For Meng Yao, this realization culminated in a pile of corpses and a very interesting conversation with his previous boss.

I'm doing a series of danmei D&D alignment polls. Here are the other polls, if you're interested. I'm open to suggestions for other characters, if anyone feels inclined ♡

Look at his fucking big sad eyes. How could anyone hate this man

Love how JGY just hated stairs so much that he invented elevators several centuries before their canon creation. Bro REALLY had beef with those Koi Tower steps

our lords of restrained virtue and lush waters 💛💙

[images are two watercolour paintings; the first depicts Jin Guangyao smiling demurely, showing his dimples, while plucking at a golden string that runs across the painting. though his grasp looks gentle, his fingers bleed where they touch the string. the painting is bordered by pale yellow peonies. the second depicts Lan Xichen smiling benevolently at a common sparrow perched on his finger. he’s holding his xiao in his other hand, and stylistic boughs of a pine tree frame the painting.]

Su She x @danmei-confessions

Jin Guangyao's three smiles according to Zhu Zanjin:

[1] those that can be used (可利用)

[2] those to get rid of (可抹杀)

[3] lan xichen (蓝曦臣)

(interview from here, gifs from here reposted with permission!)

A Piece of a Filial Pious Heart: Jin Guangyao through the Lens of Filial Piety

Lan Xichen says these fateful words in episode 43 of CQL. And honestly, I think it’s really interesting to see the varied “Jin Guangyaos” in the eyes of different people in fandom! 

Everyone weighs differently — how much Jin Guangyao’s varied motivations (from ambition to the search for dignity) contributes to the choices he ultimately makes; and even the choices available to him in the first place! 

But in the English-speaking part of the fandom, I think what’s less explored is how much of a hold the traditional Chinese virtue of filial piety (孝 xiào) (deference to one’s elders, usually parents) had over Jin Guangyao’s motivations and choices available to him. 

I suspect that an appreciation for how deeply entrenched the virtue of filial piety is in Chinese culture might make one more likely to be sympathetic to Jin Guangyao as a character. After all, the many self-defeating decisions that we see Jin Guangyao make regarding his father and mother — so much of it feels startlingly similar to stories of filial piety celebrated in Chinese culture. In countless other parables and proverbs about filial piety, Jin Guangyao would be valorised. But in MDZS, what we have is a tragedy.

In this post, I’m going to try to get at this, through exploring how filial piety might have influenced Jin Guangyao, namely through two of his fateful decisions — to continue serving his father even as he was being abused and going back for Meng Shi’s remains. I’d like to suggest that both can be read as a deconstruction of filial piety, as part of MXTX’s broader deconstruction of traditional family values as a modern author. But caveat as always that this is heavily coloured by my own experiences with the value of filial piety :P And this post is going to be long….

Continua a leggere

Can your meow meow do this?

Can your meow meow do that?

Can your meow meow pull this outta their little hat?

i think it bears repeating (again) that nie mingjue was a clear and present danger to jin guangyao’s life, every day, from the date of their confrontation in the scorching sun palace to the moment of his qi deviation over four years later. four years, where every single minute that jin guangyao spent in nie mingjue’s company, he was taking his life into his own hands, and they both knew it. lan xichen knew it. completely uninvolved third parties who were witnesses to nie ningjue’s increasingly unhinged and violent behaviour knew it.

nie huaisang may have been compelled by filial piety to avenge his brother’s murder, but let’s not pretend that jin guangyao killed nie mingjue just because daddy said jump. because if he hadn’t killed nie mingjue first, it was only a matter of time before nie mingjue killed him.

Favourite JGY scenes part 3

Episode 30: A-Yao the Party Planner

I think one of the things that bothers me about the mastermind vs mastermind narrative that often seems to be constructed for NHS and JGY is that it’s a game only one of them is aware he’s playing, and it’s a game NHS is almost always set up to win, even in AUs. This seems related to something that comes up in lighter AUs as well, where NHS is the genius who just doesn’t care to exert himself, and the moment he chooses to, he is automatically capable of almost anything. It’s a very recognizable archetype, and has an appeal, but I feel that it becomes uncomfortable in the world of the narrative, especially when set against how very hard the viewer/reader sees JGY working all time, and in fact sometimes working hard on behalf of NHS, either to protect him or to assist him in some way. Overall, however, it seems to suggest, just as the society of the narrative does, that NHS is inherently superior: JGY may do as much work as he likes but he’s only pretending to the level that NHS was born to; if NHS actually makes an effort, he will inevitably surpass JGY. 

It’s been interesting reading all the comments on this post, but the reason I wrote this in the first place (and also the reason I brought it back all these years later), is less about what is going on in canon, and more about the ways in which fandom often replicates the prevailing attitudes of the narrative’s society and how this falls especially heavily on JGY.

I’m not as active on here as I used to be, but the focus of this blog has always been not only JGY as he actually appears in canon, but also how he is treated by the fandom at large, and I think it’s instructive to take a hard look at what it says when NHS is depicted in this sort of way.

👆👆👆👆👆

today on a-yao microexpressions part 3: public zewu-jun mention

Exactly!