Look at our boy suffering for love
Since San Lang literally has dice with teleportation arrays that can take him anywhere he wants, this has to be the first time in 800 years that he's had to actually WALK from point A to point B. Supposedly ghosts are affected by too much sunlight; that doesn't seem like it would get to Hua Cheng with his power level, yet you can't deny our boy looks miserable.
I think he's most upset that this whole trek is happening because SOMEONE doesn't have enough spiritual magic to get them right where they wanna go. He might have even been fine with an extended trip if it was just him and Xie Lian, but those other two had to butt in. No wonder moments after this he's immediately picking a fight to make himself feel better.
Sleeping in Puqi shrine? Easy, gonna win over Xie Lian in no time
Trudging across the desert for hours on end? Gege, I'm going to die again please have mercy
If I had a nickle for every time Lan Wangji actively cut off a cultivator's arm/hand, I'd have two nickles. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.
Yes! A big portion of Laurent's character is that he uses the fact that his looks make him seem incompetent on purpose! He's trained in secret to become strong enough to kill Damianos, and I think it's "But Green for a Season" that reveals how Jord discovered Laurent had gotten very good with his discreet lessons.
Even though he loses against Damen during their fight in the third book, he still proves himself to be a challenge; what he lacks in raw power against an enemy, he makes up for with his tactics and dirty fighting. He'll use the environment to his advantage, upset and anger his opponent, and he's not above a knee to the groin if it'll give him an edge. When Laurent is fighting Kastor at the end, Damen even considers that if Laurent hadn't been both injured from Govart and his mind clouded with rage - if he were actually focusing with his greatest strength, his mind - he might have even beat Damen in that very fight! Laurent had been on the defensive and a victim for so long that it's often easy to forget that the guy has been training and pushing himself to make up for anything he lacks in order to escape his underdog position.
The only weakness Laurent has is that for most of the books, he thinks he has to do everything alone. The idea that Damen would ever want to help him, wouldn't betray him the instant Laurent didn't have something to reign him in, and that anyone would actively believe in him - it's almost too much for Laurent to fully wrap his head around. He can't compete with his uncle, that's what's been drilled into his head from the most vulnerable point of his life. He's younger, and he can't do anything about it. He's smart, but the Regent will ALWAYS have more experience, will always have the advantage, and Laurent has had every person who might support him and believe in him either abandon him or be killed with every tiny misstep.
The second book, Laurent would have never managed to beat his uncle in this ONE maneuver had Damen not been there to A: stop him from trying to go off on his own and "play along" with his uncle to the point that he basically admits defeat, and B: has a partner who is offensively able to teach him everything his uncle refused to teach him when it comes to being a leader. The only reason Laurent even brought him along was because, begrudgingly, Damen could be temporarily useful. He knows Damen is Damianos from the very beginning, and so he uses their nights going over strategy to learn both the limits of his own people and how Akielons think. Laurent needs to learn how to be a king, something the Regent wouldn't have been keen to actually teach him while trying to outst him from the Veretian throne.
At the end of that book and the beginning of the third, Laurent plays like he's fully prepared to work independently of Damen - or if he is going to work with him, he'll not be reliant upon Damen in any way. He knows Damen a little better now, but that can't instantly erase the confrontation six years in the making when Laurent wants to lash out and beat the shit out of Damen to prove that he didn't spend all this time trying his hardest and it still wasn't enough. It wasn't - Laurent had to painfully confess that he knew he could never beat Damen, and if Damen hadn't been such a good person, he would have lost.
The fact is, Laurent's greatest weakness is being in the mindset that he has to be strong enough and smart enough to do everything alone. Laurent became extremely self-sufficient, deadly in both body and mind, but being with Damen and even falling in love with him was doubly painful because not only is Damen a reminder that he isn't strong enough all on his own, but now his greatest asset is someone who he's spent all this time trying to overcome. It's a really awful struggle for him to accept that maybe someone can actually understand him and support him and be strong enough not to be hurt in the process.
A person? Being on his side?? Willingly??? Someone he doesn't have to protect 24/7???? But someone he WANTS to protect????? AND IT'S FUCKING DAMIANOS WHO HE HATES?????? BECAUSE HE'S A GOOD PERSON???????
In the third book, Laurent actively gives himself up to the Regent, and by Damen’s account, he fully believes no one was going to come for him. He didn't have a plan, he knew he could save Damen maybe but not himself. It's a bit of a weird final move for Laurent to have been saved by a plan that wasn't his own and barely Damen's, but it does showcase his weakness of giving up when he doesn't have a definitive plan in his uncle's domain - by contrast to Damen who never gives up hope even when things around him seem hopeless and he doesn't know what to do, YET.
And to the next point, Damen. We see everything (except one tiny chapter) from Damen's POV, and so by necessity, Damen has to be behind in most of Laurent's plans so that he can figure things out at the same time the readers do. In the first and especially the second book, Damen really is Laurent's slave. Laurent is in charge, Laurent calls the shots, Laurent's the one fighting this civil war with everything to both gain and lose. Laurent is the one to go somewhere, with Damen demanding to follow and help, and proving himself useful in the process. Damen really is just reacting to things happening around him, with the point of that book being him growing Laurent's trust to actually be allowed to do shit.
Damen's only "dumb" quality is that he simply recognizes things as facts, rather than hypothesize about what could be done in the future. He really is a reactive character, but it's entirely realistic if you think about how Akielons are compared to Veretians. Akielons think very straightforward; they take in what they know, work out something from it, and then conclude with a plan to execute - take in the new information gleaned, then rinse and repeat. Veretians think five steps ahead, ensure every action has at least two different purposes/meanings, make sure that even when they lose one thing, they can still gain another. Damen has the problem-solving and experience to react in the moment to Laurent's actions, but only when he sees the plan executing before his eyes.
Ever heard that symbolic thing about their culture designs? Akielons are very stripped down and simple with their clothing, Veretians have complex ties and strings that Damen complains are overly and unnecessarily extravagant? It's like that.
However Damen spends SO much time keeping up with Laurent's patterns that he actually starts to think like him. Damen is good at taking what he knows and making use of it. To be the King of Akielos, he had to know how war worked, how people worked, what customs and traditions and practices were common, what could be weapons and what could be problems. He simply adds Laurent's new perspective on life and the ways of the Veretians to his list of examples to pull from.
To be fair, Damen BEGINS the story slightly naive and spoiled. The whole reason Kastor shipped him off to Vere as a slave was because he refused to believe Kastor was anything more than the brother he had known. Before that instance, Damen didn't believe people could be more than they appeared on the surface. That's just how Akielon culture is. Heck, Damen even admits that he blindly followed his own father's perspective on life - he was the shining king, who could never do wrong, who fought and won battles with glory and grace, and always with honor. He beat back the slimy, conniving, distrustful snakes of Vere who could never be trusted to keep their word or worry about anyone other than themselves.
It's really good worldbuilding, because it's true that's how Veretians can be - not all of them, certainly, but it's also just a human thing, not exclusive to any culture. Some people are good, some are bad, and it's just normal for some people to have built a society where outsmarting others and building a reputation is the way you survive.
But after all his time actually getting to know Laurent and his people and their culture? Damen admits that though he would never speak ill of his father, he can't agree with the kind of king he was; Theomedes was a king who conquered, rather than tried to understand. Damen's father would have never tried to think like the enemy did, to differentiate one Veretian from another. Damen was only forced to see the differences when he saw Laurent and the Regent - Laurent was ultimately a good, kind person, but he was crushed under the weight and expectations and attacks from all sides, forced to become someone else entirely to play their game.
And it's ultimately Damen who has to convince Laurent that playing the game under his uncle's terms is always going to be how he loses. Laurent is thinking five moves ahead to try and keep up with his uncle who is six moves ahead. Instead, Laurent needs to forge his own path, not to be a piece on his uncle's board, but the king of his own. Where Damen is forced to learn Veretian cunning just to keep up (and he does so successfully, if not as good as Laurent who's been doing it much longer), Laurent is forced to learn Akielon straightforwardness and the simple fact that if he wants to win, he has to go into it believing he will - however delusional it seems to barge in, acting first, thinking later.
Veretians can be good people, use their cunning minds to do good things, to fight their enemies and maintain good and evil even within their own kingdom. Akielons can be loyal and headstrong, and if pointed in the right direction, they'll be paragons who'll fight for what they believe in even against all odds. Regardless of the kingdom, there are good and bad people inside it. Both princes need to learn it if they want to be kings, and though it takes a lot of pushing, they ARE willing to learn for their own survival.
Damen is a seriously strong warrior, that can't be argued, but he has EVERYTHING that makes him a born-leader. He recognizes strategies, opens his mind to new ideas, and in turn opens Laurent's mind as well. Laurent is cynical but extremely intelligent; he isn't lacking in any kingly quality beyond his own self-confidence, the belief that he can win after years of thinking all he could do was lose. The two of them really do work with one another, brains and brawn, as well as the potential to help the other recognize the benefits of their different ways of life.
TL;DR it's like this:
"My size," Laurent said, "is the usual. I am not made in miniature. It's a problem of scale, standing next to you."
What I feel the CaPri fandom sometimes fails to understand is that Damen only looks stupid compared to Laurent and Laurent only looks weak compared to Damen.
Damen is one of the few people who pick up on Laurent's schemes - sure, he picks up on things more slowly than Laurent, who has an insider's view of the situation and is actually the person in control of his schemes (in addition to his godlike intelligence), but Damen sees through what Laurent is doing more quickly than anyone else, even people who have known Laurent for years, and manages to keep up with his logic most of the time when no one else does. In book 1 he always manages to read a situation pretty accurately based on the knowledge he has - he can see what Laurent's options are and where the political lines are drawn, he just doesn't know how to mess with them as creatively as Laurent does.
Similarly, Laurent is one of the most competent fighters in the setting and only looks weak compared to Damen, the God of Warfare, who is like 2 meters tall and 2 meters wide. He's not some helpless uwu smol bean, he can hold his own, gives Damen a damn good fight even though he's been recently injured and fucks up several other people described as very strong fighters during the course of the series.
So I was playing around with the idea of a TTS reader, ya know maybe hearing my work read aloud will help inspire me to continue this fic, get immersed in it. Obviously I'm worried about AI and copyright and outside sources seeing my work, but I dived down the rabbit hole of these TTS readers and how they charge people.
Rant incoming of course
Like you would think, "TTS is a handy thing to help with disabilities, a little convenience in life, it should be free or at least cheap, like subtitles. Maybe they're not always perfect but they do help! If you want something better than the basic bot, then you pay, but like how much can it ACTUALLY be - there are words everywhere!"
They charge by the CHARACTER not by the word, first of all, which is absurd, but fine whatever. For context, a 4k chapter of mine is upwards of 20k characters, and about 100 pages of writing in my docs is around 300k characters, but at least I can have that comparison at my fingertips.
Most "free" character limits are 3k. Not 3k words, 3k CHARACTERS. One place had 3k characters of Premium and 3k of non-premium, so it's technically 6k characters a day for their free version, but that's the best I could find skimming the fine print of a bunch of these things.
The paid plans though, hoo boy let's do some math! They preach "unlimited" for the non-premium voices, your basic bots that may be grating on the ear but they get the job done? But the premiums still have limits, of course.
200k characters a day and 1 million characters a month was one of the plans. So around 40k words a day up to 50 of my 4k chapters a month, and closer to 20 of my normal 10k+ word chapters (not including when I re-read a single chapter multiple times for editing or my own amusement). That's 200k words, not including repeats. For $11 a month or the yearly $48. I've seen $150 for 1M a month on one, feel free to tell me if you've seen worse
Up a tier is 500k a day and 2.5M a month. 25 4k word chapters a day, up to 125 a month; 8 or so 10k+ word chapters a day, closer to 40 a month. For $21 a month or $120-$180 yearly (depending on which reader you find).
If you have ever seen my chapters before, you'll see how inconvenient this is, having a daily limit of being able to listen to up to 8 chapters, not even including when I just want to reread them for my own amusement - although I suppose you could record and download them for infinite use, but what if I rewrite, add, or fix errors or entire paragraphs? Then I have to make a whole new one.
There was one version toying with the idea of a pay-as-you-go feature, ya know, basically virtual TTS currency, 200k characters for $10, 1M characters for $40, use them as you please, your time limit to use them is 1 year but every renewal no matter how tiny also renews the end date for when they expire, so a little better for my ADD ass who who'll write like 3M characters in 3 months and then go radio silent for another 6 months.
Anyway so long story short I feel better about myself, seeing I'm way too powerful for TTS to keep up with, but also sad because even if I'm willing to shill out for a voice that doesn't sound robotic AF on my work, I'm still too powerful. I, American English as I am, prefer the non-premium British voices, they somehow sound a little less bot-like but idk.
It's all AI anyway, I should just pay a voice actor to read my stuff every time I write, it'd probably be more environmentally friendly and cost-effective.
So if you made it this far for some reason tell me how many characters you wrote today so you have a bigger number than your word count, I'm up to 25k on this chapter I'm not even done with
Yessss but like Laurent is also STILL trapped in a cycle of misery when Damen first comes along. For the duration of the first book, Laurent has, by no means, escaped the Regent's grasp on him. Not only was he emotionally and sexually abused during the most vulnerable point in his life (losing both his father and his older brother who were these brilliant paragon kings in his eyes that he felt he could never live up to), but the Regent has been playing a careful game with Laurent all this time even after he gained some level of agency in his life.
Damen and Laurent are enemies-to-lovers of course, but Laurent has an extremely long way to go. Damen only goes to Laurent in the first place because he manages to discern that Laurent is the lesser of two evils - the Regent will betray him the moment he gets what he wants, but Laurent proves himself honorable enough to help Damen get some slaves to a better place even at the risk of his own reputation. The Regent is looking for every reason possible to strip Laurent of his rightful-heir position, and Damen ends up having to choose to risk himself even when he's in a delicate position as a slave when he decides to take Laurent's side.
It cannot be stressed enough: Every single person Laurent gets close to and begins to trust is either ruined, killed, or turns against him thanks to the Regent, and that changes when Damen comes along. At first, it seems like Damen is protecting Laurent so desperately because Laurent is the only chance he has at surviving and gaining some level of favor while he's in enemy territory - but Damen DOES make some escape attempts, he DOES talk back, be DOES do dangerous things. Damen was not necessarily a good person before he met Laurent either, having to be humbled by his position. The fact that Damen is also the man who killed his brother doesn't exactly make Laurent any happier about being forced to work with him.
However, Damen is useful. He's strong, he's smart (having the knowledge and training of a foreign prince that Laurent can use), and he's determined to keep Laurent alive. It's a good alliance, even if it's extremely risky - he figured out pretty quickly who Damen really was, and it's natural for him to expect Damen to betray him the moment he has an advantage and no longer needs Laurent to help him from his slave position. Everyone else has. He's stuck in this constant state of wondering just when every connection he lets into his heart will snap and break him ever further. That's why even when he and Damen share their first romantic scenes, Laurent is still tricky and borderline hurtful towards Damen; they're not instantly lovey-dovey the moment they share their feelings because Laurent can't shake off the pain of knowing he could lose Damen in so many ways - either from Damen getting hurt or taken by outside forces, or worse, Damen himself choosing to abandon him.
But the thing is, Damen proves him wrong over and over and over. Laurent admits later how terrifying it was for him to be falling in love with Damen, because Damen kept proving how he cared about Laurent genuinely and was strong enough to stand by him even against the odds. He goes out of his way to save Laurent's life, goes out of his way to choose him over the Regent, goes out of his way to make an alliance with him rather than turning on his enemy once he gets back to his own people.
The second book gives Laurent a breath of fresh air, as he's no longer in the Regent's domain where he constantly had to be on guard. He fights off a few assassinations, with Damen proving his loyalties over and over, even when Laurent occasionally abandons and even outright betrays him to put Damen at a distance. Damen stands by him anyway, Damen proves he's not only going to stand by Laurent when Laurent is important to him, but also staying with him even when he doesn't have to.
Laurent was terrified that once Damen's cuffs came off, once he was no longer a slave and was back into a prince - a king, even - Laurent would stand no chance. He's been dreaming all these years about being able to beat Damen and avenge his brother, but after the two of them have an ugly scuffle, Laurent admits painfully that he knows he'd never be able to beat Damen in a fight. Laurent is good, he's willing to fight dirty, what he lacks in physical might he makes up for with his tactics. He uses everything he learns from Damen to eventually become self-sufficient, trying to not need Damen anymore. Laurent is good at what he does, but he's never felt like he's enough - he's always on the defensive with his uncle, and here comes Damen also out-doing him even when he's stuck as a slave. Both of them were captive princes in their own way, but Laurent sees how Damen seems to be so much better than him at surviving in shackles.
However, then Damen is determined to treat Laurent as his equal. He gives one of his slave cuffs to Laurent as a sign of their equal status. Instead of shedding the memory of his slavery, he holds onto them and makes them a symbol of his connection and dedication with Laurent. It's him shackling himself to Laurent to say that he's not going to let Laurent get away. His time as a slave was an awful low point, but at the same time it's what brought him to Laurent, and now it binds them together.
Damen doesn't just SEE the true Laurent, he isn't just "the different one" who is just LIKE that, and he certainly doesn't begin as a paragon of goodness that Laurent needs to learn to be more like. Damen himself changes as he opens himself up to Laurent as well and begins to find something worth more than all he had known before. Damen proves himself over and over through his actions, tolerating even the worst parts of Laurent, wanting to see past the betrayals and his cold attitude and his sharp tongue and actually get to know Laurent as he is. He knows there's a kind, scared, broken man hidden behind so many walls that Laurent can NEVER truly drop; he can never REALLY open up and go back to the happy child he once was. And that's okay. He wants to eliminate all the threats that Laurent needs those walls for, and that means being strong enough for the both of them.
In the end, Damen ends up wanting to see Laurent free to choose how he lives his life and even CHOOSE to be happy about it. He wants Laurent to know he's worthy of it, that Damen can help him find it. He doesn't just want to do everything FOR Laurent; he wants Laurent to finally see that he's strong enough to win even if it means he needs help. Damen, meanwhile, learns about the nuances of people like Laurent and how to value the lives of those suffering, to find a way to use his power to make things better. Both of them are what the other needed to become the better versions of themselves, and isn't that just the best romance you can get?
I think Laurent is such an appealing character because he is so emblematic of those people who are broken but still want to be worthy of love.
Laurent, to me, is a variation on a type of person I’m familiar with. The clever, gifted, introverted child who struggles socially, weighed down by a big brain and oddly adult preoccupations. The one who becomes fractured through trauma, ends up hiding behind a pointed, cold, even cruel, demeanour as self-protection. I bet most of us know that person (some of us might even be that person). It’s not a good persona to have felt forced to adopt. But beautiful, barbed-tongued Laurent makes it seem more palatable than it is.
Truth is, he’s in a bad place before Damen. Laurent is that person who holds everyone at arms length, mistrustful of being hurt and abandoned, but somehow still forges ahead on a path towards some goal they’re determined to win as it gives them purpose, even when they can’t even really envision a future for themselves (where will they be in ten years time? Who will they be? They have no answer). The one who finds romantic relationships so agonising, they often choose to absent themselves from them, because they come hand in hand with unbearable vulnerability, and who don’t know how to feel sexual desire without the past intruding, and without feeling like they’re giving something up or losing somehow, who suspect they might be permanently ruined.
Laurent’s mind is like a steel trap, and it makes it easy to look down on others (not something others find particularly likeable). Is the type who can separate out the deep moral integrity that forms the bedrock of who they are, from the more flimsy, politer, social kind of morality which they tossed out the window in the name of survival (hard to make friends when you do that). The kind of person who is haunted by shame and filled with secret self-loathing, who uses humour to cope, and feels stuck in a state of arrested development even though they had to grow up too fast. The sort who can lose their temper so badly they cross lines no-one else can, but will die for the people they love. Who can seem flippant and facetious yet exhausting in their intensity.
And then good, honourable, warm-hearted Damen comes along and sees him.
This Normal Boy (who is really an Exceptional Boy), clothed in the body of his enemy. This towering stereotype of attractive athleticism, this strong warrior prince, well-loved, well-liked, who should be stupid and selfish, a repellent, violent aggressor, but is instead an intellectual equal, honourable and caring and kind. Who makes sex an act of love, of giving and taking in equal measure, makes it slow and tender and meaningful and pleasurable, adjusting exactly to how Laurent likes it, makes it no longer something to fear.
Damen who guides Laurent back to his own heart, is the light to his dark, and softens those lethal edges. Who laughs with him, matching bon mot for bon mot. Who loves Laurent, for all his faults, who sees him at his very, very worst, all that ugly, vicious darkness laid bare, and still gives him his heart, and will never abandon him. Who heals him.
The books are the ultimate broken person’s fantasy, honestly. That if we see a glimmer of ourselves in Laurent, then maybe a Damen is out there who could show us how it could be.
A small PSA to all those new to dealing with the porn bots that Tumblr now has a fresh wave of – I understand that when you go to report them, you want to report them as "[containing] sexually explicit material", but don't do that. Report them as spam instead.
These are spam bots flooding tags and the website in general with spam links. They often do not have anything sexually explicit on their blog (although they often have implicit material). Plus, these two reports get very different results. Reporting explicit material gets the bot slapped behind an 18+ wall, so minors can't check if they're a bot or not. Reporting spam gets the bot taken down.
Remember, folks: when dealing with a bot, report spam, not smut!
CRISIS CORE FINAL FANTASY VII REUNION (2022) dev. Square Enix ↳ ✨ MOOGLE POWER ✨
Okay but like,
If there were 10 million demons ready for Armageddon in the first season, how is Hell severely understaffed by Season 2? I believe Neil stated somewhere that Ligur was probably the first demon in a long time to have been properly killed off completely (rather than just discorporated), and I'm certain Hell isn't very organized or motivational, but are they just...putting a ton of their people into punishments that occupy them or something? Where did the 10 million demons ready for Armageddon go in the couple years after the failed attempt? Or did Adam's meddling to avert it somehow disarm both sides in such a way?
Gabe and Beez both complained about the hassle it was to get their respective sides to stand down, but did that involve a lot of locking down and imprisoning/torturing some of them to make them unavailable? Did a bunch of demons just quit and leave? Are demons even allowed to quit (I'd assume not)? If so, are they being punished for wanting to quit or did they try leaving to the human world? Did they try fleeing to the stars in space?
It's hilarious that Shax is ready to bring out an entire army to get Gabriel in the bookshop and yet is challenged by the lack of just available staff, but also confusing to me, who thought Hell would certainly have those numbers - and otherwise I have no explanation as to why there wouldn't be many demons just available, even if not war-bound. I mean an excuse to leave their boring desk jobs and the shitty basement office for even a little while? Even if it was an underwhelming bookshop-raid, why wouldn't all the demons at least be curious?
I mean then again maybe both sides were lying about their numbers and all these questions are moot.
ep 1. I Accidentally Get Resurrected
ep 2. My Teenage Nephew Bullies Me
ep 3. The Teacher’s Pet Duels Me to the Death
ep 4. Lan Xichen Shoots His Shot
ep 5. Jiang Cheng Needs a Wingman
ep 6. We Speak With Lan Zhan’s Frozen Grandma
ep 7. Lan Zhan Smiles
ep 8. We Embark On an Epic Field Trip (Also Nie Huaisang is Here)
ep 9. I Throw Hands With a Bird
ep 10. We Meet Our Celebrity Crushes
ep 11. We Pull Up to Evil Summer Camp
ep 12. The Low-Budget Dog Animatronic Tries to Eat Me
ep 13. We Battle the Tortoise of Doom
ep 14. I Threaten to Strip
ep 15. My Stepmom Ships Us Off
ep 16. Pretty Much Everyone I Love is Dead Now
ep 17. I Find a Cure
ep 18. I Plummet To My Death
ep 19. I Come Back Wrong
ep 20. Lan Zhan Breaks Up With Me
ep 21. I Evade Non-Consensual Therapy Sessions
ep 22. My Evil Flute Solo Kills Everybody
ep 23. I Ditch the Dinner Party
ep 24. My Ex’s Brother Tries to Stage an Intervention
ep 25. Jin Zixuan Fumbles My Sister
ep 26. I Reanimate My Homie
ep 27. My Brother Questions My Interior Design
ep 28. Lan Zhan Discovers the Joys of Fatherhood
ep 29. I Get Major FOMO
ep 30. I Fulfill My Cottagecore Fantasies
ep 31. Everything Goes Downhill
ep 32. My Nephew Becomes an Orphan
ep 33. I Plummet to My Death (For Real This Time)
ep. 34 Jin Ling Gets Eaten By a Wall
ep 35. We Become Tomb Raiders
ep 36. Lan Zhan Steals a Chicken
ep 37. I Force Feed Radioactive Porridge to Teenagers
ep 38. Xiao Xingchen Breaks the Bro Code
ep 39. I Go On a Shopping Date
ep 40. I Crash a Conference for Free Food
ep 41. Nie Mingjue is an Unreliable Narrator
ep 42. Everyone Wants to Kill Me (Again)
ep 43. Lan Xichen Trauma Dumps
ep 44. We Visit the Ruins of My Cottagecore Fantasies
ep 45. I Do Group Conflict Resolution In My Underwear
ep 46. The Truth Comes Out
ep 47. I Become a Hostage
ep 48. Jin Guangyao Talks Too Much
ep 49. I Reunite With My Evil Flute
ep 50. My Boyfriend Abandons Me On a Mountain (Not Really)
Not to mention Jin Ling then trying to turn all of his hatred onto Wen Ning afterwards. He's a kid who's been reminded of his parents' deaths with every breath he takes, only having stories about them and being fed Jiang Cheng's unhinged hatred for all the love that was lost. If Wei Wuxian turned out to not be the monster he thought he was, then he...he has to hate someone else!
But then Wen Ning turns out to be even MORE gentle than Wei Wuxian, filled with guilt for what happened, flinging himself in front of Lan Sizhui and saying "I won't fight back, get your anger out on me if it'll put you at ease!"
That scene had me crying too yo. Everyone rallies behind Lan Sizhui and calls Jin Ling out for being too aggressive - no one takes his side, no one understands how much he's been affected by his life. Jiang Cheng's solution is to tell him to get angry, but now that's just turned all of his peers against him and calling him violent and unreasonable. So he just breaks down sobbing saying "Yes, I'm a horrible person!" even though NONE of what happened is his fault and he has a right to be angry and trying to find an outlet for his emotion. He just doesn't know HOW. No one ever taught him, everyone ridicules him for crying and distances themselves from his anger. People treat him delicately yet say he needs to toughen up.
I think the worst part is that Wei Wuxian's first scathing (accidental) comment, "Your mother never taught you any manners" is kinda really true. He never had a mother to teach him to express himself, to support him and be vulnerable with him. We joke about how many uncles Jin Ling has but I mean how many AUNTS does he have? How many mother figures does he have? Qin Su is basically traumatized by the death of Jin Rusong so is maybe not the motherly type. Nie Huisang, Lan Xichen, Jiang Cheng - unmarried, unmarried, unmarried.
Wei Wuxian is really the first one to A: tell Jin Ling to get over himself and doesn't treat him like some untouchable young master who no one has the right to lord over, B: openly admits when he's sorry and apologizes and teaches Jin Ling the concept of emotional vulnerability, C: stands by Jin Ling's side to teach him to be himself rather than scolding or threatening or guilting him to fit in better. The fact that Wei Wuxian is NOT a woman may even be better because Jin Ling is seeing that men don't have to fit into the unyielding mold of tough guys but can still have fun without being a pushover.
Jin Ling is such a tragedy because there really is no one left to blame. It's not that easy. Wei Wuxian and Wen Ning are responsible, but they're not maniacal villains laughing at the top of a mountain without a care in the world for the consequences. They cared, they had family who were lost, they suffered before and don't want anyone to suffer again - they hate themselves just as much for their part in what happened.
Even Jin Guangyao is such a complicated case for Jin Ling. It's the uncle who was always nice to him, who gave him his spirit dog, who was always putting on a smile. In comparison to Jiang Cheng, Jin Guangyao was a lifeline. And then Jin Guangyao turns out to be a villain who doesn't bat an eye at killing and threatening...but who also didn't WANT these bad things to be "necessary." He too was wronged by the world and lashed out at its unfairness.
This fifteen year old kid has gone through so much, simultaneously pampered into a spoiled brat and utterly isolated from his peers, filled with vengeance for his entire life but also trying to love and be loved. He learned from Jiang Cheng to pretend to be above it all, and he learned from Jin Guangyao to be kind and forgive, but all of it was lies and unhealthy coping. Jiang Cheng essentially taught him to argue with anyone who disagrees with him or looks down on him to assert his dominance, and Jin Guangyao taught him to suppress his desire to speak his mind and never start fights because of etiquette and self-preservation - to the point that he rejects who he is and wants to be.
At this age, Jin Ling's already having to learn the lesson that everyone's going to be throwing opinions around, no one is perfect, you can't easily sort people into categories. In the end, he can take advice from others, but it's up to him to make the choice of who he wants to be. And he's learned that unrelenting resentment makes for an easy path to walk in life, but it's not actually how life works. The cultivation world can turn on someone they worshipped unconditionally. That included Wei Wuxian, that included Jin Guangyao, and even to an extent Jin Ling himself.
He has to take over the Jin Clan after all these scandals and atrocities, but he's become the kind of kid who will answer an insignificant man's plea for help, who is making friends who won't judge him and will stand by him even when he makes mistakes, and by the end of the story he's matured, yet also finally learned to be a kid. Nothing's perfect, none of the tragedies of the past can be reversed (and Jiang Cheng's still gonna get into fights whenever he accidentally runs into Wen Ning), but at least now Jin Ling can choose how he decides to live, who he hates and who he forgives.
while reading the books, i remember wei wuxian’s relationship with jin ling hitting me especially hard. i was crying when the whole stabbing thing happened. but i truly adore what becomes of them and do you know why? because jin ling does something the others could never, something miraculous really––he actually unlearns the prejudice he’s been taught to hold against wei wuxian. he meets wwx, full of disdain, slowly learning about who wwx really is and it has nothing to do with wwx’s outward appearance. and when the truth is revealed, the internal warring for jin ling is plainly portrayed and even if he does give in to a hate intermingled with grief that he has internalised towards this one entity (wei wuxian was never a person in his mind, just the ‘killer’ of his parents, a phantom, before the events of the book happened), you can tell his heart has already turned, that it will keep turning and that’s what happens. you have jin ling, an orphaned child, who hated someone whom his mother loved dearly, because that man caused his parents’ death but it is such a commendable thing that wei wuxian was able to create a space in jin ling’s heart and jin ling was able to accept it. it’s the way both jin ling & jiang cheng blame the death of their parents on wwx but only the former was able to see wei wuxian clearly and actually forge a bond of love with him.
it’s the fact that if ANYONE in this story can actually rightfully hold a grudge against wei wuxian, it’s jin ling, but instead this teenager decides that wei wuxian is much too good and that having him as an uncle is lovely, after all.
Slay the Princess also be like
Yan Wushi in book 3:
And a bunch of random numbers. I will post whatever fandom I'm in at the moment without rhyme or reason
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