Xicheng

well personally i like it when there’s incest and necrophilia and murder and cannibalism and abuse and torture and gore and mutilation and body horror and sexual depravity and death.

Every. Time.

"As long as it's a harmless ship"

All of the ships are harmless because they're all completely fictional characters.

sometimes you can tell when somebody who likes a ship just likes one of the characters and is simply using the other half as a vaguely ooc vehicle to make content for their fave which is whatever. not against the law. until the other half theyre using as a vehicle is YOUR fave. and then you want to explode them with your mind

Really iconic of Meng Yao to have two henchmen, each one perfectly designed to piss off one of his sworn brothers

Vietnam and Opoczno girls 🏳️‍🌈💘

MDZS Character height chart

This was the author’s footnote in chapter 115, unit in cm.

Nie Mingjue 191

Song Zichen 190

Lan Xichen 188

Lan Wangji 188

Wei Wuxian 186

Jin Zixuan 185

Jiang Wanyin 185

Xiao Xingchen 185

Wen Qionglin 183

Xue Yang 180

Mo Xuanyu 180

Nie Huaisang 172

Jin Guangyao 170 (without his hat but it’s doubtful whether the interior is heightened)

How MXTX characters would react to the assassination of the UHC CEO

Wei Wuxian: has anyone seen Wei Wuxian and Luigi Mangione in the same room? 👀

Lan Wangji: 100% ready to aide and abet

Jiang Cheng: Runs to review the sect healthcare plan - he has enough problems without looking out for assassins.

Lan Xichen: understands the motive but did Luigi try playing calming music for the CEOs before resorting to violence? 🥺

Jin Guangyao: oh so some people get lauded as heroes when they commit murder? SMH double standard.

Nie Mingjue: appreciates martial artistry when he sees it. The stance? How quickly he cleared the jam? A true warrior.

Xue Yang: it lacked a certain pizazz, a stabbing would have been much more visually effective

Wen Qing: 100% approves bureaucrats should have no authority over doctors

Thoughts on Jin Guangyao's name

So the "Yao" in GuangYao/Meng Yao (瑶) means "precious; precious stone, jade, mother-of-pearl" (source is technically google translate as op doesn't know any Mandarin, but "jade" is listed in the novel glossary).

In chapter 10 of mdzs book 2, we learn that the token Jin Guangshan left Meng Shi a "love token" in the form of a pearl button, which she sends him off with to "seek a way out of this life"; gaining his father's recognition.

Meng Shi named her son "precious" as in something of value. She might have also named him after, or at least been inspired by the pearl JGS left her. If this is the case, the pearl button, and Meng Yao's name, come to represent Meng Shi's hope for salvation: "she waited and waited, yearning and hoping for this head of the cultivators to return and take her and their child away."

Which is literally the function Meng Yao serves, to his mother and in the narrative. Although his mother clearly loved him, he represents--- at least initially--- an object/tool/avenue through which Meng Shi's wishes (salvation, a way out of this life) will be granted. (I do think MS came to love him but I don't think she originally kept the baby, at least primarily, out of a uncomplicated desire to be a mother raising a child in a brothel so much as a way out of said brothel yk). This is an important distinction for later-- the pearl, and Meng Yao, are the object of wish granting, not the wish itself or the person for whom wishes are granted. Not that Meng Shi's wish wouldn't also extend to her son's salvation. But this is less about them and more about he role Meng Yao is placed in in this dynamic and by extension the world, especially once Meng Shi is dead and only the ghost of her wish remains.

Unfortunately JGS is. . . JGS, and the button is "hurriedly crushed the pearl to dust" as Meng Yao is kicked down the stairs.

Okay so JGS literally crushes MS (and by extension, MYs) hopes and dreams under his foot. But, this action only furthers the parallels between the pearl button (and so, Meng Yao) and Wish Granting Pearls, or boazhu. One of the Eight Treasures/Eight Precious things, "popular symbols often depicted in Chinease art" and the most popular combination from a greater list of one Hundred Treasures.

One version of this concept found in Buddhism is a Chintamani, or wish fulfilling stone, "sometimes depicted as a luminous pearl" [x]. Further, Jin Guangyao honors his mother by building Guanyin temple. Guanyin is often portryed holding a wish granting jewel in his right hand [x]. I'm not super familiar with this, but the point is. The connection isn't just "JGYs name can mean pearl and JGS gave MS a pearl button", there's multiple associations between JGY, his mom, and the idea of wish granting pearls. Also the pearl is something of inherent value (sometimes fell from the sky) but also a way for wishes to be granted.

Jin Guangyao, who seemed born to resolve conflicts,

Yeah no literally. Named for it too. Assigned genie at birth. Then there's this bit from the fandom wiki:

The name 'Jin Guangyao' may have been cheekily inspired by the idiom "光耀门楣 (guāng yào mén méi)”, "splendor shines on the family's door”. This means "to bring honor to one's family”.

Which. Maybe this isn't anything that's not obvious in the text. But again [something about the distinction between bringing honor to and being honored or honorable, which should theoretically go together but don't necessarily, except I'm not sure enough in my (nonexistent) knowledge of the connotations of that idiom to articulate further].

I find it interesting that we learn the story of the pearl almost as soon as Meng Yao is introduced. And kicked down the stairs. And the pearl is crushed to dust underfoot, like it's nothing. Which

[pearl buttons were] nothing special to the Jin Clan of Lanling. They were so abundant, in fact, that you could fling out a hand at random and come away with a fistful. Their most common use was to be given as gifts to the beautiful women Jin Guangshan dallied with when away from home. He would pass these pretty little baubles off as rare treasures and top them off with a pledge of undying and eternal love. He gave them out as he pleased and forgot all about them after the fact.

Just like his bastard children. Literally. (Also maybe some parallels between the worthlessness of the pearls and what finally gets JGY to decide to kill his father).

Maybe more importantly, the pearl is an object, and a tool, something which has a value inextricable from it's use. Meng Yao is precious, but not for who he is, but for what he can do for people. And he is destined, even in his name, which calls him something precious, to be born to resolve conflicts. Possibly even to be necessarily consumed or destroyed if the wish is to be fulfilled, though I couldn't find enough information on what typically happens to these pearls in stories to be sure.

But it at least seems foreshadowed here. Nothing good is going to happen to the boy born to grant wishes when the object he's named after and heavily associated with is crushed to dust the moment he's introduced into the narrative.