help

I need a place to get the frustration out. I'm sorry. I never thought I'd be the kind of person to do this. I'm disappointed in myself too.

[ineedtorantaboutjiangcheng]

Just wanted to say, this isn't me. I'm not a person who goes searching for negativity. Nor am I someone who holds onto it when it finds me. I'm writing this, horrified at myself that I've even created this... thing.

I've lasted... I can't remember how long. Four years? Time has lost all meaning. I think about four years in this fandom. I've kept my nose clean. I blocked the relevant tags out of the gate, and tried to cultivate my little space as much as I could. I didn't want to get sucked into anything nasty.

But... I've snapped. One too many pieces of art, of writing, of meta, and it's not even the stuff about him, because I don't care? About him? Like, at all? Before I set foot into the fan space associated with mo dao zu shi, if you had asked me what I thought about Jiang Cheng, I probably would have just. Raised an eyebrow. Shrugged a little, maybe. Said I'm not really a fan of the super aggressive character archetype, then inquired why you wanted to know.

But the worms are in my brain now. I can feel them moving in there. Slithering away, with their soft little muscle bodies. Slimy.

I still don't exactly care how people view Jiang Cheng. But every now and then, when I've seen just one too many depictions of him that are about as similar to how I see him as they are to the fucking virgin Mary, I just need to get it out. I need to get the worms out.

Apparently, here is where I'm putting them. Bon appétit.

[ineedtorantaboutjiangcheng]

Fuck, I'm here again. Goddammit. I've been doing well. I've been keeping Jiang Cheng off my mind (and my computer screen). Things have been peaceful.

And then today happened.

Again, a fic. Again, not naming names, both because that's rude and also because this issue is hardly specific to one fic alone. I've seen it many times.

But I've been pacing for half an hour, too agitated to keep reading, so I'm just gonna get this off my chest, and then skim through the fic 'til it stops talking about it.

I need to talk about the golden core reveal.

Specifically, I need to talk about an attitude I've seen cropping up recently in a lot of fics. (By recently, I don't mean it's only recent fics that do it, just that I've only noticed it recently.)

So it'll be a fic, usually canon divergent, but prior to the golden core reveal. Wen Ning or Wen Qing will often be involved (though I can think of a few times it was Lan Wangji). And the character, who knows the truth about the golden core transfer, will urge Wei Wuxian to tell Jiang Cheng.

They'll say "you have to tell him". They'll say "he'll find out eventually". They'll say "he deserves to know".

And... the fic will support this.

Will frame Wei Wuxian as irrational, paranoid even, to keep it secret.

Will sometimes even punish him, narratively, for his "failure" to disclose such a thing.

And I am... completely baffled.

Where the fuck is this coming from?

I suppose, if I'm being generous, I can kind of see why an individual sympathising with Jiang Cheng might have a knee-jerk reaction to this. If you see them as being essentially family, the idea that a family member that you love deeply, keeping what amounts to both a huge sacrifice and a massive disability from you would be extremely painful. You might feel hurt, that they didn't tell you. Angry, at the implied lack of trust.

I get it, as an emotional response you might have in the moment. I don't find it particularly relatable, but I can follow the thought process.

But like... that's an emotional response. Surely, at some point, logic has to kick in, right?

Because the thing is. Okay, there's two aspects to the secret, right? One, is that a medical procedure was done to Jiang Cheng, sort of like an organ transplant, I suppose, but he wasn't told that the organ was donated by Wei Wuxian. And the other is that Wei Wuxian made this huge sacrifice for Jiang Cheng, and didn't tell him.

But thinking about this for even five minutes should tell you that... neither of those things are actually Wei Wuxian's responsibility to deal with?

The first one is the by far the more common argument I've seen. I've read fics where Wen Ning and Wen Qing are tortured with guilt over having performed the procedure without telling Jiang Cheng all the details. I've even seen people have them blame Wei Wuxian, for demanding they keep it secret, had them secretly resent him for it. He's portrayed as deeply selfish, for keeping the truth of Jiang Cheng's operation from him.

But the thing is... if you're going to apply modern medical ethics to the situation... Wei Wuxian was in the right? They all were?

Under modern medical ethics, you have no right to know the identity of your organ donor. That can feel a little weird (it's probably why people often have a knee-jerk reaction that demands the opposite); after all, it's my body, shouldn't I have a right to know where the organ that goes in it comes from? What if it has cooties?

But according to medical ethics, the donor's right to medical privacy is more protected that the recipient's right to that information. Right to medical privacy is pretty highly valued; it kind of ties into body autonomy, which is kind of the keystone of... most modern ethics. You have a right to control what happens to your body, and that includes controlling whether or not people know about any medical conditions/procedures. So you might have an emotional response, thinking Jiang Cheng is valid for being upset that his golden core came from Wei Wuxian without him knowing, but... ethically, Wei Wuxian has the right to withhold that information.

But! some scarecrow says, If a person has the right to control what procedures happen to their body, surely that means Jiang Cheng has a right to control what happens to his own body! Therefore, the procedure was still unethical, because he didn't know everything!

And I say, well... not really. The reality is, we don't actually know how much Jiang Cheng was told. He was told to walk up a mountain, lie to the person he encountered about his identity, and ask for a golden core. And he left that mountain with said golden core... but we don't know how much Wen Qing told him when he reached the top. We know he believed Wen Qing was the Baoshan Sanren. We know he received a fully developed core, not just the ability to form a new one. Was he told that the core was from someone else? Were there signs of the transfer? Did he know the chance of success/failure? Did he not find any of the situation dubious?

(Did he really spend two and a half years fighting a war alongside, and then running a sect for a year with, someone and not realise they didn't use orthodox cultivation even once?)

The truth is, a doctor is required to inform a patient of risks, and answer any questions they ask. Wen Qing may well have disclosed the risk (if there was any to Jiang Cheng, other than potentially the transfer failing) prior to the surgery, we just don't know. We don't have any evidence that Jiang Cheng asked any questions, and from what we see in the novel, it seems likely that he simply didn't want to know. He got a core, his life was somewhat back on track; we never see any evidence of curiosity or confusion in him as to the specifics of how that happened.

The only lie we are sure that he was told was the identity of the person who he met on the mountain, who "gave" him the core. I could be petty and point out that as he was also lying about his identity, it kind of cancels out, but that would be a bit ridiculous, and unnecessary besides. The truth is, ethically, Wen Qing could have knocked him out and performed the surgery from the comfort of her own office. Because one of, if not the main reason you can ethically violate someone's body autonomy... is to save a life. And Jiang Cheng, after losing first his family and sect, and then his golden core, displayed clear suicidal ideation. He indicated, repeatedly, that he wanted to die. He refused food. Wei Wuxian even doubled checked, before giving him hope of getting a new core, that he was serious! (Rereading that scene is horrible; Wei Wuxian's dread, and eventual resignation/resolve becomes very apparent once you know what's happening).

The characters around him, including a trained doctor, believed that if he didn't get a new core, he would give up and die. Under those circumstances, a doctor has authority to make medical decisions, without a patients consent, if they believe it is a medical emergency. Wen Qing was an unquestionably brilliant doctor; if she believed doing the surgery was the right/necessary decision, who the hell are we to dispute her?

So, to be clear, under modern medical ethics (which seems to be what is being applied in these claims), Wen Qing has the right to do whatever surgery she feels necessary to save the life of her patient, no consent needed, and Wei Wuxian has the right to keep his identity as the donor a secret, since that's his own private medical history. Modern medical ethics (a bit ridiculous, when talking about magic powers, but I've seen the argument) supports our protagonist.

Now, onto the other thing. This is a lot less... ethics discussion and a lot more feels-bad-so-wrong type thing. Wei Wuxian kept the loss of his golden core a secret.

Jiang Cheng being upset by this is understandable. Like I said, I can follow the emotion/logic. Someone keeping a big secret from you can be hurtful.

But just because it's hurtful to you, doesn't mean they're in the wrong to do it!

If someone I cared about kept a massive secret from me, and I found out, I'd be upset! But my first thought would be 'Why did they feel they couldn't tell me?' And the answer here is obvious; Wei Wuxian didn't think he could tell Jiang Cheng because he knew he'd be horrible about it! Wei Wuxian admits, after the reveal, that the process of losing his core was distressing, and that he wasn't as okay with it as he pretended to be. If something like that happens to you (not... that it can, but, you know, equivalent), and you're struggling to hold it together, the last thing you want is someone you care about yelling at you about it, insulting you, making you feel bad for what happened!

Wei Wuxian didn't tell Jiang Cheng because he knew Jiang Cheng would be awful to him because of it. Jiang Cheng's jealousy when they were young was something Wei Wuxian felt he had to manage*, and he knew Jiang Cheng would feel inadequate if he realised his accomplishments were made with Wei Wuxian's core. And he would then lash out at Wei Wuxian for it, at a time when Wei Wuxian was already feeling emotionally fragile. Hell, nearly twenty years later, Jiang Cheng getting up in his face was enough to cause a Qi deviation; I can't imagine it would have been better any sooner!

No one wants to think of the people they love keeping secrets from them. And sometimes, people who keep secrets are doing it for their own sake, because they're scared, or unsure, or guilty, or whatever. But sometimes, when a person keeps a secret, the reason is not internal. If someone acts horribly to you when you tell them things, you're going to stop telling them things. And the person responsible for that gap in communication is them; all you're doing is protecting yourself.

And before anyone thinks that I'm assigning reasoning to Wei Wuxian that he doesn't have; he essentially admits it. After the reveal, Wei Wuxian states that he knew Jiang Cheng would react badly (though he didn't expect it to be quite so bad). Wei Wuxian is shown to have been managing Jiang Cheng's moods since they were young**, it's probably not the first secret he's kept. But that's kind of just... how that works; if a king kills every person who brings him bad news, eventually, all his advisors will only ever bring him good news. And he has no one to blame when his kingdom falls but himself.

SO. tl;dr. Modern medical ethics supports Wen Qing performing the golden core transfer, and Wei Wuxian keeping his identity as the donor a secret. Jiang Cheng can be upset at Wei Wuxian for not telling him that he no longer has a core, but it's not unethical, or selfish, and the nature of their relationship, with Jiang Cheng lashing out with impunity and Wei Wuxian trying to manage his moods, meant that secrets like that were pretty much inevitable. Unhealthy relationships are unhealthy. Truly, newsworthy take.

And one final note, on Wei Wuxian keeping secrets from Jiang Cheng and being portrayed as selfish for doing so; I have yet to see a. single. fic. that says Wei Wuxian keeping his sacrifice secret is wrong, but then goes on hold Jiang Cheng equally accountable for keeping his sacrifice secret. Not. One. Jiang Cheng often tells Wei Wuxian afterwards, that he deliberately got the Wens attention, but he's never framed as selfish for keeping that secret. Not. Once.

* see post-Xuanwu argument, when Wei Wuxian drags himself out of his sick bed, having just woken up from a coma, to reassure Jiang Cheng that he's no threat to his birthright. Because Jiang Cheng was jealous that his father acknowledged Wei Wuxian's skill in surviving, under horrendous circumstances. -_-

** childhood flashback; after arriving in a new place, having a massive change in lifestyle and meeting many new people (and, it seems, trying to make a good impression), Wei Wuxian took the blame for his broken leg, despite it being because Jiang Cheng locked him out of his room and threatened to sic dogs on him. Entirely because he knew one of them would get blamed, and he wanted to keep Jiang Cheng happy. People who grow up with aggressive/abusive family/people around often end up learning to juggle mood changes.

[ineedtorantaboutjiangcheng]

My first rant, and the reason I snapped and made this blog, is not about Jiang Cheng. It's actually about the characters around him.

See, I was reading this fic and, without naming any specifics, I was enjoying it. Nothing especially groundbreaking, but it was good enough that I was immersed. In fact, the thing that probably got me about this is that what I liked most about the fic, what was really sucked me in, was the characterisations. Wei Wuxian was the definite standout. Fic premise meant that he was injured, but he was being portrayed with his canonical resilience, which is rare enough that prior to this, I would have likely celebrated the fic for it's accuracy. It's a difficult thing to pull off, and I always give extra credit to authors who can walk the line of, essentially, whumping a character while still keeping them themselves.

Then it happened. Jiang Cheng showed up. I've sometimes clicked out of a fic just for that (the timing of his appearance is, occasionally, enough of an indicator of his role in the story that I know I'm not going to be able to jive with it), but I was immersed! And the author had gained my trust with the aforementioned character accuracy until that point! I was caught up, and ready to roll with whatever version of Jiang Cheng came out.

And, well, his behaviour seemed somewhat accurate to canon. Angry, accusatory, sort of irrational, in an overly suspicious way. Seemed pretty good. Again, the timing made me think that the fic was probably going to go the reconciliation path, but you know, I can get through that. I don't care enough about Jiang Cheng that his presence or absence alone is enough to ruin a fic I'm otherwise enjoying.

But then, imagine my shock. Jiang Cheng, post first siege (where, as far as everyone knows, he killed Wei Wuxian, and has spent the years since his death hunting down and torturing anyone who might be/reminds him of him. You can dispute Jiang Cheng's actions, if you wish, but not that this is how he is widely perceived), demands to see Wei Wuxian. And Lan Wangji, who loves Wei Wuxian, who spent stars knows how much time desperately trying to protect Wei Wuxian, who would stand between Wei Wuxian and the world if he had been allowed, just... agrees.

Lan Wangji. Agreed. To let a Jiang Cheng, who shows no, I don't know, remorse, or concern, or anything, toward a person he is credited with murdering, that Lan Wangji believes he murdered. And Lan Wangji just... yep. I'll just take you to see Wei Wuxian. Sure, he's injured, and vulnerable, and you show no sign of wanting to do anything other than a violence. Yep, right this way.

And THIS. THIS is why Jiang Cheng infuriates me. This is why I had to make this blog. Because I don't care about Jiang Cheng, love him, hate him, think he's the most evil scum imaginable, think he's the true victim of mdzs, I literally don't care. I don't have enough investment in the character to give a fuck about how accurate he is.

But I love Lan Wangji. I really do (and Wei Wuxian, and Wen Ning, and Wen Qing, and Jin Ling, and every other character even peripherally related to Jiang Cheng). So to see the characters I do care about being warped and twisted, just to try and force a particular narrative to play out about this one character? I've spent the past idk two hours as I set this up frothing with rage.

It's not like he's the main character of this fic. He's one of the last ones listed (after characters that are actually deceased throughout the entirety of the fic), and there's no, idk, Yunmeng siblings or reconciliation tag or anything. Full confession, I haven't finished the fic, but I'm well over halfway through, so I can somewhat confidently say that his presence, while maybe playing into something in the endgame, is not super critical.

And yet. The author, who until that point had been pretty good with their characterisations, felt the need to overlook one of the main characters primary personality traits (Lan Wangji's desire to protect people and keep safe that which he loves) in order to... make it slightly easier for Jiang Cheng to be shoehorned into the plot? Why? Just... why?

I'm frustrated. Frustrated, and confused. Is it lack of imagination? Could the author not think of a single other way Jiang Cheng might come into contact with Wei Wuxian after the first siege (assuming, of course, that he is alive)? I don't believe that, the author did well enough with thinking up some left field plot points at other stages of the fic. Did they overlook the fact that, Jiang Cheng having demanded Lan Wangji take him to Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji could have just... not done that? Lan Wangji, Mr. You Are Not Qualified To Talk To Me, had no choice but to acquiesce to Jiang Cheng's will. He couldn't have just. refused. Or walked away from the conversation. Knocked him out and left. Or called out the inherent contradiction of Jiang Cheng wanting to visit someone he killed (again, regardless of your opinion on Jiang Cheng's culpability, it is made clear in canon that that is the version of events Lan Wangji knows/believes). Or at the very least placed conditions on Jiang Cheng that he's not allowed to do anything to harm Wei Wuxian.

But nope! In the space of a single scene, just by his very presence, apparently, Jiang Cheng is able to turn a fully fledged, well characterised version of Lan Wangji into a robot that cannot disobey a human's will due to it's programming.

And it may seem like I'm ragging on this poor author, or that I'm getting too worked up over one scene, and, and, yeah, that would... that would be correct (hence I'm trying to avoid saying anything identifying about the fic, though I realise that might lessen the impact of my arguments). But the thing is, it's not just this fic. Or just this author.

It's everywhere.

I cannot count the number of fics that have characters that otherwise align pretty well with their canonical selves, only for all that to go out the window the second Jiang Cheng shows up. It's like people can't help themselves. Jiang Cheng appears, and every other character must suddenly become whatever version of themselves makes Jiang Cheng appear most sympathetic/reasonable/well-intentioned. Whatever helps the author make Jiang Cheng be what they want him to be.

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji definitely get this the worst. Wei Wuxian goes from an intelligent, calculating individual, who excels at reading the situations he's in and figuring out what's going to get him the outcome he wants*, to a reckless idiot who charges in without thinking because he wants to "be a hero". And Lan Wangji goes from someone who has repeatedly failed to save the ones he loves, and so is appropriately determined to protect them as much as he can (without becoming his father), to someone who thinks he always knows best**, and will happily put someone he loves into a potentially deadly situation because... I don't know. His thinking is pretty much never clearly explained, but I've seen different half-reasons. Sometimes Lan Wangji just thinks that Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng are such good, good brothers, and that Jiang Cheng is so important to Wei Wuxian that the chance to hold a conversation with him is worth Wei Wuxian... best case scenario, being verbally abused, worst case, being tortured to death. Sometimes he thinks he wouldn't be able to stop Jiang Cheng which... haha. Even Jin Ling, who reflexively defends Jiang Cheng over everything, thinks that Jiang Cheng doesn't stand a chance against Lan Wangji. Sometimes he thinks he shouldn't interfere with someone else's family... even though they aren't related, and Jiang Cheng cannot, under any circumstances, acknowledge Wei Wuxian as anything other than a disciple/servant. Also, Lan Wangji gets involved in everything. That's kind of his thing. You know... going where the chaos is? There's certainly a lot of chaos whenever Jiang Cheng is around...

But really, it's everyone. Wen Ning goes from being so defensive of Wei Wuxian that he breaks a promise and reveals a secret he kept for nearly twenty years just to get Jiang Cheng to stop talking shit, to usually being passively pushed into the back seat, his bond with Wei Wuxian glossed over in favour of the "brothers"***. Wen Qing, a person so devoted to Wei Wuxian that she sacrificed herself and her beloved brother on the off chance that it would mean he wouldn't have to face consequences for Jin Zixuan's death, is suddenly chastising Wei Wuxian for not doing more to smooth over their relationship. Jin Ling goes from creating a diversion so that he can help Wei Wuxian escape Jiang Cheng, despite knowing he would get in trouble for it, to trying to trick them into being in the same room. It's everyone.

Every. Single. Character. Must be changed, must behave in ways antithetical to their personalities and relationships, because it seems that's the only way many people can reconcile with their affection for a character that behaves the way Jiang Cheng does. In order to keep Jiang Cheng even slightly resembling his canonical self (angry. violent. verbally abusive at every possible opportunity), and yet still have him be welcomed and beloved by the other characters, every other character must lose integral parts of themselves. Mo Dao Zu Shi is, in many ways, a surprisingly tightly woven story when you start pulling threads, and if you want that jumper to work like pants, you need to get the scissors and start cutting.

Or at least, I can only assume that's what's happening. I can't fathom any other reason as to why so many fics, that are otherwise fairly true to character, veer so wildly OOC as soon as he appears. And it is so, so many fics. Note: I've read, ballpark, around two thousand mo dao zu shi fics (yes, I have no life. no, why do you ask?), and this happens in a staggering amount of them.

And basically, this is the root of my issue with Jiang Cheng. I don't care how you write him, he can be the most loving, soft, compassionate individual in the world in your fic, it's your fic, you write what you like****, I'm just going to engage less with those parts, because I don't care as much. You can make him greet each sunrise by weeping, and coo over every baby he encounters on the street, and weave blankets for the homeless in his free time. I literally don't care.

What I care about is the changes made to the other characters. That in order to raise Jiang Cheng, other characters must be dragged down. That he must be there, and he must be the secretly misunderstood caring brother, so every character that could challenge that in any way must be changed, by any means necessary, to prevent that.

(But really, do they? It's fanfiction. Can you really think of no way to make Jiang Cheng be the character you want him to be without mutilating everyone else? If you truly feel for him, truly think his actions make sense, truly wish to show how his relationships can be fixed without him altering his own attitude... then shouldn't it be easy enough, to persuade others of this, without turning the cohesive characters around him into a farce?)

* - since I know this is going to get disputed, even if only internally, by someone; the literal second scene involving Jiang Cheng (immediately post dancing-statue attack, Jiang Cheng suspects and wants to test with Zidian) has Wei Wuxian realise he's not going to be able to escape without some proof of innocence (i.e. reading the room, despite the stress of the moment). He then deliberately steps out of cover so Jiang Cheng can hit him, proving he's not possessing Mo Xuanyu, and then, when that's not enough to guarantee his freedom, he recognises that, and plays on Jiang Cheng's ego (and ymmv homophobia) by saying he's not his type, so Jiang Cheng can't take him without losing too much face, which Wei Wuxian knows he won't do, since Jiang Cheng is very concerned with reputation and appearances (after all, that's why he refused to help Wen Qing and Wen Ning, in spite of the debt he owed them). If that doesn't indicate Wei Wuxian is a clever person who thinks things through, I don't know what does.

** - not as worried about this being disputed, but I can see people thinking this so; no, Lan Wangji doesn't think he knows best. He did when he was young (or, at least, thought the rules he lived by were definitive morals), and that's what led to his rigid black-and-white thinking regarding rules and such. Then he got older, and got more experience, and made some mistakes, and realised that different people approach the world differently, and that he needed to be more flexible and meet people halfway if he wanted to be able to help them. See his change in attitude toward mo dao/gui dao.

*** - fic challenge; see how many fics that portray Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng as close, loving brothers, and also contain the close, caring, trustful friendship between Wei Wuxian and Wen Ning. It's very, very few. On some level, I think everyone who wants to show Jiang Cheng as #bestbrother knows that, from his actions to his attitude, Wen Ning is what a beloved, caring, bad-reputation-but-is-actually-just-misunderstood baby-brother-figure should be.

**** - at the end of the day, everyone has the right the write whatever they like in their fic. I'm a full supporter and encourager of that. But if you don't make it clear that you are going to write OOC, I reserve the right to feel frustrated when I stumble across it. I would never comment it in the fic itself, Ican't imagine anything more poorly mannered, but I am, apparently, not above vague blogging about it (hopefully vague enough that no one can identify any specific fics).