#and jiang cheng feelings

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Look what we've become.

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[asha-mage]

MDZS AU where Jiang Cheng realizes that Lan Sizhui is the Wen orphan that Wei Wuxian took care off during the Burial Mounds arc, decides that's close enough to qualify him as Nephew, declares that no Nephew of His (much less a surrogate son of Wei Wuxian's) is going to be raised in the Cloud Recedes, and immediately launches into a custody battle with Lan Wangji.

But since neither Jiang Cheng or Lan Wangji can acknowledge that Sizuhi has any connection to Wei Wuxian, both begin steadfastly and stubbornly insisting that he is a Cultivator of peerless potential and skill and he belongs in their sect thank you very much, and would clearly be very unhappy in the other's. This confuses the hell out of the already mystified Cultivation world, who had barely adjusted yet to gossiping about Sizhui being Wangji's illegitimate child by mysterious love affair.

(Eventually the common consensus in the rumor mills is that both JC and LW where in love with Sizhui's mother and both believe themselves to be Sizhui's real father.)

(LW couldn't care less what gossips say, but JC has to bite his tongue till it bleeds to avoid telling anyone the truth in a fit of anger.)

(It was Nie Huaisang who put that rumor out in the first place, partly to troll JC, partly because, in a way, it's a little true.)

[sandushengshou]

the untamed + text posts

[s2pdoktopus]

When Jiang Cheng says something he shouldn't have said.

[ID: A MDZS comic. Jiang Cheng angrily shouts, "I wish I didn't sacrifice myself to the Wen for you!" Wei Wuxian looks stunned. "... What?" Then he looks furious. "You did what?!?"

Wei Wuxian grabs Jiang Cheng by the collar and growls, "C'mere you little shit. Say it again. What did you do?" Jiang Cheng, sweating, goes, "Nothing," and Wei Wuxian pleads, "Jiang Cheng, please..." Jiang Cheng looks down and puts a hand over Wei Wuxian. "Wei Wuxian..."

Jiang Cheng looks up with an earnest expression. "It's all in the past, it doesn't matter anymore. Let it go. (Or something.)" Wei Wuxian looms over him and scolds angrily, "Don't you dare use my words against me!" End ID]

[yustinamishka]

You know that scene in Turning Red? What if Jin Ling saw that lost and traumatized younger version of Jiang Cheng…

[unreliable-narratoe]

Something about Liu Qingge and Jiang Cheng both carrying around physical objects of their loved ones so they can return it, but the Receiving never quite has the same impact as the Returning. LQG carrying around Shen Qingqiu's fans until he can take it back, except SQQ's already forgotten about it/gotten a new one and no longer has the same use for it. JC carrying suiban around on his back until he finds Wei Wuxian, except WWX can no longer use it. There is no real relevance for the object on the receiving end. Not anymore, at least. And it's very. Hmm.

[pastelshroomsbasement]

its that time of the month, jiang cheng LETS GET IT!!!!!

[monhiio]

"Leave. I want to be alone."

"Please don't make me"

"I wont repeat myself."

"At least look me in the eyes when you send me away. Your Highness."

[lecinea]

No, but to suggest that Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng only ever had the relationship of a master and servant and that the only thing that held them together was debt and obligation on Wei Wuxian's part is such a wild take considering how absolutely unhinged the both of them are when it conscerns the other.

[jcs-singular-slut-strand]

Heyyyyy pookie

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The dog days are over.

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[sonik-kun]

Jiang Cheng never brought up his own sacrifice because he didn't want Wei Wuxian to feel indebted to him again, not because it would make his own sacrifice obsolete.

He wanted to let him go so he could be free to live with Lan Wangji and maybe to hopefully even start afresh again.

Jin Ling, who knows his uncle well, even acknowledges that he wanted to say something to Wei Wuxian when the pair left.

Jiang Cheng is a selfless person for this reason. He knew how much it would destroy Wei Wuxian if he told him what really happened.

He never held his sacrifice over him in that moment. He never held it over him in the core reveal scene. And he never held it over him even when their tensions first started when Wei Wuxian decided to protect the Wen and left him for a sect that tried to destroy his own.

Jiang Cheng kept that secret to himself because he understood Wei Wuxian and ultimately because he loves him. He doesn't want Wei Wuxian to owe him anything, and he doesn't want him to feel indebted to him. All he wanted was his bro back. And even then, he let Wei Wuxian go in the end because he saw that that was what he wanted.

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian both decided to move on in the end so they can grow into better people. The JC antis in this tag, who keep bringing up the same discourse, should do the same thing. They might feel relief if they do. 🥰

[sandushengshou]

Jiang Cheng & Wei Wuxian | missing wwx

[lgbtlunaverse]

Most annoying NMJ or JC take is when someone that dislikes them is like "oh you're a fan of him? *scoff* Well obviously you've only seen cql, where he was super watered down. In the novel he's a dislikable asshole and that's the objectively superior canon I'm working from instead of your woobified fanfic." Meanwhile your main canon is novel canon and you genuinely find novel Jiang Cheng and Nie Mingjue complex sympathetic characters.

[lavender-phoenix-flames]

If all Wens were actually evil, Jiang Cheng would have been dead.

[whetstonefires]

Underrated element of where Jiang Cheng is re: wwx after everything is that they always had a sort of dual relationship. Two different relationship premises, superimposed on one another.

There's the one where they grew up together, as close as brothers, beating each other up and complaining and being one another's closest companions, sharing a bedroom as kids and eating at the same family dinner table, actively encouraged by Jiang Fengmian to interact as equals.

And then there's the one where Wei Wuxian was in service to Jiang Cheng's family. Not as a servant--Jiang Fengmian absolutely refused to do that, even if he couldn't adopt him. But as a disciple of Jiang Cheng's father and recipient of his charity, as Jiang Cheng's future right hand and most trusted subordinate.

It's a vertical relationship, intimate in its own way but with very strict expectations about what obligations flow in what directions; they are not identical and reciprocal as between friends and equals.

(It's my opinion that Jiang Fengmian's core deal was a deep-seated discontent with the hierarchies he was at the top of, without access to any way to actually deconstruct them or even coherently articulate his opposition. Wei Changze was his dear friend, and no one thinks that's a good enough reason for him to treat Wei Changze's son like his own, because Wei Changze was also his servant, and you can't make that circle square. That's not a way you're allowed to love.)

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian were like brothers; Wei Wuxian served Jiang Cheng.

The personal relationship was always the most important one. To them, in their hearts. But it was the other one that was real, that had weight in the world.

And it's important to understand that neither can be held up as more factual than the other, even though they conflict. Both relationships existed, and had power.

So then when Jiang Cheng chose to hate Wei Wuxian and articulate his grudge against him, he chose to do it in the language of fealty. Because as far as he knew, his case there was secure, watertight, and it wouldn't expose him emotionally or politically.

And those are the terms in which he's been condemning him all this time: for abandoning the Sect, for ingratitude, for lack of loyalty.

For fuckups, too, and poor judgment, but some of that now turns out to have been justified and some of it was mostly the fault of enemies behaving badly, or even Jiang Cheng himself allowing himself to be pushed into making unworthy choices.

And it was all for his sake.

The thing, the thing in my opinion, about what Wei Wuxian did, about the core transfer and his silent self-destruction around keeping it secret, is that that is a hideous thing to have done between two people who love each other, as an act of love. Beautiful, but awful. As the man who was like a brother to him, Jiang Cheng has a great deal of standing to object to it.

But as an act of vassalage, it's basically perfect.

If Wei Wuxian were only what he formally was to Jiang Cheng, if he is interpreted through a lens of fealty and obligation, he did exactly what he should have done, and went beyond what duty actually required. And went to his death silently, allowing himself to be judged, taking all the burden on himself rather than let harm come to his lord.

Like, obviously Jiang Cheng was harmed by the part where Jin Zixuan got manslaughtered and Jiang Yanli walked into the line of fire in situations where Wei Wuxian was resorting to violence and probably shouldn't have, but those are one step removed from the core issue. In terms of Wei Wuxian's intentional choices around Jiang Cheng himself, at the times he was feeling betrayed and abandoned Wei Wuxian was in fact being impossibly, poetically loyal, an absolute cliche about it.

But only in terms of the hierarchical form of their relationship.

Which means that even though Jiang Cheng has a lot of reasons to still be mad at Wei Wuxian, his actual complaints that he's centered for thirteen years are basically wiped out by the revelation of Wei Wuxian's sacrifice.

Wei Wuxian was in fact doing the tragic hero loyal vassal thing, which very much includes being misunderstood and slandered by the world. (Chenqing as a name choice absolutely references this expectation, and the idea that Jiang Cheng specifically will never understand that Wei Wuxian was trying to help him first and foremost all along; he is not subtle.)

The debts Jiang Cheng has been spitefully calling in and considering defaulted were already long paid.

So if at this point Jiang Cheng keeps pursuing that same line of rhetorical attack, now that he knows, he'll be putting himself morally in the wrong, and he knows it. But if he pivots to something else, he'll both be signalling the shape of that secret to the entire world and looking like a prize idiot.

Which is already how he feels.

To actually address the remaining grievances between them, which are considerable, would require releasing those safe, open grudges to Wei Wuxian's face and then reclaiming him as a loved one. Which is, one could fairly say, more than anyone could expect.

Which is why Wei Wuxian told him he didn't have to.

Which leaves Jiang Cheng at something of an impasse.