I always found it very funny that while HC and LWJ's flirting attempts post-waiting flew over XL and WWX's heads, LBH's flirting attempts after the two years were interpreted by SQQ as murder attempts

Wei Wuxian and the Difficulties of Morality

Wow so I did not realise how much discourse there was around Wei Wuxian and moral greyness. Let me erm… poke around a little because that’s a hobby of mine.

Btw, I usually write about SVSSS. This won’t change. This is a one-off thing (for now).

I hate how some people are like "you either have to think Jiang Cheng is in the right or Wei Wuxian is in the right" and they hate one or the other character and it's like NO!!!!!!!!!!!1! NEITHER ARE IN THE RIGHT OR WRONG!!!1!1!!!! AND IF YOU THINK ONE IS BETTER THAN THE OTHER THEN YOU HAVE AN INCREDIBLY SHALLOW INTERPRETATION OF THE SERIES!!!!!!1!!1

Birthday Gift for a lovely friend hehehehe

THEM

雨

"Mu Qing was wrong." "Xie Lian was wrong." "Feng Xin was wrong."

They were children.

I know they were like 22 but I see early twenties as basically children. They haven't lived any significant life that can tell them how harsh the world was going to be at that age. Xie Lian and Feng Xin were definitely unprepared for the world outside the palace walls. Xie Lian was 17 when he ascended which makes the whole situation worse. I've always assumed Feng Xin was the same age and Mu Qing was a year younger. They didn't have time to do any growing up in heaven so by the time they had their homeland and everything they knew and loved wiped away, they had no idea that it would just be the beginning of their tragedy. (This reminds me epically of the Jiang trio and I'm glad that we don't lose anyone in this version).

TALKING A LOT ABOUT TGCF BOOK 4. THIS IS YOUR CUE TO SLIDE AWAY IF YOU HAVEN'T READ IT. SPOILERS.

Who do we start with? Mu Qing? I will admit and agree, Mu Qing was a coward. Of the three he had the highest chance of holding things together. Yes, it's not his job to babysit the fallen prince and I can guess that he assumed staying as an extra mouth to feed would only cripple Xie Lian. I understand his reasoning. If got ascended he could better look after Xie Lian and Feng Xin and help Xie Lian ascend faster (it's just a shame that Mu Qing isn't great at vocalising his amazing ideas). He's always been a coward among royalty but it's not surprising considering they treat him like dirt so of course he was hesitant to defend Xie Lian in front of the other little godlings. Mu Qing knows suffering, Xie Lian was just experiencing it for the first time. Mu Qing was scared of living in suffering again. He'd been running from it since he managed to enter Xie Lian's court. By hook or crook he was determined to provide a better home for his mother, he was going to make good use of the life she'd given him, there was no guarantee he'd get that at Xie Lian's side. Xie Lian was immortal, nothing was gonna happen to him. That promise hadn't been given to Feng Xin and Mu Qing so they were risking their lives just being around him and all his bad luck. So Mu Qing ran. He was ashamed of it, as anyone would be, but it just seemed the right decision. If he could help Xie Lian by prospering then why stay? If he could do so much more, why keep tying himself down with the fallen prince? It was better to go than to stay and end up regretting never leaving. That regret could have turned into hate for Xie Lian.

(Honestly speaking, Mu Qing and Feng Xin would have left one way or another. White No Face wasn't letting Xie Lian have friends or support. He got rid of his friends, his family, even his most devoted worshipper. He would have one way or another driven Feng Xin and Mu Qing to suicide or death. Anything to make Xie Lian break.) Sorry, this is long.

Then we have Feng Xin, who was Ironically doomed to fail the second Mu Qing left. Feng Xin, unlike the other two has no family apart from Xie Lian, so he doesn't feel obligated to leave and take care of any sick parents. He can take care of the Prince's parents. He's lived his whole life doing as he's told, always obeying the royal family, being good for his lord and master, like a patient little puppy. Except it's so much harder outside of the palace. He works tirelessly for money, hoping to put a smile on Xie Lian's face but Xie Lian just gets more desolate by the day. Feng Xin staying is almost as bad as Mu Qing leaving. Now Xie Lian is scared. Scared that Feng Xin will go too. He doesn't deserve the patient man's loyalty. Feng Xin is not the best at emotional intelligence so he doesn't understand why Xie Lian is shutting down, distancing himself, no longer talking to him. Feng Xin finds himself pushed away by everyone he's trying to grow close to and he doesn't get it. It saddens him so much that the only one he can rant to is a lady at a brothel. He doesn't understand what he's doing wrong but he's determined to try his best. His best is not working at all. Xie Lian keeps disappearing and returning worse than before. The King and Queen are panicking. Feng Xin is trying to hold the crumbling pieces of an already fallen world together, and it's not at all what he's cut out for. So when Xie Lian snaps at him, it all just topples over.

Feng Xin has lived his entire life following orders. When Xie Lian vaguely tells him to get out, he figures his presence has not made the prince happier, it seems to drive him further away, agonise him, he's not doing a single thing right and he doesn't understand his master anymore. So what's the point of staying? He leaves because, just like Mu Qing, he feels it's the right thing to do. As soon as he leaves, everything is exposed as the mess it is. Everything falls apart.

Now Xie Lian. There's a surprising amount of people misunderstanding Xie Lian, even the people painting him as an angel at this point of the story. Xie Lian, the crown prince of Xianle, the beloved prince of the heavens, is a spoilt naïve little rich brat. There is said it. At this point of the story, that's all he is. When he comes to realise it, he hates himself for it. That's why he's got so much beef with his father. He sees himself in the fallen King and he loathes it entirely. He loathes that he's not used to being cold, or helpless, or poor, or scared, or confused, or alone, or unsure. He's always been able to fix things, after all he's the perfect one. He's better than his father. How can't he fix something so simple? Why does he feel like a failure now? Why does everyone hate him for trying to help? He's the most confused he's ever been in his life. The perfect little illusion he's been living in all his life is shattered in the ugliest way possible and he's losing everyone he loves. He's desperate to fix it because he's the one everyone looks to for things to be fixed but he's failing and he's scared everyone will realise that and then they'll leave. His attempts to remedy to problem just causes the problem to expand. Xie Lian is really the biggest loser of the whole scenario. I don't understand how anyone can point fingers at him for the shit that happened. He's struggling so much. His friends are struggling too and he hates it. Oooooh. If there's one thing Xie Lian hated more than being poor, it was watching the people around him suffer because of his new status. Which is why he got so much better once he was alone and just adapted to his suffering. Mu Qing left, Feng Xin was working for him with nothing to gain, his parents kept hoping in the future but his Cultivation wasn't working. The little perfectionist was crumbling and to make things worse, a Calamity and decided to make it his divine business to torture him everyday. It is a whole miracle that Xie Lian survived that experience. He's got very strong willpower. I'm pretty sure he was running on pure spite. "You want me to turn evil so bad? I fucking won't you piece of shit! See how you like it!" We've got our own translation for why Xie Lian survived (damn this post is long).

At any rate, the Xianle trio incident is something I cannot brush off as black and white. There was no good or bad, it was three children self destructing so bad and the only one who was surprisingly able to come to terms with what happened was Xie Lian. Then he went back to heaven to heal the others. They had so much baggage to work through. I'm glad that MXTX allowed the healing process to happen and not the thing we got with the Yunmeng bros.

Tgcf fans do you guys remember that scene where Xie Lian's coming out to the head priest and he's like "oh your bf is a ghost king? That's cool love who you love girl : )" and then xie lian mentions his birthday and the head priests like "wait he's a fucking GEMINI? never mind break up ASAP !!!!!!"

who hurt him :(

An "I can fix him" character dating an "I can make him worse" love interest/antagonist for a net gain of 0 character development.

Actual plot of Thousand Autumns:

Evil minions: hello, sorry to hear about ur amnesia. btw you're part of our evil sect. we do evil!! and play weiqi sometimes. let's go kill a family.

Shen Qiao: 😊

Evil Minons: ... where ... did u SAVE THIS FAMILY??

Shen Qiao: 😊

Evil Minions: how could u do this to us, ur evil sect brothers?

Shen Qiao: i just don't feel evil?? so i thought it would be more chill to let u keep pretending and simply help them escape 😊

Evil minions: u are gonna wish u stayed to be evil with us, being alone and mostly blind and injured and with amnesia is a bad deal

Shen Qiao: k well no hard feelings, thanks for the good times amid all the deception. 😘

Evil Sect Leader: hello, here to troll u and remind that life is suffering. also: all men are evil and scum, so why not be evil WITH FRIENDS ??

Shen Qiao: no thank u 😊

Evil Sect Leader: how about now?? do u feel more evil now?

Shen Qiao: no thank u 😊

Evil Sect Leader: SO MANY MORE bad things have happened to u. Most, if not all of them, I initiated. Do u feel ready to give up on humanity yet and BE EVIL??????

Shen Qiao: no thank u 😊

Evil Sect Leader: what if I sell u to a predator to die in a gruesome fashion??? i wonder how EVIL u will be if in some unlikely case, u survive certain death? 🤔

Shen Qiao: actually I am now even more of an unsullied pure heart. ☺☺☺

Evil Sect Leader: "..."

Shen Qiao: if u think about it, it was my fault all along for assuming for even 1 day that an evil demonic sect leader wasn't gonna take the first opportunity to betray me. you're never gonna change, oh well. 😊

Evil Sect Leader: ... you're... really NOT evil

Shen Qiao: very much not, but we're both all alive and everything, so really no need to dwell. let's just part ways here. live and let live. 😊

Evil Sect Leader: NO

Evil Sect Leader: I've changed

Shen Qiao: LOL 😊

Evil Sect Leader: no i mean, I'm still EVIL. obviously. But my feelings for you, they changed

Shen Qiao: ... H E LP

Evil Minions: i am very confused about everything that is happening here... but does this mean he's actually our shidi after all?

i know we talk about xie lian’s loneliness a lot (and we should) but today i am thinking about feng xin’s loneliness

i think mu qing leaving hit him a lot harder than is clearly shown in the novel, which is fair considering xie lian is the narrator and was - to his own admittance - not in the headspace to notice or understand feng xin’s emotions really at all during that time

but i really think it’s clear that mu qing leaving hurt him, especially when we see how quickly he is ready to accept that mu qing came back and brought them the rice with good intentions. to quote him, “i’m pretty surprised too, that he’d actually come back to help. i’m the one who judged him wrong.”

more than anything else though (bc feng xin and mu qing’s relationship then Was complicated), i am thinking about how feng xin threw everything he has intro trying to love and care for both jian lan and xie lian, (and the king and queen) at the same time. no matter how difficult it was to balance loving all of them, he was determined that he would do it all, that none of the people he was loyal to and loved would be abandoned.

and then jian lan and xie lian both sent him away. broke up with him, if you will. and then he spent 800 years “mostly in the mortal realm.”

like. did he have anyone? i’m sure he had acquaintances in heavenly court but like…… did he have anyone …… it doesn’t seem like it.

shovel, talk…?

THEY’RE HOLDING HANDS!!!😭❤️❤️❤️❤️

"then your highness, do you know why I refuse to leave this world?"

tian guan ci fu/heaven official's blessing - hualian

it really is concerning just how readily some people will accept the in universe rumors about jgy or jc as 100% truth

like, by that standard, we should all irrefutably condemn wei wuxian. on top of ruthlessly slaughtering thousands of innocents, the guy causes DROUGHTS and EATS BABIES, for crying out loud.

it’s almost like mxtx was trying to make a point…something about how people will latch onto nasty rumors no matter how baseless….perhaps something about mob mentality and bandwagoning…mayhap…a criticism of attempts to eliminate nuance by reducing highly complicated individuals to either “good” or “bad” so it’s easier for us to decide who we want to condemn…..

When even the goddamn villain is calling you out on how slow your slowburn is