Does Jiang Cheng Have A Choice?

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You know what I can't get enough of? Speculation about what the fictional novel Proud Immortal Demon Way says about its fictional author. Because it would be completely possible to make a story like this without that connection. I'm not sure I've read any other transmigration story where the author was a character, so just that addition adds a lot of interesting texture to the situation even without getting deep in the author's head, but it's so interesting how deep I can speculate in so many directions if I think about getting in his head.

And oh man, I could talk for AGES about how Shang Qinghua and his iconic protagonist reflect each other, but a lot of people have written about that already! Including in the medium of fic, which is my favorite way to consume that kind of crunch. So let's talk about familial neglect and mistreatment and the author's favorite character.

Honestly, when I look at how iconic this ship is, I'm astonished there aren't more hit novels where the author gets yeeted into their own book and has to navigate platonic or romantic relationships with their own characters. A lot of the parallels between Shang Qinghua and Luo Binghe are about them being alike in ugly and vulnerable ways, ways I don't think either of them likes about themselves, and regarding aspects of their personalities that I don't think they'd be happy discussing period. Like, Binghe very much hates himself, that's right there on the page. And Shang Qinghua is a ridiculous character, he's very funny, but he's also not stupid. He's very aware of who he is and what he is, and makes a decision to behave the ways he does. I'm typing this up because I was scrolling through an old chat looking for something and tripped across a conversation about shang qinghua and fawn trauma response.

He knows he does this thing! He has an easy opening to turbokill Mobei-jun while he's unconscious and decides to go the route of begging for his life and trying to ingratiate himself after Mobei-jun wakes up instead, which is a much trickier process. He says it himself, that Mobei-jun is his ideal, that he embodies everything Shang Qinghua wants to be, that etc. And that's hilarious and all, especially in light of the eventual romance and the clownery it takes to get there, but in classic svsss fashion, it also becomes a lot sadder when you add up all the pieces and see everything Shang Qinghua hates about himself.

In some ways he's an even more avoidant narrator than Shen Qingqiu, he deflects and jokes like a motherfucker, so it really is a matter of assembling all the pieces and seeing where there are gaps. But what really underscored the connection for me was Mobei-jun's reaction to parental neglect. Because that's what pushed Shang Qinghua into being an author in the first place, his parents divorced and remarried and kinda just.... forgot about him.

Mobei-jun's dad doesn't exactly do that, but he is operating without a mom in the picture, and rather than remarrying, he just chooses to ignore the thing where his shitty brother is persistently trying to kill his son. That really sucks! But Mobei-jun never shows the smallest hint of weakness or vulnerability over this, even when it would have really helped to use his words, like 'hi my uncle is coming to kill me and i trust you to protect me.' He's everything cool, aloof, arrogant, proud, all a bunch of adjectives that really do not apply to Shang Qinghua. Mobei-jun honestly looks like a boring character if you just stick to the main story, because he's so self-contained and controlled. Compare and contrast to Shang Qinghua, who accidentally outs himself as a transmigrator like two minutes after showing up and proceeds to be hilarious for the rest of the book.

(Brief aside to say that I don't think Mobei-jun is necessarily a happier or healthier person for all of this, lmao. The conversation that fawn reaction thing came from was talking about freeze (tee hee) versus fawn in response to threats or stressful situations. But that goes along with the svsss theme of people used to engaging with this universe as a fictional property coming to terms with the depth and complexity of other people's emotions and not just seeing them as simplistic not-real characters in a book)

(Additionally, this makes the ship hilarious as a take on 'opposites attract,' but also it gives me actual Emotions that Shang Qinghua's ideal who he wishes he could be, purely incidentally, he is able to value and love Shang Qinghua in a way that Shang Qinghua can't and doesn't seem to totally understand)

And what's very interesting here. Is that Shang Qinghua made these two characters, Luo Binghe and Mobei-jun. His protagonist ultimately reflects a lot of his own vulnerabilities and insecurities (secretly and quietly in pidw, much more.... overtly in svsss), and Mobei-jun corrects for his vulnerabilities and insecurities. He's the person Shang Qinghua wishes he could be, which is basically... the opposite of Shang Qinghua, to an almost comical degree. And he then gives Mobei-jun the VERY BEST plot armor he can devise. It's hard for a male character to exist near a stallion protagonist without getting swept up in rivalries/suspicions/etc and getting killed by the protagonist, but he makes sure that his favorite character is safe from these things. He's protecting the character he wishes he could be from the character whose faults most reflect his own. That is very sweet and weird and sad, and that's very reflective of the svsss experience, I think.

[twirling strand of hair] so there’s this fictional alien guy-

kiss me under the moonlight

I've been thinking about this a lot

Aand this comic is finally complete! Thank you all who read this and left feedback. Wish I could answer you all but I'm too mentally drained for this, still I appreciate every single comment I receive :> Title: "The Ghost King isn't dressed" Based on the extra of the same name. Contains potential spoilers for the book. Please don't reupload it anywhere.

Happy new year!!! This was supposed to be for Christmas but life got in the way.. Wishing everyone a year of growth and happiness for 2023!

So.

According to @demiace-wen-ning​‘s iconic post, every MXTX novel has:

A red/black, morally ambiguous, all-powerful bastard man

A fan wielder who is much more than meets the eye

And a fucking Jiang Cheng

Now we, as a collective fandom, have decided with our communal braincell that in SVSSS, the “fucking Jiang Cheng”™ character is Liu Qingge. And on the surface, this seems Right and Good:

HOWEVER! I posit that these aspects are only the most superficial and external aspects of the vast and multi-layered Dagwood sandwich that is fundamental “fucking Jiang Cheng”™yness. “fucking Jiang Cheng”™ has LAYERS. And for all that I love Liu Qingge, I love him in the same way I love the Sonic franchise’s Knuckles the Echidna:

This is emphatically NOT how I love Jiang Cheng. Furthermore, this is demonstrably NOT the sort of character that a fandom becomes viciously divisive about. This is the sort of character you either like or dislike and move on with your life because he is not deep and complex enough to Die On This Hill for defending. (This is a Feng Xin or Nie Mingjue sort of character.)

So what makes for a “fucking Jiang Cheng”™ character? What are the quintessential “fucking Jiang Cheng”™ characteristics that result in a complex and divisive character? I propose:

ambiguous/unexplained actions

refusal to explain motives

canon selfless actions missed or negatively interpreted

socially over-conscious while still socially detested

harsh and contemptuous outward behavior

honestly, naturally is an asshole, but holds back just enough to get away with it

hard-working but overshadowed by upstart prodigy

childhood trauma that fundamentally affected behavioral patterns

aggressively focused on their cultivation and consequent social status

secretly heartbroken about a perceived betrayal regarding the protagonist

yay, war crimes!

These attributes all describe Jiang Cheng. All but the last one describe Mu Qing, with the second-to-last applying in a way where HE is perceived as the betrayer. None of these attributes describe Liu Qingge. But you know who they DO describe in SVSSS?

Shen Jiu.

The ORIGINAL Shen Qingqiu.

An undeniable asshole who nevertheless gets punished for every good deed he ever did, who clawed and scraped his way to the top of the cultivation world and ensured he stayed there no matter how many bridges he had to burn or enemies he had to make along the way, who acts like a bitter tsundere to the person who matters most to him because said person broke their promise and never explained why, whose childhood was a never-ending parade of trauma and abuse that molded him into a harsh and suspicious individual, who (though we don’t find out until the extras) shows no sexual interest in anyone, whose own path to cultivation was so difficult and traumatic that they could not stop themselves from jealously lashing out at the heaven-blessed prodigy standing right next to them.

Shen Jiu is the TRUE “fucking Jiang Cheng”™ of SVSSS, and I cordially invite any haters to bring it on because this is My Hill and I am ready to fight for it.

the idea of shou going to school after mp100 is. so fucking funny to me. like Hell Yeah boy get an education. get to learning and all that. but like. imagining Shou is a school setting is hilarious to me. 

the poor guy would like. on his first day pull a fire alarm. get in shit afterwards cuz his excuse was that he didn’t know what it did. but he genuinely Honest To God didn’t know what it did and it scared him so fucking bad he ran away 

He Will Not talk to his classmates. he has no business with them. they have nothing beneficial to him. 

but he latches onto ritsu because Obviously shou would make sure they go to the same school

his first gym class, he sends a guy to the hospital with a dodge ball. shou is banned from dodge ball 

he Must be the best at every sport. Basket ball? track and field? tennis? fuck dude they could play fucking cricket in class and he Has to be the best

he thought that, when you take books out of the school library, you just get to keep them. 

he never checked them out or anything. jsut walked in, saw a book with a nice cover or somethin about wrestling, took it and left. its his book now

no one noticed until all the animal books went missing

some snitch of a student mentioned that they saw shou walking out with a book on monkeys and ratted him out

they opened his locker to find like 200 books

shou is banned from the library

every school photo of him is blurry. like. he could be standing in a class photo and be the only one blurry in it

shou claims he doesnt do this but thats most likely a lie

random classrooms, some shou has never even had a reason to go into, have a picture of his face and big bolded text saying DON’T LEND THIS STUDENT ANY UTENSILS/PENS/PAPER/ETC

every class has a different reason

in one, he created throwing stars out of paper that were genuinely sharp and hucked them at people walking outside through the windows

in another, he conducted and ‘experiment’ with pen ink and dyed half the desks horrible brackish blue colours

no one ever sees him do work Ever but he always gets it done, hands it in right on time, and gets near perfect marks

the student council has put ritsu in charge of helping shou out and learning how the school works and getting him adjusted 

aka ‘your boyfriend is unruly please calm him down’ 

it Kind Of works???? in the sense that once rules and stuff are pointed out he Is aware of what does and doesnt go in school

doesnt mean he abides by them still

when he found the art room No One could get him out of there

as soon as he started an art project he would become hyper focused on it and no one could interrupt him. taking away his paints or putting his papers and utensils somewhere was a Death Sentence

Serizawa would bring him lunches during his breaks at the office and Shou would do the ‘ugh you’re embarrassing me’ routine but it’d always be like. in the middle of a class

he becomes that like. One Student in school everyone gawks at and admires but like. a combination of the mysterious kid and the jock kid

once in the middle of class, Shou was being weirdly quiet and looking down at his lap, sitting completely still

the girl next to him asked him what he was doing and Shou just leaned back and there was a massive guinea pig asleep in his lap

when he figures out that he can like. be in and make clubs Shou goes apeshit

he makes an Animal Lovers club and technically not enough people join but ritsu Makes Sure that the student council doesnt close it down because hes never seen Shou so happy and he Wont Let Anyone Ruin That

the same guinea pig girl looked over his shoulder at his sketch pad once and just. saw millions of drawings of ritsu. 

she complimented him on his art and Shou lit up 

“thanks! it helps to have such a gorgeous subject”

Excalibah by bleedman