Salmonfresh

hualian on its surface seems like a stereotypical bad boy hunk x innocent twink relationship but when you look beneath the surface it's not really that?? i mean it is but it also isn't at the same time.

because, y'know, there's the whole power dynamic of xie lian literally being hua cheng's god, and the literal reason he exists. but there's also the fact that hua cheng is pretty much the same thing for xie lian---he's figuratively his source of power (being his most devoted and oftentimes only believer, exchanging spiritual energy with him, etc) during the story, and literally so in the extras, if my memory serves me correctly.

they basically hold so much power over each other and yet are equals at the exact same time, and the specific way they showcase these dynamics wouldn't have worked if it wasn't a 800 year long slow burn between two immortals.

Like, they may all want to be super cool and heroic and fight monsters, but none of them want to be in a soup kitchen handing out bowls. Xie Lian would have been that God except he’s a Prince and a God so the fact one the richest Gods and a Prince is getting down in the dirt with the people would have made him a problem even if there was no White No Face plot like he was always kinda doomed to be shunned by the Gods.

Hua Cheng doesn’t form an attachment and loyalty to Xie Lian all of a sudden in just one or two moments, it’s a subtle but gradual buildup. It wasn’t just because he saved him from falling, and though “live for me” was the turnpoint of his life, it wasn’t the only reason why he dedicated himself entirely to Xie Lian. Hong’er saw Xie Lian defend him from Qi Rong and against Mei Niaqing’s reviling and put the people of Xian Le before himself repeatedly. Hua Cheng doesn’t just love and desire Xie Lian, he deeply respects and admires him. What exactly, in that heartrending “I know every good and bad thing about you and I love them all” speech, made these people think that Hua Cheng loves and follows Xie Lian only because he saved him once and told him to live for him?

Another thing that pisses me off is when they complain that Hua Cheng “lacks” a moral compass, which tells me immediately that they do not remember that among other “scary” things Hua Cheng is famous for getting rid of tyrannical rulers. Not simply rulers that he doesn’t agree with, not rulers that have wronged him in some way, the text explicitly says “vengeful, malevolent tyrants”. He simply says “hey I’m coming over :)))” and the tyrants are like “oh shit I fucked up. Immediately kms”. If he lacks a moral compass and the only thing he cares about is Xie Lian why would he care to go after bad people? Wouldn’t he be just feared instead of also respected and beloved by all of Ghost City’s regular citizens? More importantly Xie Lian, the person upon whom Hua Cheng supposedly built all his morals, almost immediately confronts Hua Cheng about his worry that the Gambler’s Den is dangerous and sinful. Hua Cheng doesn’t fold to Xie Lian like you might expect an obsessed person might: he very candidly says that if Lan Qianqiu hadn’t intervened, he would have. “If I don’t control this place, somebody else will. I’d rather that person be me.” which, for anybody with critical reading skills, is obviously him saying that he cares his City doesn’t devolve into a chaos of murder and sin. He obviously doesn’t care to be morally righteous, but to say that he has no moral compass at all is preposterous at best.

Also Hua Cheng is a ghost, not a human. You can dislike it but in the TGCF world ghosts need a lynchpin to stay on the mortal plane. If Hua Cheng’s reason to exist hadn’t been Xie Lian you can bet your asses that antis would also have been yapping in the trenches about how he doesn’t truly love him and is only obsessed with him. This is a story about undying love and devotion and if you interpret it with human standards (I am baffled every time because why would you even) and criticize Hua Cheng for not finding something else to live for in 800 years you have failed. And no matter how embarassed and unworthy of it Xie Lian might feel, the truth is that the strength of Hua Cheng’s death-defying feelings is exactly what he needs. Xie Lian, who was abandoned by everybody he ever respected and held dear in his life and reviled by the whole world, does need somebody who will make him the center of his entire existence.

Quotes below :-)

And no, we don't know everything about his story, be we don't know that for xl or any other character either. Explaining everything isn't possible anyway, and that combined with mxtx's tendency to leave some things ambigous, it makes sense to omit whatever isn't relevant, that's what stories do.

However, while capturing the personhood of queer people; Danmei also captures the queerness of people because none of these stories would work if the characters weren’t gay/queer

Wei Wuxian’s absolute buffoonery of misunderstanding Lan Zhan’s feelings in a decade long telephone game in which neither of them open their damn mouth would never work in a non-queer story because between a man and a woman romance would be the natural assumption of everyone around them and therefore wouldn’t leave space for confusion. The misunderstanding of their romance is so closely tied to the plot succession that the plot would be… non existent without it

In TGCF Xie Lian and Hua Cheng’s absolute aspirational love is literally in the backseat and front seat of the story. Not too different from a classic hero’s journey but instead of the hero being one person, it’s two people. They are so intertwined with eo that they become one character and witness a lot of the story together. Witness being a very interesting word choice. Their queerness doesn’t drive the story but replacing one of them with a woman would dampen the effect— it’d remove the uncertainty, the confusion from everyone around them, the genuine slow burn of the romance. There’s also this idea of Hua Cheng falling in love with Xie Lian so far separated from concepts such as gender or whatever which wouldn’t have been hammered home in a straight romance where those conversations aren’t always had between the audience and the story

And Erha.. well obviously. Half of Chu Wanning’s “this is so inappropriate” spiral wouldn’t exist if he was a woman. And, the idea of Mo Ran being a “cut sleeve” builds up the under current of his character being so far dismissed by society because he’s seen as immoral. Which just wouldn’t serve to the same effect if he was into exclusively women because so was every other character.