Hi, Ive Been Reading Your Jc Takes And I Found I P Much Agree With Everything, But I Wanted To Ask, How

hi, ive been reading your jc takes and i found i p much agree with everything, but i wanted to ask, how do you square the moment jc sacrifices himself for wwx by distracting the wen guards with... everything else he does

also the moment he brings wwx his flute, if he only feels hate for wwx why would he do that?

As I’ve said, Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian were friends, and I 100% believe that the fall of Lotus Pier and the emergence of the Sunshot Campaign is why they remained friends for so long, especially in the direct aftermath of the fall which saw Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian having to rely solely on each other for survival. So I believe without a doubt that Jiang Cheng distracted the Wen cultivators to protect Wei Wuxian… without considering the full consequences of getting caught. I believe that had Jiang Cheng considered losing his golden core a real possibility, he would not have used himself as a distraction. But he did use himself as a distraction, and he did lose his golden core, and despite the fact that Wei Wuxian rectified that with his “miracle connections,” he spends close to twenty years taking that out on Wei Wuxian, lest we forget that upon waking after being rescued, he tries to go for Wei Wuxian’s throat again.

As for Jiang Cheng returning Chenqing, it’s a symbol of the one moment of character growth he has in the entire novel: fully letting Wei Wuxian go. Jiang Cheng held onto that flute because he just “knew” that if Wei Wuxian came back to life, he would immediately search for his most fearsome weapon, because Wei Wuxian “must” be a showoff obsessed with power (because Jiang Cheng would be, in his position). He was keeping it in hopes of successfully luring Wei Wuxian in for a slaughter. But what he failed to realize before and finally understood at the end was that Wei Wuxian never was and never would be like Jiang Cheng. He did not seek power or fame or vengeance over perma-grudges; he didn’t need Chenqing. So Jiang Cheng gives it back, thereby thematically releasing his last standing preconceived notions on his former shixiong and his need to hunt him down in a one-sided competition. (Now if only he’d done the same for Wen Ning… 😒)

jonmartin.txt

“Wei Wuxian did so much for Jiang Cheng in life” ≠ “Wei Wuxian loved Jiang Cheng so much”

Those are two separate sentences relating to two separate ideas. They are not synonymous with each other nor mutually exclusive, given how only the former is true to the story.

“Wei Wuxian did so much for Jiang Cheng in life therefore he loved Jiang Cheng so much” is false causation.

Wei Wuxian is not a character shown to only go above and beyond because a situation involves a “loved one.” Wei Wuxian did so much for Mianmian despite only ever talking to her because he wanted to get her medicine pouch for his crush. Wei Wuxian did so much for Wen Ning despite not even remembering who he was during their previous encounter. Wei Wuxian did so much for the older cultivators during the second siege despite most of them admitting to having participated in the first siege that killed him and his charges. Sometimes, doing things for others at risk to yourself can mean love. Most of the time, it does not.

Emotionally checking out of the Jiang… yeah. Yeah I see that. Which would be another reason Lan Wangji would be freaking out, because as far as he knew Wei Wuxian was devoted to the Jiang.

Remember how I made this post (a continuation of this thought) about how Wei Wuxian never visiting the ancestral hall post-fall of Lotus Pier was probably because the next thing he wanted to tell the former Jiang leaders was also the last thing he wanted to say to them: that he was officially leaving? Well, after deep-diving into this, I wonder if I'd actually unintentionally hit the nail on the head and that Wei Wuxian avoiding the ancestral hall was a sign that he had actually already emotionally checked out of viewing himself as a part of the Jiang sect once he fulfilled the debt pressed on him by Jiang Fengmian and Madam Yu.

I mean, the man in the three months after the fall of Jiang Clan sacrificed his golden core to the next heir, liberated Lotus Pier, and successfully wrought vengeance against the Wen who killed them. Everything after that—attending the conferences Jiang Cheng needs him to, showing off the might of the clan during competitions, etc. etc.—feels like him just going through the motions in an attempt to get his thoughts to align with his actions, to fool himself into being alright. But the fact that he could never quite work up the desire to step foot into the ancestral hall to honor his martial ancestors until his second life? Sounds like his attempts at acceptance proved unsuccessful until he experienced the true support of the loved ones in his second life.

Hey! Are there blacksmiths in your story? I'm a hobbyist blacksmith and I'm here to help!

Blacksmithing is one of those things that a lot of people get wrong because they don't realize it stuck around past the advent of the assembly line. Here's a list of some common misconceptions I see and what to do instead!

Not all blacksmiths are gigantic terrifying muscly guys with beards and deep voices. I am 5'8, skinny as a twig, have the muscle mass of wet bread, and exist on Tumblr. Anybody who is strong enough to pick up a hammer and understands fire safety can be a blacksmith.

You can make more than just swords with blacksmithing. Though swords are undeniably practical, they're not the only things that can be made. I've made candle holders, wall hooks, kebab skewers, fire pokers, and more. Look up things other people have made, it's really amazing what can be done.

"Red-hot" is actually not that hot by blacksmith terms. when heated up, the metal goes from black, to red, to orange, to yellow, to white. (for temperature reference, I got a second degree burn from picking up a piece of metal on black heat) The ideal color to work with the metal is yellow. White is not ideal at all, because the metal starts sparking and gets all weird and lumpy when it cools. (At no point in this process does the metal get even close to melting. It gets soft enough to work with, but I have never once seen metal become a liquid.)

Blacksmithing takes fucking forever. Not even taking into account starting the forge, selecting and preparing metal, etc. etc. it takes me around an hour to make one (1) fancy skewer. The metals blacksmiths work with heat up and cool down incredibly fast. When the forge is going good, it only takes like 20 seconds to get your metal hot enough to work with, but it takes about the same time for it to cool down, sometimes even less.

As long as you are careful, it is actually stupidly easy to not get hurt while blacksmithing. When I picked up this hobby I was like "okay, cool! I'm gonna make stuff, and I'm gonna end up in the hospital at some point!" Thus far, the latter has yet to occur. I've been doing this for nearly a year. I have earned myself a new scar from the aforementioned second degree burn, and one singe mark on my jeans. I don't even wear gloves half the time. Literally just eye protection, common sense, and fast reflexes and you'll probably be fine. (Accidents still happen of course, but I have found adequate safety weirdly easy to achieve with this hobby)

A forge is not a fire. The forge is the thing blacksmiths put their metal in to heat it up. It starts as a small fire, usually with newspaper or something else that's relatively small and burns easily, which we then put in the forge itself, which is sort of a fireplace-esque thing (there's a lot of different types of forge, look into it and try to figure out what sort of forge would make the most sense for the context you're writing about) and we cover it with coal, which then catches fire and heats up. The forge gets really hot, and sometimes really bright. Sometimes when I stare at the forge for too long it's like staring into the sun. The forge is also not a waterfall of lava, Steven Universe. It doesn't work like that, Steven Universe.

Welding and blacksmithing are not the same thing. They often go hand-in-hand, but you cannot connected two pieces of metal with traditional blacksmithing alone. There is something called forge welding, where you heat your metal, sprinkle borax (or the in-universe equivalent) on it to prevent the metal from oxidizing/being non-weldable, and hammer the pieces together very quickly. Forge welding also sends sparks flying everywhere, and if you're working in a small space with other blacksmiths, you usually want to announce that you're welding before you do, so that everyone in a five-foot radius can get out of that five-foot radius. You also cannot just stuck some random pebbles into the forge and get a decent piece of metal that you can actually make something with, Steven Universe. It doesn't work like that, Steven Universe.

Anvils are really fucking heavy. Nothing else to add here.

Making jewelry is not a blacksmithing thing unless you want jewelry made of steel. And it will be very ugly if you try. Blacksmithing wasn't invented to make small things.

If there's anything here I didn't mention, just ask and I'll do my best to answer.

Yes, so flat,

So boring

Don't know why Wei Wuxian likes him