#but i think maybe this is the only time he says 'my shidi' when talking about jc to someone else?

[sillygoofyqueer]

CROWYUAN PEAK LORD REACTIONS PART TWO!! (part one heree) My workload was surprisingly brutal from learning today, so I've been slogging through it just to talk to all of you <3 LET'S DO THIS SHIT: Liu Qingge: Okay, come on, we know this guy. He will just register the demonic features and pull out Cheng Luan with NO hesitation, only to be held back by no less than three of his martial siblings as they try and say "nah, nah, he chill he chill, goddamn it!!!" He almost refuses to believe this because holy shit they've been manipulated by this DEMON and he's immune to it because he's been in contact with so many demons. Then he has a conversation with the demon and is bombarded with many questions about his hunts and SOMEHOW gets roped into promising to bring SY the carcass of the next beasts he hunts so that SY can explain their weaknesses in incredible detail to him. (He still thinks that maybe he too has been manipulated and bewitched, but that's at the back of his mind when SY SMILES at him) Shen Qingqiu: God, he hates this little demon thing - everyone else is drawn in by his weak charms, but NOT Shen Qingqiu. Oh, he sees past the disguise, he knows that this little...creature is plotting, is waiting for them all to let down their guards - but he WON'T. Just because his martial siblings are utter, blithering idiots, doesn't mean HE is. He will remain resilient and strong and-- what do you mean Shen Yuan is making himself comfy on Qing Jing Peak??? What. What do you MEAN he feels safe enough to be alone with SQQ and doesn't care about the rumours surrounding him because "they're tame in comparison to the things he hears about other demons"????!?!?!?! That's it. This demon is too silly to be wandering around by himself, who knows who would take advantage of his stupidity - ATTIC WIFE TIME (/j/j/j) Yue Qingyuan: This demon likes Xiao-Jiu, therefore he's chill- HOLD ON WHAT DO YOU MEAN SHEN JIU SMILES AT HIM ALL THE TIME?!?!? Yue Qingyuan is very pleased that Shen Jiu has a....*through gritted teeth* friend, at least he has someone to talk to - ALL of the peak lords like Shen Yuan??!? All of them?? HOW. SY has to teach YQY his ways because it has been impossible for him to get his shidi all in one place without them killing each other, and now they're all just...chilling with SY? With minimal arguments?? Damn it. (This is a joke, I think he'd be pretty pleasant with SY, but I wanted to make a funny read on the guy's reaction) ((I think Shang Qinghua is an enigma because they're both transmigrators and he'd just be like "YOOOOO, YOU'RE THE IDEA I DROPPED!!"))

[lizhly-writes]

hey guys do you wanna hear about my bad idea ahahaha i'm just joking i'm going to tell you whether you like it or not.

anyway! au where jiang fengmian brings back a starving orphan from the streets, and his name is yue qi.

(what happened to wei wuxian? don't worry about it it's fine) (idk maybe he doesn't exist? whatever)

yue qi is strong. yue qi is talented. yue qi tries harder than anyone. yue qi is perfect and you can't even really be irritated at him for it, because he's nice and polite and good-tempered and absolutely everything you could ask for in a da-shixiong.

jiang cheng feels so fucking bad about this. second best even in a whole new au, huh, a-cheng? but it's not your fault. even op protagonist bing-ge couldn't beat yue qi in a fair fight!

nobody knows this, though, so you're just going to have to suffer through the comparisons. it's your mom and your dad and all the little disciples thinking that yue qi is better than you. ooooh, that can't be good for that burgeoning inferiority complex your mom's instilled in you, huh?

but, you know. jiang cheng's going to be sect leader. he's going to need a strong sect. even if his mom fuckin bitches at him for not being as good as yue qi -- yue qingyuan -- then at least he's going to have a strong right hand, right?

HAHAHAHA.

so there are two routes we can go here. for the sake of my early morning ramblings, we're going to go for the more unrealistic one that requires me to jump through more hoops, because i think it's hilarious.

yue qingyuan starts getting more distant as he gets older. going on long nighthunts away from the lotus pier, you know. he stops leading the disciples in morning drills -- or, well, it's less that he stops, and more that he's not around to actually do that.

he's not around a lot.

snide, snide commentary about how yue qingyuan is going to run away to become a rogue cultivator, just like -- (but we don't talk about them). how yue qingyuan's not going to be da-shixiong for much longer. every time yue qingyuan returns to lotus pier, he seems to be more tired, more wound up, more stressed out --

and then everything stops. yue qingyuan comes back one day emotionally catatonic. he doesn't respond properly when people talk to him. unrelatedly (of course it's unrelated), there is some wailing and weeping in the night. some little shidi thinks that somehow a resentful ghost has made it into the pier and alerts da-shixiong about it in the morning.

thankfully, da-shixiong is back to normal in the morning. "i'll take a look," da-shixiong says, and then everybody forgets about it because da-shixiong is back and da-shixiong stops going on those long nighthunts away and everything is fiiiinnnne, don't worry. and if da-shixiong is a bit more brittle after that -- well, you're probably just imagining it.

jiang cheng worries about it. but yue qingyuan never says anything, because that's what yue qingyuan does. he never says annnnnnything to anyone.

of course, there's only so long you can argue with da-shixiong when the plot is coming up. gusu happens. the wens happen.

jiang cheng and yue qingyuan get sent to the wen evil summer camp, or whatever it's called. indoctrination, right?

lectures. drills. meaningless busy work for the sake of beating people down. obedience, and more obedience. there's a wen staring down every class, just waiting for them to slip up. there's one in particular that seems to have it out for yue qingyuan, sharp mouthed and pointy and HAHAHA OKAY, you've probably guessed who this is, haven't you? you're a genre-savvy audience, i bet!

ah, but i'll spell it out anyway, don't worry. for a-cheng, maybe, because jiang cheng can't guess, because yue qingyuan doesn't tell him anything. jiang cheng's out of the loop, on the outside, like he always is with yue qingyuan. don't worry, jiang cheng -- you're not special. he treats you like he treats everyone else.

but ah, that's the problem, isn't it?

jiang cheng stumbles over da-shixiong at night, past curfew, arguing with the wen. or, really, it's not arguing -- the wen is verbally eviscerating him, and yue qingyuan is just letting him. attacks on yue qingyuan's character and talent and everything, and about how yue qi's CLEARLY found a replacement (replacement? what does that mean?) and fine, you think you're so respectable now, of course only a high-bred sect heir is good for you (that jiang-gongzi, do you think he's a better version of me) (is this the version of me you've always wanted?) --

all yue qingyuan says is "i'm sorry, i'm sorry, i'm sorry--"

there's got to be one question on your mind, huh, a-cheng? yue qingyuan seems to know this wen. pretty well, it seems -- those insults aren't generic, this seems personal. why? how?

who the hell is wen qingqiu?

[add1ctedt0you]

that fic idea where WWX is sent to a universe where JC isn't paying attention to him/being sad about him because JGY was JC's childhood bestie... effervescent

the many stages of WWX's reaction

YEAH. THE FEELINGS. THE MANY STAGES OF WWX'S REACTIONS INDEED

(sorry I got overboard while thinking how things would play...) it's very long!!

you haven't asked, but imo at the start, wwx is very excited! He is in his old body again! He has his strong golden core back!( Imo he is scarred by being 'the number one cultivation world's enemy'.) So, it's nice having cultivators who admire him! He is happily married with the love of his life, he is an accomplished scientist and a fun teacher! He didn't even kill 2000 people or his shijie! Everything is perfect.

So he goes to visit jc: his shidi isn't mad at him anymore! Why should he be? He didn't have crimes under his belt anymore.

Lotus Pier, the SAME lotus pier as before the massacre (there was a war, wwx knows that. Maybe during the rebuilding jc has found someone with great memory! Nice!), doesn't throw him out. He feels welcomed.

And then he goes to the sect leader (he has to ask before the disciples let him in the throne room. Rude, but he understands, jc loves formality. - lwj is quite confused... Why would sect leader jiang immediately run to welcome them? But wei ying is happy, so he holds back)

And then, they arrive at the throne room... And jc is there, at his rightful place, proud and scowly, and wwx is so HAPPY. He's at home again!

"jiang cheng, I am back!"

"..."

"..."

jc is so confused that stares at him, unimpressed. He doesn't know this wwx, but he has heard how weird he can be. Still, his inventions are amazing and useful and he is lwj's husband, and lwj is important to lxc... He can't be rude, he has to maintain a good relationship with the Lan. "I didn't know that wei-xiansheng has already been at Lotus Pier before, but I am glad to host such honorable guests. I would say to make yourself at home, but you have already done it forgetting formality", he sneers and wwx is confused. What the fuck jc?! Do you want formalities?! I beat your ass so many times, do you want me to bow to you???

Before wwx can say something, jc calls his second in command and Meng Yao arrives. He escorts them, under jc's order, to their guest room.

wwx is so confused that he lets it happen. Then, he asks his husband what the fuck is happening. Why is meng yao here? Isn't he dead? lwj is worried about his husband' deteriorating memory, but he answers. He would do everything for his husband. But then wei ying's face goes white, then red, then purple! Is wei ying sick?????? He needs to find a good healer to help his husband!! So he leaves the room with an excuse.

In the meantime, wwx is fuming! MY killed shijie!!! He killed jzx, shijie, 2000 people, then comes back (how?? Idk. plot. plot), and JC LET HIM AT LOTUS PIER. JC WHAT THE FUCK!! YOU COULDN'T STAND MY SIGHT FOR ONE SECOND, NOW YOU LET MENG YAO IN!! BASTARD.

It's unacceptable! He needs to fix things!!! He has to, if jc doesn't!!! He goes to jc's personal pavilion ('see, meng yao, I know lotus pier! Even better than you!' he mocks MY speech and suggestions about lotus pier's best inns).

When he arrives, - he sneaks really, now lotus pier has an hell of security system, he almost got caught! That never happened to him before! - he sees jc, MY AND jl eating at a low table. All together. Happily.

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK? JL EVEN YOU! THE BETRAYAL! wwx knows that jl in the other universe forgives him (he is shijie' son, at the end of the day) but jgy's too???? Now???? jgy wasn't stabbed by jl! What right does he have to sit at his side?!?! And jl and wwx's relationship was still fragile, they were still working on trust and shit like that, what's the easy way they talk???? JC STOP PEALING LOTUS SEEDS FOR MY TOO. ONLY JL CAN HAVE THEM.

Unfortunately wwx is caught by the jiang disciples. They brings him to jc and wwx snaps: "jc what the fuck?!?! He killed shijie!!! You should be skinning him alive not feeding him!! Or just whipping him because you are boring. Whatever. But what the fuck?!"

And jc gets mad, but not 'wwx has pissed me off but it will pass'mad or 'I am rightfully even if unfairly mad about shijie and the peacock' bodies 'mad. No, he is 'you are pissing me off and I would kill you without thoughts - but REALLY KILL you'mad.

jl snaps "how dare you talk about my mother like that?! Do you wanna die???"

And jc" mister wei has overstepped his stay and bounds. I'll forget it for the sake of our clans, just this one time. Nonetheless, what happens to meng yao is a jiang family matter"

Lwj arrives and apologizes in wwx's stead. Then lwj drags him out of lotus pier. wwx is confused and angry. What is lwj doing?? He explains to his husband that jgy's the devil! He is bad and mean and a cunning manipulator! He killed wrh! He killed nmj! He killed jgs!

But lwj is even more worried: yes, Meng Yao - who is jgy? - killed wrh, but both jgs and nmj are still alive. Maybe wei ying is tired. Lwj is so worried about his husband's memory.

No one,- lsz, wn, ljy- believes him... And it's just as before, when he was all alone against the world, where no one believes him or in him... The food is tasteless, the world seems again to not have a place for him... His home isn't his home anymore...

But wwx has shit to fix! He needs to help jc and jl to see jgy's real nature! HE NEEDS TO FIX THINGS

And that's the fic:

jc's unmovable love for his family plus jl's good heart plus jgy cunning scheming vs. wwx inability to handle jc's emotions (indifference is unacceptable! How does jc dare to forget wwx?) plus his exaggerated reactions

[qzwrites]

bingliushen fuck or die + angst

this outline is like. detailed narrative smut, then a silly argument, and then it kind of peters out because i don't know where i was going with this, i'm just incapable of being horny without crafting a narrative about it

okay we open with a standard sex pollen + trapped somewhere or whatever scenario with lqg the one hit (presumably bc he took a blow for sqq or lbh) and sqq is like oh well um yes i do know the cure but also um. and both lbh and lqg are like just spit it out and sqq is like aaaa he needs to...finish...in someone else's body

and lbh just looks at lqg and is like I FUCKING DARE YOU TO SAY SOMETHING and lqg is just like. well it would be fine if i died but i'm not really into taking down sqq with me...or lbh i guess but mostly sqq...and lbh is like shizun when you say in someone else's body, how "inside" are we talking

and sqq is like. well in the novel it was definitely a creampie but that was only after curing the curse with oral sex so he's like due to the magic mumbo jumbo, idk if a hand would work but a mouth definitely would? and lbh is like. fine, i'll do it

and sqq is like BINGHE NO DON'T LOWER YOURSELF IT'S FINE I'LL DO IT and binghe just immediately turns on the crocodile tears and is like shizun i couldn't STAND watching you pleasure another man...even to save our lives...please forgive this husband for betraying you and being so selfish....

and liu qingge is like. i'm in hell.

(i think maybe this needs to be in liu qingge's perspective bc we need to see binghe's scheming but we also need to. know how distressing and confusing liu qingge finds all this)

and lbh is like. perfectly willing to make this a businesslike blowjob, except he notices sqq is. interested. and then he immediately turns into a porn star and liu qingge is like holy shit. holy shit. oh my god.

so lbh sucks lqg's soul out through his dick, and then while lqg is trying to catch his breath and recover from a very stressful loss of virginity, sqq is like ...binghe...><...could you give me a hand...

and lqg would leave and give them privacy but his legs aren't working yet because he's never come that hard in his fucking life, so now he's awkwardly trying not to look at sqq and lbh making out, and not hear lbh being extremely filthy with his dirty talk, and then lbh yells his name like he's tried to get his attention a couple of times (he has) and lqg looks over and there's sqq half-undressed, with his dick out, and lbh is like shishu come kiss my husband

lqg is like WHAT

lbh is like. well it seems like shizun didn't just like watching me suck another man's cock, it seems like he found liu-shishu himself attractive. so get over here and help me get him off. (he's probably slightly less polite in this exchange than he would be in front of sqq, but sqq is. dickmatized. he's too horny to care about what lbh is saying or how he says it)

so lqg creeps over and keeps checking with lbh, who is like "get on with it", and kisses sqq, and is totally taken by surprise by the wanton moaning into his mouth that happens

sqq is so out of it it literally takes him a minute to realize there are two mouths on his body right now and binghe only has one mouth and he's like AH SHIDI? and lqg is about to flee, but lbh grabs him and looks up from sqq's dick and is like "shizun, don't you think shishu is pretty? didn't you like watching him come?" and sqq blusters and stammers, and lbh is like "shishu, you don't mind do you?" and lqg blusters and stammers, and lbh is like "great, i'm going to go back to sucking dick now"

and every time lqg goes to do something, he looks at sqq, and sqq looks at lbh, and lbh just like. pinches or pokes lqg or something. so lqg kisses sqq, and touches his neck, and his chest, and kisses down his body, and sucks on his nipple, and sqq obviously comes (and lbh is obviously smug and delighted about it), and then sqq recovers way faster than lqg did and is like WELL THAT'S ONE CURSE BROKEN, I'LL JUST HEAD BACK, BINGHE YOU CAN TAKE CARE OF THE CLEAN-UP RIGHT, HELP YOUR SHISHU and books it

and lbh is like. well i'm going to see if that's something he wants when he's not zonked out of his mind on lust, don't fucking touch him again until i tell you it's okay, and then also leaves

and lqg is like ???

*

lqg is totally willing to just. accept that weird things happen sometimes. like, the sex pollen and fuck or die things are relatively commonplace (more so around sqq) and weird things happen around both sqq and lbh, and lbh obviously only did that because he thought sqq wanted it, and...it seemed like sqq did enjoy himself...which was nice...but it means nothing and is never going to happen again so he's just going to stop thinking about it!

and then lbh shows up on bai zhan peak and is like. okay he's into it, come to dinner

and lqg is like ??? you want me to have sex with your husband? you don't even like me? why would i do this?

lbh is like. okay you're not this stupid usually. i do not want you to have sex with my husband, i was thinking i would have sex with you in front of him, he liked that well enough last time. whether or not i like you has nothing to do with whether shizun finds you attractive? and shizun should have everything he wants, ergo, shizun should have you. idk he's always been weirdly insistent that i should have a harem, maybe he'll shut up about it if we're having sex. and you would do this because there's no other way you're going to be with him and you also want him to have what he wants, don't you?

and like. well. now lqg is feeling uncomfortably Seen. and also like he has things in common with lbh. neither of which he likes.

he goes to dinner.

he gets to make out with sqq, which is nice, and then he gets fucked by lbh, which is. a pretty intense experience! it's physically enjoyable and he gets to see how much sqq likes watching it, which is a lot, and he comes, and then he's just kind of there while sqq and lbh have lovey-dovey sex, and he's like ohhhhh this sucks i don't like this actually

but the next invitation comes from sqq, and he's so cheerful and happy about it that lqg doesn't say anything, and sqq dares to suggest maybe they could try it the other way around, so lqg fucks binghe and binghe is. way more into it than lqg expected him to be actually. like he's crying and lqg doesn't think the tears are fake. lbh appears to be having some kind of fucking Realization and lqg does not want to be there, except sqq is super into it and so is lqg's dick, so he's like. well. mama didn't raise no quitter, anyway

and it's like. sqq is treating him like normal, like a friend, and being cute, and then suggesting filthy things to do together, and lqg does like. get off on it. it's sex. it's nice. except then inevitably there comes the part of the evening where sqq and lbh have basically forgotten about him and are in their own little world, which is annoying enough when lqg is just laying there coming down, but is excruciating when (eg) one of them is using him like a sex toy. like yes it's hot when sqq fucks his mouth while he and lbh make out but it doesn't make lqg happy

and eventually lqg is like. yeah okay enough is enough, this is not working for me, and he makes sure to find sqq some time when lbh is off in the demon realm or something, and is like. sqq please tell your husband you don't want to have sex with me anymore.

and sqq is like >///< excuse me? shidi?

lqg is like. i don't. want to do it anymore.

and sqq is like omg shidi i'm so sorry i thought--i mean you always seemed to enjoy yourself...

and lqg has to clarify like. no it's. physically it's. pleasurable. but it makes me feel. bad. emotionally.

and sqq is like oh. um. i'm sorry. and they just like sit there for a while. and then sqq is like why don't you tell binghe yourself, though?

and lqg is like oh my god you stupid motherfucker. (he does not say that but that's the emotion he experiences) you know lbh doesn't even like me, right? i don't know if he even finds me attractive. he's doing this for you.

and sqq is like I'M SURE I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN

and lqg is like aaaaaaaaaaaaa shixiong. please. yes you do. he realized you...find the two of us together pleasing...and that's why he brought me into your bed. it is completely and entirely because you like it. he would not do it if not for you. (he does not say, i would not do it if not for you) if i try to tell him i'm not doing it anymore, it's...not going to work. (sqq probably assumes this means they'll fight about it, but lqg is kind of more concerned that lbh will just. tell him more things about how he feels about sqq. devastating) and i know other cultivators sometimes say you don't care about anyone's feelings but lbh's but i know that's not true and i am asking you, as a friend, to please convince your husband you don't want to have sex with me anymore.

and lqg is like. phew. god that was too many feelings, i need to go kill something

MEANWHILE sqq runs to an ding peak and is like CUCUMBER AM I A BAD PERSON?

without missing a beat sqh is like yeah

except instead of sniping back sqq is like. oh. i see. and starts shuffling off sadly

so sqh has to be like oh my god i didn't MEAN it you turned my fearsome demon emperor into a spoiled housewife through the power of love, you are clearly not a bad person, what is wrong

and sqq is like. okay so you remember the FOD plot device

and sqh is like bro you must know the answer is no

and sqq sighs and is like. the blowjob curse. that then ended up with a creampie anyway. because you're a hack.

and sqh is like oh lmao yeah that one, what about it

sqq is like. well. so. um. liu shidi got hit with it? while we were on a hunt?

and sqh is like oh shit, how did lbh take that news

sqq is like umm. he was there. so. pretty good i guess?

and sqh is like. *eyes narrow*

sqq is like so binghe sucked him off but it was--i mean liu shidi is very pretty! and i like watching binghe do things he's good at! so i got kind of horny! and then binghe noticed that, of course, and um. we've kind of been having threesomes with lqg for the last six months but earlier lqg said he didn't want to do it anymore because it hurt his feelings??? and i never even noticed he was having any kind of feelings about it at all, i thought--i mean. you know.

sqh is like cucumber, no one in this world or the last knows what the fuck you mean when you say things like that. i have NO IDEA what you thought because WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING what the FUCK have you been doing what the FUCK. what the fuck.

sqq is like shidi said binghe was only even doing it for me! and he didn't even want shidi! which is ridiculous, right? i mean he's so pretty. but why would binghe like. why would he. i mean i did like watching them but that's. i assumed that was a bonus, not like. the point.

sqh is like. i am not qualified to talk about most of that but i can tell you, luo binghe would do literally anything if he thought it was what you wanted. if he really thought you wanted him to have a harem, he would have a harem. if he thought you really wanted him to kill himself, he would fucking kill himself. and if he thought you wanted a harem, he would start rounding up every person you'd ever said was attractive and grilling them to see if they were trustworthy. so yeah, i'm not surprised you expressed attraction to the one other person in the world as in love with you as luo binghe is and luo binghe was like. i guess it's time to suffer through threesomes for shizun

and sqq is like WHAT

and sqh is like oh my god. oh my GOD. are you telling me you didn't KNOW? WHY DID YOU THINK IT HURT HIS FEELINGS TO HAVE SEX WITH YOU AND YOUR HUSBAND

and sqq is like i don't know! i hadn't gotten that far!!! i thought maybe he liked binghe and was sad binghe didn't like him back???

sqh is like you are so fucking stupid. i cannot believe you have two of the most powerful men in the world fighting for your attention. except...i guess i did kind of write pidw with a lot of attractive bimbos in it...is it my fault actually??? is it my fault you're irresistible??? i assume you died a virgin neet irl since that's what my audience was so you could hardly have been irresistible then....

and sqq is like. well everything is your fault so yes, but also, i am not a bimbo what is wrong with you

i think at this point they just like. devolve into inane squabbling over petty bullshit and completely forget the actual emotional crisis sqq came there with.

[isolapyrena]

Hi, as a Danmei fic club prompt if you're interested, I'd like to request a Liu Qingge fix it. If it's alright for you a three people relationship. (Adding him to a past or present couple maybe?)

Thank you and I will be happily surprised. :)

I’ve just read Masochism by @primtheamazing. And it is brilliant. It is a fantastic fix-it for Yue Qingyuan and Shen Qingqiu who basically broke my heart in canon. So they are my pair for this story as I've been wondering about how the story would unfold once they are 'fixed'.

In this world Liu Qingge has fallen in love with Shen Yuan, who is unfortunately for Liu Qingge all whichever version of Luo Binghe’s you want to imagine.

It is not explicit. I tried but weirdly it just got a bit boring and I appreciate this is already quite long...

…

‘When are you going to stop moping about after him, Liu-shidi?’ Shen Qingqiu says, harshly, as he watches him gently lay the fan down on Shen Yuan’s desk.

‘Moping?’

‘How about you just leave his fans wherever he happens to leave them? Let him at least have to acknowledge you aren’t bothering to run around after him anymore.’

‘It isn’t a bother.’

‘It is beneath you.’

They walk out together towards Shen Qingqiu’s house. Comfortably next to each other, a hard fought for balance achieved between them. It probably (definitely) helped that Shen Qingqiu had been the one to save Liu Qingge’s life that time in the caves… Shen Yuan had helped too…clearing up a few (a lot of) misunderstandings.

…

‘You fell in love with me first. I know it.’ Shen Qingqiu states. Completely out of nowhere as far as Liu Qingge can see. He was just innocently sitting having a cup of tea. Somehow he manages not to spit his mouthful out over the table.

‘Even if I did, it would only have been for your looks. I would have soon fallen out of it. Your personality is awful,’ he says once he has caught his breath.

‘You like the way I look?’ Shen Qingqiu is smiling at him. Weird.

‘Come on. You shouldn’t be talking like this. Think about Zhangmen-shixiong.’

‘I see him admiring your butt as much as the next gay man.’

‘I’m right here with you, Xiao… Shen-shidi!’ Yue Qingyuan whispers, clearly embarrassed; not denying it, Liu Qingge notices. It was only fair he supposed, he looked at Zhangmen-shixiong too. Quite a lot.

Liu Qingge has got beyond being angry with Shen Qingqiu, it doesn’t ever help one bit. He knows, through bitter experience of the heat rising through him that his face is, however, a wonderful shade of pink. It will also be down his neck to his chest. He knows it and he also, following the movement of Shen Qingqiu’s eyes, gets the impression that Shen Qingqiu also knows. What is with all this flirting these days? Even he can tell he is flirting with him so it must be obvious. ‘When did you both get so shameless?!’

…

‘What are we going to do about him Qi-ge? Do we need to involve alcohol, a life-threatening fight, sex pollen?... All three?’ Shen Qingqiu was sitting on the edge of his bed looking particularly thoughtful as he asked this. It suited him, Yue Qingyuan thought.

‘I wouldn’t like to rely on any of those as a basis for an honest relationship.’ Yue Qingyuan answered easily.

‘So you would like the relationship?’

Yue Qingyuan just blushes.

Shen Qingqiu can’t help but kiss his kind mouth.

‘It doesn’t suit Liu-shidi to be acting as if he has no agency in this world,’ Shen Qingqiu continues after giving Yue Qingyuan the attention he so deserves. ‘So you’re right, we can’t make him vulnerable. But how do we break through to him?’

‘Does he even like us that way Xiao-Jiu?’

…

‘Arggh. Why do I never have a fan around these days!’ Shen Yuan moans.

Shen Qingqiu startles out of his own thoughts. Absent mindedly handing Shen Yuan his own fan to borrow. Interesting.

…

There weren’t many occasions when the Sect Leader, the head of Qing Jing Peak and the Bai Zhan War God were required to leave the peak at the same time, for the same purpose. At least now they didn’t have to worry about a demon invasion or any other threat while they were gone. Benefits of being on the same side as Luo Binghe… This occasion was even a happy one. One of the local dignitaries had invited them to his daughter’s marriage celebrations.

When they arrived on the evening before the main event, they were given rooms surrounding a private courtyard. Informed of the time of dinner and given time to rest and change from their travelling clothes. Yue Qingyuan and Shen Qingqiu were behaving impeccably. No one would be able to tell how close they really were. Liu Qingge was unusually nervous. Hopefully he could just be the third wheel in peace. Yes, that was definitely what he was thinking and why he was full of nervous anticipation. He wasn’t at all worried (excited) that they would have a plan in place towards him.

…

At the same time as absolutely denying it Liu Qingge also admitted he was disappointed as their luggage was packed onto the carriage and the two of them got inside. He’d ride alongside as usual. Nothing happened. There wasn’t even a vague hint of anything. They made it through dinner, drinks in the wonderful (romantic) warm evening in their private courtyard, the wedding celebrations, the warm feelings of love and lust in the air all afternoon and evening and free flowing drink into the night… and nothing at all happened, other than what should happen. The two of them even respected him to the extent that (as far as he knew) they each slept in their own rooms. Had his own mind been making things up based on his inappropriate curiosity towards the two of them. Was he that desperate? That lonely?

…

It was a few hours’ journey back. Boring really. They’d made sure they had been completely and utterly appropriate at all times while out of the sect and were now itching to get home, to be free to release everything that had been pent up at the wedding, for this trip. That would be fun.

‘It’s getting too hot for him to be riding outside comfortably, surely?’ Yue Qingyuan asked. ‘Should we offer to take a rest? Find some shade?’

‘Are you coming up with excuses to get him closer Qi-ge?! We all know his cultivation is better than that. But there would be no harm in offering for him to come inside.’

Yue Qingyuan blushed. He always did these days at any possible double meaning. It was sweet, Shen Quingqiu thought.

…

OK. There was definitely something in the air inside the carriage.

He had no problem with being out in the midday sun.

They knew he had no problem with the midday sun.

He knew they knew he knew they knew he had no problem with the midday sun.

‘Why don’t you two get married? Make it official?’ he blurted out. Just to release the tension.

‘We don’t need to,’ Shen Qingqiu answered. ‘We’re already closer than a married couple.’

Liu Qingge didn’t know how to reply to that. He just watched Yue Qingyuan smile fondly at Shen Qingqiu.

Silence again. No one made eye contact.

The carriage bumped along the road. Every so often their knees were bumped into his, there was a fizz of something climbing his skin… and they quietly apologised. They actually completed the journey without saying anything else.

They still didn’t make any move. It was driving him crazy. How was it driving him crazy? They weren’t doing anything!

He needed to do something then. He couldn’t take this for much longer.

…

They said goodbye to Liu Qingge at the entrance to Qing Jing Peak and took their time getting back to the bamboo house (to tumble somewhat in a particularly secluded area they knew got the best of the late afternoon sunshine).

‘I think he was expecting something. We’ve let him down,’ Yue Qingyuan concluded as they finally approached the house.

‘Are you sure? Enough that we can act on it?’ Shen Qingqiu asked.

‘Should we just ask him?’

‘What if we scare him away?’

As they entered the bamboo house, they were thinking of heading straight to the bedroom when a fan, sitting completely innocently on Shen Qingqiu’s desk, took their attention.

‘Xiao-Jiu, was that there when we left?’ Yue Qingyuan whispered.

‘I had that with me in the carriage, just now,’ Shen Qingqiu replied quietly.

‘We probably shouldn’t keep him waiting,’ Yue Qingyuan stated.

‘We probably should wash and change first,’ Shen Qingqiu muttered, looking at the grass stains on his robes.

‘Well let’s be quick about it then.’

…

He’d done it now. That was a declaration, wasn’t it? They should know they could make the next move. If that was the admission they had been after.

Forget it for now, he thought, he needed a bath more than stewing in his own thoughts. Although he could stew in his own thoughts in the bath as well.

…

They clearly surprised him as they turned up to his residence on Bai Zhan Peak. The clothes he had obviously rushed to put on were clinging to him, his hair was dripping down the back and not helping the situation. His face was slightly flushed from the warmth of the bath already and when he saw them gawping at him it went even pinker. They could easily see that it spread to his neck and chest given how badly his robes were hanging off him where they were not sticking to him. His eyes were shining, clear.

He looked… stunning.

He stepped back to let them in. Shen Qingqiu softly closed the door behind them.

They all paused. A beat of deciding what to do. What to say. How to react. Any plans they’d had shaken by the state of the most beautiful man in the sect (whatever anyone else had to say about the matter).

‘Let us help dry your hair,’ Yue Qingyuan got out first. Shen Qingqiu internally applauded the speed of the man’s mind. His had been completely… stuck. But this was a good idea of Qi-ge’s.

…

They all sat on Liu Qingge’s bed, outer robes quickly abandoned, dry inner robes found and changed into by Liu Qingge; he had found some unknown courage and changed as slowly as he possibly could. Shen Qingqiu and Yue Qingyuan could have enjoyed watching that for much longer. Shen Qingqiu was now sitting behind him drying his hair with gentle qi, Yue Qingyuan was in front of him, holding and massaging his right hand. He was, against all odds, feeling relaxed. When Shen Qingqiu pulled his now dry hair to one side and kissed his neck, ever so lightly, it felt natural. Yue Qingyuan took his hand and kissed onto his palm.

Would it stop at the kissing? Liu Qingge wondered. He really hoped not. The thrill of this situation was too much.

‘We’ve been known to take things too far,’ Shen Qingqiu explained quietly. ‘Just say if you want to stop.’

He appreciated their soft approach. He may be the War God of this peak but frankly, he couldn’t be guaranteed to beat either of them in a fight, yet alone both together. This feeling of vulnerability was new. There were so few situations he faced where he was not certain to be the strongest present. He had thought that he would want to show his strength, to come out fighting. He thought he would be more embarrassed. But no, he wanted to submit easily to them. He wanted to melt into them. Was this what liking people in that way involved?

‘Are you usually, er, top or bottom shidi?’ Yue Qingyuan asked.

‘Doesn’t matter to me,’ Liu Qingge replied. ‘I’ve never done anything like this before though.’

‘We’ve never done this before either,’ Yue Qingyuan said. ‘But we’ll look after you.’

‘Hmph,’ was all Liu Qingge could get out as Shen Qingqiu moved so he could rest one hand on his face, turning it towards him, and gave him a firm kiss on the mouth.

…

Shen Qingqiu watched Yue Qingyuan as he woke, the still sleeping war god cradled between them. Their eyes met and they didn’t have to speak to agree that the night had been good. Very good. A success. To agree that they were happy. They now just had to see how Liu-shidi felt.

…

It was strange how comfortable this was. Admittedly there was now very little they did not know about each other physically, but the idea that they were now all laying on his bed, legs and arms overlapping each other in some variation of a warm hug, took some getting used to. This particularly close-knit couple – who were also the most senior two people in their sect – had chosen him to be their third. Had chosen him to see them at their most exposed. Had allowed him to do things… And he had allowed them. It had been… great. He wasn’t even embarrassed to admit it.

He’d thought they might just disappear after the sex itself. It had occurred to him that they just wanted a handsome plaything for the night. And that he was going to let them play with him anyway. But no. They helped clean him and each other up and then settled on either side of him to sleep. They continued to plant kisses all over him throughout. They assured him that this would happen again, if he wanted, before he fell into a deep and satisfied sleep.

As he came more fully to waking, he opened his eyes to see two bright pairs already watching him. Expectantly.

He smiled and moved to give each of them a soft and warm kiss in turn, claiming their lips as his own, quickly figuring that they probably couldn’t complain about who he kissed first if he did it in order of their sect seniority. He could see that his life had just become somewhat more complicated.

He wasn’t complaining.

[travalerray]

@midnight-tourmaline The topic of "WWX falling in love" is kind of complicated because if we see his complications with sexuality in novel canon, we can see that he needs a strong emotional connection with the person first. So to say, falling in love™ doesn't necessarily need to be an actual dramatic event, but the realisation? Well. JC nearly dies (or that's what he thinks because he got blamed for JC's fever back when he first came to Lotus Pier and somehow that furthered his idea of fragile little shidi) while protecting LWJ (LXC: I think my brother just escaped not one but two near death experiences), some homoerotic tussling, some more jealousy when WQ and JC talk and JC's dreams get more disturbed (What actually went down is JC and WQ start arguing over the past timeline but he doesn't know that). For all WWX knows is that JC is weirdly protective of him....but he's weirdly overprotective of everyone! The only person who is close enough to JC to see the difference between the pre-time travel self and post time travel self is JYL (and maaaybe YZY) who have chalked it up to fever shock. And YZY blames JFM and consequently WWX for JC's hearing issues already. Anyways, regarding the point of "falling in love", I would go out on a limb and say that it's the part where JC panics in the early days when he sees YZY first raising Zidian to WWX and has a bad reaction to it. He doesn't really Get It until he sees either of the Twin Jades get Close™ to JC where alarm bells start going off.

I do think that a good part of WWX's character has a lot to do with permanence and finding a home which ties into the Incense Burner dream as well. I know that he wasn't necessarily horribly abused back at Yunmeng Jiang but like. He also does say that he got used to hiding money in his robes for emergencies which.... considering the fact that he has the sect leader's favour and is the head disciple is......well. I don't buy into insecure UwU! WWX takes but I don't know.....maybe examine your own trauma a little, WWX.

JC already has lost WWX once. He knows his first idea to everything involves cutting himself off and running away. He is more...possessive of him, in a way you can say. He, incidentally, has also accepted that WWX would never look at him. I would say that while WWX would definitely wish to live with JC, thinking in the romance direction will take....time.

And maybe:

Short version: WWX is both demi and oblivious and no one's happy about it.

someone please ask me about my Chengxian time travel AU

[coquelicoq]

i bet jiang cheng, like, studied for the cloud recesses salute ceremony. this earnest little teen sect heir who just wants his daddy to love him was probably like, "i am going to get a good grade in saying hello to lan-xiansheng, something that is both normal to want and possible to achieve," and i bet he practiced what he was going to say in front of a mirror, complete with choreography, for fucking weeks before they came to gusu. and then after all that hard work, what happens during the actual salute ceremony? he goes last, and who should stroll in just when he's getting started but wen fucking chao, who immediately steals the spotlight, insults his shige, and provokes everyone to draw their swords, in a hall of learning, on the first day of school. like some kind of hooligan! then after lan xichen calms everybody down with his sword-charming, does jiang cheng get to resume his salute? no he does not! wen qing jumps in with her own salute and gift, after which lan xichen declares the ceremony over. but jiang cheng never got a turn! nobody accepted his gift!! how is he supposed to know if authority figures approve of him if the other children don't let him show off the authority-figure-pleasing skills he has worked so hard to acquire???

[robininthelabyrinth]

Prompt: Wei Wuxian has achieved time travel! He's gonna fix so many broken things. Unfortunately, WWX has miscalculated a teensy tiny variable and instead of arriving in his original 15yo body in Lotus Pier, he's crash landed in MXY's tiny 7~8yo body at Mo Manor. But no problem, he can fix this if he can just find his real body. (Meanwhile, Yunmeng Jiang's head disciple is acting the wrong kind of childish, aka, Mo Xuanyu is having the weirdest day of his young life.)

Switcheroo - ao3

Mo Xuanyu thought that this Wei Wuxian person whose body he’d stolen must have been a really interesting person, mostly because he’d been here for three days so far and nobody’d noticed the switch yet.

Possibly it had to do with the fact that Mo Xuanyu still wasn’t exactly sure how he’d stolen the body – he’d just gone to sleep in the shed, same as always, and then he’d woken up in the softest bed he’d ever encountered in his life…no, softer than even his dreams! He’d thought it over and concluded that he must have died from cold out in the shed, turned into a fierce ghost out of resentment, grown powerful (somehow), then stolen some rich young master’s body when they weren’t paying close enough attention and, once he’d possessed the body, promptly lost all his memory of being a ghost.

It seemed like the only logical course of events.

He was very sorry about it, though. Wei Wuxian seemed like a nice, if very unusual person.

The first day, Mo Xuanyu had barely even noticed the body-switch, being quite so enamored of the soft bed he was in – he’d refused to get out of bed at all, declaring that he was going to lie in and sleep for a century or more, and the people who’d come to the door to get him didn’t beat him or anything over it, but rather just laughed or rolled their eyes and then left him to it. Luckily, at the time, he’d just assumed he was dead or something and proceeded to ignore everything in favor of napping.

He only acknowledged that he was alive later in the afternoon, when his stomach started growling – it seemed like a very unlikely thing for a dead man’s stomach to do.

Mo Xuanyu had by that point figured out that he wasn’t himself anymore, which was fine since he didn’t much like himself; he’d also figured out, through looking himself over, that he was old now. At least fifteen or sixteen, which was twice the age he last remembered himself being. That was fine, too, though: being older meant that he was stronger and faster and would be better able to handle it when people wanted to beat him or something. Most importantly, though, it meant he was old enough to enter the kitchen on his own!

Mo Xuanyu already knew that he wasn’t allowed to eat at the main table, being only the bastard son of the younger daughter, and the cook back at home was a fierce woman who didn’t allow anyone under the age of ten into her kitchen; as a result, he had to wait for his mother to bring him back some food, and it was always cold and not quite enough. Now, though, since he was older, he figured he might as well try to go to the kitchen and fill his belly that way.

Luckily, while his current body’s house was much bigger than the Mo house, all houses were generally built along the same lines, so it wasn’t hard to find the kitchen. Everyone there laughed when he showed up, even though he’d tried to be very quiet and sneak in and then screwed it up by tripping over his own feet – it seemed like everyone thought he was doing it on purpose to be funny – and then the cooks gave him a meal of his own that was hot and fresh and wonderful.

He'd wolfed it down.

“Honestly, Wei Wuxian, you eat like a hungry ghost, you’d think the Jiang clan starves you,” one of them scolded him, but with a smile, and from that Mo Xuanyu learned that the rich young master was called Wei Wuxian and that he lived with the Jiang clan. The different surnames confused him a little, but he didn’t dare ask any questions about it, so he just stuffed his mouth and pretended that was the reason he couldn’t answer.

No one questioned it.

No one questioned it when he went wandering all around instead of doing whatever chores or duties he’d been assigned, either. Someone had actually seen him hovering by a door and asked him to bring back a pheasant when he returned, so out of lack of better options he’d headed outside to try to go find one.

He had a pretty good time walking around the forest, then remembered what he’d been asked and chased the pheasants for a while, without success . Fortunately, he then got lucky and stumbled over an old snare that had three pheasants caught inside, so he’d picked up the whole box and carted it back home.

“Three,” one of the boys in purple-blue marveled as he saw Mo Xuanyu walking towards the kitchen. “You know, people say that the birds around the Lotus Pier have gotten too smart to be caught easily, but look at our da-shixiong; he makes it look easy!”

From this, Mo Xuanyu could figure out that Wei Wuxian was (apparently!) part of a cultivator clan, apparently located at a place called the Lotus Pier, and that he was the oldest or at least head disciple, to boot. He knew all about cultivator clans from his mother, since apparently his father had been a sect leader, and that meant he knew enough to call the other boy ‘shidi’ as he passed, making the other boy beam happily.

It also meant that when he chanced a guess and called the young woman in a pretty pink dress who waved at him ‘shijie’, she smiled and nodded, which meant to him that he’d done the right thing.

“I heard you slept even more of the morning away than usual,” she told him, but didn’t seem too upset about it. “I bet that means you’ll be skipping dinner and staying up all night, hmm?”

Mo Xuanyu had no intention of skipping dinner if it was anything like what the kitchens had given him earlier, actually, but while he was still trying to figure out a way to say that, she said, leaning in close to whisper, “It’s probably a good idea, anyway – Mother and Father are fighting again. Just go to the kitchens to grab something…I promise I’ll make it up to you with some soup tomorrow, pork ribs and lotus roots, your favorite. All right?”

“Shijie, you’re the best,” Mo Xuanyu said effusively, willing to die for her at once, and she laughed and tousled his hair.

“I am,” she said, looking happy. “And if my little A-Xian stays good and obedient, I may even feed him.”

She did, too, the next day when he finally tore himself out of the beautiful wonderful soft bed and went to go find her. She’d made him soup, just as he’d promised, and laughed and laughed for some reason: apparently, she interpreted him being quiet and not talking too much as his efforts to be ‘good and obedient’, which was apparently so out of the ordinary as to be a deliberate joke.

From this, Mo Xuanyu concluded that the young master he’d possessed, Wei Wuxian, was a jackass.

Well, perhaps that was a bit harsh. Arrogant and self-centered, talented and brave and probably brilliant, definitely charming and maybe even kind, but also spoiled and inclined to step on other people to get where he wanted to go, if Mo Xuanyu had to guess – why else would everyone constantly react as if him not being obnoxious was the world’s biggest stunt?

No one seemed to expect anything of him at all: he didn’t do any chores, and no one batted an eyelid; he didn’t go where he was told, and everyone just sighed…at one point the sect leader himself came and patted him on the head, scolding him in a joking tone that he hadn’t seen him leading any of the training the way he was supposed to – but when Mo Xuanyu quailed, he’d burst out laughing, telling ‘Wei Wuxian’ to stop pretending to be a scared little rabbit, that it was fine if he’d gotten distracted by some clever new invention or whatever, that someone else would handle it, that he should take as long as he needed.

Mo Xuanyu had pasted a great big smile on his face through force of effort and agreed cheerfully.

The sect leader had accepted it.

Probably a jackass, but clearly a beloved one, Mo Xuanyu thought to himself as he packed up clothing and a few small treasures that no one would miss, a little wistful. The scare of the whole encounter had put things in perspective – he wasn’t going to be able to keep up this sort of façade for long. In fact, he was shocked he’d managed it so long already; surely, no matter how many pranks this Wei Wuxian played, no matter how childishly he behaved, surely someone should’ve noticed that he was actually an eight-year-old masquerading as a sixteen-year-old?

Mo Xuanyu couldn’t decide whether it was sad that no one paid too much attention or something that this Wei Wuxian fellow had brought down on his own head by being so consistently annoying.

Either way, there was nothing for it – he was going to have to leave.

Now that part was really sad: he’d never in his life had such good food, or such a soft bed, or even so many people that just seemed plain old happy to see him as since he’d arrived in this place. But he wasn’t the one all those things were for; he was just a sad ghost possessing a person, and if he stayed, the cultivators would eventually figure out something was wrong and exorcise him.

Probably violently.

Mo Xuanyu probably deserved it, too, but despite that he wasn’t willing.

So he packed up what he could and headed out.

He got all the way to the gate before a new purple-clad disciple – about his age, if he had to guess, and holding a pack like he’d just come back from a trip, with a scowl on his face – called out for Wei Wuxian.

Mo Xuanyu waved a little, hoping that that would be enough.

For the first time, it wasn’t.

The boy’s face settled into an even deeper scowl.

“Hey, what’s wrong with you?” he demanded. “Wei Wuxian! You’re acting all weird – hey! Where are you going?”

Mo Xuanyu was running away, obviously. He wasn’t about to get tied up and exorcised, no thank you.

He didn’t think he’d make it, but it was still worth trying.

Sure enough, the purple-clad boy who was probably called Jiang Cheng, based on what everyone was calling out as they ran by, got tired of running and jumped on his sword, and there was no way Mo Xuanyu would be able to outrun a sword, not even if he tried as fast as he –

Someone picked him up.

It wasn’t Jiang Cheng.

Mo Xuanyu turned his head and stared.

It must be some sort of yao, he thought. Humans were definitely not that pretty.

“Lan Wangji!” Jiang Cheng howled. “What are you even doing in the Lotus Pier?! Put my shixiong down!”

The rescuer, Lan Wangji, frowned a little at Mo Xuanyu.

Mo Xuanyu didn’t know exactly what expression he ought to be making in return, and was a bit too dazed to even dare to guess. He’d just noticed that they were flying – flying! on a sword! – and he was clutching onto this Lan Wangji’s shoulders for dear life.

“You are not Wei Ying,” Lan Wangji said. His voice sounded very definitive.

“Uh,” Mo Xuanyu said. “Sorry? Please don’t drop me.”

“I will not. What is your name?”

“Mo Xuanyu,” Mo Xuanyu admitted, and Lan Wangji’s eyes widened as if that meant something to him – except it couldn’t, of course, because Mo Xuanyu was sure he’d never met anyone even remotely like this Lan Wangji fellow in his life. “I don’t remember taking his body. I’m sorry. Can you not exorcise me? I don’t want to die.”

Lan Wangji was silent for a long moment.

He was still flying very fast, and Jiang Cheng was still following, shouting out curses and demands that he stop, not that Lan Wangji was listening.

“There will be no exorcism,” he finally said, and Mo Xuanyu exhaled in relief. “We will, however, fix this.”

“…we?”

“Wei Ying and myself.”

Mo Xuanyu nodded. That sounded more likely than anyone relying on his participation.

“Where are we going?” he asked. Jiang Cheng was falling further and further behind.

“Mo Village.”

Mo Xuanyu tensed up at once.

“You will not be left there,” Lan Wangji clarified, and – how did he know that Mo Xuanyu didn’t want to be left there? “But we must collect Wei Ying, who I suspect is currently in your body.”

“In my…I’m still alive?”

Lan Wangji was quiet again, and then said, “Yes. And you will remain so.”

That was reassuring, mostly.

“Okay,” Mo Xuanyu said, and found that he mostly felt relieved. He’d be very happy to have his normal body back again, if possible, especially if he didn’t have to stay in Mo Village…“Wait, if I don’t have to stay there, where will I go? I don’t have anywhere else to go, unless my father comes back for me. He's a sect leader –”

“He will not, and even if he did, you should not go with him. Once Wei Ying returns to his body, you will be able to stay at the Lotus Pier. If you do not wish to stay there, I will bring you back to the Cloud Recesses – that is my home – instead.”

“Oh,” Mo Xuanyu said, feeling bewildered. That was an awfully nice offer, even if Lan Wangji was feeling guilty about Wei Wuxian stealing his body by accident – which seemed like what had happened here rather than Mo Xuanyu being the one who did the stealing. Maybe he should go with Lan Wangji instead, he seemed much more responsible than Wei Wuxian was, rushing over to rescue him and explain things instead of throwing him into a body and leaving him all alone in a strange place. But on the other hand… “Is the Cloud Recesses…I mean…no offense, but…does it have…”

“Yes?”

“Does it have soft beds, too? And – and hot food?”

Mo Xuanyu didn’t need much, not really. He looked eagerly at Lan Wangji, who had an odd expression on his face briefly before wiping it back to neutral and nodding in confirmation.

“Okay,” Mo Xuanyu said, and curled up in Lan Wangji’s arms. “Then I’ll stay with you. You can take care of me.”

“I will,” Lan Wangji said, sounding strangely serious. “In return for the gift you last gave me – I will.”

[s1utspeare]

BRIGID MY BELOVED

Tientsin Mystic, The Boys:

- “How could you let it get this bad?” - either to the other

OR

- “Do you know how pale you look right now?” Deyou to Ding Mao perhaps ???

Also I love you

sierra. sierra my one true love. pls accept my offering. i started thinking about Them and now i'm going insane. literally kick my ass guo deyou.

ahem. anyway.

This is set after Ding Mao gets stabbed in season 1!! cause let's face it that part was great.

Whump Prompt: "Do You Know How Pale You Look Right Now?"

Ding Mao really should be back in the hospital. Guo Deyou doesn't know much about medicine, but he does know that most people aren't allowed to discharge themselves from attentive medical care two days after nearly dying from a stab wound in their abdomen.

And really, Ding Mao owes it to Guo Deyou to keep his ass in one place. Guo Deyou was the one who had to do field surgery on him in the middle of a secret tunnel system, and he's not going to be over that specific trauma anytime soon. It had sucked. Ding Mao had talked him through it, sure, but he'd also been only half-conscious, and bleeding a lot. Guo Deyou doesn't even know if he could replicate the process, because it had been haphazard at best, just enough to keep at least some of the blood in Ding Mao's body as Guo Deyou had carried him out.

He had ruined a perfectly good shirt doing it, too. Ding Mao had still bled all over the back of it, lying limp against Guo Deyou's back, his arms danging over his shoulders. Guo Deyou's legs still ache a bit from carrying him all the way out.

So, really. Ding Mao should at least be considerate enough not to undo all of that hard work before Guo Deyou has had a chance to get rid of the nightmares about it.

Unfortunately, though, his pseudo-shidi is a brat, and insisted on checking himself out of the hospital, and then hadn't even gone back home. Instead, he'd gone to the police station to find evidence on the flute-player, which Guo Deyou is still partially convinced he had hallucinated.

"I didn't hallucinate him," Ding Mao says, looking through files. "He stabbed me, remember?"

"There was a tunnel collapsing at the time," Guo Deyou points out. "Maybe you got stabbed by something else."

Ding Mao gives him a look. "Something that just happened to be in the exact shape of a knife?"

Guo Deyou shrugs. Stranger things have happened.

Ding Mao shakes his head and goes back to reading. He pretends not to notice that Guo Deyou notices him wince.

"Shouldn't you go back to your mansion?" Guo Deyou asks, twirling a pen idly between his fingers. "Yu Si must be worried."

"He already saw me today," Ding Mao says.

"What about your bug professor?" Guo Deyou counters. "He came all the way from Germany to see you."

"He's studying the local insects down by the marshes," Ding Mao replies, completely focused on the paper in front of him.

"You should at least eat," Guo Deyou says. "Master made lentil curry today."

"Not hungry," Ding Mao says stubbornly, flipping a page.

Guo Deyou is tired. "Fine," he says, throwing up his hands. "If you want to go ahead and kill yourself, be my guest."

"I'm not trying to do that," Ding Mao says, but at least he looks up, even if it is in annoyance.

"Could have fooled me," Guo Deyou says, slipping his shoes back on (he'd taken them off because his feet were feeling cramped) and heading for the door. "I'll be back to get you in an hour. You'd better be done by then."

Ding Mao just waves him off absentmindedly, and Guo Deyou rolls his eyes. Someone's got to keep his stupid shidi alive. Might as well be him.

He does return, as promised, though it's a little less than an hour. He had stolen Ding Mao's coin purse when he went, which the young master didn't even notice, and went to buy food for them. Steamed buns for Deyou, and a nice, thin congee for Ding Mao, who hasn't been able to stomach solid food yet, and has been subsisting off of broth. Guo Deyou thinks that it'll be a nice change, and maybe that will actually convince Ding Mao to eat.

He's not as sure, though, when he enters the file room again, and doesn't see Ding Mao anywhere.

He frowns, setting down the bundles of food on the table. All the reports are still laid out, and Ding Mao's pen is uncapped, which means that he hasn't been gone for long. He's still in the station, most likely; he can't really move fast at the moment.

Guo Deyou pops out of the room, flagging down a passing officer. "Excuse me," he says, "Have you seen Young Master Ding around?"

The officer peers into the room, frowning when he doesn't spot Ding Mao either. Then, his face alights with rememberance, and he points down the hall.

"I did see him heading for the bathroom about fifteen minutes ago," he says, clearly pleased to be of help.

Guo Deyou thinks, Either he's taking a massive shit, or something's wrong.

He doesn't say as much out loud, just thanks the officer and heads in the direction of the restroom as quickly as he can, trying not to let panic take over, images flying through his head of Ding Mao lying on the floor, bleeding out; Ding Mao with a hundred knives stuck in him; Ding Mao, his eyes empty and lifeless because Deyou was too late—

He skids into the restroom, and immediately sees Ding Mao hunched over one of the sinks, knuckles white against the porcelain, head bowed and breath coming in stuttering gasps. He's trembling, a little, though whether it's from cold or fear, Guo Deyou doesn't know.

He rushes over to Ding Mao, hovers his arm around his shoulders. "Ding Mao. Are you—?"

"I'm fine," Ding Mao grits out. "I just got dizzy for a moment." That's not all that's going on, which is very obvious to Guo Deyou, because there are tight lines of pain next to Ding Mao's eyes.

"Don't pass out on me," Guo Deyou warns. "I'm not carrying you again."

"You don't have to," Ding Mao says stubbornly, and then, as if to prove it, pushes back from the sink and tries to straighten to his full height. That only serves to make him lightheaded, however, which is obvious when he staggers backwards, and Guo Deyou has to grab him to keep him from falling over.

"You're not okay," Guo Deyou says decisively. "Do you know how pale you look right now? Are the stitches holding?"

"They're fine," Ding Mao insists, batting Guo Deyou's hand away from his shirt buttons, which he'd been attempting to undo to get a look at the dressing. "Stop worrying."

Guo Deyou frowns. "What do you mean, 'stop worrying?' It's not like I can unsee you getting stabbed, or unsee myself stitching you up in a cave, or unsee how still you were when—" He stops. He didn't mean to say all that.

"See?" Ding Mao mutters. "You get strung out when you're stressed."

"Oh," Guo Deyou says, feeling somewhat insulted. "Oh, I'm so sorry that I'm a little bit on edge lately. I should have realized that my best friend bleeding out in my arms was no big deal. I'll get over it right away. Would hate to inconvenience you."

"You're not inconveniencing me!" Ding Mao shouts. "I'm the one who's a burden!" As soon as the words are out of his mouth, he blanches further, and Guo Deyou knows that he didn't mean to say that either.

"What?" Guo Deyou asks, utterly confused by this turn in reasoning. "No, you're not."

"You had to carry me out," Ding Mao mutters darkly. "And I screwed up the investigation."

"The investigation was shit anyway," Guo Deyou says. "I don't care about the case." He stops, a thought hitting him. "Is that why you insisted on coming over here right away? Because you thought that I wanted to get back to work?"

Ding Mao shrugs a little, and then winces, his hand going to his side. "You've wasted enough time on me. I should at least return the favor."

Guo Deyou just stares at him. What the fuck? What sort of logic is that?

"You really think that I'm upset because we had to delay the case since you got hurt?"

"Aren't you?" Ding Mao asks him, looking just as confused.

"What did they teach you in Germany?" Guo Deyou mutters. "No, I'm not upset at you for getting stabbed. I'm upset at the person who stabbed you."

"Well, yeah," Ding Mao says, rolling his eyes, "Obviously, but—"

"Don't finish that sentence," Guo Deyou warns him. "I care about you more than any stupid investigation, or any stupid case. I'm upset because you almost died, and I would have had to carry out another corpse."

He doesn't realize until he says it that that's what's been bugging him about the whole situation, for days. Guo Deyou deals in death. He's carried more corpses than he has living people. He's surrounded by it, shrouded in it, and in the tunnels under the city, he'd been constantly on the alert, waiting for Ding Mao to stop breathing, and been so, so relieved when he hadn't, because it's one thing to carry out a body, and it's another to carry out a corpse that he had once loved.

"Oh," Ding Mao says softly. His quick brain is working overtime, given the way his eyebrows are pinched. "I... I didn't realize that—"

"Yeah, well," Guo Deyou says gruffly. "Just don't let it happen again."

Ding Mao nods solemnly. "Okay," he says. "I'll... try."

That's good enough for Guo Deyou. Good enough for now.

[jingyismom]

Thoughts on Lan Wangji’s uncomfortable position during Sunshot

Rated T, pre-relationship wangxian, cw for harrassment, suggestive language, no other warnings, canon compliant

~

During the Sunshot campaign, Lan Wangji only had the reputation of being peerless and pure before the fighting began. It is entirely possible that this, plus his position and appearance, could have resulted in jumped-up heirs from lesser sects thinking him easy prey.

He came into it late, too, after leading the Wei Wuxian-finding mission with the Jiangs.

Imagine this beautiful young cultivator in spotless white appearing in a city filled with men primed for war.

Worse, imagine the fragile state of Gusu Lan and their dependence on these alliances.

Lan Wangji is politically aware, even though he's not held to the same standard as his brother. And when these men loom out of dark corners spewing lewd remarks and making even lewder requests, he wants to kill them. If the situation were different, they would come away at least maimed.

But he cannot afford to be rash. Not when the Cloud Recesses is not yet rebuilt. And he is in no real danger - if one of them tried to touch him he would feel no qualms taking a hand in recompense. So he...lives with it. For months.

Lan Xichen has other, more important troubles on his mind, there is no need to make him aware. It is just men indulging their baser instincts. It is nothing.

Except. Over time. It begins to wear on him. Its true he's only the second master of Gusu Lan, an ornament, a bargaining chip. A thing. He begins to feel like a thing. And after weeks, then months, of bloody fighting and unceasing, unseemly comments on his body, his face, his mouth - he begins to feel like a dirty one.

One night, Wei Wuxian is walking between tents during the push for Nightless City. He hears gruff voices, liquor-proud, making obscene offers not far away. He tenses and strides over, resentment rising beneath his skin. How dare anybody in this army treat a fellow soldier this way?

He comes around a corner and freezes. Lan Wangji is there, practically glowing in the black of night. Is he already taking care of the problem?

The voices continue to jeer. Lan Wangji doesn't move.

Is he...with them? It can't be possible that Lan Wangji would...hang around...anyone like this.

Wei Wuxian peers closer at him, still hidden in shadow. His face looks. It looks...weird. Wei Wuxian still has trouble reading Lan Wangji, but he knows this is...not his normal face. It's tense. Like he's angry. That, he's seen before, maybe too often. But there is the slightest furrow to his brow.

Like he's torn. Or...helpless. Which is, well. It's ridiculous. Lan Wangji is incapable of helplessness.

Still, the strangeness of it kicks him into action. He comes out into the firelight ready for a fight.

And pauses once more.

There are four men Wei Wuxian doesn't recognize facing Lan Wangji.

Blocking his path. They're saying things...the things they are saying. Are. Are far worse than any of the hushed, private joking Wei Wuxian has been privy to among friends. The things they are saying are forceful. Joyfully violent.

And they're saying them to Lan Wangji.

Lan Wangji's eyes snap to him immediately and go wide, but Wei Wuxian doesn't see it. His vision is bleeding out to tones of red and gray, Chenqing clutched tight in one shaking hand. He points it at the men. They laugh. They don't yet know what he is, what he can do. He's happy to show them.

He raises his flute to his lips, only for a hand to catch his elbow, to drag it back. He shakes it off. He's going to rip these sorry excuses for men into small pieces, and then make their ghosts thank him for it. He's going to--

"Wei Ying."

He looks at Lan Wangji's face, right beside him now. It isn't stern, or reprimanding. It only looks tired.

He stops. Looks back at the men. 

"I was just speaking with Nie-zongzhu right over there," he lies, bringing up the only name he can think might strike fear into these animals. "Shall I go and get him, and let him hear what trash is fighting alongside him in his righteous war?"

The men scowl and leave. He turns to Lan Wangji.

"Lan Zhan," he says, confused and still unsteady with rage. "What was that?"

"Nothing," Lan Wangji says. He lets go of Wei Wuxian's arm and turns to go. Wei Wuxian catches his in turn.

"Nothing? Nothing? Lan Zhan, why did they think...why did they think they could say such things to you?" He knows Lan Wangji could have ended their lives with one strike. "Why were you letting them?"

Lan Wangji does not look at him.

"Because they can," he says. He tries to break away, but Wei Wuxian holds on.

"No," he says firmly. "They can't."

Lan Wangji turns to face him at last. "Why not? They may speak as they please to the second son of a broken clan."

Wei Wuxian bridles. "A broken - Lan Zhan-"

"If Gusu Lan is to recover, it cannot afford animosity from any who might give it aid." His voice is hard and sharp as steel. "Their words are of no consequence. Their coin is a different matter."

"No consequence?" Wei Wuxian asks. "Lan Zhan. They were saying..."

"I know very well what they were saying," Lan Wangji says, and pulls away at last. He leaves Wei Wuxian staring after him in open shock. 

Lan Wangji is mortified. He tells himself he is merely concerned about what he almost witnessed Wei Wuxian do to those men, but in truth is he is shaken. Scared, and tired, and very much ashamed. That Wei Wuxian has witnessed the way mere strangers could reduce Lan Wangji so easily to nothing. For the first time in his life, Lan Wangji feels uncomfortable in his own skin. And now it is as if Wei Wuxian knows. As if he knows that Lan Wangji is just...just a blank canvas for any passing uncouth fantasy. He both is and isn't the Second Jade of Lan - He is not untouchable, not in mind, in spirit. He is neither peerless nor pure. But he is not human, either. Not real in any way that counts.

And now Wei Wuxian, almost the only person that counts, can see it.

They do not speak of it. The war rages on. They fight, side by side, and protect each other.

Wei Wuxian does his best to protect Lan Wangji off the battlefield, too. Tries to make sure he never walks past strange tents alone at night, without being too obvious about it. He knows Lan Wangji wouldn't thank him for it, and their friendship is tenuous as it is. Still, the expression he'd seen on him that night haunts Wei Wuxian. He doesn't want it to make a home on his beloved face.

After Nightless City, though, things change.

Wei Wuxian isn't respected, exactly. But he is feared. When he speaks, cultivators at least pretend to listen. They've seen now what he's capable of.

He hasn't forgotten those men. Hasn't forgotten the lurid, barbaric pictures they dared to paint over Lan Wangji's undeniable impeccability, nor the unforgivably horrible way they'd managed to make Lan Wangji feel.

But there have been other things to take care of.

Until the banquet.

After the battle, after Wen Ruohan has been killed, liquor is bountiful as cultivators and foot soldiers alike make merry, preparing to feast. Jin Guangshan, now that things are over, has opened his purse to the victors, and none of them intend to waste it.

Once Wei Wuxian has recovered, once Lan Wangji has deemed him well enough not to need healing music any longer, they lose track of each other in the busy work of cleaning out the city, of preparing to celebrate a job well done.

But when the night arrives, Wei Wuxian is hurrying back to the Jiang quarters alone to join their contingent and head to the banquet. He's late, partially because he's him, and partially because he does not want to go. But Lan Wangji will be there, and he hasn't seen him in days.

He hears voices down a parallel street. Rough and loud. Familiar.

He turns and is halfway down the connecting alley before consciously deciding to change course. Dozens of voices whisper in his ears of vengeance, of justice, and black smoke licks his skin.

He sees them, lit harshly by the bright moon, washed out, pale and ugly, leering. He doesn't care what they're doing, who they're talking to. They have to pay.

"Wei Ying."

Lan Wangji's face swims into view, suddenly close. He looks nearly wild with concern. Wei Wuxian realizes Chenqing is already pressed to his lips, the first notes of a fierce melody dying on the air. Lan Wangji is gripping his wrist.

"They are not worth your life," he says."

Wei Wuxian opens his mouth to disagree. Lan Wangji's fingers tighten. Wei Wuxian takes a deep breath, and looks away from his steady, grounding eyes.

The men are still there, daring to look at them. Brazen.

"You have nothing better to do than lower the value of this entire street by merely standing on it?" Wei Wuxian calls to them.

They shift uneasily. But one of them lifts his chin, defiant.

"Who are you to discipline us? We're not Jiang or Lan, you can't speak to us this way."

Wei Wuxian angles away from Lan Wangji, faces them fully. Lets the shadows grow longer all around him. Pitches his voice low and calm. "Oh? Can't I?"

Three of them begin to back away, but the mouthy bastard stands firm. "You've no claim on us nor that one. What, is ruining our celebration your idea of fun? He's been acting all high and mighty all the while we've been down in the mud. It's high time he takes a turn on his knees."

Wei Wuxian flinches as if he's been hit. He doesn't look at Lan Wangji. He can't manage it, can't believe he's allowed this to happen again.

"Wei Ying," Lan Wangji pleads beside him. "The banquet. Your shidi and shijie are waiting for you. Lotus Pier needs you."

Wei Wuxian's breaths have gone erratic and shallow. He cannot kill these men. He should not. It would be...there's a reason. Lan Wangji doesn't want him to. He cannot kill them.

But he cannot leave it be, either. Something dark and animal rears up inside him.

"No claim?" He repeats. "What claim could I or my sect have on miserable refuse such as you? What claim could I possibly need in order to teach you a lesson? Cutting your throats would be

counted as a service to the world. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't."

The man crosses his arms. One of his companions is pulling frantically at his shoulder. "Give me one good reason why I can't bend that pretty thing over my knee."

A vicious snarl rips out of Wei Wuxian's throat and he lunges forward, but he's held back. Lan Wangji is holding him back.

"Why are you stopping me?" He bites out at him. "Why aren't you ending them yourself?"

Lan Wangji is angry now, enraged, Wei Wuxian can see. Why is he still letting these men breathe?

"Because my duty to my family comes first. As does yours. Wei Ying, think. Alive, they are nothing. Dead, they are an excuse to deal a killing blow to both our sects."

Wei Wuxian clenches his teeth and rips his arm out of Lan Wangji's grasp. He's right. Wei Wuxian hates that he's right.

The resentment is burning him up from the inside with no outlet. But Lan Wangji is looking at him, holding him steady with just his righteously angry gaze. 

"Well?" Calls the man, who apparently has a deathwish. "I'm waiting."

"For what?" Wei Wuxian bites out, not looking at him. "Leave if you value your life."

"Waiting for you to give me a reason we can't have him. It's just one night. Who's to know? Who's to care?"

It's a ridiculous question. Beyond ridiculous. There is no single reason - the best one is that Lan Wangji would have the perfect excuse to kill them if they did indeed try. But Wei Wuxian is past thinking clearly. He sees only the worn, tired anger in Lan Wangji's eyes. 

The dark, animal thing in his chest strains against his hold, bucking and shaking, trying to get free. Trying to curl around Lan Wangji and protect him from anything that could dream of making him feel so exposed.

"One reason?" Wei Wuxian asks, then turns to look at them again. He lets the resentment free, lets it seep out into the night in curling, questing tendrils. Entirely without thinking, guided by some deep-seated, abhorrent instinct, he wraps his arm around Lan Wangji's waist. "He's mine."

He lets the thick wisps of shadows flick at the cultivators' faces, cold and burning. They claw at their own skin, crying out, and finally, finally, turn and run. The resentment chases them out of the street, and then returns to him, preening.

Once their screams have died out, and the resentment has settled back beneath his skin, Wei Wuxian comes back to himself. With a sickening start he realizes that he is still holding Lan Wangji firmly against his side. He lets go and steps away, heart pounding.

"Sorry," he says. "I'm - sorry."

Lan Wangji is staring at him, expression unreadable. Wei Wuxian cannot believe he's managed to do something so thoughtless, so stupid, so...horrifyingly revealing.

"That was stupid. I didn't mean to...I was just trying to speak a language he'd understand. I'm sorry. You're not - you don't-"

"I understand," Lan Wangji says quietly. His gaze has shifted to Wei Wuxian's shoulder. He looks strangely fragile. Tall, straight, and graceful still, but...

"No," say Wei Wuxian, "no, that was uncalled for. I should have left when you told me to. I'm sorry I made things worse."

The shake of Lan Wangji's head is slight. "No more apologies. I will see you at the banquet."

He leaves then, sword in hand, one arm neatly folded behind his back. Wei Wuxian watches him go, and can't help but feel he's made yet another fatal mistake he can't take back.

He's mine.

Lan Wangji cannot get those words out of his mind. He cannot forget the sound of Wei Wuxian's voice, the certainty in it, the firm, inarguable tone. They echo in his ears almost palpably, an illicit caress that won't let the shiver in his spine die.

He feels the ghosts of Wei Wuxian's fingers on his waist for a week. He finds himself, at random intervals, placing his own hand over them, trying to exert the exact same pressure, to feel - but it is not the same. Not without the warm, hard length of Wei Wuxian's side against him.

The alien mixture of emotions from that moment twist and mix and become ugly parodies of themselves in his dreams. He does not know what he felt, then, anymore. Does not know what he feels now.

The only thing he knows with any confidence is that every time he sees Wei Wuxian thereafter, he aches, and aches.

Aches to simply tell him that he was right. 

[vvienne]

CHENGXIAN FIC RECS

Petals on a Wet Black Bough by DachOsmin

While drinking at a tavern that caters to men that favor men, Jiang Cheng happens upon a masked stranger that looks eerily like his dead brother.

from these nettles, alms by callowyn, zorrosuchil

Jiang Cheng didn’t have a plan for Wei Wuxian coming back into his life, and he realizes now this was a mistake. He’s going to slip up. He’s going to give it all away.

Fate—or at least Jin Ling—is going to make sure of it.

you're the one that I want by verity

They haven't really talked about what's going on between them, except this morning while Jiang Cheng was eating breakfast and Wei Wuxian was lying on the sofa with his arm over his eyes, Wei Wuxian said, "Are you going to be weird about it if I hold your hand in front of our friends?"

Jiang Cheng chewed his youtiao.

"Just let me know," Wei Wuxian said. "It's chill."

Oh, Jiang Cheng knew very well that it was not chill. But he wasn't like Wei Wuxian; he couldn't just do things like that, like it was nothing. Wei Wuxian could name his sword—gleaming now on the rack above his head—Suibian, he could do whatever he wanted. He got all the curses and the blessings of being always inside and outside the Jiangs, and Jiang Cheng got everything else.

"You can hold my hand," Jiang Cheng said after he swallowed, feeling like he'd just walked over a bed of hot coals.

letters from inside the storm by serein

"Jiang Cheng," Wei Wuxian hears himself say, echoing and strange as if from underwater. His hands feel slow and fumbling as he reaches for Jiang Cheng's chest, watching the blood soak through the silk and keep dripping.

______________

A year post-canon, Jiang Cheng takes a blade meant for Wei Wuxian. Things unravel.

family resemblance by ruche

“I am good-looking,” Wei Wuxian cuts in, theatrically pouting. Then he drops the act and gestures at Jiang Cheng’s-- everything, “but in a different way than you, obviously.”

In which Wei Wuxian takes Jiang Cheng to a sex store. They are, as always, so incredibly supportive of each other.

i was put together wrong, still i was made for you by finedae

Wei Wuxian wakes up in Mo Xuanyu's body, and the five slits across his wrist. He also wakes up in a brothel where the Mo family had sent Mo Xuanyu after the embarrassment of harassing Sect Leader Jin Guangyao, his half brother and now Chief Cultivator.

Jiang Cheng pays for a night, looking for a demonic cultivator.

too much, not enough by Shamelesscooper

“Okay, so good news!” Wei Wuxian says, swanning into the room with just enough energetic cheer that Jiang Cheng knows whatever it is he’s going to say is going to be awful. “We figured out the nature of your curse! You’re probably not going to die! It’s not even going to hurt!”

“Yeah? And what’s the bad news?” Jiang Cheng gruffs, crossing his arms over his chest.

Wei Wuxian does a double-take, like he’d expected his (fake) good mood to fool Jiang Cheng. Like it’s ever managed to fool Jiang Cheng. His laugh is a little shrill, a little frenetic as he says, “Well, uh. You know our ghost friend back there? Yeah, she’s possessing you. Which is why...” He makes a gesture at the general area of Jiang Cheng’s... problem.

“Ah,” Jiang Cheng said, expression souring. “I’m not going to like the cure, am I?”

“You’re not going to like the cure,” Wei Wuxian nods.

--

Jiang Cheng gets cursed on a nighthunt. Wei Wuxian helps him with the cure.

Halves by jusrecht

What do you call halves that fit each other in all the wrong ways?

Start a Riot by ohwhatevrewhatevr

“They killed A-Die and A-Niang,” Jiang Cheng says, his sharp but defined muscular frame curling in. He's all lean, purposeful muscle, nude and bruised.

“Wei Wuxian -” Jiang Cheng grits out in a dangerous, furious rasp - there’s a slight tremor to it still. He still isn’t looking at Wei Ying, just lying there limp, his face to his side, showing his profile and those sharp cheekbones. “Where the hell did you go? Where did you go that was worth leaving me behind ?”

“I-”

“And why won’t you tell me? Why won’t you-”

TL;DR Jiang Cheng goes into heat, they fuck, and hormones make them spill some of the beans before they go spill some Wen blood. (no romance happens :/, just sex)

like you’ve never known fear by tsunderestorm

He doesn’t want to take it slow, because Wei Wuxian doesn’t want things slow. Wei Wuxian wants passion and skill and things Jiang Cheng doesn’t have, he just has anger and inferiority and a head full of fucking thoughts that won’t stop running around and bumping into one another when he’s trying to focus on this.

翻云覆雨 // in clouds and rainfall by oh_fudgecakes

A night hunt goes wrong when the group encounters a Qiongqi. While protecting his nephew, Jiang Cheng is hit with poison by the beast. They don’t have time to research an antidote, but prolonged dual cultivation with another cultivator will neutralize the poison...

When he’s chosen for the job, Wei Wuxian is surprised, and determined to give his shidi a good time. Alternatively: In Which Yunmeng Recon Happens While Wei Wuxian is Balls Deep In Jiang Cheng.

oh my god they were (step)brothers by serein

"Really, boys?" Yanli sighs. "Right in front of my salad?"

________________________

chengxian and step-brothers porn tropes: a montage.

baby it's a black hole by villainousfriend (katzenfabrik)

"What's wrong, Jiang Cheng?" he asks suddenly, looking up from his bowl.

Jiang Cheng just meets his gaze, not even lifting an arm to convey, Where do you want me to start?

"You've been... staring at me, this whole evening, shidi," Wei Wuxian adds, more slowly. The colour in his cheeks didn't fade after the bath, and now, with the food and candles, the room's got stuffy and he's even pinker than before. It should look healthy but it only highlights the shadows under his eyes, so deep they look like grooves in the skin.

"No, I haven't," he says automatically, and shoves a meatball in his mouth.

Jiang Cheng meets up with Wei Wuxian after Baoshan Sanren restores his golden core, just as they planned. After this, surely things are going to go right, right?

don't you worry honey, 'cause i can't say no by Runespoor

Wei Wuxian tests a talisman and hopes Jiang Cheng doesn’t make it weird.

hungry little fool by serein

Despite the easy warmth of the picture, Jiang Cheng immediately pegs something as wrong.

Wei Wuxian's looking at his slim forearms, held aloft in the air, with that look on his face like his unease is lapping at the edges, threatening to escape.

Like the tide is rising too high, and it's threatening to wash Wei Wuxian away.

[soft chengxian post-canon ft learning to love your new body]

lotus bridge by Sectionladvivi

Wei WuXian comes to visit Jiang Cheng's shitty apartment and they wax nostalgic about when they used to whack off to porn together as teens.

for a moment (i forget to worry) by everyearning (noctiphany)

He wants to fuck him, of course he does. But this is good. It’s almost too good. Wei Wuxian is afraid of things that feel too good now, too scared that he’ll wake up and it will all have been a dream. But he thinks as long as he can keep them like this, right on the precipice, maybe he won’t have to find out. Maybe this won’t get stolen from him like so many other good things.

smoke by serein

"You do piss me off," Jiang Cheng replied automatically, ignoring Wei Wuxian's faux-sad swoon. Jiang Cheng scowled. "If I'm such an oblivious idiot, why didn't you say something?"

Wei Wuxian huffed. "Well they're very confusing feelings to explain, Jiang Cheng. I want to kill anyone who thinks they can hurt you, but I also want to fuck you until you cry." Oh. Jiang Cheng's stomach fluttered in mixed interest and trepidation.

Canon divergent AU chengxian ft. Jiang Cheng's not so subtle danger kink and Wei Wuxian being a jealous, dangerous gremlin.

when everything soft abrades you by tsunderestorm

Jiang Cheng had said “no” when Wei Wuxian had first asked him to wear lacy panties and a bra when they fucked. He doesn’t feel bad about that, either - after all, it hadn’t even been a serious request, more rather one of Wei Wuxian’s off-hand, teasing remarks. They come off as jokes - at least, he means for them to - but Jiang Cheng knows from experience that they are backed one hundred and ten percent by Wei Wuxian’s modus operandi of “haha, unless it you’re into it though”.

Turns out Jiang Cheng is into it, too.

weaving figure eights and circles by vrooom

“Wait hold on. Jiang Cheng?” The voice is no longer sultry. It’s matter of fact, incredulous, and horrifyingly familiar in a way that makes Jiang Cheng’s insides shrivel up and crumble into dust.

“Wei Wuxian?” Jiang Cheng says, holding the phone as far away from his ear as possible. He glares at the phone like it personally betrayed him. “What the fuck are you doing on my phone sex line?”

can’t train a moth by Runespoor

"Hey. You alright?"

"My boyfriend wants to put nudes of me after sex on Grindr. Take a wild guess."

Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng attempt communication and a new kink.

clothes make the man by verity

Jiang Cheng requires a new suit. Wei Wuxian removes it.

[delicioussshame]

In the never ending series of “things that aren’t wips because I can’t, I have to finish something before starting something else”, have this thing I posted as a wip before, featuring a version of PIDW where LBH collected his harem... differently, with guest star NYY.

Luo Binghe immediately recognises the man dressed in cultivator garb as Yingying’s shizun.

Beautiful and serene, she said. The perfect image of an untouchable immortal, dressed in white and pale greens. Always holding a fan of exquisite manufacture.

But more than her vivid descriptions of her shizun’s loveliness, he remembers what she said next.

She’d been lying on her side, her long cascading hair not managing to hide her luscious curves.

Luo Binghe had known she wouldn’t be ready for another round just yet, and so had been pleased to listen to her lighthearted pillow talk.

Today’s topic had been her exasperation with her shizun’s lack of sex life.

“Sometimes I can’t believe how obtuse he is. Liu-shishu has been courting him for years, and I don’t think he ever noticed. And don’t get me started on the sect master! All Shizun would have to do is bat his eyelashes and the sect master would drop everything to worship him! But no, he never takes him on it. For a while I thought maybe Shizun just preferred women, but more than one female disciple has tried her hand at him, all to no avail.”

Luo Binghe could imagine the type. Cultivators could be lofty. They think they’re above the needs of the flesh.

He always enjoys teaching them how wrong they are.

If the demonic part of his heritage revels in desecrating those pompous righteous cultivators, no one else could tell. Luo Binghe was too good at his chosen hobby to let his personal feelings interfere.

“I love and respect Shizun more than anyone. Without him, I would never have become the kind of cultivator who can afford A-Luo’s company. So I am motivated by filial piety and nothing else when I say that I have never met anyone who needs to get laid more than Shen Qingqiu.”

Luo Binghe had laughed. “Oh? Is Yingying going to replace me with her old teacher?”

Her scandalised look had sent him into another bout of laughter. “A-Luo! I would never!”

“Then why is she telling me this? Does she want me to take care of him?”

Ning Yingying had stared at him, a glint in her eyes. Luo Binghe could see the plans form in her head as she spoke. “Actually, that wouldn’t be a bad idea. It would do wonders for Shizun, and I know A-Luo loves breaking people like him.”

Luo Binghe had blinked, inwardly caught off-guard. He wasn’t blind. He knew Ning Yingying was a lot more observant than she appeared. It wasn’t the first time she had made that kind of comment. “Yingying knows me so well. Should I be worried?”

She had swapped at him. He could have easily evaded the blow, but he didn’t bother. “A-Luo doesn’t have anything to fear from me. But honestly, if I sent Shizun your way, would you take care of him? I really think he could benefit from it. And Shizun is very beautiful! Many will definitely be jealous if they ever find out.”

Luo Binghe had nothing against the idea of taking a peak lord to bed. He bet Xin Mo would love to feed on such high-quality cultivation. “I would be honored to entertain your teacher.”

He could tell from the way she had brightened he was about to be thoroughly thanked.

She had paid him too, both for herself and for her shizun’s future visit. Generously enough that Luo Binghe had wondered if he should praise her filial piety to her shizun.

She didn’t lie either. Shen Qingqiu really is exquisite.

Not as handsome as Luo Binghe himself, but nobody is. “You must be Shen Qingqiu.”

“Luo Binghe, I presume.” Luo Binghe cannot quite decipher the look he’s being given, which is rare enough to catch his attention. He’s pretty certain there’s some attraction there, but the rest? Trepidation? Outright fear? Disdain? Excitement?

He’s sure he’s going to find out. He gestures for Shen Qingqiu to sit down as he moves to prepare tea. He could have one of his servants handle it, but Luo Binghe has always preferred taking care of things himself. That personal touch has seduced more than one client, if they didn’t visit him only for his food.

Shen Qingqiu drinks the offered tea in silence before he starts talking. “If you would please tell me your fee, I will be refunding Ning Yingying a corresponding amount. I am sorry for wasting your time, but I have no interest in procuring your services.”

Ooh, that’s cute. If Luo Binghe wasn’t an expert at perceiving the signs of physical attraction, he might even believe him. Shen Qingqiu is interested, he’s sure of it. He’s just a prude, like Yingying said. “Yingying won’t accept it. Why refuse her most thoughtful gift?”

“My disciple should put her money to better uses.”

“I assure you, employing me is money well spent. You could find that out yourself.”

Luo Binghe bites back his amusement as the man stumbles, obviously embarrassed. “I didn’t mean to imply you weren’t… a credit to your profession. Please don’t take it personally. As I said, I have no interest in finding out myself.”

“But how will it look if you were to leave without finding out? My reputation will be hurt.”

“How could something this insignificant hurt the reputation of such a famous courtesan?”

Luo Binghe grins. “So even renowned cultivators have heard of me? Nothing bad, I hope?” And where did an isolated scholar like him caught wind of such lowbrow rumours, huh?

The sigh he’s answered with does not cloak a hint of amusement. “How many of the sect’s disciples have you seduced? You even managed to steal away Liu-shidi’s little sister, whose beauty and virtu are known across the land. Of course I have heard of you. More than I would have liked, if I am allowed to be honest.”

Ah. He should probably have expected that. Cang Qiong is full of eager young men and women. Apparently, Shen Qingqiu isn’t such a recluse that gossip doesn’t reach him. “I see. Still, you must have heard good things, or you wouldn’t have come into my parlour.”

Red is a good look on the man. Luo Binghe feels the first stirrings of desire rise into him. He just knows Shen Qingqiu would be stunning, lying despoiled on those formerly pristine robes, trying to discover what he’s begging for more of.

Not to mention he can almost hear Xin Mo purr. What a feast Shen Qingqiu will be.

Time to press on.

Luo Binghe reaches for the now empty cup of tea he’s certain Shen Qingqiu drained without tasting, making sure to caress the fingers still holding it with a touch just light enough to possibly be accidental, if one were very dumb or very blind. “Let me serve you again,” he says as he pours more tea with deliberate grace.

Instead, Shen Qingqiu rises from the table. “Don’t bother! I am obviously wasting your valuable time. If you won’t share with me how much Ning Yingying paid you, I will compensate her otherwise.”

Like Luo Binghe is letting him leave like this. “Would you have me waste the tea already prepared?”

“Drink it yourself! Surely it’s nothing compared to your usual breaches of propriety.”

Damn it. Luo Binghe miscalculated. Shen Qingqiu is too spooked to be open to further advances. Really, what a prude, to be so destabilised by a simple brush of hands.

If he can take a step back and defuse the tension enough for him not to leave… “You seem in such a hurry. Do you think I force myself on my visitors? I’m hurt.” As if he ever needed to use force to have someone.

Well, never without their consent, at least.

Shen Qingqiu doesn’t seem like he’d be into that, but then again, people can surprise you.

“I’m not scared! I just have no reason to be here any longer. Thank you for your time. I’ll be leaving my student in your care.” For a moment, there’s a glower in his eyes that Luo Binghe wouldn’t mind seeing more of. “Be good to her, or my next visit will be far less pleasant.”

Aww. Shen Qingqiu cares! How cute. “So I have to get a bit rough if I want to see you again?”

His outraged face almost makes him laugh. “Don’t you dare!”

“Or are you looking for an excuse for our paths to cross again? I assure you it’s unnecessary. I’d welcome you anytime.”

“I will keep that in mind,” says Shen Qingqiu absentmindedly, already crossing the door.

Luo Binghe lets him leave. Obviously, this will be going nowhere today.

Really, he’s offended. He cannot remember someone rejecting him so blatantly, ever. Worse, Xin Mo will be cranky. A treat was dangled in its metaphorical face, and then was cruelly taken away before it could have a taste.

He can’t let this humiliation stand.

He won’t have to. The delicate fan Shen Qingqiu came with, red spider lilies on a stark white background, is still on the table, forgotten in his haste to leave.

Luo Binghe’s customer service is impeccable. He’ll be returning the abandoned item himself.

It’s not like finding the peak lord of Qing Jing will be a challenge.

[lizhly-writes]

#Oh this is all soooo intriguing#I wanna *grabby hands*#But#If I *have* to choose#In honor of sqh my beloved failing upwards except for the decades or so he's failing both upwards and downwards at the same time#I do wanna see how No. 5 goes

@mytoomanybookstoread yo.

> scenario has been selected.

> loading scenario: "trial run of an impossible story"...

so it's like this. a disciple who should not be there cheats disciple A, disciple A begs a favor from disciple B, disciple B uses disciple A as a pawn against disciple C, disciple C seeks aid from hallmaster D, and this butterfly effect continues on and on until, somehow, we're left with an ding peak lord wrangling a deal from bai zhan peak lord, leading to a joint mission: an ding caravan is accompanied by an escort of bai zhan cultivators.

you: are liu qingge. or, well, you're not liu qingge yet. you're not head disciple, so you've got some other name.

whoever you are, you're having a shitty time.

you are the youngest and best fighter in your cohort of bai zhan disciples, which is great in theory, because it makes you the best candidate for head disciple, but also means that your shixiongs don't really like you. your shixiongs do their best to make your life hell. being on a mission won't stop them; your shixiongs would love if you fuck up. you suspect vaguely that your shixiongs will make you fuck up.

obviously the reasonable thing to do here is to beat them up, except you can't actually do that without ruining the point of sending multiple bai zhan disciples on this mission to begin with. your next option is to stay away from them, except staying away from them means staying away from the an ding disciples, ruining the point of sending you on this mission. this then leaves you with dubious option three: sticking very closely to the an ding disciples, which doesn't really get you away from your shixiongs, but if you're that close, there's only so much they can do to you without hitting the an ding disciples as well.

this is not a great deterrent, but it's better than you being an easy target all by yourself, so you follow the an ding disciples and stick by the only one you can reliably remember. it's easy, you just have to look for the person with the lightest shade of hair in the crowd. you don't actually remember his name or face, but you don't remember anybody's name or face, so this is situation normal.

you: are shang qinghua. or you will be, at any rate. it's not like you have any other choice. your path has always been "become shang qinghua or die trying".

you're stuck with liu-fucking-qingge.

like you weren't certain at first??? it's not like liu qingge is this guy's name right now! but that beautiful face! that artfully-sculpted expression! that aura that says he'll beat down a hundred men without trying! if this was any random npc, you'll eat your own hat! you might do it anyway, because an ding rations for outer disciples are shit, but still!

you don't know what he wants from you! he must want something, because he's looming ominously over you -- consistently looming ominously over you, instead of occasionally looming over any of your shidis or shixiongs -- but what is it? it's a total mystery! maybe he wants to beat you up? but this is liu qingge, right? righteous and honorable and not into beating up random an ding disciples, unless maybe they can give him an epic fight, which, haha, you definitely can't. you're pretty sure he can tell you can't.

well, either way, all of this ominous looming is real fucking awkward. like there's so much ominous looming before you can take before it stops being ominous and starts being just weirdly quiet. so you talk. not about anything in particular, just something to fill this weird empty space of non-interaction. when it comes to making an impression of yourself, you can only sometimes hit likable, but you can, 100%, do annoying, no problem!

this has the predictable effect of making his brows furrow, but you're starting to think you're actually only sometimes hitting annoying with this guy, because he's not backing off. are you actually entertaining him right now? not that you're surprised, sometimes you're very entertaining! but. hmmm. people don't normally listen to you this long. your family certainly never did. what's up with this liu qingge..?

you: are liu qingge. in a normal situation, you probably would have stopped listening and walked off by now. you have better things to do than listen to some an ding disciple ramble, like training. but you are bound to this mission and the fact that your shixiongs are circling around you, and you're not so thin-skinned that you can't handle one conversation where your conversation partner isn't even insulting you, so. you stay.

unknown an ding cultivator is twitchy and nervous and you're pretty sure he doesn't like you, but he doesn't seem to have a great opinion of bai zhan either, because he then manages to work up an insulting rant about one or two of your shixiongs. he doesn't know their names -- not that this would help you, because you don't know their names either -- but he's descriptive enough that you're almost certain you know exactly who he's talking about.

which is pretty great, actually, because yes, you absolutely did want to know about how bai zhan shixiong 3 had been so busy insulting him that unknown an ding disciple hadn't been able to get in a word edgewise, like "look out, shixiong! that giant vat of medical grade lube is about to spill on you!"

you remember shixiong 3. you hate shixiong 3.

this an ding disciple isn't too bad.

you: are shang qinghua. you have somehow found the cheat codes of navigating a conversation with liu qingge, which is telling unflattering stories about other bai zhan disciples, which you didn't really expect, but hey! everybody's got to hate somebody! so you keep talking, and not-yet liu qingge actually cracks a smile at you. it's unnecessarily beautiful. why did you make this side character so beautiful. it's going to be so sad when he dies.

whatever!! not your problem!! that's a problem for the future! right now, things are going great!

unless.

you: are mobei-jun. if you survive long enough to earn -jun, haha! ah, your odds of this aren't very good, you know?

you are severely injured. how did you get that way? it doesn't matter, it only matters that you are, and there's only so much of your power that you can muster before unconsciousness will claim you.

there is a caravan of cultivators coming your way.

if you had been at full strength, there would be no reason to worry about them. they would fall before your feet with little effort. but you are not at full strength; you don't even have the energy to perform the indignity of running away.

you cannot run. you cannot hide.

the only option you have is to fight. kill them all -- they're all threats to you until they're dead. a full caravan has you severely outnumbered, but if you are quick enough and brutal enough, you may succeed.

if you had only been facing an ding, it is almost a certainty you will succeed. an ding is not known for martial prowess. but you are not facing only an ding. there is an escort of bai zhan cultivators here, for the sole purpose of making sure their fellow sectmates are safe.

can you make it out of this alive?

> branch-off point has appeared.

> calculating... please wait...

#I'd be soooo down to see more svsss rarepairs #I've enjoyed what few sqh/mbj/lqg fics there are

@mytoomanybookstoread! hi! welcome to round 1 of 'liz gets totally sidetracked and sinks into something entirely different from what she should be writing!' congratulations, you've triggered a random encounter! you throw something at me, and i throw you poorly thought out plot points!

so my first thought was that i would like to have lqg and sqh meet mbj at the exact same time. i originally thought that when sqh travels along with his fellow an ding disciples in that trade caravan, there are also a couple bai zhan disciples there to escort them.

and then i thought, oh, this is a terrible idea, because lqg and his unnamed upperclassmen/underclassmen are just going to slaughter the shit out of an injured and disadvantaged mbj. goodbye, chances of lqg/mbj/sqh.

well, we are now at a branching point. you might as well pick one of these, huh?

1. this is an impossible story. let's not even try. reroll for a better set of starting circumstances?

2. success! (persuasion check passed!)

3. success! (persuasion check failed! deception check passed!)

4. failure (all checks failed. this is an impossible story. dead end.)

5. ...failure? (all checks failed. but... are you sure this is an impossible story?)

[farmerlan]

A guide to commonly used honorifics in 魔道祖师/The Untamed

OK - so, I’ve actually seen some confusion floating around on specific honorifics commonly used in 魔道祖师 and I figured I will put a post up to address some of this - especially the situations when they get used. Hopefully it’ll be helpful for fic writers or whoever else out there that’s getting turned around by the various translations.

As with most of Chinese vernacular, there’s a TON of similar, but different situations in which it may be permissible to use certain titles/honorifics, so bear in mind this is not an exhaustive guide. Also, I don’t have a PhD in Chinese honorifics or anything, I’m just a Chinese person that watches/reads a fair amount of historical dramas. So if I missed anything/if there was anything that was kind of unclear in the novel or drama, feel free to let me know!

公子 / gongzi/ master

Let’s start with the hardest so I can get this out of the way. You will see this translated in a variety of different ways - master, young master, sir...and they are all correct! Congratulations, you’ve hit the jackpot - depending on the situation, gongzi can be a whole hodgepodge of things.

Master: The most commonly used version in MDZS. This is a separate meaning of master from some of the honorifics discussed below - it is specifically used to address either:

Your literal master if you are a servant in the household

A somebody from a distinguished household in a polite way

General honorific: Gongzi can also be used between strangers/acquaintances as a respectful term. Gongzi is, in some ways, an indicator of respect of the other person’s status. So oftentimes you’ll find two young masters from different sects referring to each other as gongzi politely, but you wouldn’t find two beggars on the street calling each other that. and it’s usually used to address someone younger or a similar age as you. If you‘re talking to someone who is clearly your senior, use 前辈 or 先生.

Because it has the connotation of youth and aristocracy associated with it, oftentimes innkeepers/sellers may use gongzi to address male customers  (particularly youthful men) because it’s a bit more flattering. Kind of like how the modern day shopkeeper calls you ‘美女’ (beauty) or even ‘亲爱的’（my dear - IDK when this started becoming a thing but if you do any online shopping on Taobao you know what I’m talking about) in China. They don’t actually think you’re beautiful/feel affection for you, it’s just a way of addressing the customer to make you feel good about yourself HA. It’s nice to be called gongzi even if you’re not actually a noble.

There’s variants of this - 小公子/ xiaogongzi is typically young master, although I think some translations just directly use the young master for gongzi. It can also mean the younger master if there is an older sibling in question here (e.g. Wen Chao was referred to as 温小公子 as he was the younger son), although you can also use 二公子 （second master), as many do when referring to Lan Wangji. It sounds a little less juvenile.

This term is used for guys - I would say the female equivalent could be 千金/ qianjin or 小姐 /xiaojie.

宗主 / zongzhu/ sect leader

This can only refer to the sect leader - it is a title, and it is passed down. There is typically only one sect leader at any one time, and his eldest male heir will be the successive leader of the sect. I’m going to take this chance to clear up some misconceptions:

Unless Lan Xichen bears no male heirs before his death, Lan Wangji will not succeed him. Lan Sizhui, given that he is not a Lan by birth, will likely never be the Lan sect leader. Yes yes, we all know he’s the adoptive son, but adoptive means literally nothing in the progenical world of Chinese history. Plus, he’s not even the adoptive son of Lan Xichen, so he is a long, long way down from ever being sect leader unless he forms his own, which he would likely never because that’s kind of like betraying your family.

On that same topic, Nie Huaisang succeeded Nie Mingjue because Nie Mingjue died without an heir and Nie Huaisang was the closest blood relative.

For the Jin sect, the succession would have been Jin Guangshan -> Jin Zixuan -> Jin Ling. (y’all I wrote here that it was Jin Zixun first in line but I totally blanked that he was actually a cousin and NOT the son of JGS so ignore that LOL) Since Jin Zixuan died, it became Jin Guangyao - Jin Ling is next in line as he is of the next generation and too young at that time to rule. Honestly, if Jin Ling was older at the time of Jin Zixuan’s death and if this was a Chinese historical palace drama, there would probably be some serious internal political intrigue going on as Jin Guangyao’s claim over the seat would arguably be weaker than Jin Ling’s since he is illegitimate.

For the Jiang sect, Jiang Cheng is the heir even though Jiang Yanli is older because he is male. The question of who will inherit his seat (a very valid question given his luck with dating, although I am sure someone somewhere will eventually warm the prickly cockles of his heart) remains open. IMO there is a less than zero chance that Jin Ling succeeds him unless Jiang Cheng specifically demands for it, but he likely wouldn’t because he is all about decorum and also it would put Jin Ling in an incredibly difficult situation, which is the last thing he would want for his nephew. If he doesn’t end up producing heirs, the seat will likely go to whomever he names as successor, even if non-blood related - maybe the current head disciple.

With that said, although there were generally established rules for succession, actual Chinese history (like all of history) often played out very differently (e.g. Emperor Kangxi stripped crown prince Yinreng of his right to succeed and appointed Yinzhen (Yongzheng), who was the fourth surviving prince, as his successor) so really, even if you were to base sect succession off imperial succession traditions, you could still make the argument that anything goes as long as you have the right people in your corner. HA.

老祖/ laozu/ grandmaster/forefather

I mean, I think grandmaster is probably a fair translation of laozu, which, to be honest, is a harder honorific to translate. It’s definitely influenced by Taoism and not very common at all, but it’s likely derived from Hongjun Laozu (鸿钧老祖), who was a deity and teacher. It does NOT only stand for a senior teacher/master however, because 祖 itself has ancestral connotations, so I think I would personally translate this as forefather. IMO, it’s really only fair to use this on Wei Wuxian and/or originators of a certain branch of study in the MDZS universe - I would consider laozu as the term of respect afforded to people who were pioneers in their fields/sects.

In that sense, Lan Qiren is NOT the grandmaster of the Lan sect. He is an elder - a very respected elder that was basically interim sect leader, but in terms of official title, technically, Lan Xichen could pull rank on him, but he likely wouldn’t unless pressed to because he is also Lan Xichen’s elder.

前辈 / qianbei/ senior/elder

This is kind of an in-between term to politely refer to someone who is your senior, but with whom you really have no formal affiliation with. Unlike 先生, it’s also unisex. A related term is 长辈 /zhangbei, but that is used for people whom you have familial/closer ties with - like an uncle, or someone within your own sect.

师父/师尊/ shifu/shizun / master

Your teacher/master, but not in the servant-master context. Someone who mentors you for years - in the xianxia/wuxia culture, this is a pretty special term because most disciples will only ever belong to one sect and will only ever have one master, and everyone else is a qianbei. The disciple has to ‘拜师’ (to formally request this relationship) and the master also has to ‘收徒’ (to formally accept disciples). So a lot of people went to Yiling in an attempt to 拜师, but Wei Wuxian never did 收徒.

In the wuxia/xianxia context, shifu is technically unisex even though 父 in itself is a male-centric term, although female masters might be more commonly referred to by the gender-neutral shizun instead.

Now that I think about it, shifu doesn’t actually appear in MDZS. Lan Wangji calls Lan Qiren 叔父 /shufu, which is completely different. It means uncle (father’s younger brother, to be exact lol), since that is their relationship.

老头/ laotou/ old man

Wei Wuxian uses this to address Lan Qiren behind his back. It literally just means old man, haha. It’s informal but not a term you would use to refer to someone who is close to you/whom you like, but not exactly a term that is insulting or derogatory, although in Lan Qiren’s case, it is irreverent because it is ill-fitting for the relationship that Wei Wuxian and Lan Qiren have. Meant to be used on men, usually for women it would be 老婆婆/ laopopo (NOT THE SAME as 老婆/ laopo, which means wife. Welcome to the weird wonderful world of the Chinese language!)

师弟/哥/兄/姐/妹/ shi di/ge/xiong/jie/mei/ younger brother/ older brother/ another variant of older brother/ older sister/ younger sister

NOT TO BE USED FOR YOUR ACTUAL FAMILY. This is in the context of the sect only. Your fellow disciples, but with varying levels of seniority. Familial honorifics are a whole different thing.

In the context of the sect, who you call your shidi/ge etc. is usually NOT based on age - it is based on someone’s seniority within the sect. If you have been in the sect/under your master’s tutelage for longer, you are the senior, even if you are younger in age.

With that, I think the novel states that both Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng are similar in age, so it is actually incredibly hard to determine if the author deliberately went against this convention and Wei Wuxian calls Jiang Cheng shidi because he is genuinely younger than Wei Wuxian, or if it is simply because Wei Wuxian is the head disciple of the sect (and therefore, technically, everyone is his shidi). I actually think it might be the former because he refers to Jiang Yanli as shijie, although now that I think about it, it might be the latter...as a reflection of the level of admiration Wei Wuxian has for Jiang Yanli WOAH.

(Fun fact: there’s a scene in the novel in Yi city where Wei Wuxian was silently weirded out that Xiao Xingchen referred to him as ‘qianbei’ - because Xiao Xingchen is his mother’s shidi, which makes him Wei Wuxian’s senior, but then he quickly realizes it’s because he’s talking to Xue Yang and not Xiao Xingchen.)

先生 /xiansheng/ mister/sir/teacher

In present day, this is literally the most vanilla term you can use to politely address a guy. Can be a stranger, or an acquaintance you want to politely address. Usually older than you, although if you’re both similar in age and you’re not really familiar with each other, you might still use it just to err on the side of caution. In xianxia/ancient China, this is usually used more like ‘teacher/sir’ to address an elder. It’s more scholastic in its implication and less generic than qianbei.

In the Lan sect, by crowd definition, 先生 refers to Lan Qiren unless otherwise stated, which makes sense and shows the amount of respect he is afforded in the sect.

夫人 / furen/ wife/madam

A term of respect for typically older women, or can also be used to refer to one’s wife.

Lastly, let me just add that this is just something that’s meant to be helpful for people as they work through the series - at the end of the day, it’s all fictional/xianxia itself as a genre is fantasy so if you need to subvert any one of the generally held succession traditions or whatnot in order to make your fic work, go!!! Do it!!!

[chalkrevelations]

So, Word of Honor Ep 23, and LISTEN. This is going to be another long one. We are in it, now.

(Clearly, spoilers, so if you’re thinking you might want to start watching and don’t want to know everything up front, scroll away and come back after you watch the ep.)

Look, I’m just gonna talk about this first because I can’t even process anything else, or function, until I get this out of the way: I came for the bl and the pretty boys, but at this point, I have to reiterate what I said after Ep 22, that I am so grateful Zhou Ye got her fingers into Gu Xiang and absolutely refused to let go of this role, through everything. She’s going on my actors-to-follow list, and I’ll also be following scriptwriter Xiao Chu into whatever she writes from now on. A little bit, I’ve come out of Ep 23 thinking, did anything else even happen, other than That Scene with A-Xiang and Wen Kexing? (Oh, yeah, That Other Scene with Wen Kexing and Cao Weining about Gu Xiang.) The show is going to have to work to top That Scene for me. The first time watching, I couldn’t even really focus on how the Gu Xiang/Cao Weining and Wen Kexing/Zhou Zishu relationships continue to reflect each other and how everything A-Xiang expresses during this conversation is exactly what Wen Kexing feels/fears about himself but cannot say out loud. All of that was there, and I mentally picked through it and unpacked it some more on a re-watch of the scene, but the first time through, I was too busy being legit distressed about Gu Xiang’s fear and pain and how desperately she wants this new thing and how afraid she is, not only of fucking it up or having it fucked up for her, but of getting it. Last night at dinner I compared this storyline to a kind of reverse Persephone story, where she’s being pulled by her lover OUT of the land of death, but is nevertheless having to leave behind everything and everyone she knows and is familiar with, including her beloved brother/parent figure. And all this after being told for essentially her whole life that what she’s doing is forbidden and unworkable, that the human world and the world of Ghost Valley do not mix. (We just saw Wen Kexing have his own little mental stall over this, just so the show can make sure we don’t forget.) And Gu Xiang is so unprepared for all of this and so terrified by it, despite the fact she wants it so badly, that she literally cannot do anything - this shining, clever, fierce girl who will stab you if you look at her the wrong way because she’s been taught to survive above all else - she can’t do anything other than sit down with her arms wrapped around her knees pulled to her chest so that she’s the smallest target possible, protecting all the tenderest, most vulnerable places, and weep. Y’all, it is killing me even thinking about it. I might have to take a minute.

So, then they come at me with the second hit of the one-two punch, which is the scene between Wen Kexing and Cao Weining, where Wen Kexing talks about how this little girl not only saved him, but he calls her meimei, and at that point, I’m done. I’m just. There’s nothing else I need right now from this show. I realize this is supposed to be a story about Wen Kexing and Zhou Zishu, and up until now, my ride-or-die has been Zhou Zishu, but whatever. Fine. I WANT TO LIVE HERE AT LI MANOR FOREVER, SHOW, WHY MUST A-XIANG AND CAO-XIONG GO BACK TO HIS SECT? Listen, I think it is a far, far better idea if Cao Weining marries in to Four Seasons Manor, and Gu Xiang’s paternal figure is the ... lol, I almost just called him the Ghost General ... he is who he is, so frankly, I don’t know why he should be so concerned about following social conventions, like having daughters of the house marry out. (I know you think you’re protecting her, Lao Wen, but YOU ARE BREAKING UP THE FAMILY. I need them to stay with the rest of you forever. I need Zhou Zishu to continue to call A-Xiang a “good girl,” because I suspect that hasn’t happened very often in her life, and she needs more of it.) Then, as a last kick in the ribs, once I’m down, the show has WKX tell A-Xiang that she’s not a wild girl because she’s his girl. Thanks, show, I didn’t need my heart for anything like pumping blood to oxygenate my brain or any of my body parts. It’s OK. I can do without it.

Anyway, going back and looking at multiple story-telling levels of all this, there’s the additional issue that during That Scene, A-Xiang is also a proxy for Wen Kexing, saying things that he can’t. (For emotional and psychological reasons within the show, and for practical reasons because they probably wouldn’t pass censorship.) Maybe some things that he can’t even let himself think, at this point. So every time, from here on out, when Zhou Zishu asks Wen Kexing about his past and Wen Kexing momentarily freezes with that trapped look on his face, we can think back to this conversation with A-Xiang and realize that Wen Kexing is terrified by his relationship with Zhou Zishu, despite how desperately he wants this new thing. He is so afraid of fucking it up, but he’s also so afraid of getting it, and he’s so unprepared for it that he literally cannot do anything - this fierce survivor, this ghost king, who will crawl over corpses and skin a guy alive and kill you if you look at him the wrong way because almost (almost) all he’s known is to survive above all else - he cannot do anything except mentally and emotionally curl up so that he’s the smallest target possible, protecting all the tenderest, most vulnerable places. So thanks, show, for what promises to be a repeated exercise of stabbing me in the heart.

Just a little bit more about these scenes: I also think we’re getting at least one, maybe two other foils in the story-telling, which are more about the Wen Kexing-Gu Xiang relationship. Maybe less supported but nevertheless intriguing, I have to wonder if, when he took on that little girl despite (or maybe because of) still being essentially a child himself, Wen Kexing was trying to re-create - even subconsciously - something of the shixiong-shidi relationship he experienced for that brief time with Zhou Zishu as a child. Yes, she saved him by making him keep his heart, because he had this actual nurturing relationship to at least try to model their relationship on. I also think that we’re maybe supposed to be seeing them as a foil to Xie Wang and his AWFUL yifu, who appears to have taken on a kid and turned him into a murder weapon not in any effort to help him survive, but to use him as a tool in his quest for power. Both Wen Kexing and Zhao Jing have produced Poorly Socialized Murder Babies Who Love Them Very Much, but I think Wen Kexing actually had his kid’s best interests at heart, as he understood them, and tried to do the best he could with the extremely broken tool box he had to hand. Also, he loves her back. All that doesn’t mean she’s not fucked up or necessarily any better prepared for the “human” world than Xie Wang, but it may have made the difference between an amoral murder baby who can learn better and an actual sociopath.

In other comparisons, that first convo of the ep between Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing - when ZZS says that he doesn’t want to see more sins on WKX’s hands - is essentially the same convo that Cao Weining had with Gu Xiang in the previous ep, when he tells her that he wants her to be more careful because he knows she actually will feel bad for killing innocent people. This is the same conversation because these two relationships are the same relationship. (Note, I don’t think they started out like this, or that their beginnings were all that similar. Cao Weining was much more of a pursuer and initiator than Zhou Zishu was, in the beginning. But I think the courses of the two relationships have converged, at this point, with Cao Weining and Zhou Zishu knowing what they want and being all in, while Gu Xiang and Wen Kexing also want it but are too fucking scared of it for practically the same reasons.)

Meanwhile, speaking of Xie Wang - what are you up to Xie’er? Do you want the Water of Lethe so you can drink it and get over your awful yifu? Are you finally at the point that you’re doing some critical thinking about this relationship? Or do you want the Water of Lethe so you can slip it to your awful yifu, so that he’ll forget about his obsessions with power that prevent him from focusing on YOU? You call Beauty Ghost an idiot, but I think you may be empathizing (though not sympathizing) a bit much with the women of the Department of the Unfaithful.

Finally, that brief little moment of Zhou Zishu’s face when Wen Kexing spits out his wine after stealing it from him ... Oh, god. You didn’t realize how bad it tasted, did you? Your sense of taste is going.

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 17 second part

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Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!!

Breaking Good

Wen Qing comes to visit Wen Ning in their backyard meth lab, and tells him that he fucked up a recipe, merely by taking a whiff of the concoction. She uses the approved "wave fumes toward self" way of smelling that you learn in high school science if you live in a country that believes in teaching science, which OP does not.

Wen Ning wants to know if they are going to have a feud, and she tells him there already is one. She tells explains to him that they're good Wens, not evil Wens, and that Jiang Cheng is fucked, and they should send the Jiangs away in the morning before Wen Chao comes around. 

Wen Ning whines at her about all of this, shifting into little-brother persona and acting like he didn't just take down 40 of Wen Chao's soldiers in a single night. He does this same persona shifting in his later unlife, with Wei Wuxian. When there is trouble, he's extremely effective, and can even tail WWX and Lan Wangji without getting caught, but then he is hopeless when dealing with turnips or children. 

Here, it seems like a version of Wei Wuxian's own little-brother persona, in which he pretends to be helpless so that his sister can take care of him.

#studyblr

Wei Wuxian comes into Wen Qing's head shop to ask her for medical books. He loves his brother so much he's volunteering for a research project. We've seen him be clever before; we've seen circumstantial evidence that he's a good student, but now we're going to see him actually buckling down and doing intellectual work.

Wen Qing thinks its hopeless and wants Wei Wuxian to get some rest. But he gives her puppydog eyes, so she sets him up in her library.

Wei Wuxian reads a huge pile of medical books and learns interesting things about the human body.   

(more after the cut)

Hopefully he does not splotch ink all over them while he holds this wet brush directly over the page. Why does he even have a brush in his hand? Is he taking notes in the margin? 

Wen Qing eventually tells him to take a break and go see Jiang Yanli.

Segmentation fault (core dumped)

Jiang Yanli is tending to Jiang Cheng, gently telling him to suck it up by citing their father, which is probably not the greatest idea. 

Yanli's wearing dark blue with white and looks awesome.  It's not Gusu Lan blue, but the blue and white is an interesting choice for the excruciating heart to heart they're about to have.  

Wei Wuxian shows up looking terrible, or the Xiao Zhan version of terrible, i.e. handsome and a little scruffy. But also worn out, unhappy, and fragile.

Jiang Yanli wants him to rest, but he wants to find a way to repair Jiang Cheng's core, and his mind races, trying to think of where he can get books and who can help him. His thoughts instantly go to Cloud Recesses and Lan Wangji. His face lights up at the thought that Lan Wangji will help him, and he hops up, ready to dash off and find him.

The first time I watched this I was like, dude yes you’re in love, but you can’t just dash off to find Lan Wangji, not when there’s a war on.  This time I was like, actually wow things would turn out a whole lot better if you got Lan Wangji to help you, instead of coming up with your own plan.

Mother Mother Can You Tell Me

Jiang Yanli tells him to slow his roll.  He's pushing himself too hard and she's afraid he will collapse. Then Wei Wuxian comes out and says what's driving him: maybe all these disasters are his fault.

It's telling, I think, that he cites Madame Yu, not Jiang Cheng, in this moment, even though Jiang Cheng has blamed him much more thoroughly and consistently. He's talking about one mother figure, to another mother figure, and looking for absolution.

He super does not get what he's looking for.

Jiang Yanli slowly lets go of him and goes the fuck off. She asks, rhetorically, what he's to blame for, and then lists off all of the shit that's happened.  She finishes up by saying, look at our situation; blaming won't help anything. 

It's unclear, because language/translation, if her answer is "it doesn't matter who's to blame" I.E. "yes, it's your fault, but I'm letting it go" or if she is saying "how does blaming yourself help anything?" I.E. "it's not your fault, stop being a drama llama."

Her body language, though, seems pretty blameful - she lets go of him, yells at him, sits down and turns away from him.  And his reaction is not one of shared grief, or of someone who is trying to get over himself; he's totally crushed, and he literally never unburdens himself to her again.  Even when he asks her, much later, about love, he immediately backs out of the conversation. 

There is no violence in this moment and her reaction is understandable, but this is kind of similar to that one time when his brother choked him in a beautiful field of grass, in order to make himself feel better. 

Then she kind of relents and takes his hand, telling him that she needs him and reminding him that he promised that they will go back to Lotus Pier. I don't remember him promising this, but okay. 

He puts his head on her lap and he cries, she cries, comatose Jiang Cheng cries; FUCK this episode.  

Jiang Cheng manages to cry only one tear and does it on the side of his face that his siblings can't see because he's not going to give them the satisfaction of sharing this moment with him, I guess.

When Wei Wuxian puts his head on Jiang Yanli's lap, it's part of a ritual for them, that they both are comforted by; he does it again much later, after they return to Lotus Pier. But this ritual does not actually do anything to relieve his burdens. As a male adult, and the only Jiang Clan disciple with any abilities, it falls to him to save the clan, whatever it takes, and he is heavily aware of it.

Wen Qing comes along and sees the sweet part of this complicated Shijie-Shidi dynamic, and decides to help with Wei Wuxian's research project. When the trio had just lost their parents, gotten sick, been pursued by enemies, & had one of Yanli's little brothers horribly wounded, Wen Qing was like, eh, I'll do the doctor stuff but that's it. But lap-crying is another level. 

Wen Qing: Nooo don't put your head on her knees I failed my saving throw

Group Project

Wen Qing goes and cleans up the mess in the library, putting everything in order and settling in to read systematically. Wen Qing probably has the prettiest bullet journal. (OP looks proudly at the 100 loose slips of paper and piles of random stuff on her own desk)

Wei Wuxian has shaved and rested and comes in with a tray of food for Wen Qing, and then goes to his table in the back to start working. He claims he made "porridge" for her and that she has to eat to gain strength, and she gives him an intrigued expression.  This moment is just blatant het baiting.  

In fact the food he brings her is clearly not porridge, which might just be a translation error, but also he totally can't cook, so it's not clear if he's joking and Yanli or Wen Ning made the food, or if this is just inedible.

The Things We Do For Love

Yanli is working in the meth lab and coughing a lot. Yanli's chronic illness is a sign of what's to come for Wei Wuxian, because strong cultivators don't get sick. Yet Yanli, as a physically vulnerable person, who has either a weak golden core, or none, is still intrinsically valuable.  Her presence in this scene is a reminder that Jiang Cheng's life is not, actually, over; he just feels like it is.

While Yanli cooks the meth, Wei Wuxian and Wen Qing have a study montage that is the equivalent of a training montage, except without "Eye of the Tiger" on the soundtrack.

Jiang Cheng remains unconscious. Apparently if you stick nails in the top of someone's head, you make them sleep, and in the back of their head, you turn them into part of your zombie army. Fortunately Wen Qing's aim is good. Jiang Cheng is looking devastatingly handsome as usual the TV version of unwell, and has grown a perfect Dorito-chip of stubble on his chin to go with his new 'stache.

Eventually Wei Wuxian changes back into his non-vampire robe and he finds the answer in an old scroll book. The Ikea instruction picture shows arrows going from the guy on the left to the guy on the right.  Clearly it's not a great procedure for the guy on the left.

Wei Wuxian's face shows us exactly how not great. 

Like walking in the rain and the snow and there’s no place to go and you’re feeling like a part of you is dying

He goes outside and gazes up at the trees and the sky as he contemplates the sacrifice that circumstance is forcing on him. He's not even making a choice at this point; his choice was made the moment he found the procedure. But it's going to be a tremendous loss for him. He values sword cultivation at least as much as Jiang Cheng does; he even fell in love with a boy over crossed swords. So he sits and just kind of comes to terms with this new understanding of his future. (Big gifs here)

Wen Qing finds him sitting, stunned, on the porch. She doesn't know what's up so she just sits quietly with him until he's ready to tell her.

She doesn't love the plan.  

Thunder, Th-th-thunder

Wen Ning is bringing food up when he sees them arguing, and he is startled by situationally appropriate thunder and lightning. Having recently watched The Lost Tomb Reboot I've come to expect thunder and lighting to appear on cue in any possible situation, so the fact that this mini-storm clears right up again doesn't bother me.

What About You?

Wen Ning dashes inside to see what Mom and Dad are fighting about. They're having a polite shouting match because Wen Qing refuses to yank out Wei Wuxian's core. 

Wen Qing: I hate the idea of harming you Wei Wuxian: I don’t even understand that sentence

Wei Wuxian doesn’t, of course, feel that he is important in any way, and ignores her concerned and appalled expressions in favor of telling her to just do it anyway. Amazingly, this does not convince her. 

OP’s 177cm-tall son keeps telling her this

Then Wei Wuxian plays the "you know Jiang Cheng" card, which...I guess she does? Maybe he was chatting her up more than we saw in Cloud Recesses? He hasn't given her the comb or anything yet. Wei Wuxian explains that Jiang Cheng cares about gain and loss, and cultivation is his life. If he can only be ordinary the rest of his life will be ruined.

Wen Qing asks the question that nobody ever asks him: What about you? 

Wei Wuxian has literally nothing to say to that, possibly because the question is so new to him. 

Wen Ning doesn't know what's going on but comes squarely in on team Wei, of course, and begs his sister to Do The Thing.  How fucking horrified is Wen Ning going to be when he learns what The Thing is? What he is personally going to help do to his beloved friend? Yikes.   

Wen Qing caves, warning them that the chance of success is only 50 percent. Wei Wuxian is happy to take those odds.

Lan Wangji, projecting his voice from Episode 46: fifty percent, are you fucking kidding me?

Soundtrack: 1. Mother Mother by Tracy Bonham 2. The Things We Do For Love by 10cc 3. Thunder by Imagine Dragons