:) .... and on THAT note, my sibling and i just finished the yi city arc! oh boy that sure did hurted! i have been excited to reach this part for ages and i did in fact love to see it
Strong disagree. Foxes are generally solitary; parrots flock. Although they're both definitely chaotic energy incarnate, and have the potential to be screechy, WWX's personal brand of chaos is very much a social brand of chaos. A generally solitary animal, to me, could never suit him as well as a parrot because parrots are social birds and - as is notorious among people who keep them as pets - they're prone to getting depressed and even self-damaging if they aren't given attention. scribbles this down to look at later Anyway, episode 8 now, kind of did some other things for a while this morning. Have sold prismaticvoid on Lan Wangji as a Myrmecia genus ant of some variety. Apparently liking insect daemons makes me weird but you can't take "colony insect, aggro as hell if disturbed, generally solo forager, genus notorious for literally jumping at things" away from me.
Okay, fair, but are there species of parrot native to China? I'd assume there would be but idk and I really feel like daemons should be animals the humans in question are at least vaguely familiar with. You could stretch it with being imaginative and/or well read, which obvs WWX has both in spades, but like then you could argue for literally anything including mythical creatures - which, to be fair, is one of my reasons for my fox idea. Also, there are spoilery reasons you will pry my fox daemon!WWX out of my cold dead hands but we can come back to that after you've experienced the full pain of ep 33. Also also I freaking LOVE the idea of Lan Zhan with an insect daemon, because a) they're hard to read unless you're super mega observant and b) the idea of a rumour that Hangyung-Jun is so cold he doesn't even HAVE a daemon is goddamn priceless I love it. EDIT: Okay you've sent me down a Wikipedia rabbit hole after Chinese bird species and Lord Derby's Parakeet (I hate that I can't find the local name ugh) would fit Cloud Recesses WWX perfectly and you can't change my mind XD
The most well known story about a parrot in Chinese folklore and myth I know of is Guanyin and the Filial Parrot. Which is about Guanyin coming across a particularly devoted parrot who is grieving over the deaths of his parrot parents. She gives the parrot a talk to cheer him up and the parrot then becomes one of her disciples. Given the use of parrots in folklore and WWX's deal I find the idea of him having a parrot for a daemon amusing. Because on the one hand here is this lovely story about Guanyin and then on the other there is The Reality Of Parrots. WWX deserves a parrot.
It isn't exactly daemons, but I feel compelled to link this fic crossover in one/two/three parts (no major spoilers in these fics, but yes in the author's related tags talking about the au) It is a lovely morning in the Cloud Recesses, and you are a horrible goose
Yeah there's a bunch of small parrots/parakeets. That said, I always feel fully justified in fantasy settings that aren't 1:1 for Earth - which this seems to be, to me, though I'm not perfectly familiar with Chinese geography enough to say for sure that it isn't just an Earth with Magic - in taking some creative liberties more in the line of... "Does this specific creature exist there? Maybe, maybe not, but the ecological niche it fills does exist and therefore I will do what I want." So even if there weren't actually parrots in China, this is fantasy and id having parrots in this universe serves my purposes i will do it. (This is probably a result of spending a very long time in JRPG fandoms where it's like, canonical wildlife that isn't a monster to beat up or somehow plot important? Meeeeeeh doesn't cross the dev's minds in importance.) I really like ants specifically for LWJ because they're perfect for the contrast in how people take him vs what he's actually like. When people think of ants, they think of devotion to the colony (or clan, in this metaphor), sometimes emotionlessness, and maybe about their notorious strength to size ratio. Ask a bug person about ants though and you'll inevitably hear about their super intense colony wars and how merciless they are towards even ants of the same species but different colonies (fitting for LWJ's somewhat violent merciless streak WRT rule-breaking) but also how many of them are tenders of other kinds of insects (aphid farmers, etc). Which is fitting for most systems of nobility but also hilarious given that [cultivator puns intensify]. I personally dislike fox demons, tbh. I feel like they, and ravens/crows, are really overused for characters of particular archetypes. god, I sure do trip into "daemon is more thematic than planned" a lot. because that's... yeah, that sure Is. My useless psychic powers apply to this canon really strongly.
I've started reading Mo Dao Zu Shi, and I'm having a lot of fun! I've just finished the Yi City arc, which is deliciously tragic.
My understanding re: setting is that the places are based more or less on actual Chinese geography but heavily fictionalized. Think Steven Universe. (note: am not Chinese, correct me if I am wrong)
I mean the Wen have their city seemingly in the middle of an active lavaspewer volcano, which also is not really possible in the way that is portrayed in the show.
In general, I can't stop thinking about Xue Yang and Yi City and everything with that mess, but I've written a new piece of meta about that whole thing. A piece of meta about Xue Yang and class crossed my dash this morning, and that got me thinking about baby Xue Yang and hand-crushing injuries and class, and had a lovely time with it all (only spoilers for the Yi City flashback arc/episode...... 39?)
Someone I follow put up a spicy take about Jin Guangyao that uhhhhh bothered me (it was a silly seto kaiba ygotas redraw joke, but it was Incorrect), and I was full o' words and wrote a joint meta about Jin Guangyao and svsss's Shen Jiu, who is fascinatingly similar to him in some ways except we actually get detailed pov of some of his lowest points. (i already knew this poster h8s jin guangyao, and i get that people are allowed to have unfavorites, but i deal with people dunking on my faves much more graciously when it's for things that are even semi-tangentially related what the character actually did)
Huh, that’s really interesting. I hadn’t thought a lot about that because I’m not particularly attached to either character, but I don’t hate either of them. Trying to figure out why I feel that way sure did yield some results. Spoiler I’ve been very angry with both characters’ actions, had a lot of sympathy for how crappy their circumstances were, and been haunted by their tragic fates. So why am I not more invested in them one way or another? It’s definitely not because they were villains or did bad things. That has never stopped me in the past and isn’t showing any sign of change now. The immediate thing that came to mind is that I would place them both very high on the “I could turn you inside out” scale, which I would naturally choose not to do, but. Both of them literally live or die by their reputation, and they are both much, much better at offense than defense. So they’re people who would use social dynamics as a weapon but are also particularly vulnerable to social dynamics. I see that kind of imbalance all the time in mean people I meet on the internet. If they go after me I will simply drop them on their heads until they stop. If they don’t attack I’ll usually leave them alone because it’s tacky and unnecessary to go after someone with really obvious sore spots that you know other people will never stop poking. Going out of your way to bully a vulnerable person is not a righteous act even if they’re also a bully. Granted this would quite possibly yield deadly results with these characters and not on the internet. But if my brain thinks it’s relevant at all, then that means I totally agree with your assessment of both of these characters. I have apparently already decided that they fit a pattern that totally matches what you’re saying. That kind of dangerous brittle person is absolutely someone with a lot of pride and terrible self esteem. I don’t think bitterness about lost potential even needs any objectively reasonable origin. However it starts, it becomes an abiding, irrational fear that would latch onto anything available as proof of defectiveness. Both of those characters were about as successful as it was possible to be. If you’re one of the most accomplished people, period, and still feel like you should be better, the problem is not your lost potential. At that point I’m gonna need overwhelming amounts of evidence before I’m even willing to consider that there could exist any such thing as good enough. I don’t have any doubts that Jin Guangyao fits. The depth of the grudges he holds, the people he holds them against, and the very intimate, gruesome types of vengeance he seeks are telling. He doesn’t seem to have a problem with murdering random people for personal gain, but the people he actually targets are not even slightly random. It’s yandere but for approval instead of romance. Humiliation wouldn’t inflict that level of devastating wound if you didn’t have both a lot of pride and a lot of self loathing making it fragile. I sorta think prolonged Xue Yang proximity may be some sort of indicator of inability to reconcile a lack of contentment with circumstances you chose for yourself in accordance with what you believe ought to matter. That sounds like an overly specific thing to feed on, but it’s not even remotely rare. Some kind of predator is what real life people with an abundance of brittle confidence seem to expect if they try to fight you and discover they’ve made a mistake. Like they can’t conceive of someone who knows where the most vulnerable spots are but doesn’t have any desire to stab. Like they can’t figure out what twisted long game you’re playing because somehow that is totally more realistic than a lack of interest in annihilating a wounded person who has decided they’re your foe. Or maybe you think you’re too good for them, huh? You self righteous asshole, you wouldn’t stoop to torment the likes of me, I see how it is. So why would I have a detached disinterest in these characters if I had strong feelings about them and their roles in the stories, certainly don’t think they’re too evil for my tastes, and don’t consider them boring or lacking in development? Well, I think it’s out of respect? They both seem less like they think knowledge is power and more like they think information is exploitable, so being known is a weakness. Someone knowing about you is far worse than if they had a negative but misinformed opinion of you. I treat real people who seem to feel this way with a studied lack of curiosity. If they want me to know something about them, they will have to tell me. I won’t push or investigate. I don’t have any shortage of curiosity and I’m no model of patience, so this kind of thing didn’t exactly come naturally. It has to be a very strong and very consistent mental habit, or it’s torturous trying to abide by it. It would seem that means fictional characters can get filed into this category without me even realizing.
I recently finished the novel! I really liked it. The character dynamics are very good, and there are lots of characters of type/archetype that I really like.
tripped into daemon AU again, found mo xuanyu brood parasitism is SUPER relevant imagery for all the Jin bastards, but also: that's literally a cuckoo. that's it that's the post. FURTHER UPDATE: there are brood parasite butterflies this is JGY I'm living
Spoiler I'm super, super weak against characters where it's like 'shen jiu hurt himself in his confusion!' where they're also self-aware enough to be miserable over it XD Also characters who were so close to really making things work until their own insecurities and/or damage sabotaged them. Jin Guangyao is actually near the bottom of my favorite character list in the mdzs cast, but it's like... less that I don't adore him, and more that I adore everyone else so much. And I support the hell out of Nie Mingjue, Lan Xichen, Jin Guangyao, and Nie Huaisang all at once, which may be a LITTLE contradictory at times, but it really gets me attached in the way that like... I crave a setting where instead of things falling apart so terribly, the characters get just enough breathing room to start working things out. What Remains Of Meng Yao is one of my favorite Jin Guangyao fics that scratches that itch (also because all i can picture is selkies), and thinking about canon Jin Guangyao gives me the sort of pleasant melancholy that you can create with a good tragedy. I have a much easier time articulating my thoughts when it's about characters like Xue Yang, who bothers much less with putting a mask over his unpleasant parts, or Shen Jiu, where we get to sit in his head and see how miserable he is. But after seeing a post that was like 'Jin Guangyao is Jin Guangyao's favorite person in the world', I was v butthurt XDDD I really enjoy the contrast between 'I will prioritize my own survival over virtually basically anything else' and 'don't like myself at all tho', and I got extra annoyed because Jin Guangyao would have gotten away with everything if it weren't for you meddling kids, except he wanted to save his mom's body and wasn't willing to hurt Lan Xichen. But articulating why my instincts said a thing about the character was an interesting challenge, and then veliseraptor was interested in my thoughts, and every so often I managed to inspire fic from her by sharing my thoughts, so there we go :V (i'm really a sucker for the villains where it's like oh no, you poor fucker, you never really stood a chance :( it's why i can't stop screaming about xue yang and shen jiu, and why i've got... lessee. at least three distinct aus (two feynite-derived, one canon-derived) where my two main priorities are 1) shen jiu growth and 2) bingliushen (which is a challenge when shen jiu and shen yuan shouldn't exactly coexist :B), and then another feynite-derived svsss au where i still managed to get xue yang in the story and pseudo-adopted. I think feynite did drag me down deeper into the shen jiu fic than i would have wound up on my own, but.... actually, you know, it's not that different from my creative urges when it comes to starscream. i look at him, and i'm like 'oh, you're a mess, let me see what we can do about that.' I probably would do it for jin guangyao too if I had any kind of creative energy reserves these days, but that is Not the case XD)
I don't even know how to rate that because I think I need every single one except maybe "useful", so we're going with like. Spoiler I SEE YOUR ISSUE. Yeah, no. Based on the live action show at least, I would not hesitate to say that Jin Guangyao's mom was and may well have continued to be his very favorite person in the world. He didn't succeed at his dreams, he succeeded at his mom's dream for him. I'm not even sure whether he admired Nie Mingjue so much as he desperately enjoyed the positive regard of a person like Nie Mingjue. I would be very surprised if this wasn't also a major factor with Lan Xichen, though there was a far more robust mutual relationship there. Jin Guangyao is the only person in the world Jin Guangyao trusts with his mother's legacy.
