#jgs did everything wrong

[verdantrivers]

wait are we saying killing jgs is a *bad* thing? bruh, do you know how many issues immediately get solved upon jgs biting it pre-sunshot campaign????

[leatherbookmark]

i had op blocked so ray’s rebloggathon was tragically Absent from my dash but now that i caught up, *hyeju voice* el oh el

[excalibrain]

okay but what if i wrote a captain kate pryde verse built on the premise that she's not an incarnation of 616!Kitty but assume that after battleworld 6161 (or something) Kitty survived --- as in, she's pretty darn close to the kitty/kate pryde that the x-men knew, but squint and there are differences in the way she doesn't remember certain events or people... so every so often she opens her mouth and gives everyone a collective migraine of the bad ol' days.

[esoteric-oracle]

//long rambles ahead!

I think what really lingers with me about MDZS is that it's not a novel with a cathartic ending at all. It's a bittersweet story that leaves you slightly hollow. Yes, it's a beautiful and epic romance. It's a piece of social commentary interwoven with a love story and murder mystery. It's a cautionary tale. But it is also very much a tragedy. It's a story about being too late, second chances, and moving on.

By the time the truth of everything JGY and JGS did comes to light, it's 13 years too late. Everything that mattered has already happened. Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan are long dead. Jin Ling is still an orphan. Wen Ning is dead, and sometime in the future, his death will be permanent. Wen Qing was burned to death at the stake for no fault of her own. Nie Mingjue has already spent ten years in a no-doubt agonizing state of un-death, and Lan Xichen will have to bear the guilt of loving both Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao, and by doing so, forsaking them both. Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng's once-close bond is irrevocably broken, and the woman who sowed the seeds of resentment when they were still children will never face the consequences of her vitriol.

People sometimes say MXTX was too hard on the side characters, and only gave the Wangxian a happy ending, but what stuck with me after finishing the story is how… sad things are. Yes, Wangxian finally get the happy ending they've deserved for nearly 20 years - but at the same time, it's not a happy ending where the people who've wronged them get the consequences they deserve.

Wei Wuxian will spend the rest of his life haunted by guilt and loss, over what happened to Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan, over the loss of the Wen remnants. The rest of his years won't even be lived in the body his parents gave him.

Lan Wangji will spend the rest of his years wondering if he'd chosen to stand with Wei Wuxian when it mattered - would his son have had to grow up without his birth family?

Nie Huaisang is left wondering if his brother had been a little less trusting and had never taken Meng Yao in as a Nie deputy, would his brother have died a less wretched death? Would he have been forced to stoop to ruthless machinations and manipulations to seek some semblance of justice?

Wen Ning will have to live with the knowledge that if he'd been a little less kind, if he'd let Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng die that fateful day - his family would still be alive. The Wens would've won the war; Wen Qing might've even succeeded Wen Ruohan.

No one really gets the ending they deserve. MDZS isn't a story where good people get happy endings, and bad people get their dues. Sure, Jin Guangyao's crimes are revealed and he faces the consequences of his actions. But what about the people who stood by and made him into a monster? If anything, the side characters and antagonists who survive get better than they deserve. The real villain of MDZS - society - will never face retribution. Those cultivators who always believed in their own bigotry and righteousness over and over again, will never face justice.

Do you think those cultivators and the public will ever feel any regret for the innocent people they condemned to death in their own prejudice and blind self-righteousness? Do you think the people who gathered at Nightless City to call for Wei Wuxian's death considered for one second that he was the biggest reason they won the war? When the cultivators who sacked the Wen settlement at the Burial Mounds threw the bodies of the Wens into the blood pool, do you think that was a sign of shame?

Do you think Jiang Cheng will ever regret leading a siege on a small settlement of innocent farmers? Do you think he's haunted by condemning to death the same people whom he owes his life to?

Do you think those people like Yao-zongzhu will ever feel an ounce of remorse for so easily believing rumours and hearsay, and spreading speculation and vitriol about innocent people?

Do you think that unnamed cultivator out there will ever lose a single minute of sleep over smashing in Wen Popo's head?

In the years that follow, Wen Ning will have apologized a hundred times for lives he did not take, crimes he did not commit, because of the name he bears. People, both in-universe, and even readers, will condemn him for actions he could not help, for doing the right thing. But did Jiang Cheng ever apologize for killing his family? Did the Jins ever apologize for their horrific treatment of people in the labour camps?

People will continue to demand that Wei Wuxian apologize for causing the deaths of their friends and family. But how is Wei Wuxian meant to do that? No one ever apologized to him for taking his family away. No one ever apologized for condemning the Wen Remnants to death for crimes they took no part in. The Wens were his family too.

There's so much potential for bitterness and corruption in MDZS. Instead of saving everyone, Wei Wuxian could've stood aside and let the people who tried to kill him die. MDZS could've been a story of succumbing to hatred and grief, but it wasn't. MXTX could've gone on and on about how society wronged the protagonist, but she didn't. The narrative is one of forgiveness and moving beyond past grievances. The story chose to close the story on a positive note. I truly love that aspect of MDZS, where MXTX leaves just enough room for hope and love at the end.

A-Yuan will finally get his closure about the family he lost as a toddler. Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian get their happy ending together after being separated by nearly two decades by war, miscommunication, cruelty, and death.

Wei Wuxian will never regret protecting survivors of an attempted genocide, because it was the right thing to do.

And Wen Ning will still stand in the way and take a fatal blow meant for Jin Ling, despite everything the Jins and Jiang Cheng did to the people he loved.

Because they chose love. Characters like Wei Wuxian and Wen Ning and Lan Wangji have the chance to move on and live a happier life because when they could've succumbed to hurt and fury and resentment, they chose to be kind and do the right thing. Wangxian get their happy ending because they learn to recognize the toxicity of the cultivation society's self-cannibalizing prejudice, and chose to pursue righteousness above personal benefit.

MDZS isn't a story about good people getting good things. Just look at what happened to Xiao Xingchen. There's really nothing satisfying or cathartic about everyone's fates at all. There's no promise about society facing the consequences of their mob mentality or Wangxian actually changing the world together. Even in TGCF, for all its makings of a love story, we get the promise of societal change once Jun Wu is deposed.

It has all the makings to be a tragedy or tale of vengeance of epic proportions - but instead, it's a love story. It's a story about making the best of what you've got, and staying true to yourself and your morals, even if that's sometimes a bitter pill to swallow. It's a story where everything that could go wrong went wrong, but the characters still managed to fight their way to a better ending by choosing kindness. At its core, MDZS is a testament to choosing compassion over cruelty no matter how tragic and hopeless life gets, no matter how long the journey gets. Even though the happy ending is more personal and only applies to the specific characters, even though we don't actually get the promise of their society becoming a better place - we still have the hope that Wei Wuxian's second chance brings. The hope that sometimes, no matter how cruel the world is, some people who deserve it still get their happy endings. That's what makes MDZS such a memorable work of art. That's why it stays with you.

[mhalachai]

i'm cleaning up my desk and found a note that I wrote god-knows-when with a story idea for the Untamed that, if i can recall the thinking behind the scribbles, goes a little like this:

in a tale as old as time, Jin Zixuan gets his awkward/arrogant teenage ass cursed.

the curse?

he can shapeshift into a dog. not always voluntarily.

his mother is pissed and can't find a way to lift it. she is 100% not going to tell JGS because of his whole deal.

Mianmian knows because at some point on a nighthunt going wrong JZX stress-poofed into a pomeranian in front of her.

no one else knows.

anyway, canon events happen.

JYL finding out that her new husband turns into a canine is certainly a surprise twist she did not see coming, but well she's always liked dogs and was sad when JC's dogs had to leave when WWX came to Lotus Pier.

Anyway, JL is born in the normal way, a huge honker of a baby.

Everyone is thrilled.

Everything is normal.

then

rocks fall

Everyone dies.

JC ends up taking his nephew home to Lotus Pier to take care of him as like there is no one else.

Four months later JC picks JL up from his nap one afternoon and screams as the baby turns into a husky puppy in his arms.

JL doesn't understand what the fuss is about. he's a baby and he's hungry. so what if he howls instead of cries?

JC is not as sanguine. Queue a bottle episode where through flashbacks and exposition, it's worked out that while JZX might have been cursed, JL is just... like that.

Great, so now what?

anyway this is my tl'dr as to why Jin Ling and Fairy are actually the same person and this is why Jin Ling is so annoyed when MX!WWX is terrified of Fairy. like, what, this big bad demonic cultivator can't tell that the 140lb doggo with the Jiang-sect clarity bell is more than just some pooch?

Lame, da-jiu. Lame.

[pieridae-art]

Special Lan Xichen analysis post

As I’ve previously said, Lan Xichen is a very flawed person and that’s okay! I want to examine him at several parts of the story and pick apart some of the criticism he gets. So let’s talk Lan Xichen!

Siege of the Burial Mounds: I really like this one shot from the donghua where the Sect Leaders of each sect (NMJ, JGS, and JC) are shown at the siege and beside them representing the Lan sect is… Lan Qiren. Not LXC. Setting aside the perfect storm JGS set up for the siege to occur (I don’t care who led it; JGS is the problem post-Sunshot Campaign about 99% of the time), I think this is because LXC stayed back in the Cloud Recesses with LWJ tending to his wounds post-whipping. Not assuming LXC’s absence, however, the siege was led by JC and orchestrated (because separating the twin prides of Yunmeng and artificially creating tension within the jianghu was a deliberate action) by JGS. Not saying LXC’s participation is okay just because he wasn’t the driving force behind it but imagine if the Lan sect stood against the other sect’s wishes. Standing up for WWX would have been the right thing to do but were the Lans in any position to oppose the siege with their sect in the process of rebuilding? Going along with the siege, to me, is an act of cowardice, not malice. Extra note: we see his capability of defending the Wen remnants when JGS is talking shit about them and WWX but he is shut down immediately and does not speak up any further. This is not a matter of hypocrisy; it’s a matter of fearing the consequences.

NMJ’s death: this is rocky territory. It was a bad idea full stop to force proximity between them hoping everything would sort itself out. But you simply cannot blame him for NMJ’s death because he couldn’t have known. One could argue that he endangered JGY by forcing him to be near someone who tried to kill him several times. I think that’s an oversimplification of the situation. To me, this was a gesture of trust. Trust that NMJ will make an attempt to restrain himself/get better and trust that JGY will aid him in doing so. As we know, this trust is misguided. He’s rather naive to think this would work. But he is humored anyway by two people with bad intentions toward each other. LXC is not at fault for this going south when it was at a certain point inevitable. But he did enable it.

That one line about WWX being LWJ’s only mistake: I get so defensive because honestly I’d have said much worse in his position! Think about what he knows about Wangxian’s relationship leading up to it. He saw his brother devastated that the man he loved was being corrupted and harmed by his cultivation, watched as LWJ despaired over him and fought the elders and got whipped for him. He’s only seen his brother suffer due to his love for WWX. Was saying this okay? No. Consider the circumstances surrounding this line, however. Also criticizing him for this is just plain nit-picky to me lol there’s plenty this man has actually done wrong to criticize him for.

And another thing: stop saying he favored JGY over LWJ!! The entire point of his denial surrounding JGY is that there was no solid, tangible proof that was damning enough for him to outright condemn JGY without some level of unfair assumption! He was trying to be fair about the investigation! Might I add: WWX was the only one who saw NMJ’s head in Jinlintai. Had it been LWJ to see it and approach him I think the story would’ve gone differently! But it wasn’t. And he wanted to have faith in his friend from an underprivileged background constantly facing slander and mistreatment despite doing good things for the world against the jianghu’s wishes because isn’t that what LWJ did with WWX? LXC learned his lesson from WWX’s death, he just practiced it on the wrong person.

What have we learned? Lan Xichen was complicit in and enabled a lot of Bad Things if he was not an active participant, most of it willingly and some of it unknowingly. He’s unfair sometimes. He’s weak willed and lacks the strength to actually stand up for anyone in a meaningful way. He’s naive. In my opinion, he was in denial for a large portion of his story about the harmful effects of his actions.

And I adore him! He’s got the capacity for so much good and he fails to live up to it! He wants to be righteous and he doesn’t know how without putting the people he is responsible for at risk! He thinks he can do conflict resolution and he just can’t! By the end of the story, he is painfully aware of all of this and he lives knowing he did the wrong thing over and over and over again. He got the only outcome he could ever have. I don’t think he deserved his ending but I do think he might have earned it.

[symphonyofsilence]

Shits Jiggy has done in order of iconicness & badassery (or the top 13, at least. 'Cause, everything he does is iconic & badass. Yes, that includes saying "Xue Yang did it" with a fucking bloodied Wen sword in his hands that he had just pulled out of the intestines of the fallen captain right in front of NMJ. Respect!):

His death! This fucking part!

Jin GuangYao coughed up quite some blood, his voice hoarse, "Lan XiChen!"

He forcefully broke through the spell of silence.

At the moment, Jin GuangYao was injured from top to bottom. His left hand was burned by the poisonous smoke, his right hand was severed, and his stomach was missing a chunk of flesh. Covered in blood, he couldn't even manage to sit upright, yet right now he stood on his own without any help, like one last streak of light from a setting sun. He called again in a voice filled with hatred, "Lan XiChen!"

And then! He pulled the sword out himself! And then! He spilled his own blood over NMJ's coffin to envoke him! And his last words were "fuck you Nie MingJue! Do you think I'm scared of you?" While NMJ lifted him by his throat with one hand and choked him to death! He took control even in his murder! In the middle of being killed! He took control! He died on his own term! Badass!

His mother was bullied & ridiculed & humiliated in a brothel, so he burnt that brothel to the ground and made a temple for his mother in its place. I'm sorry about the casualties but it ain't about them.

Was thrown down the stairs of Jinlintai, was not accepted into the Jin Family or even acknowledged as a person that exists when he was working for them, when finally accepted only after becoming a war hero was given a wrong generational name and treated as a glorified servant, but eventually manipulated, mansplained, manslaughtered, manwhored (& did a lot, lot of hard, competent work) his way to the top & became the Sect Leader of the Lanling Jin Clan. Was considered the lowest of lows in his society and eventually became the Chief Cultivator! (& a VERY GOOD Chief Cultivator at that! He helped the weak & fought against systematic corruption and ruled through a decade of peace and prosperity) ICONIC! BADASS! TALENTED! INCREDIBLE! AMAZING! SPECTACULAR! SHOW-STOPPING! NEVER THE SAME! TOTALLY UNIQUE!

The way he kills Wen Ruohan in the books! "Do what you want" "yes." *kills him*

Meng Yao, "Now, that's not the way to go about this. With Sect Leader Nie's sturdy body, he might become all great and mighty again after just a few days of rest."

Wen RuoHan, "Do as you please."

Meng Yao, "Yes."

Yet, as he responded, a cold light, thinner than thin, slashed out and across. Wen RuoHan suddenly turned quiet. Warm droplets of blood splashed onto Nie MingJue's face.

The thematically appropriate way in which he killed his father. I mean just killing JGS was a service to society, but to kill him like that? 10/10. Inspired. (I guess it was actually kinda inspired by what Sect Leader He said, wasn't it?)

The things he does every time he's thrown down the stairs? When he gets up with difficulty and straightens his clothes & his hair & wipes the dust off them and bows with that "consider your ass kicked<3" smile in a low angle shot as the sun shines above him/ smiles the "you're so fucked, bestie. You just have to catch up to the fact that you're fucked, bestie.<3" smile as he goes up those long-ass stairs with difficulty as he bleeds from the head? And that straightening his clothes he does, in general, every time he's humiliated? I mean badass in general but when you consider that he was told by his mother that he shouldn't let his hat be slanted, 'cause clothes maketh men it takes more meaning. It means "I'm still a gentleman. you cannot touch me. I'm still in power, & I'm coming for you." I mean, It's very sad. as is everything else about him. especially JGS throwing him down the stairs scene. but the thing is that every time something sad happens to him, he has the coolest reaction to it that anyone could possibly have.

This is more obvious in the show. The way he kills the big baddie of the Jianghu, the most powerful man alive, the main villain of the past timeline (by backstabbing him, after being a spy in his realm without anyone noticing anything, doing tortures for him & becoming so close to him in such a short period.) and immediately convinced EVERYONE to go "oh this poor innocent paragon of virtue, this noble lord, had to kill a bitch.😔 he must be so hurt and traumatized and scarred for life.😔 I'll pay for your therapy.😔" And he was like: "do not flatter me so, my lords. You are the true heroes. Please pardon me for not killing him sooner. I shall live with these scars and trauma.😔"*off to the next murder*How can you not stan!❤️ (like...he's named Lianfang-Zun! The master of hidden fragrance! And nobody suspects that he might be hiding something!)

the Guanyin temple is the first scene in which we see him fight. And boy does he fight! He hands Sandu Shengshou's ass to him! And remember that Jiggy has a very weak golden core. And JC has WWX's golden core that is even stronger than his own & his own was pretty freaking strong. I mean did he cheat a little? Maybe. But he had enough presence of mind to think of aiming for WWX in the middle of a fight with a pretty pissed-off JC that was going after his life with both Sandu & Zidian. And he was so good at knowing people & had such a high emotional intelligence to know that JC would fall for the trick!

Interrupting his big villain moment to ask WWX how comes he & LWJ are not sleeping in the same room (and they did, actually. Before that thing happened. He was right.) And politely and respectfilly put a pause on his plan to help let his and his boyfriend's ship sail.

The way he creates unnecessary homoerotic tension in every interaction and flirts with anyone & everyone even Baxia when he's in his openly villainous mode. (Openly villainous Jiggy is my favorite Jiggy)

Divorcing Jiang cheng without being married

Divorcing Nie Mingjue without being married

"I think it's best if Young Master Wei stops right there. It's nothing if your flute's broken, but if your tongue or your fingers went missing, it'd be such a shame."

Wei WuXian immediately put his hand away, agreeing, "You make so much sense.

The person, "May I request your company?"

Wei WuXian nodded, "You're too polite,Sect Leader Jin."

Jin GuangYao smiled, "It's my pleasure."

Wei WuXian, "LianFang-Zun, you hid quite a big land deed in the secret chamber of Fragrant Palace, right beside my manuscripts. Don't you remember?"

Jin GuangYao, "Oh, that would be my fault. I should've put them separately."

Wei WuXian, "Right now, we won't be able to run from your grasp no matter what, so could you perhaps tell me just what a creature is being suppressed in this Guanyin Temple, LianFang-Zun, and quench my curiosity a bit?"

Jin GuangYao smiled, "Quenching your curiosity doesn't come at a low price. Young Master Wei, are you sure you'd like to try?"

Wei WuXian, "Oh. On second thought, then, nevermind."

Meng Yao's voice was approaching, "Your subordinate is useless to have needed your presence, Sect Leader"

Wen RuoHan laughed, "You good-for-nothing."

Meng Yao laughed as well. Wen RuoHan asked, "He's the one who killed Wen Xu?"

He's like if I'm ending their whole career I might as well give them a "this better not awaken anything in me" crisis, too. Just as a little treat. Very bad bitch of him!

English title drop in the show

Was just dropping off the kid he was babysitting at school, walked up to the first Jade of Lan, the most eligible bachelor in the Jianghu, gave him one look, and the man was GONE! Meng Yao bagged him just like that on one of his usual working days.

Last but not least, "Xue Yang did it." (As promised)

[little-meowyao]

SALT SALT SALT (long post)

EXHAUSTED SIGH, what is this doing in my dash again.

The first betrayal of his trust, in the novel, was not something that concerned NMJ in the slightest!!! JGY killed a Jin commander! And I think he was right to do so! Even putting the abuse aside, what other chance would he have of getting recognised (that he knows of), if the man kept taking credit for his work? We as a fandom put too much blame on JGY for killing that dude. I think it was 100% warranted

Of course JGY would force NMJ to show deference to WRH! That's his job! Firstly, literally everyone but JGY has to crawl around WRH, so, while very personally targeted at NMJ (which I'm sure JGY did on purpose to appease WRH), it's just Something That Happens.

Of course JGY had to kill NMJ's men! What else could he do? He couldn't save them all, and WRH 1. Is capricious AS FUCK, and 2. would not take kindly either to insults to the Wen or to JGY himself (bc he likes JGY). Additionally, that was not a ruse!!! Not at all! While I do believe JGY holds some regret at killing WRH, it was his plan! So that LXC would like him more??? That is just fucking stupid!

Being gaslit??? Where??? If someone was gaslighting NMJ, it was LXC (FYI I don't think he was, not intentionally at least, but I would see where someone that does is coming from), not JGY! They just do not speak the same language! You know the excuses vs explanations?? Yeah! That's what was happening! JGY trying to explain himself and NMJ thinking he was making excuses!

Never does JGY deny doing anything, or try to make NMJ doubt himself, or shift blame, or literally anything that could be considered gaslighting!

"Doubting his judgement" did he? Did NMJ ever doubt his judgement? Even when he had reasons to? Or is he just so goddamn obstinate that when he sets his mind to something he will not change? HM?

NHS pulled away from NMJ because NMJ was being, you know. A fucking ass! He burned NHS's stuff! We have no reason at all to believe they were drifting away before that! It's not because JGY understands him better! Is because NMJ does not understand him at all, doesn't care to, and punishes him for doing what he likes! I'm not going into how NMJ was trying to force NHS to follow a path that would get him killed, violently, but that!!! That!!! Yeah!

He threathened to beat him and JGY together! And we have no reason to believe it was an empty threath! Burning the fans was just a threath before, too! And if you read that scene carefully, you'll see that NHS is genuinely terrified. He locks himself away for days after. I don't blame NMJ for it entirely, but at the end of his life he was getting legitimately abusive towards NHS.

NMJ can't explain JGY is evil because he is not. Because everything that JGY ever does to wrong NMJ is either necessary (the fire palace exchange), not related to him at all (the Jin commander), or completely out of his hands (the XY situation).

For every action there is a reaction. Though they do retraumatize eachother, NMJ does it more and more severely, with less justification. I can't even call them mutually abusive because NMJ is doing all the abuse, and JGY's actions are reactionary. These two should have gone separate ways after sunshot.

And sure, JGY killed him in a horrible way, but it was NMJ that made their relationship kill or get killed. NOT JGY. JGY went ahead with turmnoil after three separate murder attemps.

After the staircase scene showed him that their relationship was beyond salvation and that NMJ would never care to understand his previlege, or to ackowledge their inherent power imbalance, or to stop and listen (actually listen), or to stop and think that his authority as JGY's da-ge doesn't and won't ever override JGS's power as his father. (Especially with someone as filial as JGY is)

I love NMJ. I genuinely do. But this take is so toxic I need to pick it up with a damn hazmat suit.

And what pisses me off the most is that this post doesn't show a fundamental lack of understanding of NMJ's character! This is the way NMJ thinks! But he's an extremely biased narrator and his thoughts should not be taken at face value!

I've never interacted with this person before, but if I had to make a guess, I'd say they're very caugh up in analysing NMJ (which is valid, I love him too), but in their love for NMJ, they started taking his thought process and conclusions as fundamentally factual, which they are not. I could be wrong, but it is how this comes off.

Anyway. I'm done

[thatswhatsushesaid]

Xiyao?

oh!! xiyao is the otp to end all otps for me (@verdantrivers tagging you as well since you also asked about them, even tho you already know everything I'm going to write anyway)

ship it 🤌

What made you ship it? in the novel, it was absolutely the teacups scene. but uhhh this is embarrassing but I came into this fandom backwards, and so my first exposure to xiyao was the show! tl;dr I was looking for a show on netflix to fill the void left in my soul after the depressing end of The Rise of the Phoenixes, and someone somewhere rec'd The Untamed because "it's gay and the gays get a happy ending!!" me, a depressed bisexual, "oh, what a relief, I could use a happy ending for the gays after all that depressing straight people nonsense I just suffered through." (joke's on me, my chosen gays did not get their happy ending, I clowned myself) anyway, /scuffs foot, it was the box scene. their cute little shuffle over the box. the shy yet lingering eye contact. meng yao's eyes doing the thing that zhu zanjin has them do every time he looks at lan xichen for longer than a second, like he's noticing how beautiful starlight is for the first time, and lan xichen looking like meng yao just awoke something in him that he didn't even realize was there until that moment. meng yao's beautiful face journey when he sees lan xichen and rushes to say goodbye to him. like... I feel it bears mentioning at this point that I knew so little about this show or the canon source material that I literally thought that xiyao was going to be the main ship with the happy ending just based on this moment alone, and so you can imagine by dismay once I realized how tragically wrong I was. RIP past me. anyway, while I absolutely prefer jgy's characterization and arc in the novel canon, I will nevertheless die for the way lhk and zzj chose to bring xiyao to life on-screen. they did the reading.

What are your favorite things about the ship? besides the siren call of a decades' long near-romance that is doomed by the narrative, probably that when given a choice (or rather, when jgy believes that he has a choice), jgy and lxc always choose each other, both when the stakes are low and when they are extremely high. one bad faith and garbage take on their dynamic that I often see trotted out by jgy's harshest critics is that he exploits lxc's affection for him exclusively to cement his position within the lanling jin sect and to further his own ambitions, which seems like such a dull and reductive way to view the nearly two decades they spend together in each other's lives. I also just don't understand where this interpretation comes from?? is it just from jgy using the pass token to get the song of spirit turmoil from the library pavilion's forbidden section? because yes, that was a violation of lxc's trust, but also like... would there even have been a forbidden section in the library pavilion for him to steal from if jgy hadn't sacrificed so much of his dearly bought social and political capital upon gaining his recognition from jgs to help the gusu lan rebuild the cloud recesses? this is not me trying to diminish that violation of lxc's trust, but just to emphasize that jgy actually had very little to gain, politically speaking, at the time he pressed his father to provide aid to the extremely vulnerable and weak gusu lan, but he did it anyway, and he did it because he knew lxc needed the help. smaller stakes: given the choice between being in anyone else's company or each other's, they always gravitate towards each other in any space they occupy together, and that does things to me lol.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? with very few exceptions, I don't enjoy lan-furen as a concept 🤷‍♀️ I didn't even fully understand why the lan-furen AUs didn't work for me until I read commentary specifically by you and @fincalinde and @confusion-and-more (I think) about how deeply jgy's pursuit of his birthright with the lanling jin is integral to his character. because I do remember reading objectively good and well-written lan-furen fic that should have been providing me with emotionally satisfying xiyao catharsis after getting hit by the truck that is the canon ending, and instead left me feeling like I'd eaten too many bites of a pie that was good yesterday but has already started to turn. idk that metaphor is getting away from me. also, more fics where jgy is the soft dom in the bedroom, please, that's my favourite jgy flavour.

[poorlittleyaoyao]

i've always thought of jin guangyao as being very parallel to edmund from king lear

DEFINITELY. JGY and Edmund do have a lot in common! There is a FANTASTIC gifset out there using the “god, stand up for bastards” speech. They’re both bastard sons of noblemen who chafe at the limits their birth puts on their advancement, and they gaslight gatekeep girlboss their way into power. They both even end up in the employ of a hotheaded feudal lord prone to acts of extreme violence! My favorite portrayal of Edmund I’ve ever seen was this wide-eyed, babyfaced actor who was maybe 5’7” max who played up the “pwease hewwp, I’m baby 🥺” aspect to Edmund’s manipulation and delivered his villain monologues with gusto—basically, JGY as he lives in NMJ’s memories.

That said! They're fun to compare, because I do feel Edmund is more unambiguously villainous than JGY is. I say this with utmost affection, because he is SO fun to watch when he's played by someone with charisma. Edmund wants power for its own sake and is, by his own unabashed admission, here to cause problems on purpose. Gloucester's jokes about Edmund's conception to Kent at the very start of the play are callous, but he acknowledges Edmund as his son and they seem to have a good relationship, as do Edmund and his half-brother Edgar. Edmund's entire scheme hinges on the assumption that he has the respect and trust of not just his family, but the nobility as a whole. Edmund doesn't lack for anything; he just wants more power, and he wants it immediately. He also is having a grand old time throughout the play (which is what makes him so fun to watch!), and only has regrets at the very end of the play when he is actively dying.

By contrast, what drives JGY to such extreme lengths is the fact that he isn't accepted or respected. He causes problems primarily as a means to avoid other problems he considers worse for him. If JGY enjoyed the same security, respect, and affection from his father's family as Edmund has from his, everything would be fine! And even if JGS is still JGS, we'd STILL be fine as long as JGY met up with Cornwall instead of NMJ. Cornwall genuinely thinks Edmund is a sweet delicate babygirl who did nothing wrong ever in his life, and Edmund doesn't even have a tragic backstory. Edmund's not even demonstrably good at tasks other than schemes (and, accordingly to Goneril, sex). Imagine what Cornwall would do for JGY! If JGS mistreated JGY on Cornwall's watch, it's on SIGHT. Or not on sight, I guess, since Cornwall's whole thing is ripping out eyeballs. Anyway, everyone's better off and JGS can smell his way to Langye.

[mostlikelytofangirl]

I have two WRH and JGY aus rotating in my head

First one is a Wen-furen au where JGS takes MY purely for the sake of gifting him to WRH as a sex slave but WRH goes "Off to the Fire Palace with you, if your father wants you gone that badly you must have done something truly horrible you'll fare nicely there" because he can't really picture anyone not loving his kids (family man WRH!) And then MY shows talent and it goes random kid > hound > chief torturer > furen. And then WRH tortures JGS obviously :)

And then there a Wen regroup and strike back au based on this fic I wrote as a starting point where WRH gets taken as a war prisioner by the Jin and locked up, and the Jin men do things to him not even JGY as chief torturer ever did and JGY goes "Nope :) I'm not working with these people" and takes the role of a hound to WRH hunting down people that harmed him etc and lots pf emotional tension because JGY did backstab WRH but WRH is atp too exhausted and reliant on JGY to really do anything about it

Oh, I love these!!

I'm always a slut for AUs where JGS uses MY just as a pawn for political alliances, and he turns out doing MY a favor by giving him to someone who actually ends up caring about him XD. I'm also digging WRH assuming there's something wrong with MY so much! I mean, this is a man with freaking WC as his son, and still we see the guy enjoying all the privilages of his station; just how much awful a child must be for a parent to want to get rid of them?? And then MY proving them all wrong asdfghjkghj YES. WRH actually owing JGS one for gifting him such a treasure ;u;. Not like he's going to be grateful, MY deserves to see his father destroyed for what he tried to do to him :D

AHHHH that's so good! Lol I just read it and I'm screaming!! There are so many flavors there, all equally deranged and painful and so fitting! It'd be very MY of him, trying to mend his wrong of betraying WRH even if he had to do it, and the irony of correcting that doing the exact same thing he did for WRH in the Fire Palace, so many layers of fucked up!! Tbh it wouldn't be so surprising for MY to switch places again if he was ever to discover that was WRH still alive. He would have tasted what it was like in Lanling and instantly regret that he gave up everything good he had going on in Qishan. So yeah, he was wrong, gotta correct that lol

Thank you for sharing!! I'm always happy to provide food of this ship, but it's so nice to be the one being fed for a change <3

[jianghushenanigans]

For the character ask thing: 1, 9, 13, 15, 31

you forgot to say but also. it's you. i thought you'd want JGY anyway

1 Canon I outright reject

hmmmmmmmmmm

what even is canon, for JGY? What do we even know? Half of the 'canonical' stuff we hear about him is just hearsay and slander. A lot of the stuff they accuse him of towards then end I'm like 🤨 about. Man did not kill his own son.

9 Scene that first made me love (or hate) the character

k so like. my journey to JGY goes:

followed by me consuming lots and lots of meta and fic and now I'm like

In summary: when I watched fatal journey I wanted to kill him mercilessly myself and like a week later I'd decided that don't think he did anything unjustifiable, actually, and now I can't read fic where he's the villain because everyone's just so wrong about him all the time.

13 Dumbest thing they've ever done

Personally, I think going to JGS was the dumbest thing but there's no way he would have done anything else, and I don't know what he would have done if he hadn't. In terms of like actually choices he could reasonably have made, not telling Qin Su about everything is up there

15 Worst thing they've ever done

I'm sad he killed da-ge. Like I get his reasoning but I wish he hadn't done it

31 If they had a tumblr what would it look like

Of all the characters JGY is the Least likely to have a tumblr. when does he have the time??? maybe in a modern au NHS made him sign up so he could follow his blog but that's all he does with it. man has shit to do

[demonfox38]

Completed x2 - Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Sega Saturn version)

Madness may be doing the same thing over and over again, but hey. At least I'm having fun doing it.

If economics were indicative of what my favorite video game of all time is, "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night" would win bar none. Just off of the top of my head, this is how many times I've made purchases of this title alone:

US PlayStation Copy - $6.00 (disc only from a now defunct GameStop location in 2006, so don't get too optimistic)

Japanese PlayStation Copy - $38.00

PSP Copy of "Dracula X Chronicles" (contains a unique SOTN variant) - ~$40.00

PS3 Digital Copy - ~$5.00

Xbox Live Digital Copy – Free (promotional; probably was a tie-in to "Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night" being released)

Additional copies for friends - ~$5.00

US PlayStation Copy for my sister - $50.00

Sega Saturn Copy - $140.00 (2016 in Akihabara; keep the date/place in mind)

This probably isn't even the sickest I could be in collecting copies of this game. Hell, I've been hung over at a stranger's house with access to their Xbox 360 and thought about purchasing it there as well just so I could distract myself from being sick.

For this particular situation, we're going to talk about the Sega Saturn variant of "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night." While I had heard about this one before, I hadn't thought about hunting it down. Content differences aside, I didn't have a Sega Saturn, nor has the Sega Saturn emulation scene been particularly stellar. But, on the one time (and hopefully not last time) @jeannettegray and I were physically in the same place, she happened to find this in the retro game store we were in. At first, I protested. It'd be irresponsible to buy something like that, right? And then I caved because, as established above, I'm kind of a bitch (submissive) for this game.

Fast forward to 2023. I've gotten into the anime series "Lupin the Third" (again, thanks JG!) I've been accumulating some "Lupin" games because they're fairly uncontested in the grand scheme of video game hunting. Considering that at least one is a staple on the bad/weird video game tournament Kusogrande, that should tell you about how well they normally go. But, I did happen to watch a match for the Lupin the Third game "Sage of Pyramid," which seemed to be generally well received! So, I found a copy of it on eBay in a three-pack with two other "Lupin" archive titles. To make a long story short, I ended up with a Japanese Sega Saturn, plus a few extra games.

I know. Between this and the Nintendo Wii U purchases this year, you've really got to ask what's wrong with me.

"Castlevania: Symphony of the Night" is a title I have previously reviewed, so I’m not going to bang too much about the shared properties here. Game good; game great; game arguably one of the best games ever made. The Sega Saturn port occurred about one year after the original PlayStation release by Konami Computer Entertainment Nagoya (KCEN), a branch office (and notably, not the original developer pool from KCET.) While KCEN mostly made either portable versions of console-based Konami games or movie-licensed games, KCEN is notable in "Castlevania" development for both this and "Castlevania Legends," the GameBoy title with female lead Sonia Belmont. Which means that they:

Chugged women-respecting juice like water.

Got everything they did chucked into a historical/narrative paper shredder.

Given this development, the Sega Saturn version of "Symphony of the Night" is in a weird place. It has more content—particularly, in additions to Maria Renard's presence and playability—but is often looked down as an inferior product. In particular, some of the most ridiculed items include load times, transparency implementation/workaround issues, and sprite quality. And boy, did I see some actual, verifiable hardware issues. But, despite that, I do think this variant has some serious charm to it. At least, I'd be way more likely to come back to this version than the PSP version.

Look, if I buy a Sony PSP, you have the right to hit me…up for donations for a charity.

Before we can talk about this game, I think we need to talk about the Sega Saturn itself. Like, the poor bastard only seemed to have success in Japan. (Being $100.00 more expensive than its competitor will do that to you.) It was the kind of non-successful entity that when I heard the Nerve Tower recommending the Sega Saturn version of "Baroque" above all other versions of the game, I felt nothing but mockery for the sentiment. My opinion on the console changed somewhat after tending to a minor memory issue for the console. See, with old consoles or games dying, I'm used to having to buy oddball components and then getting help from my dad in resoldering them into place. With the Sega Saturn? It was simple as buying a new CR2032 battery (from a Wal-Mart! Imagine that) and just popping it into place.

Let's just say I have a lot of appreciation for a console that is easy to manage.

Now, if it were as easy to program as it was to fix, I doubt the Sega Saturn would have floundered as much as it did. I haven't done a great, deep deal of reading into coding for this console, but it seems like working with it required a great deal more knowledge than just popping in some C++ and plugging away. I suppose comparing programming for the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation is somewhat like the difference in operating a racecar versus an average sedan. In the right environments and with the right skill level, the former will out-perform the latter. But, at the end of the day, whatever is easiest to handle and cheapest to purchase will be used by more people.

Granted, "Symphony of the Night" should have been a natural slot-in for the Sega Saturn's library. While its best-selling titles were in 3D, a significant chunk of its library contains 2D sprite-based fighters. Weirdly enough, "Symphony of the Night" could qualify for this with its visual presentation and its control style. It's just…well…from what I can tell, this was KCEN's second and last Sega Saturn title. I don't think the experience or confidence was here for a perfect port. Hell, even notes from the developers themselves are frequently lamenting development delays.

Also—Yoshinori Suzuki is the realest for having a reference to Goblin music in his note. I'm more team Suspiria when it comes to Goblin music, but I have full faith that band could slay a "Castlevania" composition.

Okay. Enough sympathy for the devil! Let's get down to the game itself.

The objectives for this port of "Symphony of the Night" match up to the original base game. If you've got SOTN down 200.6% elsewhere, you'll easily hit 210% here. Does the math not add up? Well, it never really did. But, in this case, the first noticeable change is the addition of two new areas per map side. These new areas are respectively dungeon and garden-flavored, both of which make sense in terms of an addition. Neither add a great deal of room content to the game (capping at about 6 rooms for the garden and 3 for the dungeon), but they do provide some benefits, including:

A bridge piece between the Marble Gallery and Underground Caverns

New enemy types

A new boss fight

Access to the Alucard Spear (which, granted, is more important for Lecarde family lore than anything. But it's nice to pick up!)

These areas (and the castle's entrance) also sport some new tunes. Okay, maybe just "Chaconne C Moll" and "Guardian" are wholly originally. But, it does contain pairs of dance and jazz mixes for the "Vampire Killer," "Bloody Tears," and "Beginning" themes. Sure, they're the most 90s-sounding compositions on this planet. But, goddamn if that isn't exactly what I wanted from a "Castlevania" game.

I know. Real trash-core behavior on my part. At least give the "Beginning" remixes a shot before you take another one at me.

Item distribution and placement has also been slightly tweaked from the base PlayStation game, although it is generally in the player's favor. (For example: the Sword familiar is just below the save room of Orlox's Quarters instead of being in a hidden ceiling space.) About the greatest addition of note here is a cape called the Rainbow Robe, which cycles through palettes to create a constant color swapping effect. Very cool. There are also some different familiars than what is present in the US PlayStation version of the game, but about all that is unique there is getting a Half-Faerie that sings if you get her some lyrics. Which…thanks? I guess?

Honestly, the big content augment to the game is Maria Renard. Not only does she become a boss for Alucard to fight (having him prove his strength to her), but she's also playable! And holy shit, does she kick ass! Like, she generally kicks ass, but my God. Literal ass kicking here! Kicked my ass as a boss. Kicked everyone else's ass when fighting them in her mode. I'm not kidding when I say that only three bosses posed a threat to me while playing her. (For those of you that want to attempt this playstyle: it was Orlox, the "Castlevania III" trio, and Galamoth that gave me the most trouble.) If you've got Alucard's Dark Metamorphosis and Soul Steal input commands down, congratulations. You can absolutely slaughter the game as Maria.

It's wild. In her mode, she's got:

A chargeable magic attack as her primary attack

A triple and high jump

An evasive somersault (while Alucard doesn't even have a slide mechanic, so LMAO)

A base kick attack (for when you're storing up magic)

Access to standard "Castlevania" subweapons

Combo commands for summoning all four Celestial Beasts whenever you've got the MP (granting on-the-go healing, two massively damaging attacks, and a limited-time familiar)

A variety of martial arts attacks, and

Access to a full invincibility-granting move! (Like, you've gotta do a full clockwise input + a charge to do it, so it does require some serious skill to use. But still!)

Talk about a power fantasy! Like, no wonder people talk about the reset to Maria's move pool in the PSP version of "Symphony of the Night" being a downgrade. She's an absolute beast here.

Begrudgingly, I can see why Maria's abilities were augmented in later releases. To some extent, I think the IGA team was trying to keep in lockstep with the "Rondo of Blood" version of her, especially considering that the PSP game is primarily a remake and re-release of that game. And, okay, yes. She was originally designed as a tiny Belmont alternative. But in the Sega Saturn SOTN version? With her input pool and abilities? She's an Alucard alternative. Hell, her heal move maps to one of his recovery abilities (Genbu to Dark Metamorphosis), and her primary devastating spell is also the homewrecker in his (Seiryuu to Soul Steal.) She wasn't designed out of nowhere. She was just pulled from a different man's ribs.

I guess if nothing else, the PSP sprites of her are prettier. So…there's that.

Oh! Prettiness. Guess that leads back to the overall aesthetic quality of the game (or potentially lack thereof, depending on who you ask.) Personally, the biggest issues I had here were not so much with sprite distortion, but with load and lag. This game doesn't have the same load-in grace going between new areas or loading in boss fights as the PlayStation version does. It seems like it struggles greatest with particle effects, although bosses with multiple chunks and entities to them can also cause severe rendering delays. Hoo boy, does it not like a bunch of stuff on screen all at once! The Beelzebub and Legion fights in particular bring out the greatest lag in the system, so be prepared for that when/if you tackle them. Even Galamoth has some lag (although, I was using that to my benefit when possible.)

In terms of transparency compensation, the Saturn version does well enough to skirt around some issues. The trailing movement sprites are still following you, so A+ there. Some magic spells were altered to use white instead of using transparency, which honestly? I thought that made some look very pretty (Tetra Spirit in particular!) About the only place I could point at and scold was the hidden cavern behind the waterfall in the Underground Caverns section. In the PlayStation version, it is smoothly revealed as the player steps into it. In the Saturn version? It's like someone flicked a light switch on. Honestly, it would have just been better to let the player always see it, if that's what revealing it was going to look like.

Also, killing Fire Demons is particularly ugly in this game. It's just a lazy, nonsensical sprite swap (as opposed to the color cycling in the PlayStation version.) The Marionette deaths are pretty funny, though!

There was one point where the lack of full implementation actually impressed me. Anti-spoiler at this point, but the final boss fight with Dracula has a much different feeling in the Saturn version. Not that the move cycles he has have even remotely changed. It's the background! In the PlayStation version, it's a bit psychedelic—maybe more like something you'd see in an "Earthbound" or "Star Fox" ending fight. In the Saturn version? 100% black. Cheap? Sure. But, considering Alucard is fighting his father in a realm between the living and the dead—in a complete abyss—it honestly grew on me. Like, yeah, ha ha! The devs couldn't figure out how to do the funky color/texture cycling! But also? Absolute darkness works, too.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the bodily injuries I'm currently nursing post playthroughs as well. Like, my left thumb was taking some abuse from the default controller's D-pad, so I ended up playing through portions of Maria Mode using an HSS-0104 Virtua Stick. (Like I said—I spent some stupid money on this console.) I just ended up pushing the injuries from my thumb to my shoulder blades. 😅 I can't completely blame the game on that, though. I should know better than to do 8+ hours of gaming in a day.

By the way—I did confirm something switching controllers. It seems like this "Symphony of the Night" variant likes to pick up on Up button presses more than in the PlayStation version regardless of the controller used. At least, I was pulling the Fireball / Byakko spells more than intended. I also found myself thinking less in terms of hitting every button in a combo, instead just smearing into cardinal directions. Like, the Saturn seems to have more of a slide detection to it than I anticipated? It's the difference from going down + down-forward + forward to down and forward while smushing your thumb up. You just kinda go legato, not giving a thought about the intermediate inputs.

Okay, verdict time!

Did I enjoy the Sega Saturn port of "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night?" Absolutely! While it has its oddities, I hesitate to call this product inferior. It's definitely not as tight of an experience as the standard PlayStation version, but what is here is cool. I would put this in the same category as "Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow" in that if you can't vibe with the main game for some ridiculous reason, it's got awesome side-modes to back it up.

Would I recommend other people play this game? Of course!

Would I recommend other people buy this game?

Look. I know when I'm being ridiculous. This experience personally cost me somewhere between $300.00 to $350.00 USD. Like, what the fuck. Madness! It would have been worse, had I actually bought this game this year! I mean, as of writing, this game, complete in box, is trending at $219.15 USD on PriceCharting.com! Shit, I might as well tell you to buy an arcade cabinet for how ridiculous this could get! And then you've got to weigh the pros and cons of taking systems out of their native countries, what international buyers are doing to the Japanese video game market, the risks of transporting stuff that far, and so on. It's not something you can just say, "LMAO, do it!" about.

But, what I will say is that BizHawk has a pretty good Sega Saturn emulator. And also, I might have written some documentation on how to get BizHawk set-up for Sega Saturn emulation. Chances are you're smart enough to figure out the rest.

[no--envies]

I've noticed that a lot of people view WWX's relationship with debts and gratitude as a sign of excessive self-sacrificing tendencies, often connected to a lacking sense of self-worth. Personally, I don't think it's meant to be read that way at all.

WWX wanting to repay the Jiang sect for raising him, or WN and WQ for sheltering him and JC during the war, is simply his way of doing the right thing. Repaying one's debts of gratitude is righteous and honorable (as long as it doesn't clash with other moral imperatives) and WWX is a person with a strong sense of justice willing to go to great lengths for what he believes is right.

"Let the self judge the right and the wrong, let others decide to praise or to blame, let gains and losses remain uncommented on. I, too, know what I should and shouldn't do."

Also, while WWX's self-confidence in his first life can sometimes border on overconfidence, I don't think it's due to any underlying issues like the inability to ask for help or other similar things.

WWX did genuinely believe that he could handle the situation with the Wen remnants on his own ("If there's been no precedent, then I'll be the precedent!"), but it wasn't entirely unreasonable for him to think so given all the things he had managed to accomplish up until that moment. He also wasn't wrong in thinking that he had to do everything alone. JC explicitly made him choose between the Wen remnants and remaining in the Jiang sect, because he didn't care about repaying the debt to WN and WQ. JGS deliberately tried to isolate WWX by spreading false information about him. The other sects weren't involved in the situation and didn't owe anything to the Wen siblings, so they stayed out of it. LWJ did offer his help, but it wasn't a type of help WWX could accept. He couldn't accept to go with him to the Cloud Recesses, no matter if LWJ's intention was to lock him up or simply to "cleanse" him of resentful energy. WWX no longer had a golden core, so demonic cultivation was the only tool he had to protect those he cared about. He had reasons to believe he could control it, since he had managed to do so for a long time. LWJ himself recognized that there was no other way, despite being worried about the potential risks.

He continued, “Nobody can give me a nice, broad road to walk on. A road where I could protect those I want to protect without having to cultivate the ghostly path.”

Lan WangJi gazed at him. He didn’t reply, but both of them knew the answer in their hearts.

There was no such road.

No solution existed.

It was a very complicated situation with no easy solution, and if WWX made mistakes in how he handled it (he's human, after all) it can't be simply attributed to him being overly confident in his abilities or refusing other people's help.

I honestly don't think WWX has any kind of issues related to his self-esteem or self-worth at all. I know a lot of people disagree, but this is my interpretation of the text.

[lansplaining]

Where did the idea that LXC saw into the depths of JGY’s soul come from? Why do so many people disagree with mxtx’s claim that he’s just sweet, pure and oblivious? I low key ship xiyao but sometimes I’m confused by the popular fanon for the ship.

Hmmm, MXTX's description of LXC is one of those things that I am hesitant to comment on because I think there are some things lost in translation, and I don't speak Chinese. I think I read once (and I tried to find the post and can't, of course) that that was less in reference to his basic intelligence and more to the fact that while the novel was coming out, people kept expecting LXC to turn out to be some kind of mastermind. But I may be wrong!

And anyway, I think the two aren't necessarily related. To me, the idea is less that LXC sees into JGY's soul and more that in private, in scenes we never see, JGY shows LXC a version of himself that LXC thinks is the true one, and I'd argue JGY also thinks-- or at least hopes-- is the version of himself he'd most like to be.

Most xiyao shippers want to think that LXC isn't just being obliviously manipulated by JGY-- we want to think he truly believes in what he's seeing, and that he's largely right. (if we wanted manipulation, we'd ship xuexiao) I think some of the extremity of the xiyao shippers' push in favor of LXC's insight into JGY's personality is in resistance to the also popular fandom idea that clearly he was just a dupe and everything JGY told him was a lie, which he believed because he's just a lovely himbo.

I'd also argue that canon suggests that the version of JGY that LXC is seeing is not entirely some sugar-coated fantasy. He knows that he was a torturer and spy for Wen Ruohan. It's heavily implied he knows about a lot of the things JGS was asking JGY to do, though, for example, he probably didn't know (in novel canon) the extent of Xue Yang's demonic cultivation torture ranch. LXC doesn't need some superhuman insight to see who JGY is, his affection is based in trust: he trusts that JGY is a person who has reasons for doing the things he does, because in LXC's experience, he always has. That's part of what makes the end of canon so devastatingly hard for LXC: there could yet be an explanation. He'll never know.

I think part of the fantasy of xiyao as a ship is this idea of being known and liked for the worst parts of yourself, so it makes sense to me that the fanon warps a little bit into LXC being the person who's able to see past JGY's well-honed defenses, which naturally requires extremely good insight because JGY's a great liar. But I'm with you on finding this dynamic not quite right. JGY shows himself to LXC. Whether the version of himself that he shows is one that can be trusted in the end is the question that torments LXC, too-- but of course, I think that it is.

[stiricidewrites]

All the Things We’ll Leave Behind: ch 28, pt 22

Dude, it's the end of the chapter ._.

See you tomorrow with the first part of the next chapter, from wwx's perspective.

Previously

~

“Shut up,” jzxuan hissed into the phone when wwx began asking him why he had to keep it down, his eyes shooting off into the woods that stretched across one side of wwx’s garden. His eyes scanned the area, dark and quiet and filled with something that he couldn’t put his finger on. The same ominous presence that he and Becca had felt before, something—or someone—that was both there and not there.

“jzxuan?” wwx asked quietly after a long pause, one almost impressively long considering how much the older man seemed to like the sound of his own voice. “What’s wrong?”

“I… it feels like there’s something out there. In the woods.”

“You know there are animals in the woods, right? It’s not super uncommon for them to come close to Lotus Pier—I mean, it would be a bit odd considering how many strangers are hanging around at the moment, but not exactly unheard of.”

jzxuan hummed noncommittally, ignoring the snicker from the other alpha and his comment about how he was learning sounds from lwj.

“It’s probably nothing,” the older man repeated as jzxuan began stuffing the food back into the bags and setting them inside one by one, his hands too full with his rabbit to carry everything at once. His eyes never left the darkness, though.

“I know,” he said quietly as he grabbed his phone and backed towards the door one final time. “It just feels like more, and I’d rather not be jumped by who knows what because I figured it was just a bird.”

wwx was silent again as jzxuan closed the door, sliding each of the locks—why did wwx’s house have five separate locks?—closed. He was leaning over to grab the bags when the older alpha spoke again.

“It’s probably nothing,” wwx repeated, tone more serious now, all amusement erased by whatever he had heard in jzxuan’s own, “but there’s a security system there. I can tell you how to turn it on, if you want.”

“Alright…” jzxuan said, placing the hand that had been reaching for their food on the rabbit’s head and giving it a gentle scratch as wwx walked him through turning on the security system.

“I have a lot of important stuff in there!” the alpha laughed when jzxuan asked why in the world he needed what appeared to be a state-of-the-art system at a house he rarely stayed at. “Now, can you please take me to A-Zhan?” the man whined.

“No.”

wwx squawked. “Why not!? Oh! Oh, fuck! Did something really happen to him, and you've just been distracting me and—”

“He’s fine,” jzxuan sighed as he calmed down his bunny again. The other alpha really was much too loud, even if his antics were extremely amusing. “But I’m not taking you to him until you tell me how to deactivate this thing.”

“I’ll text you instructions later.”

“No, you won’t,” jzxuan deadpanned.

“How do you know?” wwx sniffed, sounding almost put out by jzxuan’s words.

jzxuan knew better, however. “I’ve heard enough from my brother to know you’re notoriously forgetful. I’m sure you’ll intend to send the instructions, then forget or get distracted—or fall asleep,” he added, remembering one particular time when wwx’s entire office had pulled several all-nighters and fallen asleep at their desks. Even phone calls on every phone at once hadn’t woken a single person, and jgs had been unable to find anyone local—whether food delivery or even the police—who would risk going and waking anyone, because apparently wwx was known for being ‘belligerent.’ In the end, his brother had had to fly to Yiling himself to wake someone up and get a problem sorted.

So, jzxuan knew not to trust wwx, not when they could potentially end up locked inside his house for days if the man didn’t give him the instructions before disappearing into his work.

“Fine~” wwx sighed, followed by what sounded like his head smacking onto a desk.