She spoke words that would melt in your hands

Like, by no means am I trying to weigh up the MXTX love interests' separation periods (as I like to think of them), but Hua Cheng had hope that he would find Xie Lian - he had so much hope that he actively searched for eight hundred years for him before he found him. Luo Binghe was able to bring Shen Qingqiu back, was in the midst of doing so when the mushroom body situation happen and then (while it wasn't Luo Binghe who did it) did bring him back.

Wei Wuxian died. Like straight up, no coming back, impossible to see him again, died. And I sometimes feel like saying that Lan Wangji was waiting kind of undermines the fact that this was a soul-crushing thing, and this was just going to be the rest of his life. There literally was no fucking shot of Wei Wuxian coming back in anyone's even remote comprehension, and the fact that he did come back was a fucking miracle in and of itself.

Lan Wangji mourned for those thirteen years. Hua Cheng searched, Luo Binghe (it's been a while so call me out if I'm wrong) was almost in denial over Shen Qingqiu's death even though he comprehended the sacrifice so he planned, but Lan Wangji mourned, and was going to mourn for the rest of his life. He just had to get used to the fact that he would never, ever get to see the love of his life again. There wasn't even a body to bury. It was just the memories and the gradual, slow descent of those memories disappearing with aging.

ALSO now that I'm thinking about it, the fact that he couldn't even talk to anyone else about it. Obviously, there's this whole thing of memories being kept alive through like sharing and talking about them, but Wei Wuxian cemented himself as basically a taboo subject. A monster who is only talked about to scare people or to curse out his name. Those who remember him can't or won't talk about him for one reason or another, and that means that Lan Wangji is left all alone, mourning someone who nobody even cares to talk about, and that will be the rest of his life. He has come to terms with the fact that he will die with the faint memory of Wei Wuxian's smile and that's all.

And, once again, this isn't trying to make a competition out of the separation periods, I could just as easily talk about how Hua Cheng's despair of not being able to find Xie Lian but knowing that he is alive somewhere (or is he? Has he gone? Faded away? Is Hua Cheng just looking for a memory?). I could talk about that desperation that Luo Binghe felt at losing the only person he had ever loved and been loved by, who had sacrificed himself to save him when he needed him most, who gave so many mixed signals, and then needing to get him back by any means necessary. But this post was borne of me being tired of the 'waiting' label being applied to Lan Wangji's mourning period.

But I think FMA does also does an excellent job choosing when to not let Ed come out on top. We just had the Nina episode and now Ed is in the middle of processing his first "catastrophic failure to save someone" type of failure since attempting to bring his mom back. He's dealing with a low that's absolutely hampering his abilities and the tonal shift hits for me in the way that 1) he doesn't notice Scar's initial attack against him (Al has to pull him away) and 2) Ed absolutely freezes up just thinking "This is bad."

This is, perhaps, baby's first "someone is coming at you with the full, concentrated, explicit intention of killing you" and Ed is so genuinely out of his depth with it. He really does try. He gets immediately bested. He's staring at a situation where Al is directly in harm's way. And Ed just lies down to die like a dog...

Because when we as fans write fix-its (visiting the modern world and SY gets to have both SVSSS and his modern family, the System's actually well inentioned all along, etc) we are in conversation with the original work. We are going up to it while it cries and shows us it's cuts and scrapes and giving them a clean and kissing it better. We are, even by writing it out, acknowledging the real pain in the work.

But when that sort of fix-it gets applied by canon to canon? It's like giving a crying toddler a lolly to calm them (money) while you rush to get a bandage only to turn around and discover the kid was never really hurt and they feel really proud of themselves for pretending to be in pain so good when everything was really fine. There's no catharsis, only the feeling of being duped.

Because when canon additions do this, the author - although I very much doubt MXTX meant to - is basically saying "none of it mattered. None of the pain mattered, non of the moral complexity and depth and hard choices were real".

Oh, Airplane had to choose between MBJ and his real life? No he and SY can have both! Oh, SY might have trouble being gay in the real world? Nah, his family's pretty cool with it!, Oh, so there was actual death and grief and consequences? Don't be silly, can't have downers in this! Oh, so the original novel said that the reason PIDW went downhill was because of money issues in the real world? Money issues, what are those? Obviously MBJ and LBH can get servants and manors from nowhere! Wouldn't want them to slum it like dirty poors!

Okay, so if you were never going to punch me, why the fuck did you pretend this was a boxing ring?

And worse? By ripping the depth from Shang Qinghua - by making it actually Shen Yuan's world, by making him a vessel that a story was told through rather than the person who created it - MXTX has stripped her novel of one of the most important themes in it: the complexity of the act of creation and how it can become corrupted.

Because by making Airplane actually powerless, actually sneered at by the System, actually not good enough, and actually not in control of the story; not the creator of the world? MXTX has ripped the theme of Creator vs Reader and Creator/Editor vs External Social Pressures from her work. And that underlying theme - that subtle meta-discussion about the state of the writing industry -was what separated SVSSSS out from so much other meaningless wish-fulfillment isekai slop.

Because until this new extra came out and retconned it all away, SVSSS was a book with something to say.

Xie Lian: sees the youth is also wearing all red and is ridiculously knowledgeable on heavenly stuff

Xie Lian: knowing damn well that it is probably Hua Cheng himself,

"So friend, do you know about Hua Cheng?"

"Oh, he is called Xueyu Tanhua, how is that?"

"How does Hua Cheng look like?"

"What is his weakness?"

Xie Lian is so damn funny for pulling this off

He also compares Hua Cheng to a sharp sword unsheathed which is a neat way of calling him hot lol

BISEXUALS GROW FROM THE GROUND