#lcfys

but like imo i think the story could've been more interesting if eleanor knew about her past as jianghe from the start, or at least most of it if not all. to me it would've made everything just so much more OOMPH yk? like in this case eleanor would be over the moon to find mc/fuguang again, but because mc doesn't know about their past life she has to keep it to herself. which throws her off a little but the more time she spends with mc as mc and not the shadow of fuguang the more she comes to like the person mc is now. at the same time, it could be a way for eleanor to achieve that simple life she couldn't have with fuguang in the past as a cultivator. ofc this means eleanor would beef ON SIGHT with nyx, but that's a sacrifice i'm willing to make LMFAO. eleanor would be a lot more protective of mc around nyx, and i think it'd help flesh out nyx's character to in some way since their beef gets more screentime. it would also help with eleanor's house arrest arc; maybe before eleanor's visit to mc's house, she rationalised nyx's presence to be that maybe, "chimei" has been reformed and no longer exists and despite how annoying nyx is she's still just a human girl who happens to be annoyingly clingy to mc. but after eleanor runs into bell and bell accidentally spills the tea about how nyx is still chimei, eleanor could pivot hard into her paranoia for mc's safety and it would feel less like the plot suddenly turned up to 10 out of nowhere.

other bonuses of this adjusted storyline would be that i get Soulmateism and "i'll find you in every life" in my yuri and that's like drugs to me frankly. but also i feel like there's just something so tragically beautiful if el remembers her past life because it just means jianghe loved fuguang so, so much that both it and her grief and guilt transcends lifetimes. jianghe loved so strongly it haunted her and it still haunts her, every iteration of her. pre-mc jianghe/eleanor would be someone defined by their grief, by a profound sense that something inside her is missing, that there's a void there she'll never be able to fill. which ALSOOOO makes a convenient excuse for el to interact with her sister more, or at least, we get to know more about el through cassidy's eyes beyond "she's a hardass older sister". in this version maybe cass notices that, for as long as they've been alive, she's always seen this emptiness in el that nothing has been able to fill... until mc. mc's introduction into el's life is the first time cass has ever seen el so alive, wanting to do something out of her own volition and not because it's what she should do to repay their adoptive parents, or to succeed financially in life or whatever. with mc, el is finally whole. do you see how this is making me insane.

i'n this vein i'd also change eleanor's BE. from what i know of it, she fawking DIES, which is diabolical but also not the worst thing that could happen to el. the REAL worst thing that can happen to el is if mc dies again. at least if el dies and mc survives, she still corrects her weakness if her past life. if mc dies? that means nothing's changed, she's still the weak, pathetic jianghe she was before, a cultivator worth nothing if she cannot save even the one she loves. this is the pure el torture ending full of nothing but TORMENT <333