rivers to home

for mdzs, which i fell in love w at 12 and never quite stopped

[floating-pier]

A blind man would be able to tell what's wrong with this family, because he would hear the screaming from half a block away

If this blind man were also deaf, he'd still be able to tell what's wrong, because he can feel the vibrations from the lady of the house whipping her husband's supposed bastard while an active invasion is going on

[wenofqishan]

MXTX confirmed thats not even JC's real list he just cant be honest or vulnerable to other people. His actual list is more like "Not my mom. None of what my parents had going on In General. Good to Jin Ling." And honestly if you look at the list you can kind of see him edging around Not My Mom? A quiet voice! Good to a child who is not hers! A mediocre cultivator bc YZY felt trapped in her role as Jiang-furen and often fucked off for days or weeks at a time to go nighthunting!

i think overall we can say that the list is not really “this is what jiang cheng genuinely personally wants in a wife” it’s “this is what jiang cheng thinks is someone a) who will look good for him as a sect leader’s wife and b) who he could potentially tolerate in his house”

i also think there’s an analysis to make here about how the unclear balance of authority between his parents in lotus pier, and their constant fights over it and how that affected their reputations and how they treated their kids, is (along with the class values taught to him more directly by his mother) part of what leads him to believe that a clear hierarchy is necessary to any kind of relationship. which you can see in the list and also you know in the everything about his relationship with wwx. so you know it’s an understandable conclusion to come to for his time period and position in life, and it works out well for him as a sect leader, but it fucks over his personal relationships pretty considerably

[floating-pier]

Ngl the list makes me think of Jiang Yanli too.

Idk if it was ever mentioned when he was banned by the matchmakers, but lets assume it was ~5 years after everything went down. JC still holds on to the past, re: WWX's untouched childhood room, re: keeping Suibian, re: everyone he has issues with being dead, re: living in the same place that alm everyone u loved died. He's co-parenting Jin Ling, and again, all family is dead.

Bar not wanting his own marriage to reflect his parents, esp since he is the one who 'brought home a child' (JL), he wants family. The only other female presence in his life was Yanli.

And what was she?

Naturally beautiful, his Jie is the most gorgeous woman at every point of time.

Graceful, obedient, a not-so-strong personality, Jie acted as a mediator for his entire family.

Cultivation level not too high, I like the interpretation of it being Madam Yu, tho it fits Yanli too

Respected family, they were the same family.

And most importantly, must treat Jin Ling nicely. Yanli grew up with the same set of parents as Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying and at the very least, parented them both emotionally. There is no possible way she would have ever hated a child her husband brought home.

Subconsciously, to Jiang Cheng, marrying someone made them family, and he wanted his Jie back.

[floating-pier]

Distribution of braincells among the mdzs cast

wwx & jc: shared one braincell, with the braincell frequently in transit. wwx had it while cooking up demonic cultivation. jc had it while rebuilding his sect to stand as one of the great 4. neither of them had it while they sacrificed organs for each other or when wwx went to the wen remnants and jc led a siege against him

jyl: had one, but was worn down by the lack of braincells around her. at jzx's coffin, she finally said goodbye to it and headed to an active battlefield #yolo

jzx: nothing. nada. bless jl's dad but openly demeaning ur betrothed infront of ur entire generation and her younger siblings does not a braincell make

lwj: had one, but it flew off with the wind that stirred wwx and lwj's hair during their rooftop confrontation

lxc: had one, but it was stolen by jgy when (by lan standards) they made out sloppy style, got married then consummated the marriage infront of everyone present. (ive nvr watched untamed, but im referring to that one scene where their hands touch. scandalous)

jgy: obtained one watching the world tumble around him as he went down jinlintai's stairs for the first time. nothing quite like a shock like that to change your perspective. obtained lxc's braincell, which made him evil for Reasons.

nmj: also had one, he did have to run a sect, but it was tied up in that and the war and didnt contribute much to anything else. upon his death, the braincell returned to nhs, who promptly broke down as the braincell gave him brainpower to uncover dage's murder plot

nhs: inherited nmj's, but did have one, only it was solely for birds and sneaking porn around lqr. (he never needed to use it before, bc dage would always help him out). using the newfound power of 2 braincells, he orchestrated playing 5d chess with jgy

jgy didnt think/didnt want to think that nmj's braincell went to nhs. bc that would mean that dage!nmj who loved nhs still existed, dage!nmj who yelled and shouted at nhs but never quite forced him to do anything he didnt want. dage!nmj who wrote jgy a recommendation letter for his father. dage!nmj who swore brotherhood with him. dage!nmj who didnt care jgy's mum was a whore and elevated him to his right hand. dage!nmj, who i believe jgy, once upon a time, loved. dage!nmj, who jgy killed.

it was easier to think of a nmj who didnt forgive his crimes or accept his apologies. who distrusted him and sought to discredit him. nmj, who in a fit of rage, threw jgy down jlt's stairs like his father had done. nmj, who was the reason, must have been the reason that their relationship deteriorated so badly jgy didnt protest against killing nmj.

otherwise, it meant that jgy killed a dage!nmj, only nmj was no longer his dage. and for jgy who grew up with basically nothing, i think that wld have been worse

anyway me and canon are in a long distance relationship where i periodically, occasionally but always go crawling back begging for more. if ive gotten anything wrong, my apologies 🙇‍♀️

[floating-pier]

Jiang Cheng looks like his dad.

I haven't been watching the anime, though I love fanfics of MDZS and i know all the plot points, but I saw JC'S S3 clip and just-

His entire life he's been told he's like his mum. Her attitude, her personality, her face, her temper. He's even explicitly stated his dad doesn't like him because JC's like his mum and his dad doesn't like his mum.

He's grown up thinking he's the mirror image of her with the same flaws that just makes them unloveable.

But the boy looks like his dad. Not with the way he wears his hair normally, but in his devastation, when it flows loose around him like JFM wore his hair. His colouring matches JFM's like the artist used the eye drop tool. They have identical eyes. I couldn't find a better picture, but i swear he has the same, angular jaw. His eyebrows are his dad's (his mum's were slightly thicker).

His parents died when he was a teen. With the way Lotus Pier burned, it's unlikely he'll have portraits of them, and most everyone else his senior that would know his parents have passed.

This boy will go to his grave thinking his mum reproduced asexually to form him like some sort of fungi, and he's the spitting image of his dad.