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that isn't to say those who died or were bereaved after nightless city or the first siege of the burial mounds weren't hurt by wei wuxian’s retaliation. but calling them "wei wuxian’s victims" while ignoring that cultivation society scapegoated and hunted him down, and that wei wuxian never attacked without being threatened first, is a massive oversimplification.

sure we have minor characters like the cultivator who lost his leg or the cultivator who lost his parents, and sure mxtx writes them as part of a mob of more unreasonable people who were largely not even present for these events, but the thing is... there are major named characters who were present, or who had loved ones there, and their grief and pain are given full attention by the story. they're called jiang cheng and jin ling.

my sister/my mother died at nightless city because of you! except no, jiang yanli actually died because an entirely different nameless cultivator stabbed her, and she intentionally pushed wei wuxian out of the way to protect him out of sincere love. it wasn't the first time. she already demonstrated this when she stood up for him and called him her blood brother in front of her fiance and his family at an event they were hosting, when she had zero backing support and could've easily been dumped and had her marriageability ruined for speaking out of turn.

who's to say that jiang yanli's death wasn't the only instance of cultivators dying at nightless city from friendly fire during all the chaos? we don't know. the one thing we do know for certain is that once it was all over, the survivors attributed the (dubiously counted) thousands of casualties to wei wuxian alone.

saying that wei wuxian was the sole cause is overly convenient for cultivation society. in particular the major sects politically did not want to help the wen remnants and were content to mistreat them in forced labor camps. they thought that wei wuxian was too dangerous with his unique ghost path of cultivation and use of resentful energy, so they gathered everyone up and tried TWO different times to assassinate him. the first time just killing wei wuxian alone. the next time, taking all the remaining wens out with him.

there's a lot left unsaid about these major battles and sieges which leads to a lot of our discourse as fans to begin with-- we have such limited information about all these major events of the past! and unfortunately for us, that's the point!

that's the thesis of the book! the details of the pain and grief you go through don't actually matter! regardless of it, you have to eventually move on. you have to actively choose good, to do what you think is right for the sake of doing the right thing, and not just to act based on your idea of fulfilling debts or deserving to be repaid a certain way!

I'm kinda died when I've finished this

Can I just say what a smart decision that was for the author? She decided to portray the circumstances of an abusive relationship from the outside, leaving the audience to understand her situation, miss her, and worry for her.

It also subconsciously taught a generation of readers to recognize the hardships victims of intimate partner violence face--without blaming those experiencing this hardship or shying away from them. Hatchiko/Nana is a whole person with dreams, desires, social connections and personal identity, none of which were perfectly understood by those who were closest to her.

Jiang Cheng’s actions aren’t in some sort of void. Which means it’s impossible to talk about other characters or write meaningful metas without talking about his impact because surprise!

Jiang Cheng is an important character.

So, if someone wants to write a character meta on Jin Ling, but they cannot do that without discussing the overall impact of JC’s physical and verbal abuse on JL and what effect it has; that the person who loves and protects you is also the one who harms you. But if the only discussion allowed is ‘how JC hugged and cooed over JL who was the most loved child ever’, then the fact that JL doesn’t remember being hugged until Wei Wuxian or the fact he was hit at all is buried and you get fanfiction instead of character discussions.

Do you want to explore the power structures? Classism? Patriarchy? Do you want to write about mob behavior? How the Great Sects are set up and how society revolves around them? Overt and subtle homophobia vs acceptance? The mottos of each individual clan and how the founders made it vs current state? Just discuss the events and how they played out in MDZS and why?

You need to refer to the actual text.

Which means you need to talk about JC as he is written and not what he ‘secretly’ could be. Not what you wished he could be. And certainly not rewriting his clearly stated intentions into well meaning fluff about how you think a person would react in the same situation.

But when all text discussions are viciously shut down, you get fanon that doesn’t fit with the actual events of the book. So trying to discuss the basic plot of how WWX died, because he didn’t conform to society and how propaganda can turn a good man into a monster by the powerful, can’t happen. Because that means talking about people in the society like JC. And if JC is rewritten as someone who ‘meant well’ and would never harm anyone deliberately, then as the man who lead the siege to kill WWX, things stop making sense. His actions are not in a void like I said before. And to keep making sense, now all the main characters involved have their intentions and actions rewritten to support the JC fanon.

MDZS stops making sense. The themes stop making sense.

Jiang Cheng is an integral part of MDZS and when canon discussions about his intent and actions are shut down and continue to be shut down or rewritten, the plot of MDZS unravels.

And as people who love MDZS and thrive on such discussions, whether it is about the themes or the characters, people who love to explore MDZS as it is, having a tag which uses the word ‘canon’ wasn’t the end of the world and certainly isn’t the ‘bullying’ that toxic stans or so called ‘neutral’ groups continue to claim it to be.

But since the actual tag made for canon discussions has been destroyed by campaigned and targeted harassment by stans, there can be nothing done and everything will be posted in the main tag anyway.

If you talk certain ways about certain characters, I am not going to trust your politics. That doesn't mean I think you're a Bad Person or Evil or whatever, but it means that I am going to assume that you likely have some ideological viewpoints (consciously or unconsciously) that I disagree with.

For example, I don't think anyone is Bad or Evil for liking Draco Malfoy. But when people write Draco Malfoy-friendly fics that lean on/positively portray wizarding versions of white nationalist rhetoric, I'm going to assume those people have some sympathy towards white nationalist ideas, whether they are conscious of them or not.

In the same vein, I don't think anyone is Bad or Evil for disliking a specific Black or female character. But when people talk about Black or female characters certain ways, I'm going to assume that they have some biases (conscious or not) against Black people or women.

To some degree, it doesn't matter if I'm right. I'm not calling specific people out based on perceived ideology; I'm not going out and finding people who I think are Bad or making lists. But when people talk about how they just coincidentally aren't interested in any female character, or all of their favorite characters are white male villains, or they find that Black character just a little too angry, or they think that male character's violent behavior was justified because of something someone else did to them once, I'm going to assume that that reflects their viewpoints about real people, because it's the only thing I have to go off of.

MY LORD?? there is no way I can follow you there!

Timblr... you get me!

@admirableadmiranda, you also get me!

-Chapt 93

I've seen this scene shared around for people to feel bad for Feng Xin and say it's sooo sad and tragic that Xie Lian trusts Hua Cheng more than him now etc. When I just see Hualian and think good for them! Xie Lian found a close friend that he can trust after years alone and Hua Cheng is obviously happy to be that person.

Didn't Feng Xin already leave abandon Xie Lian bc of the whole "stealing is so terrible, how could I follow a god as terrible as you" thing- why did he think Xie Lian would go back to their old dynamics again??

And he never bothered asking Xie Lian about Bai Wuxiang at all since it became pretty damn obvious that Xie Lian wasn't "being delusional and losing his mind" considering Jun Wu literally killed him around his second ascension.

Now that the same threat is back, he is actually offended that Xie Lian trusted Hua Cheng above him?? Gee, I wonder why......

If Mu Qing was a jealous bastard who relished in Xie Lian suffering or doing something morally reprehensible (aka all the gloating in Fangxin arc), Feng Xin is just as terrible for still putting him up in a goddamn pedestal and feeling "betrayed" that he isn't so good (again him being "how could you" in the same arc as if both didn't literally break into Xie Lian's palace)

The way he is so damn entitled as if Xie Lian has to confirm to his image that he hasn't updated for 800 years (not that it was accurate even back then) 😫

It's fairly common to see people talk about representation issues or bigotry in fandom as simply an inevitable result of the original media. If there aren't women or people or color represented in fanfiction, it's because canon doesn't have many women or people of color, or they're boring, or they're poorly written. How can you blame fans for not including women who barely exist in canon?

And when I talk about issues in het published romance, the response is generally some version of "of course." Of course there's misogyny in it. Of course there's racism in it. Of course it relies in the idea of strict gender norms.

A woman writing a book about a man and a woman together? Of course it has all of those issues.

But a woman writing fanfiction about two white men, with nary a woman in sight? There's far more skepticism that there could be sexism in those fics, or racism.

I feel like there's often an unspoken idea that there are two distinct groups of people: Original Moneymaking Media Creators and Fan Creators, with the implication that Fan Creators, who create selflessly without looking for money, must be more progressive and Not The Sort Of People To Be Sexist Or Racist, while Original Moneymaking Media Creators are reflective of the normal society with all of its issues.

But even ignoring the fact that there are many fan creators who also publish or otherwise create original fiction for money, there is nothing separating fans from the rest of society in such a way that fan creators wouldn't reflect all of the same issues that other creators reflect.

The excuses for such exemptions can include (but are not limited to):

Fandom is for fun and not for profit, as if money changing hands increases the impact that works can have on community behaviors and attitudes (and that doesn't even touch the fanfic-to-tradpub pipeline that's been developing);

(a variant of the above) Fandom is a place to "escape" real world concerns and politics, as if fandom is somehow insulated from people bringing their biases in with them, and other marginalized fans are not also trying to escape the bigotries that affect them irl, but are thoughtlessly perpetuated by other fans;

(a more extreme version of the above) Fandom is where our wildest fantasies get to come to life and run wild, as if our ids are not also shaped by implicit biases and mainstream media isn't also filled with the wish-fulfillment fantasies of their creators (look at the Fast and Furious franchise and tell me that isn't wild fantasizing!);

Fandom is just reflecting the biases of the source media, as if fans are just empty mirrors devoid of agency who don't frequently reject things like the heteronormativity of source media and magnify racism and misogyny;

Fandom has a smaller reach than mainstream media, so its impact is negligible, as if AO3 doesn't have millions of users and harming a smaller number of people with unchecked bigotry is somehow "acceptable;"

Fandom creators are often from marginalized communities, as if marginalized people cannot perpetuate bigotry nor be held responsible for same;

Fandom is filled with bad actors who've "weaponized" discussions of representation/implicit bias in fandom for their own ends (usually involving bullying, harassment, and/or attempts at censorship) and so the whole line of inquiry is now invalid by association, as if that hasn't been a philosophy used to silence progressive thought/analysis since its inception.

It's incredibly easy to look at others and go "oh hey, that's a problem". It makes it very easy for us to excuse ourselves from contributing to *the problem*.

I really wish that all we had to do to not participate in perpetuating harmful narratives was be part of a marginalized community. Really, I do. But that's just not true.

I'm gonna use socioeconomic status as the margianalizing feature here, because it is the most glaring and accessible social difference available to me at the moment.

The billionaire/ceo/he's buying the world for you fic content is readily consumed and written by people experiencing poverty, even though the billionaire/ceo/people who think they own other people and the world are the villains of our current story. They actively manufacture poverty for their own gain.

There is no such nonsense as an ethical billionaire. But the fics sure try to make it so: no, no, *he's* rich from manufacturing solar panels, guys. You're allowed to like *him*. (The billionaires are always men. Always.)

Is it an escape? Yeah. It'd be lovely if someone showed up and started taking giant barriers out of your life. To not have to worry about food or clothing- to go on trips and have new opportunities to enrich oneself. But these stories never touch on the billionaire being part of the cause of the protagonist's impoverishment.

In these fics (and traditional media), the biggest show of power for the protagonist is almost always rich guy firing someone (usually a store clerk) for them. Why is love interests most defining, attractive feature connected to being cruel to people with less economic power than them?

(And the possessive jealousy- is being purchased part of the escapism? Because... no. I don't want to be some billionaire's pet, thanks).

These are the same folks who run around saying eat the rich... without ever doing anything to disrupt their reliance on oligarchs (in fact, they're glamorizing the oligarchy and reasserting the myths that have marginalized so many through the violence of poverty).

Does this mean everyone who has ever read/written such a fic hates poors?

No. Of course not.

But it isn’t consumption that is intended to shine any kind of light on the dissonant beliefs underpinning poverty either. It is a reinforcement the prescribed mindset that "I am poor because of circumstance, they are poor because of lazyness/stupidity/bad choices/moral failings".

Sweetheart, no!

And poverty is just one example. The same things happen with queerness (heteronormative portrayals of queer relationships, elevating queer tragedy/suffering and reinforcing the "othered" status), with misogyny (only girlbosses can be feminists, let's have the male lead tame the female lead), with disability (so, so much ableism) and colonialism-which is a way bigger conversation than I can have, but let's say... taking a noneuropean character's modernization to Britain or the states. And then there's the pervasive and ever present white supremacy that is almost always assigned to people outside the self, but which harms people from every single racial and ethnic group all over the world.

(Yes, including white people. If you're white and don't think racism is your problem, you are actively supporting your own oppression. Here in the states, racism is getting your kids a worse education, fewer opportunities, student loans, medical debt, prederatory loans, the inability to play outside in communal spaces with age appropriate unsupervision, and lower pay at that job you're slaving away in. If you think not living in the states excuses you from this issue... welcome to globalization, friend.)

I'm having a problem with how preachy my diatribe sounds right now. I guess I'm not skilled enough to talk about this without coming off that way, which is frustrating.