#SOOOOOO TRUE

[yunogf]

GOD’S FAVORITE

[reigningmax]

i need to boop max’s nose. that’s all i can think about when i see his profile. i go into caveman mode “boop nose!!! boop!!! nose!!!”

[takami-takami]

Hawks is a milf.

ANON YOUR MIND

[lockandkeyhyena]

Mapple (with a collar)

holy shit ur right

[charmac]

sugar daddy au has me distraught b/c this trope is not usually my thing but im OBSSESSED with ur fic… literally reading the existing chapters over and over to hold myself over til the next one. i think its how u write their dynamic that just has a death grip on me like its so good

Believe me when I tell you that it's not usually my thing either. Like, AUs, meh, never been big on them but, like you said, it's the dynamic it's just so palpable like sink your teeth in and thrash around for hours...

I'm glad it's re-readable! That's nice to hear because I think once you (the audience) read Chapter 8, you might wanna go back and re-read Chapter 6...

Sooo.. 23.7k words. September 21, 4pm EST. (Sorry it's running late, but I think it will be worth the wait.)

Thanks for being an active reader! I give you this offering, ahead of time:

[raylangivins]

I am in tears lmaooooooo

[jennanydots]

learned that a group of cats can be referred to as a Glaring and I love that

[iristhedeadflower]

gregorio 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

[pureheroine2013]

“So of course in the midst of everything, the state of the world being what it is, humanity on the cusp of extinction, here I am writing another email about sex and friendship. What else is there to live for?”

Beautiful World, Where Are You; Sally Rooney

[zemnarihah]

by pressing down a special key it plays a little melody...........

[hijaluna]

emily said im crisp and fluid

[loverboybitch]

@/worstshirtever.//.

[cordyce]

ellie and ollie…ur names rhyme…it was preordained bro

omg ur right. we’re literally fated

[lesellieknope]

Jon Prosciutto. iykyk

.

[khattikeri]

one of my favorite things about mdzs is that for how heavily its plot involves politics of classism and misogyny... even the characters most directly impacted by it can't and don't free themselves from it. literally the closest exception is mianmian.

meng yao being the "son of a whore" wasn't some sort of commie awakening for him that led him to wanting everyone to be socially equal. he played the political game, climbed the ladders, sucked up to and backstabbed and murdered people, including other prostitutes who actually had nothing to do with how he and his mother were treated at the brothel he grew up in.

he put in so much extra excessive effort for even a fraction of the same respect that members of gentry cultivation clans got. and he did deserve to be treated more humanely! but he feeds into the exact same system that created him, leading to his own undoing.

his efforts were for a fragile upward mobility that was never going to hold up. he never surpassed his origins nor did he empower others in similar stations, because the society he lives in is not one that would accept that.

the second he got caught and all those crimes exposed, he was scapegoated to hell and back, replacing wei wuxian as society's terrible one-sidedly evil boogeyman overnight.

speaking of not-quite male gentry, i think it's interesting that wei wuxian explicitly doesn't try to climb the ladders in BOTH lives, knowing full well that anything he does will be punished just for the sheer fact that he is wei wuxian.

wei wuxian is scolded for giving intelligent and correct answers in school. lan wangji does the same and is praised.

wei wuxian occasionally lounges around with fellow disciples and is punished. jiang cheng does the same and mostly escapes.

wei wuxian refuses to carry his sword around in public (after losing his golden core, which nobody knows) and is scorned as an arrogant upstart. nie huaisang has been doing the EXACT SAME THING for YEARS and nobody bats an eye.

unlike jin guangyao, wei wuxian knew subconsciously from the start that his acceptance was superficial and that he could be cast out any time. when he was 10 and recently taken in by the jiangs, he canonically would not eat or use "too much" food and water because he thought they'd find him a nuisance for "wasting their things" and kick him back out.

now away from just the classism, yu ziyuan is a proud and strong noblewoman in a society that belittles and derides women for everything they do. her strong cultivation doesn't matter. she's victim to the vicious rumors of her husband loving another woman who is strong like her but apparently had a more likeable personality.

it doesn't matter even if jiang fengmian didn't cheat or that wei wuxian is wei changze's son with cangse sanren; yu ziyuan can't bear with the humiliation of herself (and by extension her children) not being "good enough". she's ridiculed for "failing" in that one duty as a wife, mother, and woman.

she lashes out and takes out that anger on everyone present for years, giving her children lasting trauma and also being a key element in how the jiang family and yunmeng jiang sect are effectively wiped out at the hands of the wen clan.

madam jin doesn't even have a name outside of the fact that she's married to jin guangshan. i don't even remember reading anything that indicates if she's a strong or weak cultivator, or what, which in itself proves that to most people, it doesn't matter. she's "just" a woman.

of course she's angry at her husband's affairs and all the bastard children they bring in. but she also can't do anything about them, so she lashes out at the few people she can: servants. non-cultivators, probably. those very same bastard children.

shoutout to meng yao getting shoved down a flight of stairs at age fourteen, because if madam jin tried that move against her husband instead, it would make her lose even more face, which as a noblewoman she'd never do.

and that's not getting into how jiang yanli is consistently sidelined for being physically weak.

that's not getting into how mianmian was actually a good cultivator, but was mocked by everyone around her for trying to stand up for wei wuxian when everyone was turning on him. how everyone scoffed at luo qingyang's words as "just some lovesick woman" who "obviously wants to marry or bed him since he saved her".

luo qingyang is the only one of these characters who HASN'T died. she didn't play society's games like jin guangyao. she didn't dig her heels in confidence of her own abilities like wei wuxian.

she didn't bitterly lash out like yu ziyuan and madam jin. she didn't gently accept it like jiang yanli.

she just LEFT.

she married an ordinary merchant and cultivates separately from mainstream cultivation society, and therein found her own peace and happiness.

mxtx doesn't bother with particularly class conscious or feminist vocabulary to hand-hold readers into understanding these disparities, but that choice highlights them & the deeply entrenched politics of their society even more. i really love it.

[seldonhari]

Peter Capaldi at the Radio Times Covers Party, 2017 [source: 1&2]