Camiii

Someone shared with me a list of reasons a CQL-only compiled for why they hated the novel, and I thought…. you know what, it’s actually the perfect vehicule to create a masterlist of refutations to accusations made by people. 

1. Nonconsensual phoenix mountain kiss: 

This one is easy because I can just link this post. But let me just quote this part:  The kiss is non-consensual because it was written to be non-consensual. mxtx is not trying to pull the wool over our eyes. The reason why we, as readers, can infer that, is because the non-consensual aspects of the kiss are important to the events of the plot, some of themes explored in the book, lwj and wwx’s relationship after wwx’s return, and lwj’s character arc. mxtx uses this moment and its aftermaths, amongst others, to make a point about consent and communication in relationships  […] isolating events in the novel like the Phoenix kiss scene to mark them as Good or Bad without considering the context in which they happen and are explored within the novel is just bad literary analysis :/.  

2. sex where lwj is drunk and thus cant consent

The narrative actually gives us signs that LWJ is actually no longer drunk by the time they have sex: however these need to be subtle and open to interpretation to both WWX (the POV character) and the reader to allow for the miscommunication that takes place next and for the reader to be more likely to buy into that conflict. 

First, let’s remember that LWJ and WWX have sex late into night, the sun is almost up, and LWJ drank around 7pm. That’s a lot of time to sober up. But that’s not the clue. See, it’s been established in the novel that LWJ has a very high pain tolerance, and that he remains stoic when faced with pain (for example when he received a punishment alongside WWX during the CR arc). However, as WWX gets lost in his thoughts when he rubs LWJ’s back, he is taken out of them by LWJ’s sudden and loud exhale. WWX thinks that the reaction is due to him hurting LWJ, but we know that’s just not something that would happen from him rubbing his skin raw. Instead, it seems more of a signal that LWJ sobered up and realised the situation they were in and was shocked, perhaps even scared of what he might have done in his inebriated state to get there. Moreover, as bigbadredpanda points out, the way LWJ acts and speaks after this moment is different from how he spoke when he was drunk. This is audible in the audiodrama, which was produced with a lot of input from MXTX. So, in short, while it was meant to be subtle so that readers could, like WWX, misinterpret the situation and buy into the ensuing conflict, the novel does suggest that LWJ was no longer drunk when they had sex. 

3. miscommunication after sex as a plot device

This feels like a Cinemasins critique where someone is just describing that a storytelling device was used. Miscommunication happened, creating conflicts and situations that advance the plot…. which is bad….. because……? Going back to the first post shared regarding the Phoenix Mountain kiss and the theme of consent, this miscommunication between wangxian after they have sex for the first time is a sort of thematic climax: it perfectly makes sense why it is there if one pays attention to themes and how they influence the conflicts that arise in the narrative. 

4. wwx’s obliviousness

You’re in luck because canon!wwx is actually not oblivious! It’s crazy what we can find hidden…. in the text of the novel 🙃!

5. the fact that it’s implied wwx is straight in his first life and gay in his second (him wondering if being gay is contagious bc he took mxy’s body)

It was a joke. Jesus Christ, people, do you really need a character to say “jk”  to get it? 

He was making light of something serious (ie, realising he was not as straight as he had thought and having to grapple with that realisation on top of his feelings towards LWJ), like he always does. In any case, even if you missed out on the tone, the novel establishes that WWX liked LWJ from the start, and himself says so in the Lotus extras. This is not even subtext.

6.going off of this…. the fact that mxy is gay and effeminate and sooo much smaller and shorter than lwj. oh and also he’s a lunatic :/

MXY is not incredibly shorter than LWJ (8 cm or 3 inches), and WWX before his death was 2 cm (not even an inch) shorter than LWJ. Fair reason to get our pitchforks out 🤷‍♂️. 

 We do not really know if MXY was actually effeminate (and in any case, MXY is not WWX), and he’s not a lunatic because he’s gay. The novel says it so textually, that it was the result of  his mistreatment and being scared off by JGY before he was sent back home in disgrace. Moreover, WWX’s performance as MXY is not him acting like he thinks MXY acted, but him weaponising the rumours about MXY. 

An aside, but I would like to challenge this fandom’s issues with the portrayal of feminine gay men that I see to be rooted in an understanding of heteronormativity that suggests that the possibility of a gay man being coded as feminine is inherently heteronormative (unless he dates another gay man who is also being coded as feminine, perhaps) as this goes against a lot of queer critiques of media which argue instead that having only depictions of gay characters that seem to fit within the heteronormative norms safe from whom they are attracted to (ie only presenting straight-passing, masc gay men) actually maintains heteronormative norms and a binary vision of gender. 

7. the stupid epilogue where they do their weird roleplay shit in public which only serves to show how mxtx thinks gay men kissing is sinful and it will corrupt little girls

😬 Okay, so…. just a quick note, if you want to portray yourself as a person who stands up for queer men and against homophobia, demonising the act of having sex in public spaces is really, really not a good look. Just…. my advice, from me to you. (google cruising + homophobia or cruising + policing if it’s still not clicking). 

Second of all, it’s kind of a bad faith representation of what takes place in that extra. Wangxian are in a public space, yes, but only insofar that they are in the woods by a burial site in the middle of the night: they believed themselves alone, for obvious reasons. Moreover, they do not imply that them kissing was sinful: when WWX say in the translation ‘we have sinned’, it is because their kissing was already moving into something a lot raunchier, let’s say, when an unsupervised kid (who they would have never expected would be in this place at this hour) happened upon them and rightfully ran away at the sight. It was not about them being men, just them doing adult things that were not meant for a child’s eyes. It is not a thinly-veiled “children must be protected from gay men” fearmongering thing since, in any case, Xiao Mianmian warms up to them by the end of their interaction. 

“This might hurt a bit,” Hua Cheng said, “Don’t hold back, ge ge. Cry out if it hurts.”

—Chapt. 95: Mind in Disarray but Say Not the Tender Heart is Too (Part One)

We have spent almost 100 chapters of this story watching grotesquly torturous things happen to Xie Lian that he is always able to shrug off. Some take him more time, but for the most part, we are inundated with the message that Xie Lian, after 800 years of hardship, is essentially impervious to pain. But then, this happens:

“I…” Xie Lian said.

Before he finished his sentence, he felt Hua Cheng squeezed with a bit of force, a series of pain crawled up his leg, and he couldn’t help but shrink back.

Although Hua Cheng’s strength was already extremely controlled and this little bit of pain was nothing to Xie Lian, but for some reason, in front of him, Xie Lian seemed to be unable to hide away his pain.

—Chapt. 96: Mind in Disarray but Say Not the Tender Heart is Too (Part Two)

oh i sure WOULD!! this is also TRAGICALLY old but anyways.

referring to this post

i have. like a whole fic that’s kind of sitting in the nebulous vibes stage, with pieces of scenes etc, but largely, it’s something I’d like to write focusing on the previous generation and how their tragedies played out/how that influenced the kids. tw for discussions of rape, death, sexual assault

so here are my premises:

1. Lan Qiren and Qingheng-jun are the twin jades of their generation, close in age and also just like, close personally. a wangji and xichen relationship, with their own quirks

2. jiang fengmian, wei changze, lan qiren, yu ziyuan, madam jin and jin guangshan were all cultivators in the same age group/would routinely go on night hunts together. i hc that jfm, wcz, and lqr met cssr on a night hunt when she first came down from the mountain.

in terms of how the friendships/groups usually broke down depending on the situation I have it like:

lqr + qhj as the twin jades

jfm, wcz, lqr as like, their sort of study trio

jfm, wcz, lqr and cssr after she joins up as a power quartet

jfm, wcz, cssr as yunmeng-affiliated eventually

yzy, madam jin, yz, jz together as sect siblings

yzy, madam jin, yz, jz, cssr together as a group of really terrifying women

jgs getting tacked on here and there with madam jin sometimes -- they’re betrothed and i don’t think there’s NO affection between them, but it’s. hm, strained

i kind of extrapolated this out from a couple of details that we know:

one: the extracanonical bit that mxtx shared saying that cssr shaved off lqr’s beard once saying that “he looked better without it” but in reality, it was because his stubborn adherence to the rules almost got him, her and jfm killed during a night hunt -- therefore, we know that they did cultivate together as a team of three at one point. I can’t remember if wcz was there lol, but given that jfm and wcz were so close, I’m sure that there were definitely times the four of them would hunt together.

two: jfm and yzy used to cultivate/night hunt together, which is mentioned in i think uhhh chapter 51?? in yzy’s introduction. so we know that they were also nominally like, friends? or at least friendly.

three: yzy and madam jin are both from the meishan yu sect (sect sisters) and that they’re very good friends. this is why they arrange for jyl and jzx’s marriage. we also have jinzhu and yinzhu who are yzy’s close handmaidens that have accompanied yzy from birth/childhood not sure.

ANYWAYS: you can see how like those friend groups would overlap and shift around and such, esp if they were all in the same social strata.

here’s how I feel about cssr’s relationship to the men in general:

obviously, she loves wcz -- they marry and have wwx

i think she also loves lqr and jfm, but not in the same way

jfm i think loves her, but understands that he’s not her choice and kind of just pines about it and gets over it to have a fraught kind of love with yzy

i think it would also be really interesting if lqr ALSO loved her, but never really even got the chance to pursue it given what his brother pulled

cssr doesn’t like jgs and thinks he’s too arrogant for his skills -- bc cssr comes from bssr’s mountain removed from society, I feel like she probably has little to no patience for such things as wealth status -- is he good at cultivating? no? then why should she care?

and here’s how i feel about her relationship to the women:

this is... more complicated. I think there’s a lot of mutual respect between cssr and the other women, but i also think a healthy amount of animosity/jealousy/disdain as well, primarily because i don’t think cssr has ever really had to experience the misogynistic pressures of living in a worldly society and therefore i think actually... has somewhat little sympathy for women who have grown up in a society because she just doesn’t get it. i think this is evidenced simply in her marriage to wcz -- to marry for love with no regards to societal status. after all, if jfm favored her, she could have been the wife of a great sect leader, but she chose a servant.

ANYWAYS! enter: madam lan. we know that qhj met her on a night hunt and fell for her instantly but that she did not and then killed one of his teachers. he then, defying his entire sect, married her and said he would defend her against the world before shutting the both of them away in seclusion for the rest of their lives, leaving lqr to pick up the pieces.

i honestly think about how devastating this must have been for lqr like, a lot? to know that your own brother would abandon you for a woman he didn’t even know? that he would leave all his responsibilities to you, that he would saddle you with his two children that he had with this woman, that he would force you to put aside every hope you had for your life in order to clean up after his mistake? your elder brother, who was supposed to look out for you? who you were supposed to follow? fuck!

in terms of how much of the incident is public knowledge, i’m... not sure. it seems like it’s mostly kept on the DL, but for the purposes of my own personal preferred narrative, I believe that most of the higher up players in the sects know vague details -- after all, it’s hard to hide that your sect leader got married to an unknown woman and then instantly went into seclusion. also, as i hc that lqr’s best friends were jfm, cssr and wcz, I presume he might have told them a bit more.

here’s where i think the falling out occurs: I believe that yzy and madam jin are probably both quite sympathetic towards madam lan because they know intimately what kinds of disadvantages a young woman faces in their society. madam lan killed qhj’s teacher for “unspecified grievances”. while i personally like to believe that madam lan killed him for the reasons that men kill other men: revenge, blood feud, etc. i think that one of the first assumptions that’s going to rise to people’s minds, especially other women, is that she was raped or otherwise sexually assaulted. i think this is probably especially hard-hitting for madam lan and yzy because of the nature of jgs. do i think madam jin experienced marital rape several times during their marriage? yes, bc like. well. we’ve seen the jgs is absolutely capable of sexual violence (madam qin). but, with their positions in society, madam jin really has nothing that she can do or say about her situation now that they’re married. even if she doesn’t love him, even if she hates him, even if her feelings are complicated or whatever, she doesn’t have the power to escape her own predicament. if yzy is one of her best friends, I suspect she would also know this and be furious about it -- but what can they do? and now, knowing that a man that they were nominally friends with is going to imprison a woman that they suspect has been raped and forcibly marry her? I think they would be really angry and disgusted with qhj for that kind of behavior.

cssr on the other hand, I don’t see as someone who would be able to grasp the tragic complexity of madam lan’s situation precisely because she doesn’t have that ingrained experience of what it means to be a woman in this worldly society, and i think her attitudes about the entire situation would probably come off as callous and hurtful -- i think she’d be the sort of person to say, “what in the world is he thinking? he should have killed her. that’s what I would have done to someone who killed or hurt my master.” and if yzy and madam jin tried to explain what they think might have happened, I can see her reacting with a disdainful confusion: “well why didn’t she just say what had happened? why all this lying? why hide?” and yzy and madam jin wouldn’t be able to make her understand like. what that means. what that would have meant. i think cssr probably isn’t aware of what madam jin is going through--or if she is, she’d probably wonder why madam jin even married such an asshole in the first place. but of course, madam jin didn’t really have a choice. and yzy, with her personality, I think would take that sort of casual insult to her friend to the grave.

ANYWAYS!! i can see that leading to an irreparable break in their relationship (cssr, yzy and madam jin) and also to a strained relationship between yzy and jfm who are either married or betrothed at this point. i think jfm’s personality would probably lead him to try and smooth things over like “okay, cssr didn’t meant it that way, she just doesn’t understand, you know she’s from the mountain--” and yzy shooting back “well of course you’d take her side, you’re a fucking man how would you understand” etc etc.

so then wcz and cssr go off for a little while due to this break/increase in tensions with the intention of returning after wwx is born but then they’re both killed in a freak accident during a night hunt and wwx disappears. :’D

i am. constantly also thinking about how much grief lan qiren experiences in his life. just like, how much he’s lost -- im sure there’s grief for cssr and wcz, and then his brother, and then jfm and yzy, and then to watch wangji seemingly repeat the mistakes of his father? god. anyways this isn’t a very strong ending to the post, but the events that take place after this are just the events of the book after all. it’s not a happy story, and it hurts me A Lot. :’) i hope uhhh, you enjoyed??

03.28 HAPPY XIAO CE'AN DAY 🐺💙

"i want the moon!"

one of my favorite things about cean is his courage and unwavering will to reach for the unreachable. he wanted to fly, so he tamed a gyrfalcon to become his wings. he wanted the moon, so he held lanzhou and never let him go🥹🥹

indulgence and freedom has always been equivalent for cean. he doesn't feel free if he can't express his desires...i think this is a consistent theme throughout his character arc. he learns too that sometimes there are things he can't obtain no matter how strong he is 😔

Xiao Chiye: No you.

Shen Zechuan: I'm down.

Hello! It’s been a while, but I’m back! There will be spoilers. So read at your own discretion.

I read all of Erha about 2 years ago, and I’m currently re-reading, though I’m only in book two. I liked Erha the first time I read it, and I still like it now, but there’s something I’ve been wondering within the fandom. When I first got into the series, I looked for content to know what I was getting myself into. And I was really curious about the student-teacher relationship, because even though I had read SVSSS from the first volume, it’s established that Chu Wanning does have feelings for Mo Ran, and for 16-year-old Mo Ran or even younger. Unlike in SVSSS, where Luo Binghe is the only one who had obvious feelings for Shen Qingqiu until years later, when Luo Binghe is an adult and Shen Qingqiu develops his feelings along the way. But again, Chu Wanning liked Mo Ran since the beginning, which is very curious to me because this novel is very popular besides the 3 MXTX novels. I found this very controversial, but I read the book anyways, and overall, Ranwan’s relationship progresses throughout the novel, and it’s very cute with the right amount of everything. However, in the back of my mind, I kept wondering about Chu Wanning. I do love him, and I think his character has so much to offer, but why? Why does he like Mo Ran when he’s a kid?? (I know the answer, but I'm trying to make a point.) I think something like that is very weird; Meatbun could’ve pulled an SVSSS, and yes, while Ranwan does get together with adults, it doesn’t change the fact that Chu Wanning liked his teenage student as a 26-year-old man! And it really makes me wonder why the fandom doesn’t talk about this enough, how weird it is. Chu Wanning liking Mo Ran as a teenager; most people make jokes or don’t really take it for what it is. Chu Wanning never acts on his feelings or does anything, but it still doesn’t change the fact that he had romantic feelings. I feel like we need to talk about this behavior more; no matter how much I love Chu Wanning, this is very much creepy. This is not a post hating on meatbun or erha or chu wanning, again, I do like this book and the romance and how it’s set up. but, this will always bother me, but other people act like it’s not that big of a deal or pass over this fact. So, I want to know what you guys think about this.

2ha is incredibly problematic, so I think a ton of readers go into it well aware of this aspect. I really don't know why, that in the crazy list of trigger warnings, the 10 year age gap with an underage student is never listed at any point. I think a lot of readers feel more comfortable ignoring it rather than facing it outright. But, with themes of SA- we gotta discuss the other elephant in the room. I love 2ha, so just know that critiquing media we love is super important because fiction does have real life implications!

I think Chu Wanning's attraction isn't sexual- however, he is still attracted to Mo Ran when he is still a teenager. I know a lot of fans try to pass this off as okay because it's never acted on, but it really isn't okay. In my mind, Chu Wanning is emotionally stunted, so his attraction to Mo Ran is based on a mix of the attention and kindness that he receives from him. Chu Wanning is also made out to clearly disdain any and all types of dual cultivation and practices an abstinence based cultivation method (how does he cultivate after breaking abstinence? idk ?). What I can say for sure without spoiling much more is that I think the fandom really needs to discuss this aspect of the story more because as much as we all love Chu Wanning, he's also not a good person. Yeah, he's better than Mo Ran, but what makes CW and MR perfect for each other is that they're both really messed up people. MR literally SA'd CW, and CW literally had a crush on MR when he was like 14. Like. They're both awful people <3, but they make each other better. Mo Ran decides to be better, so he feels deserving of Chu Wanning. Chu Wanning begins to express himself more because of Mo Ran. The two have such a unique dynamic that I could go on for forever.