#man this is fucking depressing

[asideoftrashplease]

Detangling JC, his motivations, & his feelings on WWX (i)

JC and WWX have a very fraught history, and while WWX’s role as the narrator makes it very clear what his feelings towards JC are, JC’s feelings towards WWX and motivations seem a lot murkier. He goes from treating WWX as a brother, to mounting a siege in a concerted attempt to take his life. His actions and motivations in the aftermath of WWX’s resurrection are also subject to interpretation. This meta provides argument for my interpretation of his feelings and motivations throughout these events.

LOVE AND BROTHERHOOD

It is clear from the outset that JC cared deeply about WWX (I wish I did not have to make a case for this because it should be obvious, but there are some who believe that JC did not love WWX). Although he holds bitterness and resentment towards WWX due to his family situation and their rivalry, he cares about WWX and is protective of him. This shines through especially in times of mortal peril. 

When WWX was trapped in the Xuanwu cave, he travelled without stopping to find people to rescue WWX. The trip should have taken 10 days, but because he drove himself to exhaustion in his desperation to save WWX, he only took 7 days.

When WWX is in danger of being discovered by the Wens after the burning of Lotus Pier, he uses himself as bait to draw them away from WWX despite the risk to his own life, which eventually leads to his capture and the loss of his core.

SO WHERE DID THINGS GO WRONG

Things started to take a turn after the Sunshot Campaign. I believe a few key events caused resentment and confusion to build and grow in JC over time:

WWX’s refusal to carry his sword, which put political pressure on YMJ

His decision to break out the Wen Remnants, without consulting or informing JC, with put more pressure on YMJ

His decision to defect from YMJ, effectively (in JC’s mind) picking the Wens over YMJ and his brotherhood with JC

His actions at Qiongqi Path which killed JZX — while we know from WWX’s POV what happened, JC and JYL have no idea what went down except from the claims of the surviving Jin cultivators

His attack on the 4000 cultivators at the Nightless City, which ultimately cost JYL’s life

It’s evident that JC is increasingly bewildered, angered, and hurt by WWX’s actions. It’s clear that he’s confused, and just CAN’T UNDERSTAND WHY WWX IS ACTING THIS WAY. All the while, resentment is building in him that he has to clean up WWX’s messes, all while WWX’s actions undermine him as a leader and brings up childhood insecurities and jealousies. But his love for WWX drives him to continually stand by WWX and believe in him — even grudgingly, complainingly, and with growing resentment. Even up to the attack at the Nightless City, even after JZX’s death, he still seems to believe in WWX.

This last event, the attack at the Nightless City, seems to be the turning point where he stops believing in WWX, so I want to cover this particular event in more detail:

A “pledge conference” is being attended by QHN, GSL, LLJ, and YMJ. This conference is a ceremonial affair, centered around their pledge to eradicate WWX and the Wen remnants. It begins with them honoring the fallen with a toast, but while the other three sect leaders make the toasts, JC goes through the motions of the toast with visible unhappiness, and then conspicuously says nothing to honor the dead.

I feel this action needs to be understood in the context of the ceremony. They are standing in the Nightless City, where their comrades died in the final battle to take down QSW, a battle which WWX contributed to greatly. They are pouring the wine on the ground where the bodies lie to honor the fallen: “Here we honor our fallen. Rest in peace.” (Uncontroversial) “Now in the name of our fallen, we will eliminate the Wens who killed them — and the Yiling Patriarch!” (Controversial because WWX was brother in arms to these soldiers, and JGS is stirring shit because he wants the Yin Tiger Seal.)

JC knows the controversial bit is coming, so while the other sect leaders one by one say things like “rest in peace” and “may they live on” he dumps the wine on the ground and refuses to say anything. He is the only one, of the four with cups, who does not speak.

When WWX appears, the others all draw their weapons, but JC reaction is different: “JC’s pupils shrunk. Blue veins lined the back of his hand.” From this sentence alone, it may not seem clear what he’s feeling, but based on the rest of his actions in this scene, I would guess that he’s shocked and appalled that WWX would dare to appear before such a large and hostile mob, A MOB THAT IS CURRENTLY PLEDGING TO KILL HIM AND SCATTER HIS ASHES, thus recklessly and what seems like arrogantly endangering his own life.

After an increasingly hostile exchange between WWX and the mob, JGS calls for everyone to set up the battle arrays to seal WWX in, with the intention of killing him there. But when WWX calls up the corpses buried under them to defend himself, it’s stated that all the sects were in disarray, except for YMJ, which seems to indicate that WWX’s corpses were not attacking the YMJ delegation — and the YMJ cultivators were not fighting the corpses either.

This all seems to indicate that despite JZX’s death, despite the fact that JC has NO FUCKING CLUE what the hell happened at Qiongqi Path, despite the fact that he’s no doubt been fed lies and biased reports from the surviving Jin cultivators, and despite the fact that WWX is currently unleashing an undead army on all of them — he still believes that there’s another side of the story. He doesn’t even know WHAT that story is, but he believes in WWX— grudgingly, and with growing disbelief, confusion, and incredulity—  he still believes, BLINDLY, in WWX.

THE TURNING POINT

In the ensuing chaos, JYL is killed, and WWX finally snaps in his grief, unleashing a hellish and completely uncontrolled bloodbath upon the assembled cultivators. It is estimated that this killed three thousand people, severely decimating the cultivation world’s population.

The siege begins after this attack, and we know from the prologue that the siege was headed by JC, and that he was the one behind key tactical maneuvers (designed using his intimate knowledge of WWX’s weaknesses) that allowed them to eventually sack the Burial Mounds. In the aftermath, he was the main person credited by the cultivation world for the defeat of the Yiling Patriarch. When WWX meets JL at Dafan, he corroborates this by revealing, through the narration, that JGS was the second-biggest contributor to the siege — after JC, who was the biggest contributor.

I know that there are other popular interpretations of JC’s motivations here. I will name two:

He participated in the siege only due to political pressure — after what WWX did at the Nightless City, he couldn’t NOT condemn him or the cultivation world would have turned on YMJ too

He participated in the siege hoping to take WWX alive and bring him back home to discipline privately

But I don’t subscribe to either of these interpretations. I believe he FULLY intended to kill WWX. Firstly, if he was only participating in the siege due to political pressure, why contribute so vitally to the siege, why take a leading role and design tactical maneuvers to bring WWX down? He could have just done as he’d done previously, which was to participate perfunctorily in “opposition” against WWX, but contributing as little as possible, or nothing at all.

Secondly, some may argue that he was trying to capture WWX alive. But before this, he had always given the impression of being extremely cautious, to the point of inaction when maybe action would have been better. JC is VERY risk-averse. His characterization before the siege is that he’d rather do nothing than do something even potentially risky. The intention of everyone else was to kill WWX, NOT to capture him. As such, the risk that WWX would be killed in battle is extremely high. Even if by some miracle, he managed to capture WWX alive despite the best efforts of everyone else to murder him, it would be really difficult to stop the other sects from executing him, and getting permission to take him home and keep him under house arrest. It would be a safer bet to try to sabotage the siege from the inside, which is not what he did. In fact, he did the opposite. He was leading the siege viciously and with intent.

So I believe that he fully intended to kill WWX, which means the turning point was JYL’s death. Up to her death, JC still believed in WWX. After her death, however, the very last we see of him is him clutching JYL’s body, completely in shock, having not yet processed her death. I believe his last words to WWX should hint to us what caused the snap from blind faith to blind hatred. These words were: “Didn’t you say you could control it?! Didn’t you say it would be fine?!” To which WWX (who is having 99 fucking breakdowns all at once) finally admits that he was wrong, and that he can’t actually control it.

My belief is that this incident made JC realize that JYL’s death (and JZX’s as well) was largely caused by WWX’s loss of control over his demonic cultivation, and IMPORTANTLY, JC’s inaction re: WWX’s method of cultivation and his seeming descent into violent radicalism. Despite all the warning signs, the growing escalations, the increasingly violent confrontations with increasingly large death tolls— he continued to believe in WWX, even when he could no longer understand or predict WWX’s actions. Everyone told him “you need to reign him in” “he’s going off the rails” “he’s a danger to us all” and JC didn’t take them seriously because he BELIEVED IN and TRUSTED WWX.

And now his sister is dead, his month-old nephew is an orphan, and WWX has massacred three thousand people in a single night, likely including members of YMJ, in a total loss of control and conscience. I think that was the turning point, the crux of the betrayal.

I believed in you. I defended you. I stuck my neck out for you. But you scorned my help. You rejected and discarded me. You betrayed my trust.

You don’t give a shit about me.

You don’t give a shit about anyone else.

I BELIEVED in you, and YOU BETRAYED ME.

—

NOTE: Right now this meta is getting a little long, so I think this is a good place to maybe cut it in thirds? Part II should cover the siege, WWX’s death, and the 13 years in between, and Part III should cover JC’s actions and motivations after WWX’s resurrection. As the next parts have not been written, I can’t link it! But when Part II is done, I will edit the post to include a link below the cut:

[Part 2 is still in progress!]

[nando161mando]

Man this shit is depressing.

[literarymerritt]

Knee deep in the Void Odyssey and you're bleeding me out, is it casual now?

Art Tumblr | Twitter

[dawnbreakersgaze]

The fact that Dr Zayne is saving people who want to live

And Dawnbreaker Zayne is mercy killing people who want to die

And both are obsessed/disturbed with each other across space and time

Really has me fucked up in a lot of ways and I'm not okay about any of this

[m-aximumjoy]

Some interesting similarities between the forms of Falling Devil and Darkness Devil.

There’s the use of multiple bodies to create a singular form, the angular shapes, the mantis-leg-like appendages, the sheer height.

These two also share very strong hand motifs, which makes sense for both of them: when it’s dark, you have to feel your way around, usually with your hands; when you’re falling, you try to grab onto something with your hands.

I’m curious to see if the other Primals look anything like these two.

[littlebreadrolls]

The backstory for this pic is that I actually only started drawing again after a few years bc I'm trying to be less depressed, and I was super depressed last night and stayed up drawing a catfe for hours rather than doing work that I should've gotten done, but fuck it I'm so burned out.

So yeah, here's this ... thing?:

[dendroaspis-viridis]

I'm begging you, BioWare... Learn from the mistakes of Baldur's Gates past...

[yardsards]

hot take but you all NEED to stop telling people to kill themselves.

yes, even *those* people. i don't care if you're talking to some monster who puts live puppies into a wood chipper for fun, don't say that shit.

because mx. puppychipper isn't gonna be affected by your words.

but you know who might be affected? some innocent third party reading the words you said on a public website.

because telling people to kill themselves says "suicide is a punishment for being a bad person. bad people, upon realizing they're bad, should simply commit suicide instead of working to atone for their actions."

and that is NOT a message you wanna be normalizing to anyone, but ESPECIALLY people with depression (who, let's be real, make up a higher than average chunk of this site's userbase). whose mental illness is already telling them that 1: they're an inherently terrible worthless person no matter what they do 2: death is an appealing option.

is reading "kill yourself" once or twice gonna make them do it? nah, probably not. but reading it multiple times a day every day is gonna make their mental health worse. it's probably not good for your mental health to be saying that kind of thing, either.

just knock that shit off. the world is already so hostile to people with mental illness, and managing mental illness and unlearning unhealthy thought patterns is already so difficult. you don't need to be out here making it worse.

[bedupolker]

unpopular opinion??? But Radiohead should NOT be considered incel music, their most incel-y song is creep and they've famously hated that song since before even recording it, they are more like existential dread music.

[jevilowo]

Good morning internet, I've decided to be annoyed about this again

[yuripira4e]

trying to explain to other otasune fans that snake is NOT the one with internalized homophobia in their coupling

[thedickgraysons]

tamlin doesn’t need a redemption arc. tamlin needs a rocking chair and a 12 gauge laid across his lap so he can take pot shots at rhysand the next time he next breaks onto his property

[your-villainous-neighbour]

regarding tv Geronimo Stilton with utter disgust in my eyes and tears on my face

[minothtime]

The tragedy that is the Barnes family, who had to watch their only son and his best friend both leave marching towards a war that would eventually claim them, who died without ever knowing they would be alive and reunited in the far future, who died believing they would meet Bucky again yet never did...

And also the tragedy of Bucky and Steve never getting to see their family again, who have to live with the knowledge that they're still alive while Winifred or George or Becca aren't, whose last memory of them is a painful goodbye and broken promises...

Not to mention how Sarah Rogers never was more than a footnote in Captain America's story, when she probably worked so hard just to keep Steve alive and happy, who is only remembered by two (broken, lonely, sad) people, who never got to see the good her son would do...

[yandere-daydreams]

but see geto has the aura of a man who fucks

girl i think that's just the cult leader aura. your confusion is valid though they're practically identical.

[arthursfuckinghat]

Me, hanging around camp to find interactions and conversations that I've never heard before:

Everyone at camp: go away