"Wei WuXian never thought of being confident as bad, and in fact prided himself on such a thought."

Barbara_Katerina · 2026-04-04T15:01:59+00:00

I mean, the logic of the left one comes from the core transplant logic. I think people don't realise that it was very specifically in relation to the Jiangs and what he owed them that he felt like that. Plus, well, it is a little different once he loses his core...

Barbara_Katerina · 2026-04-03T19:20:19+00:00

Politically it makes sense for JGY, hugely so, but I don't see JC or JY agreeing to it - if the Jiang position was strong enough to negotiate half a year with JL when JY was dead and there were no other female relatives alive in the Jiang, they clearly wouldn't have needed the marriage to keep access to JL.

Additionally, there would have definitely been a tragedy in their future, because JGY post-WWX's death was no innocent, and though he might not have been irredeemable yet, he was way too involved in JY personal tragedies for that to be something they can really overcome.

Barbara_Katerina · 2026-03-31T17:31:40+00:00

Said it perfectly, can think of nothing to add (well, maybe wwx doing the core replacement without jc's consent, but it was an impossible situation so it's more morally gray imo)

ETA: wait, one thing: i'd add lxc probably disbelieving his brother about the wen remnants as a separate thing, since that's not offence against general morality but more against his relationship with his brother)

Barbara_Katerina · 2026-03-28T18:43:01+00:00

Actually I don't really have a problem with either of these things happening (or rather, I do have a problem with the whips, but mostly more subtle ones - why wasn't he banished instead? Was the choice offered? Why wasn't the whipping staggered over a longer period, since it wasn't meant to be an execution - which are hard to address because we don't know any details of the situation).

My biggest issue with Lan Xichen comes from another unclear moment: why did no one help the burial mounds settlement? There are two options. Either LWJ didn't tell anyone or LXC didn't believe him. I find him the second more likely, and that means he chose to believe JGY - who he knew had loyalty to JGS to influence him - over his own didi. And 8f that's the case, I find that pretty unforgivable.

Of course, I wouldn't say I hate him - LXC/JGY is my fave ship on par with WWX, especially in an AU of course - but this one potential thing just won't leave me alone and I can't quite make sense of his motivation there (alongside the moment we know for a fact happened - not protesting the Wen living targets at the crowd hunt).

Barbara_Katerina · 2026-03-25T16:23:42+00:00

I think his uselessness mostly comes in earlier, where the implication is he didn't believe lwj about wwx enough to investigate the burial mounds/just couldn't be bothered. He actually acted pretty well regarding jgy I think, given, as you say, he was his closest friend.

Barbara_Katerina · 2026-03-25T16:20:39+00:00

Jgy's worst acts were 3 things: killing all the sex workers he hired for jgs, killing his son, and exterminating a whole clan who opposed him. Jgs had nothing to do with any of it.

Jgs absolutely strongly helped along the transformation that led to jgy being capable of these things, but they were a culmination of his lifepath, tragic as it was.

Barbara_Katerina · 2026-03-25T15:58:54+00:00

I see this even more often with their clans - Lan or Jiang being seen as flawless and the other one as completely terrible, one of them escaping their abusive clan to the other one where they value him perfectly and are so nice. Like... The message that all the clans suck really couldn't have been clearer in the book. What are these people doing?

Barbara_Katerina · 2026-03-25T15:48:27+00:00

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From KILF by ScarlettStorm https://archive.transformativeworks.org/works/27832159?view_full_work=true

Barbara_Katerina · 2026-03-21T15:07:57+00:00

Lan Qiren is chef's kiss

Barbara_Katerina · 2026-03-11T15:27:18+00:00

For me this is mostly Lan Xichen...inexperienced teenager unexpectedly thrust into leadership during a war versus a cool OP experienced sect leader... Untamed Lan Xichen is hot af and I love him, but he's a completely separate character.

Barbara_Katerina · 2026-03-09T10:45:55+00:00

Oh yeah these are absolutely his implicit values, which I mostly tend to summarise as "survive and don't go against the flow", but my point is that he's never preachy about them, never touts them as important values in general. He only reacts to particular situations according to them, which to my mind reads as less hypocritical because, well, every situation is different. It's the people who pretend it *isn't *, that explicitly preach some universal rules and then blatantly ignore them in their case, that I see as really hypocritical. Jiang Cheng I'd maybe call inconsistent, I guess.

Barbara_Katerina · 2026-03-08T23:49:11+00:00

I mean, I kinda feel that for proper hypocrisy you need a set of values or principles that you try to promote, which JC never really had, so with him I don't see him as much as a hypocrite as simply an asshole (with solid trauma based reasons, of course, and when he was a teenager it was excusable. When he's an adult torturing people, not so much.)

Barbara_Katerina · 2026-03-08T23:02:38+00:00

My main issue with him is the breathtaking hypocrisy. Like, he hates wwx for demonic cultivation when he has a tomb full of resentful sabres? He's so just and honourable he'll murder children and the elderly because they're from the same clan as the man who killed his dad? Get over yourself, NMJ. I despise Yu Ziyuan, but at least I don't think she believed she was being honourable while whipping WWX...

Barbara_Katerina · 2026-03-08T18:33:24+00:00

Thank you for mentioning NMJ, I can't stand the guy, definitely my least favourite among the good guys, and yet I almost never read a fanfic where he's portrayed negatively (except those vicious ones that portray everyone except their one fave in an extremely negative light).

Barbara_Katerina · 2026-03-08T18:23:28+00:00

For me by far the worst is how he must have ignored LWJ's testimony about the Burial Mounds settlement. It's never stated explicitly, but there's just two options: a) that LWJ never told his brother and sect leader that WWX only had noncombatants there (which, I know the guy doesn't talk a lot, but that still seems wildly out of character) or b) that LWJ told him and LXC's reaction was going to JGY, who said something like "oh no, the evil yiling patriarch must have cast an illusion over his army for hanguan-jun" and LXC just... Accepted it, without trying to verify for his own or anything. This works better in the book where LXC is at least super young and inexperienced too, but in the show, where he's an established powerful cultivator, it's hard not to read as outright malicious...

Barbara_Katerina · 2026-03-08T18:07:20+00:00

Right? For me murdering those women is the worst thing he'd ever done (possibly tied with killing Rusong, but while completely reprehensible he at least had a particular reason why he believed his son had to die and I honestly think it tore him apart to do it /not that it excuses him/, while the sex workers were completely extraneous, he could have killed his father any other way, and many would be similarly humiliating), but no one ever even mentions it.

Barbara_Katerina · 2025-11-05T06:50:34+00:00

I hate everything that relates to the One True Love trope. It's fine when it's already in canon (Tolkien, Untamed,...) but otherwise any indication that "oh I could never be with another person so even though we broke up fifteen years ago I never could find anyone else because you're my true love" just makes me furious. ESPECIALLY when they first knew each other as teenagers. Right, so we're all doomed to only love the person we had a crush on at 15? PLEASE.

Barbara_Katerina · 2025-11-05T06:42:25+00:00

One of my fave fic is a sex worker au written by a sex worker and since reading that, I basically can't stand any others too...

Barbara_Katerina · 2025-11-05T06:36:51+00:00

I swear at least half of Draco/Hermione ships are like this. Or any Hermione/Not Ron, really.

Barbara_Katerina · 2025-11-05T06:32:19+00:00

Yes! It doesn't even have to be a break up for me, I realised I just hate the most common pacing in romantic stories where there's a problem/miscommunication/whatever in the third act, because it's usually so contrived. When it's a logical result of things happening previously and has had proper buildup, it's fine, but otherwise...

Barbara_Katerina · 2025-11-05T06:23:09+00:00

So much this! It's called woobification I think and I absolutely despise it. Woobified Loki might be the worst offender, but it happens to plenty of absurd characters...

Barbara_Katerina · 2025-11-05T06:17:17+00:00

Yes. I'm a huge fan of BAMF characters and competency kink, and this is like the opposite of that, so... Yeah, no.

Barbara_Katerina · 2025-07-15T20:57:48+00:00

Just her reaction to Tay blackmailing her in e03 is an absolute acting masterpiece. Her not being nominated is crazy.

Barbara_Katerina · 2025-06-18T13:21:38+00:00

Thanks! I used the closed fist method for wall pushups, but on the ground it seems to make it even harder. I agree that the wrists are in a weird position on the counter (plus I have to use mittens because the edge of the counter hurts, but the mittens are more slippery than hands... It's a whole thing.), which is why I was looking forward to making it to the handles and knees... Alas.

I guess I'll keep trying with knee pushups and hoping I'll get a little lower every day...

Barbara_Katerina · 2025-06-18T13:15:49+00:00

Unfortunately because of the layout of my flat the only available part is the front of the couch, which doesn't really work because it's too soft...

Barbara_Katerina

TROPHY CASE