30 Days of Guardian

[extrapenguin]

18. Least favorite villain
WANG XIANGYANG. So annoying! So much incoherent ranting! So much manpain! So boring! I missed Zhu Jiu, at least his rants were a bit more coherent and his Ye Zun stanning was cute occasionally. Fuck, have Wang Xiangyang die so we can have Bai Suxia incoherently ranting due to womanpain with a baby in her arms/while heavily pregnant, which would at least be novel. Argh.

(I just watched episode 29 for the rewatchalong, and I was happy when he died, as it meant an end to his manpain. No more Wang Xiangyang! We can get Ye Zun's constant o.o and :o instead! Yay!)

(Also the whole linchpin of his hatred at Zhao Xinci was stupid. Everyone's heard of blood types, and while blood type personality stuff isn't a common belief in China, surely someone could've explained it to him in small words? Or he might've noticed the rare blood type donor come in? In conclusion: ARGH.) (Yes, yes, grief makes people irrational and he was manipulated, I know, but comparing his reaction upon losing a loved one to even Zhao Xinci's, his is so very OTT.)

1. Favorite episode
2. Favorite case
3. Least favorite case
4. Favorite Holy Tools arc
5. Least favorite Holy Tools arc
6. Which character would you resurrect?
7. Favorite SID member
8. Favorite guest character(s)
9. Favorite piece of worldbuilding
10. Favorite rarepair
11. Favorite headcanon
12. Least favorite headcanon
13. Favorite main villain
14. Favorite minor character relationship
15. Villain you’d like redeemed or whose redemption you liked
16. Favorite conversation between Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei
17. Favorite bit missed on first watch but picked up on rewatch
18. Least favorite villain
19. Least favorite character
20. Most appealing point for a canon divergence AU
21. Favorite point of characterization
22. Favorite science moment
23. Which two characters who didn't meet should have, and how might that scene go?
24. The one thing you most wish they'd expanded on because it was a cool idea and needed more details
25. Sluttiest dresser award
26. What Dixing power do you wish would've existed in the show?
27. What minor plot arc should have gotten another episode, and why?
28. Thoughts and feelings on the ending
29. Favorite interpretation of why the Hallows do the things they do
30. Favorite unanswered question (and what you want the answer to be)

Comments

[trobadora]

Totally agreed about Wang Xiangyang. "Annoying" is his main trait.

(I would be totally here for the Bai Suxia AU.)

[extrapenguin]

Annoying, and makes the plot slow down and the pacing disappear out the window! Argh.

Bai Suxia AU would be nice! Do you want to write it? *g*

[trobadora]

LOL! If I ever actually manage to write something again, I have about a million things on the list that would come first.

[phyrry]

Wang Xiangyang was one of those irritating 'why is this person seeking revenge against the wrong target' plotlines. Somehow I find it more acceptable in Sha Ya's case, both because she was working from bad information and because she's not a self-absorbed lump in the same way.

[extrapenguin]

Sha Ya was also willing to just chill and exist until she was specifically courted by the villainous faction! Meanwhile, Wang Xiangyang started the revenge rampage and was a self-absorbed lump and a black hole where charisma went to die.

[ratbones]

Your appreciation for Zhu Jiu has made me like him a lot more. Yes, he's ridiculous, but at least he's not BORING. Bai Suxia was absolutely more interesting and likeable than Wang Xiangyang, and would have made a pretty fun villain even with the nonsense ranting.

[extrapenguin]

Yes, he's ridiculous, but at least he's not BORING.
This! And Zhu Jiu is genuinely, truly motivated by things other than revenge. He might have a personal grudge against the Envoy, but he's loyal to his Boss and wants Dixingians to have a better future! Wang Xiangyang, OTOH, is a self-absorbed vengeful lump. Zhu Jiu wins in every respect! Including in hilarity of facial expressions. (I am also very glad that I've converted you into Zhu Jiu appreciation. He's such a nice miniboss!)

Bai Suxia really would've been more interesting. If only she'd lived and discovered that while she was in the hospital, her husband idk got killed in the street fight and now it's time for revenge before she goes on maternity leave or something.

[maggie33]

I agree. Wang Xiangyang was so, so, soooo boring. I admit I didn’t care much about Zhu Jiu on my first watch. But then he got replaced by Wang Xiangyang and wow, did that make me appreciate Zhu Jiu a lot more. I really enjoyed him on all subsequent re-watches. :D

[extrapenguin]

I didn't care about Zhu Jiu on the first watch, but he grew a lot on me on the rewatch, knowing what was coming next in the villain department. *g* Purple-haired cackling is leagues more enjoyable than self-centered mopey lumpness.

[jo_lasalle]

Also the whole linchpin of his hatred at Zhao Xinci was stupid. Everyone's heard of blood types, and while blood type personality stuff isn't a common belief in China, surely someone could've explained it to him in small words? Or he might've noticed the rare blood type donor come in?

I think they tried making it believable by being so clear that he's very, very uneducated but... yeah, it doesn't really hold up. It's almost like, the guy would have had to never have watched TV or something. Especially how you can know that transfusions are a thing, but blood type matching isn't...

[extrapenguin]

Yeah, he's a flanicking fruit-seller, so stuff like organ donation (where the donor does need to be matched to the patient) might go, but blood? That's too simple and well-known. Surely they could've come up with something one level of complexity up?!

(Also, when I searched to see the blood type pseudoscience was popular in China in addition to Japan, I came across a bunch of Wikipedia articles that referred to the system as "ABO blood type", which gave my fannish mind the snickers.)

[jo_lasalle]

Also, when I searched to see the blood type pseudoscience was popular in China in addition to Japan, I came across a bunch of Wikipedia articles that referred to the system as "ABO blood type", which gave my fannish mind the snickers.

LOL! Yes, I'm familiar with that. And you can never unsee it. (A related group to my Jpop group has a song called "Koi no ABO / Love's ABO" and it was never the same again to Western fannish ears after ABO got popular...)

[extrapenguin]

A related group to my Jpop group has a song called "Koi no ABO / Love's ABO" and it was never the same again to Western fannish ears after ABO got popular...
Love is mating cycles and dripping slick and people who smell like something, something else, and something uniquely them, obviously! *g* (Considering that I've written it, I am very hypocritically glad that it's not become a super-popular trope in Guardian fandom like it at one point was and still might be in MDZS fandom. The OTTness it devolves into gets tiring.)

(I recognize å as its own letter, but I just realized that what-are-diacritics segments of fandom would have a field day with Åbo Akademi...)

[jo_lasalle]

Heee. Guardian is funnily enough the first fandom where I read and enjoyed an ABO story, but I have a really complicated relationship with the trope. Parts of it are so close to stuff I like with cherry on top that ABO should appeal to me more, but the whole package just gets a little, yeah, OTT for me. Especially if it was repeat exposure, not 'the odd story that does cool stuff with a whacky premise'.

(I recognize å as its own letter, but I just realized that what-are-diacritics segments of fandom would have a field day with Åbo Akademi...)

LOL! Okay, you could not expect me to resist that, and I must say, the first Google result summary...

"Åbo Akademi University (ÅAU) is small enough for our professors to be easily accessible."

AHAHAHAHA!

[extrapenguin]

Parts of it are so close to stuff I like with cherry on top that ABO should appeal to me more, but the whole package just gets a little, yeah, OTT for me. Especially if it was repeat exposure, not 'the odd story that does cool stuff with a whacky premise'.
+1. The ones that start going into formulaic "call-and-response" make me go bleh; stuff that digs into worldbuilding makes me go ooohh. (But then again, that's not exclusive to omegaverse. I am not into stuff where it seems that the character names have been pastede on yey onto Trope Role A and Trope Role B, whether the fic be omegaverse, h/c, or just regular romance. Likewise, I love excursions into worldbuilding on all occasions.)

Loooool! I admit, I mostly know Åbo Akademi (pron. ōbu akademī) as the place all the swedish-speakers (the "oppressed minority" who are disproportionately wealthy, healthy, and happy) go to if they don't know enough Finnish to get anywhere with actual entry requirements, but yes, that intro text sounds hilarious in an omegaverse context!

[jo_lasalle]

stuff that digs into worldbuilding makes me go ooohh

Yes, in general I would agree! (I only caveat 'in general' because I've read to little ABO even my generalizations are not very reliable.)

Is there that much ABO in MDZS? And, ok, now that I ask the question, it probably shouldn't surprise me, but it also kind of does...

[extrapenguin]

Yes, in general I would agree!
<3! And yeah, I don't read much omegaverse, either, and most of it seems to be trope-routine execution.

At one point, MDZS fandom was very into omegaverse as a delivery vehicle for making Wei Wuxian into the specialest woobiest uke. Now they seem to have moved into untagged modern AUs. I haven't clicked through to see if they're omegaverse, but the fandom population has changed more into the "soft uwu" crowd who write modern AUs about "soft bois" and don't do omegaverse, so probably not.

[jo_lasalle]

LOL! Um. I'm sorry for your pain. But thank you for cracking me up after a rather boring and subjectively endless workday. *g*

[extrapenguin]

The pain made moving on to Guardian very easy, so I doubt you're that sorry! :P

(Though for real, I've been in MDZS fandom since it was a tiny thing with single-digit English fics in the tags and no adaptations were announced. I could probably give a decent overview of the fannish migrations into it, even if I ragequit investment in the fandom soon after the animated adaptation aired.)

(And if you want fic recs when you're done, I have several promising FFA rec posts to link to, as well as a sort of stash of my own.)

[jo_lasalle]

I'd be curious and might hit you up! I haven't started on the novel yet and have no idea how I'll feel about drama vs novel in the end (or even yet my take on the characters), so that's my caveat re fic recs, but you will probably hear from me! ^^

[extrapenguin]

Noted! I'll rec my favorites of novel fic when you're done with the drama and can ??? at the differences without fearing spoilers. (Though as a note, I'm more into the Yunmeng brothers and crackships than the main couple, and recs will reflect that.)