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nikkichama · 11 hours

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The return of Wei Wuxian after his 3-month disappearance is meant to evoke this terror and sense that something is wrong, and it definitely does, but like…

Do you not see the playfulness in which Wei Wuxian handles the ghoul child mirrored in how he later handles A-Yuan in the Burial Mounds?

A white child squatted by his feet. Like a young, carnivorous beast, it was gnawing on something that Wei WuXian fed it. Wei WuXian took his hand away after patting on the white ghoul child’s sparse-haired head.

—Chapt. 62: Evil, exr

Lan Sizhui replied, "I'm not sure either, just that when I saw Chenqing, I thought that it was extremely familiar......" It was unsurprising that it was Chenqing that made him remember. Wei Wuxian said, "Oh, of course you'd find it familiar, back then eating Chenqing was your favourite habit and you would drool all over it and make me unable to play it."

—Chapt. 111: Wangxian - Everyday Means Everyday, chiaki_himura

Do you not see the gentleness in which Wei Wuxian handles the blue-faced woman mirrored in how he handles Wen Qing when he takes her to the Qiongqi Path labor camp?

When she had been fighting, her face was almost hideous, but now, with her dark face against Wei WuXian’s lap, she somehow seemed to be a charming concubine, obediently pleasing her master. Giggling laughter came from her mouth as well. Wei WuXian sat leaning to one side, his right hand stroking her soft, long hair over and over again.

—Chapt. 62: Evil, exr

The shock that Wen Qing received was too strong. Finally, she couldn’t hang on any longer and passed out. Standing behind her, Wei WuXian caught her without saying anything, letting her lean onto his chest.

—Chapt. 72: Recklessness, exr

And then they both go on to reciprocate that care via over-protectiveness, even when Wei Wuxian isn't actively controlling them:

The curvature of Wei WuXian’s lips dropped slightly as he glanced at him. Jiang Cheng had also heard the dissonant tone, “Second Young Master Lan, what do you mean by this?” Lan WangJi’s eyes were glued to Wei WuXian, “Answer me.” The ghoul child and the blue-faced woman began to stir. Wei WuXian turned around and looked at them. They backed off slowly, reluctant, and sunk into the darkness.

—Chapt. 62: Evil, exr

After reading the entire novel and seeing how he maintains this same level of care towards everyone he has no antagonistic relationship with, alive and dead, how could I not be moved when circling back to reread this moment?

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nikkichama · 15 hours

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Lan Xichen may not be my favorite character but at least I respect him enough to not ship him with Meng Yao🤢 or Jiang Wanyin 🤮.

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nikkichama · 2 days

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Teen wangxian 2.0

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nikkichama · 2 days

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hot artists don't gatekeep

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.

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nikkichama · 2 days

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I would also like the mdzs fandom to stop inventing turmoil between Jiang Fengmian and Jiang Yanli just because Jiang Fengmian had a strained relationship with Jiang Cheng. There’s nothing to say that the father-daughter duo had issues, that Jiang Fengmian was neglectful (to either of them, tbh), or that he was indifferent to his daughter's presence. You feeling like Jiang Yanli is disappeared into the background of her family life because she, like her father, doesn't have a lot of scenes is not supported by the canon. While we don’t get a lot of interactions between them (because there is literally no plot or conflict to highlight), what we do get is Jiang Fengmian sticking up for his daughter and terminating a marriage contract that his abusive wife set up, something even Jin Guangshan was afraid to do:

[Jiang Fengmian] told Jin Guangshan, “The engagement was originally made at the insistence of Ah-Li’s mother. I never agreed with it. Given what happened today, it seems both sides aren’t very fond of each other, so it’s best not to force the issue.” Startled, Jin Guangshan hesitated a bit. Regardless of the situation, ending an engagement with a member of another Great Clan was never a good thing. “What do children understand? Let them fight. Fengmian-xiong, we need not take notice.” “Jin-xiong, though we can help them arrange a marriage, we can’t live the marriage for them. In the end, they are the ones who will spend their lives together.” This marriage business wasn’t Jin Guangshan’s idea in the first place either. From the perspective of consolidating power through a marriage alliance, the Yunmeng Jiang Clan would not be his first choice, nor was it the best choice. The engagement had happened only because he was perpetually afraid of opposing his wife. But in any case, since the Jiang Clan had brought it up of their own accord, and Jin Clan was on the male side of the arrangement and thus had fewer things to be concerned about, it was not necessary to remain entangled. Besides, he knew Jin Zixuan wasn’t happy with having Jiang Yanli as his fiancée. After giving it serious consideration, Jin Guangshan found his backbone and he agreed.

—Chapt. 18: Elegance VIII, fanyiyi

We get him hand-making kites with her to decorate for Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng, and the rest of the disciples to play with:

Back when Wei Wuxian lived at Lotus Pier, he had played the kite shooting game with the disciples of the Jiang Clan and had placed first many times. ... Jiang Fengmian had constructed the frame himself and Jiang Yanli had drawn the design. Thus, whenever Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng had taken their kites out to compete, they had felt a kind of pride.

—Chapt. 32: Morning Dew V, fanyiyi

We get them having family dinners often enough that Wei Wuxian seems worried that he would miss one right before the Wen show up to Lotus Pier:

Wei WuXian asked, “Uncle Jiang went out so early in the morning —why hasn’t he come back yet? Would he make it in time for dinner?”

—Chapt. 57: Poisons, exr

We get him having no qualms with Jiang Yanli's hobbies such as cooking, even seems eager to partake in her creations—if we assume he hasn't before:

With a smile, Jiang YanLi wiped Wei WuXian’s mouth and chin, and walked happily out with the bowl in her hands. Jiang FengMian sat down where she had been sitting. Glancing at the porcelain jar, he seemed as if he wanted to taste it as well, but the bowl had already been taken away by Jiang YanLi.

—Chapt. 56: Poisons, exr

The reason why Jiang Cheng thinks his father hates him is because he takes any whiff of disapproval from his father to mean hatred, a trait he picked up from and that is nourished by his mother's own insistence that Jiang Fengmian "must" hate her son for being like her:

The founder of the YunmengJiang Sect, Jiang Chi, was born a rogue cultivator. The ways of the sect were honest and unrestrained. Madam Yu’s manners were the exact opposite. And, both Jiang Cheng’s looks and personality took after his mother. He hadn’t ever been to Jiang FengMian’s liking. Since birth, he taught him in many ways, yet he still couldn’t change, which was why Jiang FengMian had always seemed as though he didn’t favor him too much.

—Chapt. 56: Poisons, exr

The founding father of the Jiang Clan of Yunmeng, Jiang Chi, came from a knight-errant background. The family was exuberant, honest, magnanimous, and carefree in its ways —all of which were in complete opposition to Madam Yu’s spirit. Jiang Cheng took after his mother in looks and personality, which had never been to Jiang Fengmian’s liking. He had tried to educate Jiang Cheng in a myriad of ways, but it had all been for naught. This was why it always appeared as though he didn’t favor his son.

—Volume 3, Chapt. 12: Sandu: The Three Poisons, 7seas

Notice how it doesn't say that Jiang Cheng, himself, was never to Jiang Fengmian's liking, but that Madam Yu and her personality type the Jiang Cheng inherited was never to his liking, and it only "seemed/appeared" that Jiang Fengmian did not favor his son because he spent a lot of time trying to correct Jiang Cheng's bad habits, something Jiang Cheng resented. Notice how it also does not say that Jiang Fengmian avoided or ignored his son. In fact, we are told that he tried different ways to teach Jiang Cheng, a futile action we see him still committed to even up to the fall of Lotus Pier. Jiang Fengmian never gave up on his son. Jiang Cheng gave up on himself as Jiang Fengmian's son. None of that has to do with how the Jiang Fengmian and Jiang Yanli interacted in life nor how Jiang Yanli felt about her parents in death, still visiting their tablets regularly to clean and talk to them:

Jiang YanLi was kneeling in the ancestral hall. She cleaned her parents’ memorial tablets as she whispered. Wei WuXian poked his head inside, “Shijie? Talking to Uncle Jiang and Madam Yu again?”

—Chapt. 71: Departure, exr

To say that Jiang Fengmian is a terrible father simply because Jiang Cheng is more comfortable believing his mother’s lies than understanding that unconditional love does not mean unconditional tolerance for poor behavior does Jiang Fengmian’s character a disservice. To say that Jiang Fengmian is a terrible father to Jiang Yanli based on Madam Yu and Jiang Cheng’s own fantasies of victimhood is just an extra unnecessary lie to give credence to an idea that the story proves untrue. At worst, Jiang Fengmian was a man reserved in physical displays of affection that could have stood to hug his son more if that was what Jiang Cheng truly wanted. But if we are being truthful, Jiang Fengmian's just a regular fucking guy juggling raising kids and leading a clan with deterring his abusive wife from turning his home into a battlefield any time she deigns to show her face. Whatever issue you think Jiang Yanli and Jiang Cheng should have with their upbringing, the locus of the problem is named Yu Ziyuan, not Jiang Fengmian.

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nikkichama · 2 days

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"I'm sorry for everything I've done until now."

For a moment, there was nothing. Nothing but the pitter patter of rain striking the ground, coating his weary body, exhausted beyond belief.

Then.

"No."

Izuku watched as Kacchan's head shot up, his eyes wide with disbelief, as if this was shocking. There were no tears left for him to cry, so he settled for taking steps back.

"Y-You don't get to say that...!" he screamed, hands clutching the sides of his head. "For years, a decade, I-I put up with everything! I just watched as e-everyone kissed your feet, as if you've changed at all!"

"De- Izuku-"

"Shut up!" This wasn't fair, it wasn't! Nothing about it! Why!? "You don't get to call me that!"

Why can't anything ever go right!? For so long, he lied to everyone and to himself, pretending he was fine with Kacchan just getting everything he ever wanted. People loved him, despite his violence, despite that damn name, despite being his bully.

Iida reached out, "M-Midoriya-kun..."

He cast a forlone look towards his friend. At least he tried to talk to him more than fight or capture him. At least someone was trying to reach out to him. But then, why did he agree to let everyone come? Why did nobody think that maybe this would be a bad idea?

Why was nobody mad at Kacchan for hurting him...?

...

Oh.

"You didn't tell them, did you?" The realisation struck, and it struck hard. Kacchan- no, Bakugou's eyes widened. Confusion swept across the rest of 1-A, and Izuku knew he was right. "Go on. Tell them. Tell them what you did to me. Why you're apologising. Tell them." Silence. "Tell them!"

He marched forth, anger keeping him from collapsing.

"Tell them how you beat me black and blue! Tell them how you burnt me for the crime of existing! Tell them your advice! What was it: 'go take a swan dive off a roof and pray for a quirk in your next life'? Tell them!"

"You said what." The temperature clashed. Izuku glanced back, and there Todoroki was, cold steam billowing off one side, smoke from the other.

"No way..." Uraraka gasped, fists clenching. "You... You bastard...!" She threw herself at Bakugou, her fist colliding with his cheek. He fell to the floor, holding his reddening cheek, staring at her with wide eyes, as if it was out-of-nowhere.

Izuku looked down, teeth worrying into his bottom lip.

"Midoriya-kun." A hand clasped around his wrist, and he nearly threw the person over his shoulder. But that was Iida's voice. "... I understand that you wish to not return to U.A. Would you like to eat?"

Abruptly, he was reminded of how he rejected Toshinori. How, when his mentor reached out, he kicked off, running without a single explanation.

"..." This wasn't helping. He's just going to be too exhausted to fight back. "Y-Yeah..."

"Everyone," Iida faced the others, tired though he didn't fight much, if at all. "Please return to U.A. We shall look after Midoriya-kun."

Kaminari bristled, "B-But-!"

"Kaminari-kun." Yaoyorozu held her hand up, arm stretched in front of Kaminari. He paused, then stepped back, head low. She turned to them with a smile, "Of course, Iida-kun. Take care of him for us."

"We will," affirmed Uraraka, as she and Shouto walked to his side.

Safe. Surrounded by three of his friends, he felt safe.

It was enough for him to fall, and it was fine.

His friends were there to catch him.

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nikkichama · 3 days

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"You gotta recognize jc's canon positive traits too"

Hmm, Is he selfless? No. Is he kind? No. Is he a good sect leader? No. Is he a good uncle? No. Is his skills or intelligence exceptional? No. Is he good at regulating his emotions? No. Does he have a likable personality? No. Is he charming/charismatic? No. Do women want to even date him? No.

What good traits exactly? That he is a good swimmer and ranked 5th on the eligible bachelor's list and What else?

A few good things he did:

Distracting the wen guards, telling his mom not to torture wwx that one time, him rescuing wangxian and leading others out from the xuanwu cave, finally letting wwx go at the very end.

BUT these good actions are very few in comparison to the amount of harmful, outright terrible and wrong ones. While he is not evil he isn't exactly a good or admirable person either.

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nikkichama · 3 days

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Promises vs Morals

Wei Ying breaking of his so called “Twin Pride” promise is something JC stans and even JC himself aggressively hold on to. It is the example they give to prove how JC was a poor fellow abandoned by his brother over a broken promise. JC brings this up as an argument when everything else fails in the Guniang temple.

Let us ignore the circumstances in which that promise was made. Let us also ignore the situations and arguments that led to this promise. Let us forget about how invalid that promise is and how that promise is always interpreted differently by JC. Let us, for the sake of this argument consider that JC and Wei Ying were good brothers once and this promise was between two brothers.

So what if Wei Ying gave his promise and then broke it? Are promises more important than innocent human lives? Which is more important? Breaking a promise or saving lives? And was it only Wei Ying who broke this promise? It is about the “Twin Pride” and not “One pride and one follower”. If you call someone your brother, then you have his back. It is an implicit promise. If JC had not broken the implicit promise of brotherhood and abandoned his morals and his so called brother, this promise would been kept.

Many fans seems to believe that JC abandoned WY to save his sect. Fine, let us believe this to be true for a moment. In that case, JC has no right to blame WY for breaking his promise. WY choose to save innocent wens and broke his promise to JC. Similarly, JC choose to save his sect and broke his promise of brotherhood. So, even from this angle, JC should not have any complains.

Forget about all this. We will only talk about WY breaking his promise. Here, I would like to give an example from one of the greatest epic ever “Mahabharat” from my country. Once there was a prince who was about to be declared as the heir to the throne. He was the only son of his king-father Shantanu. This king falls in love with a fisher woman and wants to marry her. Her father asks for one condition for the marriage: her son should be the next king. In order to save his father from heartbreak, the prince vows that he will never be the king and he will never marry so that his sons will not contest for the throne later. He also promises to be a servant of the throne instead of a prince.

Years pass by. The fisher woman has two sons and both of them die one after the other. The whole kingdom is doomed without a king or a heir. The prince refuses to break his promise to take the throne. He arranges for other means to have heirs. Among the latest generation of heirs, one is blind, one is very pale, and one is a son of servant. Even though the blind heir is the oldest, his younger brother is made the king. This new king dies soon after. And the saga continues. Everything ends up in a huge war which wipes out the entire continent.

This is what the Lord Krishna has to the prince who made the vow in the beginning. “When you made your promise, the circumstances were different. When your half brothers died without heirs, you refused to become the king. You refused to break your promise of being a servant and use your strength to usurp the next generation king when he was not doing his duty to his kingdom. It was the common people in your kingdom who suffered in the end. Once your promise was your strength of character. Later the same promises became the chains that stopped you from doing what is right. What use is a promise when your strength and prowess is not used for the betterment of your kingdom?” Of course, I am over simplifying a lot of things. The story is much more complex.

But it makes the same point. So what if WY broke his promise? Saving innocent lives and using his powers for the better is always the right choice in the end.

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nikkichama · 3 days

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Sometimes it feels like the main message that a lot of people miss in MDZS in their leaps to justify one character’s hatred for another or attempting to remove them from the world because they will never be at peace until that person is completely eradicated, is that it poses a question of “how much blood does it take to satisfy the anger? How much death is necessary to live? How much pain that you want to inflict is truly equal to what you have suffered? Where is the line between justice, vengeance and murder?”

MDZS does not have our modern sensibilities and laws for such a thing, and it’s on purpose. It’s set in a time where there is no emperor or god onscreen to merit out justice or retribution, it’s all in the hands of the mortals. They get to decide how much is enough.

And the thing that so many people miss is that for almost every character (and I will include Wei Wuxian in this with a caveat) go too far at some point. Sure, the desire to kill your brother’s killer is understandable. But what about the people who you harm in that path? Nie Huaisang does end up taking down Jin Guangyao, but the cost is that Qin Su also dies, destroyed even before her death by the reality of what the men around her will stoop to do out of pride and anger, what they will use her for in the process.

Why do I stand so firmly against the people who say that Jin Guangyao and Jiang Cheng had their reasons, that they were right to go as far as they did? Because the text itself does take the time to show us what is reasonable in that world and what is greedy, wrathful, unjustified.

Jiang Cheng has every right to hate the men who invaded his home and killed his family. In the natures of their society it is not wrong for him to step him and take revenge against them. The supervisory camps in Yunmeng were built on the blood of his people. I have no qualm with him removing them from his land, even though it ends in their deaths.

But that does not mean that his righteous war should extend to all who bear the Wen name and that is where the gap comes in. Wen Chao had him tortured and his golden core crushed. By the rules of that world as extolled by Xiao Xingchen when talking to Xue Yang, it is reasonable to take back what was done to him in blood there.

But Wen Ning is not Wen Chao. Wen Ning risked his life, his sister’s life and ultimately ended up contributing to Wen Ruohan’s campaign toppling and ending in dust because when he was offered the choice to either stick by his family or stick by his morals, he chose the former. The Wen’s attack on Lotus Pier was wrong. The lives they took were unjustified. Their actions were deplorable.

By standing up and protecting Jiang Cheng in the way he does, smuggling him back out of Lotus Pier and hiding him away from the Wen who would kill him, he is declaring that his own family is in the wrong, and instead makes a sacrifice that could have had him and his sister killed should Wen Ruohan ever find out about it.

Jiang Cheng knows this. This is where the right of hatred falls flat. This is where his righteous anger becomes a hunger for blood that will never be satiated.

Now I’m not saying that Jiang Cheng should hug and kiss Wen Ning for everything. There are limits to what humans can endure, even ones as good as Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji. But he refuses to ever acknowledge what he knows. He refuses to ever act in kind. He owes a debt and he knows it. And he instead not only refuses to pay it by not necessarily taking them into his lands, but even acknowledging that they did anything. He buries them with their family and his words. He lets his hatred overwhelm all else.

He was not powerless at the end of the war. Far from it, in fact! He had a sect that was still rebuilding its forces, but it had been three years since the start of the war so it can’t be tiny anymore, and he had Wei Wuxian with the Yin Hufu. The only two necromancers in the world, who are powerful enough to hold whole barriers on their own. This is the whole point of the display at Phoenix Mountain. Wei Wuxian is showing the other three great clans and all the smaller clans that it does not matter how many of them they have, Yunmeng Jiang has him and while they have him, they are untouchable. This is a known fact.

Jiang Cheng would have faced no long term retribution from doing anything. He could have simply let Wei Wuxian pull them out of the Jin indoctrination camp and take them through Yunmeng to somewhere else and after some grumbling and some pleading on Jin Guangshan’s part, nothing would have happened. Wei Wuxian is too strong and the other clans are too aware of that. No one was safer than Yunmeng Jiang at the end of the war.

That is why the Jin play off of his jealousy and anger and get him to throw aside Wei Wuxian. It is literally their only option.

This brings me to the other half of my discussion, which is where does the bloodshed end? What is enough spilled blood?

If Jiang Cheng hates Wei Wuxian enough to try to kill him, then this should be a vengeance that ends with Wei Wuxian’s death. Death ends all obligations. We owe no more money, we settle no more debts, we leave the shackles of the living in life and the dead move on as do the living.

So why then is it acceptable that Jiang Cheng spends the next thirteen years killing people that remind him of Wei Wuxian? That the moment that Wei Wuxian does return, his first action is to try and kill him again? That he tortures him multiple times and it is only Lan Wangji’s presence and Jin Ling’s quick thinking that save him on those occasions? By all rights including our modern ones, Wei Wuxian should be free and Jiang Cheng should have moved on in thirteen years. Thirteen years is long enough to raise a child almost to adulthood, but Jiang Cheng clings to a hatred that has had no outlet for that long and continues to try and demand Justice that he has already received.

Where is the line? When is enough? Why does the blood of innocents have to be paid too for the hunger of the mighty? Wen Ruohan subtly assassinated Nie Mingjue’s father, but Nie Mingjue decided that there was only to be death for anyone related to the Wen. They didn’t have to do anything, even if they tried to stop him it wouldn’t be enough. Only the death of every Wen would slake that hunger, and then in death when he is driven only by that hunger, only the death of every Jin. Including the ones who weren’t even old enough to hold a sword at the time he died. Jin Ling is as good as Jin Guangyao for Nie Mingjue to kill. All that matters is that he’s connected. All that matters is that there is another body to feed the never ending hate that fills him.

Xiao Xingchen says that for Xue Yang to take a finger or an arm from the man who harmed him as a child is reasonable. Even to kill him if that is truly the only way to end his hatred. But what is a finger to an entire family? “Because it is mine!” Declares Xue Yang and this is where the crux of it lies. “It is my hatred, it is my anger. It is my right to kill anyone because I am angry and I refuse to let it go.” This is the trait that Jiang Cheng, Jin Guangyao and Xue Yang all share. “I am angry and I am hurt so it is my right to do as I will and no one should take that away from me or I will hurt them too.”

This is why they are antagonists. This is why two of the three of them end up dead. This is why Jiang Cheng staying his hand in the temple and Wei Wuxian’s mercy towards him is the only reason that he survives the end. You can’t ask the world to feed your endless hatred. Eventually you will hurt the wrong person and by the very laws that you and the world have set, will come for you. There is no such thing as bloodshed without pain. There are people who will miss those who are gone. And not all of them will be as good as Lan Wangji. Not all of them will move forward in their lives and ignore you. Sometimes the oriole will stalk you in the shadows, waiting for the moment the praying mantis slips up. The wheel ever turns and those on the bottom eventually rise up.

Now as for Wei Wuxian, we see a different answer on him from the others and this is where his morals really come into play. Cause at first he does exact justice for those lost at Lotus Pier. Steps in which the narrative does not fully condemn him, but suggests lightly that it is the sort of thing that he does not linger in, as well as he himself looks back and decides that maybe he did go too far then. Maybe he did do too much in the name of anger and justice. Three months after the event he is willing to kill and torture Wen Zhuliu and Wen Chao. But three years later he looks at the members of the family that killed his and goes “I do not love you. But this is not right. You do not deserve this. I will not let you suffer this any longer even though your name is Wen.”

For Wei Wuxian, the line ends at the end of war, at the deaths of those who directly caused him the most pain. He does not necessarily forgive or absolve. But he does recognize that there is no sense in continuing the bloodshed or allowing others to continue it out of some misplaced sense of vengeance. He is offered a chance to stop the wheel and he tries. He tries so goddamn hard. He tries until it kills him and everyone else he protects because the anger of the rest is too wrapped up in their self righteousness to examine what is reasonable and what is the cost for what they do.

I do not exonerate the Lan here, but I do point out that they at least actually make an attempt to change things afterwards. We see it in the way that Lan Wangji continues to act in the world. We see it in the way that Lan Xichen stops and reconsiders what he knows of Wei Wuxian, and helps him when the wheel attempts to spin back to where it was before. Where the juniors go out hunting on their own to help people of all kinds. They find weird mysteries and they follow them, they are kind to all. It does not absolve what they have done in the past, it does not make them blameless.

But it is a start. And one that Jiang Cheng has not taken. If he had, we wouldn’t be having these debates and arguments about what is a reasonable enough amount of death and destruction that he can cause on account of his past.

This is where the line is.

Modaozushi asks the question of how much death is enough and concludes at the line “when you continue to court death to satisfy your anger, you will eventually find death standing at your door too.” It happens to Xue Yang, who after killing Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen and A-Qing and everyone in Yi City, finds A-Qing’s ghost leading those who can end his hurting of others for good. It happens to Jin Guangyao who assassinates and hurts so many people that Nie Huaisang finds allies in Mo Xuanyu, Sisi and Bicao, all of whom are willing to help him drag Jin Guangyao to the depths by the chains of his reputation.

Jiang Cheng is offered another chance. Leave Wei Wuxian alone and move forwards with his life. At the end of the book he accepts that chance. It is probably the last one he will get, but he accepts it. This is why he finishes out the book alive no matter how much blood he has on his hands. You can always change your actions until you are dead.

This is the question that Modaozushi posits and answers to all of us and to which I now offer to you when you consider the actions in story. What is enough? How much blood must be spilled before you are happy?

Why does it matter to you that those who are hurt are allowed to hurt without consequence? Where do you draw the line when all of those who caused you pain in the past are buried?

What is the price that you demand for your happiness? When is there enough blood on your hands to be happy?

When do you say “there has been enough death. I will stop this here and now because it is enough.”

Will you be the hero or the antagonist in someone else’s story?

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