The Way P&p 2005 Said: Here's One Of The Most Beloved Enemies To Lovers Romances Of All Time, We Don't

I've been obsessed with Jiang Cheng since halfway through my first watch of cql, and here's why. He always keeps doing better than I expect him to.

(wow, this got long. rest is under the cut!)

He's introduced as the brother-killer, the ruthless sect leader with a reputation for being merciless. Then cut to the flashback, a Jiang Cheng who is fifteen, surrounded by his sister and brother and happy about it, occasionally doing stupid teenager things, trying so very hard to be Ideal Heir, while Wei Wuxian is the prodigy that keeps stealing his thunder effortlessly. And you go, "oh, I know this story. It's a tragedy, because these brothers loved each other once, but one's ambition will eventually breed jealousy which will fester into hate and end, tragically, in the death of the better half." It's Cain and Abel! You've seen how it ends, it's the first scene you see, of course that's where it's going!

And then you see how the three siblings help each other survive a frankly horrible and abusive household. They try to do for each other what their parents couldn't; Yanli tries to be their mother, Jiang Cheng doesn't believe the rumours about Wei Wuxian being jfm's illegitimate son or hold it against him as he very easily could've learnt to from his mother, and Wei Wuxian does his darned best to get jfm to acknowledge and love his son as he does for Wei Wuxian.

You keep waiting for the other shoe to drop!! Yunmeng burns, Jiang Cheng chokes his brother in the rain, and you think this is it, this is where it finally breaks. But he sticks with his brother and sister, he makes some stupid decisions in his grief and pays dearly for it. When he wakes up without a core he is broken, his 'ambition' is destroyed, and you remember him choke his brother and think this is it, and then... it isn't. Other than the one grieving rant in the rain, he never blames his brother for their loss, never demands that he fix it all. When Wei Wuxian does come with a solution, Jiang Cheng doesn't act like it's something he was owed. It's his brother, his brilliant genius brother, who miraculously fixed this impossible thing! He's the most Jiang of them all, of course he achieved the impossible!

And then he's the young sect leader in a bloody war, needing to win, needing to prove his worth and his sect's worth at every turn. This is where he becomes the ruthless, powerful man we meet in the first few episodes! Only.... he finds Wen Qing, who is the enemy in the eyes of the Jianghu, and offers to protect her (only her because he knows his limits, he can't protect all her people and his own, and his duty to his sect is first). He goes looking for his brother, months on end, haggard to the bone.

Then Wei Wuxian shows up wielding a power that's the worst taboo in their world, a power frighteningly similar to the power-drunk villain that they war is being waged against! He's doing unspeakable things, terrible torture in the name of revenge! Ah, so this is what it finally is! The moment they finally fall out for good, where Jiang Cheng cannot abide to tarnish his sect's reputation with Wei Wuxian's, and their love turns to hate.

But.... Jiang Cheng sees what he's done, and the first thing he does is to hug him tight. He asks about Wei Wuxian not carrying his sword, but even after the diplomatic nightmare of a war council, Jiang Cheng is just worrying. It's the most open, the most honest we've seen him so far, and he is concerned for his brother. He shuts it down when Jin Zixun tries to pick a fight. He takes responsibility for the person everyone's wary of, because that's his brother and he trusts him! He's hiding things, yes, but one day he will be ready to talk and Jiang Cheng will wait till then.

Then the war's won (by Wei Wuxian, of course!) and he has a sect to rebuild. And his brother is not at his side. First he's slacking off and drinking around town, then he runs away with the Wens to the Burial Mounds. It's terrible for the sect's and Jiang Cheng's own precarious position in Jianghu. Surely, this is the last thread of Jiang Cheng's love for his brother, the beginning of the man we were introduced to? But it's fucking not! Yes, he's frustrated. Yes, he's mad. And yet, he doesn't force his sister into a diplomatically advantageous marriage (which I strongly believe is the bare minimum of being a decent human being, but is something that wouldn't have been a questionable or dishonourable thing for him to do in the culture and world this story is set in) because she is not a pawn and he respects her choice above the politics! He tries to defend his First Disciple, his brother, and is overshadowed by much more powerful leaders who are bigoted and/or afraid of his power. And when it all goes to shit, they fight! This is the end of it, surely? But no! It's all fake! They fight, make up a lie about how the Yunmeng Jiang has supressed Wei Wuxian and his Wens in the Burial Mounds so they can live without being under attack for however long, and then have shady meetups to discuss their nephew's name!!

In the carnage of Nightless City, their sister dies at his hands, and the horrible realisation dawns that this is what pushes them over the brink, literally. And then!! AND THEN!!!!! EVEN THEN IT WASN'T ENOUGH FOR HIM TO KILL HIS BROTHER!!! The first scene was a lie, WEI WUXIAN HAD TO THROW HIMSELF OFF!!!!!! And when he's finally back, what does Jiang Cheng do? Kill him? ban him from ever returning to their home? No! He wants to drag him back home and make him apologise, explain himself!!

A lot of this is very focused on the brothers, but even outside of that, Jiang Cheng keeps subverting the expectations that the story builds for him right in the beginning. For all the talks of 'disciplining' his nephew (which could unquestionably entail some form of corporal punishment, as we see in other parts of the story) and the childhood Jiang Cheng himself had, the idea of his Jiujiu raising his hand against him is unthinkable to the point of incredulity for Jin Ling. When Jin Ling has his breakdown over Suihua on the Lotus Pier docks, I was full bracing myself for Jiang Cheng to yell at him for crying in public without any shame or dignity, but what does he do? Calls his nephew to his side and demands to know who made him cry, so he can fucking wreck them for daring to do that! He has a mere day to process the Golden Core reveal, and after all the yelling, he actually apologises to his brother!!

Then, in the mother of all sucker-punch moments, we find out that the one grief-riddled, frustrating moment of apparent stupidity whose domino effect this entire thing has been, was in fact Jiang Cheng willingly sacrificing himself, sect be damned, to save his brother and sister. And like!! How do you have such a character who simultaneously is and is not what he seems to be!!!

I (and a lot of the audience) immediately played into the simple brotherhood-destroyed-by-jealousy plot that it seems to be at first, but that's the intention! The entire story keeps showing how misleading, how vicious rumours can be and how horribly it can affect who someone is in the eyes of society. We see this happen in the story, of course, but the narrative also relies on the audience to make the same mistake, to take the tropes that seem obviously implied at the start, and then unravels the true complexity of the story as it moves forward. We got played by the narrative and it was so worth it!! Wei Wuxian is the prime example, of course, but cql (and mdzs from what I gather, though I haven't read the books) does it with such nuance and brilliance for Jiang Cheng, how do you not immediately lose your entire mind about it for the rest of forever!!!!!

Ok so ppl of the internet

There’s no challenge because I’m right and no one will convince me otherwise

Fr tho I was thinking why no pairing with them really felt right and then it hit me: they’re all aro ace spec (it isn’t advertised on the picture like that but trust me bro)

But yeah they’re all on the spectrum because I said so and I’m aroace so I think I’m like the authority

In the end remember it’s all just funky brain waves (but I am objectively right so..)

Over and out :3

How do you know you’re of the deep end and have fallen into the abyss of a fandom? Well when you and your friends start imagining yourself in said fandom…then there’s no return :)

Example: My lovely friend @mara-hr who I dragged down with me into the Detective Conan fandom drew us

So Mara is a Sera lovechild obviously, Toni a Haibara one and Nell (aka me) well we figured either I’m a Heishin or Kazuhei lovechild (also Heiji has a type) lol

Just watched the Friday the 13th and the first Mr.Yang episode of psych with my friend (@emiko-fan-2podcasterin ). And I must admit as a disliker of horror, the first of these episodes was already nerve striking and a bit too much for me ( I’m extremely jumpy), but then on top of taht the emotional turmoil of the Mr.Yang episode with the awkward conversation between jules and Shawn in the end. That. That killed me, like I was mentally exhausted after that. So yeah… I definitely adored the Yang episode for the turmoil it gave me but also I need some time to recover from that.

And of course my friend was just very amused by my scaredness and inner turmoil at all of this

Anyway watch psych ppl

Transmasc Shawn, except he grows up in the 80s, with no vocabulary for this in his small city cop household childhood, so he's a tomboy demanding to be called by the male version of his name because it's "cooler" and wants to play with the boys. And his dad always wanted a son to step into his footsteps and trains him and pushes him to sharpen his skills. And both of his parents, wellmeaning but misguided, think it's just a phase.

And he doesn't grow out of it, and puberty just makes it worse. He becomes angry, rebellious. He dates girls, like Abigail, but he knows that he needs to leave to find himself, even though he's still missing the precise vocabulary for it.

And then he leaves for a while, takes odd jobs, travels through America, and meets another trans person for the first time in his life. Maybe at the dance group in Buffalo. Or in rural Argentina. He doesn't tell anyone when he begins to transition. He's somewhere halfway across the continent and he's fully himself for the first time.

And, meanwhile, Gus is doing an internship and he gets introduced to the concept of "sex changes" (it's the late 90s or early 00s) and he has so many questions, enough that the doctor thinks he's mtf, but Gus is just figuring out that his friend was "born in the wrong body" (again, 90s-00s) and that there's solutions for that.

And then Shawn turns up again and he's just. A guy now. Gus takes a second to recognise him on street but when he does he's overjoyed. His father needs time to process it. He's not overtly transphobic, he's just processing that his kid never felt comfortable enough to tell him this. And Shawn tells him he tried telling him, but he didn't know how. And Shawn tells him he always wanted to have a son anyway so what's the problem. And there's a bit of tension between them but Henry realises his son is a lot happier than his daughter.

And then Psych happens and Shawn has to juggle several secrets and identities at once. But it's fun to say things like "when I was a girl scout" and "when I got my first period" and "when I was a little girl" and have everyone laugh because it's so unbelievable to everyone that he's not just joking.

Okay so extremely random probably but please someone indulge me

(This has spoilers for final destination I guess)

I just watched the first Final Destination Movie w/ @emiko-fan-2podcasterin and before we saw the last death happen, an idea came to mind:

An au were instead of Carter dying at the end, they get just away from the situation in Paris and are now more or less bonded together. This entails moving in together, going to college together, having same classes etc etc , because they are trying to infinitely avoid the others deaths by having a constant cycle of saving going on.

So now they are like „Welp I guess we’re stuck with eachother ʅ（◞‿◟）ʃ“

So everyone around them: teachers, students, neighbours […] only knows them as a trio and u can not understand any circumstances find one without the other two.

Now this whole thing is a comedy sitcom with a bit of catastrophe a la Murphy’s law and a hilariously casual way they handle it after the time that passed.

Also in the humble opinion of my friend and I: they are in a poly relationship like at least after a few years it won’t just be Alex&Clear and Carter anymore but Alex&Clear&Carter (no I don’t take criticism on this)

I will sadly not be writing the whole thing cuz I always get stuck when writing very easily and I don’t want anyone (not even myself) to have to wait for my writing :|

Would love to hear some opinions on this since I don’t even know how existing the Final destination fandom in 2024 is especially since my knowledge of it is only from the first movie :)

(P.s. I loved Seeing Ali Larter in this personally since I only knew her from legally blonde which is one of my favourite movies :))) )

Foreshadowing is a literary device

Reblog to kill it faster

a very self-indulgent idea i got after watching the last ep of fmab anime or “and there were two beds but they ignored it”