREAUCRACY??? Got that. Want friendships that change the world for the better? People working their asses off to make the world a better place one incremental gain at a time?????? THE STARS??? THE OCEAN????? THE FIRE????? THE DANCE?????? IM SCREAMING STILL MISS GODDARD LEAK UR ADDRESS

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

god why did i put this off so long!!! lesbians!!! dragons!!!! No lesbian dragons but you can’t have it all, can you!!!! It was so long and I was SO HAPPY FOR IT, because I was greedy for more and more story.

Other notable books I don’t want to grab images for:

Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez

Listen, if you think you know stuff about women, men, and the world.... Please read this book. I thought I knew things. I definitely know nothing. Reading about data blanks was incredibly eye opening.

The Mummy Congress by Heather Pringle

BRO I love me a mummy, and getting to hear about a specialist convention of mummy enthusiasts and also kinds of mummies I’d never heard of... What a party.

100 Tang Poems by Bruce M. Wilson

So nice to read!!!

#your girl #book recs #2021 #WE DID IT GANG ONLY TWO WEEKS LATE #anyway i love reading ask me about book tell me about book etc

3 notes · View notes

hamliet · 3 years

Note

What do you think of Lang Ying (as in the first king of Yong'an)?

I should feel very sorry for him, and to an extent, I do. To another extent, I kind of despise him, but I think there’s a lot of nuance to his character.

He ate the rich, and I can’t really fault him for wanting to take Xianle down. The royals really did suck at ruling, which Xie Lian acknowledges himself, and the common people paid the price. Xie Lian obviously was different, but why would Lang Ying believe as such? Why wouldn’t he want to lead a revolution and bring them down? I can’t fault him. Like, in most stories? Lang Ying would be the protagonist.

It’s interesting because TGCF puts you in the opposite realm of most stories: the antagonist has a really good point, and yet it still makes you feel Xie Lian’s pain when his father has to abdicate and then struggle to survive.

MXTX makes you feel for both, emphasizing the humanity of all involved--human, king, peasant, god: they’re all human. She wants us to be uncomfortable with our empathy.

Lang Ying also challenges Xie Lian: he’s always been for the common people, and risks his ranking in heaven just to deliver rain to them, but at the same time, does he care enough to turn against his family for them? Should he, because his family is still very much, well, family? They’re not evil cackling rulers--but their incompetence still costs many their lives. How do we judge them?

The novel doesn’t give us a right or wrong frame with which to view Xie Lian’s words and choices, because TGCF isn’t interested in right or wrong; it’s interested in empathy. Lang Ying and Xie Lian’s family both end up in despair and dead.

It’s the same as with Hua Cheng’s character: the priests’ predictions about Hua Cheng’s terrible fate are not incorrect, so were they right to treat him that way? What if you looked at the general population’s wellbeing over one small boy’s? TGCF still answers that empathy is what is being asked here, and the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune are irrelevant. Bold for a novel about gods and demons.

Because that’s TGCF’s answer: love. Love enables Hua Cheng to survive beyond death, and find a fate far greater than any imagined for him, a fate not written in the stars. Xie Lian’s commitment to love and kindness for everyone is what enables him to crawl out of despair.

#ask hamliet #tgcf #tgcf meta #tian guan ci fu #hua cheng #hualian #xie lian #lang ying #yong'an #xianle #mxtx meta #heaven official's blessing #hob #hob meta

107 notes · View notes

curiosity-killed · 3 years

Note

Hi....If you don't mind me asking, who are your favorite MXTX characters (top 5 from each novel)? And why? I'm sorry if you've answered this question before.

Aw of course I don’t mind! Though I feel like my answer is going to be a disaster bc I love these casts so so much aha let’s see:

✨ SPOILERS AHEAD ✨

MDZS/CQL

1. Wei Wuxian

Ah so I feel like this is obvious based on the sheer quantity of things I produce and the effort I put into hurting him 😅 but yeah! I love how much of a classical tragic hero he is and I love how much love he has and how that gets twisted around and shaped into a collar of spikes around his own neck. I saw gif sets of wwx before I ever knew about CQL and my reaction was “fuck. I’m going to love him” and I do! And I love that he does learn from his past and I love most of all that he learns to accept the love he is given and is able to make a happy ending in a place of being loved and held in respect and appreciation

2. Wen Qing

On the other hand, I did not expect to be like “mine now” with Wen Qing. Don’t get me wrong, the sexy immortal look got me but it wasn’t really till I started writing fic that I was like ohhhhh Oh Boy. Wen Qing is brilliant and ruthless, fiercely loving and aloof and cold. I love that she gets the lose-lose challenge of balancing what is right for her family vs what is right in the world, what she owes to her sect and what she owes to individuals. The golden core transfer is my favorite dubious science experiment in p much all media I’ve consumed. She gets to be so human—prickly and tough and also achingly gentle and afraid and putting on a tough face and sometimes still crying. “I’m sorry and thank you” ! Im!!

3. Jiang Yanli

The first fic I wrote for this fandom was literally “Jiang Yanli died no she didn’t” lmao I do feel like I underserve Jiang Yanli in that I often fall prey to using her to further the complexity that the male characters are permitted while denying her the chance to be given the same space for development and breath — something to work on! But in that, I really genuinely love how tightly she binds herself to her family and how she tries so hard to be what others need her to be—and then she does make a choice for herself and for a single moment at least, she gets to be loved and to be happy and to have this, a husband and a son and a place, for herself. And terribly I love how much she permeates the story still after death. She is the unspoken voice, the face turned from the camera but always still present, carried in the hearts and names and memories of the ones left behind

She deserved better but—I am weak for the tragedy of it all

4. Jiang Cheng

Another surprise (tho hardly surprising in hindsight): Jiang Cheng is just...horribly understandable. He makes terrible choices and his greatest heroism is undone by a choice made for him or, in the case of “killing the Yiling Laozu” is a lie. He is such a youngest sibling who doesn’t want to be the youngest until all at once, he’s the one in charge and he doesn’t want it at all. He is full of anger and hurt and so much love he doesn’t know what to do with it, doesn’t want it anymore, has no place to put all of its terrible, overwhelming flood.

5. Lan Wangji

I almost didn’t put Lan Wangji or Jiang Cheng on here and then I realized that this is sort of a list of characters I’m pickiest about in fic and...yeah. I think what I love best about Lan Wangji is his journey of grief and healing and through that, his decision to step into world. Where Wei Wuxian’s decision to travel and be removed from the cultivation world (in varying degrees depending on your headcanon preference lol) is really, really important to me, Lan Wangji’s decision to go from being an isolated lone agent working apart from the systems of the world to being involved and invested in changing those systems and working to make them better is also really important to me. I’ve talked before about how relatable Lan Wangji is to me (esp with regards to our interaction with the outer world) and there is something deeply hopeful and comforting about post-timeskip Lan Wangji being in his like mid-/late-30s and still making decisions and growing and changing and choosing to invest himself in the world and the future

yeah. i have thoughts here that I don’t really have the maturity, life experience, or articulation to put into words but Lan Zhan Good basically

TGCF

1. Xie Lian

suuuurpriiiiise!! Yeah honestly mxtx’s mains in TGCF and MDZS really just hit all my buttons basically. What appeals to me most of all about Xie Lian is, fittingly, how he is humanity taken to extremes. His capacity for incredible kindness and compassion is equaled with his capacity for cruelness and ruthlessness. His heaven-shaking highs are matched with calamitous lows. He is the hyperbolic of what it is to be human—and he is also the small moments, the wildflowers and the maple leaves and the mundane chores and the comfort of whispered conversations late into the night. I could quite literally go on for pages about what I love about Xie Lian but I am not Hua Cheng and can restrain myself LMAO

2. Hua Cheng

of all the characters on these lists, Hua Cheng is the one I’m pickiest about tbh! When I say I love him for similar reasons as Xie Lian I don’t actually mean this as being similarities between the two but the fact that both of them so richly convey mxtx’s points about the nature of humanity and what it is to be human. Hua Cheng is both the boldest and most arrogant of all and also the most vulnerable, the one who shies away from the truth because he’s braced for it to hurt and isn’t sure he can take it. He is gory blood rain and an umbrella to shelter a fragile bloom; he is a blade whose wounds only heal if he permits it and he is a sacrifice that he brushes aside as a fit of madness. *pats his head* this boy can fit SO MUCH inside him that he refuses to acknowledge

3. Jun Wu

Definitely my favorite antagonist in recent reading. I was doubtful of him from the start (something something issues with authority something something probably should talk to my theoretical future therapist shhh) but the unfolding of his reveal was so delightfully painful and exquisite that I was like “YES!!!” reading all of it. About the epitome of a satisfying plot twist imo. But about the character himself, I love how he parallels so many — Xie Lian in his rise and fall, his glory and disgrace; Hua Cheng in his fixation and ruthlessness; He Xuan in losing himself to the plot and not knowing how to move forward. I love that he feels beyond human in a way the others don’t—he’s so old and has gone through so much and he doesn’t feel things the way humans do anymore, doesn’t remember right how love squeezes the heart or how hate can exist without acting on it. I love that he thinks he knows how to control everyone and that it’s such mundane things that fool him: Xie Lian’s absurd stubbornness, Hua Cheng’s foolish faith, Yin Yu’s...emotional maturity??? Not Sure how to verbalize that one. But in the end, he is defeated by both the humanity of others and by his own—he’s so tired. He’s exhausted in a way that gods and ghosts aren’t meant to be. He is, under the armor and the masks, the curses and the power, human—benevolent and cruel, evil and good.

4. He Xuan

I love my fish man! No but really I love how He Xuan is so fixed on his one goal that he refuses to acknowledge anything else in his (after)life—which doesn’t make it go away. I love that he is left unmoored, purposeless through the very act of completing that which gives him purpose. I love his long con and the ways he clings to himself but loses himself not in the act but in the telling himself it’s an act. I love that he tries to be a moral man and then becomes a ghost king, a calamity. His reveal is also terribly badass and I do love his bone fish wholly unironically. Like I’m not going to get a He Xuan tattoo (for one thing I’ve been meaning to get a tattoo for 5 years and still haven’t gotten around to it) but also. B o n e f i s h

5. Mu Qing

Of course! The Jiang Cheng of tgcf lol Mu Qing (which my phone desperately wants to autocorrect to my Qing) is so...gah he’s such a mess! And he so fully commits to the belief that no one will ever see and understand him as he is but will always view them through their own convictions about him and his actions — which is simultaneously heartbreakingly lonely and also. Sir You Are a Clown. I genuinely think he’s owed apologies from both Feng Xin and Xie Lian for their treatment and assumptions of him and think that he would be HORRIBLY offended at the thought (while secretly touched? But like secretly even to himself). He will never explain himself and will just clam up tighter the more people accuse him and it’s such a self-sabotaging behavior and also so horribly relatable. I love u sir, you’re a disaster

SVSS I have not read but I do really like the moshang art 😂

#long post #asked & answered #lol sorry this is so long and incoherent #the truth is that I really love these stories and their casts #and I think it’s v hard to extricate the characters from the cast #because they are so deftly and beautifully interwoven #but here are the characters I think are my favorites lol #loosely in order #tgcf spoilers #also this is why I prefer tgcf to mdzs tbh?#jgy is intellectually interesting to me and a good antagonist #but not personally compelling in the way jw is

22 notes · View notes

wangxianfics · 3 years

Link

Title: Way Back 💖

Author: Little_Dimples

Universe: Dimension Travel / Time Travel / Crossover (MDZS/ TGCF/ SVSSS)

Status: Complete

Rating: Teen

Length: Epic (20K)

Summary:

In which Wei Wuxian gets turned into a child- gets thrown through three different universes and ages up in each of them but still manages to find his way back to Lan Zhan.

Recommended by: @2bunlords (mod)

Comments:

This fic is absolutely adorable.

If you ever wanted to read a story about a MDZS / TGCF / SVSS crossover, you should absolutely read this fic in which WWX turns into a kid, dimension travels, meets HuaLian and BingQiu respectively, both couples of whom readily accept him as their son and A-Ying them as his dads. This fic is absolutely delightful, and little demon prince A-Ying gets so much love from all his dads it’s beyond cute 💕. This is honestly such a fun and feel-good story, and one that’ll take you on an epic ride through the MXTX universe.

“Shizun ! This one has come with an apology.” Binghe said but he got no response. Looking around, he noticed the small bundle in the middle of Qingqiu’s bed. Was the older hiding something there ? Was it a gift ? Curiously and with in humans silence, Binghe walked over to the bed. He grabbed he sheets and lifted them up in one single thrust revealing… a boy ? Binghe immediately put he sheets down. What was this ? Did his shizun hide away a…a son ? Was this their child ? No wonder he told Binghe to leave last night.

Pulling the sheets back up, Binghe grabbed the boy and cuddled him close. He had to be around seven or eight years old, a small body with long hair and rosy cheeks. He looked so adorable making Binghe smile. He would show shizun that he found their child and that there was nothing to be afraid of. Binghe would not throw their child away. Getting up, Binghe walked to where Qingqiu usually was if he wasn’t in his quarters. People all around him began to whisper at their head disciple holding a child with a determined look.

“Shizun !” Binghe shouted as he burst through the doors. “It is okay ! I have found our son !” …

“Dad, can I see your sword ?” Wei Ying asked after he had seen enough text.

“Sure.” Binghe said going for his normal sword.

“No not that one. The red one.” Wei Ying said.

“Ah.” Binghe said. “It should be fine since you’re of demon descent.”

“Wait.-“ Qingqiu said trying to stop this but it was too late. The large swore touched Wei Ying and Qingqiu was ready for something bad to happen when nothing did. This brat definitely wasn’t normal.

…

“Is this a dream ? Or am I in the future ?” Wei Ying asked Lan Zhan. “Now that I see it, you all do look…old.” Jingyi snickered at that.

“Baba, you aren’t in the future. There is an array on you. It forced your body through space and time. The last time we seen you was about a week ago and you were a baby.” Sizhui said.

….

“Someone is coming.” They all looked around but didn’t see or notice anything.

“Where ?” Wei Ying asked only to fly out of Lan Zhan’s hold and into a broad chest.

“My son !” It was Binghe.

“Dad ?” Wei Ying said as he was being squeezed to death.

“Dad ?!” Everyone shouted.

“I think ?” Wei Ying backtracked.

“What the fuck ? That’s not your father.” Jiang Cheng yelled.

“You mortal ! How dare you steal my son.” Binghe said and was about to move when a fan stopped him in his path.

“Must you always be so headfirst ? This is A-Ying’s home.” Qingqiu said.

“Father !” Wei Ying said happily.

“Oh A-Ying. You’ve grown.” Qingqiu said.

“Please don’t tell me they’re gods too.” Jingyi said.

“Father is. Dad is a demon prince.” Wei Ying said.

“What the hell ? Just what did you go through when you left us ?” Jiang Cheng asked.

“Hmmm who are they ?” Binghe looked over at Hua Cheng and Xie Lian.

“That’s pretty-gege! And red-gege.” Wei Ying explained.

“The other gods.” Qingqiu took a careful step forward.

“Nice to meet you.” Xie Lian said brightly also taking a step forward but Mu Qing and Feng Xin blocked him.

“Your highness we do not know of this god. And a demon none the less should not be trusted.” Mu Qing said.

“What’s wrong with demons ?” Hua Cheng asked.

“Yeah what’s wrong with demons Qing-ge?” Wei Ying asked making the silver haired god roll his eyes.

“A-Ying is a demon too.” Binghe said.

“What ?!” Everyone shouted again.

“Impossible. Young master Wei is fully human.” Wen Ning said.

“You walking corpse, how are you speaking ?” Hua Cheng asked.

“Young master Wei created me.” Wei Ning said.

“Ah as expected of my son. Build yourself a guard of the undead, no one will harm you.” Binghe said approvingly.

“But I didn’t make him dad, older me did.” Wei Ying said. “I don’t know what a lot of older me has done but I’m not meant to be like this.”

“Then it’s simple, we can just turn you back.” Binghe said.

“You can do that ?” Sizhui asked.

“We are immortals child, if we put our mind to it, we can do it. Who are you ?” Binghe asked.

“My son !” Wei Ying said happily making Qingqiu flutter his fan faster and Binghe all but pass out.

“Oh dear.” Xichen said. “Is he alright ?”

“He’s fine.” Qingqiu said. “A son, I left you for a few days and you already have a son. Something is weird.”

“Again I believe we should all talk inside. Please follow me.” Xichen said and the gods, the demon prince and the ghost king followed him.

50 notes · View notes

spockandawe · 3 years

Text

I probably want to articulate some more thorough thoughts once I’m done rereading svsss, but I definitely think that the emotional thread that draws me the hardest into the book is like... Luo Binghe keeps hurting Shen Qingqiu, or being semi-responsible for the ways Shen Qingqiu gets hurt. It starts as early as their field trip to find the Skinner, where Ning Yingying gets captured while Luo Binghe was supposed to be looking out for her, and it results in Shen Qingqiu getting knocked out and stripped and tied up and almost skinned.

And it continues with moments like Shen Qingqiu being poisoned by Without A Cure, or Shen Qingqiu jumping in front of Binghe’s attack in his dream realm, rather than letting Binghe inadvertently damage his own mind. And of course, there’s a lot happening on Shen Qingqiu’s side too, where both for story-ordained reasons and personal-strategizing reasons, he puts Luo Binghe in danger or lets him get hurt, and he will eventually be responsible for throwing Luo Binghe into the Abyss, but Binghe doesn’t know that.

And what really, really draws me in is the escalation of guilt and grief on Luo Binghe’s part over time, especially when it eventually means that Shen Qingqiu dies.... because of him. Was it voluntary/deliberate on Shen Qingqiu’s part? Sure. Is it still perfectly crafted for Luo Binghe to blame himself? Oh my goodness, yes. I live for the ways he lashes out and acts poorly after the Abyss, but I absolutely adore the way things go after the five year timeskip, where he’s at his lowest emotional point, and has been stewing in a mixture of grief/guilt and bitterness/resentment without being able to speak to Shen Qingqiu to resolve any of those issue.

Because! By the time we get to the climactic scene, with its deliberately-terrible sex scene, Luo Binghe sees that he’s hurt Shen Qingqiu, again, and in such a way-- And it’s crushing! It’s awful! Shen Qingqiu is thinking ‘oh my god, i’m the one who just dealt with this, can’t I be the one to start crying???’ which, super fair. But the whole middle of the story has been about how these two are not naturals at clear communication, and it makes such a perfect point for Luo Binghe’s emotions to go.

As far as he’s concerned, Shen Qingqiu is the most important person in the entire world to him, the only person in the world who really matters-- And Luo Binghe is apparently completely incapable of not-hurting him. The times when he’s failed to protect Shen Qingqiu are bad enough, but since he was a child, he’s watched Shen Qingqiu get hurt because of him, or even worse, by him, and even now, he’s looking at what he just did to Shen Qingqiu, what should have been an intimate, tender act, where instead Shen Qingqiu is... more dazed and bleeding, and also dying just a little bit. And Shen Qingqiu again chose to let this happen, he knew what he was getting into, but that doesn’t make it any less devastating for Luo Binghe when he thinks, I did this to Shizun.

There’s something about that scene that I just can’t get enough of. The dull, miserable unhappiness that Luo Binghe brings into the early part of the scene is wonderful, especially since he’s made a really serious effort to express that this has been a long-building breakdown about how nobody, ever, is willing to choose him. But then, after it’s all said and done, and he sees what he’s done to Shen Qingqiu, no matter how consensual it was, it’s even worse. He’s panicking, he’s horrified, he asks Shen Qingqiu why he didn’t just kill him.

It’s all so compelling to me! I can’t think of many relationships I’ve read that have that particular panicked, unhappy edge to them, especially ones that do wind up happy in the end. All of the mxtx romances have a very different flavor to them, and I think her writing advances in leaps and bounds between her first book and her third. But there’s just something about this that always, always gets me so good. I can see that the book is weaker in ways that her later books aren’t, but I still love it so very much. The leads of her other books have their own deep emotions and moments of intense unhappiness, of course, but there’s something about Luo Binghe’s emotions, and how strongly they come through even when he’s not the pov character, that I just... I love him, your honor

#svsss #bingqiu #luo binghe #shen qingqiu

247 notes · View notes

manggaetteokkie · 3 years

Note

It's like my first week in the tgcf fandom and it'd be a crime if I don't read the source material but God is it long. I hate having ADHD (plus I'm not a native speaker), I can read like 1000 fanfics which are <6000 words but if I have to read one super long thing it's over. The last "book" (and longest) I've read is a 100k word fanfic, it was a huge challenge and it took me like 2 weeks reading literal hours each day. Tgcf is 1.2M words bro I'm gonna die. But I really wanna read it T.T

From last anon - hope I didn't sound annoying. It's just frustrating because I wanna join all the people who've read the novel, I watched the first 4 episodes and fell in love with the characters and setting it's just *chef's kiss*. I actually translate and write subtitles for anime in my language and TGCF is currently like the one series that I'm super excited to translate and feels like a walk in the park

Hey anon, first off, WELCOME TO THE TGCF FANDOM!!! I’m super happy that the donghua is getting more and more people into the fandom because by gods, it’s such an amazing story that I wish I could get everyone I know reading it (my weekly tgcf posts are also a way of me lowkey trying to spark some interest and get more people reading/watching it hehe) also, don’t worry, you’re not being annoying at all! I’m just very happy there’s another joining our ranks x) Also, thank you for doing god’s work and making subs for the donghua 💖💖 your work is more than appreciated ☺️💖

So... I’m actually a huuuuge reader, and the concept of “pacing” literally doesn’t exist to me. I start TGCF on a Friday night and finished it Sunday.

It literally took me two days to read 244 chapters + the extras.

Granted, I did barely sleep but... 🤷🏻‍♀️

So with that in mind, I may be biased but this novel is honestly one of my ultimate faves, one of the best things I’ve ever read. To be honest, I’d finished the author’s second novel that clocked in at 113 chapters, TGCF is literally more than double that so I was a bit worried by the size too. I had the PDF ready but I actually pushed off reading it for 2 weeks because I wasn’t sure if I was ever ready for it. But lemme tell you, when I started it, I never wanted to stop. It was a struggle between wanting to savour every single word, and wanting to rush ahead to learn what happens. MXTX (the author) has an amazing way of keeping the action constant and dragging you in with what happens next. There’s never a good enough place for you to pause safely, because she keeps it coming constantly.

That being said, honestly, my advice to you would be to not force yourself or be overly frustrated at your pace. Take breaks if you need to, sometimes life gets in the way too, so don’t pressure yourself too much. It doesn’t matter if it takes you months to finish, it doesn’t even matter if you ever finish (you can always stick to the donghua if it’s easier), all the matters is you want to read it to learn more. At the end of the day, any pace is a good pace x) And honestly, the donghua is likely only going to cover the first two arcs of the novel (which is roughly 29/244 chapters lol), so you have plenty of time to catch up and join the novel readers ;)

It’s honestly a beast to read but really, once you start, you’ll barely notice the length. MXTX has a way of getting you invested into every single character and plot she crafts, and the interactions between the main ship is honestly to die for. What you see up until episode 4 is really just the tip of the iceberg, there’s so much more to the story that it’s impossible to put into words without revealing everything. One tip I have for all readers is to absolutely avoid spoiling yourselves. Do not go on wikis, avoid digging deeper, just take your time and read on. The revelations hit harder if you go in without any idea of what’s going on.

#thanks for the ask!#tgcf #tian guan ci fu #heaven official's blessing #天官赐福 #anon #anonymous #answered #my post #my stuff

13 notes · View notes