#MDZS discourse

[qiu-yan]

haterisms beneath the cut

this hater poll brought to you by....a series of Bad Mcfucking Takes i had to read with my own eyeballs. seriously did we read the same book or not.

explanations:

"jiang cheng killed wei wuxian": jiang cheng did not kill wei wuxian in any version of the story. in mdzs wei wuxian died from backlash and in cql wei wuxin chose to let go of lan wangji after jiang cheng stabbed the cliff face. you can argue till the cows come home about how responsible jiang cheng is for wei wuxian's demise, but "jiang cheng killed wei wuxian" is just factually incorrect.

"jiang cheng abuses jin ling": jiang cheng does not abuse jin ling. first, the narration goes out of its way to establish that jiang cheng does not hit jin ling, specifically in a setting where hitting children is normalized and expected. in fact, wei wuxian says that jin ling is bratty specifically because he's never been hit. second, jin ling is also clearly comfortable talking back to jiang cheng and needling him in a way jiang cheng definitely was not with his own parents. even when jiang cheng is actively losing it when he captures wei wuxian in qinghe, jin ling remains completely unruffled - which speaks to how much jin ling takes for granted that he is safe with jiang cheng.

"jiang cheng could have easily helped the wen remnants, he just didn't": antis love to act like yunmeng jiang could have easily taken in the wemnants and jiang cheng simply chose not to because he was a hater/super jelly/various synonyms for ontologically evil. which is not the fucking case. learn to read. yunmeng jiang's own position post sunshot was very weak - they were a great sect in name only and were excluded from the alliance tying the three other great sects together - and jiang cheng could not politically afford to protect wei wuxian after wei wuxian alienated lanling jin. that's why jiang cheng says "if you insist on doing this, i can't protect you," and why wei wuxian then tells jiang cheng to let him go. because they both understand this. come on

"jiang cheng forced jiang yanli to marry jin zixuan": jiang yanli as a character makes so many sacrifices for her family and her brothers. her relationship with zixuan is like the one thing she chooses for herself. she loves him!! the tragedy in wei wuxian killing jin zixuan is that yanli genuinely loved zixuan!! ngl i think antis argue this purely to try to exonerate wei wuxian: if jiang yanli didn't love jin zixuan then wei wuxian donutting him isn't a problem anymore, apparently. this is the result of people thinking of jiang yanli as purely a thing for wei wuxian, rather than a human being in her own right.

"jiang cheng should have protected wei wuxian from yu ziyuan": this one is annoying because jiang cheng was also a child. when a child is abused, it is the fault of the abuser, not the fault of another child who is also subject to the whims of the abuser. come on.

[defelozedd94]

I don't really like Lan Zhan in The Untamed

I know this is an unpopular opinion, but Lan Zhan kind of bothers me in the drama. He always seems bored and annoyed by everything, he never talks, he comes across as emotionless, and he only seems to care when something is related to Wei Wuxian, which is pretty selfish I think. I have trouble connecting to him.

For example, Lan Xichen has always been there for him, always supporting him no matter what, even when he had no reason to believe him or when protecting him could have put him in trouble. But has Lan Zhan ever done anything for his brother? No. He seems to care mostly about himself and Wei Ying. For instance, when everyone was against Wei Wuxian except for Lan Zhan, Lan Xichen helped by hiding him in the Cloud Recesses, even though he had no proof and no reason to believe that Wei Ying wasn’t evil (let me remind you that all the other clan leaders were against Wei Wuxian at that time, so Xichen could have easily gone along with them on this). But he took that risk, because he always trusted his brother.

But when the situation is reversed and it's Jin Guangyao who is accused of being evil, does Lan Zhan do anything to support his brother? No… he only stands by Wei Ying’s side, even though he himself has no proof against Meng Yao (in the end, it was proven that they were right about Meng Yao, but at the time, there was no way to be sure). Xichen could also have trusted Nie Mingjue over his brother when it came to Wei Ying (since Mingjue also believed Wei Wuxian was evil), but he didn’t. So, when it’s about Wei Ying, Lan Zhan is willing to believe he’s still a good person, but when it comes to other people like Meng Yao, he doesn’t even try to give them the benefit of the doubt (even though his only proof against him was what Wei Ying reported him, since he's the only one who used Empathy on Mingjue). I guess he’s blinded by his love for Wei Ying, but that’s pretty selfish.

Now, I want to say that I do like Lan Zhan in the donghua. He’s way more likable and seems less selfish and more focused on justice. He's actually one of my favourite characters. I don’t know about the novel, as I haven’t read it.

People hating Lan Xichen...

I also saw people saying they hate Lan Xichen, and I was shocked. How can you hate someone who has always been good to others?

People say he was too passive, but they forget that he’s a clan leader. He cannot do whatever he wants in his position; he has to put his clan’s safety first. What if he had publicly protected Wei Ying? He could have turned all the other clans against him and his own clan. (The Untamed clearly shows how dangerous public opinion can be.) It’s just like when the Jin clan wanted to kill the innocent Wen people—Xichen didn’t agree with it but couldn’t openly oppose the decision of the other clans. Also, Xichen did help a lot more compared to the other clan leaders. Wei Wuxian's own brother did nothing to help him. Huaisang, Wei Ying's former friend, did nothing either, and Mingjue was clearly against Wei Ying. Same with Jin Guangshan.

Then people say he was too naive. Maybe he was, but that’s because he believed there was good in everyone. That’s why he trusted Jin Guangyao, thinking he still had some good in him despite everything he had done. If Xichen hadn’t been like that, he would have thought Wei Wuxian was pure evil, just like the others did.

I also saw people complaining that Xichen didn’t protect his brother when Lan Qiren punished him for injuring thirty-three elders of the Gusu Lan clan. Well… The Gusu Lan clan has strict rules, and attacking clan elders—no matter the reason—shouldn’t go unpunished. The rules are absolute and apply to everyone, even Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen. Lan Xichen is someone who follows justice and tradition, so he was in a difficult position. Even though he loves his brother, he was raised to respect the discipline of the clan. Intervening would have been seen as disrespectful to his uncle and to the laws of Gusu Lan. Also, Lan Wangji himself probably wouldn’t have accepted his help. Lan Wangji is extremely rigid and committed to his own moral code. He chose to act, knowing full well that he would be punished. Even though he suffered, he accepted the consequences of his actions. And in the end, Lan Qiren holds too much authority. Lan Xichen has a lot of respect for his uncle, who acted as a parental figure after their parents died. He wouldn’t have dared to openly contradict him. However, he did support his brother afterward, helping him recover and always staying by his side. That’s just his way—he prefers to offer support in the shadows rather than openly defy the rules. In the end, Lan Xichen is a good person, but he also believes in order and discipline. He surely thought Lan Wangji had to take responsibility, even if it broke his heart. Also, he was raised by his uncle to respect the rules and was used to being punished himself, so I’m pretty sure he was scared to oppose his uncle.

That’s it! If you have a different opinion, I totally respect it. :) I just wanted to share mine!

[fixielixie]

it’s been a while since i’ve seen a take as batshit wild as this. like saying this with their full chest when wwx spent most of his childhood on the streets…. as if this wouldn’t shape wwxs understanding of his own worth and class… he was literally a child on the street begging for scraps …

how can you only look at the struggles jgy faced due to his class and pretend like he wasn’t able to raise above his “humble beginnings” and become literally the most powerful person in the cultivation world and then in the same sentence say wwx isn’t comparable bc he was “”””never affected”””” by his COUNTLESSLY stated level of lower class

also claiming jgy to be the “”””only”””” character that suffered bc of class….xy?? mxy???? even fucking su she has elements of struggles with classes in such a class driven society. anyone who wasn’t born with the clan blood of great sect????? just the most worms for brains take ive seen in a long while,

tell me you don’t understand anything about class systems without telling me you don’t understand anything about it.

[weirdocat83]

When you join the mdzs fandom I feel like more people need to tell you upon entrance that novel/manhwa/audio drama wwx, untamed wwx and donghua wwx are all three different people with slightly different stories. Maybe this is why we have so many people misinterpreting the characters… not only are the characters really complex but they also tend to be very different depending on the adaptation you consume…

[chirpycloudyrobin]

simultaneously poking a sleeping bear and beating a dead horse here but something just irks me about the "unconsented surgery" argument. i saw a recent post on my feed about it and i just cant shut up sometimes. i already dismissed the post so i wont see it again bc self-care but i will be throwing this piece into the void so i can be done with it and it wont claw at my brain begging to be released.

now.

the golden core exchange ?

ngl it just sounds like a life saving organ donation on someone who was literally dying. considering how cultivators view the golden core, it literally IS a life saving organ donation. afaik even today with the waiting list system in most countries, recipients do not typically need to give explicit consent bc it's assumed they would receive the organ since it's literally life-saving.

in wwx and jc's scenario:

donor and recipient were a match

donor was 100% willing

it was technically an urgent medical situation in the eyes of their logic as cultivators whose golden core is considered a vital organ by most

recipient was bodily ready for transplant

if u want to argue abt the consent surrounding the golden core transfer, you'll also have to argue about the consent around recipients in our own organ donation systems.

like does anyone else get what im saying ? im always iffy about religiously applying real life concepts to literal fiction and fantasy works so maybe thats why im so ⁉️⁉️⁉️ about this.

idk im not really willing to argue about this, i just wanted to let my thoughts out for my own inner peace 😭 duke it out in the replies and reblogs if yall really want to, i know what the internet is like

[please-someone-give-me-love]

It's curious how Jiang Cheng stans are always so bittwr towards Lan Zhan, like It's so funny because it's so obvious, it's not like they just dislike the character, all of them seems to have a personal conflict with Lan Zhan and his relationship with Xian

[3kidsinacoat]

[khattikeri]

it bugs me when people treat lan wangji like a generic yaoi seme (i.e. filthy rich, selfish, arrogantly dismissive and unsatisfied, lords his position over those weaker or poorer, near-universal advantages over others, etc.

lan wangji IS way more privileged than wei wuxian, but lan xichen and the lan elders have FAR more power, control, and political advantage over him. lan wangji single-handedly physically fought 33 members of his own family to protect the man he loved, and they whipped him to near death for it. they forcibly imprisoned ("secluded") him and took advantage of his bedridden state to join the other clans in ambushing and assassinating wei wuxian.

my point is, he's not a stereotypical arrogant jerk with unending influence over others. if anything, being a dom top in bed isn't an expression of power for lan wangji, but an expression of freedom. he can be true to himself, his love, and his desires without being held back by his family and society's politics.

[thatswhatsushesaid]

even if he was objectively guilty of every single crime levelled at him at any point in the narrative, the cumulative influence of jin guangyao's time as a spy for the sunshot forces during the war and his tenure as xiandu is still orders of magnitude more substantive, and positive, than anything else accomplished by any other named character in the text.

even if you believe he did every single foul thing he is accused of doing, he still saved the life of the gusu lan heir and ensured irreplaceable sect knowledge wasn't lost during the razing of the cloud recesses. he still killed literal tyrant and megalomaniac wen ruohan and ended a war. he still pushed through his watchtower program, which saved countless commoners' lives, and rooted out corruption in jinlintai to the point that no jin sect disciple would ever think about accepting a bribe in the city. he is the reason why wangxian get to fuck nasty on every surface of the cloud recesses post-canon--because jin guangyao used his influence to ensure the cloud recesses were rebuilt. he is the one who pulled nie huaisang's hands out of the fire after nie mingjue set all of his precious belongings on fire. he's the one who arranged to have those burn wounds tended to. he still built a temple in his mother's image and interred her body beneath guanyin so that all those prayers would go to meng shi, to grant her a better afterlife. he still gave fairy to jin ling.

even with the least charitable, worst faith interpretation of his character, these things remain true.

---

this post has been added to my dreamwidth meta archive here: https://thatswhatsushewrote.dreamwidth.org/4496.html

[qiu-yan]

what kind of stan is entirely up to you

keep in mind that the jiang cheng stans won the horniest stan poll

[benevolenterrancy]

after yesterday's picture i realised that almost every time i draw jgy he looks like he's about 5 seconds away from a breakdown so i figured i should give him a nap for once

[sonik-kun]

Jiang Cheng having complicated feelings about the Wen (and by extension, Wei Wuxian's actions and saving the Wen) are kinda valid considering that these people literally MASACCRED his own and many other minor sects, raping and pillaging along the way. They would have decimated every major sect if given the chance and indoctrinated them. It makes sense why JC would have trauma, fear and a hatred for them.

How can you not have this understanding and empathy for JC and the Jiang in general, yet feel sympathy for the Wen when everyone turned on them thereafter? And expect LSZ to get revenge for what happened to his clan?? It's literally the same thing. Both are victims of a massacre. How are you sympathetic over one but not the other?

[acequinz]

I don't know why people are on the opposite spectrum only.

It's always either Jiang Cheng did nothing wrong or Jiang Cheng did everything wrong.

Did Jiang Cheng love Wei Wuxian? Yes.

Did he also in a way abandon Wei Wuxian? Yes.

Would Jiang Cheng die for Wei Wuxian? Yes.

Would Jiang Cheng prioritise something over Wei Wuxian? Also yes.

Why are people acting like him being angry and/or upset Wei Wuxian about literally anything he has done(and he has done a lot) negates the love he has for him?

Also about Wei Wuxian's morality, the author has said that Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are morally good people, this does not mean they can't do something wrong. And having made a mistake doesn't make them bad people either, it's just that morally speaking Wei Wuxian was in the right to defend the Wens. But life doesn't fucking work on morals.

Hell Wei Wuxian holds too many regrets that even he won't admit that he's a perfect person because there're too many things he would want to do differently. But under no circumstances can you question his morals because they have always been in the right place. All his acts of purposeful cruelty were against people who hurt him first.

Jiang Cheng being unable to stand up with Wei Wuxian during the Wen situation is because he's young and has no support but it's still disappointing because Jiang Yanli still managed to stand with Wei Wuxian in a way and then we see Jiang Cheng be unable to, it's also because the scale is different and he prioritised his sect over Wei Wuxian.

Then the other part of Jiang Cheng lashing out on Jin Ling physically that I see many screenshots of it and it's always when Jiang Cheng is under high emotional distress situations. Which is not to say it's okay and should be allowed. But the world setting and situation also matters.

But guess what that also does not take away from the love Jiang Cheng has for Jin Ling.

There's too many connections in the story itself especially around Jin Ling and his uncle's.

Now of course a relationship can have all the love but unless it has active care and affection it means nothing.

Which is why Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng fall apart. They have the love, they even have the care but because they just can't share affection they fall apart immediately after Jiang Yanli because before she had been the bridge of affection between them.

With the final bridge down, their relationship could not stay afloat and just sank.

[twilightarc-gm]

✊ Proud "villainfucker"

Given some recent posts about (gag) morality and antagonist vs. villain --I'd like to reference this good post with my new favorite meme quadrant.

The post seen here also comes with someone's added quadrant which I will now use to full effect to make my stance clear--if it wasn't already.

Images are donghua, but I am basing my assessment off the translated novels.

while i am saying this in a humorous way, I am not joking.

[please-someone-give-me-love]

Jiang Cheng stans and Anti Jiang Cheng are basically the same but in different sides, both dramatics and overreacting in everything, constantly trying to prove their point and being intense about it, they both reduce JC character into a one dimensional.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Wei Wuxian eats a watermelon. Yep!