#it's JUST nie mingjue

[lgbtlunaverse]

Thinking about the fact that during the gusu lectures arc Huiasang has apparently been going every year for the last 3 years, but he isn't older than the others. He can't be any older than Zixuan because Meng yao is canonically younger than Zixuan, yet Huaisang calls him "san-ge" which means Meng Yao is older than Huaisang. So maybe Zixuan is way older than the other kids there, except in the novel it was mentioned that they were all around 15 to 16. And Huaisang also calls himself around Wei Wuxian's and Lan Wangji's age. Which means Nie Mingjue has been sending Huaisang to gusu summer camp since he was like 12 years old.

I'm relatively sure that you're just supposed to chalk that up to nmj's general gung-ho-ness about Huaisang and training like wowww he's so intense! HOWEVER. We are not here to take the easy route we are here to overthink. So I have 2 alternate headcanons.

1. Nie Mingjue went to the gusu lectures at an unusually young age himself.

So we know Nie Mingjue's father died when he was between the ages of 10 and 15, generally assumed to be a little on the older side of that spectrum, 14 or 15-ish. Considering that he was, you know, allowed to acually inherit the sect and it didn't topple down, nor did a coup occur or did any of his advisors use him as a puppet ruler. And I'm not sure a 10 year old is capable of handling all of that. We also know that Nie Mingjue's father got wounded in a night hunt that Nie Mingjue was present for, as he saw his father's saber shatter himself, and that it took 6 months for Lao Nie to actually die from his injuries. During that entire timeframe, and afterwards- as I presume sect leaders don't exactly have the time to leave their sect for multiple months to go study- Nie Mingjue could NOT have gone to the gusu lectures. It could be true that he didn't go at all, we're not told this. But IF he ever went, he must've been unusually young. 13 at the eldest.

If that's true, it'd provide him a reasonable motivation to send his brother at a younger age as well. "I did it too and I was fine, Huaisang! It's not that hard if you actually work for it"

or, alternatively:

2. He didn't want him to be in gusu in the same year as the Wens.

Nie Mingjue has a longstanding grudge againt the Wens for his father's murder and very good reasons to NOT trust them with his family's safety. He definitely wouldn't like his little brother to be out of his sight for a multiple month-long stretch with one of Wen Ruohan's sons right there. We don't know Wen Xu's exact age but since he wasn't in the archery competition he's at least 1 year older than lan xichen, which means he's at least 3-4 years older than Huaisang, so sending Huaisang early would mean avoiding Wen Chao, who was his age, without running into Wen Xu. Sadly, due to Huaisang failing the 2 years before, he's ended up in the same class as Wen Chao anyway. And not sending him again after failing for 2 years would mean giving up, and was probably considered a disgrace, so Nie Mingjue had to bite the bullet.

There's definitely other options I'm not seeing but both of these are fun to play with and rotate around in my head.

[kittycity]

Favorite Feral Lan Wangji Moments:

- Punching down several trees after kissing his crush (derogatory) for the first time because he has no idea how to process emotions normally

- Randomly biting Wei Wuxian in the cave because he has no idea how to process emotions normally

- Getting absolutely shit faced for the first time in his life and destroying a bunch of shit around cloud recesses before branding himself with the mark his crush from 10 years ago also had because he- well you get it.

- Writing an entire love song for his crush, naming it their ship name, and then only ever singing it out loud once to said crush without him knowing (this is an important tool we'll save for later)

- Generally enjoying being a little shit and then pretending he didn't do anything when people confront him about it

Please feel free to add to this because I know there is much, much more!

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Trapped in a vicious cycle of pining? Try gay sex! (More things to learn over at Tiger Tiger!)

[thatswhatsushesaid]

he is attentive to your dietary restrictions, chifeng-zun, don't make it weird

[soursoppi]

grape gets squished

[monhiio]

Da-ge those look real heavy can I hold them for you??

[yourcrumblingsaikiisnotmyproblem]

here's a few reminders for the mxtx fandom

1. Wei Wuxian had 2 older sister figures in his life and they both died trying to save him and in the end failed since he died anyway. (RIP Wen Qing and Jiang Yanli)

2. Mu Qing only ever had his mom other than XL and FX and she died a mortal death. We don't know anything about FX's mortal family.

3. Wen Ning was experimented on for 13 years in captivity after seeing his sister's ashes and blames himself still for wwx's downfall

4. He Xuan cannot leave the world even after his revenge to Shi Wudu and is purposeless for all of his immortal life.

5. Jin Ling will never taste his mom's handmade favourite soup.

6. Canon Feng Xin and Mu Qing do not know what happened at the temple to Xie Lian.

7. Jiang Cheng will probably never be good enough in his own eyes (until he has like grand-nephews or something)

8. Shi Qingxuan will (probably) die a mortal death.

9. Some of Nie Huaisang's last words to Nie Mingjue were that he never wanted to be a clan leader.

10. XL and WWX both tried to protect a certain demographic that got wiped out anyway and made them public enemies and reason for their eventual downfall making it essentially ineffective.

11. All the calamities are actually gods who could or did ascend heaven.

12. Xiao Xingchen killed himself after finding out he wiped out villages full of innocent people and his own best friend who he gave up his eyes for. And realising his pursuit of helping the world was worthless.

[randomness-is-my-order]

since i’m on my third mdzs brainrot of the year, let me just say: it’s enlightening how this story, spread over multiple volumes, goes over the simple but undeniably true reality that even while doing almost everything “right” you can still be horribly “wrong” in the eyes of society. how wei wuxian would bend over backwards to follow his morals (which have been narratively shown to be somewhat the standard) but still be condemned at large because he didn’t go about it the way that was perfectly compliant with what his social superiors and other authority figures expected of him. how “good” deeds in the mdzs world (and ours) will only be accepted and praised, coming from someone of lower social standing, if they are packaged in an unobstrusive manner–and sometimes, not even then. and it’s funny how some people miss that, how they wonder what would have happened if wei wuxian had been just a bit more tempered, a bit more subservient, a bit more polite. how the expectation of delivering his kindnesses in the most unhindering manner possible is somehow an acceptable train of thought–how the burden to do better is not unequivocally placed on people like JGS, Jiang Cheng, Nie Mingjue, the Lans, etc.

some people think that wei wuxian using demonic cultivation in the eyes of the cultivation world is his downfall. nevermind the fact that he literally isn’t practicing mo dao–this whole issue is NOT about what he’s doing, but about who he is. mxtx has made that clear at multiple points in the novels but the most glaring example is, ofcourse, how the nie sect is allowed to mess with resentful energy all they like and since they are a powerful enough sect, they face no social or political backlash for it–not in the way that wei wuxian does. even then, during the war, those people had no qualms against weaponising wei wuxian’s powers for their benefit. if it truly was about the dubious morality of using mo dao for them then wei wuxian should have been condemned from the get-go. but it’s not. it’s about the son of a servant wielding enough power to change the tides of a war and then surviving to tell the tale and continue to live with the kind of power that shouldn’t be held by someone of his station. it’s about people quaking in their boots because wei wuxian has shown himself as someone who won’t conform, who won’t become a dancing monkey for their tunes.

yes, wei wuxian is not some perfect angel saint but then, why the fuck should he be??? this expectation from some readers and the members of his world alike, that wei wuxian should have been the one to give it his all and more to avoid conflict is blasphemous. in the end, wei wuxian chose his path, stuck to his ideals, and went down throwing a big fuck you at the larger cultivation world’s back, while the rest failed to break the cycle of power abuse. the fact that it took them more than a year to see him to death is just a testament to how well wei wuxian handled things than some grace given by the cultivation world. the whole “wei wuxian’s first death was inevitable” is, for me, not about wei wuxian slowly spiralling and things getting out of hand. his death was inevitable because corrupt people with power will always choose to exploit and silence, will always choose to exert their will, will always choose to hurt those lower in the chain. and that is exactly what happened with the ambush and everything that led upto it.

[dontheckinswear]

@moonlitpeony and i made a pin the head on the nie mingjue for our mdzs book club 🥳

(we used @poorly-drawn-mdzs’s design! (their comics are sent in our book club’s group chat every week and they���re our favorite :))

[3cosmicfrogs]

Guy on fire since 5 minutes old: "Stop complaining. Being on fire is fine actually. Why don't you just set yourself on fire."

[raddestrose]

Made MDZS memes,

please enjoy

[benevolenterrancy]

Swords pining for each other's cultivator is my new favorite type of pining. Love your NieYao content! <3

I don't suppose we could get Baxia or Hensheng throwing a tantrum while Jin Guangyao / Nie Mingjue are away, leaving their owners to deal with the embarrassing aftermath?

Also, do you have any recs you'd recommend with these two?

this is the exact moment Nie Huaisang realised he was going to have to start meddling in his big brother's love life (con't: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Hensheng, on the other hand, doesn't throw tantrums but WILL sulk...

[lgbtlunaverse]

What kind of saber is baxia anyway?

I love my bloodthirsty princess of a cursed blade, and in my heart of hearts i am nothing but a sword nerd, so i've been extremely fascinated by Baxia and how we know frustratingly little about what she actually looks like!

I mean, look at bichen, right?

Bichen in the donghua:

Bichen in the drama:

They're clearly not exactly the same. The scabbards are different, and the guards have a different shape. But these are recognizably different iterations on one theme, right? Thin jian with a white grip silver guard, light blue tassel and silver mounting accents on the scabbard.

Now this is baxia in the donghua:

And baxia in the drama:

????????

THAT'S A COMPLTELY DIFFERENT WEAPON

it doesn't stop there either, the audio drama is kind enough to give us ANOTHER COMPLETELY DIFFERENT BAXIA

pretty! But how is that he same sword??

And when we go back to the novel, we get very little information on her appearance other than the fact that her blade is tinted red with all the blood she's absorbed. Which none of these designs incorporate.

This is not a dig on the designs itself, they're all quite gorgeous in their own right and i'm going to spend a while discussing all of them! Because isn't it fascinating how, since we know little about novel baxia beyond "saber" all of these designs ended up so different? What kinds of sabers are these, anyway?

So, a chinese aber, aka a "dao" (刀) just means a sword that has only one cutting side. As opposed to a jian, which has two.

You can see how that leaves a LOT of room for variaton.

I've actually seen some people get confused because Huaisang's saber in the untsmed is thin and quite straight, making it superficially resemble the jian more than drama!baxia, but it is still clearly a saber!

See? only one cutting blade!

This, to me looks a lot like a tang dynasty hengdao

credit to this blog for providing his image and being a great source for all this going forward.

TANGENT: during all this I found out the english wikipedia page for dao is WRONG! Ths is what they about the tang hengdao!

So that sounds like the hengdao was called that during the sui dynasty, but then, after that, started being called a peidao, right?

WRONG

I LOOKED AT THE SOURCE THEY USED AND IT SAYS THIS:

IT WAS CALLED THE PEIDOU UNTIL THE SUI DYNASTY, AT WHICH POINT IT WAS CALLED A HENGDAO. Which would carry over to the Tang dynasty. This was the source wikipedia linked! and it says something else than they say it does!

Anyone know how to edit a wikipedia article?

ANYWAY

BACK TO BAXIA

Since we're already at the drama, let's look at drama baxia: She's also straight! the general term for straight-backed saber is Zhibeidao, but that's a modern collector's term, and doesn't really say anything about which historical kind of saber baxia could be based on. Another meta i found on the drama nie sabers already went on some detail here.

I'm gonna expand on that a little: The kinds of historical straight-backed sabers we see resemble the hengdao a lot more than they do baxia. They don't go to their point as harsly as she does (she's basically a cleaver!) and they're all way skinnier.

No, my personal theory is that instead of being based on any kind of historical sword, drama!baxia is based on a Nandao.

I mean, come on, look at it!

Baxia!

The Nandao... isn't actually a historical sword. It was invented for Wushu forms. There's a really fascinating article about its conception, but that's why the swords in the images look a little thin and flimsy. Wushu swords are very flexible and light, they're dance props, not weapons to fight with. There are actual steel versions of Nandao, but they're recreations of the prop, not the other way around.

So That's one way in which Baxia differes from the Nandao: she's actually a real weapon. The other is that, as you can see above, the nandao has an S-shaped guard. Baxia doesn't. She's also much more elaborately decorated, of course. Because she's a princess.

Now: audio drama baxia!

This is much easier. with that flare at the tip?

Oh baby that's a niuweidao, all the way!

There are more sabers with that kind of curved handle, but the broad tip is really charcteristic of the niuweidao. The Niuweidao is also incredibly poplar in modern media, often portrayed as a historical sword, but it originated i nthe 19th century! And it was actually never used by the military!

That's right, the Niuweidao was pretty much exclusively a civilian weapon! That makes its use here anachronistic, but so is the nandao, and considering that the origin story of the Nie is that they use Dao intead of Jian because their ancestors were butchers, portraying them with a weapon historically reserved for rebels and common people instead of the imperial military is actually very on theme!

Finally, Donghua/Manhua baxia. These two designs are so similar I'm going to treat them as one and the same for now.

Unlike both previous baxias, The long handle makes it clear this baxia is a two-handed weapon, though Nie Mingjue is absolutely strong enough to wield her with one hand anyway. Normal rules don't count for cultivators.

Now, this is where things get tricky, because there are a lot of words for long two-handed sabers. And a lot of them are interchangable! This youtube video about the zhanmadao, one of the possible sabers this baxia could be based on, goes a little into just how confusing this can get. This kind of blade WAS actually in military use for many centuries, making it the most historically accurate of all the baxias. But because of that it also has several names and all of those names can also refer to different kinds of blades depending on what century we're in.

So here's our options: i'm going to dismiss the wodao and miandao, because these were explicitly based on japanese sword design, and as we can see manhua baxia has that very broad tip, so that won't work

(Example of a wodao. According to my sources Miaodao is really just the modern common term for the wodao, and the changdao, and certain kinds of zhanmadao... do you see how quickly this gets confusing?)

Next option: Zhanmadao.

Zhanmadao stands for "horse chopping saber" so... yeah they were anti-cavalry weapons. meant to be able to cut the legs and/or necks of horses. That definitely sounds like a weapon Nie Mingjue would wield. But if you watched that youtube video i linked above, you'll know the standardized Qing dinasty Zhanmadao looked very different from earlier versions. It was inspired by the japanese odachi, and more resembles the miandao than its ealrier heftier counteprarts.

Earlier Ming dynasty Zhanmadao on the other hand were... basically polearms. the great ming military blog spot, another wonderful source, says these are essentially a kind of podao/pudao (朴刀) which looked like this

Now that blade looks a lot like baxia, but the handle is honestly too long. Donghua!baxia straddles the line between sword an polearm a little, but while zhanmadao have been used to refer to both long-handled swords and polerarms, this was undeniably a polearm, not a sword.

If you want to know what researching this was like, I found a picture of this blade on pinterest-- labeled as a "two-handed scimitar"-- and the comment section was filled with people arguing about whether this was a Pudao, Wudao, Zhanmadao, Dadao, Guandao, or a japanese Nagita.

So... that's how it was going. This has kept me up until 2 AM multiple times.

However! Thanks to this article on the great ming military blog I found out there have historically been pudao blades with shorter handles!

Specifically, Ming dynasty military writer Cheng Ziyi created a modified version of the pudao to work with the Dan Fao Fa Xuan technixues-- aka technqiues for a two-handed saber, which would alter heavily influence Miaodao swordmanship-- thereby, as the article points out, essentially merging the cleaver-polearm type Zhanmadao with the later two-handed japanese-inspired design.

This is the illustration for the Wu Bei Yao Lue (武備要略) a Ming dynasty military manual

This blade shape in the illustration doesn't match Baxia exactly, but since it's a lengthened Pudao-like blade and we've seen above that those can match Donghua Baxia's shape, i'm gonna say that calling Baxia a Zhanmadao with a two-handed grip isn't all that innacurate!

However, because all of these terms are so intertwined, there are a dozen other things you could call her that would be about equally correct.

To show that, here's a lightning round of other potential Baxia candidates:

Dadao (大刀)

Which are generally one-handed and too short. However!

Another youtube video i found of someone training with a Zhanmadao that resembles baxia a little also calls it a "shuangshoudai dao" (雙手带 刀) shuangshou means two-handed, and while 雙手带 seems to refer to a longer handled weapon, when looking for a shuangshou dao or shuangshou dadao (双手大刀) we find a lot more baxia-resembling blades like here and here

I also found that, while the cleaver-like Dadao is strictly a product of the 20th centuy, since dadao just means big sword or big knife, it has been used to refer to loads of different weapons! Some people could've called the zhanmadao and pudao "dadao" during the Ming dynasty as well.

Another potential baxia candidate that mandarin mansion classifies as similar to the later dadao (though longer, as seen in the illustration below) is the "Kuanren Piandao"

Which piqued my interest because this diagram classifying different tpye of Dao:

Claims that a Kuanrenbiandao (diferent spelling, same sword) is the same as a modern day Zhanmadao.

(So once again, all of these terms are interchangable)

Another opton Is the Chuanmeidao/Chuanweidao (船尾刀) below you can see a diagram, based on the Qing dynasty green standard army regulation, of blades all officially classified as types of "pudao"

The top middle is the Kuanren Piandao, and bottom left is the Chuanweidao.

Both of these have a lot of baxia-like qualities.

So there you go! live action baxia is based on a Nandao, audio drama baxia is based on a Niuweidao, and Manhua/donghua baxia is some kind of two-handed Zhanmadao/Pudao/Dadao depending on how you want to look at it.

I'm honestly surprised no one has made the creative decision to portray Baxia as a Jiuhuandao, aka 9 ringed broadsword yet.

I mean look at it! Incredibly imposing. Would make for a great Baxia imo. (@ upcoming mdzs manga and mobile game: take notes!)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The musical episode.

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[thatswhatsushesaid]

content warning: canon-typical 3zun 🫠

bonus huaisang, as a treat:

[qiu-yan]

thoughts

also wasn't sure what to do with the lan simp brothers so i guess they can sit on the side