#Xie lian : injured and lying about it

[backpackingspace]

Anyway I love hua cheng has """kidnapped"""" xie lian fics. It's about the chaos. The shenanigans! The duality of the heavenly Court freaking out! Cut to hualian having a cute date! Jun wu mentally trying to rearrange his plans realistically sending xie lian to investigate should have disrupted their relationship why are they now getting married??? Xie lian popping in to the heavenly group chat going I'm FINE!!! Please please stop sending people to rescue me. Yes I've definitely been kidnapped let it go!!

[its-miichan]

Tension in TGCF (or lack thereof)

TGCF has a problem with establishing tension. Of course people are going to disagree with this statement, but TGCF sucks ass when it comes to tension and how it is shown (at least in my opinion). Now, TGCF is a high fantasy epic adventure including thousand year old gods and demons that can destroy cities and countries for funsies, so the entirety of the novel is very high-stakes from a technical standpoint. 

But it definitely didn’t feel that way while reading. The majority of book 3 I found myself struggling to get through because there really was no reason to care about what was happening in the story. And I thought about this for a while, and finally came up with reasons to why I think this is the case:

1) the story REFUSES to leave Xie Lian, an overpowered 800 year old god who cannot die and is so used to suffering and terrible things happening that whatever terrible things happen don’t matter to him

2) The vast majority of characters we are supposed to be attached to are nigh immortal beings who are extremely hard to kill (and are basically never killed) 

3) the main characters are so insanely overpowered and devoted to each other that any internal or external tension is immediately murdered in its crib 

For the first point, I suppose it’s quite self explanatory. When writing a high fantasy epic while having your singular POV character be Xie Lian introduces some problems. Xie Lian is so detached from most things happening around him and so chill with dying, watching people die, getting grievously injured, and pretty much every bad thing under the sun that his reaction to anything that could potentially introduce stakes and tension is brushed over by Xie Lian with a ‘meh.’ This can be used to great effect in goofy comedy scenes or slice of life chapters, but when the story tries to become super ‘intense’ and make you ‘sit on the edge of your seat’, it just really… falls off. 

And you could say that Xie Lian cares about those close to him and potential danger to those close to him can offer tension to the story, but that just… doesn’t happen.

As much as I love Xianle trio or the Xie Lian-Shi Qingxuan besties dynamic, it would be lying to say that any of those dynamics are particularly close in the present timeline, and Xie Lian is so incredibly zen and immune to forming attachments (because omg look my baby hes so traumatized he doesnt make friends) that those shallow friendships really don’t affect him, and those friends getting hurt is also just a “oh that sucks” moment for him.

And the one ‘genuine’ relationship he does have, the one with Hua Cheng offers no tension to the story because Hua Cheng is so overpowered Xie Lian doesn’t even need to worry about him getting hurt (but more on that in a minute).

Basically, what I’m saying in this point is that if Xie Lian, the main character who we are reading the thoughts of doesn’t give a fuck about what’s happening around him, why should we? 

Point two is also quite self explanatory (actually now that I think about it all of the points are) but I will elaborate anyways.

The main characters in TGCF are gods and ghosts. Gods cannot die from old age and can only be killed through fatal injuries. But given how ridiculously overpowered they are, any external force trying to kill said gods feels like less of a threat and more like a “wow so annoying” kind of thing. The same applies to ghosts.

First of all, in order for MXTX to write the super mega romantic ashes ring scene, she had to completely break the worldbuilding of ghosts. They are incredibly hard to deal with (even weaker ones like Cuo Cuo) and the only way to truly get rid of them is to a) let their resentment dissipate which is hilariously hard to do for stronger ghosts or b) to scatter their ashes. They can’t really even be killed in the same way gods can through fatal injuries, and because MXTX wanted to make it soooooo romantic that Hua Cheng gave Xie Lian his ashes, those ashes are the only weakness ghosts have.

But that was a bit of a tangent and the main point is that ghosts, just like gods, are also ridiculously hard to kill. My point is that with the main cast of characters we care about being very overpowered, very immortal gods and ghosts, it’s extremely difficult for the story to provide any tension about the characters we care about getting hurt, ESPECIALLY with Xie Lian and Hua Cheng who basically physically are incapable of dying.

In fact, the only major character who dies (permanently) on screen is Shi Wudu. And I’m not going to go around and be super salty and say ‘oh but even then that death sucked!!!!!’ because it really didn’t. It was good! I liked it! In fact, I loved the whole black water arc in general! It really upped the stakes in that moment and it’s like “oh shit! This guy is ruthless! I really need to see what happens next and if our main characters will be okay!” 

But that arc was an exception to the rule. I spent the next couple of chapters in suspense and waiting for information on Shi Qingxuan’s aftermath because I was invested. Because there was tension. But nope! MXTX dropped the ball and gave us more Hualian flirting and onto the next adventure! 

No character deaths or–hell– even character ‘serious injuries’ happen following that point. 

And for the rest of book 3, nothing that hits the same way as the black water arc came up again. Some moments managed to shake me out of my boredom-induced coma (the mysterious crown prince of Wuyong murals were interesting. BWX chasing down Hualian in the cave of ten-thousand gods was mildly alright), but for the most part, the slowly dawning knowledge that the black water arcs treatment of its characters is an exception to the rule and that the book is too afraid of killing off any other characters made it really, really boring to read.

Now am I saying that you need to have character deaths to make a story interesting? Not exactly. You can have stories where the main conflict and source of tension is something like workplace drama or high school crushes. But I am saying that with a setting such as TGCF with conflicts that are presented in the same way TGCF’s are (big bad monster/villain! Oh no!) having a nigh invulnerable cast is incredibly uninteresting.

The third and last point is probably the most damning of them all. 

Xie Lian and Hua Cheng are ridiculously overpowered. And not overpowered in the same way that other MXTX main pairs are overpowered. Unlike someone like WWX who is indeed absurdly strong but can be defeated by other characters, Xie Lian and Hua Cheng are given such a wide array of powers, abilities, and strengths, that they feel like they are on an entirely different level compared to the side characters and minor villains. 

The first few arcs (before Hua Cheng was revealed) were actually quite enjoyable for this reason not being present. We weren’t shown the full array of Xie Lian’s powers and Hua Cheng was pretty much a non-factor so the arcs felt tense. Dangerous, even. It felt that maybe Xie Lian could fail, or someone could get hurt and die, or maybe even Xie Lian could die. It was cool seeing how Xie Lian would use his limited amount of spiritual powers to complete tasks that normally required spiritual energy.

But once Hua Cheng is introduced and the bulk of the rest of the story is underway, that coolness gets thrown out the window. First of all, it’s revealed that Xie Lian is a mega martial arts geek who is basically adept in all sorts of fighting and incredibly physically strong and resilient which… makes sense, but makes some struggles quite boring. However, his lack of spiritual powers still gave him a substantial disadvantage in many situations, which made me willing to see where this went.

Hua Cheng, on the other hand… what a headache.

Let’s start off with the obvious. He is undoubtedly among the top three strongest characters in the book and for the vast majority of the plot is the singular strongest character present (Xie Lian is shackled and thus weakened by a long shot and Jun Wu is basically nonexistent for the bulk of the book). And as he is the singular strongest character present, a whole lot of the issues that come up feel… trivial, at best.

There’s this whole arc about Xie Lian dealing with Cuo Cuo but by that point I was languidly scrolling through the chapters and wondering when Hua Cheng would show up and deal with the whole situation. And no surprise, a few chapters in there’s a dubcon kiss and then Hua Cheng seals Cuo Cuo in a jar and all is resolved within a few minutes! 

So exciting!

It’s a similar case with the entire Tong’lu arc. At the beginning, Hua Cheng is out of commission, giving the side characters a chance to breathe and shine. But the second any semblance of tension appears in the story, MXTX decides that that’s enough and brings Hua Cheng back to basically full power so his vast array of powers pulled from his ass (a flying umbrella that can protect against giant boulders! Butterfly listening devices! Red string of fate that serves no reason in the story other than to be romantic!) can save the day once more. Xie Lian is in danger? Hua Cheng swoops in and princess carries him away. 

And we don’t have to worry about the side characters because 1) who the fuck cares about them? Our leads certainly don’t. And 2) they can’t die anyways guys it’s gonna be fine. 

So in essence, Hua Cheng’s mere existence causes huge structural issues for the plot and tension because he is so monstrously powerful and given new powers because MXTX wants to and is completely devoted to Xie Lian so even if the adventures start out potentially interesting, the second anything that could add some tension to the story is introduced, Hua Cheng swoops in and rescues Xie Lian. 

Does it make sense from a technical point of view that Hua Cheng is incredibly powerful because his entire personality is protecting Xie Lian? …Yes.

Does that make it fun to read? No!

And about internal tension, since Hualian are so insanely devoted and caring and perfect and kind and disliking them is SUCH a character flaw, there is a complete lack of internal tension. 

Would Xie Lian ever call out Hua Cheng for being a dick and treating Xie Lian’s so-called friends like shit? No! Because Xie Lian is so zen that he doesn’t care about what happens to anyone! Will Hua Cheng and Xie Lian ever fight? No! Because Hua Cheng is so incredibly devoted to Xie Lian that anything that could potentially cause a disagreement between them will be whisked away by Hua Cheng changing half his personality to appease Xie Lian. 

The only thing that could potentially add tension to this romance outside of the constant will they won't they blue balling is Xie Lian’s self doubt which Hua Cheng constantly reassures him that he’s perfect and great and oh so beautiful so even that is quickly erased from the story, only coming up again when MXTX decides it’s time to remind you of how much of a woobie Xie Lian is. (Also, I find it necessary to note that Xie Lian’s healing arc really isn’t shown. He’s starting to heal in the main plot and then we jump to the extras and he’s fine and he’s just suddenly come to terms with his trauma).

I find it necessary to say that books 2 and 4 obviously don’t apply to this post because Xie Lian is allowed to face the consequences of his actions there, and we are less tethered to a group of immortal beings as our central characters. 

Book 5 also doesn’t really apply for the most part, but it’s still not tense due to the hilariously shoddy buildup and payoff of the entire battle.

Anyways, that concludes my rant for today, if you want to scream at me for being a terrible person due to disliking this piece of fictional media, go ahead, and if you read this entire 2k word essay/rant mad props to you. 

[curiosity-killed]

hello! what are your top five (or more) hualian fics? I can't just keep rereading your fics so I desperately need some recs! c:

adsjhlk anonnn ;A; ah okay so some of my faves pulled from my top tier of bookmarks (which is wildly subjective and depends upon the day and mood but oh well. here we are):

(under cut bc this got real long)

you'll know, you'll fall by mme_anxious

Rating: E

Summary:

“We talked about it,” Xie Lian says, hearing the frustration in his voice. “I want to go to the next step.” “It's okay if you don't—” Hua Cheng started. “I do! God, I want it so much. I don't want you thinking that I don't. I—I think about it all the time, San Lang.” Hua Cheng looks pleased, the tops of his cheekbones flushing to match his red shirt, and his thumb strokes the back of Xie Lian's hand. “What do you think about, gege?” -- Xie Lian seeks a lesson in desire. And another. And another.

My notes (apologies for this one it’s drawn straight from my bookmark notes lmao):

INTIMACY IS WORTH THE VULNERABILITY! TRUST IS REAL! LOVE EXISTS! HOLY SHIT!!!

i might be tearing up a little bit bc of the abundance of love and care apparent both between hualian and in the writing of this fic. it's. A Lot.

Animal and Real by etymologyplayground (but also all of EP’s hualian fics because they’re the fics I most reread ^^’)

Rating: T

Summary:

Ling Wen and Shi Qing Xuan establish the communication array, and then Ling Wen leaps into the well and disappears. Shi Qing Xuan walks over and sits in front of Xie Lian and Hua Cheng. "So," she says. "Dianxia. Crimson Rain Seeks Flower. Fancy meeting you here."

--

Book 1 ended on a cliffhanger. I fell off.

Alternate summary: "Xie Lian's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" Slowly Animorphs Into "Xie Lian And Hua Cheng Have A Nice Day, Actually"

My notes:

I like...don’t...actually....have words for this LMAO but basically I love, love, love Xie Lian getting to be hurt and hurting and Hua Cheng finding different ways to comfort and help him and actually talking about things (like Xie Lian accidentally hurting Hua Cheng’s feelings and them actually TALKING ABOUT IT) and just hnnnn yeah. this is like my go-to fic haha but I heartily rec all of etymologyplayground’s fics for tgcf (also many mdzs/cql fics but i am apparently behind in reading those orz)

le renard apprivoisé by hilarions

Rating: G

Summary:

If you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others, and hearing it will call me like music out of my burrow. You will understand that the things that are yours are unique in all the world. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.

My notes:

Ah gosh. Hua Cheng equating himself with a starving, injured wild thing that doesn’t deserve care or compassion, Xie Lian telling him he loves him the fox anyway, the nature of dessert and love hnnn it’s a good time

Panopticon by @pengiesama​

Rating: M

Summary:

Jun Wu has built a very splendid home for Xie Lian, with gifts and friends and wondrous sights just for him. He will be very happy there.

Xie Lian won't take this house arrest lying down.

(Inspired by the book/movie Coraline, by Neil Gaiman.)

My notes:

Just an absolutely delectable balance of suspense and mild horror and love and aaahhh sometimes I forget that parts of this aren’t canon bc this is basically accepted as my canon of Jun Wu. Also “I was taller than that” will never not be my favorite thing

Tame to Fortune's Blows + Something Foreknown by crowdedcafe

Rating: M and T, respectively

Summaries:

For eight hundred years, Ruoye is Xie Lian’s only companion. It tries its best to ease some of his hardships, to lessen the misery he feels. But Ruoye is only a length of silk, and sometimes its love simply isn’t enough in the face of Xie Lian’s suffering.

Or, Ruoye loves Xie Lian when others don’t know how.

(TFB)

E-ming is born with a hole in his heart and an emptiness in his soul. Through centuries of hearing stories about Hua Cheng's beloved, E-ming grows to love the man he was born missing.

(SF)

My notes:

Just really lovely character studies essentially of Xie Lian and Hua Cheng through the lens of their weapons. personally I think they’re best read together but they are each standalone, canon-compliant fics 

ALSO:

Innocence Died Screaming, Honey Ask Me I Should Know by @eponinemylove​

Rating: T

Summary:

Hua Cheng puts a finger to his temple thoughtfully. He asks, "Who wants to tell me what the deal is with all these damn petals?"

The communication array goes completely silent, a feat almost in itself. Hua Cheng muses silently that gods can, apparently, shut the fuck up—they just choose not to. How convenient.

It takes a moment before Ling Wen manages to speak up. "Your Highness," she says carefully, "what did you say just now?"

"These white petals? There's got to be a hundred of them. The man just—oh yeah, there was a man—exploded into them. What's up with that?"

There's a long stretch of silence where it feels like all of Heaven is holding its breath.

Finally, Ling Wen responds. Her voice is clipped as she asks, "What do you know about the Four Calamities? Specifically, White Flower Mourns Massacre?"

Alternatively: the one where Hua Cheng is a martial god, Xie Lian is a calamity, and nobody is at all what they seem.

My notes:

AAAAAAHHHHH. GOD. THIS FIC. it would be embarrassing to admit how many times I’ve reread it (also I don’t know. late night decisions are not meant to be recorded in the ledger of memory) but it’s so fucking good. The characterization, the threads pulled from canon along with the deviations and alterations and the suSPENSE i am McLosing It. pls god someone come yell abt this fic with me i love it sm

I have such low Fic Reading Energy but. this babe. i see an update email and start vibrating like a gd electron.

Some other authors I trust with my heart and soul: @xihe-jun, merthurlin, atomicmuffin, uhhh I’m definitely missing people orz

[spockandawe]

So, a thing I want

For no other reason than vague impulsive emotional gratification

Is I want a fic where Xue Yang goes through the ordeal with Chang Ci’an, gets beat up, gets beat up again, gets hit in the face with a whip and run over and gets his hand crushed

And then Xie Lian notices this child lying horribly injured on the side of the road, picks him up, and takes care of him

This has been vaguely bouncing around in my head for a while, but this excellent+upsetting fic brought it to the front of my head again. Because Xue Yang was seven and this was a horrifying injury for anyone to receive, especially a kid, especially a kid without money or parents, especially a kid who probably had nobody who cared about him enough to even take care of him.

Now, where I run into some issues is that I don’t necessarily want this to be... enough. It feels cheap for this to be enough to stop baby Xue Yang from growing up into adult Xue Yang. And at the point Xie Lian might step in to help him, Xue Yang has already been burned, badly, and has plenty of reasons to hate the world and mistrust adults. But I want to see what it does do. 

I’m not even sure that Xue Yang would be willing to stick around with Xie Lian for long at this point, not once he’s healed up. I could see it swinging either way, but I do think that one of the biggest lessons Xue Yang took away from his childhood was ‘if you’re stupid enough to trust someone, they’ll use it to hurt you.’ And by the start of tgcf, Xie Lian is very... numb to loss. He’s used to losing everything, even people, and it doesn’t seem like he particularly expects anything good to stick around, and it really feels like a (depressingly major) paradigm shift when he starts tentatively hoping Hua Cheng will stick around. If Xue Yang made a run for it, even if Xie Lian was worried that he wasn’t completely healed yet, I don’t think Xie Lian would try that hard to stop him.

On the other hand, I could see Xue Yang tentatively deciding to be opportunistic, and take this sucker for anything he can until the guy runs out of patience and decides to throw him out. And Xie Lian is poor, which almost definitely feels safer than trusting a rich adult, and he’s an incredibly kind, gentle man. If anyone could coax a scared, traumatized child into trusting him without bolting, it would be Xie Lian. and xie lian is used to dealing with the aftermath of horrific injuries

Plus, Xie Lian is lonely, and he likes children. In canon, it takes him almost no time at all to start taking care of Lang Ying and Guzi. And he’s been a teacher before. If he could coax what had happened out of Xue Yang (I don’t think it would have been hard at that point in time, especially when he’d already seen the aftermath), I bet he would have been more than willing to teach Xue Yang some basics of how to protect himself and keep himself safe.

Actually, you know what, I might have convinced myself into this. We don’t know who taught Xue Yang, but we know he’s very good at fighting. I very, very much like the idea that Xie Lian was his first teacher, and might not have taught him for long, but gave him a solid foundation to build upon.

Though I really do think that this can’t be something that lasts for all that long, or we’d lose who Xue Yang is as an adult. Which I feel might be the impetus for him eventually leaving? He comes away from the Chang Ci’an incident angry. That’s not on the page, but it pretty much has to be the case, otherwise everything else would never have happened. And Xie Lian isn’t an angry man, he doesn’t like being angry, and it’s extremely hard to provoke him that way. By the time Xue Yang reaches, oh, somewhere in the ten-preteen years, if he can feel himself starting to lose his grasp on his own anger, I can see that being his impetus for leaving Xie Lian. I like that a lot. A few years to heal, to learn the basics of martial arts, and to reluctantly, grudgingly admit that there is at least one (1) decent adult in the word... and to decide to leave, because this isn’t him, and he doesn’t want to lose his sense of self.

I like this a lot, even without changing anything about the story he tells later about his hand, and losing his finger. He only shared that story in a moment of desperation, and I think it was difficult to admit, openly, to being in such a vulnerable position. I feel like he would have an even harder time sharing that someone cared for him afterwards, when he was completely helpless, and never did wrong by him, and that Xue Yang cared for him. Sharing that he was hurt was hard enough, hinting that he might want to be taken care of would be even worse. But if he imprinted on Xie Lian that way, it would add some interesting flavor to his fascination with Xiao XIngchen in Yi CIty. That makes two times when he was hurt and helpless, and was saved by a poor wandering cultivator, who took care of him selflessly and asked for nothing in return. He thought he knew who Xiao Xingchen was, and hated him for it, but this, maybe, changes things. A little.

Also, picture Xie Lian setting the bones in baby Xue Yang’s hand and comforting him through the process. Also also, picture adult Xue Yang stumbling across a shrine that Hua Cheng built to the Flower-Crowned Martial God, and just..... wondering.