ChengQing (lmao never realized that was their fucking ship name)

so pros of (Jiang Cheng/Wen Qing):

one of the few possible het ships available to mdzs fans like there are all of five named female characters and this is the only one not in an established het pairing. and like sure ive seen yanli w/ someone else a couple times but you CANT put her with JIANG CHENG and i cant say ive ever seen mianmian in a serious relationship in fics with anyone besides either her canon hubby or a chick (usually yanli, wen qing herself, or even sometimes both lmao).

it’s basically written itself in cql!! he has a very obv and clear crush on her, even gives her a comb and offers to help her! she seems interested but the way the storyline went it was simply not meant to be :’(

you get to pair off jiang cheng!! ngl once u finish mdzs its kinda sad for everyone not wangxian (in their generation/above) cuz theyre the only one that get a happy ending. Everyone else is forever alone / depressed / bitter or a combination thereof. so it’s nice to see jiang cheng getting a happy ending!

he... gets... kids...? like ngl as a childless person that is happy to stay that way thats not exactly a pro in my eyes but you might look at his relationship w/ jin ling and say “he’s a great father! he deserves to be a father!” which okay good news! wen qing can bear children!

Now. Cons. 

for one thing the fact that you have a lack of options doesnt exactly mean every possible het pairing can have good chemistry even if you change circumstances enough. there comes to a point where certain pairings can only be really viable if one or both of them are ooc.

lets be honest im willing to bet that AT LEAST 80% of the reason cql introduced this ship was because they were not allowed to make the wangxian pair explicitly Together (and i dont even mean anything specifically sexual), and they needed SOME SORT of romance to feature in the story. xuanli doesnt count because theyre an established background ship,  the jiang parents dont count as romance, we aint talkin about the villain relationships, and lbr, mianmian already had a lot more signif in cql than mdzs. so it makes sense that they took the arguably most important male chara besides wangxian and made him have a crush on the most important female character that wasnt his SISTER. 

what im trying to say is that cql pulled that pairing out of a hat. if you look at canon at ALL i highly doubt there would ever have been feelings, just as there never were. we dont quite know the age dif but we know that wen qing was the older sister and wen ning might have been a bit younger? than the boys? cannot quite remember but we dont know if she was only a year or two older or if it was like. mingjue and huaisang. we dont know! and i canNOT see jiang cheng going for an older chick. also their personalities would clash So Much. she has older sis vibes and not the gentle kind like yanli. she snaps at wen ning’s mumbling and stuff a good couple times- you think she’d tolerate jiang cheng’s emotional immaturity? hah. 

this also kinda segues into my main point of: as depressing as it is that jiang cheng is forever alone unless you pair him off... he would honestly put whoever you pair him off with through hell. he’s not nice. so many jiang cheng stans like to argue that he’s a traumatized kid that was raised to channel his emotions through anger (and raises bitterness under his skin like an ugly puppy) but inside he has a heart of gold, and they’re... not exactly wrong! i mean- literally every younger chara is traumatized in some way. but... that doesn’t really... excuse the shit he’s pulled? as much as jiang cheng stans like to forget: jin guangyao was RIGHT when he said that jiang cheng’s insecurities got wei ying killed. his CLOSEST ALLY. 

tying back to wen qing we have their actual CANON interactions (or lack thereof). wen qing didn’t exactly protect wei ying and jiang cheng out of the goodness of her heart when lotus pier fell: she was protecting wen ning (her BROTHER) from the repercussions of his own actions by saving wei ying (and Jiang Cheng ig idk he was just there bUT YOUNG MASTER WEI-)

not QUITE sure why she agreed to doing the golden core transfer (maybe scientific curiousity? i mean she had an unproven medical theory and here was a volunteer) but it def wasnt For Jiang Cheng.

and then the next time she saw him? do you guys remember the next time she saw him? it’ was when jiang cheng came up to the burial mounds to kill wen ning’s corpse and tell wei ying to turn over the wens. 

KEEP IN MIND that jiang cheng KNOWS wen ning and qing SAVED HIS FUCKING ASS after lotus pier (not How but he KNOWS THIS) and yet he still tells wei ying to hand them over.

he makes wei ying choose between what amounts to the cultivation world and his morals. 

that does not a good healthy relationship make. also again their personalities would clash like so bad. i love wen qing way more but you have to admit her personality is super similar to madame yu’s. and we already agreed that jiang cheng was traumatized as a kid. im not saying fengmian didnt have a hand in it but you gotta admit a good amount was madam yu and her insecurites and accusations she piled on her son. and you wanna pair him up romantically with someone who won’t take his shit and smile? will call him out? HAH.

im not saying this because i think jiang cheng should be with a softer personalitied (guy) like lan xichen or wen ning or huaisang because god knows those pairings have their own issues. im just saying that in canon-verse all i can ship whole-heartedly is jiang cheng / therapy, but since there is not therapy in canon-verse, or even if there WAS then there’s no way he’d admit to needing it, then yeah he can stay single for all his bitter life. better that than making jiang parent relationship 2.0 like fuck.

(this of course means that in modern aus where he DOES get therapy i am Open)

also real quick but jiang cheng was NOT a good parent to jin ling and i will not take constructive criticism like sure he was better than the jiang parents and the lan parents but that is SUCH a low fuckin bar and it’s a fact that in chapter 9 jin ling literally thinks “if I can’t slice off her head with this blow, I will die here- death it is then!!” (taken gratefully from the exiled rebels scanlation) and that is NOT a healthy-minded child.

the only healthy minded children is like. jingyi. and probably sizhui. although i am not here for the way the lan sect raise children but sometimes you have to take what you can get.

also i want you to look me in the eye and tell me that wen qing could and would do anything besides throw down with someone that so much as looked at her brother wrong

because jiang cheng apparently decided to lay the blame for jin zixuan’s death at wen ning’s feet (which is incredibly ironic considering he blames wei ying for yanli’s death??? like i feel like he could stand to use his brain cells a bit more??) and repeatedly tried to kill him.

Hey do you play Assassin’s Creed? I’m currently playing AC Valhalla and our lead character Eivor’s brother Sigurd, gives me Jiang Cheng vibes. He has an overinflated sense of self, forgets his debts and promises when chasing godhood, and has the AUDACITY to claim that Eivor is trying to take his throne and sabotage him, totally discounting the fact that Eivor has been putting in the work to build their clan and get allies for them, and that she (I’m playing a female Eivor) has ONLY done all this for him. To secure his position. But EVERYONE is quick to remind Eivor that she’s adopted and that incompetent, jealous and utterly delusional Sigurd is the true Jarl and I’m screaming at my gamepad because of course Jiang Cheng finds me in the middle of a video game. URGH!!! Also, EIVOR DOESN’T EVEN WANT THE GODDAMN THRONE! She only wants to support her brother. She’s only EVER supported her brother. And yet for you to get the “happy” ending, you have to be willing to be Sigurd’s emotional punching bag and be willing to agree with his every word, and not punch him in his deserving face and I’m just… this shit was written by a Jiang Cheng fan. I JUST KNOW IT!

Oi! Watch it!

I still haven't finished Valhalla, but so far Sigurd has been at worst a bit full of himself. He understandably gets angry when Eivor undermines his authority in front of their people by openly disagreeing with him when he makes a decision, but has shown no signs of being against discussion in private. He makes mistakes (because he's human) and isn't around much (because he's busy), but all evidence I've seen suggests he loves Eivor and is glad she's around to lead the clan in his absence. People remind Eivor that Sigurd is the true Jarl because he is; I might not agree with rule by birthright, but that is what we're working with here and by blood, age and (if you're playing female Eivor) gender he is the Jarl, and Eivor knows that going in because that is how it works. And the fact that other people remind Eivor of that is in no way Sigurd's fault anyway. I have not seen a single scene where he treats her like an "emotional punching bag", and I've seen nothing to suggest he's "incompetent, jealous and utterly delusional". That might change later, but so far as I've played it seems pretty fucking unlikely. If memory serves the codex says he believes his own hype a bit too much, and that fits; he's a bit of a blowhard who thinks he's more of a hero than he is, but he's not a bad person. Siblings fight! That's normal! As is being jealous of your sibling! Sigurd isn't some idealized older brother of the sort that no one actually has in real life! And comparing him to the serial killer who betrayed his "brother" for the crime of not being willing to sacrifice fifty innocent people to the altar of JC's ego just because he can be a bit of a prat at times is grossly unfair.

Anyway, I won't say any more on this subject (because as I said I still haven't finished Valhalla), so don't bother arguing the point any further.