Top 5 Xue Yang Quotes - I Will Not Apologize For Art

i will not apologize for art

Lise, 30s, Pisces, melancholic. Professional villain apologist.

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top 5 Xue Yang quotes

I mean pretty much every time he opens his mouth I love it. But I guess if I had to pick single lines…I am going to put screencaps here. This is also all CQL because that’s what I’m more familiar with.

Under a read more because it got long. Surprising no one familiar with me and how this sort of thing goes. Featuring my new blog subtitle: A Whole Lotta Feelings About Xue Yang, and links to a bunch of my own older meta.

1. “You shouldn’t have gotten involved in other people’s business. Who’s right, who’s wrong? How much kindness, how many grudges. Can an outsider be clear about it? Maybe you shouldn’t have left the mountain.”

I wrote a whole meta post about this! I mean, I’ve written a whole lot of meta posts about Xue Yang generally, the amount of digital ink I’ve spilled over this character is, hm. Well. 

But I just find this line fascinating for the ways in which it is, like many of the things that Xue Yang says in this scene, such a blend of emotions: anger, frustration, misery, disappointment.

There’s the “how dare you judge me” of it all, the “you’re so goddamn clueless you just don’t get it” of it, and then also the thing that I talked about in the linked meta - the “you would’ve been better served staying away from this stupid world, where you would’ve been safe and where you would’ve been safe from me.” 

I have a lot of…thoughts, about the way that Xue Yang bounces back and forth between finding it hilarious that Xiao Xingchen is so nice to him while having no idea who he really is, finding it maddening that he is (he’s so stupid! how does he get away with being so stupid!), and finding it…something that he likes, and sort of wants him to keep (in a similar way, actually, to the way that I think Jin Guangyao wants Lan Xichen to keep his relative innocence). 

And also the arc words/recurring sentiment of those questions of right and wrong, black and white. And the idea that that’s not a question Xue Yang has historically concerned himself with, but perhaps right now it might actually matter.

And right now he wants Xiao Xingchen to be on the same page, and at least for a half a second genuinely thought he might be.

2. “The finger is mine, while the lives are theirs.”

Obviously this is like. Peak Xue Yang line: pure solipsism, pure self-centered self-interest: my finger is mine and therefore it’s worth more than the lives of other people.

And there’s a lot to be said about that as a manifesto for Xue Yang - on one level I do think it’s just about how he thinks and perceives others: they just aren’t quite real to him, not in the way he himself is. Like, yes! They exist! Nominally they have “feelings” and “wants” or whatever, but conceptualizing that in any concrete way, or internalizing it, is…hard. It doesn’t seem quite real to him. They don’t seem quite real, not in the way that he is, himself. 

And on the other hand I think there’s something about the way that Xue Yang weights his own value so heavily because he’s the only one who will. Nobody else is going to put any value on his hand or his finger. Xue Yang’s approach to life is very much “nobody’s going to give me anything, so I will get mine and fuck everyone else, if I don’t look out for me above all then it’s a short road to death.” And I think there’s elements of that here. 

Or maybe a question: why should their lives be worth more than my body? Why should they be more valuable than me? And the answer, of course, is that they shouldn’t. 

While I do think that Xue Yang has his insecurities and uncertainties, one thing that he refuses to doubt is that he has a right to exist and a right to get what’s his - even if that comes at the expense of others. 

And I think, too, on some level he figures this is how everyone works. They probably think their fingers are worth his life. They’re wrong, obviously, and the fact that he won proves that. But they still believed it.

3. “Cultivator friend, I’ll plead guilty. But to submit to punishment…that depends if you’re able to catch me.”

Flirting is playing murder tag with a cute boy!

This is a less serious one but I love it because it is just…it’s not his intro intro (see below) but it also sort of is, in another way. And it is definitely an intro to his relationship with Xiao Xingchen, and I love it for that - for the way he shows up, perching on a house over an enormous massacre, and is just having the time of his life. 

It’s so cheerfully playful, so bright, the way that he doesn’t even hesitate to be like “yes! I did kill all those people! what’re you gonna do about it :D”

(”does my gay little crime spree piss you off?”)

It sets up this dynamic between a Xiao Xingchen who is taking this all very seriously and a Xue Yang who is having a fantastic time and I just love it. New standard for your OTP meeting: if it doesn’t happen at the scene of a massacre for which one of them is responsible then what’s even the point.

4. “I don’t fear death, only boredom/living without a purpose.”

I wish!!! I knew whether this translation (”having no purpose in living” or the Netflix one (”boredom”) was more “””accurate””” - or if it doesn’t matter and the meaning is pretty close. If someone can tell me that’d be amazing. But either way - this is the moment where I was like “oh I’m screwed” when it came to adopting a new terrible character for my very own.

I have a huge glaring weak spot for characters who are very “death before boredom” about their lives - who look at their existence as sort of “here for a good time not a long time” and recognize that they’re not one for a long life but they’re going to make it one they can enjoy. That almost indifference to their own end weighed against the prospect of dullness - or, with the Viki translation, purposelessness. 

And it does fit with how I think of Xue Yang as someone who sort of needs to have a drive or a goal, most of the time; who needs to be engaged and is easily bored. (This is one of the things that I think he has in common with Wei Wuxian! Sorry, buddy, you’re more alike than you’d like to acknowledge.)

But it also demands such a contrast with the fact that he does, later on, settle down into domestic relative tranquility - into something that would look, to a lot of people, and maybe even to his past self, like boredom.

And yet it doesn’t bore him.

And I just. You know. Have a lot of feelings about that.

5. “Very well. Would I be afraid of people’s disgust? However, are you qualified to feel disgusted by me?”

tfw you see your great fake life starting to go to pieces and decide you’re going to detonate your nuclear weapon in it because hey, might as well take everyone down with you, right?

I love this because it’s one of those things where it’s true and it’s not - I do not think, generally, that Xue Yang really cares about people’s disgust. He sometimes even relishes it! I mean, I think a certain kind of dehumanization sets him off, but in general - yes, I’m’s horrible, yes, I’m disgusting, yes, sure, do I care? Nope. 

But it is pretty clear here, both in terms of facial expression and reactions, that Xiao Xingchen’s judgment does hit home. That his anger and dismissal of Xue Yang’s story, of his exposure of a vulnerability he doesn’t usually allow, hits pretty hard. From Xue Yang’s perspective, he’s taken a risk, and Xiao Xingchen answered it with a slap in the face. (Wrote a bunch about this here.)

And in that hurt he responds, immediately, by lashing out - by using the weapon he’s held in reserve. I’ve written before about how I think Xue Yang prior to this point was in sort of “the fierce corpses thing can stay between me and the fierce corpses now” mode about his extracurricular activities with Xiao Xingchen, but it’s still there, and he knows exactly what he’s doing here. After all, that revenge was always tailored: it was always about bringing Xiao Xingchen down to his level and proving that he’s no better, and never has been any better. 

But I will never get over the look on his face over that first line, where he’s saying “would I be afraid of people’s disgust” and while the words imply no his face is definitely saying yes, at least when it’s you.

BONUSES: 

Most of his conversation with Wei Wuxian but especially the bit about slowly and intimately doing experimental necromancy, but also Xue Yang inviting Song Lan in for lunch.

Come on, Song Lan! Just take the free meal! It’ll be fine.

#blackteaaddict #conversating #xue yang #the sad queer cultivators show #lise does meta #you can see why these take me so long perhaps 84 notes 5 years ago

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    top 5 Xue Yang quotes...I mean pretty much every time he opens his mouth I love it. But I...