#and why did she believe that wwx was a bastard in the first place? maybe there was a possibility but honestly feels super illogical on her

[sanduchengjiu]

one thing that always bothered me and confused me about mdzs is why Wei Wuxian and Jiang cheng were pitted against each other so strongly. Bc even if you take into account that people would assume wwx was a bastard of jfm, in the narrative its something that is common? Or at least in terms of the Jin, there were bastards flying all over the place but I don’t remember there ever being competition about who would be the sect leader, it was always Jzx until he died. So idk if I missed something or I’m misremembering but it honestly feels like most of the pressure came from the fragile relationship between the Jiang parents and less about what society thought. Also favoring Wei Wuxian is one thing but jfm never gave any implication that he was being favored as the next in line, as shitty as his favoritism was. It just makes me feel sad that both boys were under so much pressure for absolutely futile reasons at the end of the day. Like was jc’s cultivation that bad?? I don’t think so?? And even then if he was less talented than wwx it wouldn’t matter bc he’s still the heir. It would be insane if jfm just decided to break convention over talent bc of some sect motto. And I don’t remember there ever being a requirement to be an outstanding amazing cultivator to be sect leader. If that was the case then there would be no hereditary structure to succession, and jfm wouldn’t even be on the roster? Neither would jgs. There was never any importance on their ‘talents’ so wtf was the problem.

Also what was the timeline on Wei Wuxians conception bc he and Jiang cheng were born like a week apart at least at most one year and it seems like wwxs parents were not even at lotus pier since they left to wander together. I feel like that would clear a lot of things up tbh. bc I don’t think jfm capable of finding csr on the road and conceiving wwx and then coming home to yzy and conceiving jc, and csr wasn’t even a yunmeng jiang cultivator it was wcz?? So what was the overlap. Like did jfm get wcz pregnant or what?? Were they regular visitors to lotus pier? To me it read like jfm was a great friend and leader to wcz and admired csr but I read it a while ago so idk. It’s not helped by the fact that jfm doesn’t seem to favor yzy more than is necessary at least outright, and we all know she ain’t the most attentive either. So basically jc and wwx were brought into the world into a weird and fucked up long distance foursome situation and spent their entire youth suffering under the second hand feelings of their parents.

[kimboo-york]

A Short Treatise on Madam Yu

This is all about Madam Yu as represented in my fic The Bastards of Yunmeng, not canon!

Okay, first off, I need to make clear that I am not a Madam Yu respecter. I loathe the character, probably for very personal reasons. If Madam Yu is your babygirl, I’m sorry, this is not the meta for you.

WARNING: If you have not read up through chapter 11 of the fic, this meta is super spoilery!

This meta is not particularly spoilery for The Bastards of Yunmeng past chapter 11, but does have some information about characters that will become important later on. So, the usual warning about spoilers are in place here.

Read at your own risk, yada yada yada…

Importantly, nothing that happens in this story is meant to redeem Madam Yu. My personal headcanon is that she was a narcissist and unable to genuinely, selflessly love other people, and that is how I’ve written her here. She was in a very unhappy situation, but also she was simply not a good person overall, IMHO. It is interesting to consider if she was born that way or corrupted by circumstances, sure, but in the end, she was who she was. You can slap whatever diagnostic labels on her you want, I’m just saying she was toxic. Some people found that out later rather than sooner.

Honestly, I don’t know the specifics of how her affair with Wei Changze (and, very likely, Cangse Sanren) came about. What I DO know, however:

Jiang Fengman is sterile. She figured that out pretty quickly and took steps. This might be her villain origin story, actually; the only reason she was married off to him was to produce heirs, and so she had to do that no matter the risks. That Wei Changze was a cousin of Jiang Fengman’s and a strong cultivator in his own right made him a very attractive option, as any child of his would at least look like a Jiang.

Wei Changze is a complicated character in this story, but he’s also dead and cannot answer for himself. But here are a few important points: a) He did NOT cheat on his beloved wife. Not sure how that all went down, but it was consensual for all involved. I’m pretty sure Yanli was conceived before WCZ and CS officially got together, anyway. How Jiang Cheng happened, I’m not sure, but there was NO cheating. Well, aside from WCZ cuckolding JFM. I know this doesn’t paint Wei Changze in the best light, but what we know of Wei Wuxian is that he sometimes made outrageously dumb decisions with the best of intentions. (Maybe it’s genetic?) Personally I suspect he always disliked Jiang Fengman, though I’m not sure why. b) Also, I believe that when she was younger, before the bitterness and resentment took over, Madam Yu was very good at manipulating people (as many narcissists are). Yunmeng Jiang needed an heir and she was going to get it done. Anyway, I can’t say if Madam Yu seduced both CS and WCZ or convinced CS to share or what, but consent was given.

Madam Yu’s rage against Wei Ying had a lot more to do with her fear that a direct comparison to her son would reveal her secrets than with the rumors that he was JFM’s bastard.

I’m pretty sure that her feelings for Cangse Sanren were obsessive in nature, flipping from love to hate once she realized that CS well and truly had everything that she never would, including both WCZ and freedom. This definitely played into her hatred of WWX.

Why did she keep the letters? Because I’ve written her as a narcissist, and if there is one thing narcissists believe, it is that they are smarter than everyone around them and that rules don’t apply to them. She wanted to keep the letters, so she did. To be fair, they would never have been discovered if not for a freak lightning strike/fire in her quarters while she was away from Lotus Pier. Bad, bad luck.

I did toy with making Jiang Cheng’s father Wen Zhuliu, but I really wanted to bind the children closer together and I think that would have made JC feel isolated and left out instead. (I will maybe someday write the story of him being WZL’s son and inheriting his core-melting abilities, but that’s not this story.)

In Madam Yu’s favor, she offered to submit to her imprisonment and execution without a fight and make no attempts to escape if Jiang Fengman would at least let her children go free. He agreed, which is what led to their being immediately cast out rather than imprisoned. Would he have had them killed, eventually? I honestly don’t think so, but he might have sold them off or something.

Jiang Fengman offered Jinzhu and Yinzhu the option to return to Meishan in disgrace, but they declined and demanded to be executed along with their mistress as a point of pride. Yanli will find this out eventually, but it's not really important to the plot.