#I do want to write about lxc and nmj meeting after nhs has been in gusu for a few months

[gekidasa]

Fic Stats Game

Thank you for the tag, @jaimebluesq!

rules: give us the links to your fic with the most hits, second most kudos, third most comments, fourth most bookmarks, fifth most words, and fic with the fewest words.

1 - Most Hits: And I will stay with you / And you will keep me close (or as I call it, Sangcheng Roommates AU). I was always somewhat surprised that this fic took off like it did, since it was a threadfic that got out of control, based on a rather silly premise (what if they were ROOMMATES at the CR!! And then unknowingly started dual cultivating to the point htat NHS developed a core earlier). The first half WAS entirely written as a thread (very unwieldly!) that I then cleaned up and separated into chapters.

And then... I will forever wonder if I should have left it at that. Except that the actual point beyond the silliness was that this was actually a canon divergence which would eventually lead to things going down differently when the Wen attack LP. I never actually wanted to get into THAT part of it, but I did choose to go into what would happen when NHS came to LP in the interim between the CR and the Wen indoctrination camp. And I also decided that they would end up betrothed. But despite researching, it was only after having written a lot more that I found out about the 3 letters and 6 etiquettes, and that... changed things. So I had to decided whether to/how much to rewrite. Anyway, I got bogged down. It's been hard. Currently there is just one chapter (part of which is already written) and maybe an epilogue to go, but... it's been awhile. I somehow haven't been in the mood to write this.

But I do plan to finish out what I'd planned. I just get distracted by newer ideas that maybe better fit how my headcanons and knowledge evolve.

2 - 2nd Most Kudos: When a secret isn't really secret. And I am ALSO continually surprised by how popular this turned out to be. It's a short little Touya/Yukito fic in which they are already a thing and Yukito sleeps over, and then has an unexpected middle of the night conversation with Fujitaka (spoilers: Yuki didn't realize that Fujitaka has been well aware of how he and Touya feel about each other for a long time). The reason its popularity is surprising is that Touya is barely in it, most of it is just Yuki and Fujitaka talking... but I admit, it IS rather sweet, like CCS tends to be.

3 - 3rd Most Comments: How Jiang Wanyin avoided being blacklisted by matchmakers. My current baby of the moment! I'm having so much writing this, I call my sangcheng Betrothal AU, and it's also a fairly silly premise. It was inspired by a tweet where a guy says his parents were trying to play matchmaker, so he told them he was gay... and then they came back with a binder full of men for him to potentially date. So in this one, JC yells in the middle of a meeting with matchmakers that he doesn't want to marry any woman. He THINKS he means "right now", but YZY takes it to mean he's a cutsleeve. She has the matchmakers prepare a list of young men to potentially be the consort of Jiang-zongzhu, and he winds up betrothed to his friend NHS. This very much plays into my headcanon that JC is ace/demi (demi, in this case) and not very selfaware about his preferences. It's also a canon divergence: YZY and Yinzhu survived the massacre of LP, and JC never lost his golden core.

4 - 4th Most Bookmarks: The Half-Eaten Peach Longs to be Filled with Cream. This is just straight-up sangcheng porn. 😂

The morning that a discussion conference at Qinghe is set to start, NHS asks JC to fill him up and plug him up so he'll feel it all day. Halfway through the day, he gets a refill.

5 - 5th Most Words: Hold the doors. My one NieLan fic so far. Also porn. Modern AU, LXC has moved into a new building and has noticed his hot neighbor NMJ. One day they ride the elevator together and NMJ helps him with his groceries. And then LXC gives dage a beer and a blowjob.

Bonus - Fewest Words: The final gift. Super short (201 words) post-canon Kamen Rider Ryuki fic, about Kitaoka's fate in a timeline without the Rider War. Yes, that sentence means it's both post-canon and canon-divergence. If you know Ryuki, you understand why. It's also Kitaoka/Reiko but more about Kitaoka himself.

Tagging @angie-s-g @revesdelimonade @apocrypha73 @lostheartkix @trixietricoter @mulberrylotus

[tavina-writes]

Ten First Lines game!

Rules: post the first sentence of your last ten fics. If you haven’t written ten fics, share as many first-sentences as you have.

Thanks to @fortune-maiden for the tag! I have some recent works that are currently unrevealed/in anon for exchanges right now, so this isn't per se the exact most recent ten lines, and I've excluded that one fic that's entirely just meta (and probably will have to exclude some birthday bash works, but! from most recent to least recent, here's the first ten lines from the last ten serious fics I've posted: 1. "The first time it happened, it was a bit of a joke."

-- should've wanted less from Self Identity Flash for Elsin, OW, OFC & OFC, YA Dystopia, Possession Tropes 2. "Lan Sizhui did not come back to the Cloud Recesses."

-- a late spring frost from Five Figure Fanwork Exchange for stickpenalties, MDZS, LXC & LQR, Lan Family, Post Canon, Grief/Mourning

3. "Nie Huaisang spends the autumn and winter after Guanyin Temple painting as though he might never again behold the visages of Qinghe."

-- but I'm not in charge of sorrow (so please don't ask me when), The Untamed/CQL/MDZS, NHS-centric post canon, Grief/Mourning

4. "Nie Mingjue was forced into a kneeling position in front of Wen Ruohan’s throne."

-- maybe, perhaps, almost from Bulletproof 22/23 for Afinasca, The Untamed, NieYao, Nightless City Throne Room which is neither what really happened nor Nie Mingjue's memories but a secret sexier third thing

5. "It was a well known fact that Nie Mingjue would do anything for his brother."

-- On Hands and Knees from Bulletproof 22/23 for shnuffeluv, The Untamed, NMJ & NHS and NMJ & WQ; alternate universe where NMJ has to seek out a doctor for NHS 6. "It is near noon on a dry summer day when someone from the village comes to the small cottage Qiao A-Lu shared with Yuan Ruo-lang, to tell her that her husband had been captured by river bandits."

-- The River Merchant's Wife from Bulletproof 22/23 for Tharia, OW, OMC /OFC, Historical Fantasy China, the main character is a hulijing. 7. “Sesshomaru?” Rin had grown quickly since he had seen her last, left at the human village where she would be cared for instead of coming with him to wander the world. “Can I ask you a question?”

-- Why Love Them? from Bulletproof 22/23 for Jubileen, Inuyasha, Sesshomaru & Rin, Man Who Hates World Adopts a Small Child 8. "It’s only after Empress Fuca sends away Erqing and Mingyu that she starts, at least in Yingluo’s eyes, to look tired."

-- In Quiet from Bulletproof 22/23 for freefan1412, The Story of Yanxi Palace, Fuca Rongyin & Wei Yingluo, washing blood out of someone's hair 9. "Lan Qiren, as a general rule, does not like the parties hosted at Nightless City."

-- wake up a little crueler from Fic In A Box 2022 for Nemainofthewater, LQR/WRH, pre-canon party at Nightless City 10. "The night is still young when Song Shuangran fails to arrive for their meeting at the Jade Sparrow."

-- to kill the hound after it has caught the rabbit from Fic In A Box 2022 for Shadaras, OW, OMC/OMC, Historical Fantasy China, Imperial Minister/Teahouse Musician

I think based on this roundup, I like to start with a shorter semi-pithy sentence that sets the stage about what's going to come, reveals a main character, or instigates a problem. What this has also taught me is that I have waaaay too many fics and also created like 20+ birthday bash works this year and that might be a bit overboard lol. Also I write a lot of exchange gifts.

Tagging @shadaras, @jubeelee, @jasontoddiefor, @allthelittlecreepycrawlies and anyone else who wants to play this game! It was fun!

[ibijau]

more of baby nhs getting sent to Gusu very early

warning for mentions of child abuse still

It’s not a very big room, especially when Huaisang is going to share it with someone else. It’s also very sparsely decorated compared to the one he has in the Unclean Realm, but he’s starting to realise that things are just like that in the Cloud Recesses.

“Please sit,” Lan Xichen says for the third or fourth time.

And for as many times, Huaisang stays standing, looking around awkwardly. He doesn’t like it here. This whole place is too quiet, and this room is too empty, and the bed looks too hard. Huaisang doesn’t like it. He misses his da-ge, and he misses a-die too, even after what happened. He is wary of the two boys with him, Lan Xichen who smiles too much, Lan Wangji who doesn’t smile at all.

“It’s really fine for you to take my bed,” Lan Xichen insists. “It’ll be more comfortable than whatever they bring in later, and you’ll need to be comfortable. This must be so inconvenient.”

Even though it’s useless, Huaisang instinctively tries to cover his wounded arm with his other hand.

At home he has stayed fairly isolated after that incident, so he hasn’t had to bear with anyone looking at his arm except Zonghui and da-ge, who he both trust implicitly. They know the truth about what happened, and even if they didn’t, they wouldn’t think ill of him for getting hurt. But the Lan brothers don’t know. 

Huaisang was dropped with them by Lan Qiren who just said that Huaisang will stay in Lan Xichen’s room until his arm is healed, and then left to make necessary arrangements. Lan zongzhu, whom Huaisang likes far better than Lan Qiren because he is much more gentle, went his own way as soon as they entered the Cloud Recesses. So Huaisang is alone with strangers who probably think he is weak for getting hurt like that. They must think he fell and wasn’t even skilled enough in martial arts to know how to land without hurting himself. They must think he got into a fight with someone too strong for him and didn’t know when to quit.

As long as they don’t guess the truth, it doesn’t really matter what they think, Huaisang knows. Still, he has his pride too, and he doesn’t like that this is the first impression he’s making.

Lan Xichen, seeing all his efforts to be nice fail, sighs deeply and turns to his brother.

“Wangji, can you go see if tea might be brought? And something to eat as well. Nie gongzi has travelled from very far, I’m sure he’d be happy to eat something.”

Lan Wangji frowns, so slightly that Huaisang wouldn’t have noticed if he weren’t watching these two so carefully. In answer to that frown, Lan Xichen only smiles until his brother gives in and leaves the room. Huaisang watches him go, fascinated by the way those Lan people walk. It’s almost like they’re floating, nothing at all like the way people at home go about their business.

“Nie gongzi, let’s sit together,” Lan Xichen offers, coming closer and pushing Huaisang toward the bed.

Since it’s impossible to refuse anymore, Huaisang obeys. The bed, just as he feared, is very hard. At home, he has pillows and many blankets, because a-die spoils him.

Spoiled him.

Not anymore, not even if he bought that pretty fan.

Sitting on the bed, fidgeting with his sling, Huaisang looks down at his feet. He tenses when Lan Xichen sits next to him, and refuses to look at him. He smiles too much, Huaisang isn’t used to that and he’s not sure he likes it.

“This must be really hard for you to leave home like this,” Lan Xichen says. “I know I would be scared if I had to.”

Huaisang shrugs. He should be scared, sure. Mostly, he feels uneasy. He doesn’t like it here. But he wasn’t really liking it back home either, not anymore. He can’t say that, but he’s glad that he’s far away from a-die. If only da-ge were here too, safe too, then Huaisang wouldn’t mind so much.

“Since we’ll be sharing a room until you’re better, I think we should try to be friends,” Lan Xichen says. “It’ll be nicer like this, won’t it? Maybe you can tell me about your home. I’ve heard a lot about Qinghe, but I’ve never been there. Is it very nice?”

Huaisang energetically nods. Of course it’s nice. It’s his home, so it’s the best place in the world, with the best food in the world, and his sect is the greatest. It’s obvious.

It's why the Wens don't like them, he's heard some disciples say. Qinghe Nie is just too great, and Wen Ruohan can only wish he had a son as skilled as Nie Mingjue.

“I hope you’ll like it here too,” Lan Xichen remarks. He pauses, and laughs softly. “To be honest, most of the guest disciples don’t really like the Cloud Recesses, so maybe you won’t either. People say it’s too quiet, and there are too many rules… but I find other places are too noisy. Quiet places are nice too. Oh, and do you like music?”

“Hm.”

“That’s good then, because we use music to cultivate here. Do you play any instruments?”

“Mm-mm.”

“Too bad. Maybe you can learn, when your arm is better,” Lan Xichen offers. “A man of good birth should play the guqin at least. Do you know the other four arts?”

“I play Go with my da-ge,” Huaisang mumbles. “I’m not very good.”

“You’re still young, it will come. Wangji isn’t very good either, but don’t tell him I said that. Sometimes I let him win, just so he doesn’t get discouraged.”

Huaisang can’t help a small smile. He suspects that his da-ge does the same, to encourage him. And so even though Lan Xichen really smiles too much, Huaisang starts thinking he might not dislike him after all.

“We can play together too,” Lan Xichen suggests. “It is always nice to play with someone new.”

“Will you let me win?” Huaisang asks, looking up at Lan Xichen’s face for the first time since they sat together.

Lan Xichen blinks a few times at the impertinent question. Huaisang almost fears getting in trouble for this, even though he should know better than to misbehave, especially toward someone who has even less reasons than a-die to put up with him. He braces himself for a scolding.

Instead Lan Xichen turns away and tries to hide laughter behind his sleeve.

“Nie gongzi, shouldn’t you try to win with your own skill first?” he teases when his laugh calms down. “Letting you win… we’ll see. I don’t think I will, not at first. I want to see if you can beat me on your own first. Isn’t that more fun?”

As long as he wins, Huaisang doesn't really care how. Winning just because someone is sad for him and lets him… that's still winning. He knows he can't say that out loud though. If Lan Xichen is like other people Huaisang knows, he'll say hard work is the only way to get anything, and he must strive to improve… And Huaisang is too tired and depressed to put up with a lecture right now.

“Then I will try hard to be worthy of a game with Lan gongzi,” he sighs. “Please be merciful if I do badly.”

“I’m sure you’ll do fine. If not, I will try to help you improve.”

Huaisang knows he should smile and give thanks and be nice. Lan Xichen doesn’t have to be this kind to him, so Huaisang should be grateful, but now it’s all starting to catch up with him. He’s in this place, he’s without his da-ge for the first time in his life, he’s going to be like that for a long time maybe, and it’s scary. 

He misses da-ge so much.

Da-ge too promised to help him play better, and sometimes Huaisang did win all on his own, thanks to da-ge's advice.

Huaisang doesn’t want to be here in this new place, with new people. He wants to be home, with his brother. He wants to go find Lan zongzhu and beg him to take him back. He’ll be quiet, he’ll be good, he’ll never bother his father again. He’ll do anything, if he can just go home.

Huaisang half feels like crying.

He keeps it in though, because he can’t embarrass himself like that in front of strangers. He’s a Nie, he should only cry with people he can trust. Right now, that means only with his da-ge, who is too far away, alone with their suddenly unpredictable father.

Huaisang really, badly wants to cry.

Thankfully, Lan Wangji returns at that moment, carrying a tray with tea and some cakes. If it was impossible to cry in front of Lan Xichen, then it is even more so in front of Lan Wangji who gives off the air of never having shed a tear in his life. So Huaisang puts on a neutral face, hops down from the bed, and goes to sit at the table where Lan Wangji put the tray.

Carefully, as if he were serving some great and important person, Lan Wangji pours tea, first for Huaisang, then for his brother and for himself. His gestures are slow and elegant in a way that Huaisang can only envy. Suddenly, it makes sense, the way disciples at home speak of Gusu Lan. If someone the same age as Huaisang can be so refined, then the adults have to be even more so.

It would be nice, to be elegant like Lan Wangji.

“Lan gongzi…”

“It’s just us here,” Lan Xichen remarks, passing him his cup of tea and a share of cake. “You don’t have to be so very formal in private. Right, Wangji?”

Lan Wangji throws his brother an unimpressed look, pinching his lips somewhat. Huaisang feels a little awkward for a moment, wondering if this is an argument that those two brothers had had before. Lan Wangji seems like the sort of person who really is too formal at all times. Didn’t he call his brother xiongzhang earlier?

“You can call me by my courtesy name,” Lan Xichen insists. “I wouldn’t mind.”

Huaisang hesitates, and shakes his head.

“Lan gongzi is older, it wouldn’t be proper to address him so casually,” he mumbles. “Already Lan gongzi is going to be troubled so much because of me, I can’t be disrespectful as well.”

This seems to sadden Lan Xichen a little, but he doesn’t push any further.

"Then call him gege," Lan Wangji encourages in a monotone voice. “From you, it’s fine.”

Huaisang could swear there's a slight smile to his eyes. Intrigued by that, he doesn't notice Lan Xichen rolling his eyes and looking mildly annoyed. 

"Can I really, Xichen-ge ?" Huaisang asks.

Lan Xichen, who had opened his mouth to say something to his brother, closes it and stares at Huaisang with a somewhat funny expression. For a moment Huaisang worries that he was tricked into saying something he shouldn't have, and that he'll get in trouble already. Quickly enough, Lan Xichen breaks into a radiant smile. 

"Yes, you can. It would be very welcome, in fact,” he says, glancing at his brother and wrinkling his nose. “Oh, but drink your tea, Huaisang. You look so tired, it will make you feel better.”

It is a little awkward to pick up the cup with only one hand, but Huaisang manages without making a mess for once.

The tea is very good, a different blend from what Huaisang is used to drinking at home. It has a touch of bitterness to it, but it’s still very pleasant and refreshing. It goes very well with the cakes that Lan Wangji brought, which have a subtle flavour. Huaisang does feel a little better after.

Maybe it won’t be so bad here.

[pbaintthetb]

ok but have you considered,,, nmj travelling to the future somehow and meeting older and manipulative/mastermind nhs,, and learning about all he did to avenge him,, what his reaction would be,,? would he be proud or would it break his heart? bc i think about that a lot

actually yeah!! I was gonna write a fic about this for my mdzs bingo and I discussed it/the idea in general with my flatmate a lot but I only ever wrote about three lines

I think NMJ would be pretty angry about the parallels between NHS & MY, and I think NMJ would be horrified at the whole MXY thing... but I think there are things he'd respect, like NHS taking care of the sect, NHS finally pulling his finger out

but ultimately I think he'd be hurt at how NHS did it, not even just the lying but using lxc? using mxy? using wwx? people aren't tools!!!

crying to let people think he's weak and wont' hurt them, the whole nhs acting injured and then using my to stab JGY in the stomach?? biiiiiig parallels to MY locking NMJ's qi after he'd stabbed himself but bringing even more people into it, faking injury to cause pain?

I think NMJ would understand but I also think he'd be horrified and I think he could forgive a loooot for NHS

the only bit I wrote was basically NMJ talking about how someone was a conniving weasel who he was going to punish and everyone thought it was JGY and he's like, no, this is about my brother.

It is a tough one though because I don't think NMJ is as selfless and objective as he'd like to be/think so I think he'd really want to let NHS off and I think he'd struggle to believe it.

I think the real heartbreak would be NMJ telling NHS he was just like MY and he wanted nothing to do with him though... and like post canon NHS has been shaped infinitely more by the lack of NMJ than NMJ so maybe NMJ would struggle to recognise him?

Like yeah, I may be NHS' no.1 fan but I also think he's a selfish manipulative dick (justified) in many cases and he can argue until he's blue in the face that he did this revenge for NMJ, but like, it's so much more for him, NMJ is a very much a "in, out, job done" kind of guy and NHS likes to fuck with people

So I don't think NMJ would be proud, of how, I think he'd be proud until he slowly found out more and more,, and then he'd just be incredibly (not mad, just) disappointed and NHS's heart would be the one to break

[perkynurples]

... May I ask you about the slow excruciating progression from Meng Yao to Jiggy?

also paging @holdmycaffeine and @cadencekismet, who asked me for the very same, and @acutebird-fics, who is my partner in crime deep philosophical discussions about these characters, and a great deal of this messy essay is informed by those

Tl;dr: JGY is a multifaceted character and the author struggles not to lose her mind trying to find the right words to describe that. Literally every single point of this rant is up for discussion, begging for it even, so please don’t hesitate to engage me, but, like... tomorrow, maybe. After I sleep it off.

Meta I used or referenced: THIS ONE explaining how JGS deciding to give him the name GuangYao is all kinds of wrong | THIS ONE talking about the red bindi-like Jin forehead dots, among other things | THIS ONE about his capacity for evil and his own recognition thereof

-

Alright, without any fancy preamble, here goes. Honestly, whenever I think about JGY for more than three seconds, it becomes painfully evident that there are two wolves inside me at all times - one wants to spend tens of thousands of words exploring his narrative, his choices, his abilities and his failings, his capacity for violence as well as his capacity for love...

And the other one just likes to call him a gremlin in chief in a fancy hat, and doesn’t want to go much further than that. I’m going to try and feed them both.

The thing that pisses me off about Meng Yao is just. The fact that he doesn’t stay Meng Yao, and we get to watch it happen in slow motion. You get a tiny little twink-ass kid who suddenly finds himself adopted into the Nie by the Sect Leader himself, and this is Meng Yao, the son of one of Jin Guangshan’s many mistresses, who doesn’t have a whole lot going for him aside from that, at that moment - his cultivation, weak. His opportunities, nonexistent. His dick, small. His political savvy, only just starting to show itself.

And this guy gets the chance of a lifetime presented to him on a Qinghe-silver platter. Like, we can argue about book canon and try and decide if he did anything at all to make NMJ notice him, but show canon makes it all the more hilarious (again, please refer to this gem of a post for a level of humor I’m sorely incapable of) - you’re seventeen, and the Batman of the cultivation world picks you up and elevates your status across swathes of societal norms, to a level you previously could have only dreamed of.

It’s interesting to me to try and imagine if this was the moment that Meant Something - in the grand scope of things, of course it did, because it started MY on the road to JGY, but also to Meng Yao personally, in terms of what he believed he could comfortably achieve. I do not for a second believe he started out wanting to murder people to reach his goal, or that he even had a good goal to begin with - being accepted by his father, maybe. Murdering the (at the time) greatest villain in the world, becoming a renowned spy, landing an incredibly beneficial sworn brotherhood, et cetera et cetera? I mean, the kid has wet dreams, but no way do they reach this far at this point in his life.

But so many things about him are unclear. Show canon changes his timeline, in that he met NMJ before he met Lan Xichen, and even accompanied NHS to the Cloud Recesses. Either way, his stint with the Nie is incredibly personally important to him. I firmly believe he loved and admired them, in his own way. He certainly flourished under NMJ’s tutelage and approval, but in the end, his motivations, his entire raison d’etre, clashed with NMJ’s too much. To Meng Yao, who’d gotten kicked down those infamous Koi Tower stairs for daring to ask for his father’s attention, murdering a guy for slandering him and his mother was a natural outcome of being slandered his entire life, and finally having had enough - to NMJ, it was unforgivable.

But this still isn’t where Meng Yao becomes Jin Guangyao, and it begs the goddamn question - how much of what JGY was perfectly willing and capable of doing to stay in power, had been present in Meng Yao that entire time? You see him make excuses that someone who isn’t NMJ, with his incredibly staunch morals and black-and-white view of the world, might have even accepted, but instinctively, you know - making excuses is just how it’s going to be with this guy.

Because Meng Yao, as well as Jin Guangyao, lies, and he is damn good at it. He is so good at it, that he lies his way to the very top of the Wen, all the way to Wen Ruohan’s side. His lying is what enables him to become Jin Guangyao. And like any good liar, he doesn’t only lie to the people around him - he also lies to himself.

And I can’t blame him, because - been there. Lying to yourself becomes absolutely necessary, when you want to keep everyone else around you believing in a mask you wear. You need to start believing it, at least a little bit, at least sometimes, for it to work.

At this point, you’re probably wondering - but Annie, what about the time he spent a year sheltering Lan Xichen? Did he lie then? Was he not just Meng Yao, a poor but cunning bookkeeper, then? I’m getting there, I swear. Slowly and in a roundabout sort of way, because honestly, I don’t know how I can start talking about the LXC of it all, without it turning into a novel.

Because whichever way you twist it, whatever canon you choose to follow, one constant remains - A-Yao’s feelings for Lan Xichen. I’m deliberately not calling him Meng Yao or Jin Guangyao, because it’s these feelings that divide the two, but also ultimately unify them, fatally so. But we’ll get there.

In one version of events, Meng Yao travels to Cloud Recesses at the behest of NMJ, and falls in love with a statue made of jade there. In another version of events, they meet during something LXC only describes as ‘the shame of a lifetime’. Both of those events lead to Meng Yao sheltering LXC, hiding him, saving his life and those precious Gusu Lan texts.

Whatever version of events you choose to see as the right one, one other truth also remains - Lan Xichen offers freely and without asking that which Meng Yao has had to struggle to attain, that which has been denied to him time and time again, based only on the circumstances of his birth: respect. Lan Xichen never looks down on him, never brings up his origins, and instead extends him respect and dignity in a way only he is capable of - no fucking wonder Meng Yao admires him. No fucking wonder, when this amazing guy, this perfect pristine handsome number one young cultivator, looks at him, smiles at him, and actually sees him, son of a whore or not.

No fucking wonder Meng Yao loves him, and Jin Guangyao continues loving him. No fucking wonder he never means to hurt him, but does so anyway.

But here’s the thing - lying to yourself to make things work only gets you so far. Do I think Meng Yao spends restless nights in cold sweat dreading who he’s becoming, thinking about all the lives he’s taken to further his goals? Absolutely not. Do I think he does good things, often even great things, because it helps him feel better about himself? Do I think he both loves Xichen and keeps him around because it’s beneficial to him, having the Lan Sect Leader in his pocket, but also personally speaking, having someone who so firmly believes in the goodness in him? You bet your overly adorned murderhat I do.

And frankly, reducing Jin Guangyao to one or the other - coldblooded murderer or a man plagued by his own insecurities, helpless and trying to be kind in a world that’s so evidently against him - is doing a character like him a huge disservice. You have to consider all sides, if you want to truly understand him. Hell, I myself am by no means claiming to truly understand him! He pisses me off daily, and I’m writing this stream-consciousness-y thing because he simply won’t shut up in my head.

This kid makes Choices, and here’s the catch - he doesn’t regret a whole lot of them. If anything, I’d like to think he regrets going along with his father’s plans for so fucking long before finally realizing that avenue won’t bring him what he seeks. Killing Jin Guangshan, by the way? Very sexy of him, that I’ll admit. Guy was a pig.

But even the obviously Good Choices he makes? Building those damn watchtowers? Letting Mo Xuanyu stay at Koi Tower? Seating Qin Su by his side at that same throne where his shitty father entertained concubine after concubine? (Frankly, please make up your own mind as to whether he was lying or telling the truth about learning about Qin Su being his sister before or after they’d consummated their marriage, I’m choosing to believe that he hadn’t known.)

How much of it really happens out of the goodness of his own heart, and how much of it happens because he wants to improve his own reputation, kintsugi away the minuscule cracks in his own image until he’s once again a perfect picture of Jin gold? Is he himself even capable of telling the difference, recognizing where his good intentions end and his desire to look out for number one begins? When you spend so much time crafting your own perfect mask, in your own head as well as others’, the lines blur real fast.

I think ultimately, he craves respect as much as he does pity, and those two never mesh well - the cultivation world never truly accepts him, his father certainly never truly accepts him, but Jin Guangyao is not Wei Wuxian, he can’t just look at all of these perceived injustices and slights, all of this gossip and slander, and say ‘Whatever’. No, Meng Yao takes one look at the world standing against him so very vehemently, and decides to fight it, fight tooth and nail for his place in it, until he comes out Jin Guangyao on the other side, gilded and pristine, ascending the stairs of Jinlintai to exact his revenge on anyone who dares not accept him.

The Guanyin Temple, in a way, is a perfect little vignette of his character - we observe him wildly oscillating between seeking out the aforementioned respect and pity, confessing boldly and laughing loudly one second, and pleading on his knees and clutching onto Lan Xichen’s robe the next. To him, that night, and everything leading up to it, is a series of footholds - the ground begins crumbling under his feet when he learns of the letter, and he has to act fast. 

He buys himself time, excuse after excuse, thinking on his feet, and here’s the thing - he’s not necessarily the best at that. Anymore. Up until that point, until the letter and Qin Su and WWX turning up, everything is going according to plan, and his plan at this point is, frankly, correct me if I’m wrong, sitting pretty at the top of his golden tower and making sure the truth about him never comes to light, which... Well, we all know the truth has a nasty way of coming around when it’s least convenient for you. 

And I think Jin Guangyao (not Meng Yao) is, at that point, unused to being inconvenienced. Everything he ever does, he calculates, he twists the public opinion of himself, he twists individual people’s opinions of himself, to suit him - nothing unexpected ever happens anymore, because he’s played the game long enough to foresee most things. Nie Huaisang beats him at that same game, not because he has a huge plan spanning decades of his own, but because he’s good at improvising, kicking the hornet’s nest and then knowing where to direct the fallout - but that is another essay all of its own waiting to happen.

For now, I feel like I need to wrap this up before I lose my mind. Personally (and please feel free to challenge me on this any time), I don’t feel like there’s a single defining moment, or even a handful of them, traumatic or otherwise, that irrevocably turns Meng Yao into Jin Guangyao. Sure, being kicked down the literal stairs leading to a better place for you a handful of times will have you feeling some kind of way. Sure, serving a maniacal warlord while playing an impossibly high-stakes game of spy poker will leave a mark or two. Sure, your sworn brother spitting in your face the very insults you’ve been hearing your whole life and never learned to shake off, will make one more vestige of patience inside you irrevocably crumble to smithereens. But.

Your whole life, you work very, very hard. You know to put your head down and get your hands dirty, but you also know that sometimes, the best way out of a hairy situation is turning on those puppy eyes and appearing just a smidgen weaker, a smidgen more frightened and helpless, than you actually are. And if, when you actually tell the truth and people still don’t believe you, lying becomes easier, becomes, eventually, so easy it feels as natural as breathing? Well. Might as well use that particular skillset to sneak your way through a war, am I right? Might as well use it to build yourself a nest among the very vultures who resent you, and whom you resent, and make sure that they have to respect you.

In the end, to me? Jin Guangyao is the guy who jumps from person to person, from callout to very personal callout, there in the Guanyin Temple, just to stall for time, just to regain some sort of foothold in the situation - he’s the guy who probably views losing an arm as a necessary sacrifice, shakes it off and still gets to work from there.

Meng Yao is the guy who wants to take his mother with, and who asks Lan Xichen the one question he’s dreaded knowing the answer to his entire life - not ‘will you stay and die with me?’, but the one that hides beyond that.

Is this what devotion is? Respect? Love? Is there, at this moment in time, enough of all of those things in your heart that you will, in fact, stay and die with me?

When Lan Xichen says yes, without words but still loudly enough to be understood without a doubt, Meng Yao is relieved, while Jin Guangyao is vindicated.

When Lan Xichen says yes, neither version of A-Yao needs to hear any more than that - the seventeen-year-old boy shooting a shot way above his station and loving a statue made of jade, who wants Lan Xichen to survive, and the man wearing the wrong name and the title of the first Chief Cultivator of his generation, who wants Lan Xichen to live with the weight of all his mistakes and misgivings, are both, for once, in accord. They’re both happy, and they both make that final push to save him.

In conclusion, if there even is one to this jumble of random thoughts... Jin Guangyao and Meng Yao are one and the same. Aspects of one can be found in the other, but neither feels remorse about his choices. Both of them, in turn, are capable of amazing things. Both of them are, in fact, capable of decidedly horrible things. One builds a wall around the other so thick, so impenetrable, you only catch glimpses, and only the ones he allows you to see. One learns very quickly that vulnerability is dangerous, unless employed proactively, and the other one perfects the craft.

Both of them believe they are perfectly justified in their actions. Both of them believe their own line of reasoning, their own excuses. Both of them want to be loved, for very different reasons, or for the very same ones, at the end of the day.

Both of them aspire to greatness, Meng Yao some vague idea of it instilled in him by his mother teaching him to believe his own worth, Jin Guangyao a more concrete vision of it, always one step ahead, one step higher up those gilded stairs. Both of them are willing to excuse a whole lot to reach it, too.

And when Jin Guangyao finally stands in Koi Tower, properly this time, wearing that coveted golden peony, wearing that red zhushazhi and a much nicer version of the hat his mother always told him to wear, but also wearing the wrong fucking name, one that barely gives him a spot in the family he belongs to by blood?

All he needs to do is take one look in the mirror to see Meng Yao staring back, always there with him, always ready to remind him where he came from. He’s seventeen years old, and he just buried his mother, and somewhere out there, the rest of his life awaits. His smile is all dimples, and that, too, they have in common.

Time to get to work, Meng Yao suggests, and Jin Guangyao agrees.

[odd-triceratops702]

Idk what I'd give if someone writes this.

But I had this concept for the years about mingcheng. So like here it goes...

Anyways, so the fic goes like this: it's about 2 years after WWXs death and NMJ is SLOWLY getting affected by his qi deviation and is getting desperate in slowing down the symptoms and what not.

But then he meets up with JC (who cares where, could be a discussion conference or him visiting whtevs) and develops a HUGE crush. But JC doesn't realise it cuz he's really spread thin with leading yunmemg and raising Jin ling. So they interact a lot, with NMJ trying to support JC whilst he's still alive.

Eventually because JC is a masochist - he falls in love with NMJ and confesses, assuming that NMJ will friendzone him. Only for NMJ to admit his feelings as well. But it's bittersweet cuz NMJ is still dying from qi deviation (JGY is still a dick) so they rush their relationship. JC gets married to NMJ (this being NMJ favourite memory and JC favourite memory is NMJ interacting with JL) whilst NMJ is still stable and have many little moments together (like both of them teaching jin ling how to shoot and JC teaching NMJ how to use zidian because he trusts NMJ enough to not hurt others with zidian. )

Anyways NMJ eventually dies when Jin Ling is like 8 (and JL only has a few memories of NMJ which destroys JC) and JC & JHS grieve together. BUTTT JC didn't know the full story because NHS wanted to be the only one to get revenge for NMJs murder. So JC just thinks NMJ died because of qi deviation and slowly accepts it but never moves on because NMJ was his soulmate.

Fast forward to the plot, JGY is being confronted by WWX and the gang and JGY admits to killing NMJ and JC is destroyed. And he is Hella pissed, and tries to kill JGY buttttt doesn't because morals or whatever. LXC still kills JGY. But the twist is, that WWX doesn't know that mingcheng was a thing.

Shenanigans happen with WWX and NMJ and somehow WWX fixes him and makes him a fierce corpse... But the twist is that NMJ only remembers his life BEFORE having qi deviations. *Shock and disbelief ensures *

And since of the WWX and LWJ didn't know mingcheng happened, LXC being in seclusion and NHS feeling too guilty and bitter to be near NMJ. NMJ has no where to go and is having a lot of self-loothing because he is a fierce corpse, can't remember some of his later years and didn't figure out that JGY was killing him. But then NMJ stumbles into Lotus Pier...

NMJ meets up with JC and JC is shooketh. Buutttt then the whole memories erased thing becomes plot revelant and JC becomes insecure ..."If he everything else EXCEPT us, their relationship wasnt that important to him than it was to me...."

So JC keeps his distance from NMJ and lets him stay at lotus pier cuz he's a masochist. Only NMJ to get attach to JC and slowly fold back into JCs life. JC still loves him and this situation is slowly destroying him that JL notices. (Also NMJ knows he feels something to JC but doesn't know what it is, and is repressing it because of self-loothing)

Jin Ling has been prepping to become the Jin Sect leader whilst Lan qiren is his Regent cuz JC REFUSES for JL to lose his childhood like he did.

And Lan Qiren was bored and wanted to give WWX and LWJ some alone time idk. Anyways, JL is free and studying under Lan Qiren and JC on how to be a sect leader and one day whilst staying in lotus pier, he hears JC crying alone in his room. And gets super over-protective cuz "no one makes my favourite parent uncle cry."

And then JL bumps into NMJ and recognises him as jiujius husband from a painting or whatever. And realises that NMJ is the one making JC depressed. JL confront him, saying something on the lines of "that's yr soulmate buuuttttt you don't even recognise him because of yr self-loothing"

NMJ realises that he loves JC and those feelings he has been repressing were because of this.

That night NMJ confronts JC and emotions soarrrrrr. They realise that they are being stupid and get back together. And live out their days together.

*Some additions that isn't in the main plot,

*WWXs reaction to mingcheng like "wait JC lost his virginity BEFORE ME!! NOOO"

*Jin Ling and WWX being overprotective over JC

*JC being Lan Qirens favourite even though they're not related (pre-timeskip, they would have tea once a month because Lan Qiren used to have tea with JC's parents but not as regularly as they do. JC goes Lan Qiren for advice and Lan Qiren sees himself in JC)

*LXC reconciling with NMJ, (Im actually a fan of NMJ being a bit mad at LXC because LXC forced 3zun brotherhood) but both of them working out their issues

*NMJ and NHS interacting, NMJ understanding why NHS did it and didn't hold a grudge

BUT JC is angry with him because NHS didn't ask for help and didn't consider JCs feeling on the matter.

Eventually JC and NHS reconcile after NHS reveals his true nature to JC (like be more sly and intelligent in front of JC) and stops being the lazy headshaker. NHS is still sect leader because NMJ wants to live with JC and NHS wants to change the Niè sect. (Also NHS wants to become chief cultivator) (I just want NHS to be an evil mastermind, an ethical bastard with JCs support)

*maybe LXC and NHS romance, LXC being angry with NHS and being hostile with NHS (and then bring in the enemies to lovers trope)

*JC and WWX reconciling extremely quickly because JC now knows that time is precious and had forgiven WWX a long time ago (during when NMJ and him were first dating because he didn't want useless baggage to ruin mingcheng so he confessed EVERYTHING to NMJ and they moved past it)

*WWX being the strict uncle to JL, and JC, having more child rearing experiences, can handle a bratty teenager whilst WWX hates his past self for giving him karma

So yeah this is a prompt I've BEEN thinking about for a while and I don't want to write it sooooo

[robininthelabyrinth]

Howdy! Your writing rocks! If you don’t mind, could I ask you what you think would change if Jin Guangyao had given the regard he has for Lan Xichen to Jiang Cheng instead? Do you think there’d be huge changes or little ones? This isn’t a prompt, I think your meta is super cool. Obvs if you don’t wanna answer, there’s no pressure or anything.

So this is going to be more of an insight into the rambling way I develop stories than anything else, but basically these are my (very long) thoughts:

First step: the question is not “if”. The question is “how”. How does JGY come to have a regard for JC instead of LXC?

Let us posit that JGY meets (and becomes devoted to) LXC after he’s been thrown down from Koi Tower - rescuing him after the burning of the Cloud Recesses, which presumably happened while on his way to Qinghe or after he’s arrived (or, in the Untamed, when he’s working at Qinghe already). 

So, let’s take that as our starting point: JGY doesn’t go to Qinghe. 

He goes to Yunmeng instead, probably taking a boat to get there. Regardless of when he arrives, this doesn’t really go anywhere until after the Lotus Pier is burned, after everything that happens between WWX and JC happens, and now JC is raising an army and madly recruiting for the Jiang Sect. Meng Yao shows up with a smile and a “I’m from Yunping, just down the river, I want to help here” spiel, and he’s good - he’s efficient and smart and good with people, all the characteristics that made NMJ appreciate him, and JC needs good people so badly. Especially in the beginning, when he’s alone, with WWX missing.

But here’s the difference between NMJ and JC: JC needs people. He’s not a natural leader, having been dragged into trouble by WWX his whole life, and he’s brand new at being a sect leader; he doesn’t have established likes or dislikes, he has no idea what he’s doing. He’s going to rely on Meng Yao, he’s going to depend on Meng Yao - Meng Yao says jump and JC says “good idea, how high?” and he doesn’t even notice he’s doing it. Meng Yao is all but running the sect, and he doesn’t even have to try. No prostitutes’ tricks here, no smiles, no empty flattery - most of the subtle stuff goes straight over JC’s head, but a vaguely kind word every once in a while and JC will turn bright red and look pleased as punch for the next hour. That type of power is seductive.

And then WWX shows up.

As much as I love WWX, his dynamics with JC are not the best. WWX does whatever he wants and expects JC to follow, because he always has, and JC always does - how irritating that would be to Meng Yao, who up until this point has been put into the position of big brother for the first time in his life, and who now has to tip-toe around the ticking time bomb that is Yiling Patriarch!WWX to get what he wants. Plus, Meng Yao is good with people: he doesn’t need to know all the gossip about the Jiang family (though he does) to be able to figure out that, legitimate birth or not, JC has spent his entire life being treated like the sect leader’s dissatisfying bastard son - and oh, that hits Meng Yao in the one soft spot he has left, the spot that’s almost but not entirely narcissism, the one that LXC got into by being nice and kind and treating him like an equal, the one NHS, soft and dependent, got into by being sad and pathetic, and which JC, prickly and mean, gets in by virtue of being like Meng Yao.

He doesn’t do anything about that dislike, though; JC loves WWX, and the war effort needs him, so he’ll put up with him...for now. After a while, he goes to Langya - no need to have an accidentally-not-accidentally overheard conversation here! He just says “my father” and JC is like “I totally get it, go”. And when JC finds him killing that supervisor and Meng Yao says “he deserved it”, JC believes him, because JC is ride-or-die until you force him off the ride. He’s gullible and trusting, even though he thinks he’s cynical, and he’s about as susceptible to Meng Yao’s bullshit as LXC is (as we see in canon!)

So Meng Yao goes to be a spy and (because he doesn’t know LXC in this) he sends the info to JC, who sends the info to LXC (the courier), who gets it to NMJ, and all that stuff happens about the same way. Except NMJ has no reason to know that Meng Yao is a conniving bastard that uses friendly fire to settle debts, so when Meng Yao says “I had no choice but to kill them”, NMJ is upset but has no reason to doubt it. And now you have NMJ owing Meng Yao a favor, however grudgingly.

No sworn brothers, though, not with LXC to suggest it and without NMJ wanting to put Meng Yao on the right track, and JC is pretty sensitive about family stuff so best not to even suggest it. It’s fine, Meng Yao - now JGY - doesn’t need it. Just like he doesn’t need to do all that much to get JZX killed, just a suggestion here, a little trouble there, a bit of blackening of WWX’s name that’s really mostly his own fault for being so arrogant: it’s regrettable that he has to ruin Jiang Yanli’s marriage by getting JZX killed (sad, but necessary if he’s going to be sect leader), but she was never supposed to die. He even waited until she had a son and heir so that she wouldn’t be alone! He’s very nice, isn’t he? 

(And if WWX dying and Jiang Yanli dying means that JC is all his, with no one else in the world to interfere, well, that’s all the better, isn’t it? No one can take care of JC as well as he can.)

The Xue Yang situation is easy to resolve, too. NMJ has no “in” to Koi Tower, not without a relationship with JGY, and this pushes the two sects onto the brink of war - and that’d be no good at all, especially with JC grieving the way he is, all alone and desperate. Plus, JC has father issues, and that’s a little infectious; JGY is looking at JGS through the lens of JFM and it’s a lot less idealistic. So let’s say for all these reasons JGY moves up his plans and kills JGS earlier, and the second he takes over he vows that XY will be killed...except, alas, XY must have gotten wind and fled, because he’s gone. Awkward, huh? Definitely not JGY’s fault, though. Who are you going to believe is responsible for all that gross stuff, NMJ, the dead pervert or the guy who saved your life?

And then JGY is Sect Leader Jin and he and JC can raise little Jin Ling together, and maybe even Jin Rusong (although if he kills JGS early there’s a possibility that he wouldn’t need to shore up power in the Jin sect by marrying QS, or at least wouldn’t feel like he has to get her pregnant before the marriage, though of course there’s also no reason he wouldn’t do it anyway). Now what?

The Watchtowers, of course. Except in this world, NMJ is alive and well (no sworn brothers, no Song of Clarity here - except the legitimate one from LXC) and we know JGY knows how to put on the face NMJ most likes to see. So with JC in his pocket and NMJ fond of him, and LXC as nice and friendly as always, the sects live in wonderful harmony. In large part because JGY doesn’t need to murder quite so many of them. 

(and then over in Yi City, someone sacrifices their body to bring back the Yiling Patriarch because he’s their last hope to bring XXC back, either Song Lan or Xue Yang, and suddenly WWX is back - WWX who JC loves and hates in equal measure, WWX who’s a little too good at figuring out cause-and-effect - and JGY....JGY doesn’t like that. He doesn’t like that at all.)

[gingersnapwolves]

it’s two AM and I have insomnia, so while I’m on the topic of writing posts that generate too much meta, let me drop this hot take: I do not get fandom’s love of Nie Mingjue.

First disclaimer: as always, stan and let stan, ship and let ship, have a shrine to Nie Mingjue in your bedroom, I don’t judge. This is my personal opinion only.

Second disclaimer: no, I have not seen Fatal Journey. I’m of the opinion that one should not have to watch all the extraneous material a show produces in order to keep up with fandom. Fatal Journey looks depressing and I genuinely have no interest in watching it.

So, here we go. Nie Mingjue. Why do people like this guy?

His main positive qualities seem to be that he’s strong and powerful and has a badass sword. That, um. That’s pretty much it as far as I can see. 

He’s hot-tempered and impulsive. He nearly executes Xue Yang the minute he meets him. The whole confrontation with Meng Yao is a little tricky to interpret because of the unreliable narrator thing; we see one thing when it initially happens and then something slightly different when we’re seeing NMJ’s memories later. But either way, he exiles MY from The Unclean Realm after giving MY only the barest chance to explain himself (though, uh, you weren’t doing a great job there, MY, I’ll go to my grave still laughing at ‘Xue Yang did it’) with the implication that if MY hadn’t just saved his life, he would have executed him. Which, given that MY had obviously been his loyal assistant for years, is one hell of a turnaround.

We’re told that he’s a great general and strategist, but all we’re showed is that he tries to sneak into Nightless City and assassinate WRH, a plan that fails on absolutely every level and would have ended in him getting killed if MY hadn’t been there.

And then of course we get into the real hot potato, which is his treatment of the Wen civilians. Like. Dude was downright bloodthirsty about this. He absolutely wants a bunch of non-cultivators who almost definitely had nothing to do with WRH’s actions executed for the crime of existing while related to WRH. Not only does he speak in favor of their harsh treatment, he chastises LXC (gently) and JC (not so gently) for trying to speak against it. He implies that not wanting these people dead is weak and/or foolish. I can’t get over this! I’m not saying it wasn’t historically accurate or whatever, but I just find him extremely unlikable!

We’re obviously told that Nie Huaisang loved his brother very much but we almost never see them interacting. The biggest interactions they have are towards the very beginning, where NHS is scolded (reasonably) for goofing off and not going straight back to Qinghe, and then where NHS tries to ask about MY being exiled and NMJ shuts him down (less reasonably). (Again: have not seen Fatal Journey, do not believe it should be necessary.)

The only scene in the entire show where I found him even vaguely likable was in the flashback where he shuts down the people bullying Meng Yao. But even that is a demonstration of his impulsivity and short-sightedness, even as it was badass and awesome. Because that did nothing to actually help Meng Yao. If anything, it only made things worse because it made the other people in Qinghe resent him even more. Plus it most likely left Meng Yao with lingering questions over whether or not NMJ actually promoted him on merit, or whether he was just making a point to a bunch of assholes.

The reason I’m thinking about this is because I keep going back to that idea for a Mingli fic, and while I love the idea of the One Braincell Trio enacting Parent Trap level shenanigans, I’m less enamored of what the results of those shenanigans would be. Like, does NMJ really deserve someone like JYL, who is an actual goddess?

tl;dr I do not see NMJ’s appeal, can someone explain to me why so many people like this guy?

[porcupine-girl]

Untamed Fic Rec List

Look, most of these are reasonably popular fics already, so if you’ve been in this fandom for a couple months you’ve likely read them. Which is not how I normally do rec lists, but I’m new enough to Untamed that I’m still reading through all the fics by authors I know from other fandoms plus ones that have been personally recced to me, so I haven’t made it into the deep dive of underappreciated fics that I normally like to rec.

It doesn’t help that one of these recs is 445K, so for like two weeks straight it was basically all I was reading.

BUT if, like me, you are rather new to this fandom and its fics, here are some good ones:

The Same Moon Shines Series by sami

This is the 445K behemoth, made up of 23 works, and is technically made up of three interrelated series. The first fic, which establishes the whole universe/multiverse, is 139K on its own. Basically, decades into the canon future, WWX invents time travel.

He goes back to being born, but is reborn with all his memories intact. And he fixes, like, fucking everything and it’s so, so fucking satisfying. Everything’s not perfect though - for example, he like lowkey (highkey?) traumatizes LXC by showing him his previous life via empathy and that has some consequences eventually. Featuring ace poly JC/LXC/WQ triad.

Then in a cracky subseries, appropriately called “ridiculous future bullshit”, we assume that the main six from this universe (WWX, LWJ, JC, WQ, LXC, JYL, & Lan Sizhui) all achieve immortality and find out what they’re up to in the modern day, where they’re revered in the Five Nations (this does a great job of staying in the canon world instead of ours) but of course white Western assholes do things like try and make a disney movie called Hanguang-Jun and the Yiling Patriarch where they marry LWJ off to a girl.

And then in a third subseries, which so far has only one WIP fic, we go back to the canon universe, find out that JC and LWJ were stuck there watching WWX disappear in his time machine array (so WWX actually split off into another universe, he didn’t rewind his own), and so they get into the array having no idea what it will do but wanting to chase down the asshole they love. And so a third universe is born, where they are both born with their memories but WWX is not. I absolutely love seeing how different their priorities are from WWX’s in terms of what they want to change in their new life.

(Also: This is technically a MDZS fic that usually goes with novel canon over show canon if there’s a discrepancy, so if like me you haven’t read the whole novel you might need to look up some plot points now and then.)

The Vermillion Ribbon by @unforth

AU where Wei WuXian was taken in by Wen Qing and Wen Ning’s parents instead of the Jiangs. LWJ (who is the POV character) is a super DUPER dick to him at first, like even moreso than in canon, but the speed with which he regrets his choices is breathtaking and extremely satisfying.

LWJ is a VERY unreliable narrator. He has absolutely no idea what is going on with himself or anyone else at any point in time. Eventually he at least becomes self-aware of this fact, and can at least go wait am I missing something? I think I’m missing several somethings but fuck if I know what. Wei WuXian not understanding this about him leads to some miscommunication, because WWX doesn’t get that LWJ needs absolutely everything spelled out to him in single-syllable words with crayon drawings and y’know, WWX isn’t going to be straightforward anytime he can pretend he’s TOTALLY FINE :D :D :D instead.

LWJ’s friendship with NHS is magical, and NHS in general gets 810% more opportunity to scheme and plot pre-time-of-NMJ’s-canonical-death than in canon and is honestly living his best life. It’s also valuable for LWJ to have a scheming friend because, aside from realizing he misjudged WWX, this is how he starts to figure out that he’s a dumbass who has no idea what is going on ever. But he can count on NHS to always be ten steps ahead, so it’s okay.

(ETA: I’m sorry, I made unforth feel like maybe LWJ was too dense, and no, he’s very much not stupid in general. Like, honestly the fact that he becomes so self-aware of the things he’s bad at, and does things like trust NHS to always understand the stuff he’s missing, makes him come off as very intelligent. It’s just in the specific realm of understanding anything that people say or do that isn’t 100% honest and straightforward that he is just entirely hopeless in a rather relatable way, and like I said, WWX’s go-to is hiding any and all pain so that is a bad combo.)

The Fire Lapping Up the Creek by notevenyou

This diverges from canon when WWX is on his way to Jin Ling’s one month celebration, but doesn’t bring Wen Ning along. So when Jin Zixun attacks it goes very poorly for him, poorly enough that Jin Zixuan thinks he’s dead and it’s reported back at Carp Tower as such. Sending LWJ into a dissociative state. He manages to break through to reality just long enough to find out that Jin Zixuan took WWX’s body back to the burial mounds and left it with Wen Qing, and to get on his sword and go directly there. Thankfully, it turns out that WWX is not dead, but only just barely so.

So LWJ stays there, because now that he spent some amount of time (he isn’t really sure if it was like five minutes or two hours, because dissociation) thinking WWX was dead he now knows that he should never, ever be anywhere but with WWX.

Honestly, it almost feels like a spoiler to say WWX doesn’t die, but there’s no major character death warning while there IS one for graphic violence so it’s not a chose not to warn either, so that’s technically not a spoiler. But things are touch-and-go for him for a very, very long time. And the romance is a slow burn with pining galore. And you get to see LWJ teaching A-Yuan to play the guqin, so like imagine being WWX and you wake up from almost dying to see that going on in your cave.

Velle: to will, to wish by @aerlalaith

This one is actually canon-compliant, and as it’s both quite a bit shorter and more straightforward, plot-wise, than the others, my writeup will be short but that doesn’t mean I loved it any less. Basically, it’s the process of LWJ deciding to adopt A-Yuan in the aftermath of WWX’s death. It starts just after he’s been beaten for turning against the other cultivators, and at first it’s mostly his grief and both physical and emotional pain. A-Yuan starts slipping in to visit him. and LWJ isn’t sure if he’s really okay with that at first.

Of course he becomes very okay with it, but the Lan elders and Lan Qiren and all aren’t just going to be like “ok sure you can barely walk you should def adopt a four-year-old of unclear origins who may or may not have something to do with your demonic dead boyfriend and the evil people he helped, that’s cool,” so it’s not that simple.

There’s a followup fic where, years later, LWJ chooses the courtesy name Sizhui and Xichen gives him shit for it.

save a sword, ride a socialist by sysrae / @fozmeadows

Continuing on my grand tour of Untamed fics by my fave writers from other fandoms, I get to enjoy having overlapped with foz on a third straight fandom which is just fabulous. I totally thought I wasn’t gonna read AUs and then this asshole comes along and writes AUs, which is not playing fair.

I especially love this because it’s modern day but much like ridiculous future bullshit it’s modern day in (more or less) a canonish world, not our world. So like, they fly on swords, but not long distances because it’s easier to take a train or drive rather than use up all that spiritual energy.

Lan Qiren and Jin Guangshan miss the old ways, though, and they think the best ancient tradition to bring back is arranged marriage! Because that will go over well with today’s youth. They try to make LWJ marry Mianmian but he’s like “um I’m gay” and LQ throws a hissy fit about that so Jin Zixuan (who is LWJ’s bestie and is fucking hilarious) hatches a plot for LWJ to cause LQ to stroke out by bringing WWX to Lan Xichen’s birthday party as his fake date.

But when LWJ and WWX meet up to talk this over, LWJ is instantly fucked because WWX has a small child with him and it turns out that this small child is the orphan he adopted. He doesn’t notice he’s fucked until a few days later, though, when WWX comes over for “kissing practice” and they fuck and he calls Jin Zixuan all “I think I caught a feel, what do?” and JZX is like idk, you’re a moron, don’t ask me to clean up your moron messes. And the next day LWJ buys a car seat.

Lan Wangji heard about Jack 110% Zimmermann and said “challenge accepted,” is what I’m saying here. And now I’ve written as much about this 33k fic as I did about the 445k, so I’ll shut up before I just recount the entire plot.

[belovedmuerto]

not!fic

Every time I watch the end of CQL I decide I want something different. This time it’s this:

So Meng Yao doesn’t kill the Nie captain but leaves the Nie for reasons, saves LXC and goes undercover with the Wen blah blah blah. Sunshot goes the same. WWX still gives his brother his golden core, saves the Wen Remnants, etc.

Meanwhile, JGY is acknowledged by his dad and gets to know his older brother a bit. 

JZX in the meantime has perhaps figured out his shit a little better, realized he doesn’t want to do things the way his father does, adores his wife and new babe, really likes his clever ass new didi. Starts making quiet noises about finding his other half-sibs because he wants not much more than a big family and he figures if there’s one, there’s probably several more. His dad is gross. He is at heart a simple and lonely man.

JGY quickly realizes that no, actually he isn’t quite willing to do whatever it takes to earn his father’s approval? His father is actually a huge power hungry asshole not really any better than WRH, just like. Less insane. Probably. He might… need to die?

He’s not averse to a bit of murder, but he also thinks perhaps he’d rather be useful and appreciated by his brother than powerful at all costs. 

Also, JYL lets him hold the baby whenever he so much as looks longingly at little A-Ling, which is nice. And she also appreciates him and how clever he is. She tells him all the time and asks him for help navigating the viper pit. She seems to... trust him? It’s a new feeling.

Basically JGY goes team “my siblings ” instead of team “me against the world”.

JGS dies mysteriously. What a shame.

JZX takes over as sect leader, cleans house. He’s not here for the backstabbing and machinations. And he’s so happy. He has his very smart wife at his side. She might be a little sickly sometimes but turns out those Yunmeng Jiang are not to be fucked with, esp. when it comes to family.

NMJ shows up like “yo, XY needs to die for his crimes” and JGY and JZX look at each other and go, “yup here you go fam”. XY is publicly executed.

(Somewhere in the countryside, a couple of rogue cultivators somehow accidentally adopt an urchin girl? Yeah, Song Lan’s not sure how it happened either, but she’s fiesty. He likes her.)

JGY becomes his brother’s staunchest defender and advisor, and in return JZX can and will banish anyone who says shit about JGY. (Zixun is the first to go.) (They both listen to JYL, because she’s the best.)

Together, they find MXY and QS and welcome them into the family. JZX is ecstatic! He went from no siblings and an asshole dad to three siblings and no asshole dad! 

So things are pretty good. They missed JL’s one month celebration because whoops JGS died right before, so they do a one year.

Just beforehand, JYL comes to her little brother in law like “look A-Yao, we gotta sort out this shit with my didi. He can’t keep living on a mountain of corpses with a bunch of old people, a doctor, a zombie, and a baby. Help me, pls.”

And JGY is like “how do u know, everyone says he’s got an army.” He’s not evil but he is cautious. There are plenty of rumors still, even if JGS isn’t the one starting them.

And JYL is like here, and hands over the increasingly desperate letters from JC she’s been getting, cuz JC has visited a couple times and cannot convince WWX to leave w/o the Wen but clearly they’re going to starve.

So it comes out that JGS was even more full of shit than everyone thought. JYL and JGY go to her hubs and JZX is like “wtf dude no that’s super not cool” and they take a small contingent of mixed Jin who are now decent people and Jiang so WWX doesn’t freak out, and JC goes, and JYL insists on going and taking A-Ling, because she knows if WWX sees her and the baby he’ll know that it’s not a war party and won’t come out swinging.

Along the way LWJ shows up, because chaos (it’s early for that but shhhhh), and everyone is like “sure, whatever”.

WWX is waiting at the barrier with a buncha black mist swirling around him like “these motherfuckers are finally trying me” right up until he sees his didi, his zhiji, his shijie with his nephew and her hubs at the font of the small contingent, and then he more or less breaks down crying. It ends up being a nice reunion. They all troop up to the camp, where everyone is horrified and the Wen are like “join us for dinner. We have radish soup” and A-Yuan is clinging to his Xian-gege and his rich-gege and then insisting upon meeting the baby. He gets to give A-Ling the bracelet that he made for him.

JGY is lowkey like “sure am glad I killed my dad, he super deserved it.”

JYL is like “sure am glad my brother in law killed my father in law, he super deserved it.”

JZX is like “sure am glad my dad died under mysterious circumstances i am not thinking about and that my didi is awesome and likes me.”

LWJ and WWX circle each other a while after things are settled. The Wen have moved down to some land around Yiling and are starting to thrive. WQ and WN have more or less been absorbed into the Jiang, WWX is back home and bickering with his brother. 

Wen Qing wants to throttle them both.

A-Yuan is with WWX and doing great. He already considers A-Ling his cousin.

LWJ eventually writes to JYL about WWX like “pls help, ur brother is an oblivious dumbass” and JYL goes to her brother in law like “how do you feel about matchmaking?”

So they wrangle LWJ and WWX together.

Along the way JYL sees the way JGY looks at LXC and NMJ and then happens to catch NHS’s eye and they come to a swift and silent agreement regarding that situation, which is also resolved to everyone’s satisfaction and basically JGY gets to spend the rest of his life being useful and appreciated with a large family and getting dicked down on the regular by two sect leaders the end.

[a-very-fond-farewell]

The forbidden crack! Untamed prompts: 18/?

University AU: “Negative Space”

[ok so, self projection is a bitch, but I am petty to myself on a regular basis so it’s ok]

[title is from the Japanese concept “ma”, which Wikipedia describes as:

“a Japanese word which can be roughly translated as ‘gap’, ‘space’, ‘pause’ or ‘the space between two structural parts.’ In traditional Japanese arts and culture, ma is more carefully defined as the suggestion of an interval. It is best described as a consciousness of a sense of place, with the ‘intervals’ suggested often being more than simple gaps, instead focusing on the intention of a negative space in an art piece.

Ma is not necessarily an art concept created by compositional elements, such as the literal existence of a negative space. Instead, the intention is often to create the perception of an interval in the viewer experiencing the elements forming an art piece, making maless reliant on the existence of a gap, and more closely related to the perceived experience of a gap.

Ma has also been described as ‘an emptiness full of possibilities, like a promise yet to be fulfilled’, and as ‘the silence between the notes which make the music’.”

Fun fact: “ma” also means “but” in Italian, which is what usually follows whatever intrusive thought may plague my mind. Eg: “I may be useless now, BUT just you wait until I get some dopamine to get me through this shitty times.”]

*

Wei Ying never asked for much in his life. He’s content with cleaning classrooms and toilets and nobody can beat him at wiping the marble floors if he works hard enough. Granny Wen, his supervisor, is slightly impressed with his ability to make the wood shine for ages to come. His nephew Jin Ling sometimes comes to check on him when he’s done with senior classes or cram school in the evening, and together they sit down and listen to whatever his older friends in music production came up with during the day. Jiang Cheng occasionally would ask him to keep him company while he grades papers and they bitch about ZiXuan and his inability to dote on their sister. The cafeteria ladies are always nice to him and they give him extra congee because they worry for his questionable consumption of spice products.

He’s fine, really.

So why can’t he stop wandering over to the science building these days? Looking for a clean board to use, for an equation to finally solve? Even if in the end he just takes the chalk in hand and simply stares down at the inky surface in front of him, unable to write. His mind working on a software too advanced for the hardware that constitutes his brain.

Thirteen years. It has been already thirteen years and yet it feels like yesterday, or like it never happened at all. Like it has yet to be. Time blindness is a bitch to deal with, yet dyscalculia and ADHD makes a joke out of you when you love math on a visceral level... but you burned too bright too fast and now you function on no data and with an even shittier signal. Having a burnout at 23 should have taught him humility instead of pride, but Wei Ying has always worked out of spite and certain habits are difficult to forget.

Couldn’t put the number in the right order, switching digits left and right since he was young? Fine. Numbers were concepts anyway, entire civilizations working their magic without even knowing what “zero” stood for. A brain steaming with a million ideas per second? Good. New connections brimming with ideas he could use to better the world.

It worked fine until he let himself down. Until he became a useless empty lighter, a wet match tossed out, carbon monoxide in the air.

Dropped out before finishing his very ambitious, highly dangerous for his psyche, thesis project. Aunt Yu never forgave him for that, not after paying for his advanced classes, not after trusting Uncle Jiang and supporting him despite his many flaws. What good is being first of your class every year, poster child of a teaching system done right, graduating bachelor at 21, if you can’t finish your master at 23 and get your PhD at 25 and start teaching by 27 and drive yourself insane in the process?

Wei Ying dropped out and didn’t finish his master, didn’t enroll in the teaching program, and let everyone down. His Uncle and Aunt looking down on him, whether out of pity or shame. Jiang Cheng may have been the one leaving him behind, but he used to be the one saying “you should have tried harder”. YanLi worrying over him when she should have focused on her career first. Jin Ling growing up with stories of his uncle “not being worth the money put into his education”, taught to not disappoint and make his family proud. The Jin side, that is.

And now the kid comes crawling in defeat to him instead of Jiang Cheng after bombing a test in high school. And they chat of what he would like to do and how much he likes sports and how much he despises the idea of getting a scholarship for that and being called stupid or something by his classmates. And he cries when he thinks Wei Ying cannot see him as he leaves the campus late at night.

Wei Ying didn’t even want to solve that impossible theorem he fixated on in his early twenties. His thesis project was inconsequential in the great scheme of things and his professor only wanted him to be his one trick pony in the end. No. Wei Ying wanted to teach math in elementary school, hell... even in kindergarten. He wanted to change the approach to the subject. Because numbers cannot be taught like language is and there are many ways to teach how to sum up digits and divide quantities and there are no rules on how to make sense of space either.

But how can he teach when even time eludes his senses?

Something that nobody can define, but certainly most perceive as linear... but not him. Not since his brain fried up in his attempt to function like a normal human being.

After thirteen years nothing has changed.

Until one day he hears something else aside from his usual intrusive thoughts and burdensome memories. A melody so quiet he almost mistakes it for the wind, coming from the music building.

He walks slowly, night surrounding him like the embrace of a friend as he makes his way to the traditional musical instruments room. The one where Jin Ling’s friends meet sometimes as they wait for the younger boy to join them. Wei Ying holds his breath as he spies through the gap of the door left ajar, neon light slicing his face like moonbeams as he peeks in and recognizes Jin Ling’s friends and another figure sitting on the ground, guqin on their knees.

But before he can lean in and breathe in the vibrant sounds all around, the door opens and music theory Professor Lan finds Wei Ying clutching his mop for dear life.

They said the man could see colors within the notes, that he despises language outside of his class or office and that only his brother, the history of art TA, could convince him to talk every now and then.

If numbers were created to measure space, Wei Ying firmly believed music had been invented to make sense of time and count its seconds in rhythm and notes, pauses and beats. Yet, time seems to stretch to a stop as the janitor focuses all of his attention on professor Lan’s stern face and his heart quickens its pace.

Wei Ying takes a rushed breath and dives right in with a weird sense of hope pumping in his veins. A small, timid voice whispering that life is not made to be atoned, but to move on and grow.

One step at a time.

“I’m Wei Ying, Professor Lan. May I listen while you play?”

Yes, maybe it will be enough just to let time flow at its pace.

Whatever rhythm that may be.

*

[some hcs down below]

WWX does not magically solve the math theorem. he may or may not help kids figure out how to use numbers on the long run tho. no, he will still work as a janitor and there’s nothing wrong with that.

yes, LWJ is autistic and stimms and finds WWX’s honesty soothing. yes, you can add your hcs on the matter. he has synesthesia, but more on the grapheme-color side of the deal than anything else and he sees certain letters/numbers/notes in different colors. people think he can see colors in music, but they misunderstood and thought he could recognize different hues while listening to music instead of reading it.

JC has grown since his uni years and doesn’t resent WWX anymore. he teaches astrophysics as a TA and doesn’t pressure his brother to pick his studies up anymore. WWX has mixed feelings about this: he feels he’s a lost cause, to the point not even his brother spurs him to best himself anymore, but he is grateful for the patience anyway.

LXC is the official LWJ translator of the campus along with their cousins SiZhui and JinGyi. he bonds with WWX and JC over how tired they are, seldom staring at flies roaming above them in the cafeteria bc none of them can even move. he lives on caffeine and regrets, but he’s getting better as he develops a love for his plant babies and tries to not let them die on a daily basis.

Wen Ning and Wen Qing are little overachievers and adrenaline junkies, hence their competitive streak on their way to their third master degree just for funsies. they scare people with how driven they are, but the juniors love them.

NMJ is the one to go to if you need to get away with murder, but JGY will actually be the one helping you dispose of the body. the fact that they both work in criminal law is somewhat both reassuring and disquieting. they hate each other and yet cannot stop hang out, they are close to 40 and need the rivalry to keep going anyway. nothing beats a good nemesis. not even sex. maybe.

NHS has failed his entrance exam to become a nurse too many times to count, but he is determined to see the end of it. even if he could potentially work in the family business, but he doesn’t know anything about managing an empire of bricks and he doesn’t care. if NMJ could run away, well, so can he.

MianMian is Wei Ying’s bestie and has the biggest crush on JGY’s sister A-Su the kindergarten teacher, but since they are childhood besties she doesn’t know how to approach her. she is Jin Ling’s idol and a certified boxer and refers to herself as a useless bisexual. Wei Ying boxes with her sometimes, she always win.

YanLi is an equestrian mum, but in the best way possible: she coaches children for shows and teaches them horses should be loved and feared equally and that if you want to shoot arrows from a running horse you should always, ALWAYS let go of the stirrups the moment the beast gets too unhinged to ride. JC fears her, WWX is only glad she didn’t train police dogs for a living.

ZiXuan actually loves his wife, but WWX and JC question his career choices and the fact that he’s a retired lawyer spending his family fortune while he’s a stay-at-home dad and does all the housework. WWX and JC believe he should give their sister a better life and work his ass off to deserve her, but he does make amazing rice cakes and keeps up with Jin Ling’s studies and is very supportive of his dreams.

A-Qing and Song Lan are siblings and sometimes bring JC food from the campus cafeteria where they both work at, while Xiao XingChen and his carer Xue Yang work with LXC for a project on accessibility for visually impaired visitors of the local museum. JC and LXC work to make Song Lan and Xiao XingChen fall for each other, but the youngsters are too protective to let them play matchmaker so easily.

[this is all for now. please, if you want, add your own headcanons!]

[sleepymarmot]

Re-liveblog: eps. 4 & 10

Here's something I've been planning to do for a while -- rereading the liveblog of The Untamed I wrote a couple of months ago and looking at my own initial reactions to Jin Guangyao's storyline with new eyes. Returning to old liveblogs is always fun, but particularly when the perspective on something changes so much by the end of the story!

Of course, this turned into a monstrosity with word count in thousands that sat in my drafts for about a month, and involved rewatching most of the scenes the liveblog mentioned, and some that it didn't. Please be warned: this series of posts is not meant to be a comprehensive analysis, and will jump from one point to another or highlight only the things I have changed my mind about, or haven’t talked on this blog before. It is going to include some very personal interpretations and opinions, sometimes possibly (or definitely, in the case of this very post) unpopular or negative. I am here to reflect on my own experience of watching the show almost as much as to write meta about the show itself.

[All re-liveblog posts]

[ep 4]

is this shy illegitimate son the same person who summoned WWX in the first episode, or are they two entirely unrelated bastards? I don’t think the ages match up…

Oh, so that's what I was thinking during Meng Yao's introduction scene: trying to figure out whether he was the same person as Mo Xuanyu or not. That's funny.

[negativity ahead!]

Of course, I was also admiring Xichen's elegant way of Using His Privilege For Good, but I thought that was self-explanatory enough not to put in the liveblog. It didn’t occur to me this scene could be interpreted as a sect leader openly hitting on a disadvantaged youth, or that such an interpretation would be popular, especially in a literal and positive way as opposed to a dark or subversive headcanon. So even if this is ever confirmed to be an intended message of the scene, I’d just say “I recognize the council has made a decision...” and continue to disregard it. Kind of incredible how it manages to squick me in at least five ways -- and xiayo is one of my main ships in this fandom! And not only squick -- in my eyes, sexualizing LXC’s intentions in this scene not only adds something that I don’t like, but actively detracts from the textual, surface meaning and narrative function of LXC’s actions (establishing LXC as a Model Authority Figure who masterfully manipulates the social power dynamics not for self-interest, but for justice, kindness, and peaceful conflict resolution; see also the following scene with the Wens). And from the other side, I think Meng Yao is shocked and impressed specifically because someone like LXC would do this for someone like him without an ulterior motive; I suspect that if he saw this as LXC making an excuse to touch someone attractive, he would only be turned off: a sect leader who can’t keep his hands to himself is nothing new and nothing good from the point of view of JGS’s illegitimate child.

But if this brief brushing of hands holds any in-universe significance in addition to a possible foreshadowing of this relationship’s future importance -- I think I just finally realized what it must be! This interaction is an adaptation of the following scene from the book (which, to be fair, happens when MY and LXC already know each other, not during a first meeting):

Meng Yao had been a famous joke for a certain period of time, which was why a few recognized him. Likely thinking that the son of a prostitute perhaps also carried some unclean things with him, the cultivators didn’t drink from the cups that he had presented with both hands. Instead, they put the cups to the side and even took out white handkerchiefs. As though it felt too uncomfortable, they repeatedly wiped the fingers that they’d touched the teacup with, either intentionally or not. Nie MingJue wasn’t someone mindful to such things. Wei WuXian, though, caught sight of this through the corners of his eyes. Meng Yao acted as if he didn’t see anything, his smile unfaltering as he continued to pass around tea.

As Lan XiChen accepted his cup, he looked up at him and smiled, “Thank you.”

He drank a sip of the tea immediately afterward. Only then did he continue to converse with Nie MingJue. A few cultivators began to feel uneasy as they saw the scene.

(Chapter 48)

So CQL!Meng Yao’s eyebrows twitch in pleased surprise because the sect leader not only personally approached to verbally support him, but took something directly from his hands, not even trying to avoid him or flinching at skin contact. As if it didn’t even occur to the majestic Zewu-jun to think of Meng Yao as dirty or disgusting.

I don’t know if this is an intended interpretation either, because I don’t remember anyone specifically avoiding physical contact with MY in the show, and on the contrary, there were examples of both friendly (from Huaisang) and unfriendly (from the commander) touch. But I certainly prefer it to the other interpretation, and ignoring the interaction altogether seems a bit intellectually dishonest.

[/negativity]

On another note, much is said about JGY’s performativity, but check out LXC’s! Someone’s being bullied in his classroom? Not on his watch! Time to descend from his pedestal like truth coming out of her well, Very Pointedly and at length explain how this person Has His Official And Personal Approval And Is Very Welcome Here, then take the gift from him personally instead of letting a disciple do that. Note how in the following scene, he also personally accepts the gift from Wen Qing as a peacemaking gesture. I love how LXC’s character establishing event is about defusing not one but two uncomfortable situations in a row. Of the two brothers, all social skills went to him...

I have no comment on the goodbye scene. Just sadness.

Oh wait, after rewatching the entire show and coming back to the post, I do have something to say. This episode is the only time I can say with all certainty that all of Meng Yao’s words and reactions are fully sincere. After this point in the timeline, it will never happen again. :(

It’s a shame that the gifs I’ve seen of this scene end with the iconic stopped bow, because the final shots are also great! As soon as MY turns away, his face becomes clouded again, and seconds after the Sect Leader himself held his arms and assured they were peers, he felt the need to bow and lower his eyes as some unnamed disciples walked by. And the bitter look he sends after them tells the viewer how much he is aware of falling from the dreamland where a nobleman would compliment him like three times within three minutes, back to the regular life where it is better not to be noticed at all. Meanwhile, Xichen looks him in the back like “I want it to grow strong and healthy, I want to tell my friends and neighbors about it”.

[ep 10]

Alright, when 10 minutes ago I thought “Meng Yao, sweetie, kill that clown”, this is not what I had in mind

SOMEBODY GIVE MENG YAO A HUG (after some emergency medical care) HE HAS DONE NOTHING WRONG IN HIS LIFE. Can Xichen adopt him now?

Ah, the joys of the first viewing. 

At this point, I was thinking of both Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue exclusively as of father figures for Meng Yao. For LXC I think I slowly started to notice the romantic tension later but made a complete flip to the romantic interpretation only during the "late light talks... no sign of curse on his body" conversation. For NMJ it was during the head flashback. And as much as I like these pairings, it does feel like a loss that their existence displaces the very different pseudo-family dynamic. I think a story in which NMJ, LXC, WRH and JGS are all openly presented as competing father figures would be interesting; has anyone written that?

On rewatch, I was outraged by all of the blatant manipulation that I bought completely on the first viewing. MY is very good at playing a wounded bird -- especially when he's literally wounded. I had wondered why he just limped away without treating it, but now it's obvious he is using Stoic Suffering to invoke pity and admiration. Just like, a few minutes earlier, he showed NMJ that he was ready to be struck down, and it saved his life. He tells NHS with a sad but brave face “I won't be able to take care of you anymore” and on first viewing it worked on me just as he intended -- I thought “Poor boy, so trained to serve, he puts his duty to others above his own feelings even in this situation”. Ha...

And NMJ is only helping his case. He had the chance to explain everything and share the truth of MY's actions. And in the novel, he does take this chance, retelling the incident to Xichen (who chooses to turn a blind eye). Instead, NMJ basically confirms MY’s narrative: by hiding the reason for the exile, he makes it seem like there was no respectable reason at all. NMJ, all by himself, makes himself look like an irrational tyrant, and MY like a victim of an arbitrariness. And he does it in front of Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian, no less -- an heir to a major clan and his brother! By trying not to discuss internal problems with outsiders, he achieves an opposite effect. Luckily for him, JC and WWX don't give a shit... But imagine how different the plot would be if they had this information from the start?

What I still don't understand is -- what was Meng Yao’s plan in this episode? Who was he working for? Who was his accomplice, whose feet we saw in the later flasback -- surely not Xue Yang himself, he’s supposed to be under arrest! Was he working with the Jin secretly already? (I don’t think so: in a later scene, JGS asks him about this incident, seemingly ignorant.) Or with the Wen (I don't remember -- did Xue Yang go back to the Wen afterwards)? Or just with Xue Yang directly, setting him completely free just on the promise of future cooperation? This seems most plausible -- but to risk and lose everything over such an uncertain gamble doesn’t make MY look very smart.

I have some other things to say about the events of this episode, but they’ll be in the post about the flashbacks in episode 41.

[deathsusanstohelit]

some thoughts about a sangcheng arranged marriage au in a cql-inspired verse (no yin iron bc i don’t feel like figuring out how to make that work) that i probably won’t write but have been thinking about a lot: 

First the set-up for the au: 

NMJ, LXC and JGY are all aged up a bit, this changes things

Meng Yao has spent longer in the Nie Sect and met LXC regularly, this brings more opportunities for NMJ to notice ppl being jerks to JGY and defend him, thus this JGY is more secure in his position and the 3zun dynamics are less dramatic 

since NMJ is a bit older, he is able to stand up to the Wens right after his dad’s death (which now happens right before the Gusu lectures so NHS doesn’t go to Gusu) 

bc of LXC’s alliance with NMJ, Cloud Recesses is attacked during the lectures (JC gets injured and helped by Wen Qing) so war starts sooner with the Jiangs and Lans involved from early on 

Meng Yao kills Wen Rouhan earlier this time (and without hurting NMJ) and then fucks out of the Wen clan to join the Jin Sect and gets (reluctantly) promoted and renamed during the war 

Wen Xu and Wen Chao aren’t dead yet so they fight over who should be in charge and war is less destructive bc of their internal conflict 

in the chaos, Wen Qing separates from the rest of the clan with her own disciples and flees to Dafan with help from WWX and friends (Dafan Wens survive, since no clans were slaughtered, most ppl are willing to leave them alone after the war) 

post-war, alliances develop 

since there was no need for demonic cultivation, WWX doesn’t push LWJ away and LWJ eventually confesses some time post-war, they’re a bit of a mess but figuring things out. however

Madame Yu doesn’t want WWX to get married before her oldest and Jiang Yanli’s and Jin Zixuan’s engagement never got broken up so now there’s a delay for the wangxian marriage while JYL and JZX court (takes forever bc JZX is a disaster) 

still the Jiang Sect has strong alliances forming with the Jins and the Lans through betrothals (and a friendship with the Wen remnants) 

Meanwhile, 3zun become sworn brothers and now Nie Sect has strong ties to the Lans and Jins 

The Jiangs and Nies both notice the lack of official alliance between them and NMJ wonders how to ensure an alliance that matches the strength of sworn brotherhood/marriage 

‘hey da-ge what if you married me off to that hottie jiang cheng?’ goes nie huaisang 

‘if i what’ says nie mingjue 

so NMJ isn’t sure about this but NHS is pretty insistent that it’s a good idea and so when NMJ sends off a letter to Jiang Fengmian about alliances, there’s a paragraph in there about a potential marriage and so... the plot ensues... 

general plot outline/thoughts under the cut

both NMJ and Jiang Fengmian only agree on the idea if JC and NHS court before fully committing to the marriage 

JC gets this message and is just.. resigned to a political marriage with someone he doesn’t know 

WWX is a little offended on his behalf but wants to meet NHS 

(meanwhile, NHS’s reasoning: JC is attractive, a good warrior, known to be honorable, has good relationships with his siblings and disciples. also NHS just thinks he’d make a better spouse than a sect heir. and also yes he’s been nursing a bit of crush watching JC at inter-clan meetings/competitions since the war, what of it, this is a political decision, ugh da-ge leave it alone) 

but the Nie Sect is hosting the next competition/night hunt and NHS greets the Jiangs as a good host 

so NHS gives the Yunmeng sibs a tour around the Unclean Realm and hangs out (drinks with) JC and WWX during the downtime 

(NHS, externally: *nervous but friendly, trying not to push*)

(NHS, internally: help how do i convince the hot guy that we could be good life partners and also to make out with me) 

(JC, a disaster bi ace-spec, internally, on first meeting: oh shit he’s pretty)

(JC, after hanging out with NHS a bit: oh no the pretty boy is also... fun? i know this marriage is just for Politics and NHS didn’t pick me because he likes me but because i’m a good political choice, no one ever picks me, but fuck he’s pretty and nice and fun i’m dying)

(JC, externally: *keeps unintentionally saying something too mean and then kicking himself*) 

(WWX, internally and externally: haha NHS don’t hurt my brother but also you’re amazing, please lend me your porn collection i need to know how to seduce LWJ better) 

NHS during the night hunt: *eye-fucking JC*

JC during the night hunt: ‘guys i think NHS is judging me, he must be worried i’m not worth marrying’ 

jiang yanli, the only emotionally intelligent one: “a-cheng...” 

anyway obviously this dynamic continues for a heinous amount of time, through dates in Yunmeng and Qinghe where NHS gives JC beautiful paintings and praises JC and JC swings wildly between putting his foot in his mouth and doing nice things like buying NHS a new fan, all the way up into JYL’s and JZX’s wedding 

(JC has a new understanding of Jin Zixuan now and hates it) 

i want there to be a plotline where JC (who is not good at reading NHS until after this incident) gets to see how sharp NHS can be. (maybe like someone saying something mean about jiang yanli at her wedding, not to her face, and NHS reveals this fuckers personal secrets?) whatever it is, NHS navigates it easily and JC finally realizes how smart and how vicious NHS is and how good at politics he is 

obviously this realization leads to more JC angst-ing bc he’s like ‘i knew this marriage was just a political move but now i Know it was a political move, i can’t believe my feelings mean nothing’  

normally this is where the betrothal temporarily falls apart in this kind of au but i think NHS is smart enough and good enough at reading JC by then to finally realize he has to just has to be active for once and make a move

so like JC is sulking at Lotus Pier and NHS swans in with another gift, and it’s another gorgeous painting but this time it’s of JC and NHS is like ‘this is how i see you’ and JC is like ‘what’ and NHS tells him that he’s admired JC for years and has liked spending time with him and would like to get married please 

JC goes ‘what’ 

there’s probably a bit of yelling but NHS can respond to that 

definitely ends in makeouts 

at some point they talk it over and NHS is like ‘yes it was political move but we didn’t need a marriage to seal an alliance, i wanted to. you seem like you’d be good at the whole leading a sect of warriors thing and i’d be happy to sit back and plan parties and quietly manipulate anyone who tries shit. i’d like to have that with you.’ 

JC: ‘oh. good. you should do that.’ 

NHS: ‘wasn’t that the plan?’ 

anyway a lot of people were expecting this to blow up somehow and are surprised when JC and NHS actually want to get married: madame yu thought NHS was too weak for JC, WWX thought JC might scare NHS away at first and later worried NHS might not actually be interested, NMJ liked JC but didn’t know if he’d be good for his brother, JGY didn’t realize how serious NHS was, etc 

only like jiang yanli actually thought that things would work out 

and then they get happily married 

(...and NHS and Madame Yu have some kind of quiet competition over who’s in charge that eventually ends with her respecting him but that’s another story) 

[ibijau]

👋🏼 Hello. For writing prompt thing 39. If you haven’t gotten too many of these. NMJ being super dotting on a pretty small baby. Baby could be NHS & LXCs, or NHS & JCs, or NMJ & MYs, 🤷🏼‍♀️

❤️ your writing!

me: aw, that's sweet!

also me: anyway, let's make it angsty

warning for implied trans character, and implied pregnancy of a trans man /o/

Jin Guangyao enters the room to the sound of cooing and meaningless blabber, and freezes on the spot.

His oldest sworn brother, sitting at his desk with a pile of work he ought to be doing, is instead playing with a baby. A very young baby. A month at the very most, going by the size of it… though since Nie cultivators tend to be large, maybe their children are as well, in which case it could be a little younger.

“Is da-ge babysitting?” Jin Guangyao asks, turning to close the door quietly to avoid startling the child.

When he turns again to look at Nie Mingjue, there is no trace left of the earlier softness he displayed while cooing at that baby. Instead, as always when confronted with Jin Guangyao, Nie Mingjue looks somewhat constipated.

“What are you doing here?”

Jin Guangyao startles at the barking tone, which has more bite than usual, even by Nie Mingjue’s standards. It has been a long while since his former sect leader has appeared this angry. They don’t get along anymore, not the way they used to, but Jin Guangyao had foolishly thought they were on the path to… not reconciliation, that would be too much to ask, but a certain understanding at least. There have even been times when he’s thought that Nie Mingjue looked at him with something that might pass for affection, though that always vanishes when their eyes meet, so he might have imagined it.

“Er-ge asked me if I could check on you,” Jin Guangyao explains as he comes to kneel on the other side of the table. Nie Mingjue holds the child tighter against his chest, as if fearing Jin Guangyao might stab it perhaps. Surprisingly, it hurts to be treated with such suspicion, even though Jin Guangyao ought to be used to it by now. “You were absent from that last discussion conference in Lanling, and you have refused all his most recent Night Hunting invitations, so he worries.”

He pauses, and looks at the baby, hit by a sudden doubt he dares not express.

“If da-ge fears that Night Hunting with er-ge will force him to spend time with me, we can make arrangements,” Jin Guangyao offers, pushing down that very ridiculous idea he’s just had. Nie Mingjue would have said something if… at least he would have told Lan Xichen, and nobody keeps these things a secret after the birth, do they? “I am very busy anyway, so I rarely have time to spend with er-ge. You don’t have to avoid him on my behalf.”

“I didn’t avoid him because of you,” Nie Mingjue snaps, his voice rising just enough to startle the baby.

It makes an unhappy noise, like a kitten mewling. Instantly Nie Mingjue’s entire body tenses, before he forces himself to relax and starts rocking the baby in his arms with that gentleness of his which still surprises Jin Guangyao every time he gets to witness it. It makes something go soft in Jin Guangyao’s chest, so soft it almost hurts, especially when he’s always been weak to the sight of fathers caring for their children. His mother used to promise that his own father too would be like that with him, someday, something he foolishly believed for far too long, in spite of how pragmatic he tried to be about other things.

“Is it yours?” Jin Guangyao asks, already knowing the answer.

Nie Mingjue just grunts, dropping a kiss on the baby’s forehead as it starts to calm down.

“I’m surprised you didn’t marry the other parent,” Jin Guangyao says. “Or did you just not think of inviting anyone? I can understand not wanting to see me, but er-ge would be disappointed. Nie Huaisang too, actually. And I know hecan’t have been there, that boy doesn’t know how to keep a secret.”

“There was no wedding.”

Something about Nie Mingjue’s tone startles Jin Guangyao, or perhaps it is the way the other man glares at him, again with more anger than he’s shown in a long while. Jin Guangyao can’t imagine why. It was a legitimate question to ask, he thinks. But then, he realises that perhaps the child came to be in… less than ideal circumstances. Jin Guangyao knows, as few people do, that Nie Mingjue is not like most men, something that he’s been asked (ordered) to keep to himself.

Something cold drops onto Jin Guangyao’s heart, freezing him solid.

He knows, indeed, that Nie Mingjue is a man like few others. He knows it intimately, because his sworn brother once trusted him, before things went sour between them, and because even after their relationship took a turn for the worse, in the early days after the war, there were a few occasions when drink and pent up emotions led to… lapses in judgement. It hasn’t happened in about a year, but…

Well, less than a year, really. More like ten months, more or less, because last time was when Nie Mingjue invited both his sworn brothers for a Night Hunt upon his birthday. They definitely drank too much that time. It wasn’t the only thing they did too much of.

“You should have told me,” Jin Guangyao says, unable to keep the pain out of his voice at this new proof of Nie Mingjue’s disdain for him. “Or… not, it can’t be that,” he adds, regaining control of himself, and bowing politely before his sworn brother. “You wouldn’t have kept it if it were mine. I’m sorry for even suggesting it.”

“If I’d told you, you would have told your father,” Nie Mingjue retorts, taking Jin Guangyao’s breath away, because it means it really is… “And then that old fart would have tried to use it against me. My sect’s safety comes first. Besides, I figured you’d rather not be involved.”

Jin Guangyao wishes it were an unfair appraisal of his priorities, and can’t help but wince at how well Nie Mingjue understands him, at least when it comes to the worst sides of him.

Of course he would have told Jin Guangshan. Possibly, foolishly, out of a hope that his father might mellow a little at the perspective of his first grandson, supposing Nie Mingjue told him before the announcement that Jin Zixuan’s engagement was to be renewed. Maybe also, yes, because there could be political advantage to be gained from this, and if Jin Guangyao can’t have his father’s good opinion out of affection, he’ll try to have it through his usefulness.

Nie Mingjue knows him too well.

And still he bore his child, when there are so many ways to prevent that.

“Why did you keep it?”

“I needed an heir,” Nie Mingjue says, gently rocking the child again, just the way Jin Guangyao now itches to do.

His child. He’s a father, but only because he did the one thing he always promised himself he wouldn’t do, spilled his seed carelessly and never thought twice about the consequences, leaving the details for the other party to figure out.

Like all those men at the brothels his mother worked at.

Like his own father.

“I refuse to believe I’m the only man who could have given you a child,” Jin Guangyao scoffs, clenching his fists over his knees, desperately wanting to reach over the table and beg to hold their child. “You’ve made it more than clear what you think of me.”

“I don’t take just anyone to bed.”

Ah, so that’s it, Jin Guangyao thinks, feeling the cold and heat of rejection. Of course in Nie Mingjue’s position, taking lovers is a delicate affair. Jin Guangyao can’t be what he would still go for, if he truly had a choice, but since he knows already, it was easier to continue like that than look for someone truly worthy of fathering the future sect leader of Qinghe Nie.

“I see. I am sorry da-ge had to settle for this one. And I suppose… no, of course I can’t be involved in the child’s life.”

“You can if you want to,” Nie Mingjue retorts, a strangle glint in his eyes which makes him look almost hopeful.

Hopeful that Jin Guangyao will know his place, no doubt.

And he does, of course. Everyone in the cultivation world has made sure that Jin Guangyao knows precisely what he’s worth to them, with his mother a whore and his father slightly less respected for having recognised him. The stain of his own birth would just be passed down on that child, on Nie Mingjue.

It doesn’t matter what Jin Guangyao wants.

It has never mattered.

“I think it best if I keep my distance,” he lies with a polite smile. “Don’t worry, I won’t interfere with your child’s life, da-ge, and I swear to never act as if I have any right to be part of its life.”

Nie Mingjue’s expression turns dark upon hearing this, which is no surprise. Of course he thinks that Jin Guangyao’s word had little value. He might not even be wrong. But for this, at least, Jin Guangyao intends to keep the promise he’s making.

It’s fine, anyway.

With Nie Mingjue being his sworn brother, he might still catch glimpses of his child here and there if he’s lucky, and watch it grow free from the disgrace of being descended from a whore.