#eastofakkala

[fincalinde]

I see you have done some really thoughtful metas. What're your thoughts on Nie Mingjue? IMO he's a lot more complicated than he's usually assumed to be...

One of my classic absurdly late ask responses! Glad you enjoy the meta.

I think NMJ occupies a fascinating place in the narrative, because his ultimate fate is inevitable despite the fact that he theoretically has more agency than most (all?) of the rest of the main cast.

For a start he becomes clan leader at a young age, and while that comes with its pressures it's undeniably an influential position. He's the leading general of the Sunshot Campaign. Then, after the Sunshot Campaign, the Nie and the Jin are by some margin the most powerful clans. So, in a political sense NMJ has immense power. In theory he has the ability to make far better choices. He could stop persecuting JGY, who literally has no choice but to follow his father's orders, and he could choose to focus his ire where it belongs: on JGS. And he could also choose to counter JGS in ways that don't push the jianghu back to the brink of another devastating war.

Except he can't make those choices. And I want to make a strong distinction here: he is not like other characters such as JGY or LXC or JC, whose choices are limited by their clear understanding of their own limitations and the political landscape (including but not limited to the fact that a post-Sunshot descent into war between the Nie and the Jin would be catastrophic). No. NMJ's choices are limited because by the end of the Sunshot Campaign his mental capacity is irreversibly compromised.

Not only is NMJ terminally ill, but we're given clear examples of contrast between NMJ early in Sunshot and NMJ late- and post-Sunshot. Pre-Sunshot NMJ understands the Wen have political and cultivation power that utterly outclasses him and his clan, so he stands by and tolerates their existence. He knows it would be suicide to go up against them, and it's only when the Wen cross a line and all the clans unite that he's able to actually do anything about the fact that WRH murdered his father.

Contrast that to NMJ by the end of Sunshot, so irrationally obsessed with JGY that he's willing to jeopardise the hard-won (and fragile) stability of the jianghu by trying to kill him. Reminder: when NMJ kicks JGY down the stairs, he starts to follow him down with the express intent of killing him. As in, he fully intends to murder the legitimate son of his main political rival and an immensely powerful clan leader on the steps of his own home. That is ludicrous. Pre-Sunshot NMJ wouldn't have done something like that for his own beloved father, let alone for a grudge.

All of NMJ's flaws are obvious from the earliest point of his timeline: he's proud, he's inflexible, he's righteous but he's hypocritical. But early on we see examples of NMJ bending a little, of recognising nuance and showing, in his own inelegant way, his compassionate side. By the end, that's gone. The fan-burning incident alone (the fantrum!) demonstrates it. That's the way he treats his beloved didi, never mind how he treats his san-di.

Of course the narrative claims JGY can always talk NMJ round, but it's simply not true. In the end, the only way JGY can preserve himself is by making NMJ a promise he can't keep (to deliver XY's head) in order to buy himself enough time for NMJ to die and no longer be an immediate mortal threat. If JGY had not accelerated NMJ's decline, NMJ would have killed him and plunged the jianghu into another needless conflict.

I've spilled ink on the staircase scene already so I'm holding back on digging into this in more detail, but the fact is any discussion of NMJ's downfall is inextricably tangled up with JGY. The focal point of NMJ's descent is his obsession with JGY in particular, and it's important to remember what's relevant is not so much what JGY has or hasn't done but how NMJ treats him.

I do think one of the best ways to put it in context is to compare the way NMJ reacts to WRH to the way he reacts to JGY. WRH literally kills NMJ's father but NMJ has a cool enough head to know he has to bide his time. JGY on the other hand absolutely does betray NMJ's trust, in a situation where, again, if he does as NMJ wants (turns himself in) he's going to end up dead. And from that moment on, NMJ has no intention of giving JGY the benefit of the doubt. Yes, after LXC intervenes (remember, JGY would be dead without that intervention!) NMJ backs off and ends up agreeing to the sworn brotherhood, but he enters into the brotherhood in entirely the wrong spirit, seeing it as a way to monitor and subjugate JGY, who is already answerable to his father over and above any obligations to an elder brother.

Would NMJ at fifteen years old have listened to LXC and JGY's explanations in Qishan or later on the stairs at Golden Carp Tower? Possibly. But we don't have any examples of a time when he truly listened to JGY, and he was always going to end up this way regardless, taken out by a qi deviation and turned into the stuff of nightmares. JGY accelerated an existing process to save his own skin, but he didn't invent it out of whole cloth. So the tragedy of NMJ is not what JGY did to him. It goes back further than that, to when his ancestors first started cultivating the resentful energy of beasts.

Even then, contrasting NMJ to another character is illuminating. The text tells us NHS is in a bind: if he cultivates with his sabre, he's dooming himself. But if he doesn't cultivate with his sabre, he's pissing off his ancestors. The instinct then is perhaps to think—poor NMJ! He's in the same bind!

But NMJ never has a moment's doubt about sabre cultivation. NMJ knows the price and he pays it without question. NMJ doesn't agonise about how to balance his duty to his clan and his ancestors against his desire to not go violently insane. He accepts it as a fact of life and never thinks to question it or push back against it. He marches down the path that extirpates all his good qualities and leads straight to his worst self, and never so much as glances around in the hope of sighting a different way.

Again we're getting to that tension I find most interesting about NMJ: agency rubbing shoulders with inevitability. NHS finds a way to lead his clan and Word of God become Xiandu without cultivating with his sabre. Does that mean NMJ is responsible for his choices and he can't be absolved of his actions by blaming his inheritance? I don't necessarily have an answer for that, but I hugely enjoy exploring the question.

[littlesmartart]

(Hope it’s okay that I come in with an askbox and say something). Your most recent NieYao drawing gave me all the feels. I liked the tags too, especially the “what’s your rage hiding” with Nie Mingjue. Even if he’s relatively straightforward he’s not necessarily a simple character, and his whole attitude toward Jin Guangyao especially probably requires multiple essays and diagrams to sort out. So yeah. I liked what you drew and it gave me thoughts.

ah, I'm so glad to hear that!!

oh boy, "what is the rage hiding" is actually a character starting point that I got from @ellethinthewoods whilst we were writing our AU @greenhills-woodtoburn-fic! NMJ is such an interesting character... whilst it is true that in a sense he wears his heart on his sleeve - bursting into tears at the slightest emotion, god bless you wang yizhou for your acting choices - I think he also uses rage to hide a lot, not only externally but also from himself! NMJ is not a person prone to introspection or self-reflection (and neither is JGY lmao but for different reasons), and I do believe he is exceptionally good at duping himself by slapping anger over whatever he doesn't like and pretending like he has no clue there's anything else under it. and obviously this gets less conscious and more uncontrollable the closer to qi-deviation he gets, but this is a tendency he exhibits from earlier in the story, when he is still more or less stable, so I definitely see it as a key character trait.

like, people enjoy hating on LXC for willfully ignoring stuff, but... hello, NMJ also uses anger to do that too???? he deliberately chooses to ignore a whole BUNCH of shit!!! so often he takes one look at a situation and goes "this is my opinion and I have decided that it is objective truth, and if anyone or anything disagrees it will be easier to simply Get Big Mad About It(TM) rather than consider that I might be wrong or whether there are more complicated emotions to address". he does it with Huaisang. obviously he does it with JGY. NMJ is really really good at refusing to see things - only in his case, he is usually refusing to acknowledge things that might refute his negative opionion.

so yeah. not sure where this is going, but I love NMJ's character! I think it's really interesting how he can be both our beloved self-sacrificing, loving, cares-so-much-he-cries da-ge, aaaaand also a big fat stinking pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps hypocrite who is sticking his fingers in his ears going "lalalala can't hear you" when an emotional situation might require something more complex than getting pissed off because feeling angry is easier than feeling pain or remorse.

[moonwaif]

For @eastofakkala as part of the @mxtxnet Holiday exchange. I hope you enjoy this fic!! It's a little strange and silly, but at the very least I hope you like the fluff at the end. Have a happy new year ^^

Summary:

The trip had been a fiasco from the start.

First there were issues with the flights, which were all significantly delayed. Then the seating assignments. When they first booked, they were all supposed to sit together; but by the time they had printed their boarding passes, everything had changed.

“Excuse me.” Jin Guangyao tried to get the attention of the airline attendant, smiling patiently. He cast a glance at the group, as if to say, Don’t worry, I’ll sort this out.

You better, Nie Mingjue’s glare seemed to answer. This whole thing was YOUR idea in the first place.

3zun, in an attempt to reconcile, go on a winter vacation with their brothers. They are joined by some unwanted guests.

[zeldahime]

Special delivery, @eastofakkala!

[mxtxnet]

Can I submit to the ‘MXTXNet’ tag from a sideblog?

Yes, of course! As long as the post itself is about one of MXTX's works, we'll reblog it.

[glitterlessgold]

And They Were Roommates Memes Part 1

Spoilers for Chapters 1-12 under the cut!

[glitterlessgold]

A love letter to the college experience. Also a hate letter to the college experience. The slowest of slow burns and 100k words of pure chaos. We can't wait to share it with all of you!

@glitterlessgold and I have been busy! We are very excited to announce that we participated in this year's @sangchengminibang and ended up writing this lovely (not so) little fic. Follow Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang as they navigate the highs and lows of freshman year of college as they slowly fall in love over cooking disasters, adventures in extracurriculars, Lan Wangji as the world's worst roommate, and more. Featuring work by abruptcornet and nicht_vobla.

It'll be available on an Ao3 near you on September 23rd!

[duckprintspress]

9 Fandom Peeps to Get to Know Better

Gonna yoink a tag from @profiterole-reads on this meme.

3 ships you like:

Hua Cheng/Xie Lian (Tian Guan Ci Fu)

Liu Tongyi/Jing Chengjun (The Imperial Uncle)

Mo Ran/Chu Wanning (The Husky and His White Cat Shizun)

First Ship Ever: uh I guess it depends on definitions, probably Min Farshaw/Rand al'Thor (Wheel of Time)? But they're canon so maybe that doesn't count. So, hmm... Lina Inverse/Gourry Gabriev (Slayers) or Yuuki Miaka/Nuriko (Fushigi Yuugi; tho really I just supported Miaka harem rights, she deserved all those bishies at once) are ones I can remember from high school that aren't canon (tho Lina/Gourry kinda sorta is? it's canon adjacent at least...)

Last Song You Heard: Honey Magnolia by Brian Fallon was the last song in my car yesterday afternoon. One of my favorite songs, the first year I heard it, it was my most-listened to track of the year.

Currently Reading:

Salad Days by Jing Shui Bian

Copper Coins by Mu Su Li

Currently Watching: Nirvana in Fire is the only thing I'm currently actively trying to carve out time to watch.

Currently Consuming: water is the only thing in reach.

Currently Craving: lunch, but it's a little early.

Tagging: I usually figure out who to tag from our notes, but right now our notes are a disaster because we have a couple posts exploding a bit, but here's some names in there I recognize... @qbdatabase @stjohnstarling @paintedpigeon1 @smehur @eastofakkala @faejilly and anyone else who wants to!

[meggiejolly]

Last line challenge :D

Tagged by @lilalaunetwin

Thanks for the tag! It inspired my to write a few lines because the last line I had actually written was only one word and that was just boring, so I added a few lines. 😂

Rules: in a new post, share the last line you wrote and tag as many people as there are words (or as many as you feel like)

"What? I'm your second choice? I'm offended Harrington!"

I'm assuming you can guess the fandom that fic is for and probably even the pairing. 😅

I will actually try to tag 8 people, let's see: @frostedravens @katofthepenguins @riderofspades @mimi-and-the-next-20th-century @eastofakkala @dr-lizortecho @michael-runs-hot-guerin @writingonthemoon

[jaimebluesq]

Last Sentence Tag Game

thanks to the lovely @lowkeyed1 for the tag!

The rules: Post the last sentence you wrote and tag as many people as there are words.

Jiang Cheng’s words froze. “Okay, I’ll give you that one.”

And I will tag: @fortune-maiden @eastofakkala @gekidasa @roseclaw @ibijau @cerusee @thebiscuiteternal

[tavina-writes]

WIP game

Thanks for tagging me @nemainofthewater! (Edit: and @woobifiedvillain /o\ I didn't see you tagging me until after I posted WHOOPS.)

RULES: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! and then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

I will focus on only the wips that I've actually, worked on in the past month, subtracting all the ones that are for exchanges! Hopefully this keeps it to a manageable amount:

Closer to Grief

The One That Sings Last

sending the buddha to the west

Your Three Thousand Gold

A Measure of Steel

weigh your shadow

On One Side of the Water

Summer Sugar

The Art of War

Third Watch Rain

to reach heaven in a single step

brighter burning stars

I have no idea if I have 12 friends who haven't already been tagged, but! tagging @im-sublimey, @marquisguyun, @eastofakkala, @cerusee, @woobifiedvillain, @lazuliquetzal, @nemaliwrites, @iamwestiec, @saiditallbefore, @evakant, @lgbtlunaverse, and anyone else who sees this and wants to play! consider yourself tagged by me :D

edit: also I just realized how since titles are one of the FIRST things I think of, none of these are explained at all :D. That's okay though.

[littlesmartart]

DRAWTOBER #12 - Something is Rotten in the State of Lanling by @eastofakkala

In which Madam Qin tells her daughter instead of her daughter’s betrothed about why she and Jin Guangyao can’t get married. Angry and humiliated, Qin Su comes up with a way out for both of them. Or, Qin Su saves the day.

Jin sibs bonding fic!! in which Qin Su and MXY are far more happy jumping on the violent enthusiastic patricide bandwagon than JGY is quite prepared for, and he isn't certain whether to be proud or horrified of his bloodthirsty younger siblings! though there are a few emotional ups and downs, this is largely just a super fun hilarious fix-it with the three younger Jin sibs trying and failing to murder their dad, and what more could you ask of from a fix-it???? not only is there wonderful genuinely heartfelt bonding between JGY, QS and MXY, but even JZX gets some character development, and the plot is a really enjoyable romp through the twists and turns of attempted patricide.

[amynchan]

Got booped by @icequeen-07, so let's gooooo! XD

🎶✨️when u get this u have to put 5 songs u actually listen to, publish. then, send this ask to 10 of your favourite followers (non-negotiable, positivity is cool)🎶✨️

tbh, the songs I listen to changes so often. XD Gonna pick the latest ones I like from my YouTube history. XD

2 Days Into College

We Built This City

Piece of Trash

Fall Wendy-Bird Fall

I'll Sail Right Home to You (yes, it's a choir. No, I take no notes. XD)

Let's nab some followers! XD

@rainbowrider1290, @youngmasterwisdomperson, @snic10, @one-time-i-dreamt, @eastofakkala, @pocketflutter, @pftones3482, @snavej, @marl-writes, @chaotic-cheshire

Go forth and Music!! XD

[allthelittlecreepycrawlies]

Tagged by @loreofcardigan, "Post the latest line from your wip (or post where you last left off in your art) and tag as many people as there are words in the line. Make a new post, don’t reblog."

"Tell your boss that I'll take the offer." (not-quite-sleeping-beauty story)

IDK if I even have anyone to tag, since most people seem to have done it already, but, uh... @tavina-writes, @scaredysap, @fortune-maiden, @jaimebluesq, @eastofakkala, @pbaintthetb, um... I'm coming up short. I know some other writers, but either not well enough or they've definitely already been tagged before me.

A few other WIP final lines for giggles.

"Sang-di. Let's go." (ferals and ethereals au)

As they sit and wait to hear whether or not Nie Mingjue is going to survive, the only sounds in the lobby are the alerts and announcements from deeper in the hospital, the muffled noise of the news crews out front, and Nie Huaisang’s quiet sobbing. (Taibani AU. good thing I didn't pick this one first.)

"I think today is the day I was supposed to die." (Nie Family-Centric Butterfly Effect AU)

He decides that he can always leave another time and resolutely ignores the amusement that crosses Nie Mingjue’s face when he says so. (ghosts and reincarnations story)

Because this means that Nie Huaisang had known what was being said during every single one of the terrible suitor interviews. He’d heard all the rumors. The insults. The threats. Four entire years of it. (crow curse story)

[zeldahime]

I'm anyone else, this looks like fun!

I am indeed very Aziraphale coded. I don't fuck with dark academia though. Light academia all the way. Cozy academia. Academia in plaid with a big mug of tea with a cat on it. (which is probably more Aziraphale than the dark academia stuff :P)

@eastofakkala @shriggy-the-rat-king @courage-farm @prewar-james, no pressure but if you want to!

I'm so much more Aziraphale coded. Although I'm not in any way surprised haha.

Thanks for the tag @celestialcrowley! I had fun with this!

No pressure tags: @crawley-fell, @sollunaastra, @takeme-totheworld, @greenchrysanthemum20, @serpent-and-seraph, @crowleybrekkers, @crowleyholmes and anyone else who wants to try this.

[glitterlessgold]

And They Were Roommates Memes Part 2

Covering chapters 12-26. Spoilers for the full fic under the cut!

And finally, how I imagine the title was dropped off-page...