charming, to the last

the weird schrödinger's emotion that is "that character death was narratively satisfying and emotionally impactful and ultimately the best way to handle their character arc" simultaneously with "noooo but I wanted them to live :( :( :("

A character trait/dynamic that I'm endlessly compelled by is someone dealing with (or, like, failing to) being the child of people who were too busy being good people to have the time and attention to be good parents. This can be anywhere from 'was a public defender who gave a shit working 60 hour weeks with basically no vacations' to 'left their family behind to join the revolution/war effort and is now a universally beloved martyr-hero who saved/remade the world with their final breath' on the groundedness spectrum. The important thing is a viscerally felt but confused and ugly mess of longing, resentment, and guilt about feeling the resentment.

Thinking about the whole "there is no platonic explanation for this" thing and how it doesn't account for intense platonic situationships and anyways I think we should start saying "there is no casual explanation for this" bc really what we're talking about is the way the characters in question are Obsessed with each other

my lowest-stakes headcanon is that jiang cheng actually does not like lotus-seed-derived desserts at all, because something about the sweetness just does not agree with him. naturally No One Can Know and he has a huge complex about this

Some days I'm like oooo Jiang Cheng was a very smart and capable leader who spent the years after Nevernight raising his clan to wealth and greatness of political power so he could compel the Jin to grant a toddling Jin Ling to him for at least a few months in Yunmeng and the other days I'm like. He was just standing outside his room wasn't he? JGS was trying to get it on with some courtesan and Jiang Cheng was there right outside banging and barking at the most inopportune moments like a very stubborn and distinctly insane dog (<- this is where JGY actually got the comparison) until JGS told JGY to drive him away by whatever means necessary even if it was chucking baby Jin Ling at him and JGY was like. "You know what. That guy is insane but he's not JGS. Anything is an improvement. Just let me also see him occasionally." And baby JL was sent to Yunmeng just like that.

Oh so when Nie Huaisang tricks a guy into stabbing his best friend to death it's ""justified revenge"" and ""very girlboss of him"" but when I, Xue Yang--

of course, the best part of any character's corruption arc is their cool new outfit

Can you imagine being Jin Ling and surrounded for years by rumours that your crazy uncle has a torture dungeon in memory of your other terrorist uncle and is the spiders georg of uncle torturedom (others include all stately and calm people with negative insanity) and then realising within half a year he is the sanest one because the rest of the list is just: murdered other uncle (cold blooded), murdered other uncle(accidental), murdered dad, slept with uncle who murdered dad, gave up his life to bring back terrorist uncle who murdered dad, and created an elaborate plan that nearly murdered him twice to murder at least one uncle who murdered other uncle whose head may or may not have been in your house. It actually might've been simpler if the torture dungeon or murdering terrorist uncle was the only problem but no. There is seriously something wrong in your household if the chillest guy is Jiang Cheng 🤣🤣🤣🤣