#like JGS is definitely making a point about how reasonable and indulgent he's being and if that second part wasn't in play he might not

[winepresswrath]

I think a lot about the precarity of different people's positions in the cultivation world. How being too entwined with the sects vs too separate from them dooms people in different ways. SongXiao made a name for themselves. When we first met them, they were an ideal WangXian looked up to. Ten years later, it was perfectly believable to the cultivation world that Xiao Xingchen tortured and murdered the last surviving member of the Chang clan. He slipped through the cracks entirely.

Yeah, and I do think that makes sense! Obviously there’s lots of corruption and general malfeasance amongst the sects, but it’s also just a feudal honour culture where kinship and loyalty bonds are hugely important. Even if everyone admires Xiao Xingcheng and thinks he does good work, no one except Song Lan actually knows him well enough to vouch for him. Hearing that a minor celebrity who’d previously had a good reputation is a murderer might be surprising and strange, but are you really going to stake your reputation on his innocence (or even doubt his guilt) the way you probably would for a sect-sibling you’ve known since childhood? Aside from the question of who you’re willing to stick your neck out to defend, there’s the bonus issue of who you actually know well enough to feel capable of judging the content of their character. The fact that anyone who could do that for Xiao Xingcheng is busy cultivating to immortality on a magic mountain they can never leave if they intend on returning makes him an easy target for Jin Guangshan’s bullshit, because there isn’t actually really anyone who’s qualified to speak in his defense.

[kurowrites]

Wangxian courtesan au: what would wangxian's first kiss be like in this au? Would it be like in the novel or completely different? Would lwj feel guilty afterwards because he's feels he's taking advantage of wwx?

Earlier posts

It will happen differently! LWJ would definitely end up being an anxious bundle of guilt, though, eheheheh :D

As I’ve mentioned in one of the earlier posts, LWJ brings WWX to Cloud Recesses when they’re around 15/16, and then for around 5 years, they’re getting steadily closer, but absolutely nothing happens. LWJ would never lay a hand on the boy he has rescued for the express purpose so he won’t have to sleep with anyone he doesn’t want to. WWX tries to unsuccessfully seduce LWJ thinking that’s what he’s supposed to do and not realising that he keeps doing it because he has a crush on LWJ.

By the time they’ve both passed 20, they finally start realising that yes, the things that they feel are definitely (unrequited) love, and they’re not going anywhere. So they pine, while literally being the closest, most physically affectionate friends imaginable, and of course while some others assume they’ve long been lovers at this point. Alas, for all the hairbrushing and lying in each other’s laps they do, they haven’t so much as kissed, thinking the other isn’t actually interested in them.

The events in this AU happen a little different than in canon, so:

15/16: WWX starts training at Gusu

17: WWX receives his sword (which is still going to be Suibian), for some handwavy reason, the discussion conference at Qishan doesn’t take place, postponing the subsequent events

18: WWX has caught up with the students of his age, goes to study in Yunmeng (LWJ accompanies him to ‘provide useful guidance to Yunmeng disciples’)

19: WWX takes part in a discussion conference the first time (maybe because it’s in Gusu), starts making a name of himself (start of friendship with NMJ & NHS), JGS is angered that a prostitute has become such a prominent disciple, not least because said prostitute knows a lot about his infidelity

20: Qishan starts getting unruly, WWX activates a spy network of current/former prostitutes

21?: LWJ finally brings himself to secretly kiss WWX and feels horribly guilty about that: they get swept up in the fights against the Qishan Wen in earnest

It happens something like this: they are visiting Yunmeng because WWX is always a slut for being babied by someone, and JYL always indulges him, even though she’s married by now they have to prepare for a war against Qishan Wen. So they’re visiting Yunmeng, and they obviously visit the lotus fields, slowly drifting past the blossoms in a little boat. It’s evening and the sky is a beautiful gradient of colours, and everything around them is so quiet and nice that they forget for a moment that they’re going to war soon.

WWX crawls in LWJ’s lap, as he always does, and lets himself be paddled around by LWJ, who obviously has zero interest in returning to the dock until the night has fully fallen, so he just keeps gliding through the lotus flowers, looking at the brilliant sky and WWX’s equally brilliant face, until WWX falls asleep.

And while he’s napping, LWJ leans down and kisses him. Because he loves WWX and they’re going to war, and they might not survive that. At least once, he wants to feel how it is to be close to WWX.

And then he feels terribly guilty about it, because he promised to never take WWX’s choices away from him.

Only that night, WWX sneaks into LWJ’s room and asks LWJ to sleep with him, because it might be the one and only chance he has to do so.

He does not mention that he’s afraid that if he gets caught during the war, the Wen might be ready to do much worse things to him, and he wants one good memory to hang on to, at least.

[zeldahime]

cql college/job au xiyao edition

because these two have the potential to be the slowest of slow fucking burns and extremely excruciatingly painfully perfectly polite at all times

featuring: ta/student very-much-not-a-relationship, enough ust to set the entire humanities building on fire, corporate espionage, nie huaisang being the sneakiest and sweetest slytherin, background wangxian, nie mingjue being a boss, intense eye contact, let lan xichen say fuck, meng yao stress hours, WERE YOU ONLY PRETENDING TO BE DELICATE AND POOR, summer internship, background wangxian

it got uh. very long. so. 

meng yao starts working for nie enterprises when he’s 16 as a part-time janitor. he has two other part time jobs and is studying for his ged.

one day he solves some kind of problem that nie enterprises is having and nie mingjue likes this guy and promotes him to his personal assistant on the spot

nie huaisong is always flitting about his brother’s office etc, and they become friends and meng yao helps him with his homework.

when huaisong is getting ready to go to small posh private university, he will definitely need tutors. mingjue is happily persuaded into converting meng yao’s job into full-time huaisang babysitting tutoring, including paying for yao’s tuition and room and board to get a degree himself; his job is to make sure huaisang gets good grades and not in trouble. meng yao sees this for the golden ticket it is and very happily agrees. this is going to be the easiest job he’s ever had, and he’s got job security as long as huaisang doesn’t mess up too badly.

first day of classes, meng yao is 22 and looking around at the 30-odd 18-year-old trust fund babies with a sinking stomach telling him that he does not belong here.

this is a philosophy and ethics class like. in a literal ivory tower. this is possibly the last place he should be. 

and the most gorgeous man he’s ever seen in his life walks into the room with the professor. and he’s introduced as “and this is our TA, lan xichen.”

lan xichen smiles at the room with the kind of look that makes it feel like he’s making eye contact with everyone. and then he makes real eye contact with meng yao. “he’s attractive as hell,” they both think, and then think nothing of it.

but, it’s a small class. and it meets 3 times a week. and lan xichen shuts down someone who pokes at meng yao’s age, and meng yao asks questions perfectly tailored to making sure that huaisang and the other students actually understand the material. and by the end of week 2 they’re both saddled with an extremely unfortunate crush that they both need to get a handle on. for professionalism’s sake. they’re at work goddamn it.

and one day meng yao comes to office hours to ask a question that’s much more advanced than what they’re talking about in class, and in lan xichen’s tiny ta office talking about ethics, they are exceptionally and perfectly polite and appropriate and within the exact bounds of a ta-student relationship.

they are also both about to catch on fire.

this continues all school year, because it’s a two-part class. meng yao comes to office hours, and he and lan xichen are stringently appropriate the whole time, and at no point do they so much as brush fingers. they see each other every single day. 

huaisang thinks this is 1) absolutely hilarious and 2) the perfect distraction. he wingmans the hell out of meng yao in class, he third-wheels on office hours specifically to make it worse, and he arranges “chance” meetings between them outside of class. (he got some details about lan xichen’s daily schedule from wei wuxian, who he is eternally surprised is actually somehow getting information from lan wangji the silent wonder)

(he’s not getting it from lan wangji; lan xichen is wingmanning his little brother. the info wei wuxian is passing on is straight from the horse’s mouth.)

nie huaisang thinks he’s being very clever and sneaky in arranging his classes and portfolio to make it look like he’s just taking electives when he’s really planning on switching to a fine arts major at the last possible minute

he is being clever and sneaky, but meng yao knows what he’s doing anyway

meng yao is keeping that ball up in the air as long as he can though, because that’s a later-problem. 

in addition to falling in extremely professional love with his ta, his asshole dad has also come out of the woodwork and is trying to involve him in corporate espionage. which is less than super great. 

on the one side, asshole dad who hasn’t supported you in 22 years and didn’t care when your mother died when you were 16 and pushed you down the stairs because you had the audacity to ask for help, who will gladly frame you even if you don’t help. on the other hand, your boss, who has treated you well for a boss, but has explicitly told you your job depends on keeping his little brother as out-of-trouble as possible and who you don’t think will believe you

in this au, he’s solidly with the nie clan because: Golden Fucking Ticket, where the strings are “don’t let huaisang fuck up too bad,” and where “fuck up” means like. drunk driving or failing a class. he’ll probably even keep his job after huaisang’s art degree reveal. all dear old dad is offering is a jail sentence.

but he still needs to somehow convince jgs that he’s double-crossing nie enterprises without actually doing that, so that he doesn’t get framed for doing it.

it’s stressful.

lan xichen’s life isn’t roses and pearls either, though it’s not nearly as stressful as playing double-agent corporate espionage while also babysitting huaisang and getting a degree

lan xichen’s life is all about being the Dutiful Eldest Son so that lan wangji can have an inch of freedom

this includes becoming a corporate accountant (a job he’s bored just thinking about) and marrying a Good Girl From A Respectable Family (he is extremely gay), and eventually having 2.5 children and a white picket fence and a dog (he’s a cat person and doesn’t know what to do with children). he tells himself it’s all for lan wangji and it’s almost enough to make him want to do it.

being the ta for his thesis advisor’s philosophy and ethics class was supposed to be his Fun Indulgent Treat because he has no idea what “fun” or “indulgent” or “treat” mean

but now he’s in love with one of his students and that’s. not. good.

he’s all of 21 and he’s pretty sure he’s going to be blacklisted from all jobs for his entire life unless he manages, somehow, to keep anyone from knowing how entirely unprofessional he’s being. 

he is trying very hard to distract himself from his gayngst by helping wangji with his own. 18-year-olds can be so oblivious in love, he thinks, failing to see any irony at all.

he’s also been telling his bff mingjue about this extremely painful experience this entire time, under a pseudonym. if mingjue has to hear one more word about “Y”’s dimples, he’s going to scream and then he’s going to force Y into a closet with xichen and not let them out until they’ve solved this. he’s very tired.

at one point when he’s about to pass out from extreme eye contact, he gives meng yao his number so that he can “pass it to nie huaisang, in case he has any questions” and just. prays really hard that meng yao will text him after classes are over and he’s back to just being a grad student and they can be friends.

BUT. BEFORE HE HAS THE CHANCE. IN THAT TIME BETWEEN FINALS ENDING AND GRADES BEING TURNED IN.

lan xichen begins his summer internship at nie enterprises in accounting. and meng yao returns to fill in for an admin on her maternity leave. and they see each other in the break room. 

both of them: *internal gay screaming* Hi, what a coincidence, how are you doing? 

(boys, you are in different departments, nobody cares if you date as long as you don’t start fucking on the desks. they don’t know this because they’re young and very concerned with being Professional and with Career Advancement.)

they have Very Professional lunch together every day. and will buy each other coffee, Professionally. and it would be much more professional if they would just actually make out and then come to work like normal people instead of clearly wanting to make out every time they see each other and instead being Very Incredibly Professional with their words and actions.

mingjue clues in that this is Y. meng yao is Y. Oh my god, first i didn’t want to know that, second this is going to be so easy, and then i’ll never have to listen to xichen wax rhapsodic about his eyes again, he thinks.

he is incorrect. 

the harder he tries, the more vehemently perfect their professionalism becomes. which means he’s watching them have extremely intense eye contact at work and can’t actually say anything about it because, it’s just eye contact? what is he going to say? stop looking at people when delivering tps reports?

he also can’t say anything outright like “just. kiss. him.” because. he’s both of their Entire Boss. at the moment he’s xichen’s boss’s boss’s boss. he can’t do anything without probably violating sexual harassment laws.

mingjue is tired.

meanwhile the corporate espionage double-agent act is still ongoing and meng yao continues to be stressed

mingjue is alerted to meng yao “stealing” secrets and has a freak-out; he hasn’t slept in three days and he trusted meng yao and how could he? was this his plan all along WAS HE ONLY PRETENDING TO BE DELICATE AND POOR

xichen steps between them and insists there’s a reasonable explanation and jesus christ mingjue have you slept when was the last time you’ve eaten you look terrible let’s get you to bed and talk about this in the morning

(meng yao doesn’t realize that he’s clutched on to lan xichen’s suit until after he releases it and lan xichen is trying, very hard, to pretend that it didn’t happen because he won’t be able to think of anything else if it did)

xichen, immediately after mingjue is in huaisang’s care: i believe you, but what the fuck is happening, yao.

(if he wasn’t so rattled by the entire mingjue-reaming thing yao would be able to savor lan xichen saying fuck sooooo much better.)

(once yao explains it is a strain not to kiss him right then and there in that empty conference room but he deserves better than lan xichen, who can’t bring anything to the table and can’t even bring him home to eat at his table, because he is the Dutiful Eldest Son and his closet needs to be made of motherfuckin steel)

(huaisang knows exactly what the fuck is up and talks mingjue down, because meng yao is sneaky but he wasn’t counting on huaisang like. actually caring.) 

this is also the exact same day where lan wangji brings wei wuxian home for dinner and this goes. as well as might be expected. given Uncle hates everything about wei wuxian from his motorcycle to his leather to his attitude. but wangji is happy and he’s smiling and that’s why lan xichen is doing this. that’s why lan xichen is doing everything. 

the next day the 3-zun make a Plan to trap jgs and then get them audited by the irs, since if he’s doing shady espionage stuff he’s also almost certainly doing shady tax stuff (they’re right, he is)

after the internship is over, that very evening, lan xichen asks meng yao if he wants to “hang out, as friends”

oh, you thought this pining dysfunctional trainwreck was going to end here? buddy. lan xichen is in fucking narnia, he’s so deep in the closet, because he must be Dutiful.

they go on several not-a-dates doing Friend Things. and several study sessions where no studying is done. and eventually.

lan qiren: so when are you introducing me to your boyfriend? he seems like a good kid, nothing like that wei wuxian character

lan xichen.exe has stopped working

lan qiren: what, do you think i’m blind? he either is your boyfriend or he should be. good head on his shoulders. *returns to his newspaper*

turns out lan xichen’s self-sacrificial bargain with the universe was borne from a place of living in a heteropatriarchy and not actually from the reality of his uncle’s beliefs, who knew

(lan qiren loves his nephews and wants them to be happy. he also has eyes, in his head, that connect to his brain. he knew xichen was probably gay by the time the kid was 14, and started reading books with titles like “how to accept your gay son” in the living room. xichen assumed this was about wangji, because he also has eyes and wants his baby brother to be happy. wangji bringing a boy home was actually a big surprise to his uncle. this family does not actually talk to each other about things.)

anyway the next friend-not-a-date that he and yao go on, he asks yao on a real date.

he is bracing for rejection when yao kisses??? him???? for some reason?????

they make out &c. this is the boring part

they have a conversation about their feelings and discover that they’ve both been in love for a year a YEAR a fucking year. then they make out some more because lost time.

fin.

[ohsoverylittlehoneybee]

One of my favourite scenes in the whole show happens when Jiang Cheng is called to account for Wei Wuxian’s jailbreak and Jin Guangshan tells him that he’ll write Wei Wuxian killing his cultivators off like it’s a parking ticket Obviously we the audience know those guys sucked and sympathize with Wei Wuxian’s desire for vengeance but they didn’t get a trial and it’s not being treated as an execution.Wei Wuxian certainly doesn’t have the authority punish Jin cultivators even if they are guilty  and everyone just nods along while jin guangshan plays indulgent uncle with jiang cheng over the lives of his people! who swore loyalty to  him and had a right to his protection it doesn't really matter what wei wuxian did it matters who he is which means he gets to kill a bunch of people so long as he doesn't hit anyone too important but is not enough to counteract 'emotionally unstable one man superweapon not under jin guangshan's control'  like JGS is definitely making a point about how reasonable and indulgent he's being and if that second part wasn't in play he might not  bother   but that's a move available to him! this is a very shitty universe to not be a magical aristocrat in and an even shittier universe to try and go it alone in tbf that is honestly also true of our own universe like- one of the surest signs of privilege in my country is also whose fuckups get treated as fuckups and whose fuckups get treated as Crimes you're just generally not allowed to vengeance murder a bunch of people admit that's what you did and have it be cool                                                                                                                                                

I think a lot about the precarity of different people's positions in the cultivation world. How being too entwined with the sects vs too separate from them dooms people in different ways. SongXiao made a name for themselves. When we first met them, they were an ideal WangXian looked up to. Ten years later, it was perfectly believable to the cultivation world that Xiao Xingchen tortured and murdered the last surviving member of the Chang clan. He slipped through the cracks entirely.

Yeah, and I do think that makes sense! Obviously there’s lots of corruption and general malfeasance amongst the sects, but it’s also just a feudal honour culture where kinship and loyalty bonds are hugely important. Even if everyone admires Xiao Xingcheng and thinks he does good work, no one except Song Lan actually knows him well enough to vouch for him. Hearing that a minor celebrity who’d previously had a good reputation is a murderer might be surprising and strange, but are you really going to stake your reputation on his innocence (or even doubt his guilt) the way you probably would for a sect-sibling you’ve known since childhood? Aside from the question of who you’re willing to stick your neck out to defend, there’s the bonus issue of who you actually know well enough to feel capable of judging the content of their character. The fact that anyone who could do that for Xiao Xingcheng is busy cultivating to immortality on a magic mountain they can never leave if they intend on returning makes him an easy target for Jin Guangshan’s bullshit, because there isn’t actually really anyone who’s qualified to speak in his defense.

[theleakypen]

tags from @winepresswrath​ continue to be real good:

One of my favourite scenes in the whole show happens when Jiang Cheng is called to account for Wei Wuxian’s jailbreak and Jin Guangshan tells him that he’ll write Wei Wuxian killing his cultivators off like it’s a parking ticket Obviously we the audience know those guys sucked and sympathize with Wei Wuxian’s desire for vengeance but they didn’t get a trial and it’s not being treated as an execution. Wei Wuxian certainly doesn’t have the authority punish Jin cultivators even if they are guilty and everyone just nods along while jin guangshan plays indulgent uncle with jiang cheng over the lives of his people! who swore loyalty to him and had a right to his protection it doesn't really matter what wei wuxian did it matters who he is which means he gets to kill a bunch of people so long as he doesn't hit anyone too important but is not enough to counteract 'emotionally unstable one man superweapon not under jin guangshan's control' like JGS is definitely making a point about how reasonable and indulgent he's being and if that second part wasn't in play he might not bother but that's a move available to him! this is a very shitty universe to not be a magical aristocrat in and an even shittier universe to try and go it alone in tbf that is honestly also true of our own universe like- one of the surest signs of privilege in my country is also whose fuckups get treated as fuckups and whose fuckups get treated  as Crimes you're just generally not allowed to vengeance murder a bunch of people admit that's what you did and have it be cool

I think a lot about the precarity of different people's positions in the cultivation world. How being too entwined with the sects vs too separate from them dooms people in different ways. SongXiao made a name for themselves. When we first met them, they were an ideal WangXian looked up to. Ten years later, it was perfectly believable to the cultivation world that Xiao Xingchen tortured and murdered the last surviving member of the Chang clan. He slipped through the cracks entirely.

Yeah, and I do think that makes sense! Obviously there’s lots of corruption and general malfeasance amongst the sects, but it’s also just a feudal honour culture where kinship and loyalty bonds are hugely important. Even if everyone admires Xiao Xingcheng and thinks he does good work, no one except Song Lan actually knows him well enough to vouch for him. Hearing that a minor celebrity who’d previously had a good reputation is a murderer might be surprising and strange, but are you really going to stake your reputation on his innocence (or even doubt his guilt) the way you probably would for a sect-sibling you’ve known since childhood? Aside from the question of who you’re willing to stick your neck out to defend, there’s the bonus issue of who you actually know well enough to feel capable of judging the content of their character. The fact that anyone who could do that for Xiao Xingcheng is busy cultivating to immortality on a magic mountain they can never leave if they intend on returning makes him an easy target for Jin Guangshan’s bullshit, because there isn’t actually really anyone who’s qualified to speak in his defense.