#i think jiang cheng would feel some way about that

[fistfuloflightning]

Ohhhh I have lots, @alita-blue! But where to start??

This whole idea came from the mental image of a 4yo Yanli holding bby Wangji and declaring him ‘the prettiest doll she’s ever had’—she babies him a little differently from how she does jc, bc lwj is more of a delicate child in more ways than one and she hovers a bit more. But they grow up incredibly close and once wwx is adopted they’re one of the closest sibling groups in the jianghu.

Hope Limit doesn’t mind me quoting them because this stuff is gold:

And Lan Zhan, Jiang Zhan? Ah, he would make his parents sooo happy, but that family dynamic would probably make him so sad, parents that constantly clash and all that, it's getting to his inherent melancholic core. He'd be so fun with his two new siblings though, yanli loves little brothers, wwx enjoys a good match for training, and just imagine how nice the whole wandering cultivator flair of Yunmeng Jiang would be if lwj grew up embracing that, he does that so well already, I feel, wandering off and hunting evil. I always think he would be a happier person at Lotus Pier, together with jc though, so I do wonder how he'd be there all by himself, growing up in a lively atmosphere with the emotional struggle of his parents tearing each other apart for him and his siblings to hear and witness. he might be a bit more feared among the other disciples, textbook example student that he is, sticking to rules, not joining them when they run around half naked in summer, eating watermelons, bc he has to study and train and make his parents proud. I wonder if wwx would still enjoy to tease him? or is it something he grows tired of after a few years.

I feel like wwx and lwj’s relationship as siblings would be similar to wwx and wen ning’s. Wwx acts as shy lwj’s mouthpiece throughout childhood since he doesn’t really say much, which infuriates Madam Yu on multiple levels. Instead of ‘incompetent’ jc, she bestows her dubious attention on ‘cowardly’ lwj, as she sees it, unable to speak for himself. And sometimes wwx dives in to save from social situations he’s in due to his position as the Jiang heir. But he’s stubborn as well and doesn’t bend for injustices, especially when he sees how his mother treats his brother. This also probably gets him in trouble when at Cloud Recesses for the lectures—the Wall of Discipline is all well and good, but there’s some rules on there that he simply does not agree with because it obstructs true justice. LQR likes him well enough, but not his soft rebelliousness which is why he’s more than a little concern when Jiang Zhan begins hanging out with Lan Cheng.

And Lan Cheng… something about him going through Cloud Recesses’ version of anger management just speaks to me lol. Both their personalities remain the same, but Limit and I agreed jc’s anger would remain but be wonderfully repressed and due to the pressure of the Lan discipline, it would find a way to leak out every so often. He’d be the scary Lan. His parents’ conflict would wear similar but not identical paths in his psyche and I feel he would be incredibly protective of his mother, or at least be more vocal about the injustice of her imprisonment. His father… I think he would do everything in his power to have Qingheng-Jun look at him with favor, not understand why the man ignores him, then continue to throw himself at his own cultivation and training thinking he’s not doing enough. QHJ and JFM are similar enough in this aspect that I don’t see JC’s relationship with his father changing from one au to another.

More of my rambles from that convo:

I guess a large part of JC’s change of character comes from him not having to compete against an interloper, so to speak, for his place in the family (since wwx was treated as his replacement). As Lan Cheng, born knowing lxc is the heir and future leader and not him, and I think that might be less stress on him mentally (but that’s not including his parents issues…) He’s pretty independent and outspoken in canon so I see lxc not hovering or thinking he needs to protect his younger brother to the extent he did lwj. In fact, knowing from birth he is not the heir might be less stress in that aspect, less emphasis on trying to reach impossible expectations and striving to be perfect. But his need for positive parental support might push him more than other motivators. And yes!!! I love the idea that he’s closest to LQR! Their personalities seem very similar/kindred spirits. He’d still have his anger, but he’ll have to channel that into his training I suppose. He’s definitely the type of Lan to radiate an aura of pure rage with an obvious (thin) mask of serenity which terrifies most anyone.

He’s not nearly as much a protege as lwj was ao that might make him struggle a bit and frustrate him endlessly, esp when he has to see lxc do that same task effortlessly. He probably bonds with LQR over being the less impressive second born son and over the years his uncle tries teaching him ways of getting around that.

lqr’s biggest hang up might be lwj’s soft rebelliousness, though how much of that is just sheer stubbornness 🤷🏻‍♀️ he might not be vocal but you KNOW there are some rules he doesn’t agree with/think are arbitrary to the true righteous path and isn’t afraid of pointing them out. Maybe LQR doesn’t like him giving Lan Cheng dangerous ideas and questioning Cloud Recesses’ way of life? Like the rule about no pets (wwx probably still gave Jiang Zhan a pet rabbit when they were kids lol) and I honestly would love to see jc with a dog again, which is yet another reason for wwx to try (and fail) to keep his brother away from the scary anger-repressed Lan 😂

On that note, have some little fluff Limit added about Lan Cheng’s little note cloud puppy:

I’m sure I have more stewing in my brain, but this is what I currently have unless @limitbreaker23 has more to add?

Lan Wanyin, from a Zhancheng role swap cooked up with @limitbreaker23 💕

[qiu-yan]

jiang cheng reads the story of hachiko and cries like a little bitch

[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?

[shanastoryteller]

Happy happy birthday 🎂🎉🥳 As always, I’d love some more of thee MDZS Identity Porn (with the masks and LWJ getting jealous of all of his husband’s “husbands”) (Or JC traveling back in time?) Thanks!

a continuation of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Lan Wangji wouldn't have categorized Jiang Yanli as chatty, but tonight there's really no other way to describe her. She talks at length about Lotus Pier, about the Jiang clansmen and her immediate family. That would be one thing, but she seems to forget that they don't have the same familiarity with these subjects that she does, mentioned names and places carelessly, as if they already have context for these things.

He doesn't know why Wei Wuxian would care about the minutia of Lotus Pier, but Jiang Yanli holds his complete attention. More than that, there are several moments when he has to bite his cheek to keep from laughing and at various points his smile can only be equaled to what he looks like when he's holding his children. If his husband looked at him with a tenth of that adoration, Lan Wangji doesn't think he'd have a complaint.

He prompts her to continue whenever she trails off, because as much as he wishes that he held Wei Wuxian's heart, he can't deny him the bittersweet happiness that conversing with Jiang Yanli seems to bring him. Lan Wangji should not be greedy. He knows the Patriarch's face, his voice, his affection. He's his husband and helping raise his children. It is not appropriate for him to want more than the abundance he already has.

It's nearing the end of the banquet, where mingling and drinking will take place and propriety won't allow Jiang Yanli to hold Wei Wuxian in place. She looks at him with a desperation that makes Lan Wangji feel bad for Jin Zixuan. "You know," she says softly, "years ago, before the war, before - a lot of things, I lost my younger brother."

Wei Wuxian goes completely, utterly still. Lan Wangji stares - as far as he knows Madame Yu has only ever had two children and Sect Leader Jiang is notoriously faithful, regardless of the state of his marriage.

"He wasn't mine by blood," she continues, as if answering Lan Wangji's thoughts. "But we grew up with him and A-Cheng and I couldn't think of him any other way. He was our first disciple and he and A-Cheng used to go off together all the time - but on our way to Cloud Recess, they got in trouble, and he led that trouble away so Jiang Cheng could escape and we never saw him again."

Lan Wangji remembers now. He heard about this then, remembers how Jiang Cheng's attitude had been near intolerable that summer. His heart sinks.

His husband can reanimate the dead, but not like this, there's nothing he can do for Jiang Yanli's long dead little brother.

"I'm sorry for your loss," he says to her.

She glances at him for only a moment, but when Wei Wuxian maintains his silence, her shoulders drop and she says, "Thank you," but it comes out more subdued than anything else had tonight.

Later, when they've retired to their room and he hopes Wen Qing and Meng Yao have done the same, and they're lying in the same bed with the darkness and the quiet between them, Wei Wuxian says, "He wasn't Jiang Cheng's younger brother."

Lan Wangji, just on the cusp of sleep, blinks several time until he feels more awake. "Excuse me?"

"The - the first disciple, of the Jiang," he continues, sounding very awake himself as he lies with his hands behind his head and stares at the ceiling. "The way she said it, it sounded like he was younger than Jiang Cheng, but he wasn't. He was older. Jiang Cheng was the youngest one."

"Ah," Lan Wangji says finally, "I see."

"Yeah," Wei Wuxian answers nonsensically, then looks over and offers him a weak grin. "Sorry. Never mind. Get some sleep, we have a long day tomorrow."

"Yes," he says, but it takes a long time for either of them to get to sleep.

[symphonyofsilence]

What's your favorite incredibly fucked up moment in any mxtx story

omg this is SO tough

i'm literally so desensitized now, i'm sitting here like ehhh i mean it's all pretty normal isn't it

having just finished it, i've got to go with the yue qingyuan/shen jiu dynamic in scum villain-- the idea that this guy will go the rest of his life not knowing that the person he loves the most and has spent his whole life trying to protect is actually long dead, despite apparently being alive and walking around. and from the shen jiu perspective, to have died and have nobody even know that it happened (and, as others have pointed out, to have everyone prefer the new, fake you)

[letteredlettered]

Hi! I would love to read a JC and WWX post and how it is diff from what you’ve seen in western media!

I'd already started writing a JC post, so I wrapped that in to answer your question.

I follow a few JC fans so I see the backlash to the haters more than I see any haters, but apparently there’s some question in some people’s mind about whether Jiang Cheng loves Wei Wuxian, and I find that a little silly. That said, I think that to understand MDZS’s JC at all, you cannot just read the surface, so if you’re not thinking about him as a person or giving him any consideration beyond what other characters say and think of him, you’re not doing him justice. You’re also not going to see that he loves WWX and also loves several other people quite deeply, because a) JC's never going to be affectionate in his dialogue, b) JC's not going to even be affectionate in his body language or minor actions, and c) WWX, the main viewpoint character, is never once going to think about whether JC likes him or loves him.

Lots of posts have outlined better than I will how deeply loves not only WWX, but also his family, in particular JL. The short version is: JC’s his major flaws are all related to him loving his parents and getting shown very little affection in return—none at all from his father and only some in a backhanded way from his mother, usually in comparison to WWX.

As for Jin Ling, JC threatens him all the time, and even shoves him around a bit, but Jin Ling obviously adores JC and feels adored. JC is the one Jin Ling goes to when he's crying; JC is also the one who leaps to JL's side when JL is hurt. JL knows he's in trouble with JC when JL does something unsafe, but JL knows that his own safety is the most important thing in JC's life. Tellingly, JL rarely takes any of JC's threats seriously, and even tells other people said threats are bogus.

Then there’s WWX. Even while JC is berating WWX endlessly for making their clan look bad, he is literally carrying around WWX on his back. He is protecting WWX with everything he has. He sacrifices himself to the Wens to WWX won't get caught. After their falling out, after WWX lied to him for years and got their sister killed, JC still can't even stop himself from protecting WWX when WWX might get hurt by JGY's guqin string.

The guy is willing to throw himself on the fire for anyone he loves. Just heaven forbid he express any of it. But because he does not express love through speech, Wei Wuxian (who I will point out is a talker) doesn't understand this about Jiang Cheng—and this is shown to be a consistent flaw that WWX has. He also does not understand that LWJ is in love with him, despite LWJ defying all of society to follow him around and lift him onto donkeys whenever WWX gets droopy.

But I'd add the pretty much no one, other than Jin Ling, understands this about Jiang Cheng. If the cultivation world had understood JC, they would not have believed that JC and WWX had actually had a falling out. Part of the reason people don't know him is the same reason JC has such a terrible time with everything—WWX steals everyone's attention, praise, and fear wherever they go. No one is really looking at JC to admire his devotion or his loyalty, because WWX is there, doing it better than him, always. Imagine LWJ+WWX hadn’t defeated the Tortoise of Slaughter and had just been holed up in that cave for six days. All anyone would’ve talked about was how deeply JC must love his shixiong to make it back in such record time. It would all be “heroic rescue” this “unflagging loyalty” that. But instead, LWJ+WWX  had to really just steal the limelight.

In fact, the book is partly about the fact that people don't analyze people's actions too deeply. They believe what they hear. They believe what they want to believe. JC really can just say "I reject WWX" and they believe it. JGS can really just say "WWX is evil" and they believe it. Everybody says LWJ is perfect, so they believe he can't be a cut-sleeve who is in love with WWX. And WWX, who knows better than anyone that rumors aren't true, believes it too.

Even after WWX's death, JC's reputation is locked onto WWX. I do think this is JC’s own fault, given that he can’t accept his brother’s death and is obsessed with him but idk. Canon demonstrates that there’s a huge difference between what JC says he’ll do if he finds WWX and what JC actually does, and it’s not because LWJ is in the way. But no one really seems to pay attention to the difference between what JC says and what he actually does when the chips are down, except JL, so it’s no wonder everyone says he has torture dungeons, no matter how ludicrous that is.

I think what makes JC’s love for WWX particularly complex, and particularly incomprehensible in the eyes of the cultivation world, is WWX's position in JC's family. JC thought of WWX as a brother. He loved him like a brother. And yet JC was deeply aware that WWX wasn't his brother. JC's mom made sure that JC was deeply aware of that at all times, and you know what, so did his dad. And then, the rest of the cultivation world constantly talked about the fact that WWX was not a part of the family, that the Jiang Clan raised him like a son but he was really the son of a servant. MXTX expertly shows that this fact gets trotted out whenever WWX does something questionable--when WWX is brilliant, he's a lauded member of the clan, but when he is bad, he is of low-birth and adopted through charity. The truth is, it’s an unusual relationship for a world in which there’s a pretty big different between your clan (blood relatives) and sect.

How can JC hold both of these truths in his head? What makes it bearable for JC is that when they grow up, JC will be the Sect Leader and WWX will be his right-hand man; they will do everything together; they will be brilliant together; they never have to worry about blood or debt then, because then it won't matter whether they're brothers or best friends; the difference won't matter. They can both be the head of a family that they love. Except that doesn't happen.

JC’s parents die, and WWX disappears. I will, at this point in my understanding and credit to Jiang Cheng, say that the part about JC I find hardest to swallow is that he partially blames his parents' death on WWX. Yes, WWX stayed behind in the cave of the Tortoise of Slaughter to save LWJ, and yes, this meant that Wen Chao and WLJ have a particular grudge against him, which they use as partial excuse to attack Lotus Pier, but by god, that's a stretch. Lotus Pier would have been attacked anyway, and the fact that JC even partly blames the attack on WWX has far more to do with what his mom said about WWX showing off for the glory and bringing down the wrath of the Wens than it has to do with reality. YZY is going to say anything she can about how WWX being a hero with the Tortoise of Slaughter was actually a bad thing, because it's so fucking painful for her that WWX is a fucking legend when her son just . . . isn't.

As JGY points out, they were in fact the strongest sect once WWX comes back from the Burial Mounds and fights the Sunshot Campaign with JC. They could have been the power couple of JC’s dreams, but just as YZY pits JC against WWX, the cultivation world after the war pitted WWX against themselves and by extension, JC, and JC buys into it. I find this super understandable, and I think it’s pretty unfair to expect JC to be more understanding of WWX, given that WWX is constantly lying to him. Similarly, I think it’s pretty understandable that he doesn’t understand the plight of the Wens, given that WWX doesn’t explain it to him at all. From JC’s POV, WWX just leaves, at a time when JC really needs him, and he does it on a crusade for unrelated people—as though he never considered himself part of the family in the first place.

And you know what, that may be WWX’s POV too. He loves the Jiang family like his own family, but he’s also deeply aware that he is not blood. MXTX makes it very clear in canon that WWX felt that he owed the Jiang Clan, and not in the way you owe a family. That is—he doesn’t owe them his existence, but he thinks he does owe them his core and his cultivation. And he gives it all to JC.

I outlined above that the relationship between JC and WWX is unusual in the cultivation world given that they each feel like the other is family but are consistently reminded of the fact, and pressured to believe, that they are only sect siblings and that WWX is actually a subordinate. I also haven’t found many relationships like this in other media—though I’ll point out once again that my experience is mainly with western media. I think the closest things I can think of are stories in which the parties are of a different class but are raised together for whatever reason—because they actually are somewhat related but one of them has low class relatives, or because they were not as well-supervised in their youth but  one of them suddenly comes into money and is forced to leave his low-class BFF behind, etc.

Given that this relationship is unusual, you don’t see a lot of situations like WWX’s, in which WWX feels like he owes the Jiang family his golden core and then gives it to him. But there’s another element to this sacrifice that I’ve only seen in one other piece of media, and that’s the fact that WWX knows that JC can’t live without being special, and WWX thinks he can handle it.

There is so much in western media about brothers giving up their lives to protect their brothers (Supernatural), or even just giving up their dreams and ambitions so that their brother can follow his own dreams instead (It’s a Wonderful Life). But these sacrifices are always framed as “I love him so much,” or “It’s my duty” or “I couldn’t live with myself if he didn’t get what he wanted” and sometimes even, “I can handle the suffering and I don’t want him to live with it.” But there’s something about WWX’s “eh it’s not a big deal to me  and it is to him” or his “bro’s kinda petty and can’t get over himself, whatchu gonna do” that feels stupidly singular.

WWX never says it isn’t a big deal. He never said that it didn’t hurt or that he didn’t make a sacrifice. He never said JC was pathetic or a loser or anything that diminishes JC or makes him less than he is. What he says is that JC is always competitive and comparing himself to others, which is true. But the other sacrifices in fiction that come close are a little more “I don’t want you to have to suffer” or even “I’m strong, and you’re weak, so I’ll take on this burden for you.” Meanwhile WWX doesn’t think JC is weak, and while WWX doesn’t want to suffer, he certainly doesn’t want to suffer himself. The sentiment feels closer to “you need to feel special so I’ll make that happen for you,” and there’s something about it that is a little condescending.

I mentioned that I’ve only seen this kind of thing one other time, and it was in a baseball anime called Touch that aired in Japan in the 1980s. Touch is a story about twins, one of whom is smart, talented, and works hard. The other twin, Tatsuya, is good in school and good at baseball, but at first seems like a lazy guy who only cares about joking around and having fun. Then you find out he’s a genius and a one-in-a-lifetime talent, but just never bothered to focus on anything because he’s so stupidly good at everything that he would just show his brother up, and his brother cares about excelling and Tatsuya doesn’t, so he just…was careful to never apply himself to anything.

WWX isn’t Tatsuya, in that when they’re on an even playing field, WWX doesn’t really seem to have any compunctions about showing off. But as soon as the playing field becomes uneven, he also has no compunctions about destroying himself so that JC’s competitive spirit is satisfied. There’s something about it that has a flavor of “I’m better than you,” even if it’s never what WWX meant to communicate. No wonder JC feels like a clown.

Like, in the end, WWX kind of did make a fool of JC, even though WWX did it out of both love and loyalty. I'm not sure I've ever read or seen anything else where such a sacrifice has such ambiguity, and it really makes the WWX+JC relationship one of the most complicated I've seen.

[randomness-is-my-order]

idk why but there is this idea in the fandom that if someone hates/dislikes jiang cheng, it is coming from a place of “not understanding” his character or lacking empathy for his circumstances to which i say, respectfully: bullshit. and that disliking/hating jiang cheng is a needlessly miserable experience for the reader, to which i say once again: bullshit.

i can’t speak to anyone else’s experience but for me, hating jc more and more with each of his subsequent appearances in the novels was a GREAT, fantastic, very enjoyable experience because the way he was characterized was so unpleasant that if i had no snarky internal monologue directed at him, the books would be no fun when he showed up! i love to hate him and that’s a completely valid way of interacting with a character! “hating a character is easier than understanding them” is once again, bullshit, in the sense that it doesn’t account for those instances where understanding doesn’t really help in endearing a character to the audience. sometimes, you can understand the complete 1000 pages long backstory of an antagonist and still find him slimy, pathetic and despicable and that’s valid. complex doesn’t always mean likeable. liking a character doesn’t always mean liking the person the character represents.

not liking jiang cheng and criticising him should not be a shocking or offensive thing. his growth comes too little too late. he spends 13 years making himself miserable and refusing to take personal accountability and engaging in any kind of healing. at some point, the tragedies he went through stop shadowing his wrongdoings and my sympathies die down to nothingness and that’s okay. jiang cheng will literally NEVER be dear to me but he’s such a great character and such a terribly-adjusted adult that i want to be able to discuss him in a way that feels authentic to my reading experience of him. does a fan of a character always have to necessarily like the character’s personality and arc? nope. i think loudly and enthusiastically dressing him down in metas is extremely cathartic and shows an understanding of the themes of the book as much as–if not more–as more sympathetic essays about his good sides.

[veliseraptor]

For the AU ask game: Jiang Cheng from immediately post Guanyin Temple (not yet having had a chance for any processing after All That) somehow time travels to Gusu summer camp days.

ooooh a classic concept and a fun one. love to see jiang cheng wrestling with All That and also having to deal with a time loop now to boot, that's what he needed in his life

so I don't think his first thought in this situation is "how do I fix things," I think it is more likely to be "why am I being punished" because that's what it feels like having to do this again, and I don't think his assumption is necessarily immediately that he can change anything so much as just that it'll be the same thing all over again

but! he wouldn't be jiang cheng if he didn't try, so while he's still reeling from all the revelations in the last 24 hours he's going to see what he can do because surely this is early enough that he can make some kind of a difference.

but also he just wants to go home and see his mom and dad because they're alive again right now, I think that's one of the things that hits hardest, actually, that lotus pier is still intact at this point in time, has never fallen at all, and his parents are alive, jiang yanli is alive, everyone is alive.

dealing with wei wuxian is really hard, I think, because he is having all these really big wei wuxian feelings about everything that's happened since but those things haven't happened yet and wei wuxian is, of course, just acting like his normal teenage self and that feels so wrong to jiang cheng, how can he be so carefree and at ease, but of course he can because nothing's gone wrong yet, and jiang cheng is angry because of things that haven't even happened, miserable because of things that haven't even happened

(wei wuxian, meanwhile, like "what the fuck is wrong with my shidi", probably somewhat distracted from his burgeoning lan wangji obsession by this rather disconcerting and concerning situation, because jiang cheng is not necessarily the best at keeping a lid on his feelings even though he is trying)

the other thing is that I think jiang cheng in his emotions firestorm doesn't know how to keep everything from going wrong all over again, because the trigger point is, of course, the war, and how is he, a teenager (as far as everyone else is concerned), supposed to keep that from happening?

I don't know that if I wrote this I would have jiang cheng be "successful" at preventing things from going the same way, because one of the core things that I love about the past storyline and everything that goes wrong there is the fact that a lot of it is very difficult to resolve via one person's actions.

I think I would want this to be more about jiang cheng figuring out how to forgive himself (and wei wuxian) for being teenagers trapped in a situation bigger than themselves and not seeing another way out. and coming to a kind of peace with that.

[tea-cat-arts]

(Disclaimer: this is a vent post)

Jiang Cheng discourse is frustrating because I feel like it always boils down to a debate on whether he's a good or bad person when like-

Such a central idea throughout all her books is that everyone has the capacity for good and evil. The cannibal who's been sewing political discourse for centuries is also a halfway decent dad, the prince who once tried to save all the common people ended up turning on them and releasing a plague, the guy who schemed and killed his way to chief of cultivation sacrificed himself to keep his best friend safe, the world's most dedicated internet hater also improves the lives of almost everyone around him... trying to force this narrow frame of good and bad people on her stories just doesn't work.

When it comes to Jiang Cheng in particular, I feel like the context for his actions gets completely thrown out the window in favor of focusing on the ways in which he was an asshole, but Jiang Cheng isn't really in a position where he can afford to be kind to everyone. The man has a whole clan to watch out for- as a kid, he couldn't just stand up to the Wens because every action he took would be interpreted as a reflection of the Jiang Clan's stance (and they were not in a position to go to war with the Wens). As an adult, he thought he couldn't afford to stand up for either wwx or the remaining Wens because it would risk putting his very freshly reformed clan who just finished a war in conflict with 3 other major clans. He is shown to have the capacity for love and the capacity for kindness (ex: getting all the hiers out of the cave and running all the way back to Yunmeng for help, putting himself in danger to draw the Wen scouts away from wwx, co-parenting Jin Ling with Jin Guangyao, being an attack dog against anyone who hurts his family, guarding wwx from dogs as a kid, standing up to his mom and asking her to stop when she berates wwx), but he rarely has opportunities where he can just follow all of his own values without it putting his clan at risk. I also feel like the ways in which he's kind get dismissed because he doesn't act nice. Like, he's not willing to put on a smile or be chatty like either Lan Xichen or Jin Guangyao. He's an anxious, rage-filled, asshole who hates losing, and that is on display at all times.

And ya- he's absolutely done some awful shit. He's fallen for propaganda, he's hurt and killed both wwx and potentially hundreds of innocent people, he doubles down on his mistakes instead of reflecting, and he votes with the leapords eating your face party, and he'll be spending a lot of time alone and filled with rage and regret because of it. I do not deny that all that shit is true about him, but what I'll argue against is the idea that it's all he ever was and all he'll ever be

Normally, I believe in death of the author, but in this case mxtx's comments from a 2016 interview support my stance on him, so I'm gonna bring it up (Link to full interview. It's a fun read)

But ya: shout out to my fellow Jiang Cheng fans who like him, but think he's an asshole and want to push him down a flight of stairs

[sonik-kun]

Let's remind eachother why Jiang Cheng resorted to leading the seige, shall we?

If you recall, WWX inadvertently killed JZX after he lost control of WN. JZX being JC's brother in law .. The heir to the powerful Jin sect but most importantly, his sister's husband whom she loved dearly.

EVEN THEN JC DIDN'T OUTRIGHT DECLARE A SIEGE!

We see he's reluctant, torn, but still holds some hope for WWX. This can be seen in the line thereafter where WWX loses control once again and JC cries "I thought you could control it!"

Both JC and JYL in that moment couldn't truly bring themselves to go after WWX and hold him accountable. But we can also see that they are torn. That they are unsure how to feel about WWX and the dangerous person he has now become. We see this when JYL is dying and she can't bring herself to express what she may or may not be feeling in that moment.

But love and loyalty aside, let's look at what would happen if JC didn't take part in the siege.

If JC didn't take part he would either look complicit in JZX's death or he would look like a weak coward who rolls over for his former second in command. Not only that, he would be expected to pursue justice on behalf of his sister. How would it look if he didn't raise a finger to kill or apprehend his sister and her husband's "killer?"

We don't even know if he wanted to kill WWX in that siege or apprehend him. Giving his literal job and the politics of that world, he wouldn't be wrong to do either. JC's job is to keep his people safe. And if WWX has become a threat, a threat that killed two of his family members, then I'm afraid to say it is his duty to stop him.

I would also argue in defence of his mental state at the time of his siege. JC literally lost his only remaining family left, his sister leaving behind an orphaned nephew. He's also not being fed the information we as the reader receive.

From his pov WWX had not only betrayed him to side with the sect that had nearly decimated his own, but it also looked like he had walked down the dark path and had become corrupted by his DC. His corruption had led to the death of people who he loved. In JC's eyes, WWX had betrayed him first.

Now before anyone starts, I am in no way condoning the massacre of the Wen remnants. But I would like to argue that we don't even know JC's full role in the siege other than that he lead it.

His goal was to get to WWX. If he wanted the Wen dead, he would have sided with the rest of the cultivation world in the beginning instead of defending WWX's actions and being mocked and demeaned for it. He was willing to embarrass himself and receive criticism from the other sect leader's for WWX! That to me suggests his love and loyalty for his brother.

For all we know, JC's party could have went after WWX and his fierce corpse army. Whilst the Jin took advantage and took care of the Wen. WWX never blames JC for the death of the Wen nor does he seek justice or revenge. Instead he puts the blame on the Jin when the truth of their conniving comes out. So.. if you think JC should be held accountable for the Wen, WWX himself doesn't even entertain that idea. 🤷

So no, actually. The siege does not nullify Jiang Cheng's sacrifice. JC made that sacrifice out of love for his brother without a second thought. JC only turned against WWX at the very last minute when he inadvertently got his beloved sister killed. He could have picked the easy way out and sided with the three powerful sects to take down WWX and the Wen a long time ago but he didn't. Because he loved WWX. He respected him. And he was only pushed to commit the atrocities he commited because of WWX. JC is not inherently evil.

[wangxianficfinder]

Fic Finder

July 26th

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1. hi! pease help me find this fic because i really want to re read this.

junior quartet got sent back around sunshot campaign (i think?) because in the future, the four were there in the guanyin temple face off with jgy, together with lxc, lwj, wwx, and jwy. they were really losing and the seniors told the juniors that they're going to find a way to get out of there. turns out, the seniors sacrificed their life to send the juniors to the past through an array but the juniors didn't know about this. jin guangyao also went back in time because he got into the array in time.

here are some details that im not sure if they're are a part of the fic or it's from others (my mind sometimes mix things up). i hope these help:

- jingyi found young jingyi when they were sent back.

- the juniors went to burial mounds and the people there wer skeptical about them

- later part of the fic, zizhen was not accepted in his family (i forgot why) @moonyramie

FOUND? ❤️ Tragedy is Not the End by Hobbsy3 (T, 358k, wangxian, Time Travel, Torture, Hurt/Comfort, Golden Core Reveal, Canon Divergence from Qiongqi Pass, Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Yunmeng sibling bonding, good dad wwx, good dad lwj, JZX Lives, JYL Lives, Junior Quartet Dynamics)

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2. Hello there again! Im looking for this one sci-fi fic where wei wuxian was a scientist and lan wangji was a military soldier. They met during an Alien invation. In the fic they try to figure out how to kill the aliens or how they even got in earth. Thankyou!

FOUND? Number 2 sounds like Son of a SoliderMan, by FireAwayy, who deleted it and quite a few other Untamed fics because of harassment. // Also had Jiang Cheng and Wen Ning as ambulance drivers, Lan Xichen, Nie Mingjue and Song Lan as solders who were sent into the area.

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3. Hi! This is for ficfinder. I read this fic a few years ago. Its MDZSXTGCF crossover. Im not familiar with TGCF so maybe there will be some incorrect use of some term and relationship. WWX dies after he jump from a clif and then he become ghost in the ghost city. He work/become a friend with hua cheng. WWX wore a weimao (its either weimao or a red umbrella). HC and XL then feel some disturbance and with WWX they visit a place where they jail jun wu (?) In some mountain. But when they arrive, the jailer tells them its not jun wu. HC, XL, and WWX then continue their investigation and they meet with LXC and NMJ. I think there WWX identity is revealed to LXC and NMJ. They found out that the disturbance is because of yin iron that are thrown to the magma in nighless city acting up. To stop that WWX sacrifice himself and he died again. When i read that fic its still ongoing but i dont know what this fic status right know. Thats all i can remember. Thank you! @idontknowwhattowriteforusername

FOUND! Hi! Im #3 i just found the fic. Its 🔒Can we skip to the Good Part? by pink-lotus-pods (kkomaism) (T, 107k, HuaLian, WangXian, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, YLLZ WWX, HuaLian are in Love , Married HuaLian, Slow Build, Canon Temporary Character Death, Ghost WWX, Fix-It of Sorts, Canon Divergence, Blood and Violence, Character Study, Panic Attacks, WWX Has a Mental Breakdown, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, unbearable amounts of sexual tension, Suicidal Thoughts, mild but it’s still there!, Additional Warnings In Author’s Note, Genius WWX)

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4. For fic finder, please! I am looking for a modern fic where Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian are raising Jin Ling together and they had a happy little family life, but struggled financially. The two were strippers who eventually catch the eye of Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji who begin to tip them ludicrous amounts of money. I remember the fic laid out their salaries and tips and they were making hundreds of thousands of dollars but they still bemoaned that they were broke and struggling. My confusion over their finances is what I remember most about this fic, lol. Would love to read again, if this rings a bell for anyone! Thank you!

FOUND! Silk & Satin by Brieeze01 (E, 171k, WangXian, LXC/JC, Modern, Stripper/Exotic Dancer, Strippers & Strip Clubs, Pole Dancing, Falling In Love, Love Confessions, Idiots in Love, Child LSZ, Child JL, supportive brothers, hardworking brothers, Uncles and nephews, Love Story, Emotions, brokeass pole dancers meet billionaire bachelor brothers, Kinks, Lipstick, High Heels, Blindfolds, Anal Sex, Oral Sex, Rough Sex, Gentle Sex, Lube, Strip Tease, Dancing, Dirty Dancing, First Kiss, First Time, Love Bites, Anal Fingering, Rimming, Romance, Silk, satin, Slow Burn, Happy Ending, Wholesome, Pining, kink appreciation, healthy family relationship, Healthy Relationships, Everybody uses lube, Lapdance)

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5. Hi I was wondering if you know about a certain fic that takes place during the cloud releases study arc. Where Wei Wuxian wakes up one day suddenly and inexplicably pregnant with an egg. I'm pretty sure its incomplete but I read it a while ago and it was interesting. One of the main parts I remember is Jiang Cheng asking/trying to convince Wei Wuxian that he's not pregnant and it's just a "food baby". @wolfcubx2

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6. Hi! First of all thank you for the existence of this blog, I'm pretty sure it's saved my sanity more than once at this point! I'm looking for a post-canon fic where wwx is telling lwj something like "of course I died screaming, I was being torn apart, but I died calling your name bc you were the only good thing I had in my life"

Unfortunately I can't remember whether it was a long fic or a short fic, or even the rest of the plot, I read too many to keep track lololol so I don't have anything else to go on, but that part really stuck out to me and I wondered if it might ring any bells for anyone else! (And if nothing else I might get a different fantastic recommendation out of the deal!!)

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7. looking for this fic, I don’t remember much but it was abo, modern au with wei ying as an omega and lz as an alpha. there was a part in it where wei ying was presenting to lan zhan and lan zhan was thinking something along the lines of omegas don’t actually do that anymore, or something like that.

FOUND? Tastes Like You by airinshaw (E, 30k, WangXian, A/B/O Dynamics, Modern AU, Alpha LWJ, Scenting, Claiming Bites, Getting Together, Light Dom/sub)

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8. Hello Hello!!!! So I've scrolled through 20+ pages of my Ao3 history for a fic but can't find it. So I'm hoping yall can help!! Lan Wanji was a vampire who lives alone in the woods away from humans and his family. Wei Wuxian was a traveling merchant who ends up crashing Lan Wanji's place. He breaks the man's privacy by entering a room containing a portrait of Lan Wanji's mom, this inturn leads to Wei Wuxian being kicked out. Lan Wanji feels guilty after a bit and goes out to find him. Wei Wuxian ends up in a bad situation and Lan Wanji attempts to save him. They both end up in like a ravine and Wei Wuxian is near death. The two kiss and Wei Wuxian purposefully cuts his tongue on Lan Wanji's fang. At the taste of Wei Wuxian's blood Lan Wanji goes feral and bites his neck. Wei Wuxian dies right then and there, Lan Wanji is convinced he killed him despite desperately trying to turn him into a vampire. Lan Wanji was successful after a few minutes of mouring and hating himself Wei Wuxian comes to. It ends with a time skip to vampire Wei Wuxian buying something in a market dressed in a sun hat and long sleeves buying something for Lan Wanji @crimson-gay-sought-flower

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9. Hi! Do you know the fic where there's a scene with WWX taking the Wen Remnants away and LWJ is his husband and they kiss goodbye but then WWX tells them no one saw that? I think it might have been a arranged marriage au .. @abijo2024-blog

FOUND? seldom all they seem by Fahye (E, 25k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Arranged Marriage, or rather Arranged Betrothal, followed by Weapons-Grade Thirst) They're engaged rather than married during the rain scene, but I'd say everything else fits. Hope that helps!

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10. Hi!! I'm looking for a fic where wei ying gets his original body back and absolutely no one recognises him. Wei ying doesn't realise this though and walks around gusu in lan clothing. However people start to think lan wangi's gotten a new consort and get mad at him for doing that to wei ying. @louvoilite

FOUND? Is Your Old Body Considered a Halloween Costume? by The_peregrine_falcon (G, 3k, WangXian, WWX's original body, Junior quartet makes an appearance, LWJ is chief cultivator, Fluff,Canon Compliant, Post-Canon) but I don't recall the villagers thinking he was a new consort

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11. Hello I'm DESPERATELY looking for a Tumblr fic, it's relatively short, in which a demonic cultivation is brought forth to the sects in a conference, and he asks for incense and prays to WWX who, lo and behold, is a sleeping god. Please help??

FOUND?🔒Calling Heaven by mondengel (Not Rated, 2k, WangXian, God au)

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12. Fic finder please! I am looking for a fic that I can’t remember if it was time travel (like WWX went back in time) or if it just was au starting with him as a child. Child/teen WWX joins a theatre troupe and he performs a veiled dance at a Nie gathering and teen Huaisang tries to propose to him thinking that WWX was a beautiful female dancer. It is only several years later that they meet again and realize they had that shared moment. It is a WangXian fic, but this is the scene I remember!

FOUND! The Darkness Before Dawn by PsycheStellata707 (M, 113k, WangXian, WIP, Angst with a Happy Ending, Time Travel Fix-It, Canon Divergence, BAMF WWX, Attempt at Humor, PTSD, Oblivious WWX, WWX-centric, Blind WWX, Sentient Burial Mounds, Everyone Lives AU, Except Those Who Deserves to Die, Oblivious Pining, Not Canon Compliant)

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13. Soo ik it's a discontinued fanfic of wanxian , and I'm not sure if it's been deleted or the name is changed but, it was on Wattpad i think, and was called 'i will fix everything ' it starts with Wei yung returning in time to when he was at gusu lan for learning, he is sitting in class when he opens his eyes and is shocked by this fact , but then he sees suibian near him and he unsheathed the sword and slit his throat. later it goes as he shows his memories to everyone and they find a way to save

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14. Hello,

I'm looking for a fic, set Modern day, no magic, where Wei Ying runs away/is kicked out? during high-school and years later Lan Zhan finds him at a framers market/ crowded street? .. the scene I remembered specifically that led me to trying to find it is Lan Zhan calling Jiang Yanli and saying "I found him" after seeing him in the streets, and her thinking he means like at a morgue so she starts crying and so he continues with "I found him alive" ...I think Wei Ying also lives with the wens on their farm ...  I realize that that is not alot of information to go on but I read it so long ago, its all i remember, I can't even remember if it is worth searching for to reread but that didn't stop me from spending 3 hours looking before giving up and finding this page to ask

Thank you for taking your free time to to help random people find lost fics! @cassie-joy567

FOUND? clean from the war (your heart fits like a key) by sysrae (E, 28k, WangXian, Modern AU, Reunions, past xy/wwx, xy is fucked up but not evil because it's a modern AU and I said so, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, past wwx/jfm, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Abuse, Rape Recovery, transphobic violence, Victim Blaming, Past wwx/others, allusions to past self-harm)

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15. Here I am again, begging on my knees: can you help me find a fic where wwx finds a book describing a shrine to a good he's never heard about, and goes out to find it. He ends up discovering lwj ascended a long time ago, but he is bound and his temples were burned and devotees killed by the sects, lead by the Lan. Turns out they bound and imprisoned his body and he can only manifest in his temples, and WWX helps him escape the confinement. It is (was?) a WIP, featuring Wangji and Bichen having human forms, lwj is the one who helps wwx master demonic cultivation, creepy rituals that transfer the conscience of a past sect leader into Xichen, and the one who received wwx's golden core is jyl. Please?

FOUND!🔒 We'll Build This House on Stone (Altars) by FluffyHippogriff (E, 270k, WangXian, WIP, Romance, Supernatural Elements, Old God LWJ, Dumb Baby WWX, Friendship, WWX Finds an Ancient Altar, what happens next will shock you, Hijinks & Shenanigans, YLLZ WWX, There's Always a Price, But For Once It's Not WWX's Sweet Bod, Angst with a Happy Ending, Explicit Chapters Will Be Individually Tagged, Bichen Sword, Wàngjī Guqin, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Bichen)

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16. Hi I have been looking for a fic I read and cannot find where Wei Wuxian doesn't realise he and Lan Zhan are dating. I believe it had a scene where the two of them go grocery shopping and run into Lan Zhan's ex, Mo Xuanyu, who tries to persuade Lan Zhan that they should get back together. Obviously, since he believes he has now started seeing Wei Ying he says no. There was something about Wei Ying secretly picking up ice cream for Lan Zhan. If anyone can remember it that would be fabulous, thanks! @funny-it-worked-last-time

FOUND! without your new eyes by anaphoricae (E, 66k, WangXian, Modern, Didn't Know They Were Dating, Sexuality Discovery, Self-Discovery, Literal Sleeping Together, mentions of WWX/others and LWJ/others, Drunk LWJ, Teacher LWJ, WWX is a… throws dart… computer scientist, No Angst, Jealous WWX, Flirty WWX, Eventual Smut, Bottom LWJ, Fluff, Non-Sexual Intimacy, WWX's Love Language is Physical Touch, Guess what: even more non-sexual sleeping together, the plot of the fic is just… co-sleeping, call it the Nap Fic ™, Podfic Available, WWX isn't so much 'oblivious' as he is wilfully blocking some feelings subconsciously, WWX 'idk how I feel' to 'I'm gonna marry him' pipeline)

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17. Hello, I’m looking for a short M or E rated fic, modern au, where wwx talks on social media, likely TikTok, about the benefits of having an older partner who knows exactly what he wants and communicates that clearly. Lwj is older than wwx and has some sort of corporate/business job. There is a chance this was a single chapter in larger work that is a collection of short fics.

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18. Hi! I'm trying to find a Lán Qǐrén/Wēn Ruòhán fic that was deleted on ao3. The title was "God & Monsters." I don't know the author's exact name but I know it had "jupiter" in the username. It's an time travel fic where LQR goes back in time when he was younger during his studies at cloud recesses with WRH, JFM, YZY, etc. I just know it's not "Cursed couple." @cherry1928rev

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19. Argh! For FF, I'm looking for a time travel fixit where Su Minshan time travels and nopes out of CR study arc. It's written in his pov, and he's kind of Indiana Jonesing it, studying the burial mounds for forgotten magics. ANYWAY hope think it would be easy to find Su Minshan redemption/time travel as being reasonably unique, but no. I even failed to bookmark it so help!! @mreisse

FOUND? Dark Promises Amid Rising Screams by meyari (M, 88k, SheYao, WangXian, Time Travel Fix-It, Unreliable Narrator, Major character death, Not Really Character Death, Discussion of Genocide, PTSD, Chronic anxiety, Panic Attacks, Warning: JGS, Warning: WRH, Mind Control, Canon-Typical Violence, Politics, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Sacrifice, Asexual Relationship, Aromantic Relationship, Aro/Ace SS, Aro/Ace MY)

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20. Hi! I remember having read this fic where Lan Zhan is face blind and didn't really notice Wei Wuxian came back to life in a different body, because he just recognised wwx's behavior. It was a very sweet fic and I'd love to read it again, but I totally forgot what it was called and I don't think I bookmarked it :(

I'm pretty sure I read it on ao3, but perhaps it could have just been a tumblr post.

I hope someone knows which fic I'm talking about, but I'm also open to other fics where Lan Zhan (or other characters) are face blind. @ifyourelostjustlookforme

FOUND! Faces by osiesaur (G, 1k, WangXian, lwj is faceblind, wwx and lwj are both learning to communicate better, WWX in MXY's body, they're married, LWJ POV)

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[brawlite]

some horror fic recs for october 👻

i wanted to put together a rec list of my favorite horror fics for the spookiest month. there are a bunch of different flavors of horror in here as well as a number of different fandoms, so hopefully you can find something that tickles your fancy (though ngl i would still rec reading these bad boys even if you don't know the fandoms at all).

i tried to tag tumblrs when/where i could find them, but if i couldn't, the author name links to ao3.

a reminder as always: this is horror—please read all the tags.

thanks for reading and i hope you find something to enjoy!

also, pretty please feel free to reblog and add your favorite horror fic recs.

👻👁️🎃🔪👻👁️🎃🔪👻👁️🎃🔪👻👁️🎃🔪👻👁️🎃🔪👻👁️🎃🔪👻👁️🎃🔪

the ghost apple tree by @thefearofcod

10k words, rated m song lan/xue yang/xiao xingchen (the untamed/mdzs) summary:

Fixing up a decaying house in the woods is the same as addressing your problems. (sxx is haunted)

brawls' notes: i think about this fic a lot; i'm haunted by it. this is by far one of my favorite horror stories i've ever read—the vibes are off-the-charts and horrific in a very visceral, tense way. made me feel weird (positive). i hope it makes you feel weird too (this is a threat).

—

convergence by @astrophyllitely

33k words, rated e lan zhan/lan xichen, lan zhan/jiang cheng (the untamed/mdzs) summary:

Lan Wangji regains consciousness in a crashed spaceship on an unfamiliar planet. He is not alone; Lan Xichen is there. He is not alone; Jiang Wanyin is there. But never both at once.

brawls' notes: space horror? check. psychological horror? check. uneasy and tense alien vibes? also check. beautiful push and pull of the narrative, paired with an an intense feeling of claustrophobia. there's a particular moment that had my heart right in my throat. stunning.

—

mockingbird by MarInk

82k words, rated e stiles stillinski/peter hale (teen wolf) summary:

Stiles works tirelessly to keep the roof over his heads and longs for a proper challenge for his brains. Peter chafes under his sister's authority and nurses big, bloody dreams. One day, the two are connected by a mistaken text message. One never knows who is on the other end of a wrong number. Sometimes it's somebody one will come to cherish and adore. Sometimes it's a ruthless, unapologetic monster. Sometimes it's both.

brawls' notes: sometimes you read something and are just blown away by it, forever altered. that's what this was for me. want a type of monster-au you've never seen before? this is it. also: ostensibly a wrong-number au, but don't be fooled. (i was.)

—

never meant by nonhicsumus

3k words, rated m alex krycek & dana scully (the x-files) summary:

Sometimes the past isn't worth digging into.

brawls' notes: whump and psychological horror? plus alex krycek?? my favorite. every word of this is perfection—i instantly wanted to read it again for the first time. you can.

—

fais do-do by @moku-youbi

18k words, rated e will graham/hannibal lecter (hannibal)

summary:

“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.” ― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (this fic does not have a summary, but begins with this quote)

brawls' notes: a different-meeting au packed with everything you need for the perfect horror story: violence, blood, a chase scene, and an unreliable narrator. delightful.

—

blackbird, fly by @acroamatica

19k words, rated m kylo ren/armitage hux (star wars: tfa)

summary:

One sunny afternoon in the mountains of Washington state, Ben Organa-Solo walked out into the woods. He never came home. Six years later, a journalist specialising in missing-persons cold cases decides to follow his footsteps and see where they might lead.

brawls' notes: a masterpiece of vibes. this reads so much like a spooky mystery novel, but with a creeping, anxious dread. perfect for the season if you want that true autumnal sort of chill. i've carried this fic in my heart for nearly a decade now—it has inspired me in my own writing so much over the years.

—

grey stars on the rise by @iodhadh

4k words, rated e song lan/xue yang/xiao xingchen (the untamed/mdzs) summary:

Xiao Xingchen comes back. Xiao Xingchen comes back wrong. It takes too long, maybe, for Xue Yang to realize something is wrong with Song Lan too.

brawls' notes: the exact embodiment of: be careful what you wish for. brutal and crushing and so deeply, utterly satisfying. absolute yi-city perfection: the vibes are wretched but strangely romantic (chefs kiss).

—

half your life you've been hooked on death by @whatever-you-can-give-me

4k words, rated m vash the stampede/nicholas d. wolfwood (trigun) summary:

Wolfwood is cornered in an alleyway. Things get worse before they get better.

brawls' notes: and what's a horror rec list without a little bit of gore? whump and blood and near-death-experiences—oh my. this is brutal and feverish and exactly the right flavor.

—

black rock mountain by @bokuno-jinsei

24k words, rated e will graham/hannibal lecter (hannibal) summary:

Will is a hitchhiker with questionable hobbies. Hannibal is a man who has questionable motives. When Hannibal drives by Will who just so happens to need a ride, things quickly take a turn from the questionable to the downright depraved.

brawls' notes: you know That Fic that is really the epitome of that pairing for you? yeah, this is it for me. perfect alternate first-meeting fic. lives rent-free in my head.

👻👁️🎃🔪👻👁️🎃🔪👻👁️🎃🔪👻👁️🎃🔪👻👁️🎃🔪👻👁️🎃🔪👻👁️🎃🔪

and hey, why not be a little self-indulgent: i can't help but rec a few of my own horror fics here, too:

old growth

21k, rated m song lan/xue yang/xiao xingchen (the untamed/mdzs) summary:

There’s something in the woods outside of their hometown. Xue Yang and Song Lan are going to find it.

brawls' notes: i tried something new with the formatting on this one and i think it panned out solidly and was a desperately fun way to tell the story. this is full of spooky, sleepless forest vibes.

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what's real or isn't

57k, rated e kylo ren/armitage hux (star wars: tfa) summary:

Hux's new house is not haunted. It isn't.

brawls' notes: i honestly love playing favorites and this is one of mine. this was a load of fun to write—it's chock-full of vibes, personal experiences, local history, and love notes to my favorite horror stories.

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acquiesce

16k, rated e original luo binghe/original shen qingqiu (svsss) summary:

After seeing the gentle and loving Shen Qingqiu of the other world, Luo Binghe returns to his own with a hunger that can only be satisfied by one thing—a Shizun of his very own.

brawls' notes: this isn't spooky or haunted, but it is psychological horror—packed with nightmares, flashbacks, dread, and manipulation. enjoy!

👻👁️🎃🔪👻👁️🎃🔪👻👁️🎃🔪👻👁️🎃🔪👻👁️🎃🔪👻👁️🎃🔪👻👁️🎃🔪

and that's it! hope you find something fun to read for this october 🖤

and again—please reblog and add your own horror recs if you are feeling so inclined!

[qiu-yan]

secretly afab jiang cheng poll

(someone once wrote a post about a similar scenario but i cannot find it. if someone finds it please send me the link)

consider the following scenario:

yu ziyuan gives birth to two biologically female children. her second birth in particular is difficult and renders it impossible for her to have any more children. determined to have one of her children inherit, however, yu ziyuan lies, and announces to the cultivation world the birth of a son, jiang cheng.

jiang cheng is raised as a boy. only yu ziyuan and a handful of trusted maids know the truth. jiang fengmian never finds out. jiang yanli never finds out. even wei wuxian somehow never finds out.

as time goes on, various other parties discover the truth at different points in jiang cheng's life--wen chao and his men after jiang cheng is captured in wei wuxian's place, wen qing and wen ning during the golden core transfer, possibly jin guangyao as well--but, due to various circumstances, everyone who knows dies before they can spread the information. eventually, the only person left alive who knows the truth is jiang cheng himself.

jiang cheng leads his sect. jiang cheng purposefully gets himself blacklisted by all matchmakers. jiang cheng raises jin ling. somehow, for the entirety of the 13 year timeskip and beyond, jiang cheng is able to hide the truth of his body from the entire world. wei wuxian returns after 13 years of death, the present half of the plot plays out exactly as it does in canon, and somehow this specific information just never comes up. even after wen ning's return, wen ning somehow never brings it up either, because he assumes wei wuxian knows already.

then, some time after the end of canon, wei wuxian finds out the truth: that jiang cheng, who he fully believed to be biologically male, was in fact biologically female this entire time, and also that jiang cheng managed to hide this information from him all the way up until now. maybe wen ning finally spills the beans or something.

how does wei wuxian react?

things to consider:

how does jiang cheng think of himself in this scenario? as a woman pretending to be a man? as the ancient fantasy chinese version of a transgender man?

how does jiang cheng wish to live in this scenario? does he wish to live as a woman? does he wish he were biologically male?

have jiang cheng and wei wuxian reconciled?

how would wei wuxian react to learning that there was a huge chunk of jiang cheng's life he had zero idea about?

what kinds of attitudes towards women has wei wuxian exhibited in the text?

what kinds of attitudes towards women has mxtx exhibited in the text?

explain your reasoning in the notes!!!

[mxtxfanatic]

Hi! If you don't mind me asking:

What does mxtx says about jc's character? Like some jc stans claim that she has said he has a knife tounge and tofu heart, (I don't believe it still) is it true? I don't know where to find her interviews, so I asked you instead:)

Thank you 💕

MXTX speaks on Jiang Cheng’s character in two places that I know: the old version of the postscript of the novel (absent from the official 7seas release) and an interview from before she left socials.

In the postscript, she only has this to say about Jiang Cheng:

Everyone should know what Jiang Cheng’s keyword is without me saying it. In the beginning, I thought with with XY’s [Xue Yang] existence, Jiang Cheng’s negative energy would definitely seem skimpy. Who knew he became the ultimate superstar of the comment section? Compared to him, XY was almost a poor, has-been idol. Only now and then would someone decide to drag him out again. Of course, in the end, under the combined PDA attacks of WWX and LWJ, the past and present superstars were obliterated.

And in this interview, she goes more in-depth. Sidenote: while I appreciate the interview for what it, I do not appreciate the ways in which they insert their own opinions about how they think MXTX should feel about Jiang Cheng into the actual interview commentary, and it shows how much of a bias even the interviewer had towards his character to have asked so many leading questions in an attempt to get a positive response out of her about him.

Anyways, here's some expansion by @jiangwanyinscatmom on the nuance of what mxtx meant by “not heinous/evil” that was lost in translation here and some more re-translation (still of the same interview as above):

墨香铜臭：本性不是特别坏，但是有人要讨厌他的话，那也没办法。因为你讨不讨厌一个人，也是……也是自己的问题。

He is not a 坏 (basically spoiled broken, corrupt) person by nature, but if someone wants to dislike him, there is nothing I can do about it. Because whether you dislike someone or not is also... your own choice.

MXTX's answer about why Jiang Cheng never could marry and how she sees him as a character (parenthesis section for jiangwanyinscatmom's own translation notes):

墨香铜臭：就性格比较差劲吧，谈了几个，吹了。 (He just has an 差劲 (average/lame/disappointing, let down) temperament, he dated several times but they were all failures) 墨香铜臭：我眼中的江澄……我眼中的江澄，就……其实没怎么样，我写文还是比较客观的。我看他……我看他就、就像是在看一个作品。 女主持：如果让大大本人来介绍江澄这个人的话，你会怎么介绍他？ 墨香铜臭：我觉得他是一个负能量比较……重……的人。 女主持：这么简单吗？ 墨香铜臭：对，负能量比较重，但是也不是个、也不是个十恶不赦的人吧。对。 MXTX: In my eyes, Jiang Cheng... In my eyes, Jiang Cheng is... Actually, it's nothing special. I am relatively objective when writing. When I look at him... When I look at him, it's like looking at a work of art. Female host: If you were to introduce Jiang Cheng, how would you introduce him? MXTX: I think he is a person with a lot of negative energy... Female host: Is it that simple? MXTX: Yes, he has a lot of negative energy, but he is not a heinous person. Yes.

In short: MXTX describes Jiang Cheng as a character that is filled with negativity and unable to date, but he is not inherently evil nor to the point of being irredeemable. He is a product of the story and fulfills the role he was created to fulfill in the plot. He's not a good person, not overtly and not secretly. That's it.

[undercover-stories]

I think something some fans don’t take into account about Wei Ying never telling Jiang Cheng about the golden core was because it was most likely an incredibly traumatic experience for him. Imagine going through surgery without any anesthesia and being forced to endure excruciating pain for two days and one night. Even after he came back he still couldn’t bring himself to even think about it. Let alone explain to JC.

Another thing is how he was probably terrified that his brother would hate him for it. He knew it was an incredibly invasive decision that he had decided without Jiang Cheng’s consent. That he had taken that choice from him even if himself did feel like it was necessary to help his brother. Imagine having to deal with that terrible trauma alone. Followed almost immediately with being thrown into the burial mounds and being trapped there for months right after being stabbed. From the height he was thrown he definitely got horribly injured from the fall as well. Not even having his cultivation to help him protect himself. The headcanon that he ate corpses is very unlikely and according to the wens there was some trees there that grew fruit and there was some source of drinkable water. But I think Wei Ying would have still been immobilized from pain for days before he could even move.

I’m not one who likes to compare traumas. I think it’s redundant and doesn’t help the situation. But I think it’s still pretty fair to conclude that Wei Ying had it way worse. In addition to all of this, he might not have been related to Jiang Fengmian by blood but he was still the only father figure he’d ever known. His grief at losing him might not have been as intense as JC’s but it was still there. Not to mention the grief of losing their entire sect. The guilt he must have felt since it happened when Wang Lingjiao was demanding he be punished. Even if it was just an excuse for the Wens to attack the Jiangs.

Not to mention he was also dealing with the pain of having been whipped by Zidian. Something that could take weeks to heal. And he had to deal with all of that silently because he had to prioritize keeping his brother safe. Especially since it was JF’s last words to him.

I just cannot take people who vehemently condemn his decision to keep that secret seriously. Especially the ones that accuse him of simply being avoidant. I think it was more than understandable and even borderline justifiable. That’s not even mentioning how he was ostracized after the war for a type of cultivation he had no choice but to choose. Not even being able to explain why because it would reveal everything to JC. Being told over and over that he was basically a monster for doing so. Saying that he was dealing with a conga trauma line would be an understatement.

[essekknits]

Can’t help but wonder what the dynamics of the Jiang family would’ve been if Wei Ying was a little girl instead of a little boy.

First change I think would have to happen is that madam Yu would have to find different reasons to hate her, if she even continues hating her this much. This Wei Ying is not a threat to her son’s inheritance, or to her daughter’s prospects, so that is one part of the hatred not really being there anymore.

As a result of this, Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying’s relationship would be a bit less fraught, I think. Jiang Cheng is no longer constantly being compared to Wei Ying as “he’s the son your father actually wanted, he doesn’t love you”. He can instead take more joy in a second older sister, one who likes to wrestle with him and race him in the lakes, which his sister can’t really do, but who he also might be a bit more comfortable leaning on emotionally than he might’ve been a brother.

In this AU, Yanli might bear the brunt of the comparisons, but I also think she’s more well-equipped to handle it? Female Wei Ying would still be a strong cultivator, which Yanli very much isn’t, but Yanli’s identity doesn’t revolve around her cultivation the way Jiang Cheng’s does. She’s slightly older, and as sad as it is, more used to being looked down on. She doesn’t resent Wei Ying her success the same way she doesn’t resent Jiang Cheng his.

There would also have to be a change in the rumours. I feel like one of the rumours, instead of being “Wei Wuxian is Jiang Fengmian’s bastard with Cangse Sanren” (although that rumour isn’t completely gone either), would turn into a slightly more sinister “Jiang Fengmian couldn’t have the mother, so he’s raising the daughter to become his concubine/second wife/replace his bitch of a wife”.

Which brings us to the final point: Jiang Fengmian. A lot about that man and his motives is left to speculation for the readers, and I saw many beautiful and incredibly valid interpretations of his motives. Maybe he genuinely just wanted to find his friends’ child to honour them. Maybe he wanted to earn a loyal guard to his son. Maybe he was trying to use Wei Ying as a replacement for the friends he lost.

Maybe he couldn’t have the mother, so he took the daughter.

I just think having a female Wei Ying can cause some interesting ripple effects that I’d love to explore, and isn’t just “slap different pronouns on character”.