Hi if you don't mind, thoughts on He Xuan🍋🟩?
Hii thank you for the ask! ❤️ I love answering these!
off the top of your head: notes for characterization? what are the most essential traits of this character to you (personality traits, important connections/dynamics, voice)?
Immensely resentful and vengeful, reclusive introvert, cruel and sadistic, apathetic, doesn't really like to do things, dislikes people, cares only about himself
adjacently—do you think fandom does the above traits justice? why or why not?
I'm gonna be honest here I have not been paying attention to what the fandom is doing with him lately re: characterization
throw this character at any other character of your choice to bounce off each other as outsider pov to each other— regardless of timeline or logistics (crossovers allowed if you're interesting about it). why this combination? what insights would they have on each other?
I'm going with Ling Wen for this because she's my fave and I'm curious what they think of each other. I think He Xuan probably dislikes her... she's best friends with Shi Wudu after all and she's also a potential threat to his plans if she were to ever look into him too much. Ling Wen probably dislikes "Ming Yi" too because he's rude and doesn't really like doing his job. From her perspective it would be kind of like a weaponized incompetence thing that he's doing, and I cannot imagine she's a fan of that. Obviously she dislikes him infinitely more later on.
how do you think you would react to this character in real life and vice versa? would you prefer be a million miles out of range, be amicable classmates, or fall desperately in love?
I would want nothing to do with him and he would want nothing to do with me. He seems like the kind of guy who always sits alone at lunch and you feel kinda bad for him so you try to be nice to him and promptly discover the reason nobody likes him.
ideal flavor of rotating for this character? crack them open and dissect them— do you want them tormented, pining, or being loved + comforted? do you have any specific scenarios you like to think about?
He's not a character that I rotate or think about scenarios for
weave a web of dynamics through the cast for this character: which dynamics are you most interested in? both canonically and through extrapolation/speculation— which dynamics are the richest to you, and why?
His dynamic with Hua Cheng is probably the most interesting to me even though we don't see a lot of it. He's in massive debt to Hua Cheng and essentially works for him and gets bossed around by him, Hua Cheng sends him on errands even, but Hua Cheng also holds up his end of their agreement even though he has to lie to Xie Lian in order to do it. They clearly aren't friends and don't seem to have positive feelings about each other, but they've been working together a long time and seem to be on the same wavelength in a weird way. It's an interesting dynamic to me because of what it implies about Hua Cheng and his value system; holding up his end of this kind of bargain seems to be pretty important to Hua Cheng.
do you have particular niche takes on this character? defend those takes. (openly controversial takes are permitted, but also: hyper-specific headcanons which you believe in and no one else has considered enough to disagree with yet. pick a hill to die on.)
Oh boy I have a lot. Here we go:
He doesn't seem to like being the Earth Master. I have a headcanon that the only way to really get him to do things as "Ming Yi" was to send him on missions with Shi Qingxuan, who would wrangle him
On a related note, he would not have been a good civil god and he wouldn't have been happy as a civil god either. He is very resentful, so as a civil god he would have been very petty and held grudges, and he doesn't like people and doesn't want to be around people, which are important parts of the job. He can put on personas and play roles as a means to an end, but that doesn't mean he enjoys doing it, or that he would put on a more pleasant customer service persona as a civil god
I headcanon him as asexual aromantic and uninterested in sex or romance. As a mortal he was engaged to his fiancee because that was what was expected of him, but in my headcanon he wasn't attracted to her and never would have been, and would only have had sex for reproductive purposes
I can't believe this one is controversial but he doesn't like Shi Qingxuan, is not sorry about what he did to Shi Qingxuan, and has no interest in trying to repair their relationship. The last time we see them actually interact, He Xuan is only there because Hua Cheng ordered him to give Shi Qingxuan the fan and some spiritual power, and He Xuan is clearly not happy about it and punches Shi Qingxuan, an injured mortal, so hard that he sends him flying. There are no signs of remorse here, only continued resentment and anger
I can't believe this one is controversial either but he is not morally "better" than Shi Wudu. Just like Shi Wudu, he prevented someone from ascending and ruined their life, but unlike Shi Wudu, he did it entirely for the purpose of revenge. He also held the real Ming Yi prisoner for hundreds of years, and I cannot imagine it was a pleasant captivity considering how desperate the real Ming Yi was when he finally escaped
