Hating/criticising Jiang Cheng For His Canonical Shitty Behaviour Is Not “bashing” Like Girl, He

I think one of Hua Cheng's favorite ways of teasing his husband is by praying to him

Since Xie Lian gets a hefty following in time, he gets busy trying to help his believers, and that means answering a lot of prayers

And what is Hua Cheng if not his god's most devoted believer?

However, his prayers are rather unique

From "i pray his royal highness the prince of xianle no longer dumpster dives in ghost city because his husband will offer him whatever he needs" to "i pray his royal highness the prince of xianle eats three meals a day and no longer pretends one stale meatbun is a meal when his husband is away", its usually cute, sweet or funny things that Xie Lian finds so adorable to listen to

Until...

"I pray his highness the crown prince of xianle one day awaits his husband after a long day's of work only wearing the red lace robe said husband gifted him some time ago and nothing else beneath..."

(Xie Lian scolds his San Lang about such an indecent thing to pray for bur San Lang just innocently goes "His highness wouldnt abandon his most devoted believer's wish, would he?")

'mine'

When I first started MDZS I had a theory that the fierce corpse they were piecing together was WWX's original body and it had been kept and experimented on by some wannabe demonic cultivators hoping to figure out how he was so powerful.

And I'm thinking about it again.

Imagine WWX, fresh from whatever afterlife his soul was in, ready to just fulfill the requirements of the spell that brought him back then lay low and spend the rest of his new life in peace. That plan immediately gets thrown off course by a cursed hand and LWJ showing up. He is now, through circumstance and his own inability to Let Things Go, dragged into this mystery of finding out who this fierce corpse is and why it's here.

And at some point he realizes he recognizes those hands. He knows those marks. He remembers those calluses.

And he has to deal with the fact that the betrayal and rage fueling it is HIS betrayal and rage. All the emotions that he set aside to stay focused on keeping himself and the Wen remnants alive for as long as possible are now right in front of him and impossible to ignore any longer.

When does LWJ put it together? After WWX? At the same time? It would be hilarious and tragic if LWJ realized first and assumed WWX already knew so he didn't say anything.

No idea how this would fit into the whole thing with NMJ and JGY. I could see a story getting away with NHS still getting involved for WWX (I don't care what anyone else says, they were FRIENDS), but is NMJ dead? Did he die the same way? Is he alive and just hanging around the background this time? Is he now a SECOND Fierce corpse they have to deal with? I can't imagine him dying the way he did and NOT becoming a fierce corpse.

It's been too long since I've read canon to dig into the details but this idea has been hanging around in the back of my head ever since I first read it. Anyone else thought the fierce corpse was WWX? I can't be the only one.

i have a severe disliking for the concept of wei wuxian & jiang cheng reconciliation which honestly, didn’t start out that way. my first reaction to seeing these tags and also stories was that “oh nice, jiang cheng growth will be shown post-canon” because for me this reconciliation is only possible in the scope of a redemption story. and yes, jiang cheng’s redemption specifically. but much to my surprise, alot of these conceptualisations put the weight of reunion and reconciliation squarely on wei wuxian’s shoulders and that feels fundamentally wrong somehow, when i know that it wasn’t wei wuxian’s outlook that needed changing but jiang cheng’s.

sometimes, it is so funny how my experience with mo dao zu shi keenly parallels my experience with the my hero academia fandom. for anyone in the know and for anyone who would relate, jiang cheng & bakugo katsuki are so hilariously alike–especially in the way the fandoms treat these characters and how the fandoms place the weight of mending things on the wronged main characters. (and if i allow myself to get even more meta–even the tag wars are so alike i feel myself going through deja vu these days lol)

listen, i get the appeal of creating fanon explanations for unsavoury actions of characters we like and i know that some things can be enjoyed in a varied manner but there’s a way to make a canonical asshole more likable that doesn’t handwave away their wrongs or create justifications out of thin air for them or–and this one actually grates on my nerves–recontextualise things so the person they wronged somehow “deserved it” and it is: taking accountability and atoning and having that introspection and awareness, through whatever journey of growth, that yeah i fucked up and now i need to unfuck things if possible. but now that i have dipped my toes into stories of reconciliation and found myself a bit, uh, repulsed, by how wei wuxian had to make more efforts (or even equal efforts), it has permanently soured me on the concept. which is a bit of a shame.

Time Passes

AU where Meng Shi was just a bit more cynical and spent her hard-earned on buying Meng Yao study materials for the Imperial Examination instead of dodgy cultivation manuals. Cultivation is for his father to teach him, after all.

Meng Yao fucking blitzes the exam, because of course he does, and the first time he arrives at Koi Tower it's with an imperial mandate to audit the shit out of them for tax purposes.

He Xuan: You won't believe who just came up here for the third time.

Hua Cheng: ........Don't joke about that.

He Xuan: I'm not, I swear! And he broke a bunch of stuff on his way in.

Hua Cheng: What.

He Xuan: Um, yeah, you know his two babies that you hate? He hit one with a giant bell and smashed the other one's palace.

Hua Cheng: I am definitely in the right religion.

The boys are back! Back to save the day!

Okay, so I thought Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng’s friendship was one of the best parts about season 1 (because you gotta build them up in order to watch them fall, right?….). I especially enjoyed how in the last episode, while everyone else was pretty much horrified/despairing about seeing the Yiling Laozu!Wuxian for the first time, Jiang was just like, “You look great for a demon lord, man–now let’s go kick some Wen ass together!”

Good times.

The Yiling Patriarch

Wei Wuxian: Lan Wangji is just as if not more chaotic than I am you have to believe me. He’s constantly playing pranks and running into danger

Jiang Yanli: Oh please, brother, he’s the picture of solemnity and levelheadedness. He would never do things like that

Lan Wangji, who slept with his eyes open and seated on the bed the night before specifically to scare the shit out of Wei Wuxian because he knew he was coming home late: *stonefaced* It’s true I’m a saint