#joke's on me he and jgy are my favorite characters

[prince-liest]

@dillislazii  #op what do you think abt#xue yang#like. would he also be hunt or the web? 👁️

I Love Xue Yang Immensely So Thank You For Asking

(Also while I have you, consider checking out the longer response I gave to the Eye/Hunt reblog of my original post that’s going around cos I actually still think Jin Guangyao and Nie Huaisang are of the Web and it gives some insight into how I assigned them!)

I actually think Xue Yang would be a really clear-cut example of a follower of the Desolation!

I get the impression that in meta the Hunt is sometimes assigned to people who just, like. Have goals, especially goals they’re extremely determined to achieve (especially if that involves killing someone), but I think the Hunt is more specific than that. It’s stated in canon that not many humans are of the Hunt because it’s particularly a fear about becoming prey in a very literally animalistic way. It’s about the physical chase and about predation. It’s one of the fears that is considered most “primal” - Daisy Tonner hunts people, often in ways that result in police brutality, because she is a cop and it’s her job to chase them down. Nie Mingjue hunts and slaughters his enemies, and typically does so in a straightforward fashion because he believes in chasing down those who have done wrong - just like he sank his teeth into his perception of Jin Guangyao’s flaws and would not let go or let up about them. Jiang Cheng during Wei Wuxian’s dead era actively, publicly, and doggedly pursued and hunted anybody who practiced demon cultivation. Etc.

Xue Yang is a violent murderer! But his whole thing isn’t chasing, it’s causing suffering. His life has been characterized by pain and loss, and he places what happened to him on such a pedestal that nobody else’s pain matters unless it’s a source of catharsis for him. If he was of the Hunt, he would have hunted down Chang C’ian alone (or as it were his heir) and killed that person. Instead, he chooses to enact as much destruction and suffering as he possibly can and slaughters the entire clan. He relishes in the pain he has paid forward unto the world. Then he does the same to Baixue Temple.

Perhaps that indicates that he is of the Slaughter, then. But he didn’t massacre Baixue Temple because he loves randomly-directed murder or because he thinks they deserved it. He did it specifically to hurt Song Lan. And murder is not what he does to Xiao Xingchen.

Instead, Xue Yang spends years systematically planning to destroy Xiao Xingchen’s will to live in the most painful way possible. He targets Xiao Xingchen’s desire to help people, his belief in justice, and forces him to commit acts specifically because those acts would viscerally horrify Xiao Xingchen if he knew he was committing them. This backfires! He falls in love and regrets what he’s done - but it’s not entirely because he hurt Xiao Xingchen, but because he has to face the consequences of his own feelings! Xiao Xingchen kills himself, and Xue Yang wants him back! And before he trips down that particular rabbit hole, the things he tricks Xiao Xingchen are cruel, creative, and specifically designed to hurt Xiao Xingchen as much as possible. Expecially when Song Lan finally finds them.

He was hurt, brutally and permanently, when he was little. And he turned that around and decided to hurt everyone else he thought deserved it - or sometimes even for fun - even more brutally and even more permanently, for as long as he could, because he thinks that the world deserves to suffer. He is, as Jude Perry says, “A reckoning; a surging tide of destruction and pain.”

[thatswhatsushesaid]

Xiyao?

oh!! xiyao is the otp to end all otps for me (@verdantrivers tagging you as well since you also asked about them, even tho you already know everything I'm going to write anyway)

ship it 🤌

What made you ship it? in the novel, it was absolutely the teacups scene. but uhhh this is embarrassing but I came into this fandom backwards, and so my first exposure to xiyao was the show! tl;dr I was looking for a show on netflix to fill the void left in my soul after the depressing end of The Rise of the Phoenixes, and someone somewhere rec'd The Untamed because "it's gay and the gays get a happy ending!!" me, a depressed bisexual, "oh, what a relief, I could use a happy ending for the gays after all that depressing straight people nonsense I just suffered through." (joke's on me, my chosen gays did not get their happy ending, I clowned myself) anyway, /scuffs foot, it was the box scene. their cute little shuffle over the box. the shy yet lingering eye contact. meng yao's eyes doing the thing that zhu zanjin has them do every time he looks at lan xichen for longer than a second, like he's noticing how beautiful starlight is for the first time, and lan xichen looking like meng yao just awoke something in him that he didn't even realize was there until that moment. meng yao's beautiful face journey when he sees lan xichen and rushes to say goodbye to him. like... I feel it bears mentioning at this point that I knew so little about this show or the canon source material that I literally thought that xiyao was going to be the main ship with the happy ending just based on this moment alone, and so you can imagine by dismay once I realized how tragically wrong I was. RIP past me. anyway, while I absolutely prefer jgy's characterization and arc in the novel canon, I will nevertheless die for the way lhk and zzj chose to bring xiyao to life on-screen. they did the reading.

What are your favorite things about the ship? besides the siren call of a decades' long near-romance that is doomed by the narrative, probably that when given a choice (or rather, when jgy believes that he has a choice), jgy and lxc always choose each other, both when the stakes are low and when they are extremely high. one bad faith and garbage take on their dynamic that I often see trotted out by jgy's harshest critics is that he exploits lxc's affection for him exclusively to cement his position within the lanling jin sect and to further his own ambitions, which seems like such a dull and reductive way to view the nearly two decades they spend together in each other's lives. I also just don't understand where this interpretation comes from?? is it just from jgy using the pass token to get the song of spirit turmoil from the library pavilion's forbidden section? because yes, that was a violation of lxc's trust, but also like... would there even have been a forbidden section in the library pavilion for him to steal from if jgy hadn't sacrificed so much of his dearly bought social and political capital upon gaining his recognition from jgs to help the gusu lan rebuild the cloud recesses? this is not me trying to diminish that violation of lxc's trust, but just to emphasize that jgy actually had very little to gain, politically speaking, at the time he pressed his father to provide aid to the extremely vulnerable and weak gusu lan, but he did it anyway, and he did it because he knew lxc needed the help. smaller stakes: given the choice between being in anyone else's company or each other's, they always gravitate towards each other in any space they occupy together, and that does things to me lol.

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? with very few exceptions, I don't enjoy lan-furen as a concept 🤷‍♀️ I didn't even fully understand why the lan-furen AUs didn't work for me until I read commentary specifically by you and @fincalinde and @confusion-and-more (I think) about how deeply jgy's pursuit of his birthright with the lanling jin is integral to his character. because I do remember reading objectively good and well-written lan-furen fic that should have been providing me with emotionally satisfying xiyao catharsis after getting hit by the truck that is the canon ending, and instead left me feeling like I'd eaten too many bites of a pie that was good yesterday but has already started to turn. idk that metaphor is getting away from me. also, more fics where jgy is the soft dom in the bedroom, please, that's my favourite jgy flavour.

[lansplaining]

Serious question: why do people hate JGS so much? He’s 120% evil to be sure and has zero redeeming qualities, but he’s a bland-ass, generic, cookie cutter villain and doesn’t really inspire any strong emotions in me. He’s a static character like WC and he’s just there to be evil. I’m sure I must be missing something but I’ve read/seen a zillion other books and movies with a zillion other villains just like him, and mdzs/cql has many other antagonists like XY who are more compelling than him.

I think there's a really big difference between hating a compelling villain like XY and hating a flat villain like JGS. You're not really meant to just flat-out hate XY, there's too much complexity there-- and in a story like MDZS/CQL where so many of even the side antagonists like Su She actually have some complexity and reasoning behind what they're doing, it's sort of relaxing to have someone like JGS around where you can just unreservedly be like, "fuck that guy." (I realize this is directly contrary to many of the themes of the story itself, shhh.)

I also think the depth of one's hatred for JGS probably depends a lot on which characters you like best. I really love JGY, as has been discussed, and JGS does him a lot of active harm. If you're only on the wangxian train he's probably easier to ignore, and if you're all about Yi City he may as well not exist. Because you're totally right: he's a rich, smarmy guy who uses his position of power to rape women and abuse his subordinates/one of his children who he sees as a subordinate. There's no there there, he just sucks. But he directs that malice towards one of my favorite characters, and thus I hate him.

I totally get what you mean, though-- I have absolutely zero feelings about Wen Ruohan. I think it really comes down to which characters you care about most and which characters JGS has hurt-- and also, maybe, all those semi-jokes that point out that a lot of the problems of the series would have been solved in advance if JGS just didn't suck so much.

[layzeal]

4 8 10 :3 and 28 if you're inspired!

mdzs/cql ask meme!

yayy ty friend!!

4) top 5 favorite (non-wangxian) ships?

FIVE?? oh man i'm not sure i even have that many? there's songxiao which gives me life (tho it might be cheating since their parallels with wx is what makes them to compelling to me), 3zun in all its VASTLY different iterations (nielan for childhood friends whose time interrupted by tragedy, xiyao for secret and deep affection cultivated through time that not even cruel betrayal was able to break it, and nieyao for toxic exes whose hatred hurts everytime they remember how much they used to admire and trust each other) and, um............... i think that's it? i'm not a very shippy person rip.... i could include xuanli in there, but mostly bc they’re already established

8) three headcanons: one that you believe so strongly it's pretty much canon, one that doesn't make much sense but it's very dear to your heart, and one that you don't think is close to canon at all but would be interesting if it was.

demisexual WWX; I TALK ABOUT IT SO MUCH even though i Know it's not the autorial intent, the vibes are just. so so strong. one day i will Actually write down a post about it, but acespec wwx is soooooo fitting for him

uncle-figure lan xichen 🥺 we have no reason to believe lan-da had any hand in sizhui's development at all, but idk, their mannerisms are so similar and he indeed was quite fond of baby a-yuan (if u look at AD canon which i do). it's just very sweet to me

THIS IS JUST A JOKE BUT. LISTEN.... IT'D BE HILARIOUS IF IT WAS TRUE

10) what character did you end up liking way more than you thought you would?

jin guangyao!!! this definitely came from reading the novel afterwards, since after finishing cql i rly didnt like him. as much as much of an amazing job that Zhu Zanjin did as JGY, what really drives me to his character is pretty much everything that was cut in the live-action, which is a shame. anyway, we stan an awful little man who has made terrible choices out of fear and paranoia. hope you're having amazing hatesex in that coffin, king

28) make some mdzs memes, go!

i can't come up with anything in the spot, so i'll just link to my favorite one from a while back

[briapia95]

An analysis, many interpretations, and comments on the interactions between WWX and LWJ in Chapter 25: Malice —Part 3

I feel like this chapter [and the last couple of paragraphs from the previous chapter] is gold and all that happens between those two is so interesting and bittersweet to read. And it also gives me so many feelings because you can feel the yearning in-between the lines.

By this point, they’ve have reunited after LWJ went after the person running away from the man-eating castle and WWX has managed to run away from JC and transfers JL curse mark.

Just by the end of the previous chapter we are given this small piece: [consider that WWX is coming late to the meeting point]

[...] the white-robed figure stood at the end of the street, standing motionless with his head hung low.

Before Wei Wuxian made any sound, Lan Wangji looked up and saw him. After some hesitation, he walked over with a darkened expresion.

Wei Wuxian didn’t know why, but he involuntarily took a step backward.

He could almost see scarlet streaks of blood by the corners of Lan Wangji’s eyes. He had to admit... Lan Wangji’s face really did look quite scary.

So, it’s quite clear to me that LWJ was not angry but instead scared, and deeply scared as that. The novel has stated several times that WWX used to teased him so much and in such a high degree in the past because it was difficult to get a reaction out of LWJ. But now? Now it only took for WWX to take longer than it was expected to get such a reaction from LWJ.

And of course, the man is scared out of his life. The last time he left WWX behind in a hostile situation was also the last time he ever saw him alive, if it was any other character they would not have risked doing so again. But despite all of that, he chose to trust WWX’s judgment and go after NHS so as to not lose track of him while WWX took JL so safety, even when LWJ knew there was a high possibility that JC was around. [which turned out to be correct]

So now he sees WWX coming back to him and it’s such a relief that even in his stoicism WWX is able to gather that something was happening with LWJ [pity he misunderstood what emotions were going through LWJ at that moment]

Now to the actual chapter I was supposed to be talking about:

WWX, having being attacked with zidian and bearing the curse mark, staggers and almost fall if not for LWJ

[...] thightly gripped his wrist like what he did last time, back in Dafan Mountain.

Wangxian.mp3 playing in the distance.

So now we have two things that really made me laugh:

WWX being flustered because LWJ knelt in front of him to look at his wounds.

I love how even as WWX proclaims to have such a thick face, yet he still gets easily flustered by such small things.

And the famous “... I only left for a few [fucking] hours” phrase from LWJ.

I mean I’m pretty sure inside his head LWJ was screaming so many curses because yes. By this point, WWX has been with him for days and nothing has happened to the other man. Not even with the failed evocation at the Mingshi with NMJ arm. And now he has left WWX out of his sight for |this| short amount of time and look at what happened to him. LWJ is screaming and suffering internally. And WWX is downplaying the seriousness of his injuries. Please give the man a break WWX.

And just when WWX starts to walk towards the shop where NHS is located, we get this:

Lan Wangji stood behind him. He suddenly called out, “Wei Ying.”

Wei Wuxian’s figure paused. A second later, he pretended as if he didn’t hear the name, and answered, “What?”

Idk about you guys but if this is not a heavily charged moment idk what it would be. Because this is the first time LWJ directly calls WWX on his bluff. He’s literally offering him a hand. Tentatively he’s saying “I’m here, you don’t need to hide, you can rely on me”, but at the same time If WWX had chosen to ignore the call he could have easily done so because LWJ is not imposing. Yet WWX chose to tentatively reach back. And IDK, this part causes so many emotions in me, because, for all of what they both remember, their last interactions pre-WWX’s reviving were terrible hostile.

LWJ then states the obvious, 1) you transferred JL’s curse mark to yourself, and 2) you met JC.

And WWX delivers this harsh truth

[...] “As long as both of us are alive in this world, we’d meet for sure, sooner or later.”

Here WWX furthermore confirms his true identity but also I think he implies something quite sad. If he and JC are both alive they’ll keep meeting, they’ll keep hurting each other, and sooner or later one of them will end up dead. And LWJ is not stupid, he catches on quite fast, so he replies:

[...] “Do not go...”

And this little sentence is so many things in such a few little words at the same time. ‘Don’t go meet him, don’t leave me behind, let me protect you, you don’t need to die and leave again.’

And of course, WWX being who he is by this point of the novel, deflects. Because if he’s good at something it's to change the subject and joke around when he’s placed on a tight spot that involves opening-up to face harsh feelings.

[...] If I don’t go, how am I supposed to leave? Are you gonna carry me on you back or something?”

WWX said this because he knew it worked in the past, that LWJ has shot down similar requests in his first life. But, at LWJ’s lack of response, he knew his deflection didn’t really work as he planned to, maybe LWJ would leave the subject to rest but WWX would not be able to tease him into forgetting the conversation.

And LWJ totally does just that, he goes and tries to carry WWX, just like WWX did when they were teenagers, and now is WWX turn to be flustered again.

There’s a little part that stood out for me in this whole scene.

[...] Lan Wangji walked in front of him, as if he really was going to bend down, kneel, and carry Wei Wuxian on his back, despite his honorable status.

And is such a small throwaway line that almost goes unnoticed but it reflects one of the main obstacles WWX has to overcome. WWX does not think of him as an equal to LWJ. And how could he? First, he was the son of a servant, no matter how talented he was in contrast to the second Jade of gusu. Then he was reviled as the Yilling Patriarch, the scum of the cultivation world, in contrast to Hanguang-Jun, the light bringer. He was persecuted and killed and while LWJ was revered. It’s a sad life the one that WWX lived on his first life if you think about it. And WWX is totally aware of these differences in social status and the comparisons other people drew. He might be able to boast that in skill they're equals, but that's it. Outside that he was always regarded as the inferior, that's something I think plays a heavy hand in his belief that the only reason LWJ wanted to bring him back to gusu was to punish him.

As for LWJ’s part, we have this moment after WWX denies being carried

After a moment of silence, Lan Wangji responded, “But you have also carried me on your back before.”

Wei Wuxian, “Did such a thing ever happen? Why don’t I remember?”

Lan Wangji answered in an indifferent tone, “You never remember such things.”

First, we have a vulnerable moment when LWJ tries to reminisce a treasured memory and then goes to quietly exasperated with a dash of disappointment. Because as I stated before, I truly believe WWX did remember the time he offered to carry LWJ in his back, the phrasing is too deliberate to be a coincidence, and LWJ knows it too but also knows that indeed WWX tends to forget many things -read Wangxian.mp3 [the entire reason he figured who you were WWX omg]- so he also can't be sure if WWX is playing into the oblivious character he tries to pull or if he truly doesn't remember. So he doesn't press the matter further but also is not going to let WWX tease him into forgetting he's been hurt.

LWJ has evolved, he now actually can take WWX teasing and keep up with it too, that’s why he ends up carrying him bridal-stile. (To WWX further embarrassment). But being the tease we know WWX, he escalates his antics, starting to play with the front of LWJ clothes as he’s been carried -aka flirting, you are not fooling anyone here WWX- and LWJ just goes along with it. And, of course, he will! He waited 13 years for you WWX with no hope of ever seeing you again, he’s not gonna let this chance go to waste.

Then WWX decides to ask what’s been on his mind since Dafan Mountain, “how the [dolphin noises] did you know it was me? And even since the begging too!” And LWJ here chooses to answer him with a non-reply, the kind of when he's saying the truth but he knows the other person will not understand what's he's saying (his favorite form of communication).

[...] “You told me yourself”

I feel like mostly this is a way of defense LWJ uses when he's also avoiding telling people what he really wants to say, either because he does not care what the other interprets and/or is subtly insulting them -see his treatment of JC and JGY- but he will still be courteous when doing so or because he's afraid of the reaction the other person could have if he's being completely honest -WWX rejecting him if he links together that wangxian.mp3 = you've had feeling for me ever since then = I remembered I rejected you so I’ll reject you again. But also is a way of subtly letting WWX in, as if to say, ‘I know you rejected me but my feelings are the same’. And the moment WWX is unable to figure it out this happens:

It seemed as if something had sent ripples through Lan Wangji’s eyes. Yet, the slight waves faded immediately, and his eyes were a still pool of water again.

Oh LWJ you poor suffering fool, I don’t blame him since for all that he knows WWX rejected his feelings already. But also, this is why communication is important guys, non-replies are cool and everything but if LWJ had said something else, anything else that hinted at the reason he was able to recognize WWX, so much pining would have been spared. But alas.

This is getting longer than I expected but there are two more points I want to touch.

When they arrived in front of the door of the room where NHS is staying at and WWX ask LWJ to let him down so that he can open the door. It goes like this

Before he finished his words, Lan Wangji did something that was extremely impolite. It was possibly the first time in his whole life that he had ever done such a rude act.

Carrying Wei Wuxian, he kicked the door open.

And I really love this part.

I remember reading a while back a meta that said that in WWX’s first life LWJ had tried to be the bridge that connected WWX with the “righteous” path, that he was trying to bring him back to the “right and accepted” side, but in WWX’s second life LWJ pretty much says, ‘I’ll walk alongside you in any path you chose’.

And this paragraph is LWJ's character evolution in a nutshell. It was shown in little glimpses before like with the scene of WWX finding the secret stash of emperor’s smile at the Jingshi or the whip scars on LJW’s back. But nothing is so blatantly stated regarding this change in LWJ’s character previous this moment. The “I will stay with you and help you forge a path where we can both walk freely” is this small moment when LWJ prefers to keep WWX in his arms and just slam the door open than letting him on his feet to open the door because it's the proper thing to do that we know LWJ will always choose WWX and not try to find compromises as he did on WWX���s first life. Something that goes against everything he was taught about property probably. And he’s doing it without a single hesitation. If that’s not love and devotion I don’t know what it is.

And now, the last part I wanted to bring into attention; right after LWJ startles NHS when kicking the door open and walking with WWX on his arms:

Acting as if he didn’t see anything, Lan Wangji carried Wei Wuxian inside and put him in the bamboo mat.

LWJ just showing so much care for his beloved Yilling Patriarch. He will make sure that WWX is safe and comfy before continuing with this very serious investigation. All because on WWX’s last life, LWJ was not able to provide him this sort of affection and care he always wished for. But now he’ll make sure as hell that he’ll be able to bring comfort to his beloved, no matter the situation because he actually can do it and he sure is not going to be wasting this second chance.

And that’s it, I feel like this chapter is Wangxian in a nutshell. The chapter underlays the feelings, characterization, interactions, and arcs that will be explored through the rest of the book. And it’s why it gives me so many emotions while reading it.

Omg, this turned out so much longer than I thought. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk I guess xD

[more rambles]

[vera-invenire]

For the character ask meme I can't not ask for: Lan WangJi

For this meme!

- FIRST IMPRESSION

From gifs on my dash – “So this guy’s the fantasy!China version of Spock? I guess? He seems a lot like Spock.”

 - IMPRESSION NOW

Oh my god, I love him. He is the best. The best.

 - FAVORITE MOMENT

????? Oh boy.

How pissy and outraged he got over the porn in the library.

How three seconds before that^ he said “Boring” while delicately, carefully putting the drawing WWX made of him aside because he doesn’t know how to handle feelings yet that are outside the spectrum of Meditation >> FIGHT ME.

Every time his brother teased him in a roundabout way about WWX

“Did you find out who was lurking in the back hills?” *drawn out pause full of teenaged drama* “Wei Ying.”

“Do you like MianMian?” That LOOK.

No, but actually, how he followed Mianmian out after she defected.

His FACE when he sees Wei Ying in Yiling

…when he cut off JGY’s arm, like. That was actually kinda of alarming, ngl.

The way he Cannot. Stand. Jiang Cheng, ahahahaha.

The way he smiled at the bunny lantern WWX drew and then IMMEDIATELY pulled his sword when he was caught.

Chickens. CHICKENS.

He just. Throws WWX’s arm around his shoulders and kicks open NHS’s door. Why? Because he wanted to.

Drunk!LWJ? Drunk!LWj.

Taking WWX to the same inn they stayed at when they were younger because it was a MEMORY and it MADE AN IMPRESSION.

Going to the inn in Yiling and listening to gossip (From whom did he learn to sit in inns and listen to gossip? Yeah.)

In Cloud Recesses, that little step back he did when they were looking at the sword and WWX was leaning on him and Lan Sizhui was like, delighted, because that’s what LWJ is like when he’s messing with people.

Bringing Emperor’s Smile into the Cloud Recesses IN FRONT OF HIS BROTHER with HIS HAIR MOSTLY DOWN, oh my goodness.

Putting the Silence spell on Su She.

When WWX was going to start guessing the name of the song and LWJ just jerked Lil Apple in a new direction to change the subject, ahaha.

The approximately 5 million times he cradles WWX in his arms.

…he’s my favorite, alright, it is what it is.

 - IDEA FOR A STORY

LWJ has been passive aggressively avoiding an arranged marriage ever since he got out of his three year seclusion, but now that he’s Chief Cultivator, the pressure (and offers/negotiations) to get married have gone up 1000%.

But unlike his predecessors who liked their thrones too well, LWJ travels around a lot and so everywhere he runs goes people are trailing after him and trying to lock him into matrimony. (Possibly there are even very foolish attempts to *entrap* him into matrimony.)

Alas, somehow it seems that every time LWJ goes somewhere and the matchmakers and the husband-hunters come out, all their efforts are derailed by – well, it changes. Sometimes it’s a dusty rogue cultivator with a rude donkey; sometimes it’s a young master with a dizi who doesn’t reveal his name but seems to know the Chief Cultivator quite well; or sometimes, when the big guns are needed, it’s the Yiling Patriarch himself, here to wreck a party.

Really, it’s all Wei Wuxian who keeps showing up where he knows Lan Zhan is going to be and is either accidentally or on purpose (or accidentally on purpose) derailing every courting/matchmaking attempt that looks like it’s making Lan Zhan even a smidgen uncomfortable. (Shades of Jiang Yanli’s situation, even if WWX knows the motivation this time around is very different.)

(Featuring: hunted!LWJ, trickster!WWX, jealous/sad!WWX, someone (maybe Jiang Cheng) asking WWX pointed questions on what the hell he thinks he’s doing, mutual pining for days, ‘so then… what kind of person would you want to marry’ and That Look from the Cave you know the one I’m talking about, and then Wei Ying proposes, fin.)

 - UNPOPULAR OPINION

(this is getting long, so let’s continue it under a cut)

I dunno, I think making him Chief Cultivator is going to lead a coup d'etat. I’m not even joking. It is close to being the *worst* job for him, and that’s not even considering the mess of secrets and politics and social engineering JGY left behind. You think LWJ’s gonna deal with that well? Nah nah nah.

I used to think Lan Xichen would be the best choice after getting out of seclusion since he’s moderate and a peace-maker, but honestly? Give the job to Nie Huaisang. He might need some time to, like, recenter himself, though. Figure out what else he wants to do with his life now that all the revenge has been sorted. Maybe after things start unraveling a bit it’s WWX who starts nudging NHS in that direction in order to free up LWJ for roaming the world like they both clearly want, hm. So LWJ as Chief Cultivator for 1-3 years, then it’s Nie Huaisang.

 - FAVORITE RELATIONSHIP

??? Wangxian????

Also, his relationship with his brother during the flashback.

And the hateship between him and Jiang Chen because it honestly gives me life.

 - FAVORITE HEADCANON

He kept in sporadic touch with MianMian over the years which is why he was like, ‘let’s stop for water here’ and looked very at ease at her house. The little girl already has a spot saved for her in GusuLan should she wish to train in cultivation.

[gncatboymoved]

kny !!! and (not an anime but) mdzs

kny:

haven’t heard of it | absolutely never watching | might watch | currently watching | dropped | hated it | meh | a positive okay | liked it | liked it a lot! | loved it | a favorite

don’t watch period | drop if not interested within 2-3 episodes | give it a go, could be your thing | 5 star recommendation

fav characters: INOSUKE, tanjirou, nezuko, and rengoku kyoujurou

least fav characters: zenitsu.

fav relationship: inotan is very cute!!

fav moment: HMM i liked when nezuko and tamayo hugged. “she still sees you as human” ill cry right now. i also liked when tanjirou was like “the bond between nezuko and i can’t be broken” or something like that while fighting rui

headcanons/theories: i love projecting onto my ccs so inosuke and tanjirou are selectively mute and tanjirou has adhd

unpopular opinion: i dont have one yet!!

how’d you find it: tumblr user ergege diamo posted about it and i thought it looked cool!!

random thoughts: giyuu and urokodaki upon meeting some kids one of which is a demon: oh.........i have to adopt them now

mdzs:

haven’t heard of it | absolutely never watching | might watch | currently watching | dropped | hated it | meh | a positive okay | liked it | liked it a lot! | loved it | a favorite

don’t watch period | drop if not interested within 2-3 episodes | give it a go, could be your thing | 5 star recommendation

fav characters: LAN WANGJI, XIAO XINGCHEN, song lan, jiang yanli, all the juniors.....really everyone!

least fav characters: j*n g*angyao and wen chao

fav relationship: i cant choose just one so!!! wangxian, songxiao, yanqing, nielan, and sangcheng!

fav moment: the part in the donghua when wei wuxian splashes water at lan wangji to get him off of his boat and then tips his boat over to reveal water ghouls......hes smart and cool.

also when jiang cheng scraped the swords together to drown out jgy’s music, and when wei wuxian and lan wangji said i love you, i fancy you, i whatever you, i’ll cry right now!

ALSO THE ENTIRETY OF THE YUNMENG DATE EXTRA

headcanons/theories: lan wangji has anxiety and adhd and im right. im right.

i like to think that he would get lotus seeds every time he visits yunmeng.

this is a joke between my friend lux and i but wei wuxian and nie huaisang would drink from the ponds at the cloud recesses. wei wuxian would because he and jiang cheng would drink from the lake at yunmeng, and huaisang does it because his best friend does it and he wants to join in.

YANLI USES A SWORD. SHE USES A SWORD. theres absolutely no way she doesnt i refuse to believe it. she and wen qing spar with each other for fun sometimes

the junior trio + ouyang zizhen (the junior quartet..) hang out a lot when they have free time. they go on night hunts together and always get food afterwards because they are best friends!!!!!!!

unpopular opinion: the fandom really makes wen ning into JUST a baby when hes not!!! he’s so infantalized and water down it makes me so upset! he gets mad!! when he told jiang cheng about his golden core, he was mad!! he’s a strong and brave character and i’m so mad he got reduced to a baby.

how’d you find it: my dear friend lux magegoth was posting about it and i thought it looked cool!! they told me about it and then i watched the entirety of the donghua in 1 day!

random thoughts: it would be a better novel if mxtx wasnt the one who wrote it, evident by the untamed

[lansplaining]

top 5 favorite mdzs relationships? romantic/platonic/familial/whatever, just any Dynamic

1. YUNMENG BROTHERS

i will never stop crying about them. i will never stop having every feeling about them. i desperately need them to be okay and the fact that that is probably impossible is so painful and perfect and good

2. wangxian

listen..... i never claimed not to be a basic bitch. they invented love, it's fine

3. lan xichen and jin guangyao

i mean i DO think the only explanation for anything that happens is that they're in love and/or sleeping together, but obviously it's not just the potential ship. after i watched the last episode of the show, i literally just sat in silence on the zoom call with the friend i was watching with, broken only by me intermittently saying "....what...... happened......???"

setting side the much-joked-about fact that the last episode of the show becomes couples' therapy for two secondary-at-best characters (which is incredible), the whole final sequence with the stabbing and "die with me" and pushing him away is just... mindblowing. what a horrible, painful, compelling MESS. i love it so much.

3 1/2. 3zun

speaking of compelling messes!! i also literally screamed when it cut to the moment of them getting married swearing brotherhood

4. song lan and xiao xingchen

i can't talk or think about it too much because i get too sad :(

5. jin ling's uncles

this is cheating a little, but. jin ling's relationships to jiang cheng and jgy encapsulate two of my favorite things about MDZS/CQL overall. i've said before that one of my favorite lines in probably the entire book is jin ling's internal monologue after guanyin temple where he gets yelled at for crying over jgy and thinks, in dismay, whether maybe he's just not the kind of person who's capable of truly hating anyone. it's so sad and lovely and simultaneously hopeful (the younger generation are good people and might even come to know it!!) and devastating (he's been raised into a culture that hasn't taught him to know that THAT IS A GOOD THING). i get why the show didn't/couldn't do it, but jgy's love for his nephew and jin ling's love for an uncle who was genuinely always kind to him is like..... so important for two guys who never got much love in their lives.

jin ling's relationship to jiang cheng is a) hilarious, b) a vessel for just so much sadness and pain and the years spent trying to clumsily cobble a life back together after the fall of lotus pier and the death of the yiling patriarch etc., and c) exemplary of the attention to characte detail that makes the story so, so good. jin ling naming his dogs the same kind of dumb things that jiang cheng used to is such a tiny, kind of pointless touch, but it's such a realistic and human touch and reflects the way both the book and the show really pay attention to the little ways the characters truly impact each other, not just when it's relevant to the plot. also (as i've also said before) jin ling's "i've never been hit before!!!!" when we hear jiang cheng constantly threatening to hit him is the best one-line character development i've ever heard. that's it. that's them in a nutshell: jiang cheng is all bark and literally no bite (for the people he loves) and jin ling knows it and understands his love for what it is, which is why he isn't afraid of jiang cheng at all.