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Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian are perfect foils of each other.

Jiang Cheng is not a righteous person. He is a person who has let the Three Poisons of Buddhism overwhelm him almost completely, using them as weapons to wield - to the point that his title is “Sandu Shengshou”, the skilled user of the Three Poisons. Yet he is praised and honored by the jianghu, because he is the son of the Jiang Clan

Zidian’s emblem is a snake - the very symbol of hatred, which, to cultivators, who have to deal with RESENTFUL energy on a daily basis, would be the worst of them all

But there’s deeper symbolism to this, because in terms of action - each Jiang, save for JC and WWX, would naturally represent a different poison

- Jiang Fengmian, so attached to Wei Wuxian that he neglected his own son, and in the process, enraged his wife. So attached to the memory of Wei Changze that he didn’t even bestow the name Jiang upon his son, thereby othering him from the “rightful” members of the Jiang sect. Is it any wonder that the jianghu only ever saw him as a servant ?

- Yu Ziyuan, so consumed with her resentment and hate of Wei Wuxian and Cangse Sanren that she inadvertently used the son she claimed to love as a weapon against WWX, hurting both in the process

Remember, Zidian - the whip of hate- was hers first, before it passed on to Jiang Cheng, as he grew resentful of the very person she had always despised, inheriting her hate

- And finally, and most painfully, Yanli is ignorance, or indifference. Ignorant of the way her husband’s sect plotted against Wei Wuxian. Ignorant of her brothers’ suffering, both of them

Ignorant of the injustice of her mother’s actions or at least indifferent towards them

It’s notable that she died of being on a battlefield without adequate preparation- of ignorance

And in a way, Jiang Cheng inherited all these qualities from his family - he grows so attached to Wei Wuxian that he refuses to let him go, he grows so resentful of him that he hunts down anyone who so much as uses his style of cultivation for thirteen years after his death, and, of course, he is ignorant to the truth behind his own core

He truly is Sandu Shengshou - skilled wielder of the three poisons

(Side note : The Venerated Triad could also represent the Three Poisons - Xichen being ignorance, Guangyao being attachment ( towards his father’s sect, his own pride) and Mingue being hatred)

#buddhism #three poisons #sandu shengshou #jiang cheng #jiang wanyin #yu ziyuan #jiang fengmian #jiang yanli #wei wuxian #mxtx mdzs #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #the grandmaster of demonic cultivation #analysis

If it didn’t end well, then it isn’t the end

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You know one of the weirdest things about social media is that it’s turned into this weird, self-cannibalising ouroboros of performance - where the audience is the performer is the audience is the performer, but no one gets paid and everyone goes hungry because turns out this little ouroboros of the twenty-first century is just one of the tail-rings of the much vaster ouroboros of global capitalism that’s been devouring itself since the beginning of time.

But also it’s one of the most efficient ouroboros rings on that behemoth because guess what, it’s managed to gentrify the basic human desire to be validated and to watch a resource go up.

Every interaction is an art piece , every thought must be expressed, everyone’s a philosopher, and every offhanded comment is actually a secret look into the very depths of your mind and an invitation for complete strangers to ponder it on the off-chance that someone might show up beneath THEIR comment and go “Wow OP your mind” or “THIS”

I mean, look at me, posting pseudo-scientific gobbledygook on the Internet and waxing poetic like anyone gives a shit, participating in the very ouroboros I criticise.

You think I do this to educate people ? News flash buddy. I’m being hypocritical right now !!

This meta little self-call-out ? Yeah, that’s the same thing, too !! Someone’s gonna look at this and go - wow this guy is so sophisticated and cool and self-aware - and that’s gonna make me feel the fuzzies because guess what ? I’m human !! And thus the ouroboros keeps circling and Jormingandr is gonna keep eating it’s own tail, until finally Ragnarok comes and it starts spraying poison in all our faces courtesy of the billionaires blasting off to space and leaving us on this desolate little rock.

Oh, will you look at that ? I just referenced Norse mythology !! Was that just a quirky little thing I did or was it so that I can tag this with “#norsemythology” and get it to show up in more feeds ? You’ll never know !!

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This feeds directly into the growing phenomena of self-censorship present on the Internet btw !!

Don’t say “kill” on the Internet when telling your overlords to stop killing you, lest you lose your revenue !! Don’t say “gun” on the Internet when talking about the fifth school shooting you witnessed this week, lest you lose the validation you clawed together with so much effort and if that happens… what was all this for ?

Don’t call yourself queer if you’re queer, don’t call yourself a woman if you’re a trans woman, don’t you know that the greatest threat is the mere prospect that you could be perceived as less than perfect ?

Because the endlessly vast panopticon of the Internet might decide arbitrarily that your real suffering means nothing if you present it the wrong way and your abusers be polite about it.

Don’t call people Nazis, because they said “thank you” and “please” and as we all know the Nazis were all rude and dirty and other classic classist stereotypes of the lower class !! And even if we accept that some Nazis were upper class… clearly it’s more because they were German than because their upper class nature insulated them from the world and gave them disproportionate power !!

American billionaires clearly can never be Nazis, because, well they’re not German now, are they ?

Don’t scream that you’re dying as they kill you, because you might disturb the perfectly nice bystanders watching on and doing nothing by making them feel guilty and we can’t have that, can we ?

Don’t talk about the slave trade, because it makes people uncomfortable. Never mind the fact that it should. Don’t talk about AIDS because it makes the people never at risk feel weird.

Don’t step out of the boxes assigned you because that’s clearly the greatest threat right now !! Don’t think too hard, because don’t you know you’re just a stupid poor and surely incapable of understanding the works of your betters ?

The problem is ancient belief systems like Christianity and Islam and other religions, never the rich. Racism got fixed when Abraham Lincoln said some shit. Homophobia got fixed because the people of Stonewall Inn walked calmly to Capitol and had a polite little discussion with the President. Russia is the problem, China is the problem, India is the problem, Iraq is the problem, Iran is the problem, Communism is the problem.

The problem is just the trans women that don’t pass. The problem is that one trans woman that did some bad shit. The problem is drag queens.

The problem is effeminacy. The problem is religious queers. The problem is PoC queers. The problem is that the flag is too ugly. The problem is that we’re not marketable enough.

The problem is that our catchphrases aren’t snappy enough, our slogans aren’t compelling.

The problem is never that we exist in a fucked up raffle system where if you lose, you die.

Say “It’s just a joke !!”. Say “I don’t mean to offend”. Say “It’s okay but”. Say “I’m just telling it how it is”

Do I sound bitter ? Gee, I wonder why !! Hey, maybe if I sound bitter enough, I’ll win this fucking raffle, and then I’ll be telling you all to be polite to your oppressors as I skate through the skies pumping rainbow smoke out of my private jet’s ass !!

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Another thing I’ve noticed that’s come directly from this is the tendency to make light of others’ histories, faiths, and culture.

To make a joke under a photo of someone committing suicide. To make a wojak of someone who died. To repeat the same thing over and over endlessly in a horrid fucking loop, because it’s a winning formula. Because it’s profit maximisation.

But don’t you dare ever be genuine. No genuine anger. No genuine sorrow. Definitely no genuine joy.

If somebody famous who wanted you dead has died, don’t you dare make fun of them because, as Hebbel said “Humanity is like a flower that blooms only in death”, and like King George the Fifth said, “When I am dead, you will find that I was a very good man”

And will you look at that ? I quoted some rich old fucks !! Surely that makes me wise and sophisticated now, right ?

But I digress. We judge the living by their worst mistakes, and the dead by their best moments. As Hirsch said “We treat real people like they’re fictional and fictional people like they’re real”

Because it’s all for profit maximisation.

No one loves your brother that died yesterday. No one loves your late wife. Maybe if you make your post tearjerk-y enough, but otherwise ? People are going to appreciate that one post talking about how Scrimblo from beloved cartoon Blobby’s Playhouse died more.

And that’s bad, I guess.

#creative writing #writers on tumblr #writers #social media #social commentary #social issues #social science