#Untamed Force

[disgracefulthings]

At a Peak Lord Meeting

Yue Qingyuan: Shidi, why do you have a child with you?

Shang Qinghua: This is Wei Ying, he is my new son. Also if the Jiang clan asks about me, pretend you don't know me

Shen Qingqiu: Should I even ask?

Shang Qinghua: They were abusing him! If they are going to mistreat him then they don't deserve him!

Yue Qingyuan, sighing: Fine then

Shang Qinghua: When we get home I will introduce you to A-Yao, your new big brother

Wei Ying, tearing up: What about shijie and chengcheng?

Shang Qinghua: Fine, I'll kidnap them too

Yue Qingyuan: Shidi, please!

[tbgkaru-woh]

Having fun with MDZS's clan "uniforms"/ dresscodes

there are still hierarchies and some individuality in these that i will follow for the main cast, this is more like "place your OC here" lol

[uncorrectintamed]

Stranger: Which ones are yours?

Lan Sizhui: [pointing to a destroyed playground where Jin Ling is chasing a child and Jingyi is crawling around in the dirt] Those two.

Stranger: [seriously concerned] Bless your soul...

[shanastoryteller]

Happy happy birthday 🎂🎉🥳 Are you still doing the “cursed identity porn” au where LWJ can’t really see the Yiling Patriarch (because the mask?), but still tries to settle into being married to him? (Or JC traveling back in time?) Thanks!

a continuation of 1

“Where do you want the talisman?”

Lan Wangji looks up from checking over his pack one last time to see his husband in his doorway. He lifts an eyebrow.

“I’m going to be wearing the mask but there’s no reason for the enchantment to affect you,” Wei Wuxian says. “You already know what I look like. I have to paint it somewhere on your body – preferably someplace there’s no chance of anyone else seeing.”

Ah. That explains why Wen Qing have never seemed to have the same problems looking at Wei Wuxian that everyone else did during the war.

Lan Wangji considers several locations before untying his belt and shrugging off several layers of robes, letting them pool at his elbows and leaving his chest bare. “Wherever you think is best.”

Wei Wuxian hasn’t so much as given him a covetous glance since their marriage. Lan Wangji can endure it, if he must, endure the lack of his husband’s affection and even endure the way he seems so willing to share it with others. He does not have the soft, delicate features and willowy body of Wen Ning, Meng Yao, or Jiang Yanli. But if nothing else, his place as the number two most eligible male cultivator means that he’s not without his charms.

If he is completely outside of his husband’s tastes, it’s best that he knows that now.

He braces himself for indifference, keeping his expression bland to ensure that Wei Wuxian can’t see how surely it’ll crush him.

“Oh! Uh, um, sure, great,” Wei Wuxian says, voice at least two pitches higher than it is normally as his eyes dart up then down several times, blood rushing to his cheeks and painting them scarlet.

Lan Wangji stares. He has seen Wei Wuxian walk across a battlefield and stare down sect leaders and be harassed by a dozen uncles at once and surrounded by three screaming children and never has he seemed as out of sorts as he does right now.

He lifts up the brush and hesitates. “Is it okay – do you mind if I, is this okay?”

“Yes. You can touch me anywhere,” he says.

Wei Wuxian freezes, blinking rapidly before he swallows. “Oh. Kay.”

This is the best day of Lan Wangji’s life.

His husband steps closer, curling one hand around his bare shoulder to keep him steady and using the other to make small, sure brush strokes against the skin of his left side of his chest, right above his heart. He likes the symbolism. He also likes how Wei Wuxian’s blush doesn’t fade at all.

“There,” he says a few moments later. “Just give it time to dry and it should be fine for a week or so, then I’ll have to reapply. “

“Thank you,” he says, quirking his lips up at the corners when Wei Wuxian finally manages to look him in the eye

His returning grin is blinding. His eyes fall lower twice more before he leaves and Lan Wangji feels the low hum of satisfaction down his spine that he normally only gets from a particularly difficult spar.

His husband is capable of finding him attractive.

He just has to somehow encourage this behavior.

Twenty minutes later Meng Yao sticks his head into his room and demands, “What did you do to him?”

Lan Wangji pauses. Is he upset that he’s gotten Wei Wuxian’s attention? He never seems to mind Wen Ning, but perhaps that arrangement has already been settled between them and he sees Lan Wangji as an intrusion, regardless of his status.

“This is hilarious. Whatever it was, do it again,” he orders before continuing his way down the hall.

With pleasure.

[rayan12sworld]

💚A Blade By Your Side

By:athena_crikey

Summary:

In the end, it had been the Yiling Patriarch’s stratagems and his fierce fighting, which had turned the tide of the war. He had killed both Wen Ruohan’s sons, and floored the traitor so that Meng Yao could strike the final blow. His status as the strongest warrior on the field had been undeniable.

Thus, the offer extended to him by the Lan court. Take his place as the Emperor’s consort, the only one permitted to lay hands upon the Emperor, the only one to share his bed with him while he sleeps, unaware and vulnerable. His last, best line of defense.

Or: Forced by his court to accept a consort, Lan Wangji is certain he has seen enough of the so-called Yiling Patriarch to know what he's getting: an uncouth ruffian. Slowly, he begins to realise that even an emperor's assumptions can be misplaced.

Chapter:18/18

Words:77,413

Status:completed

Wei Wuxian leans forward and presses his forehead to Lan Wangji’s. The dark curtain of his hair falls forward, surrounding them. “Aiya, don’t mind it. I’m here now – that’s what matters. If I’ve learned tact, at least it may benefit you. When I lost my sword, I made my body a blade. Who would have thought it was my mind Bixia wanted, after all?” “I want everything,” says Lan Wangji, honestly. “There is no part of Wei Ying I do not crave.”

~~

“Bixia gave you a sword, and you returned the favour with betrayal,” he says, lying on the ground beside Jin Guangyao, pinning him down with the weight of his body. “But he gave me his trust, and I gave him my body in return, to serve as a blade for him alone.”

[meduseld]

Anyway, thinking about how the Predator movies are, at their core, a retelling of The Wild Hunt mythology and what happens when people get caught in it; namely the heroes that manage to survive and in winning become themselves the Hunter/ritually inducted to it like Lex Woods getting the Predator Mark.

[noswordinourlake]

An update to an old piece for the birthday of the best boy!

[mispronouncing-michaelangelo]

"Song Lan... I- I can't see." finally snapped; im making a pacrim au, lets fucking go

[themaevethcometh]

i find it interesting that everyone has accepted that nie zonghui inexplicably has two sabers when no one else in the show dual wields and my sister and i both assumed that he carries huaisang’s saber when we first watched fatal journey.

think about it. mingje wouldn’t let huaisang go on such a dangerous mission without his blade, and if huaisang wouldn’t carry it, he’d have someone else have it on their back, someone who he trusts and who he plans to have stick by huaisang to give him the blade the moment he asks for it.  zonghui has probably done this numerous times just from ensuring huaisang doesn’t leave his blade in random spots at the unclean realm, so much so that the saber is perfectly fine being wielded by him and he is adept at using it alongside his own blade.  when huaisang takes it from him in the woods, it’s not one of his subordinates giving him one of their swords, it’s him finally taking up his own saber, a decision that he still doesn’t feel comfortable with and therefore recants when he gives the blade back to him to hold again in the tomb

[symphonyofsilence]

does Jin Guangyao play a villainous role in Wei WuXian’s story? yes. but is he also the Narrative’s special boy? also, yes.

I don’t remember the post, but the fact that Wei Wuxian, and by extinction, the narrative sympathizes with Jin Guangyao has already been brought up. He draws a comparison between himself and JGY when the crowd suddenly turns against JGY in Lotus Pier and wants WWX to deal with him, and again when the other Sect Leaders led by Sect leader Yao assume that the Guanyin statue is made to resemble JGY himself ‘cause he’s a narcissist, and when people are saying nasty things about JGY in a tavern after his death.

but another way in which the narrative sympathizes with JGY is that every time JGY is shown doing a shitty thing, it’s immediately followed by him being shown in a situation in which he is a victim, or has done something good.

he paralyzes Qin Su after she finds out some horrible truths about him and hides her in the creepy room where WWX finds JGY’s sworn brother’s head? A chapter or an episode after that we see him being trash-talked and cast out by other Nie soldiers when they’re drinking the water he brought, while he’s doing thrice the work they’re doing. we see him cleaning the battlefields and helping the commoners after battles, we see him voluntarily do the work of the servants as a deputy general when they lack staff, and pour people tea, while they rudely clean their cups when they take it from his hands (which NMJ does nothing about), we see him loyally arguing with LXC that he can't leave NMJ for his father’s sect after all NMJ has done for him, and learn that he has saved LXC. CQL shows him in his Meng Yao Era more. We see him repeatedly receive scorn when all he gives others is curtsey and smiles, we see beforehand the Nie Captain be an absolute bitch to him so I'm sure nobody in the audience regretted his loss, but even then we immediately get that jumping in front of NMJ and taking a stab to the chest to save him, and the teary banishment scene that cancels the "guy is now officially a scheming murderer" out.

He's being a bitch to NMJ in the Nightless City? He kills Wen Ruohan & turns out that he has been bravely spying for the Sunshot campaign all this time and they owe him their victory. But even then, he apologizes to NMJ, kneels down, and surrenders himself.

He's protecting Xue Yang? You have him explaining to NMJ why he can't go against his father's wishes, and how he's scared of everything and everyone because he was never given the luxury of safety, status & power, so he can practice that power freely. In the end, NMJ offends his mother and kicks him down the stairs (which he's well aware is a trauma for JGY). Which honor-bound ancient man wouldn't have killed the man who disrespected his mother and kicked him down the stairs? What would have NMJ done had this been done to him? But even then, in the book, the narrative does even more to make JGY sympathetic, LXC comes to NMJ to calm him down, and he says that JGY's in a difficult situation right now. His stepmother beats him & his father doesn't listen to anything he says anymore. Otherwise, he wouldn't have talked back to NMJ. & after that, NMJ's qi deviation happens when he drops eaves on this conversation between LXC & JGY:

I mean if you've tried to murder him thrice, shoved him down the stairs, & called him a whoreson, taken any opportunity to scold him, & you don't like it when he talks back to you, at least let him talk behind your back. He's not even lying or being disrespectful or anything.

He retaliates against WWX & LWJ’s attack by showing WWX as a villain and the way he has killed NMJ comes to light? a few chapters later WWX is surprised that JGY hasn’t visited LXC to demand a search but to tell him that he has prevented everyone from searching the CR and thinks it’s best if LXC, whenever it’s convenient for him opens the doors of the CR so JGY can get this search over with and shut the other sects up. And reassures him that he won’t let LWJ’s reputation be tarnished in any way. (At the stairs of Jinlintai, JGY knew fully well that LWJ was doing what he was doing because he was in love with WWX, as we learn at the Guanyin temple, but he loudly suggested that LWJ is being deceived in front of the crowd to save LXC's brother reputation.) The Donghua even has a wartime flashback from a young Meng Yao saving LXC, feeding him, hiding him, washing his clothes, getting beaten up by the Wen soldiers to keep LXC safe, and even then bringing back food for him with a smile.

He takes everyone hostage, twice (his hostages are children the first time) and is at the peak of his villain moment? You have the whole Guanyin temple thing happening. (which, personally for me, was what really elevated him from an interesting character to my poor little mew mew in my eyes.)

When JGY kneels down, WWX feels uncomfortable. He feels embarrassed on his behalf:

the same effect of inducing pity & sympathy for him is achieved in the show by somber music swelling in this scene, reaction shots, slow-mo, and a wide-shot of everyone in the temple as JGY kneels down to make him look especially small, while almost 2/3 of the shot is of the candles of the Guyanin temple. in the exposition scene when LXC kneels down to hear JGY out, the statue of Guanyin is between them. THE LOCATION OF ALL OF JGY TRAGIC EXPOSITIONS IS A GYANYIN TEMPLE! The temple of the bodhisattva of mercy who is considered to be the physical embodiment of compassion!

And the sympathetic reaction shots when he talks about JGS continue throughout the scene.

then we learn that he had to marry Qin Su because she was already pregnant and he didn’t want QS & JRS to have his and his mother’s fate and that the reason they had to rush things through like this and conceive a child was that JGS might have further caused problems for their marriage because he really disliked his son. and that if a political fall-out happened between Jin & the Qin clan, JGY would get the burn of it. (still a shitty act, but you can’t help but understand where he’s coming from & pity him), he goes on about his father kicking him down the stairs of Jinlintai on his birthday while celebrating JZX’s birthday, we learn about his childhood in the brothel, about JGS saying that he could save Meng Shi but he didn’t ‘cause she would be too much trouble, and that their son wasn’t worth mentioning, we see JGY & SMS deep connection, the show gives us some very good Xiao Shushu & A-Ling moments, & even though it’s been always clear & is especially clear during the whole Guanyin temple scene, we see truly see the depth of love, respect, and loyalty JGY has toward LXC. 

We see him in the Villainous Friends chapter telling Xue Yang that he can vandalize people's shops and restaurants for no reason, only under the condition that he doesn't wear the Jin uniform. But it's immediately followed by the mention of the bruise on his head given to him by his stepmother because she can't vent her anger on her cheating husband, who JGY has to retrieve from brothels every night to ensure his safe stay in Jinlintai for another day. We see him massacre the He sect, and right after that, he goes to retrieve his father from the brothel and hears those awful things and you can't help but sympathize with him.

Because what is really important is that you understand Jin Guangyao. There are about 14 chapters in the book and 4 episodes in the show of JGY explaining himself while crying on the floor because it's less about "Jiggy eVIL" & more about look what the society who turned his back on him & his mother when they needed their help, and sneered at them when they tried to improve their situation, and never forgave JGY for being born has done to this man to make him do such horrendous deeds. (And his sword's name is Hensheng. Meaning "hate to be born". They made him never forgive himself for being born either.)

So by saying that X & Y has happened to JGY, and so what he does is for self-preservation, nobody's JUSTIFYING his genocides, & nobody's denying that JGY had a choice in everything he did. Even if his other option was to accept his place, sit down, shut up, and suffer in silence, NOT murdering a whole sect that includes children by doing experiments on them is the better option. The point is that it's not the point. JGY's atrocities are only means in the story to tell the cautionary tale of a classist, cruel society. The things that JGY has gone through cannot be erased from the conversations because "JGY EvIl. Periodt." The Narrative doesn't want the reader to do that! It's specifically structured to put the reason JGY's got to this point on the forefront every time he does a crime. The fight with NMJ's fierce corpse ends as quickly as it begins. The Climax of the story is mostly JGY's monologues. 14 chapters of monologues cannot be dismissed as JGY gaslighting LXC & shedding crocodile tears.

in a story that has Wei WuXian as a protagonist, and literally starts with the monster the society has made of him through rumors and has this theme going on through the rest of the story, especially with JC, and baseless accusations are the first thing that happens when JGY's secrets are out in the Lotus Pier, and then ends with society making a monster out of JGY after his death through rumors when Sect Leader Yao speculates that the statue's face is modeled after JGY himself (which WWX especially comments on), and in the tavern when people made such crude remarks that even those who were participating in the conversation felt uncomfortable, I think it's clear what and who the real villain is.

MXTX could have written people talking about literally any real atrocity that JGY has done, but instead, they talk about what he hasn’t done and read the worst out of his every action in life.

And actually, with everything that JGY has been through, he’s not even the worst case that could come out of his situation. He did have good intentions. For all his genocides, unlike Xue Yang, he didn't actually want to see the world burn. He did help the innocent common folk. He helped them during the sunshot campaign, and with the watchtowers, he fought against systematic corruption, and he treated everyone with respect. He rescued LXC and QS. We don’t know how many others he has personally saved. It's that the means he had to use to have the power to help the poor was incredibly dirty because he was playing an unfair game that was especially designed against him. (I'm not saying helping the poor was his only objective when he tried to gain his father's approval and a secure place in Jinlintai for himself. Though it's sad that he had to fight for these things at all.) The best he could honorably do was be NMJ's deputy general, which didn't save him from being bullied and people cleaning the cups they took from his hands. He knew that if he tried to help the innocent without having the political power to do that, he would end up like WWX. But what he didn’t know was that he would end up like that if he, unlike WWX, played by the rules of the game and compromised his morals anyway. There was no winning for people like them.

Dismissing the good that JGY has done, the real desire he had for helping the poor, and what he’s been through cheapens the character, cheapening JGY’s character to a one-dimensional Marvel villain, and dismissing the commentary that he represents on society as a whole is a disservice to the story. And that’s a crime cause the story is great. 

his fall from grace, the heinous acts he had to commit to find himself the slightest bits of safety, security, and respect wouldn’t be that much of a tragedy if he didn’t want to be good and do good for people.

Then there is JGY's death and the framing of it. Here is a wonderful analysis by @sapphicdalliances of why his death wasn't justice and that was the point, how he died because of an act he didn't commit, and here are great analysis by @thatswhatsushesaid & @crithir about how his death is described as a gut-wrenching horrible scene framed through his horrified nephew & ward's eyes, both in the book and in the show, how it didn't bring the Nie brothers any closure either, and how through the lenses of LXC and JL, and by JC’s & WWX’s reaction we see his death as a tragedy.

His death is because of a dishonorable trick. His last act in life, pushing LXC away is an act of love and of forgiveness. In the CQL before that, he pushes Jin Ling out of danger, too.

As said in the aforementioned posts, after it, we don't see a victorious Nie Huaisang or Wei WuXian. In fact, neither of them is victorious.

WWX, and by extension, the narrative blames NHS for his scheming & risking innocent lives. WWX is especially appalled by NHS' treatment of Meng Shi's body. He points out that JGY, being a big liar with a considerable criminal record, will be forever accused of lying, no matter what. While he immediately after brings JGY's last genuine act toward LXC as proof that JGY couldn't have been lying.

In the CQL, he straight-up calls NHS the devil with the coldest tone he's ever had towards NHS.

NHS for his part doesn't seem victorious either.

Dare I say he even looks like despite years of scheming he was not ready for it when JGY pushes Shuoyue deeper inside his own chest. (Who would he be acting for at that moment? Nobody's looking at him. And he’s sweating!)

And I think there's a "no, he didn't" in his last "I don't know." To LXC (at least in the show) when he's insistently asked whether JGY was going to attack LXC or not and he insistently answers "I don't know". It's a confirmation without confirmation.

And then in, IMHO, one of the most beautiful and nuanced scenes, NHS finds A-Yao's hat, in the book, he bends down, picks it up, and quietly goes away (and that's the last we see of Nie Huaisang), in the show he wipes off the dust on it, and his hand finally gets bloodied, literally & metaphorically despite trying his best to not do his dirty work himself. And we get a flashback of A-Yao's childhood that I always assumed we're seeing through NHS because maybe JGY had told him that story. Not only does the order of the scene, combined with NHS' deep in thought look seem like it but also NHS cleans JGY's hat when in that memory A-Yao's mom tells him that he needs to take good care of his hat.

And that scene is especially beautiful because the show went out of its way to show their close relationship pre-time skip. And we see NHS keep A-Yao's principal by cleaning his hat when JGY himself is too dead to do that. Even when the reason for his death is NHS himself. And by NHS getting his hands bloodied while cleaning the hat, and staring at it with a deep, nuanced look, that combination of care & hatred is shown in that scene.

I think he feels empty. He's spent years after years planning this thing. It was his only drive. Now it's over. And it wasn't a grand, victorious moment. It just...happened. and it was something that needed to happen, in his eyes.

And he did love his san-ge for a long, long time before the betrayal came to light for him. And then he hated him for a long, long time. But at that moment with JGY's bloodied hat in his hand? I think that's the moment when love and hatred have both run their passionate course and they've finally reached each other in the middle and collided and ran out of strength and intensity and separate, clear meaning and they just take their exhausted leave together, leaving only a trace behind.

And most prominently we see a devastated LXC and JL. We see Jin Ling's flashback of when his Xiao Shushu gave him his spiritual puppy. We see him being the only one who could cheer JL up when he was down for days.

We see JL choosing to keep loving him despite everything.

His loss is felt and the memory of his good deeds keeps coming back in JL's narrative:

The Narrative doesn't just sympathize with him. The Narrative mourns him.

[twistedappletree]

[ protection ]

scene sketch from my fic in progress, letters never sent 💌

[ziracona]

I thought the ending to The Untamed was perfect.

I knew it would be different from the book, because of censorship. And I thought they couldn’t have done a better job.

You’ve got this story about a broken society with prejudices of class and sex and background, and how the way things are, you can’t be truly happy within the system. In the book, Wei Wuxian and Lan Zhan leave the system together to get married, because they can’t stay within the cultivation world and be gay and live the same, and find happiness outside it. In the book, you get this lifetime of pining from Lan Zhan, and slow realization from Wei Wuxian, and a bond that goes through and overcomes death itself. And in the show, they give you as much of that as they can too. They have to make it subtext, but boy does every single actor hit that gay shit hard. Every single reaction shot to Wang Yibo is him carrying the gay subtext on his back like Atlas.

It’s absolutely still a love story about two men. One who fights to keep the other alive, and fails, then fights not to lose him again when gifted a miracle. The other, trying to do the right thing and being punished and demonized every step of the way, because right doesn’t coincide with ‘accepted.’ It’s often directly opposed.

But they aren’t allowed to make it canon. So they follow that thread. They can be in love, if they don’t say it. They can have the intense feelings, if an audience can pretend they’re friends. But they can’t get together. So they don’t. They go ‘if they can’t, then what happens?’ and they don’t give you the emotional out of letting them go off together as ‘friends’ so the audience can be happy, because that’s not a reading of the relationship. They aren’t friends; they’re in love. Because he’s not openly gay, Lan Zhan can be asked to run his sect, which means he has to stay. If he can’t choose to go with Wei Wuxian and run away, then Wei Wuxian is forced to return to his fate and be alone. It’s heartbreaking. But it’s supposed to be.

Denying an audience what they want is one of the most powerful tools media has. A whole story about fighting the entire world for a man you love as another man, 50 episodes, and then you don’t get to be happy together, because it’s being shown to a world that won’t allow that end.

Wei Wuxian is heartbroken. They go to part ways, and he tells Lan Zhan next time they meet, he better have a name for the song he wrote them. A song that has always been called Wangxian, or Wuji. A song that is literally the ship name, their names combined. Both in world and metatextully, he’s telling him to make a choice.

And they leave, and Wei Wuxian starts playing Wangxian on the flute. They’ve parted, and Lan Zhan stops because he can hear the song that’s literally written by him about loving Wei Wuxian and named after their ship, being played after him as a call of the life they could still choose to have. The call to run away together.

And it’s called not The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, but The Untamed, after that quote. “At best, you’re the untamed hero; At worst, you offend people wherever you go.” - “Wei Wu Xian! Don’t you understand? When you’re standing on their side, you’re the bizarre genius, the miraculous hero, the force of the rebellion, the flower that blooms alone. But the second your voice differs from theirs, you’ve lost your mind, you’ve ignored morality, you’ve walked the crooked path.”

Because that’s what it’s about. It’s about the disconnect from society and right. Again and again. The way people are treated for their birth, their love, their affiliation. The fate of the Wen remnants who didn’t fight, Jin Guangyao’s entire reason for being there, all the broken relationships and tension, even the very reasons people hate Wei Wuxian and kill him the first time. And in the show, allowed to exist for the book’s overwhelming popularity and success, but not allowed the freedom of the book—only allowed in the closet, it seven more about that in regards to the core romance itself. It’s a deep, beautiful gay romance, not allowed to show a gay romance to their audience.

And so they lean into that. You can’t have ‘MDZS without the gay romance.’ It doesn’t exist. It wouldn’t be the same story. It’s a story about, and in every step and nuance, only possible because of, the romantic and sexual feelings of deep connection between two men. So the story is MDZS with the love, but you can’t show it. You can’t let it out of the shadows. You can’t let it be seen. And you can’t have the happy ending MDZS earns, without the freedom to love each other and live the life they want together, that makes it possible. — They can’t have them get married, so they make you see what a world where being gay and together isn’t allowed looks like for those characters, because that’s what this story is being forced by censorship to be. And it fucking sucks. It hurts. It’s agony and disappointment, after all this, that death can’t beat you but the world can.

But they have him call out to Lan Zhan to reconsider. To choose Wangxian over the end they have to have. And he does. And you see Wei Wuxian look overjoyed that he heard Wangxian and answered. But they never show the reverse shot. We hear Lan Zhan, but we can’t see him, because it’s not allowed. It’s censored. They literally don’t ‘show us’ him changing his mind, because they’re not allowed to, and they make a point of that. It cuts immediately to “We thank the author Mo Xiang Tang Xiu for bringing these characters to life.”

We thank the author for letting them truly live.

“May their wishes in the future come true.” May the system change. May the last frame be allowed.

[prince-liest]

MORE nieyao omegaverse shenanigans!!!

please imagine a nieyao (or 3zun) ABO AU where jin guangyao is an omega and is constantly taking scent-blockers. not because he's hiding the fact that he's an omega - that pigeon flew the coop a long time ago and it certainly isn't helping his standing in jinlintai, unfortunately - but because he's violently allergic to the very concept of broadcasting his feelings to everyone in jinlintai, all of the time, via scent.

he's not even the only one! it's not uncommon for people to be on scent-blockers in jinlintai for this exact reason. it's not amazing for politicking to be physically incapable of maintaining a pheromonal poker face when someone says something that you just vehemently disagree with! besides, it's rude to make people deal with your emotions all the time like that. not to mention the reputation jin-zongzhu has around omegas...

but it's very much a jin cultural thing that jin guangyao adopted after the sunshot campaign. other sects have their own ways about it, but the nie in particular maintain a sort of pride about their dynamics just as they do about their history as butchers, and to hide to that extent in the unclean realm is frequently assumed to be inherently dishonest. why would you use scent-blockers if you didn't have bad intentions?

(of course, many people use them anyway - milder ones, ones that change a scent rather than eliminating it entirely as jin politesse dictates, an extra layer of secrecy not just about the scent itself but the fact that what is being communicated is manufactured - but nie mingjue has never had to consider something like that.)

and thus this becomes one of the reasons that nie mingjue cannot reconcile jin guangyao with his perception of his former deputy, meng yao. the lack of scent - it makes jin guangyao seem cold, distant, fake - seemingly an entirely different person.

except.

at some point.

perhaps jin guangyao is off his blockers, or more likely, one day nie mingjue's alpha hindbrain has had enough of these oppositional shenanigans and simply locks onto jin guangyao, labeling him irrevocably as 'MATE!' in nie mingjue's brain and making him so much more sensitive to jin guangyao - likely without jin guangyao even realizing.

so now nie mingjue can suddenly tell, at least in the cases of stronger emotions, exactly what jin guangyao's body is trying to broadcast.

when he realizes what happened, he expects to detect... he's not even sure. smugness. irritation? maybe even hate.

what he gets is fear, and fear, and more fear. jin guangyao is just so scared, all of the time, that it drives almost everything else into non-existence as far as his pheromones are concerned. he simply never feels safe. it's so bad that it's giving nie mingjue a sympathy headache any time he's around his youngest sworn brother.

and perhaps at some point in the past, nie mingjue had even gotten into it with jin guangyao about the scent blockers - nie mingjue perceiving dishonesty vs jin guangyao feeling frustrated that once again da-ge is looking down on him for something that jin guangyao feels is imperative for his own safety - and jin guangyao had said that, well, nie mingjue accuses him of manipulation and lying so often anyway, how is he supposed to trust that if nie mingjue could smell anything that he wouldn't just assume it's part of jin guangyao's supposed manipulations anyway?

(it doesn't help jin guangyao's frustration that nie mingjue insists that hiding one's scent is dishonesty when, actually, jin guangyao could do with the oppressive 'angry alpha' that often layers all over the place on top of nie mingjue's already large physique and looming presence being toned down a little bit, thanks)

and nie mingjue was like, that's ridiculous, that's not something you can manually control (jin guangyao just smiled at him, the same way he smiles at nie huaisang when he thinks the young master is being naive) - except now he's realizing that maybe jin guangyao had at least a little bit of a point, in the sense that it turns out that it's actually really difficult to be righteously angry at someone who so vividly feels unsafe and afraid whenever you express that, in a way that jin guangyao's crocodile tears never got to him. he feels a sudden kindred spirit with lan xichen.

tl;dr: nobody gets kicked down any stairs, and nie mingjue is forcibly familiarized with what, exactly, jin guangyao's emotional perspectiive is at least, as well as finding himself curbing his own temper because yelling at someone who is smiling at you while circulating their spiritual energy to stop themselves from hyperventilating about it just. feels really bad. nie mingjue is used to feeling like he is in the right and he doesn't know what to do with this. he is right! but... surely being shown the righteous path shouldn't be making jin guangyao feel like this.

(and maybe nie mingjue picks up on the sudden spike of increased stress - and, wow, he didn't know that jin guangyao could be more stressed, isn't there a maximum? - when jin guangshan starts pressing his bastard son to 'take care' of the nie mingjue problem.)

[uncorrectintamed]

Jin Ling: Are you sugaring your burrito?

Lan Jingyi: Food is anarchy. Live by your own rules

[justanotherfilthyshipper]

I discovered that I actually am only on four fandoms rn which is fucking weird

Also, I have very clearly, a type

(Clean version Bellow)

[bahoreal]

you know i am still so obsessed with lan xichen and lan wangji being told their parents story as a cautionary tale, and lan xichen tried all he could to avoid the same fate but ended up with the one he trusted the most hurting him the most, and lan wangji looked their story head on and tried to do exactly the same, refusing to ever consider wei wuxian as irredeemable, and ended up living happily. i just think about this all the time.