study x marcille
I hate them, lovingly
How I think each MXTX protagonist would adapt to technology:
SQQ: we all know exactly how this man utilizes the internet. It got him killed and he is not the type to learn from his mistakes
Wei Wuxian: this man would go on a Wikipedia deep dive that surpasses the Mariana Trench in depth. Three weeks in he’s learning how to code his own ghost detecting app.
Xie Lian: It is easier to teach your grandmother how to order a pizza online than explain google to this man. He just looks so kindly confused the whole time. Secretly, he understands it perfectly and is just playing a funny joke on you. He enjoys watching sword videos and sending outdated memes to Hua Cheng.
As for the love interests:
LBH: He loves the recipes, and the ability to keep track of someone else’s phone at all times. However he will fry that laptop in an instant if he thinks his Shizun loves it more than spending time with him.
Lan Wangji: He uses it for three things in order of importance: cute rabbit pictures, guqin music he hasn’t heard, and porn
Hua Cheng: he would quickly become obsessed with taking the perfect selfie. Xie Lian finds the trash folder on his phone and falls in love with all the reject pictures. To his husband’s horror he makes a collage of them and sets them as his phone background.
bingqiu boxing au feat. boxer binghe and manager shen yuan, as requested by @/rev_6_4 for svsssaction!
Anonymous asked:
he xuan's actions were justified
veliseraptor answered:
strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree
see, this is one of those things where I’m like…”justified” isn’t how I engage with this arc or with most stories in general? I find the question of whether someone feels they were justified, or why they believe they were, to be more interesting than the question of whether something was ‘’’actually’’’ justified or not. and I think especially in the context of the Black Water arc, justification is actually really beside the point.
big disclaimer!!! that this is textual analysis of a sort and I am working from amateur translations only so like. I am constantly aware of the fact that I could be misreading things completely and it feels sort of borderline irresponsible of me to try to in-depth thematic analyze a text I can’t access except in translation.
I was talking to @orodrethsgeek the other day about how it feels to me like MXTX really has a thing going on about the cycle of revenge(/abuse) and the futility of that cycle, the way it never leads anywhere, the way it always destroys everyone involved. vengeance in MXTX is not actually, I don’t think, ever a good thing. no matter who is doing it, no matter why.
(this came up specifically in context of talking about how Luo Binghe recapitulating his abuse back against Shen Qingqiu is not, like, ~empowerment fantasy~ but actually also! kinda bad! and like. not saying empowerment fantasies about de-limbing your abusers are inherently a bad thing or whatever, but I am saying that I think MXTX is suspicious, at best, of revenge plots, and they always, always come with collateral damage.
(there’s a great post somewhere about this with respect to Mo Xuanyu and Nie Huaisang but of course I can’t find it now.)
anyway, what I’m saying here is that if we accept (as I do) that one of MXTX’s thematic bugbears is “revenge and retaliation is never good, actually” but also one of her concerns is very much around justice and fairness and abuse of power, then the Black Water arc sort of…brings all those things together into a big knotty tragedy of well this all just kinda sucks.
where it isn’t about who is right or wrong in a definitive way, but sort of…when and where people might’ve been, and why people make the bad choices they do, often out of the best intentions or emotions. Shi Wudu destroys He Xuan’s life to save Shi Qingxuan’s. He Xuan makes his life’s purpose taking revenge on behalf of his family who died because of Shi Wudu’s actions. they are both acting on behalf of someone they love and out of love.
what’s interesting, I think, is the fact that the one person who is present actively rejects Shi Wudu’s justification and argument. Shi Qingxuan’s reaction to finding out what Shi Wudu did on their behalf is to try to reject it, which at least on some level weakens Shi Wudu’s “I did it for you” argument, which in turn I think invites by implication the question of what He Xuan’s dead family would want themselves. that goes unanswered, but the fact that achieving his goal (avenging his family) seemingly didn’t release He Xuan’s ghost…says to me he’s not finding it as fulfilling as he thought.
Shi Wudu’s theft of He Xuan’s fate was a horrible thing. Shi Qingxuan recognizes this immediately and reacts by trying to turn their back on the heavens entirely (and is prevented from doing so by Shi Wudu). He Xuan’s revenge plot of centuries? also a bad thing. it is, I think, pretty clear that He Xuan’s vengeance doesn’t really satisfy him, and that what happens to Shi Qingxuan in particular doesn’t seem to sit very comfortably with him. (unintended consequences of revenge! see also: Yi City, tbh.)
the whole thing is messy and ugly and sad and I don’t think anyone is supposed to come out of it looking very good.
now, if you’re asking if I have sympathy for He Xuan’s life choices: yes, absolutely. He Xuan, have fun with your beheading, I’ll make you lunch for after. but that has nothing to do with whether he’s justified or not.
so, a thought, that may just be me projecting some stuff on the text? (because that’s one of my favourite pastimes wrt He Xuan, I will admit this fully) but -
I have a... feeling here, that another piece in the tangle of injustice and retaliation in the Black Water arc, is that what He Xuan is looking for, and part of why simply “getting revenge” doesn’t satisfy them, release their spirit, etc., is being recognised as someone who’s been wronged, specifically by the perpetrator and beneficiary.
(for that reading, I’m going to point in particular to the repeated opportunities He Xuan gives Shi Qingxuan to leave Shi Wudu to his fate instead of helping him once she knows what he’s done; the beheading being triggered as a response to SWD refusing to admit he’d done anything wrong; hell the entire field trip to Fu Gu during the Fire Social. anyway.)
but so then, seeking Shi Wudu and Shi Qingxuan’s destruction is... I think a script, possibly the only sort of script, that He Xuan has available for what to do to make that happen? and there’s a sort of idea, perhaps, that social acknowledgement of someone being hurt or destroyed in retribution for something they’ve done, is in effect a recognition of the harm that the one seeking revenge suffered? but we see quite clearly in SWD responding that, well whatever, we’ll both die but I’ll never admit I was wrong; ultimately I’ve still won - those aren’t necessarily the same thing at all.
(and of course, it’s not all just “please recognise me :( :(” - He Xuan does have a massive violent streak when pushed past their limits emotionally, when it comes to the injustice and harm they’ve suffered - but there’s something to me at least that feels qualitatively different about that as a reactive expression of pain and rage, compared to the process of planning another person’s destruction for decades/centuries.)
so part of what I think may be going on as far as the Black Water arc as an expression of MXTX’s exploration of revenge, is kind of like... ways in which revenge as a culturally-sanctioned method of redressing harm can, a) provide a course of action to take that doesn’t address what the victim actually needs or wants, and b) not necessarily result in the root causes of the harm being acknowledged or addressed or fixed.
adding on to what James said, in addition to repeatedly trying to give sqx an out, I think another thing that indicates that what He Xuan really wants is acknowledgement that they were harmed is a fact I keep coming back too -- their "Ming Yi Disguise" is their own face and appearance, just slightly less visibly dead. This presents a huge risk that either someone will recognize them as very clearly not Ming Yi, OR that someone will recognize them as Scholar He. It's not exactly the best plan to perform a centuries long infiltration mission with your own physical appearance when you're a shapeshifter and can take on any physical appearance you want?
So I think in many ways part of He Xuan wanted Shi Wudu to recognize them, and the fact that he didn't is deeply tragic -- Shi Wudu ruined someone's life, leading to the deaths of their family and then eventually themself, and doesn't care enough to even remember their face. "You're still alive?" "I'm dead!" is a comical exchange, but Shi Wudu was so overconfident he didn't even consider the idea of this Other Xuan wanting revenge?
And, similarly, Ming Yi is also wronged! It's tragic how easily someone else was able to take over their identity but not their appearance, meaning imo that nobody cared enough about pre-asecension Ming Yi to recognize that he had been replaced by someone else entirely. Gods prioritize gods.
