#it would be so easy for jc who is so much like his mother
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awe jiang cheng laughing fondly when lan xichen says wei wuxian has the same personality as his mother :( for all jiang chengs flaws in how he treats wei wuxian, he does never Once hold his parentage against him even when it would be such an easy evolution from some of the things he blames wei wuxian for, and the environment he grew up in, and when they're teenagers he's always shown to be very sensitive towards any information about wei wuxian's parents/people treating him poorly because of who is parents are. it's just special to me :(
#like you always see him paying close attention when wwxs parents are brought up#and he gets So Offended when wen chaos gf who I don't remember the name of calls wwx a servant to the jiang sect#it would be so easy for jc who is so much like his mother#to hate wwx parents and blame wwx for that#but he doesn't#to be clear he's obviously insecure about the way jfm treats wwx and the complicated family dynamics surrounding that#but he never holds in against wwx#in a world of people holding wwxs parents against him#and a lifetime of jc holding everything against wwx#its just special to me that the two never collide#ghost posts#text#jc#lxc#wwx#cssr#yunmeng bros#cqltober lb
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oooo for the AU Ask Game, an alternate universe where JYL marries someone else who isn't Jin Zixuan? (your choice on who she marries and why!)
Oooh this is a fun one! All right, here we go... this might change EVERYTHING lol
Who does JYL marry? There is absolutely no question in my mind that the best option in terms of inter-sect connections, and a desire on JC and WWX's parts that she be safe and cared for, is for her to marry Nie Mingjue. She would have had a chance to get to know him during the Sunshot campaign, and we all know NMJ drinks respect -women-juice for breakfast - and is a big softie, like look what he lets his brother get away with >.< So yeah, JYL goes to Qinghe and gets a spare didi out of the deal!
But why does she marry? Because yes, she still has feelings for JZXuan, but he's still a man-child who doesn't know a good thing when he sees it ;) But seriously, we have YMJ which is still rebuilding after the war and likely getting more and more in debt to get the supplies and manpower to fix up Lotus Pier, not to mention attracting new disciples to feed and clothe, so they'd need an alliance with another great sect - one that's stable financially and could even help YMJ. Gusu is still rebuilding as well, so they're out, and we've eliminated the Jin. THankfully Qinghe is a solid option all around (as stated above). And JYL has known from the time she was young that she would marry for an alliance, not for love - she would be the one to sit JC and WWX down to tell them it needs to be done (when they hear her suggestion of NMJ, that's the thing that gets them on board - they would have fought just about anyone else).
So at Koi Tower, things might be a little more uncertain because these clans are based on hereditary hierarchy, and without an heir along Jin Zixuan's line, his position is uncertain even if he's the only legitimate son. So JGS pushes for a marriage - even worse when he sees Qin Su's pursuit of JGY, because he'll be DAMNED if he allows JGY to marry before JZXuan. Sadly, I have no idea who he'd marry, probably the daughter of a smaller sect's leader (Yao or Ouyang maybe), but it would be a rushed deal and will make poor JZXuan miserable - but he'll do it because it's what's expected of him, and even though he will not love his wife, he will still give her far more respect than his father gave his mother (I know, low bar, but the boy is TRYING).
So with JYL engaged to NMJ by the time of the Phoenix Mountain Hunt, things go a little different - yes WWX will bust out the Wen remnants and fuck out of dodge, but JYL will go to NMJ and ask him to help WWX (at the very least give him a chance to explain instead of denouncing him with everyone else). This turns the tide for many things because once NMJ sees the conditions of the Burial Mounds and what's left of the Wen, he will be amenable to helping - but will do so under the condition that WWX give up demonic cultivation (and in fact he suggests Nie cultivation as an alternative - this will lead to a sad moment when WWX FINALLY comes up with a proper story and claim that WZL melted his core to explain that he's core-less, and after much crying all around, they can finally move forward from this mess).
So the Nie will lend their protection to the Wen in the Burial Mounds and actually suggest they move up into Qinghe - not by the Unclean Realm, but he will give them land to live on that isn't full of resentful energy, and they will have QHN's protection. This is good, and in return, a certain doctor meets NMJ and will start researching his condition to treat (and hey, if you wanna have fun, have her join NMJ & JYL, I'm easy ;)
So yeah! One change and everything changes like dominos :D
Thank you for the ask!
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I don't know if you already answered this so feel free to ignore.
What is your thoughts on Yu Ziyuan? am I the only one that thinks fandon defence of her saying she is just the typical Asian tiger mom is insulting to Asian mothers? You can be strict and not be abusive and guess what? YZ is not it.
Hell the author themselves made an entire chapter to say that she took things too far too often against a single person to be simple discipline towards a disciple. It was personal and she took great pleasure in it, just bc WY decides to stay despite his treatment doesn't make it any less horrible.
Am i the only one that thinks she only accepted WC orders to whip WY because she always took any chance to do so? That if Wang Lingjao hadn't mentioned she would have to be subservient to someone of lower class she would have gleefully cut off WYs hand and not reacted at all to the Wen invasion?
That in her last moments she made sure to remind WY one last time that he would be nothing but a servant to her, to tie him with a last wish so he would have the moral obligation to give up everything to JC like a proper servant should? I wholly believe part of her sudden tenderness to JC in her last goodbye was to also rub in WY face not only what he never had but what JC was losing just to rub salt in the wound.
Just, in what universe does people see a girlboss misunderstood by the world and its sexism? sometimes i think i read the wrong books or saw a different show... am i really the only one that sees this?
Good evening anon, I've been sitting on this a bit as I was weighing how exactly to answer this coherently. So, for the short answer; I do not like her as a character nor is she supposed to be seen as anything deeper than what she is. A terrible mother and person who let resentment rule her.
The Long Answer: She is not misunderstood, she is very easy to break down. She was a jealous youth who actively agreed to a marriage where the fiancé was already lukewarm to her disposition and continued to cast blame on Cangse Sanren stealing something she never had. Note as well, as she was the one to force a marriage and insisted on this even after Cangse Sanren had married Wei Changze. She is selfish and entitled. This carries over to how she treats her children, she is not happy with her own self, so she hyper focused on the flaws she instilled within Jiang Cheng. Instead of actually supporting him as a mother should, she insults him and instead of love she actively despises and insults her own child. This is not a healthy parental figure. She was hardly there enough obviously to even think of offering care and love in a very negligent household. She laughs instead when Wei Wuxian is brought in she is more concerned about being proven right about adding another child into the household will disrupt their already volatile dislike of each other.
Not once does she praise her children she fixates on despising Wei Wuxian and being annoyed he is able to be talented naturally so much she constantly pits her son against him herself and encourages that resentment to grow in him. She does not care about anything other than her own festering hate, and sure as hell never nurtured her own with love. She is miserable, pathetic and no whatever love she may have held for Jiang Cheng was toxic and all the worse to him as she never uplifted him as an actual loving parent should.
Her treatment of Wei Wuxian is certainly just as vile given he wasn't even her own yet she stayed forever jealous all over her own stories that exasperated her own hate for Cangse Sanren and superimposed that to Wei Wuxian. She has no excuse for her treatment of any of the children under her household. Hate is a sad way to live and end life, and it stops being sympathetic when she lived and died garnering the feelings and reactions she earned with it.
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qi rong! i kid, i kid. how about jc.
I will ignore your cruel taunting and focus on my viniferous darling.
a song that reminds me of them
I don't think I have a personal anthem for him, but En Fortapt Bror (A Prodigal Brother) by Rotvelt would probably go on the playlist if I made one, just for this bit alone:
Kan ikke ta det tilbake Kan ikke fÄ du gjort Jeg vil ikke ha tilgivelse Det vil ikke vaske det bort
Can't take it back Can't get you done I don't want forgiveness It won't wash it away
what they smell like
If we're getting poetic, like lotus fragrance and ozone.
an otp
No one in the cast is right for JC but I do think he wants and deserves a suitable wife so I like the idea of reading something where he's in a relationship. His problem is that he needs just, so much therapy before he can make an effective life partner for anyone. He features in this postcanon AU I wrote and that's a reasonable depiction of how I think things could shake out for him after many years have passed if he's worked on himself. Basically, I know his extracanonical list of qualities he requires in a wife is meant to be humorous, but I tried to incorporate them into an OC while also making her a match for him.
I dabbled in reading Sangcheng because I am a slave to @starwife and like, in theory, many many many many many years postcanon who knows what might happen? And mightn't that be interesting? Sadly I have come to the conclusion that it's too much of a stretch and isn't my cup of tea. Pls forgive
a notp
I was racking my brain to think of a JC pairing I kneejerk hate beyond the general 'well, he isn't really compatible with any of the characters we meet' stance and then I realised I had forgotten Xicheng exists. Pause for audience laughter.
What can I even add here? It's based on nothing and it's not even like there's the intelligence of a thoughtful resistant read behind it. The laziest possible pair the spares approach taken by people whose reading comprehension is so poor they think JGY is an irredeemable cackling villain and WWX is a noble woobie. Thankfully it's easy for me to avoid and therefore ironically ends up irritating me less than bad Xiyao in practice.
favorite platonic/familial relationships
I love his relationship with his mother. She's just horrendous to him and I don't think he ever has any concrete evidence she loves him until their final moments together, but what I find most interesting and realistic is that he seems to understand her. He can see why she is who she is, which doesn't in any way mitigate the damage she does but is an important part of their dynamic because it's an element of why he defends her and it contributes to how he internalises her criticisms.
My favourite JC and YZY moment is this:
Jiang Cheng was stuck between his father and his mother. After a moment of hesitation, he moved to his motherâs side. Holding his shoulders, Madam Yu pushed him forward for Jiang FengMian to see, âSect Leader Jiang, it seems that some things I have to say. Look carefullyâthis, is your own son, the future head of Lotus Pier. Even if you frown upon him just because I was the one who bore him, his surname is still Jiang! ⊠I donât believe for one second that you havenât heard of how the outside people gossips, that Sect Leader Jiang has still not moved on from a certain Sanren though so many years have passed, regarding the son of his old friend as a son of his own; theyâre speculating if Wei Ying is yourâŠâ
YZY emotionally, verbally and sometimes physically abuses her son. She is failing him as a mother and as a mentor. But she is not failing him as badly as JFM is failing him, and everything she says here is completely correct. And when JC and WWX talk about it afterwards, JC is also correct. WWX and LWJ kill the Xuanwu of Slaughter and no one cares or gives JC credit for his less glamorous contributions. His own father prefers WWX and doesn't even like him, and that is appalling.
WWX means well by trying to gloss over it, but it's an open secret and pretending it's not true is harmful. YZY is also going about it all wrong, but she's the only person who calls JFM out directly for failing his son. Pot, kettle, but there's a reason why when JC is stuck between his parents he ends up going over to his mother's side.
a headcanon that is popular in the fandom but that i disagree with
I'm going to go radical here and say I don't personally enjoy or want to read any postcanon Twin Heroes reconciliation. The novel is pretty final about how things end up for them, and it's my belief that they are both far better off not being in each other's lives any more. It's sad because they were close as brothers and love each other so deeply, but ultimately it's for the best. They both appear to be in agreement about this.
the position they sleep in
Probably looks all super cool and handsome when he sleeps, but unfortunately not quite as super cool and handsome as WWX.
a crossover au iâd love to see them in
Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Can you imagine.
my favorite outfit theyâve ever worn
We all know I'm MDZS first in almost everything, but I'm not a huge fan of JC's hair in the official art. Besides, it cracks me up that JC is far and away the most stylish member of the cast in CQL, and yet there's no indication that it's actually an interest of his. CQL NHS wearing his same basic bitch grey and white yet again while CQL JC swaggers past in his shoulder pads owning the entire worldâamazing. How could I pick a favourite? I do like his official photo look though, because the gold looks great with the purple.
#ask#testblog-54#roquen meta#i am team jc finding some measure of peace#so that he can become his best self#in time to meet a wife who thinks he's the bees knees#and have so many jiang babies#jiang clan revival!#pls he's the only one of my faves who has even a shred of hope left#for possibly being reasonably happy way down the line#let me have this
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Jiang Cheng is a good character.
YES, I want to open that can of worms.
I only say good but I mean a lot of different things. Good as in well written. But also as in he's not a bad person. He has many flaws, some venial, some major, he made mistakes as most in the story. He suffered just as much, even though part of it was caused by his own personality.
I'm pretty sure most people would agree but I also know there are less forgivable ones out there.
I know it's not straightforward because he's ill tempered and seeing the story from Wei Wuxian's pov it's hard to sympathise with someone who envied him so much when WWX has done nothing but love and respect him and his family his whole life. But come on.
His father did favor WWX over him, I think this point is quite pacific. I stand by the fact that JFM loved JC but the way he went about it was all wrong. If he had treated them equally then a lot of aggravation would have been spared. JC was at fault in taking it out on WWX, since he wasn't responsible for it but he was young and misguided and there it was WWX acting arrogant by his own (later) admission, which of course didn't help, no matter that he cared deeply.
His mother did nothing to smooth the edge of his character, instead she nourished his insecurities, constantly comparing him to WWX, underlying every little difference in their status, actions, results and treatments. It caused him to develop an inferiority complex that made him all the more bitter.
He's not as strongwilled and tough as some of the other characters and that's not a fault, he just has a more vulnerable personality he tries to compensate by acting rough. It's very apparent in how remissive he is around his mother who in contrast - while similar in temperament - has a very strong will. As a lonely kid, prior to WWX's arrival, his character has been easily molded by the people close to him, especially the ones he felt loved by. He grew prickly under the indifference of his father, the harsh ways of his assertive mother and the indulgence of his sister who while gentler is much tougher than him.
And then he watched his whole family being killed as a consequence of WWX's actions. It would have happened anyway, YZY understood that before anyone else, but still... Even though he was in the wrong blaming it on WWX, the Wen sect used that pretext to launch an attack that caught them off-guard. He watched all the people he loved die as WWX stood by someone else's side, never listening to his advice.
And I agree his temperament is not a justification, he should work on that, but I also know how difficult it is to change one own nature. He was easily riled up, he was too easy to condition and his envy and sense of inadequacy made him blind to the truth, but I think the way WWX was always able to win him back in a few words shows that he was trying, he was listening, he knew that was not the right way to go. And he cared about him too.
But I also want to notice that he was not just prickly, he was also right many times. He's pretty selfish, we can agree on that. It's not that he has no compassion for others but being it his pride, his sense of entitlement, his fear or whatever, he's not as selfless as WWX, ready to give everything up for someone he's not deeply connected to (which heightens the sacrifice he made giving himself up to save him). His indifference toward the faith of the two people who saved his life is quite unbearable, I have to be honest, but as explained in the story he has close to no memory of it and it lessens his sense of debt - not an excuse but I guess it makes sense. That being said, he goes about it the wrong way but what he tells WWX is right, he will never succeed in his intention, it would only bring destruction and I'm pretty sure he was not just thinking of himself, how he would be implicated, he cared for WWX, not for anyone else involved but for him. He was trying to save him.
Even though he never referred to him as his brother, like JYL did, he did love him like he was, he was just difficult, he wanted him by his side and tried to help him multiple times, if uncouthly, that's why he felt so betrayed when he chose to stand by Wen Ning and the others. I think his reaction after the golden core reveal is quite telling of his internal struggle.
When he found out he owed his life and his status to WWX he received one of the biggest blow of his life because he was finally set on hating him, resolving his lifelong internal conflict but deep down he knew that he couldn't ignore his sacrifice. For his whole life he had wavered in that limbo between love and hate, never able to fully commit to either side. He never truly hated him. Not until Jiang Yanli's death and not after he came back, maybe not even in between but that's his lowest point for sure. But now he had a debt of gratitude that he didn't want, because it clashed with his justified anger, because he didn't want to be linked to WWX again, because he didn't want to forgive him and feel like he was in the wrong yet again; not after what he had lost.
He was suddenly in debt without asking for it. It was like his grief and anger didn't withstand the good he had never known about, but he still felt them and there was a reason for them that he couldn't ignore, which made him look unsympathetic, once again his own efforts, sacrifices, losses... didn't seem to matter. And that was also because he had another unforgivable flaw, he was prideful, that meant he wasn't deemed able to confront the truth, which is belittling in itself.
First there is the envy, the pride. Then the grief, the inadequacy, the frustration. Ultimately there is another important bit, being kept in the dark. WWX had no right to take that decision for him, to be a martyr when he was supposed to be the executioner (from his point of view). He had no right to give up so much as if it was nothing when for JC it was everything. Most importantly he should have told him so he could have understood why he did what he did, because if he knew maybe Jiang Cheng would have done things differently too, he could have helped him. Every time WWX rejected his advice it wasn't because he didn't want to listen but because he couldn't listen, that would have lessened the resentment in JC. At that moment of their life him and JYL were all he had left and once again he fell second to someone else. Even worse he was abandoned by someone who promised to always be on his side, to help him in a difficult time, but not only WWX wasn't there and was protecting others, he was rejecting the hand Jiang Cheng tried to offer him.
In this respect, I find quite poetic the scene in the donghua with Jiang Cheng reaching out to help him up during the Waterborne Abyss incident and Wei Wuxian plummeting down under the weight of his own actions (and LWJ coming to the rescue, obv), because it's a very accurate representation of the future events. He did it badly but he did try to help. He did try to make him see reason. He missed some crucial details and lacked sympathy but he made a lot of wise remark. He didn't have WWX's confidence (edging on haughtiness) and since he had always been sensitive to the opinions of the people around him he could foresee consequences better than him. He was also painfully aware that he wouldn't always be able to face them because he could barely stand up for himself in many instances against those more domineering than him.
Whether he was really full of hate after WWX's death or in a way he was hoping he would come back I don't know, JGY could have been right, he kept Chenqing because he thought WWX would come for it - to catch him? It could be, the fact JGY said it almost leads me to believe the contrary because we know he's deceitful and always looks for the worse angle to any matter, but it could be true. To meet him again? Who knows - or he kept it to remember him. I don't think it's all that important. Because after he came back he was angry and they couldn't go back to how they were before but things smoothed over. He let him keep Chenqing, knowing that's his source of power now. In his words, as I've said before, we can see he understood better what happened and why. He finally managed to vent his anger at him to the point of turning it into something else as he moved to another stage of grief. The fact that Jin Ling keeps interacting with him after everything is said and done is quite telling of how quiet the aftershock is, not that I think Jiang Cheng could stop him but he wouldn't make it easy if he still hated him.
And then there is the biggest thing of all. Him not telling WWX how he was captured after the massacre of their sect is the most mature thing he has ever done. It wouldn't have eased anything, it would have only served the purpose of hurting WWX further. If he really hated him he would have told him, just as he vented his frustration at not having any recognition for his effort when WWX and LWJ were trapped in the cave. But he didn't want to hurt him even more when he knew he had suffered enough. It would have been a very spiteful thing to do, proving he needed people's approval and nothing else. Instead he accepted to be considered selfish and ungrateful even in his most selfless moment. The comparison with his inability to tell him the true story with the way WWX kept his action from him is a dead giveaway to the true reason he couldn't find it in himself to speak: for the first time after that instance he learned to be selfless again.
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JĂșlio CĂ©sar Carvalho is a werewolf that currently resides in Downtown and has been a Lunar Cove resident for all his life.
ITS THE END OF THE WORLD
GENDER/PRONOUNS:Â Cis Male, He/Him
DATE OF BIRTH:Â January 28, 1984
OCCUPATION:Â Figure Skating Instructor & Private Coach
FACECLAIM:Â Paulo Lessa
AS WE KNOW IT, AND I FEEL FINE
SPECIES:Â Werewolf
WOLF CLASSIFICATION:Â Beta (Born Wolf)
PACK AFFILIATION: Second In Command
WELCOME TO LUNAR COVE, JC CARVALHO
Trigger Warnings: Injury; Death; Alcohol References
The air pulsed electricâpungent with the hum of âmagicâ and warm with the piercing stench of chlorine. Hunched over a radiator, atop which a metal popcorn container was proving a proper cauldron, the boy, wrapped in a beach towel like a makeshift cloak, stirred his concoction with a plastic snorkel. The child mumbled an âincantation,â made-up words, voice low and steady, as the steam finally began to rise, until his motherâs firm hand was tugging him swiftly away and tossing the bubbling mixture into the air. As if on its own accord, then, a wave of water, twisting upward from one of the swimming pool models on display, surged to catch it in a frothing swell. It dragged the container down to the depths, a pool floor patterned with river rocks, where the toxic solution fizzled out harmlessly after a few moments.
JĂșlio CĂ©sar Carvalho, who had gone by JC his entire life, knew better than to touch the various chemicals on-sale in the swimming pool and garden store his family ran in Lunar Cove. And he certainly knew better than to touch the radiator, which had added enough heat to spark a reaction. Still, the boyâs mother was a witch, one with an affinity for water, and JC, huddled in their little brown kitchen, had watched her countless times brew potions atop their little porcelain stove. Observing the spectacle, but never participating, some part of him had decided that third-grade really was the proper opportunity to begin mixing up some of his own. But while his bloodline was certainly magic, JC himself was not; only child of a spellcaster, he was not one himself, nor would he ever be.
His fatherâwho had turned his back on the pack following a land dispute and who was now floating eternally on the very precipice of full abjurationâhad gifted his son with a solemn birthright, the dormant werewolf gene, maybe the only thing he had ever really gifted him. That gene had passed its persistent, winding way down through many generations, a lineage that traced itself to the decade following Lunar Coveâs very founding.Â
And this family line had once been proud, even locally famous, mostly for the time JĂșlio CĂ©sarâs grandmother won several rounds on a game show in the 1970s, only to lose purposefully on an easy question and flee Hollywood just prior to the full moon. A recording of those very segments ran in an eternal loop on a box television near the pool storeâs front counter, although keen viewers would notice she never did tell the host the name of her hometown.Â
Still, the Carvalho gleam seemed to be fading by the time JC himself was born. The boyâs father, who had inherited the shop from his parents, certainly made sure of that, through a combination of public confrontations, of unsavory business dealings, and of, much to his familyâs chagrin, a marriage to a true outsider, a non-local witch, who, despite her actual prowess, had made it more than clear she had no intention of joining the coven.Â
And so, JĂșlio CĂ©sar himself grew up in an almost detached human way, touched by magic he could never use and aware of the sleeping wolf within, but with no real opportunity to engage with either of the legacies that had forged him.
Still, JC did try to find a place among his peers in Lunar Cove. He began participating in sports at a young age, starting with soccer but then transitioning to more physical ones like hockey and football, at least partly because his father was trying to foster some degree of masculine hardiness within him. He performed best on the ice, however, his preferred arena when compared to the field. The rink became a second home, enough so that his mother joked, from time to time, that ice itself flowed through his veins, perhaps a metaphor for her own familial affinity for water magic.Â
Nevertheless, as JCâs teammates began reaching their growth spurts, the boy found he could not hit back quite as hard as they were now hitting him. He was quicker, though, agile. And the moment that would kickstart his eventual career came when an instructor at the local rink watched JC tug his arms inward, lift up his leg, and complete a respectable rotation despite his bulky hockey skates.Â
The motion had been a joke, of course, a funny dance to entertain his friends, but the coach approached the boyâs mother and made mention of natural aptitudes. From there, JC did not need much convincing, as this new activity allowed him to stay on the ice even during the off-season. His father grumbled about it, about having to fund ice time and lessons, although his real disdain for the sport was rooted more in its lack of true physicality, its inability to toughen his son up.Â
But as the months went by, JĂșlio CĂ©sar began devoting himself almost entirely to figure skating. He was attracted to the athleticism and to the freedom of it. This new hobby also gave the boy, a playground parkour folk hero, one who already had a bit of a hyperactive need to climb atop high things and jump off them, the designated allowance to leap as much as he wanted.Â
And by the time JC was making his way through high school, he was skating and competing, to some success, at a junior level, all the while working various part-time jobs to pay his way when his father finally decided to do so no longer.
Despite his natural skill, though, JC was a small fish from a small pond. Attending community college during the day, working by night, and practicing in the meager hours in-between, he still convinced himself that he would one day see the Olympics. He did not come near to qualifying in 2002, and so, undeterred, he began working even harder towards 2006, trading his courseload for more hours at work to fund more sessions at the rink. His scores markedly improved, but that year, JC weathered the single most defining encounter of his life, one that would, at the very least, interrupt his momentum.
At an out-of-state competition, he, against his better judgement, went out for friendly drinks with two men he had outskated and outranked that same day. A friend of theirs, a rowdy, boisterous stranger, arrived, and alcohol led to a lowering of inhibitions for all involved parties. From there, an exchange of cruel words filled the pub.Â
The fight eventually turned physical in the alleyway outside, and when the drunken new arrival threw back a fist to punch JC, the young werewolf stuck out his own hands and shoved him defensively backward, sending his attacker sprawling onto the pavement, where he hit his head on a raised piece of curb.Â
Paramedics arrived to find JĂșlio CĂ©sar leaning over him, failing at first-aid. But the man never even made it to the hospital. And having him struck him down, then, accident as it was, JC found the wolf still sleeping within him suddenly and viscerally awakened.Â
The incident caused something of a sports gossip scandal, and while JC himself was never charged, a number of witnesses outside the bar vouching for him, he still stepped back from his sport to return home. There, he would have to deal with the change due to arrive and accept a proper slap on the wrist for allowing the whole affair to happen in the first place.Â
The young man did not, however, seek out his father. He sought out instead the pack, the one that had once been home to his ancestors. Deferential, humble, and nearly pleading, he, maybe even to his own surprise, found himself welcomed back into its fold with open arms, and he emerged, thus, as a full Beta among friends.
One or two skating blogs regarded JC with pity as he returned to the competition circuit, but as he stepped back onto the ice for the first time in many months, he did so with a strange and almost frightening new vigor. All at once, this once mid-level competitor, was stronger and faster; he could jump higher and farther. JC suddenly dominated, becoming something of a fan favorite for his frantic, risky style, but he also became more reckless, caring less for safety so long as he could keep maximizing his performance.Â
While he was now boasting a clear record of victory, a minor injury caused by his own foolishness kept him once more out of the Olympic running, and feeling the approach of his thirties, his dreaded expiration date, JC soon pivoted to pairs, hoping to find a hopeful new niche. He became partners with Kim Binna, a young skater from his hometown he had seen compete in Nationals.Â
Just as the two of them were beginning to find a real groove, however, JC overextended a jump and landed hard on his ankle, a much more serious injury that would end his burgeoning career. He returned home to Lunar Cove, moped, and eventually, just as he had done all his life, decided to move past it with every ounce of willpower he could muster.Â
His local successes were notable. He began working as a skating instructor and coach at the same ice rink in which he had grown up, eventually helping kickstart a program that partnered with Lunar Coveâs schools to foster young talent. He served as a frequent guest at the local radio station, largely as a sports commentator. He volunteered to pick up trash along the shoreline and served as emcee at more than one pancake breakfast.Â
And while JC, a hometown hero now in his own right, did not even speak to his father anymore, having at last abjured him following a blow-out fight, the television set in the swimming pool store suddenly played recordings of his winning long programs on a loop, rather than his grandmotherâs quiz show.
It was not long before JC was appointed Saskiaâs second in a move that seemed natural at the time. After all, he was good PR for the pack, publicly well-liked with a degree of celebrity and enough press training to serve a proper representative. Likewise, he had come to the pack submissively, without haughtiness or ambition, and in being welcomed by it, now held it in the highest regard. He would serve its best interests at all times. And finally, while JC, still the athlete, was capable of physically holding his own among in-fighting, he was not so threatening as to prove a potential usurper.Â
The Alphaâs murder, however, catapulted his world into disarray. Standing in the shadow of her absence, JĂșlio CĂ©sar was the one to contact her son, Nico, to take her place, knowing that while he himself would be able to maintain peace temporarily, his own lingering injury, flaring over time, would prevent him from confidently shutting down any outliers who might try to wrestle away control.
Today, he still serves as Nicoâs second. Fiercely protective, loyal, disciplined but recklessly dauntless, and equal parts compassionate and stern, he remains a wolf first and foremost, one who encourages those who look up to him to be the best versions of themselves they can be. That said, his loyalties lie with the pack, not with the Council at large, an admirable or dangerous trait depending on the individual one asks.
#paulo lessa#downtown#all#pack member#taken werewolf#julio cesar carvalho#jc carvalho#thin ice#council member
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â have you seen jacob christopher bancroft around los angeles? the twenty five year old is usually jamming to star walkin' by lil nas x. word around the city is that theyâre compassionate, yet, they can also be restless, but you didnât hear that from me. theyâre currently a/an musician/ songwriter and are typically seen walking the streets of los angeles with his guitar strapped on his back. when i think of them, i think of  broken promises within a broken home, late nights strumming on the guitar and the iron will of never losing hope. letâs hope the city treats them good!
STATS:
full name: jacob christopher bancroft
goes by: jc bancroft ( his artist name )
age:Â Â 25
date of birth / zodiac sign: June 14th / gemini
place of birth: cleveland, ohio
gender: Â cis male
pronouns: he / him
orientation: homosexual / homoromantic
current residence: los angeles, california
occupation: musician ( guitarist within a band ) / songwriter
BACKGROUND: tw alcohol addiction, domestic violence
As far as JC can remember his parents had always faught with each other. The Bancroft household was a loud, violent and unsafe place growing up. But JC was somewhat safe while his mother was around, aside from the yelling when he did something he shouldn't do. This changed when he was ten years old. He had heard his mother packing her things in the middle of the night and asked where she was going. JC wanted to go with her, but she didn't. The last thing she said to him was: "I can't, I'm sorry. You look too much like him." Words that kept echoing within the boys ears even years later. His father snapped when JC told him about his mom had left, blaming him for her leaving when his father was the only one responsible for it. It was the first time his father beat him and it wouldn't remain the only time.
Since his father was an alcoholic it was easy for JC to get his hands on the alcohol as well, drowning his sorrows and pain with it. When someone got on his bad side he let his fists speak for him as it was the only language he knew.
The only real friend he had, or so he felt at least, was a girl who was living a few houses down the street. Her family was gifted in music and they where the ones who taught JC to play the guitar. It was the one thing that brought him true comfort. That's why he spent a lot of time at their house, avoiding to go home at all costs, despite knowing it would only make his situation with his father worse.
Eventually the girl had formed a band and JC became part of it. When he was eighteen they put their savings together and went to Los Angeles. Travled across the country to chase their dream together. But Los Angeles didn't make it easy on them and they had to work odd jobs to get by, played as many gigs as they could and when most of the band was close to giving up, they finally found someone who took interest in them, saw their potential. Finally they began to walk on the path that led to them making a name for themselves and finally be able to live off the music they were making. Unfortunately, JC's alcohol addiction put a damper on their flourishing career as he kept spiraling downwards. Together they decided it was best for him to go to rehab. Something JC wanted himself as well. He wanted to get better and finally leave all the bad stuff behind him. So the band went on a break.
JC is now a recovered alcoholic. He has been sober for almost two years and he does everything to keep it that way. Music and his band mean everything to him. They give him the strength he needs to remain on the right track.
ADDITIONAL NOTE:
He has trouble to sit still when heâs stressed or nervous, either he starts drumming on any surface close to him, fiddles with his fingers or paces up and down
JC has never been in a relationship and is under the impression he's not made for it either. He has no problem with uncommitted flings, but anything more than that? He isn't sure. ( this might change though, now that his life is back on track )
CONNECTIONS:
Cillian 'Leon' O'Hara â current friends with benefits that has started developing into more.
WANTED CONNECTIONS:
fellow musicians
friends
former friends with benefits
former drinking buddies
former one night stands / flings
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Fic ideas that keep me in a fog at inappropriate times throughout the day: Part 5b
-most awkward ride home EVER.
-LJY is in mourning, for his crush on JML has clashed with his regard for HGJ, and his heart to torn asunder . . . Or something, WWX tuned him out hours ago and concentrated very hard on smiling and teasing his husband like he always does. LWJ letâs him, even though he knows how forced it is. His mind keeps replaying the events of before and he falters a little because JML was just too much like JWY in that encounter. Is the resemblance to WYâs original body something he imagined? But he deliberates all the way home and concludes, no it is not his imagination but that leaves him with more questions than ever.
-convo between WWX and LWJ behind closed doors: WWX trying to hypothesize who JMLâs mother could be and asking LWJ many times if he ever noticed JC with a women around the time WWX and the Wen Remnants settled down in the BM. LWJ waits out this nervous energy and when it is late at night and he has rigorously âeveryday-edâ his husband, LWJ quietly reveals his thoughts to WWX. WWX thinking heâs having some sort of post coital auditory hallucination as it had been quite rigorous, and then laughing himself silly. Assures his husband that there was no way he fathered a child in that time, and especially not with Yu Xiuying, who is JCâs first cousin. And of course JML looks like her, she favours her father who inherited all the sharp beauty of his maternal family. Perhaps JCâs mystery woman had similar features to WWX and the rest is imagined on LWJâs part. LWJ is happy to hear WWX deny ever having lain with any woman before, but more confused. He is not imagining the resemblance-it is clear as day to him. Husbands unable to come to a consensus, agree to sleep on it.
-sleep does not come easy-consensus does not come at all. One month goes by, and JML is set to arrive in CR soon. LQR has taken the reins on arrangements and warns his nephew many times that YMJ and GL are allies and it would be beneficial if both parties acted like it. LWJ does not know how to communicate to his uncle that he knows enough not to fight a girl in the middle of trade talks, especially a sect heir, and especially not one who is potentially his stepdaughter, so he just nods.
-WWX cannot believe LWJ is still insisting on his conspiracy theory regarding JMLâs parentage, because the âWY often forgets thingsâ does not apply to sexual encounters. WWX did not accidentally knock up an Yu and then forget about it. WWX remembers every moment of his history of intimacy in that life-and the only person WWX ever had in that way was JC. But heâs not about to say all that because heâs not inclined to think JC would forgive him if he just started handing out that information. Even the few times they had been face to face after his resurrection JC hadnât brought it up. Even when WWX tried to lead him there, because taking that from JC and then leaving him is one of the sins against his shidi that would forever plague him but it seemed JC refused to remember it, let alone speak of it. WWX heard the unsaid warning in that and left it. There was just too much between them now for what happened then to take precedent over all the other things.
-JML rolls up to CR looking like this:
-That whip is beautiful and after greetings in which no body in either party causes an intersect incident, LQR compliments JML on her new weapon, a spiritual whip from her grandmother's clan. She had been absent during the Second Siege/Guanyin Temple clusterfuck because she had been sent to learn at the Yu sect and then ordered to remain there until JC called her home when everything began going to shit. JML is genuinely courteous to LQR, addresses him with respect and warmth, and even smiles a real smile at him, not a smirk. She thanks LQR for his compliments, gives the whip's name as being Heiyan. And though it doesn't quite retract into ring form like her father's Zidian, it comes directly to her hand when she calls it, no matter where it is. LWJ's left eye is trying to twitch minutely-Black Smoke, really? And WWX is trying to pick his jaw up off the floor, because while his memory is sometimes shit, his vanity in his last life had him secure in his good looks and the reflection checks bore that out-he knows how dashing his smile was; he knew how disarming it was, because that's what he used to use it for-disarming.
-that smile on JML's face, that wasn't JC's smile. For all the other ways in which she looked exactly like her father, like her grandmother come back to life, this one thing was not from JC. That was WWX's smile. And WHAT THE FUCK DID THAT MEAN?
-Trade talks go: LQR-valid point, JML-valid point/fair offer/barbed poke at LWJ or WWX or demonic cultivation, LWJ-*cricket noises*, JML-*smirk*, LQR-agree/counter-offer. And repeat. WWX still has not collected his jaw off of the floor from where it had fallen before. He is not invited to join talks and the YMJ delegation surround their sect heir like a living, breathing force-field. LJY has taken this time to fall in love with JML again, something he keeps bringing up completely unprompted to LSZ, but quietly because he has some shame. But everyone in the YMJ delegation know, and they're smug, but also kind of feral, so LSZ takes LJY and WWX away before trouble can break out. JML and YMJ leave after a couple of days, WWX only sees her during meals, and he looks at her unblinkingly the entire time and only LWJ's presence there stops anyone from YMJ from pulling a sword about the whole deal.
-After their departure, WWX and LWJ discuss their suspicions and findings, WWX confusedly admits to having a sexual partner during that time, and after some very awkward and tense discussions, reveals that it was JC. But two men can't have a baby, no matter how many times they do it! LWJ is oddly accepting of the idea that JC and WWX have had sex-he doesn't like it, but he can see how and why it happened. The twin prides of yunmeng, whatever they are now, were something completely back then. LWJ had envied their closeness more than once, for all the reasons that turned out to be true.
-They decide to research non-conventional methods of conceiving children. They comb through the library before going to the forbidden section. They find one reference to a rare, and most likely extinct, plant that could be used to make a child from two cultivators based only on blood samples. But it isn't likely because even if not extinct, grows in a region so far away that JC's absence would have been noted. JC had been at LP for the time that JML must have been conceived and all the months prior, as the plant also had a 9 month gestation period. Also, why the hell would JC go to all the trouble of finding said plant to have a JC-WWX baby in the midst of all that other stuff that was happening? LWJ finds some books that mention miraculous feats, in which that plant is included, but feels like something is missing from the book/volume itself. There is evidence the bindings have been loosened and put back together. It might be something, it might be nothing-maybe the bindings had to have been replaced. LWJ is uncertain, WWX is anxious-there's only one real way to get an answer.
-The plan is to get into LP by asking to make amends for the insult of entering the Ancestral Shrine, to settle matters between two allies. LQR, unexpectedly delighted at something that involves WWX, agrees that it is good to mend fences with YMJ and inwardly very happy that LWJ for the first time ever is willing to apologize to someone he insulted during some WWX-fueled event. The request is sent off to the YMJ and the permission to enter LP is given.
-WWX and LWJ arrive late in the day at LP, hours after they were expected. JML is visibly annoyed, but there is some legitimate (but planned) reason and that means she will either have to offer lodging to her guests or force them into an inn in town, which wouldn't look too good politically. They come in, watched very closely, and the whole thing is done without a hitch. There is a very awkward meal in the dining hall and LWJ/WWX are given rooms for the night, with the not-so subtle hint they should be prepared to depart in the morning.
-LP is guarded at all times, but WWX uses a few tricks from his past knowledge of LP and in the dead of night, both are out and sneaking into where JC is completing his seclusion (hand-waves at the method of HOW this happens, just that it must so I will not be spending too much time thinking logistics of it now). They find JC meditating in a set of rooms far away from the hubbub of the sect, where Madam Yu's old rooms had been. He does not look good, pale and skinnier than he had been before. Dark circles under the eyes and dressed in drab clothing/colours. WWX is horrified.
-JC comes out of meditation and is surprised to see them there. Reveals that JML had shown the request for their visit to him during their weekly meal together and he figured there was some ulterior motive. Because LWJ doesn't give a fuck if he insults YMJ, unprompted or not, and WWX would never come back unless he wanted/needed something. He thought they had come for Suibian, and told JML and her deputies to leave it relatively unguarded so they could find it easier. He's not sure why they were here, thinks they thought he would have it, and he gives them directions to where to find it before trying to return to his meditation.
-WWX continues to be horrified at this listless, empty version of his shidi, looking tired and wane in a way that he hasn't seen since after he lost his golden core. LWJ is perturbed, but summons his quiet righteous indignation to demand answers about JML. This gets a rise out of JC, for who the fuck is LWJ to come and question him about anything regarding his daughter? Back and forth sniping before LWJ accuses JML of being WWX's daughter and JC for covering it up. JC demands to know who would the mother be if what LWJ says is true. LWJ counters that given her looks, he's certain JC did something unnatural to create this child between himself and WWX. JC riles, screams that the only person who was guilty of doing unnatural things was WWX and everything, as usual, was his fault!
-But it's like he deflates after all, nearly slumps over like he's having an attack of some sort. WWX tries to grab him but JC rallies to slap him away. They back up into their respective corners and JC starts laughing in a way that is creepy and unhinged. "You know, for the longest time, I thought that despite it all, you must have loved me. You must have felt connected to me the most, felt about me like I felt about you-but you were just too stupid and stubborn about your own heroicness to do anything useful with it. Maybe you were actually speaking the truth that you wanted to come home, and be here with me, but your morals wouldn't let you. Even after everything, even when I hated you, I believed that. And it didn't make everything okay, just helped make it not the absolute worst. I was so sure of it, through all this shit, because-because of our daughter."
-JC/WWX fucked repeatedly after the fall of LP, during SSC and after. Even once in the BM, when they had that final falling out before WWX defected. JC went back to LP and stewed in his own anger until he brought JYL to YL for WWX to see her in her wedding robes. He hadn't been feeling the best in those days, but managed to get through the wedding. Comes back, sick as ever, Jiang healers tell him that it looks like he's pregnant, but obviously, as a man, that makes no sense. One healer remembers something or the other from his training at CR (let's pretend they did all kinds of exchange programs for various fields of study) and JC reluctantly asks LQR to LP. Before asking him for a favour, extracts a promise to never share the nature of this discussion with anyone, in memory of his friendship with JFM and his honour as a Lan. LQR eventually agrees, as JC promises that it doesn't involve harm to others or GL. He listens, goes back to CR to study, and comes back with some information:
-past cases of spiritual conception, very rare circumstance, as it involves perfect harmonization of the spiritual and physical aspects of two people. Such a connection is easy for the physical (people been having great sex forever!), but the complete spiritual matchup was rarer, happening only one recorded time that LQR could find. LQR and Jiang healers work together and confirm a whole bunch of stuff and then everyone wants to know who the other parent is, but JC refuses to name them.
-LP goes into semi-lockdown. The five Jiang seniors still alive huddle around SLJ and hide this from the world. He's already about four months along and barely showing. *Hand-wave medical stuff about pregnancy and male bodies-SPIRITUAL BABY rules (in which they aren't rules and I get to make them up as I go along)*. JYL knew, and JML born six weeks before JL, but hidden at LP.
-WWX has forgotten all his words. Even LWJ is stumped, because even though he suspected, confirmation was still shocking. WWX starts crying, wants to know why JC never told him-that he should have been told. JC laughing, cruelly, and asks how he was supposed to tell him. After the JYL wedding dress meeting, WWX doubled down on separating from YMJ. JC, too paranoid after finding out the truth of his condition, wouldn't leave LP for anything before the birth. He sent Yu Xiuying to Yiling numerous times with a request for WWX to come to LP, even if they were sneaking him in at night. Doesn't WWX remember?
-WWX does, he remembers the few times Yu Xiuying appeared in YL in disguise, asking him to come and meet JC at LP. Then, he thought if he went back to LP, that he wouldn't want to leave again. The temptation was too much. He send her away each time. Once, she brought a letter, but he sent her away without reading it. JC laughs, says he couldn't write the truth in a letter-that it was thought too dangerous to put those words to paper. That every easy denial was like a stab in the heart, but then JC would remember what LQR said-perfect spiritual and physical harmonization. JC and WWX were connected, closer than anyone else could claim, and this refusal was also about protecting JC and YMJ. When JL is born, JC learns that WWX is invited to attend the 100 day celebration-the perfect opportunity to get close enough to WWX to try and let him know. JYL agreed, said she would make sure that they got to talk and that WWX would get to see his daughter-so much tentative hope and then everything went to shit.
-"But even after, when I hated you and blamed you, I still loved you-because I could tell myself that you obviously still loved me. That there was a good reason for why you refused to be seen with any of YMJ messengers while in YL, but I heard reports of you spending days around town with LWJ. Ignored the fact that if I had written the letter asking you to come to JL's 100 day celebration instead of LWJ with his guarantee that you wouldn't have come. Buried the fact that you so badly went out of your way to break all connections to me, but jumped up in a second when it was LWJ or JYL reaching out. I thought, yes that hurt, but he still loved me-I was still the most nearest to him because what was our daughter other than the confirmation of that. Then you come back, you refuse to come back to LP, you take up with LWJ, you bring back Wen Ning-all that shit, and I still had that to fall back on, a crutch to lean on-that I wasn't as insignificant to you as you made it look. And then, what? The core-your core in me, your spiritual core in me, mixing with my spiritual energy, creating something inbetween your spiritual power and mine-working not due to harmony, but unnatural necessity. Because you had us both carved open and experimented on, to repay a debt to the Jiang sect. Repay a debt-giving back what was owed. A miracle child not born of perfect harmony, but an accident born of desperate need to be done with me and YMJ. I always wondered how easily you made it look to step away from the sect, from me; couldn't figure out how you could pretend it was so easy. And now I know you weren't pretending. It was easy-it was probably a relief, to be free of me. Was the sex some sort of interest you were paying on the debt? I used to wonder that-but then I remembered you used to enjoy it too much. Maybe you figured the core was an overpayment and took my virginity and my heart as a way of balancing the debts out. After all, just like with A-die and A-niang, my love was a pittance of worth in your eyes."
-Something angsty, angsty in response. More arguments, JC starts to qi deviate and JML and the Jiang sect Elders burst in and things go straight to hell.
#jiang cheng#my fic#sort of#things i want to write but what is leisure time?#mdzs#the untamed#tentative title: wwx and the mysterious 'what do i even call her my shidi's daughter?' ymj sect heir
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Say it louder for the idiots at the back OP!
WWX wasn't oblivious or stupid. He had comphet!!! The amount of times I have to explain what that actually means to most of these "WWX is so dumb" 'fans' is astounding! They are the oblivious ones!
Also, as much as WWX wasn't willing to believe LWJ actually hated him until Nightless City when he was catatonic with grief, it wasn't as if LWJ was giving any indication he liked him that way! People seem to forget that as the readers, we KNOW he's the love interest! So it's easy to go "how could he not know!" đ If these people truly were hardcore LWJ stans (which is funny because I always thought it come from JC stans đ€Ł) they would not be saying such absolute crap. LWJ worships WWX for being the bright, vivacious and kind man he is and any real LWJ stan should be the same.
As for JC stans who think "he's just done with WWX's shit" - they are delusional and have no concept of the era and cultural setting of the novel. It's WWX that's done with JCs shit. They don't understand JC owed the Wen siblings a life debt. That not paying it back is one of the most dishonorable things a supposed gentleman of their time could do. That WWX paid that debt for him, knowing he would not. That it was JC who gave WWX an ultimatum - leave the innocent people to be ruthlessly murdered just because of their surname or die alongside them as a traitor. The Jiang sect was thriving, with much credit going to WWX! They had the power (especially with WWXs ghost path and tiger tally) to stand up against the sects. Especially as the Lan sect was actually ready to help if JC had been honest when he had the chance.
JC is not responsible. He beats his orphan nephew and poisons his mind with lies regarding his own mother's death. He literally shits on his dead sister's memory and her last heartbreaking act of love for WWX. He treats JL so badly the boy will do absolutely anything to prove he's worthy of his respect! JL isn't concerned he might die at the beginning of the novel, as long as he can do as his uncle wishes, that's so, so sad. Ironically, JC turned JL into everything he always falsely claimed WWX to be; reckless and constantly needing to prove himself.
saw this on twt and it rlly had me questioning. like what the FUCK is up with people who dislike mxtx mains and love their love interests, and then go outta the way to demonise the mains... specifically thinking of mdzs a lot of wwx shitty characterisation in the en fandom comes from hardcore lwj stans who brand wwx as a dumb, oblivious bitch who didnt know that lwj Obviously had a crush on him that everyone could see, (keep in mind everyone in mdzs was always tlaking about how much lwj HATED wwx) or makes him morally grey... like what even... these people also love to make jc a character of reason and whos Done With Wwxs Shit (keep in mind he says throughout canon to 'leave lwj alone wwx!') which is so. jc ??? reasonable ???
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Fem!WWX au, where JFM gets her engaged to JC as an excuse to attach her to LP while she comes of age. YZY is desperate to get her out of LP not because she hates her, but because she sees the way that her husband looks at the 15yo WWX with lust, who wouldâve thought that her husband was like that pig JGS? When WWX goes to gusu and starts liking LWJ, she grabs the chance to marry her before the lectures even finish, and if JFM dies some time after the wedding nobody will suspect it was his wife.
"You know your mother and I met when she was just a few years older then you are now," Jiang Fengmian said with a smile. From a distance someone would think the way he pats Wei Wuxian's head was parental affection, but Wei Wuxian is close enough to see the intensity in his eyes, the way his hand lingered, how his fingers dug into her hair enough to pull. She is careful not to flinch. She doesn't want him to know she's uncomfortable, doesn't want him to think he should move whatever plans he has for her up before she becomes frightened and runs.
"I swear, you look more and more like her every year," he says, not for the first time. Wei Wuxian is fifteen. Jiang Fengmian met her mother when she was nineteen. Wei Wuxian has four years. Probably less.
Yu Ziyuan watches from a distance and she burns with disgust (Not jealousy. Never jealousy for a literal child who should never receive such looks from a man who raised her). She sees the look in her husband's eyes when he looks at his young ward- the fever of obsession, the intensity of his desire growing every passing day. She has four years to find a match for Wei Wuxian. The further away from Lotus Pier the better.
It's not as easy as throwing Wei Wuxian at the second son of a minor sect. The match has to be so much better then her current one that it won't be an insult to Jiang Cheng and their clan. It has to be someone who would be willing to fight for her despite her arranged engagement. The Lan clan have a history of being romantics.
She insists that Wei Wuxian go to the Lan Sects lectures with Jiang Cheng. She argues that it is her duty as head deciple. She demands to know why her husband doesn't want Wei Wuxian to go and he backs down and bends to her will.
The night before they leave she visits Wei Wuxian's room. "You will do everything in your power to find a husband among the Lan clan," Yu Ziyuan orders her. "The higher in status, the better. Do you understand, girl?" Wei Wuxian, for all the love she has for her home and her family, knows she will never be completely safe in Lotus Pier. She agrees. Yu Ziyuan gives her an approving look. "It would be best," she continues in a tone that isn't as harsh as normal. "if we have a reason to rush the marriage."
Three months later they receive an urgent letter from Lan Qiren demanding they come to the Cloud Recesses. Yu Ziyuan hides how pleased she is when he tells them that Wei Wuxian had been caught in his younger nephews bed with evidence of debauchery on her thighs. Jiang Fengmian is near apoplectic with rage and needs to leave the room for some air. Once her husband steps out Yu Ziyuan pushes for marriage. After all, the Second Jade of Lan has so clearly ruined their head deciple for marriage to anyone else. Lan Qiren is visibly pained when he agrees.
Later, Yu Ziyuan goes to where Wei Wuxian has been kneeling all day as a part of her punishment. She had no doubt that both she and Lan Wangji had recieved brutal beatings after being discovered and would likely be put in seclusion for months. Perhaps just until they find out if Wei Wuxian is pregnant or maybe until the day of their wedding. She leans in and whispers "You did well." It is without a doubt the highest praise she has ever given the girl.
Wei Wuxian's smile is a small, tired thing. She has tarnished both her and Lan Wangji's reputations with this. She doubts the Lans will ever forgive her for ruining their younger jade. Lan Wangji may hold resentment against her for the rest of their lives for seducing him. But she will be able to sleep at night without jumping at every sound and setting up dozens of traps and locking barriers in her room in fear of her uncle trying to visit her. It will be worth it.
#reply#Madam Yu#wei wuxian#jiang fengmien#not quite sure how to tag JFMs Bad Touch and Bad Intentions#lan qiren#mdzs#gender switch#Creepy JFM AU#This is the start of the au
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So Iâve heard some people saying that Lan Wangji wanting to bring Wei Wuxian back to Gusu (similar to what his father did to his mother) and later dragging him back there post-resurrection is a sign of them having an unhealthy relationship?
I personally disagree but I also struggle to articulate why I do so I was just wondering if you have any thoughts or opinions on this.
I don't think it's sign of them having an unhealthy relationship because even if we ignore the context around those scenes, the rest of the novel (especially post resurrection) is basically LWJ and WWX getting to know each other better and learning how to interact with each other in a healthy way. They're both considerate, open-minded people, who care about each other and respect each other very much. That being said, I'll explain why I don't think those two scenes don't mean their relationship is unhealthy.
In WWX's first life, LWJ says he wants to bring WWX back to Gusu, but he also recognizes that WWX doesn't want that and so, LWJ doesn't bring him back to Gusu against his will. We can take it as just LWJ saying he wished WWX would agree with him and being sad he didn't because, ultimately, LWJ didn't act on it. As for how it relates to the relationship between his parents, it's hard to say much, because we don't know much. I know fandom likes to speculate about Madam Lan possibly being innocent, but there's just not enough evidence to say for sure what happened then. We know her sons loved her but that doesn't say anything about how fair or unfair her treatment might have been in the Lan sect. She seems to not have wanted to marry LWJ's father at some point, but we don't know for sure if she changed her mind later or if he married her against her will. We do know she never complained to her sons, but they were her children so she may have been shielding them from the truth, she could've loved them for being her children even if she had despised their father. We just don't know. LXC is the one who speaks of it and even he doesn't know much. So I don't think it makes sense to say LWJ is "like his father" as evidence that wangxian's relationship os unhealthy, like some antis do - we don't even know enough about what kind of person LWJ's father was, and the only comparison we have between them is the scene where LWJ chooses the opposite as his father.
As for the scene where LWJ does take WWX back to Gusu post resurrection, we have to look at that in the context it happened: JC was trying to frag WWX back to Lotus Pier to torture and kill and WWX himself was yelling about how he liked Hanguang-jun in order to throw off JC. It was WWX's plan to use LWJ to get away from JC, and while we know he didn't mean that at point in time, LWJ is no mind reader. WWX also complained a lot, but did little to actually leave, which he could've if had wanted to, and LWJ knew that. At that point in time, LWJ was still under the impression that WWX knew he had recognized him, after all, so he didn't think WWX was acting like that to make him leave, he probably thought WWX was just teasing teasing him like he had done when they were young. WWX even says, not long before, that the silencing spell is easy to break and will only leave you with a sore throat. He could've broken it in front of LXC and gotten himself kicked out, and he could've just used guidao to aid in his escape if he really wanted to.
After arriving in the Cloud Recesses, WWX's "escape plan" was basically to peep at LWJ bathing and sleep in the same bed. He never said he wanted to leave, partly because he assumed he wouldn't be allowed to, but also because he was having fun. Later on he goes with LWJ to look for NMJ's body parts and he has a million chances to leave but he just doesn't. In fact, when they get separated he consistently goes back to LWJ's side.
In any case, the rest of their relationship is unambiguously positive and healthy, they communicate with each other and respect each other, so I view their relationship as perfectly healthy. Personally, wangxian is one of healthiest couples I've come across in a book.
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jc is a toxic person
 for the people (mainly jc stans and yunmeng bros reconciliation stans) that are saying that wei wuxian and jiang cheng should reconcile . NO !!! THEY SHOULDNâT . their relationship is TOXIC !!!!!. here are some characteristics of a toxic person :Â
 1)CHORONIC ANGER : the person uses anger to control .and you can find your self tiptoeing around their anger. ( How many times did wwx have to make jokes, smile, and try to satisfy jc so he wouldn't become upset, and how many times did jc stans expect wwx to dismiss his bitter and harsh comments as a sign of worry when they weren't? He shouldn't say that even if he doesn't mean it.)
2) PUNITIVE MINDSET : felling as thought people deserve the bad things that happen to them (Jc believes that the Dafan Wens deserved and even contributed to their deaths simply because their surname was Wen.)
3)EXCESSIVE INSECURITY : where the person needs you to reassure them constantly.(How many times did wwx have to hold himself back so that jc wouldn't have to put up any effort and could simply coast in his family name )
4) SELF-CENTERED : take more than they could give .while they still may give itâs easy for them to feel like theyâve given too much.(Jc believes he made a huge sacrifice for wwx when it was simply a hasty and careless action; if he knew they would melt his core, he would never do it. And, to be honest, I'm surprised he didn't think they'd melt his core. What did he expect to happen to him, for example? That they'll just let him go after thrashing him, if that's the case, WOW!his stupidity is mindblowing!!!!.. it was going to be a meaningful sacrifice if he didnât regret it immediately .
5)THEY PUT YOU DOWN : like that time in the billing lake where wwx stated ideas about the compass of evil and jc told him to stop daydreaming and shit .
6)ABUSIVE : we all We're all familiar with JC's demeanor and how he lashes out at everyone in his path, torturing innocent people, and wwx (with a dog).
7) VICTIM BLAMING:Â blaming wwx for everything bad that happens to him. his parents death his sisterâs husband death (jin zixuan is a dumbass who told wwx to put down his weapon when 300 hundred of archers were shotting him and even tried to restrain wwx which led to his death .and for jiang yanli death even thought she was grown ass woman who made the choice to sacrifice her self for wwx ).
ngl it honestly feels like half the fandom is living in bizarro land because in WHAT universe is "you promised to be my servant for the rest of your life" a sweet loving thing to say to someone. like... am i supposed to feel sorry for jc? I DON'T I mean what did u expect? Reconciliation? Why would u forgive someone that become ur #1 hater in life and death?
People who dismiss these warning signals are either ignorant and didn't see them, toxic people who are perplexed that they didn't get their way, or people who grew up with a toxic person and believe it is typical behavior because even objectionable behavior can feel familiar and comfortable at some level . so to the people who are saying we have mother like yu ziyuan and say it tiger mom or some shit no itâs not. go seek some help. So your mom/dad out here whippin you or verbally abusing you? that isnt strict parenting that ABUSE !!!!!.
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Yeah, the actual op and I already cleared this up and it seems like you are also following the 7seas translation, which has⊠a lot of issues, so Iâm not gonna spend too much time. Evidence against each of your points (and I will be using the exr translation):
1) Jin Ling says Wen Ning killed his mom and dad*:
Jin Ling, âNobody actually saw whether or not Chang Ping was killed by Daozhang Xiao XingChen. All they had were guesses, so why are you calling them claims? Just try and count how many cultivators lost their lives to Wei Ying, to Wen Ning, to the Tiger Seal during the battles at the Qiongqi Path and the Nightless Day! These are truths that everyone accepts, that nobody can deny! And what else Iâll never forget is that he ordered Wen Ning to kill my father and mother!â
âChapt. 43: Allure
2) Jin Ling saying that he that he is aware that Jiang Cheng kidnaps and tortures people:
Jin Ling, âItâs not the first time my uncle did such a thing. He has never let any of them go, even if it was possible that he caught the wrong onesâŠâ
âChapt. 24: Malice
3) Places in-text where it says that Jiang Cheng is looking specifically for a resurrected wwx (which includes the above quote):
A moment ago, Jiang Cheng was certain that this person was Wei WuXian, and all of the blood in his body started to boil. Yet, now, Zidian was clearly telling him that he wasnât. Zidian definitely wouldnât deceive him or make a mistake, so he quickly calmed himself and thought, this doesnât mean anything. I should first find an excuse to take him back and use every possible method to get information out of him. Itâs impossible for him to not confess anything or give himself away. Iâve done things like this in the past anyways. After thinking it through, he made a gesture. The disciples understood his intention and came over. ... Everyone in the cultivation world knew that the young leader of the Jiang Clan watched out for Wei WuXian in an almost crazed manner. He would rather catch the wrong person than let go of any possibility, and took anyone who seemed like they held the soul of Wei WuXian away to the YunmengJiang Sect, inflicting severe torture on his victim.
âChapt. 10: Arrogance (emphasis mine)
The owner, âI havenât been there myself, but I know someone who went because his house was being badly haunted. But it was all bad luck. That Sect Leader Jiang was cracking a glowing whip right on the training field. The victimâs flesh and blood flew as high as his screams! A servant secretly informed him that the sect leader caught the wrong person again, that he hadnât been in a great mood, and that he definitely shouldnât be irritated in any way.
âChapt. 92: Longing
And as a counterpoint to jc hunting âdemonic cultivatorsâ only: he letâs âmxyâ go despite having witnessed him using demonic cultivation when they first meet on Dafan Mountain. It is only when âmxyâ summons Wen Ning and he is convinced that âmxyâ is actually wwx that he becomes determined to take him back to lotus pier. This is why jc uses his whip on his victims: because Zidian negates possession.
Jiang Cheng slowly took away his left hand, ceasing to stroke his ring. It seemed as if Lan WangJi was determined to take part in this matter, so it wouldnât help if he continued to play the antagonist. Jiang Cheng made the decision to, for the time being, owe him a favour, and turned around to see Jin Ling still covering his mouth angrily, âHanGuang-Jun wants to punish you, so just let him do it for this one time. Itâs not easy for him, either, to discipline juniors from other clans.â
âChapt. 7: Arrogance (emphasis mine)
vs.
After a moment, the corners of Jiang Chengâs lips pulled into a twisted smile. His left hand started to unconsciously stroke the ring again. He spoke softly, â... Well, well. So youâre back?â He let go of his left hand, and a long whip dangled from it. ...
Jiang Chengâs considerations of ânot rashly fighting with himâ and ânot displeasing the Lan Clanâ were as if they were eaten by dogs.
âChapt. 10: Arrogance (emphasis mine)
Iâd like to also add to the above point that just because âwe donât know those charactersâ doesnât mean youâre allowed to discount multiple different accounts and perspectives of a certain characterâs actions. Jiang Cheng, himself, thinks of these. But Iâm pretty sure that a lot of the quotes explicitly about jcâs torture sessions got mistranslated by 7seas, so maybe thatâs where the confusion comes from.
4) Jiang Cheng being an active participant of Nightless City:
Actually, no, I will need you to provide evidence that âgloomyâ means âuncomfortableâ in this context. And book evidence, not evidence from other adaptations which have no bearing on the novel. The manâs brother-in-law was just murdered and his sister is mourning; wthy- he look happy about this? Especially since the one who did it is exactly the Wen he wanted to kill like a year prior? I will also need you to provide evidence of how and when the Jin Clan pressured Jiang Cheng into attending and with what power. I need you to provide evidence that Jiang Chengâs presence was not a pledge to kill wwx, and that he definitely shouldnât be irritated in any way.
Due to this battle, the cultivation world was quite badly wounded. And since this was the case, after nearly three months of conserving energy and scheming plans, the Four Great Sects were finally able to successfully pull off a siege on the demonâs den, Burial Mound, returning the word âmassacreâ to the Wen Sectâs remnants and the maddened YiLing Patriarch.
âChapt. 79: Loyalty (emphasis mine)
Do you take ~3,000 people to a âglorified meetingâ? Were all those not-quite 3,000 people all clan leaders and their closest disciples? The cultivation world where the entire Wen Clan at its most powerful was over 5,000 people and the rest of the clans (including the great clans) could not match that manpower, but post-war, these kinds of numbers are just âclan leaders and their secondsâ? Am I supposed to believe that Jiang Cheng just showed up to this "because he was pressured" when he led the main forces of the actual siege and took credit for wwx's death? Alright.
5) I have nothing to say on your 5th point since I agree. I know who killed jyl and why. My point is that jc blames wwx for this when, in actuality, it is jcâs direct actions (his unwillingness to stand by wwx and not be a pawn of the jin) was what led to the circumstances of Nightless City in which jyl was killed.
As for your two points about Jiang Cheng leaving wwx with "outs:" you truly believe that he left wwx an "out" after torturing him because he was "being nice"??? You say he isn't stupid enough to believe Jin Ling's ghost general story, but he's stupid enough to forget that he gave Jin Ling command over Zidian (despite the fact that we see him later do this again with full knowledge that Jin Ling controls Zidian, too)? Interesting.
Jin Ling was actually quite clever. Knowing that Jiang Cheng hated Wen Ning more than anything, he made up such a smooth lie with the previous knowledge he had. Jiang Cheng knew that the YiLing Patriarch and the Ghost General often appeared together, so he already suspected that Wen Ning was in the area. Having heard Jin Lingâs words, he was already mostly convinced, and Wei WuXianâs expression convinced him even further. On top of that, he burst into fury whenever he heard the mention of Wen Ningâs name. With his eyes blinded by wrath, how could he still have doubted?
âChapt. 24: Malice
Anyways, Jiang Cheng leaves to hunt Wen Ning because he hates Wen Ning even more than wwx, and he is literally said, multiple times, to not let anyone go even if there's a chance he is wrong. He leaves Jin Ling in charge because he feels like Jin Ling is too afraid to disobey him, and when Jin Ling does, the kid runs back to Koi Tower to hide from him. As for your second point: Jiang Cheng doesn't attack wwx in Koi Tower because jc is a coward who cannot act without the approval of his peers.
Jiang Chengâs face looked very dark. He didnât speak as his hand pressed onto the hilt of his sword, as though he was thinking about what to do.
âChapt. 50: Guile
Nobody else had attacked at this point, so he didn't dare to. On top of which, idk why it matters that jc "blocks the door" (text does not say this) when wwx escapes through the window. Either way,jc does the same thing in Lotus Pier after the second siege where he invites wangxian back because everyone else said so, but then followed them around to harass them and tell them that they are unwelcome while all the guests are still gossiping in the banquet hall and unaware.
And I know you started with "great, loving jiujiu" at the beginning, but that didn't actually fit in anywhere in my rebuttal, so here's a link to all the ways that Jiang Cheng is not a good uncle, his actions are abusive, and Jin Ling knows and is afraid of this. You cannot at one point say that Jin Ling is a good source to understand jc's character when he is saying good things about his uncle, then turn around and say that he speaks in "hyperbole" when he says, thinks, and remembers bad things. That's not how that works.
*Note: idk how 7seas translated this scene, but I will say that Fanyiyiâs translation says that âwwx killed jyl and ordered wen ning to kill his father,â which seems like a translation discrepancy. Either way, both make it clear that jin ling thinks that wwx maliciously killed both of his parents.
People really twist the story to justify their hate for Jiang Cheng.
#mdzs#you not remembering that something happened in the novel does not mean that it didnât happen#i have only ever read the novel all the way through so no i do not know how the other adaptations go#if youâre going to say that Iâm wrong at least argue with evidence and not âi feel likeââ#if we are talking about what's happening *in the book* i will not be entertaining evidence *from the adaptations*#the adaptations are not supplementary materials to the book; the are stand-alones#also if you want to talk translation discrepancies we can do that too#i have multiple different translations but most follow the same thought so there's no point putting all of them in#canon jiang cheng
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(google translate again, yeah)
(I forgot to thank you for the last answer, I really didn't know that the drama used the music of my compatriot, it was a pleasant surprise for me)
I don't know if anyone has asked you this before, but do you think JC was good with WWX as a kid?
I mean not just their childhood, but the time of their training in Gusu.
I really love JC, and I understand perfectly well that he is the most dick in character, but I love him precisely during my studies at Gusu, I can not give any arguments that then JC was directly GOOD to WWX, but he is clearly cared a little about him and even ... worried? at least that moment after the punishment where JC helped WWX get to the room...
Yay - I'm so happy to hear about Stravinsky :)
Hahah loving jc as the dick that he is is the way to do it! go for it. :) also, sorry this was so delayed I wanted to reread the Cloud Recesses arc so it would be fresh in my mind before answering.
In terms of jc the Cloud Recesses arc is perhaps the most 'mellow' we see him aside from the Lotus Pod Extra but for me it's still impossible to find him a worthwhile person. I can already see the faults in his character that I know will only get worse as he grows older. Canonically I don't see how he would have any friends studying in the Cloud Recesses if he didn't come as a package deal w Wei Wuxian. I mean I doubt jiang cheng would have any friends without WWX period. In fact jiang cheng doesn't make any friends over the course of 13 years. He's also unable to find a wife bc of his temperament and behavior...
What we can glean about their relationship in the Cloud Recesses arc (and even the Lotus Pod Extra) is that any time WWX gets a kind word or understanding from someone, jiang cheng scoffs at it. Any time someone shits on WWX, jc is there to agree, to relish the idea of WWX being punished, and shit on him some more. He would be an immensely exhausting person to be around. He doesnt believe in WWX's ideas and ingenuity, (as NHS does for example), he doesn't believe WWX is hurt, he always assumes the worst of him, he doesn't believe LWJ might like WWX. The only thing he ever seems to believe is that WWX will dishonor YunmengJiang and that WWX should be punished. So for a kid who supposedly wants his father's approval so badly he instead constantly acts like his mother's mouthpiece/minion. He reprimands WWX like he's trying to become Madam Yu 2.0. I see jc stans all the time being like oh he had to keep WWX in check bc WWX was such a lOOooose canon, for the good of the Clan!! lol listen JFM didn't give a f...about WWX's behavior (in his letter to LQR) why are you so concerned? JFM would have preferred for jc to try & save his peers in the Xuanwu cave or at least to understand why that was the correct course of action rather than for him to just sit in front of the class in the Cloud Recesses and tell WWX off for giving LQR as good as he got, while actually still breaking the rules himself but eschewing punishment.
salt up here, quotes below :
Even when Nie Huaisang picks up on the fact that WWX is being treated unfairly by LQR, jc dismisses it and piles on WWX instead.
Nie Huaisang said, âOld Man Lan really seems like heâs coming down especially harshly on you. Every time he reprimands someone, itâs always you.â Jiang Cheng grunted. âHe deserves it. What kind of answer was that? He can get away with saying that sort of nonsense at home, but he had the nerve to say it to Lan Qirenâs face. He was practically asking for the old man to kill him!â
But does WWX get away with ANYTHING in Lotus Pier? When we know he is punished constantly for EVERYTHING? This is jiang cheng fully being his mother's mouth piece. It's not something WWX would get away with, it's something jc knows JFM wouldn't mind. Which is why he's so pissed off. Which begs the question if JFM would not be upset with WWX's behavior why does jc need to criticize him? Again :
A dark expression shadowed Jiang Chengâs face, and his voice was filled with anger. âWhy are you so proud of yourself? What is there to be proud of?! Is being told to get out some amazing accomplishment? Youâre making our entire clan lose face!â
and his glee at the idea that WWX will be punished leaves a bad taste in one's mouth considering how WWX was perpetually punished in Lotus Pier by jiang cheng's mother for... existing.
Jiang Cheng smiled grimly. âNow that youâve thoroughly offended both Lan Wangji and Lan Qiren, youâre basically dead tomorrow. No oneâs going to clean up your corpse either.â
and again
Without the old one, only the young one remained. This would be easy to deal with! Wei Wuxian rolled off the bed and laughed while putting on his boots. âHeavenâs charmed clouds are blessing me with shade.â Jiang Cheng was beside him polishing his sword with loving care when he decided to spill cold water over Wei Wuxianâs head. âJust wait until he gets back. You canât escape punishment.â
Where others like NHS see value in WWX's thoughts
Nie Huaisang thought for a while. âActually, I thought what you said was very interesting,â he said, not entirely able to hide his envy and yearning.
jc is always dismissive of WWX's ideas. These are inventions that WWX realizes. Demonic cultivation in the first conversation and The Spirit-Attraction Flag and The Compass of Evil in the second:
âEnough,â Jiang Cheng warned. âWhatever nonsense you spout, you better not head down that sort of dark road.â
-
Changing the topic, Wei Wuxian said, âIf only there was something like fishing bait that could draw the water ghosts in. Or, something that could point in the direction theyâre hiding, like a compass, that sort of thing.â
âLower your head and watch the water,â Jiang Cheng said. âYouâre letting your fantasies run wild again. Concentrate on looking for water ghosts like youâre supposed to.â
âHey, mounting swords and flying was also only a fantasy once!â Wei Wuxian said.
He's also a hypocrite. Because even though he berates WWX for misbehaving, he himself breaks the rules. He drinks, he even goads WWX into buying liquor, the only difference is that he doesn't get punished for it, and he doesn't feel like coming forward and getting punished for it :
Naturally, Jiang Cheng was too embarrassed to talk about what Wei Wuxian had been up to. After all, all of them had egged him on to go and buy alcohol, and they all deserved to be punished as well. He could only speak vaguely. âItâs nothing. Itâs nothing. Itâs not that bad! He can walk. Wei Wuxian, why havenât you gotten off yet?â
It's no wonder WWX is so impressed by LWJ's integrity in spite of his social status, when he's clearly used to the other dynamic :
âLan Zhan, I really admire you,â Wei Wuxian said sincerely. âAfter I told you that you had to punish yourself too, you actually did it. You didnât let yourself off at all. I canât argue against that.â
A dynamic which is shown repeating in the Lotus Pod Extra where WWX is the only one to get punished for sunbathing, and which repeats here when Wei Wuxian here stops jiang cheng from confronting Zixuan over YanLi's honor (and jc's) and does it himself.
Zixuan :âWhy donât you ask what about her could make me satisfied?â he said in return.
Suddenly, Jiang Cheng rose. Wei Wuxian pushed him away and stepped between them, smiling coldly. âYou think youâre very satisfactory? As though you have the right to be so picky!â
Zixuan: âIf sheâs unhappy, then let her break off the engagement! I certainly donât cherish your wonderful disciple-sister. If you cherish her so much, why donât you take it up with your father? Doesnât he love you more than his own son?â
After hearing the last sentence, Jiang Chengâs eyes narrowed, and Wei Wuxian was no longer able to contain his own fury. He flew at Jin Zixuan, his fist raised.
WWX takes the punishment alone. Same way he offers to do when he hurts himself falling from a tree because jc threatened him with dogs. meanwhile jc is gleeful to see him being punished.
[Wei Wuxian] was kneeling on the stretch of pebble road to which Lan Qiren had assigned him when Jiang Cheng walked over from afar and mocked him. âYouâre kneeling so obediently.â
âItâs not like you donât know I have to do this all the time.â Wei Wuxianâs voice filled with schadenfreude. âBut this Jin Zixuan guy, thereâs no way he hasnât been pampered and spoiled rotten since birth. No oneâs ever forced him to kneel, Iâm sure of it. If he doesnât wind up crying for mommy and daddy today, Iâm not named Wei.â....
Wei Wuxian "...Itâs a good thing you didnât do anything.â
âI was going to. If you hadnât pushed me away, the other side of Jin Zixuanâs face would be hideous too.â
âStop it. His face is uglier for being lopsided."
WWX is happy to have spared jc from getting into trouble but jc makes the whole thing about himself anyway (like everything else ever) and is upset JFM would rush over for WWX - in his mind. Even though JFM clearly had to rush over to meet with Jin Guangshan not to coddle WWX in any way.
"Jiang Fengmian had never rushed to another clan in less than a day because of him. Regardless of whether what happened was big or small, or good or bad." Never
WWX on the other hand tries to be observant of jc's feelings and reassure him & distract him from his moods :
When Wei Wuxian saw Jiang Chengâs melancholy expression, he thought he was still upset with what Jin Zixuan said. âYou should leave. You donât need to keep me company any longer. If Lan Wangji comes again, heâll catch you. If you have time, you should find Jin Zixuan and watch his pitiful kneeling.â
Later in the book after nearly dying in the Xuanwu cave WWX leaves his sick bed to run after jc and comfort him after his mother's rant, even though WWX had to listen to his parents (and himself) being slandered by YZY. jc doesn't spare any thoughts for how other people might be feeling or suffering. His entire perception of the world is centered around himself. To him even WWX's greatest fear doesn't generate empathy, only amusement or later on a form of torture.
From that point onward, they made trouble everywhere together, and if they encountered a dog, Jiang Cheng would always chase it away for him, then enjoy a peal of derisive, unbridled laughter at Wei Wuxianâs expense beneath whichever tree the boy had leapt atop.
he grew up on the streets, often having to fight for food with vicious dogs. After several bites and chases, he gradually became extremely scared of all dogs, no matter the size. Jiang Cheng laughed at him because of this quite a lot of times.
This brings me to the last point. jc's resentment of WWX's interest in Lan Zhan, or in a serious friendship outside of him. I see so many ppl say that bc WWX fought he was kicked out of the Cloud Recesses early... but was he?
Jiang Cheng was somewhat taken aback. âLan Wangji? What was he doing here? He still has the nerve to come see you again?â
âYeah, I think his bravery is laudable if he still has the nerve to come see me. His uncle probably told him to check on me and see if I was kneeling properly.â
Jiang Chengâs instincts were sending him ominous signals. âSo were you kneeling properly?â
âI was then,â Wei Wuxian replied. âBut I waited for him to walk away a bit, then took a tree branch, lowered my head, and dug out a hole in the dirt near me. Itâs the pile right by your footâthere are ant tunnels there. It took me so much effort to find them. Anyway, I waited for him to turn back and see my shoulders shaking. He had to have thought I was crying, so he came back and asked. You should have seen his face when he caught sight of the ant tunnels!
ââŠâ Jiang Cheng said, âWhy donât you just get the hell out and go back to Yunmeng? I bet he never wants to see you again.â
Thus, that evening, Wei Wuxian packed up his things, got the hell out, and went back to Yunmeng with Jiang Fengmian.
Repeatedly throught his stay in the Cloud Recesses even while NHS was observing that LWJ's behavior around WWX was strange and unique, jc was telling WWX he is hated and bothersome. When WWX wanted to apologize to LWJ jc is completely dismissive of it :
âHe hates me already? I was thinking of apologizing to him,â Wei Wuxian said.
âOh, so you want to apologize now? Itâs too late!â Jiang Cheng said derisively. âHeâs exactly like his uncle. He thinks youâve been wicked ever since you were an embryo, so itâs beneath his dignity to pay you any attention.â
Later on when WWX mentioned wanting to invite LWJ to Lotus Pier jc categorically says no.
âJiang Cheng had on a stern expression, âLetâs make this clear. I donât want him to come, anyhow. Donât invite him.â
BONUS
jc also always doubts WWX. He suspects him immediately of wrongdoings. He doesn't believe that getting hit with the discipline ruler in Cloud Recesses actually hurt him until LXC confirms that WWX might take more than a few days to heal. He doesn't understand WWX is in actual trouble from the Waterborne abyss and assumes he's fooling around luckily Lan Zhan is there to rescue him:
The discipleâs lower body had already been swallowed by the black whirlpool. It spun faster and faster, and he continued to sink deeper and deeper, as though something hidden beneath the water was pulling down on his legs.
Mounted on Sandu, Jiang Cheng had risen calmly until he was about sixty meters above the whirlpool before he looked down. Filled with displeasure at what he saw, he shouted and dove down. âWhat are you up to now?!â
The suction force inside Lake Biling grew ever stronger. Wei Wuxianâs sword was optimized for agility, and consequently, its strength happened to fall just short, and they were nearly pulled to the surface of the lake. Wei Wuxian steadied himself and held on to Su She with both hands.
âSomeone help! If I canât pull him up soon, Iâll have to let go!â he shouted.
Suddenly, the back of Wei Wuxianâs collar tightened, and his body was lifted into the air. He twisted his neck and saw Lan Wangji holding him up with one hand.
He maintains this same mindset when he tries to whip LWJ and WWX as they're attempting to leave Lotus Pier after the ancestral hall confrontation when WWX passes out.
Is jc evil in the Cloud Recesses ? No. He's just an annoying, basic, disagreeable asshole who doesn't bring anything positive to someone like WWX. People like jc become obsessed with kind, outgoing, generous people, people who don't set boundaries on what they give and what others take in their friendships. Even though they're dependent on them for their social interactions, because who else would socialize with them willingly, they resent them in equal measure, but at the same time they wouldn't be drawn to another selfish, self centered piece of shit person like themselves.
On a personal note, even Cloud Recesses jiang cheng is someone I would exclude from any personal friend group. Friendship with him is adding a minefield of jealousies and snide comments to every interaction. Things that then others will need to compensate around because he won't compromise or empathize w issues outside of his own concerns.
Translation source : x
#This is long af because I wanted to have one post where I included everything#Iâve bitched about jcâs behavior in the cloud recesses for a long time so it was time to put down the quotes#mdzs#Cloud Recesses#Lan Wangji#Wei Wuxian#Nie Huaisang#jiang cheng
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This one's gonna take two asks, I'm incapable of making it more succinct. In Accurate description NHS said "Iâm taking you back with me to the Nie sect when all this is over. If your parents want you back, they can come ask nicely.â Could we get that AU? And the Jiangs HAVE to ask nicely, because with the war on the horizon they can't risk alienating the Nies, but they are so bad at it? NHS's half assed plan to poach JC gets more and more solid the longer he has to watch this train wreck.(1/2)
How hard can it be to love your own flesh and blood? Even NMJ has stopped admonishing him for wanting to poach another sect's heir. What a political nightmare that would be. But JC is so relaxed with NHS's birds? And keeping up longer and longer when training with da-ge? And smiling more? And JYL said, she's never seen him so loose in the shoulders? NHS can make this work. JFM and YZY never valued JC anywayÂ
Part 2 of Accurate Description (necessary to read that first)
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âAbsolutely not,â was the first thing Nie Huaisangâs brother said when Nie Huaisang first raised the idea of kidnapping Jiang Cheng for his own good. âAbsolutely fucking not.â
âNie sect principle three,â Nie Huaisang said.
âWell, shit,â his brother said.
This was because Nie Huaisangâs brother is the best.
âIâve gotten other people involved in this,â Nie Huaisang added helpfully.
âYouâd better have,â his brother said. âI am not dealing with the fallout from this on my own.â
Nie Huaisang nodded happily. That was about what heâd expected.
A few moments later, his brother asked, âWhy are we kidnapping him, anyway?â
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âThis is temporary,â Nie Mingjue said gruffly.
âVery temporary,â Jiang Cheng agreed, sounding stiff and awkward. âI donât even know why Iâm here.â
âYou know exactly why youâre here,â Nie Huaisang objected. âI told you why!â
Jiang Cheng gave him a dirty look.
âAlso I have no idea how da-ge got you here, but youâre staying,â Nie Huaisang said firmly. âFor as long as it takes for your parents to show that they deserve you returning to them. Youâre not getting a choice.â
Jiang Chengâs face was turning red.
âThatâs not the deal, Huaisang,â Nie Mingjue interjected. âJiang Wanyin can return home at any time he wishes.â
Nie Huaisang glared, but his brother ignored him.
âHe can also stay as long as he wishes,â he said, and this time it was Jiang Chengâs turn to stare. âIf you want others to respect him, you must first pay him the respect he deserves yourself. Now, I have to go, but Jiang Wanyin â know that our home is always open to you.â
He put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it, then ruffled Nie Huaisangâs hair, and left.
Jiang Cheng looked dazed.
Nie Huaisang smirked.
ââŠyou said something about him giving out hugs?â
âOh yeah,â Nie Huaisang said. âGreat hugs.â
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âI canât believe you would betray me like this,â Nie Huaisang whined. âAnd after all Iâve done for you!â
âA little trainingâs not going to kill you,â Jiang Cheng said. âCome on already.â
âMy brother put you up to this, didnât he? You sold me out for a hug.â
âI sold you out for the opportunity to go on a proper night-hunt,â Jiang Cheng said. âAlso, he said he was proud of the progress Iâve been making on my cultivation and sword training since I got here. And gave me a hug.â
Nie Huaisang grumbled but conceded that his brother was especially difficult to resist when he was in full big brother mode. If he wasnât, Nie Huaisang wouldnât have been nearly so willing to give up the neat new sword heâd found in the Xuanwuâs cave and store it down in their saber halls until his brother and Baxia could figure out how to suppress it - he hadnât even realized it was full of resentful energy at first, and he still thought it was especially aesthetic.
âBesides, if you donât practice something soon, heâll come after you himself,â Jiang Cheng said. âWouldnât you rather train with me?â
âNo. Youâre just as crazy as he is.â
Jiang Cheng looked disturbingly complimented.
âIâll come look at your birds later,â he offered.
âYouâd do that anyway,â Nie Huaisang said. âYou love my birds.â
Jiang Cheng did, too. Nearly as much as he loved all the feral cats that roamed the walls of the Unclean Realm, every single one of which seemed to have immediately pegged him as a soft touch and come nosing around for treats â Nie Huaisang had never seen Jiang Cheng look so calm and peaceful as when he had a cat under his palm.
It really put into perspective how stressed he looked the rest of the time.
âOh, all right,â he groaned, and Jiang Cheng beamed. âJust know that I hate you.â
âSame to you, Nie-gongzi,â Jiang Cheng said, completely insincere. âSame to you.â
-
âYou know, Iâm surprised my parents havenât shown up to demand me back yet,â Jiang Cheng said over lunch one day. âItâs not â itâs not a problem. Itâs only â I thought â Mother at least ââ
âOh, theyâre demanding all right,â Nie Huaisang sniggered.
ââŠNie Huaisang, what have you done,â Jiang Cheng said.
âConspired, thatâs what,â Nie Mingjue said. âI donât know if I should thank you for discovering my brotherâs sole talent, namely for scheming and conspiracies, or to blame you for it, Wanyin â but you do have very loyal friends.â
Jiang Cheng blinked.
âWell, first your parents went to Lanling,â Nie Huaisang explained. âOn account of Jin Zixuan and Mianmian very obviously sneaking food around and buying all sorts of things that you would like before smuggling them â very poorly and obviously, mind you â into Jinlin Tower, and of course they were also overheard talking about something that sounded an awful lot like âWanyinâ; everyone assumed they were hiding you. Turns out they werenât, of course; it was just a stray dog theyâd named something with similar tones. Not their fault everyone got the wrong idea!â
Jiang Chengâs eye twitched.
âAnd then, of course, they went to Gusu, on account of Lan Wangji telling everyone you were his sworn brother ââ
âHis what?!â
âWell, close enough. On account of how you saved his life.â
âI did not!â
âI thought I heard something about how you carried him on your back as you fled from the Xuanwuâs cave and the Wen sectâs ambushes, when he was exhausted and could not walk,â Nie Mingjue said mildly, and Jiang Cheng spluttered. âHad I heard wrongly?â
ââŠwell, noâŠbut...â
âOf course, you werenât at Gusu,â Nie Huaisang continued, ignoring them both. âThough there were some heavy implications for a little while that youâd gone off with Lan-gongzi ââ
âIsnât he missing?â
Nie Mingjue coughed and looked down at his plate.
âAnd none of you said anything?â Jiang Cheng asked, looking between them. âAt any point? Did you just, what, not talk to them?â
âI have spoken with your parents several times since they have started looking for you,â Nie Mingjue said, and his voice was suddenly hot with roiling anger. âI have concluded that Huaisang had a point regarding the necessity of their learning how to ask for your return.â
Jiang Cheng blinked.
âYour parents are jerks,â Nie Huaisang volunteered. âAnd you deserve better.â
âYes, thank you,â Jiang Cheng said, a little strangled. âI think I â got that.â
âGood.â
-
âItâs just, my jiejie ââ
âSupports you being here. She sent you a care package. Itâs in your room.â
ââŠWei Wuxian ââ
âSent a note along with the package. Says to keep up the good work.â
âHow did you even get something like that?!â
âI have my ways.â
-
Nie Huaisang was staring blankly at the wall when Jiang Cheng walked in and did a double take.
âOkay,â he said to Nie Mingjue, sitting patiently nearby with a letter in his hands. âYou broke him. How?â
âHe just discovered that he inadvertently saved a great deal of lives,â Nie Mingjue said. âAs did you, by agreeing to come here.â
âI only agreed to come here because you lied and told me it was necessary to help defend my sect,â Jiang Cheng grumbled, clearly not meaning it.
Nie Huaisang let out a high-pitched and somewhat hysterical giggle.
âIt was,â Nie MIngjue said solemnly, offering him the letter. âIt appears that Wen Chao was given permission to attack and crush the Jiang sect, but has been delaying in anticipation of your return on account of wanting to deal with all of you at once. The delay allowed our spies time to discover his plans, and to carry warnings to your parents. They were thus able to fortify the Lotus Pierâs defenses against invasion, and to hold it off until aid could arrive â which they wouldnât have managed if heâd attacked at once, as he would have if youâd been there.â
Jiang Cheng stared.
âWould you like to sit down and stare at the wall?â Nie Mingjue offered kindly.
ââŠyes please.â
-
âHowâd you convince him to let me come here, anyway?â Jiang Cheng asked Nie Huaisang as he packed up his things. He was finally heading back to the Lotus Pier, albeit only long enough to collect soldiers and come back to join what theyâd started calling the Sunshot Campaign â his parents had finally figured out where he was and sent word that had, in the view of the Nie, just barely qualified as sufficient to get some leeway.
Lan Wangji was waiting in the hallway to escort him there, and heâd sworn to Nie Huaisang that he would not allow either of Jiang Chengâs parents to say anything untoward while they were there. Heâd looked very serious while he said it, too, which pleased Nie Huaisang to no end and made Jiang Cheng look more than a bit nervous.
âYouâre only asking that now?â Nie Huaisang asked, amused.
Jiang Cheng shrugged. âYou going to tell me or not?â
âIt was easy,â he said. âI just invoked Nie sect principle three.â
ââŠwhatâs that?â
ââA fire burns all the sameâ,â Nie Huaisang said. âVariously interpreted as: âTreat your neighborâs harm as your ownâ, âDo not stand idly by as your neighbor bleedsâ, or âIndifference to evil is equivalent to evilâ.â
Jiang Cheng stared.
âHow about âif you see someone who needs you, you have an obligation to actâ?â
Jiang Cheng blinked. âOkay,â he said. âAnd?â
âAnd what?â
âAnd what else did you say? You convinced him to literally kidnap the heir of another Great Sect; I canât believe that you accomplished that simply by saying âhey principle three applies here, letâs do thisâ.â
âMaybe I did,â Nie Huaisang sniffed.
Jiang Cheng rolled his eyes. âFine, keep your secrets. Iâll get them out of you one day.â
âMaybe you will,â Nie Huaisang said.
-
âDa-ge,â Nie Huaisang said. âIf I wanted to keep Jiang Cheng permanently, what principle would I have to invoke for that?â
âNineteen.â
âNineteen?â Nie Huaisang frowned. âBut, da-ge, principle nineteen is the one about marriage â oooooooh.â
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ok so
as usual after finishing an arc of mdzs my head is full, many thoughts. so letâs talk about the guanyin temple confrontation.
first thing that i kept paying attention to were actually the changes made in order to turn it into live-action. so in cql they had to make the gray-gray characters, the âthere are no good or bad guys, just people and their circumstancesâ characters (unless youâre jgs, than yeah youâre a bad guy and everyone agrees on that actually) into slightly more black and white characters. by the end of cql we are lured into this fake sense of security, âhaha, we know who the bad guy is!â (then a year passes and here you are, now a jgy apologist), by the end of mdzs, you just know that, well, decisions were made, unfortunate decisions, by many different people.Â
cql had to make wwx into a bit nicer version of himself. the good protagonist couldnât lose control and accidentally kill a bunch of people, and then kill another bunch of people fully willingly, cause his sister just died and that was the last connection he had to the idea that something still matters in this world. no, out protagonist should be... like a little bit nicer than that. so they lifted some of that responsibility for atrocities off him, but they couldnât just evaporate it, could they? they had to put it somewhere. they put it on jgy. after all heâs the big bad in the end of the story, well, the only surviving person from all people that could be considered big bads, heâs the one that âdid every terrible deed imaginableâ. he could take that responsibility, they had to make his grayness into a slightly darker shade anyway.
i am actually kinda surprised by how different my reaction to jgy was in mdzs. obviously, there is a year difference between me watching cql and me reading this part of mdzs, and over that year i changed my opinion on jgy 5 thousand times and joined the camp âactually meng yao deserves all the best things in the worldâ, but anyway. when i was watching cql i was like, oh my god, can someone just kill him already, before he does something bad again, before more bullcrap comes out of his mouth, and also stop yelling at this kid about all the âvalidâ reasons to why you killed his dad. in mdzs my reaction to jgyâs confessions was like, âhuh. he has a pointâ.
now donât get me wrong there, some shitty things were done, but the thing is, the things he did really made sense from his point of view, from this position and life experience he really had no other way to go. i especially was convinced by his reasoning to why he couldnât cancel his engagement with qin su. not only he would suffer from this story, because he already went through so much to make this marriage possible, but also qin suâs parents and herself would most likely suffer, their public image would be destroyed, only jgs wouldnât lose anything. and you could feel the hatred and bitterness he felt towards his father talking about this, and everyone in the temple could agree with that, because he âjust forgot he made another childâ, he didnât even notice.
another interesting detail for me was lxc saying, âitâs not that i didnât know that you did some of these things, itâs that i thought you had a good reason for doing themâ. so yeah, a reminder, lxc isnât blind and he isnât an idiot. he trusted a person he thought he knew better than anyone else, and he believed in this person. the problem, i think, is that âa good reasonâ is different for lxc and for jgy. lxc would understand a righteous reason, doing something for the greater good. working for wen ruohan? that was explainable. they all were fighting in a war, fighting for the better, brighter future, and meng yaoâs contribution to that future was immeasurable. what if he killed some people there? he had a good reason in lxcâs eyes. but meng yao had other good reasons in his life, some of these reasons lxc never had to deal with in his life. survival, for example, is one of them. meng yaoâs early years were very different from lxcâs. not to say that lxcâs life was easy, but it was never truly unstable. meng yao had to learn how to survive in a world where no one wanted him. he lived with one dream, promised to him by his mother, a future where he wouldnât have to suffer anymore, where he wouldnât have to smile at people he hated, please every one of their desires so they wouldnât harm him. and then he entered this life promised to him and he still had to survive, but now in a luxurious man-eats-man world of lanling jin.
meng yaoâs life really was this unstoppable ball of snow rolling down the mountain, and every decision he made just made the ball bigger and it would just roll faster. there is even a moment where jgy accuses lxc of being naive. lxc isnât really naive, of course, it was said in the heat of the moment, but it is a fact that lxc was never kicked down a staircase, never had to crawl back up, and the thing is, at the bottom of the staircase, there are other good reasons to do things.
and in a way lxc understood that jgy in his position really didnât have any other choices, he just couldnât find peace in this mindset. he kept repeated through that part, âand yet, and yet, you shouldnât have done that, you should have...â and he never said what exactly jgy should have done. because lxc doesnât know. jgy doesnât know. no one knows. what choices were better? how could he fix all that and still survive? in a way, lxc saying that reminded me of wangxian farewell in the burial mounds. when lwj asks, âyou really indent to keep going like this?â and wwx, who wished, who longed for another solution, for some way out, asked him, âwhat else can i do? what method can i choose to resolve this, not use this technique and still protect people i want to protect?â and lwj didnât have an answer. lxc didnât have an answer either.
another amazing thing about guanyin temple confrontation, is that itâs very heavily wwxâs pov. most on the novel is his pov of course, but there were a loot of his thoughts in this arc. and he was rather understanding towards jgy. not in a way âi agree with every reasoning behind every decision you madeâ but in a way âi understand that you had your reasons, but all of them will become irrelevant really soon, they already are, because the crowd will only remember you as a son of a whore who did every terrible deed imaginable, and all the good deeds will be forgottenâÂ
now his thoughts on nhs, or who he suspected nhs to be, were way less nice. especially compared to live action, nhs didnât make such an impression on me as he made through wwxâs thought process in the end of guanyin temple arc. of course, wwx is no sect leader yao, he is not the one to jump to conclusions, he just noticed that if you put some facts together, they actually start making a lot of sense, and formed a full picture. but he didnât have any proof, so he kept it mostly to himself. yet he still thought for a moment about nhs as someone who didnât care about collateral damage that much, who was ready to sacrifice lives of juniors, sect leaders, anyone, if it would add to jgyâs kill count and make his fall and destruction even more disastrous. not that those are not the things that happened in live action, but you know, when wwx put it all together like that in one paragraph, i really felt it. like, oof, dude itâs ROUGH. and not even jgyâs death was enough, as nhs basically admitted to stealing meng shiâs body and planning to repay jgy for what he did to nmjâs body. yikes
i mean i still support nhs in everything he does, but yikes
also side note, glad that the dead cats situation finally became clear for me. this whole year i was so confused about who left all these dead cats for juniors to find. i thought maybe xue yang did?? to lure wwx?? so apparently it was also nhs. good to know.
another detail, probably the last one my brain can generate for now, that pained me a great deal was my poor child jin ling. i already cried about some things related to him and this arc, but there was another little one in the very end here, after jgy died. jin ling realised, that there were now three people, wwx, wn and jgy, his little uncle, that were responsible for his parentsâ death. people he had every right and reason to hate. all three of them. and yet he couldnât hate any of them. he couldnât avenge his parents, that died so long ago he couldnât remember them, because all three people responsible for what happened, had something, some reasons, some circumstances, that made them really not the bad guys in jin lingâs life. and they all cared about him, protected him. how could he hate them? how could he not? and in this way this poor child repeats, unfortunately, his uncleâs curse. to have someone he wants to hate so much but just simply canât. it warms my heart at least that jin ling has a much better support system than jc had when he had to live through that experience. so there is hope.
#not rereading this#ok that's a lit i'll for sure reread this later#lie*#yana reads mdzs#and writes long long long metas#meta#the untamed
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