Some Random Puddle

The beginning and the ending.

After binge-watching Yuri On Ice (again), I was trying so hard to identify the feeling in my chest and my overwhelming need to return to this anime over and over again. Like Yuri, I struggled to come up with a single word to identify that feeling, but I think I finally pinpointed it.

Hope.

What I feel when I watch YOI is HOPE. Over 12 epsiodes we watched characters develop both personally and professionally, each fighting for their own goals but never viciously tearing each other down (except as misguided attempts to motivate each other and simple trash-talking which exists in all sports). It is a world where your worst enemy is yourself, and even that enemy can be vanquished with the right support system.

Kubo gave us a world without hate, a world where the love between two famous men is so accepted that many viewers couldn’t wrap their heads around the fact that it was real. A love that wasn’t extravagant and showy, but was still so real that it left all the fans with swooning hearts and a desire for a love like that. It stopped being love between two men, and started being a simple definition of LOVE no additional qualifiers needed.

In creating this world, where skaters of different backgrounds, from different countries, of different races and ethnicities, of varying ages, and of different sexual orientations not only compete as equals, but respect each other as equals, Kubo gave us an incredible example of how the world could be if we let it. YOI showed us what a world of acceptance would look like, and by God, it is so beautiful.

So, yes, I’m going to call that feeling in my chest a feeling of hope. Hope that someday our real world can be as lovely and accepting as Kubo’s. Hope that someday every person could experience the freedom to be treated as an equal, regardless of any quality. And when I feel the world turning uglier, I will again and again return to the world of YOI, even if only to ignite that hope once again.

Trauma–especially intense, horrific trauma like what Jiang Cheng went through–often leads to intense issues of anger and hatred. It makes you deeply emotional and can often lead to you becoming unstable. Jiang Cheng lost his entire family and community in the span of a few years. He didn’t have access to therapy (something that literally anyone would need to heal from that), he had to rebuild his entire sect, likely had to fight an uphill battle in order to be a significant part of Jin Ling’s life, all while cleaning up the mess that Wei Wuxian left behind.

This is not to hate on Wei Wuxian, he’s my third favorite character (after Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji) and I love him deeply, but he left behind a legacy that Jiang Cheng had to clean up. Whether or not he realized this would happen, Wei Wuxian created a cultivation path (gui dao/ghost cultivation) that is extremely dangerous and horrific. While I still don’t know if I believe that Jiang Cheng killed every demonic cultivator he came across, I don’t know that it was necessarily a bad thing that he did kill them. We’ve talked a lot in the cxc server about gui dao and demonic cultivation and just how much it harms the mind and body. Wei Wuxian is the exception to the rule in having such control over it and even he eventually succumbed to it. If demonic cultivators are causing great harm, then a cultivators job is to stop that harm and the source of it. That may mean killing the demonic cultivator. I think people get mixed up when (I think it was Jingyi) said that Jiang Cheng kills the wrong person. I believe it was @twilightarc-gm who said that “wrong” doesn’t imply innocent but rather the fact that the person isn’t Wei Wuxian. We know that Jiang Cheng spent thirteen years trying to find Wei Wuxian and when he does find him, he doesn’t kill him despite having literally every reason to.

Like idk y’all, if the guy that got my entire clan wiped out, my sect burned down, and caused the deaths of my sister and her husband died and came back from dead, I wouldn’t just threaten him with a dog and yell at him. I would kill him. But he doesn’t he has every opportunity to in multiple instances after confirming that it’s Wei Wuxian, but he never does. He seems more interested in dragging Wei Wuxian home (literally stating that he’s going to bring Wei Wuxian home to Lotus Pier to kneel before his parents’ graves). Like that doesn’t imply that he’s going to kill Wei Wuxian, but rather make him repent. 

I think it’s telling that despite a lot of Jiang Cheng’s hurt and pain, he still chooses to not severely hurt or kill Wei Wuxian, it would be within his right to do so, but in the end after it’s all over, he let’s Wei Wuxian go. He doesn’t tell Wei Wuxian that he sacrificed himself for him, because he knew that Wei Wuxian would feel guilty and obligated to him, just like Wei Wuxian knew Jiang Cheng would feel guilty and obligated. That to me shows a survivor choosing to break the cycle of hurt and pain and I have to question why Jiang Cheng antis so often choose to ignore the side of him that does love Wei Wuxian (it’s up to the viewer whether they see that love as romantic or platonic), enough so to let him go and not burden him with pain.

Someone on Twitter said “white haired Jiang Cheng with his hair down” and they were Right.

(x)

Follow-up:

“I will follow you way down, wherever you may go. I’ll follow you way down. To your deepest lows. I’ll always be around. wherever life takes you. ”