so imagine a guy who hates MDZS gets so pissed off at the ending he dies and gets transported into that world as Wen Chao, and to avoid the fate of being brutally tortured to death by Wei Wuxian he has to find a way to fix his character arc before it's too late

however those attempts cascade into a series of insane events that causes WWX to fall in love with Wen Chao, as our guy keeps getting assigned romantic scenes with WWX that originally happened between wangxian

terrible, isn't it? that's SVSSS

So thanks to your metas I've finally read SV in like 3 days and now I'm back with a question. Let's say if hypothetically SJ and YQY talked things out and by some miracle SJ wouldn't abuse LBH, do you think that LBH would fall in love with SJ as well given that he'd always thought his Shizun was beautiful, elegant and untouchable. Do you think his feelings would grow into something more with time? I'm living for your takes on blnovels. Thanks in advance

Idk if you can start with SJ not abusing LBH, I think you would have to start with Qiu Jianluo not abusing SJ, or maybe even earlier than that, before he was sold into the Qiu household by human traffickers. To me, there’s no conceivable way where the same SJ who walks away from the carnage at Qiu's Mansion with Wu Yanzi, and later enters the Cang Qiong Mountain, would turn out to be some type of kind and benevolent shizun on par with SY. We don’t get a lot of detailed descriptions of his time with Wu Yanzi, but there is no indication that he enters Cang Qiong Mountain with any intention to give up his festering resentments, regardless of whether YQY can give him a reasonable explanation for never returning or not. 

Look, SJ found himself in the shitty situation in Qiu household because he had been trying to protect YQY. That, on its own, shows he was not yet the heartless villain that the later events would forge him into. But this particular rant of his is also very telling:  

“Of course it’s all your fault! I blame you. We weren’t close with those newcomers, so what if we were stepped on a little? Why did you have to play hero! Are you afraid that people like us with such lowly lives can’t bear it?! If you hadn’t played hero, why would I have helped you? If I hadn’t helped you, how would I have provoked him, and how would that Qiu guy have ended up buying me?! If he hadn’t bought me, how would I have become like this?! Every two days I get beat up a little bit and every three days I get beat up a lot━he plays me like I’m a dog!”

SJ is very young here, but the difference between him and YQY is starkly obvious. MXTX makes use of this dynamic, this clash of personalities, in both SVSSS, MDZS, and TGCF. “Why did you have to play the hero” should be familiar line to readers of MDZS too, and despite some fan opinions, it’s just not... what the so called “good guy” in the narrative would think, let alone say out loud. (Btw, TGCF is the only one of MXTX’s novels in which we see this type of character actually grow and change with time). Right off the bat, we see this very young SJ as someone who only values (and is willing to protect) those of immediate importance to himself, while YQY, as the typical “hero” of the narrative, tries to protect everyone and ends up harming the person he cares about in the process. You will find these two personality types thrust in these types of situations in 90% of danmei (and wuxia/xianxia) stories for a reason. You are supposed to know that YQY will end the tortured hero and SJ will end the blackened villain, the only differences being other related plot lines and their eventual downfall/redemption. (Or in MDZS’s case, absolute stagnation, which flies in the face of typical development for someone like SJ and apparently, confuses a lot of readers as well).

The second part I think is important to mention about that little rant up there is that SJ is already a person who takes no responsibility for his actions. YQY had “acted the hero” so SJ was forced to act as well, therefore his action is YQY’s fault. He is very young at this point, so no one expects him to be a paradigm of magnanimity, but at the same time, he never grows and matures out of this way of thinking. So SJ who enters Cang Qiong Mountain is already proficient at holding resentments and shifting all the blame for his misfortunes to others. At that point, even if YQY had explained how his haste to cultivate quickly had resulted in a qi deviation and the subsequent confinement, there is no indication that SJ would have found him any less guilty for failing to return in a timely manner. (Don't forget that one of the last admonishments SJ gives to YQY before they part is to stop being so brash. YQY doesn’t listen, which results in qi deviation, which results in SJ being stuck in Qiu household for years. It’s unlikely that SJ would find YQY blameless).

However, if you go back further than all the misery and abuse SJ suffered at the hands of Qiu Jianluo and change things (perhaps the human traffickers sell him into a different, better household, etc) then his path would probably diverge too drastically to continue onto the trajectory towards the Cang Qiong Mountain. 

Basically, I see two paths where SJ does not end up the exact heartless scum villain he is in PIDW:

SJ escapes with YQY and they enter Cang Qiong Mountain together. From their earlier relationship, we can infer that SJ is prone to guilt-tripping YQY for his decisions, and seeing himself as the wronged party whenever the situation doesn’t go his way. Would YQY still end up the Sect Leader with SJ by his side? If YQY had never qi deviated and SJ had never started his cultivation so late, would there be a noticeable difference in their skills and strengths? If SJ was more powerful, would YQY not willingly cede the Sect Leader position? And if he didn’t do so, would SJ hold resentment for it? Would the same level of resentment between SJ and LQG still exist? 

YQY manages to go back for SJ before the slaughter at the Qiu Mansion. At that point, SJ had been suffering abuse by Qiu Jianluo for years. Would he blame YQY for not coming for him sooner? For the fact that YQY’s tardiness meant he started cultivating late and may never catch up? If SJ’s resentment is the same and YQY’s guilt is the same, would their relationship be any better? People seem to think that SJ would have held so much gratitude for YQY’s (attempted or otherwise) return that he would wipe the slate clean between them, but this is the same person who had blamed YQY’s heroics for his own situation in the first place. Does that seem like the kind of person who would just... feel so much gratitude to let everything else go? 

And since only that SJ, the one who had lived with Qiu Jianluo’s abuse, who had slaughtered all of Qiu Manor and was further twisted and warped by Wu Yanzi, since that SJ took LBH on as a disciple out of jealousy and resentment and spite, wouldn’t it make more sense that a less villainous SJ would not give LBH a second glance? Rather than being a better shizun, is it not more fitting that he would have allowed LBH to go where he is likely to have gone without SJ’s interference, which is Bai Zhan Peak? 

To me, any possible scenario where SJ (at the moment he is watching potential disciples digging holes) happens to be a better person, is a scenario in which LBH does not become his disciple. 

So no, I don’t see any possible scenario in which LBH falls in love with SJ. I believe that SJ was meant to be seen as flawed from the very beginning, from the moment he had blamed YQY for “playing the hero,” and I can’t imagine any twist of circumstances that would make him similar to the type of person (SY) that LBH would fall in love with. 

I think we should still try to get people to respect the p4p rule. It doesn’t make sense to make CQL different because when it’s art, what counts as CQL? Is it the hairstyle? What if it uses both designs? It frustrates me that tumblr has so many people who just don’t care.

Yeah I’m torn on this, because for me, I see following P4P as maybe more of a “community fairness” question when it comes to cmedia properties, vs “is it technically legal,” esp re: CQL, and esp for non-CN fans. But sometimes that seems like a hard sell for people :’) esp when there’s no explicit “policy” in place

I know for MDZS, for example, JJWXC’s policy is pretty explicitly “no fanmerch for profit,” and MXTX has stated as such, tho with SV’s JJ license expiring, I think some ppl have started doing SV merch for profit. MXTX hasn’t put out an official statement, and... I don’t know if she will? I don’t think she’s very active on social medias (for various and sundry reasons).

And...... yeah CQL is... a hydra, tho, imo, as far as fandom goes. Because there’s going to be a lot of fans coming into it through Netflix, and treating it like any other property they’re entering a fandom of. Which means there’s def ppl who are making merch for profit.

At first I was kind of like “eh... well... CQL *is* technically a separate IP? and idk if NSMG has any sort of policy”; but on the other hand, yeah sometimes the line between “is it CQL or is it MDZS” is quite nebulous. Especially when people DO mix & match aesthetics, or when ppl..... rope in the MDZS name even though the designs or etc they’re using is explicitly CQL-based.

(or, e.g. those “The Untamed candles” that someone was selling for profit and were using iconography they designed themselves vs official crests, but then in the end, they’re just themed candles named after the MDZS Sects...)

I will say though I do think that there are design elements which are quite distinct to CQL which do/can make a particular thing more “obviously” CQL vs MDZS.

Ultimately, I think giving ppl the benefit of the doubt, there’s going to be a lot of “The Untamed” fans/fanartists who don’t know about P4P rules? But... I did see a recent post advertising someone’s “Untamed/MDZS” merch that looked like they were at for-profit prices, and which were more ambiguous in terms of the design vs being more “strictly” CQL... :/