Yes, I’m glad ZZJ got to play JGY, too! It’s the much meatier role and I’m glad they saw that potential in him! I like to hear about these casting things, like almost everyone tried to get the role of Xue Yang, for example. XD
It feels like many people just forget that JC was missing a lot of very important information so to him it looked like WWX was totally abandoning him after Sunshot (drinking the days away instead of training the disciples etc.) even though WWX had made the promise of always being JC’s right-hand man. And it only gets worse from there, what with WWX suddenly standing up for the Wens and going against all the other sects. JC is still in such a bad political situation at that point that he couldn’t support WWX, not after he’d killed the Jin cultivators. (Also, I think some of those Western fans just... don't understand the world building? And that ancient fantasy China doesn't work like USA 2022?)
I tend to think that JC didn’t really want to kill WWX, but he was also so gone on grief and anger at that moment, that he kind of convinces himself that he must want to kill WWX because who wouldn’t, right? That’s at least how I always interpreted the moment of the sword missing, after all. IDK about falling off a cliff, because that seems to be a cdrama trope in itself and usually they don’t die. XD JC didn’t know about the core so perhaps he’d thought that WWX would be fine (if there wasn’t also lava at the ground, because a core likely wouldn’t help much then), but he also didn’t look very hard at any clues beforehand (which I don’t blame him for; boy had a whole lot to deal with himself).
I think that’s what I love so much about the story – everyone makes mistakes and has flaws, nothing is truly black and white, no-one is only good or only bad, though of course characters lean more or less heavily into a certain direction. But I love how may characters are parallels/foils for each other (WWX/JGY/XY for example) and how tweaking some events might lead to a different outcome.
I got the impression (though that might be wrong) that [Western] novel fans tend to hate on JC more as he comes across rather unsympathetic in the English TL and the narration at first happily tells us about how he was the one to kill his shidi and also enjoys torturing anyone who reminds him of WWX… Which, as we know that the narration is quite unreliable, should be side-eyed at least a bit. There also aren't any acting choices we can rely on that might soften the character. Whereas it seems that CQL fans tend to absolve WWX of any and all blame ever, when – even though CQL did tone down all that he did because censorship – that is just not true. *sigh*
Really, when one is also a fan of the villains, one tends to be far more open-minded about these things, that’s true!
I checked if I actually saved some of your fic, but alas no - we just silently crossed paths in the comms where I usually only lurked. XD The mean days of sporking comms, anyone? That was huge back then. Looking back, it really wasn't right to mock likely teenaged authors like that instead of just, uhhh moving on from the badfic. XD But those were the wild and crazy times of mass internet fandom I guess. Sparrington was how I got into slash and I also enjoyed the Gilette/Groves fics that popped up after a while. XD Didn't really get into Norrington/Gillette, though that tended to come up in those fics as well. :D
then I ended up turning it into a novel with the names sanded off 👀
no subject
It feels like many people just forget that JC was missing a lot of very important information so to him it looked like WWX was totally abandoning him after Sunshot (drinking the days away instead of training the disciples etc.) even though WWX had made the promise of always being JC’s right-hand man. And it only gets worse from there, what with WWX suddenly standing up for the Wens and going against all the other sects. JC is still in such a bad political situation at that point that he couldn’t support WWX, not after he’d killed the Jin cultivators. (Also, I think some of those Western fans just... don't understand the world building? And that ancient fantasy China doesn't work like USA 2022?)
I tend to think that JC didn’t really want to kill WWX, but he was also so gone on grief and anger at that moment, that he kind of convinces himself that he must want to kill WWX because who wouldn’t, right? That’s at least how I always interpreted the moment of the sword missing, after all. IDK about falling off a cliff, because that seems to be a cdrama trope in itself and usually they don’t die. XD JC didn’t know about the core so perhaps he’d thought that WWX would be fine (if there wasn’t also lava at the ground, because a core likely wouldn’t help much then), but he also didn’t look very hard at any clues beforehand (which I don’t blame him for; boy had a whole lot to deal with himself).
I think that’s what I love so much about the story – everyone makes mistakes and has flaws, nothing is truly black and white, no-one is only good or only bad, though of course characters lean more or less heavily into a certain direction. But I love how may characters are parallels/foils for each other (WWX/JGY/XY for example) and how tweaking some events might lead to a different outcome.
I got the impression (though that might be wrong) that [Western] novel fans tend to hate on JC more as he comes across rather unsympathetic in the English TL and the narration at first happily tells us about how he was the one to kill his shidi and also enjoys torturing anyone who reminds him of WWX… Which, as we know that the narration is quite unreliable, should be side-eyed at least a bit. There also aren't any acting choices we can rely on that might soften the character. Whereas it seems that CQL fans tend to absolve WWX of any and all blame ever, when – even though CQL did tone down all that he did because censorship – that is just not true. *sigh*
Really, when one is also a fan of the villains, one tends to be far more open-minded about these things, that’s true!
I checked if I actually saved some of your fic, but alas no - we just silently crossed paths in the comms where I usually only lurked. XD The mean days of sporking comms, anyone? That was huge back then. Looking back, it really wasn't right to mock likely teenaged authors like that instead of just, uhhh moving on from the badfic. XD But those were the wild and crazy times of mass internet fandom I guess.
Sparrington was how I got into slash and I also enjoyed the Gilette/Groves fics that popped up after a while. XD Didn't really get into Norrington/Gillette, though that tended to come up in those fics as well. :D
then I ended up turning it into a novel with the names sanded off
👀