I absolutely adore the way MDZS treats and talks about the concept of revenge. It says "Yes, getting payback on the things that hurt you is actually a stellar concept. In a vacuum. However, there is no true and quantifiable way to actually equate one evil deed to another, making the entire quest for revenge pointless because you will have no way of knowing when justice was actually met." Xue Yang killed dozens and tormented Xiao Xingchen for years, all for the sake of a lost finger, and still ended up unsatisfied, and all our hero has to say is why didn't you just take his arm and call it a day. Jin Guangyao taking the very neat, methodical approach to eliminating everyone who ever wronged him but by the time he gets there he gets taken out by another revenge seeker before he can even bask in it. Jin Ling wanting so so bad to hate everyone involved in his parents deaths but finding himself utterly unable to because they're all just messed up people and now he has to live with the fact that he's an orphan and that's just that. Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian hiding their good deeds from each other because they know it will just complicate everything even more and further muddy who was the wronged party. That one cultivator who goes on a hate filled tirade talking about how he's going to avenge to death of his parents and Wei Wuxian just replying "My life already sucked so bad, what more do you want from me?"

You can never have revenge. The world is too big and messy and you'll never just get the pure, satisfying moment of feeling like all your problems are solved because you harmed someone else. Purely because by the time you get there some unseen factor will be added to the equation and it suddenly won't count.

Do ya'll ever think about how every character in MDZS is living in a radically different genre of story?

Cause yeah, sure Wei Wuxian is living in a danmei fantasy novel with strong romantic comedy elements, but if you slide over a bit Lan Wangji is living a serious and heady drama about regret, loss, yearning, the passage of time, and ultimately atonement.

Scooch on over to Xichen and your in a straight up Greek tragedy, right down to the parable about hubris and trust. Jin Guangyao is living meanwhile in a political dark fantasy al'la Game of Thrones, Nie Huaisang is in a Gothic moody Monte Cristo-esque reflection on revenge and deception, and while Lan Sizhuhi and Jin Ling are living in two VERY different YA fantasy books ('magic boarding school/secret orphan of destiny' and 'Steven Universe style coming of age/discovering all your family are some flavor of evil and magic' respectively).

Everyone connected to Yi City is living inside a dark psychological thriller/horror flick, except for Xue Yang who is in a Found Family/Enemies to Lover fic right up until he isn't.

Jiang Cheng's entire life has been one long soap opera, and it is showing no signs of stopping anytime soon.

I'm pretty sure I'm w o r t h l e s s if I can't be of s e r v i c e

a genius anon suggested "surface pressure" from encanto as a 3zun song and I've not actually seen the movie but the moment I listened to the song I was like OH NO. TIME FOR FEMALE 3ZUN FEELS (under a cut, because it turns out I have a lot of them)

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stupid idea for a MDZS fanmade visual novel:

you play as jin zixuan. after a long series of various events and misunderstandings, you come to understand that your acquaintance jiang yanli, who you once wrote off as average, is in fact a perfect soul who you desperately want to marry. the only problem now is that she 1. is still convinced that you hate her, 2. probably hates your loser ass too, and 3. is surrounded by men and women who are far more qualified to date her than you are. #1 and #2 can hopefully be resolved eventually with enough time, effort, and apologies.....but #3 seems to render that impossible, since if you're not careful any one of these "more qualified" bachelor/ettes might snap her up first!!!!!

you immediately identifies wei wuxian as your biggest threat, because from your (jin zixuan's) pov, wei wuxian is jiang yanli's male childhood friend who she super dotes on. after seeing how close they are, you are initially almost ready to give up - except then you find out that lan wangji is gay and in love with wei wuxian, and thus realize that you can eliminate wei wuxian as a threat if wangxian get together. 

you then realize that this also applies to everyone else you see as a romantic threat. so, because you are a problem solver, you come up with a solution: before any of jiang yanli's friends can make a move on her, you will find a way to pair them all off with each other. that way, they will all be too busy dating each other and your path to yanli's heart will be (relatively) clear. 

so instead of being a dating sim, the objective of the visual novel is to help all the various side couples involving yanli's friends get together, so none of them can threaten xuanli. 

ideally, the game will let you freely choose which couples to push together, so there will be a wide variety of routes and endings.

("jiang yanli's friends" in this game is just the set that includes all the mdzs characters more commonly shipped with each other. jiang cheng is there, but he's yanli's brother so he's not a threat. so zixuan's strategy for him is just to keep him available on the side, so he can be paired up with whoever's left over after all the other matches have been made but is still a high enough threat.)

jin zixuan's threat assessments (accuracy not guaranteed):

extremely high:

• wei wuxian

high:

• nie mingjue (bc of his muscles)
• lan xichen (bc he's popular)
• wen qing (bc even straight girls would go lesbian for her)

medium:

• wen ning (he seems too timid for dating)
• nie huaisang (he seems more interested in hookups than dating)
• jin guangyao (my own half-brother wouldnt betray me....right?)

low:

• mianmian (she's my friend so she wouldn't betray me. also she seems interested in someone else (mr. mianmian))
• lan wangji (gay, uninterested in women)
• su minshan (too much of a hater)
• jiang cheng (brother) 

conditions for victory:

1. wei wuxian must be paired with someone.
2. everyone from the high-risk group is paired off.
3. a maximum of 1 person from the medium-risk group is left unpaired; everyone else from the medium-risk group is paired off.
4. yanli approval score (explained below) is above a certain threshold.

you do not need to pair up anyone from the low-risk group in order to win; the low-risk group is there purely to help you. pairing off people in the high- and medium-risk group is necessary not because they are actually a threat to xuanli, but rather because jin zixuan will only feel secure enough to confess once almost all of his perceived romantic rivals have been removed.

some game notes:

• throuples are allowed.
• while wangxian is the most straightforward way to eliminate wei wuxian as a threat, the game also allows for other wei wuxian pairings. in other words, you as the player can betray lan wangji by pairing wei wuxian up with someone else instead - in which case the game is still winnable (ie. jin zixuan can still get together with jiang yanli, which is the victory condition), but you also unlock a special CG of lan wangji crying.
• the achievement of the victory condition is decided not just by whether or not you successfully pair everyone else up, but also by a hidden metric called the yanli approval score. this is calculated by your interactions with wei wuxian, jiang cheng, and jiang yanli herself as the game continues: if you are kind to them, then the score goes up, and if you are rude to them, then the score goes down. if your yanli approval score is low enough upon the game's end, then yanli will still refuse to date zixuan even if you've successfully paired everyone else off.
• notably, attempting to pair jiang cheng up with someone and then failing nets you a severe yanli approval score demerit, while successfully pairing up jiang cheng with someone nets you a high yanli approval score increase. interestingly, pairing chengxian together nets you the highest increase in yanli approval score.
• if you get nielan together and then do not pair up jin guangyao with anyone, then the game gives you the option of putting in the hard work to help him network. it is highly recommended that you take this option, as if you do not, jin guangyao will expose to jiang yanli everything you as jin zixuan have done in the least flattering terms possible, which will make yanli unwilling to date zixuan and will net you a game over.
• if you get xiyao together and then do not pair up nie mingjue with anyone, then the game gives you the option of putting in the hard work to find him a hobby. it is highly recommended that you take this option, as if you do not, nie huaisang will push jin zixuan into the traffic and you will get a game over.
• if you intend on pairing up jiang cheng with anyone other than wei wuxian himself, then wei wuxian will run interference against you; a successful strategy therefore must include anti-wei-wuxian measures. this remains true even if you previously helped wangxian get together, because wei wuxian is an ungrateful bastard.
• if you intend on pairing up jiang cheng with lan xichen, then both wei wuxian and lan wangji will run interference. because of this, the xicheng route is probably the hardest route involving jiang cheng in the entire game; to compensate for this, the xicheng route also has the second-most CGs (after wangxian).
• if you get jin guangyao together with someone, then he will offer his assistance to you for the rest of the game. this translates into additional stats, intel, and information on who likes who the most, which will make the rest of your run easier.
• if you get nie mingjue together with someone, then nie huaisang will offer his assistance to you for the rest of the game as well. nie huaisang offers the same assistance as jin guangyao above, but he also includes his own commentary and opinions.
• you (as jin zixuan) cannot date anyone else. sorry zixuan x other shippers, this is a xuanli game.

Bonus 15: Same name, Different frame.

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chesecak 🤤🤤

I find it funny how jiang cheng experiences misogyny despite NOT being a woman??

Like he is emphatically not a woman, alright, but he's an 'ex' in the narrative sense. The bitchy love rival between the BL couple fandom would have hated on a couple of years ago before we accepted it was cringe to hate on the rival, she deserved better etc etc except. He's neither a woman OR technically, a romantic rival. Most of the subtext is sibling subtext.

He's paralleled with his mother who is also somewhat given the hysterical woman treatment by her husband. Jiang cheng says "Father doesn't like me because I'm my mother's son". Did jfm take one look at this kid and go "I hereby assign him his mother at birth"??? Even in wei wuxian's narration he subconsciously parallels Jiang cheng to his mom. They both have tempers, wield zidian, wear purple if you want to go there lmao, but that's a surface level 'woman are unreasonable and somewhat the same' reading. Like.

He is actually not his mom. He arguably breaks generational abuse cycles because jin ling is confident Jiang cheng loves him in his own way. He did not set out to have that kid, he chose to be responsible anyway because that's his sister's son. Jiang cheng doesnt spend years not-communicating in a bad marriage and taking it out on his kid. He lets wei wuxian go at the end because there's no point in dragging it out and everyone being more unhappy after he somewhat gets an explanation on WHY wei wuxian went off the deep end (aka golden core reveal).

But the easy read is to go, 'quick temper and harsh words- that's yu ziyuan's next coming'

So it's deeply funny to me that he's assigned scorned-ex-wife by narrative, if I'm making sense.

WHY IS HE TALKING ABOUT JIANG CHENG WAITING FOR HIM WHILE GETTING RAILED BY LAN WANGJI IN LAN WANGJI'S OWN DREAM????

The terrible irony of Xue Yang and Jin Guangyao never being able to replicate Wen Ning's ferocious power in their fierce corpse experiments is that, really, they did have the perfect candidate for it all along. A person who, like Wen Ning, spent his whole life serving others, swallowing down one humiliation after another, pretending to be satisfied with his lot in life, grinning and bearing the worst of humanity's prejudices and cruelties—the perfect conditions for creating resentment strong enough to fuel a fierce corpse of the Ghost General’s caliber.

Fortunately for Jin Guangyao (and the cultivation world at large), Xue Yang was never going to make that connection on his own.