#like.. where the hell is meng yao. where is Lxc???

[vroomian]

I think I need a timeline….

[verdantrivers]

jgy and/or lxc 👀

oh babe we’re going to be getting into it bc these two give me so many brainworms.

jgy first!

a song that reminds me of them: everybody wants to rule the world - tears for fears

what they smell like: fresh and pleasant, not overpowering, maybe a hint of floral oils

an otp: xiyao for sure but i’m also deep in chengyao hell

a notp: nieyao and 3zun does nothing for me. I don’t hate it, I’m just deeply ambivalent about it.

favorite platonic/familial relationships: this is a tough call between meng shi and jin ling. I also think these are the two relationships in his life where his feelings are (relatively) uncomplicated. I’m particularly tickled by how much he likes to spoil Jin Ling because he never got to be spoiled like that as a kid.

a headcanon that is popular in the fandom but that i disagree with: oh there are so many. so so so many wildly bad takes about jgy that i’m just going to lump them into one category i call “Someone Gave Sect Leader Yao Internet Access”. Basically i dislike headcanons that tend to attribute a lot more awful stuff to his Schemes, or speculate on there being more malice to his motivations than was actually there. It flattens the character into a two-dimensional villain, and removes a great deal of ambiguity around his actions and motives.

the position they sleep in:  on his back like a proper gentleman! (but if he’s alone he’s curled up like a kitten)

a crossover au i’d love to see them in: a song of ice and fire, don’t @ me he’d get so far. but honestly there are just. so many.

my favorite outfit they’ve ever worn: that little number with the baby blue outer robe i see what’s happening there >:3c

now for lxc:

a song that reminds me of them: life on mars - david bowie look it’s like one of the few i have with lyrics almost all of his playlist is instrumentals and melancholy women on pianos

what they smell like: fresh and crisp, like newly fallen snow

an otp: xiyao

a notp: literally anything else involving him, but xisang turns my stomach. Xicheng just grates on my nerves because it’s popularity is so bizarre to me.

favorite platonic/familial relationships: oh his relationship with wangji for sure. for all i harp on wangji for not even like, checking on xichen after Guanyin Temple, i think they have one of the most loving relationships in the series. i also really enjoy his relationship with Lan Qiren, and his Very Complicated Feelings about his parents. I also have a lot of thoughts about how he feels towards nhs pre and post Guanyin Temple.

a headcanon that is popular in the fandom but that i disagree with: save me from himbo!xichen headcanons, christ on a fucking bike, nothing makes me want to chew glass more. i also really don’t like headcanons that tend to diminish his closeness with either jgy or wangji. i don’t dismiss dark!xichen headcanons out of hand, but there’s only a few i actually vibe with.

the position they sleep in: he starts on his back but i think he rolls over on to his side in his sleep and cuddles his blankets.

a crossover au i’d love to see them in: dark!xichen au in the hellraiser universe /grabbyhands

my favorite outfit they’ve ever worn: the dark blue number when he and jgy eyefucked right in front of nmj and his salad.

Bonus Xiyao:

a song that reminds me of them: last snowfall - vienna teng

what they smell like: each other :3c

an otp: them

a notp: anyone else.

favorite platonic/familial relationships: all the salads they eyefuck in front of, they are in the running for most people annoyed by their nonsense

a headcanon that is popular in the fandom but that i disagree with: that jgy and xichen don’t love each other. the drama and the donghua beg to differ - the xiyao agenda is real

the position they sleep in: wrapped lovingly in each other’s arms until xichen gets too hot and then it’s him on top of the blankets with jgy bundled up and using his enormous Lan Naturals as a pillow.

a crossover au i’d love to see them in: beauty and the beast au bc i’m predictable af

my favorite outfit they’ve ever worn: their wedding attire, shut up they’re married and Fine.

[madtomedgar]

My modern Au thoughts as someone who hates modern aus:

Doing this for a USA based one because that's what I'm most familiar with.

Jgs is a corporate lawyer remaking himself into a political figure. During his first flirtation with this, the tabloids dig up that he has a child out of wedlock with a sex worker whose legal status in the country is dubious. Part of how this happened is that Meng Shi is insistent that jgs pay child support. She's here so her kid can have a better life and so he is GOING to have one come hell or high water. Jgs retaliates by having his employees/legal team harass her, namely threatening cps and immigration if she doesn't sign something agreeing that she made all this up/an NDA, hits her with restraining orders, etc. Meng Yao spends some time in and out of foster care. Meng Shi contracts something treatable but serious (diabetes, hepatitis, etc).

Meng Yao does that (evil but if you grew up around poverty you know someone who has done this thinking they can just fish drunks out of the ocean for a few years and then... Well.) Thing where you join the military for 4 years to pay for college. Jin Zixuan got Yale early admission because his daddy donated a new building for the school.

Nie Mingjue is Meng Yao's CO (I like @thatswhatsushesaid suggestion of him as an NCO but i also like him as coming from a legacy family who all go to fucking west point. Idk) and while they are serving together Something Happens that leaves Meng Yao covered in glory and Nie Mingjue honorably discharged for resulting mental and physical health issues. Nie Mingjue blames Meng Yao for getting them into the situation in the first place and hates that the kid saved his life because now his life sucks. Nie Mingjue remakes himself as an FBI agent, but the kind who works behind a desk, mostly on financial crimes.

While doing a 4 year degree in 2 years (can be done but it's like a decathlon for your brain), Meng Yao is working for Wen Ruohan's financial company and blows the whistle on the ponzi scheme.

Jin Guangshan is eyeing a big run for something, and now Meng Yao is an asset, rather than a liability. So he very publicly hires and welcomes to the family his long lost son. And if he is such a good boy, Jin Guangshan will make sure his mom gets the best treatment and gets to stay in the country, and maybe in a few years Meng Yao can go to law school. Jin Guangshan is also enron levels of dirty and has Meng Yao handling most of the criminal stuff directly. Because he's a very convenient fall guy.

The Lan are also a legacy law firm (thanks @thatswhatsushesaid) but like. They have a conscience. They do a lot of death row and supreme court bait cases. More scholarly than courtside. Pretty easy flow between their top guys and constitutional law professorships at places like Georgetown and Harvard. Lan Qiren has one of those but is forced into early retirement by the wen ponzi scheme and lxc has to live the adjunct life. Their firm almost goes under because of the resulting cash flow issues but they manage to turn it around, partially thanks to Meng Yao directing any and all conflicts their way.

Su Minshan is persona non Grata because after working at the Lan firm for several years, he took his client list and started his own firm and is actually pretty successful.

Xue Yang is jgs fixer and moonlights as a weed dealer. Songxiao are anarchist co-op food not bombs whackos (affectionate).

[add1ctedt0you]

that fic idea where WWX is sent to a universe where JC isn't paying attention to him/being sad about him because JGY was JC's childhood bestie... effervescent

the many stages of WWX's reaction

YEAH. THE FEELINGS. THE MANY STAGES OF WWX'S REACTIONS INDEED

(sorry I got overboard while thinking how things would play...) it's very long!!

you haven't asked, but imo at the start, wwx is very excited! He is in his old body again! He has his strong golden core back!( Imo he is scarred by being 'the number one cultivation world's enemy'.) So, it's nice having cultivators who admire him! He is happily married with the love of his life, he is an accomplished scientist and a fun teacher! He didn't even kill 2000 people or his shijie! Everything is perfect.

So he goes to visit jc: his shidi isn't mad at him anymore! Why should he be? He didn't have crimes under his belt anymore.

Lotus Pier, the SAME lotus pier as before the massacre (there was a war, wwx knows that. Maybe during the rebuilding jc has found someone with great memory! Nice!), doesn't throw him out. He feels welcomed.

And then he goes to the sect leader (he has to ask before the disciples let him in the throne room. Rude, but he understands, jc loves formality. - lwj is quite confused... Why would sect leader jiang immediately run to welcome them? But wei ying is happy, so he holds back)

And then, they arrive at the throne room... And jc is there, at his rightful place, proud and scowly, and wwx is so HAPPY. He's at home again!

"jiang cheng, I am back!"

"..."

"..."

jc is so confused that stares at him, unimpressed. He doesn't know this wwx, but he has heard how weird he can be. Still, his inventions are amazing and useful and he is lwj's husband, and lwj is important to lxc... He can't be rude, he has to maintain a good relationship with the Lan. "I didn't know that wei-xiansheng has already been at Lotus Pier before, but I am glad to host such honorable guests. I would say to make yourself at home, but you have already done it forgetting formality", he sneers and wwx is confused. What the fuck jc?! Do you want formalities?! I beat your ass so many times, do you want me to bow to you???

Before wwx can say something, jc calls his second in command and Meng Yao arrives. He escorts them, under jc's order, to their guest room.

wwx is so confused that he lets it happen. Then, he asks his husband what the fuck is happening. Why is meng yao here? Isn't he dead? lwj is worried about his husband' deteriorating memory, but he answers. He would do everything for his husband. But then wei ying's face goes white, then red, then purple! Is wei ying sick?????? He needs to find a good healer to help his husband!! So he leaves the room with an excuse.

In the meantime, wwx is fuming! MY killed shijie!!! He killed jzx, shijie, 2000 people, then comes back (how?? Idk. plot. plot), and JC LET HIM AT LOTUS PIER. JC WHAT THE FUCK!! YOU COULDN'T STAND MY SIGHT FOR ONE SECOND, NOW YOU LET MENG YAO IN!! BASTARD.

It's unacceptable! He needs to fix things!!! He has to, if jc doesn't!!! He goes to jc's personal pavilion ('see, meng yao, I know lotus pier! Even better than you!' he mocks MY speech and suggestions about lotus pier's best inns).

When he arrives, - he sneaks really, now lotus pier has an hell of security system, he almost got caught! That never happened to him before! - he sees jc, MY AND jl eating at a low table. All together. Happily.

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK? JL EVEN YOU! THE BETRAYAL! wwx knows that jl in the other universe forgives him (he is shijie' son, at the end of the day) but jgy's too???? Now???? jgy wasn't stabbed by jl! What right does he have to sit at his side?!?! And jl and wwx's relationship was still fragile, they were still working on trust and shit like that, what's the easy way they talk???? JC STOP PEALING LOTUS SEEDS FOR MY TOO. ONLY JL CAN HAVE THEM.

Unfortunately wwx is caught by the jiang disciples. They brings him to jc and wwx snaps: "jc what the fuck?!?! He killed shijie!!! You should be skinning him alive not feeding him!! Or just whipping him because you are boring. Whatever. But what the fuck?!"

And jc gets mad, but not 'wwx has pissed me off but it will pass'mad or 'I am rightfully even if unfairly mad about shijie and the peacock' bodies 'mad. No, he is 'you are pissing me off and I would kill you without thoughts - but REALLY KILL you'mad.

jl snaps "how dare you talk about my mother like that?! Do you wanna die???"

And jc" mister wei has overstepped his stay and bounds. I'll forget it for the sake of our clans, just this one time. Nonetheless, what happens to meng yao is a jiang family matter"

Lwj arrives and apologizes in wwx's stead. Then lwj drags him out of lotus pier. wwx is confused and angry. What is lwj doing?? He explains to his husband that jgy's the devil! He is bad and mean and a cunning manipulator! He killed wrh! He killed nmj! He killed jgs!

But lwj is even more worried: yes, Meng Yao - who is jgy? - killed wrh, but both jgs and nmj are still alive. Maybe wei ying is tired. Lwj is so worried about his husband's memory.

No one,- lsz, wn, ljy- believes him... And it's just as before, when he was all alone against the world, where no one believes him or in him... The food is tasteless, the world seems again to not have a place for him... His home isn't his home anymore...

But wwx has shit to fix! He needs to help jc and jl to see jgy's real nature! HE NEEDS TO FIX THINGS

And that's the fic:

jc's unmovable love for his family plus jl's good heart plus jgy cunning scheming vs. wwx inability to handle jc's emotions (indifference is unacceptable! How does jc dare to forget wwx?) plus his exaggerated reactions

[leatherbookmark]

no, but

seriously WHERE do people get it from that either 1/ nmj cared about meng yao so much, or 2/ they both cared so much about each other. where. was it the (added in cql) scene of banishment? in which nmj cried and didn’t execute my on the spot, so the obvious conclusion is that he’s just the biggest, smooshiest softie with the marshmallowiest heart, said heart softly plopped in the palm of my’s hand?

cql, why.

(my suspicion is that if they made nmj anything like his novel self, people would actually know and understand why jgy shanked him, and the villain wouldn’t be villainous at all lmao.)

no, but really -- “gave him a new life”? “few people cared more about jgy than nmj”? yeah i guess you could say few people cared more about wwx than lqr, going by this standard. i feel like people saw nmj defend my and immediately assumed it was because he deeply cared about his wellbeing and was sensitive to the plights of the underprivileged, which. was obviously not the case? it was IN THE TEXT that he was bein insensitive and only ensuring the soldiers would give meng yao even more shit for that? he didn’t even wait for my to actually tell him about the situation, he just said ‘follow me’! the hell would he have done if the soldiers weren’t shit-talking meng yao?! given them a goddamn stern talking to, thus making meng yao even more obviously look like a snitch!?

and then later during sunshot he once again doesn’t even consider meng yao’s actual wishes, just writes him a letter of recommendation and sends him off to the jin. like, sure, perhaps if he hadn’t done that jgy would’ve never gone off to become a spy, since he says he betrayed wen ruohan for his father, but like. the fact that he meant well doesn’t excuse the disservice! not when he has all the power to tell meng yao what to do, and meng yao has none of the power to tell him no. not to mention that in that moment, nmj is -- and he WILL do that again! -- eavesdropping on a conversation between my and lxc. NOT A GOOD LOOK, BRO

taking these incidents into consideration, imo it’s not that nmj feels particularly strongly about the fate and wellbeing of one meng yao, or even the Underprivileged layer. rather, he’s ~righteous~ -- he does what he thinks is the right thing, the morally correct thing. but he does so blindly; he doesn’t consider that a common soldier, or a poor, weak son of a sex worker might have different principles than he does. he thinks everyone is “equal”, but in a sense that they should all adhere to the same rules, not that they all deserve the same kind treatment and respect.

and then meng yao tricks him, and nmj Instantly enters the kill mode. he says he’s going to kill him the next time they meet, he constantly either finds faults in everything jgy does or tries to kill him -- how is that the behavior of someone who cares about jgy as a person? if i had to compare it to anything, i’d say he’s like a parent who had all those expectations of their child, and when said child turns out not to be daddy/mommy’s perfect little plaything, they turn to mistreatment and abuse. except nmj isn’t even jgy’s dad, he’s his PAST employer and then a sworn brother who’s supposed to help and not terrorize him.

this is not comparable to, say, jiang cheng, who’s an asshole and would rather eat his shoes than say something nice, but sacrifices himself to the wen for wwx, smuggles jyl and suggests she let wwx name her future child and gives wwx his flute back. aside from the aforementioned well-intentioned disservices, nmj doesn’t really do anything that would show that he cares for jgy as a person, that he wants jgy the person to live well rather than meng yao, the vice-envoy he’s put so many hopes in.

and it’s not like jgy was attached to him either and tried with all his might to mend their severed bond. he realized nmj doesn’t like him at best and actively wants him dead at worst, and if lxc didn’t insist on swearing brotherhood he would’ve spent the rest of his days carefully avoiding him. like yes, he felt grateful and indebted for nmj’s clumsy kindness, and because jgy was jgy, he probably didn’t necessarily want him to die even after all the times his da-ge nmj exhibited un-da-ge-like behaviors, but it wasn’t as deeply personal as people think it was. like he didn’t go from “oh, my dearest da-ge, however else can i help you” to “fuck that guy in particular” in the moment when nmj kicked him down the jinlintai stairs. he knew the relationship was unsalvageable before; that incident was just a concrete proof of it as well as proof that nmj was too far gone.

like. ugh

[guqin-and-flute]

The Most Public Private Meet-Cute [Episode 4]

NHS: hello everyone my name is nie huaisang

Background Person: hiii huaisaaang

NHS: and fun fact about me is that i grew up around lan xichen and i know exactly what his type is

NHS: ON A COMPLETELY UNRELATED NOTE here is my dear and very single friend who desperately needs love and affection and probably a hug meng yao

MY: oh hey that’s me

NHS: say hi meng yao

MY: uh ok how weirdly specific sure thing

NHS: the stage is set i give it 2 minutes

MY: hello my name is meng yao and i’ve brought you a box hope u like it there’s a pot in it

MY: uhhh ok some things about me i’m adorable i get bullied frequently i eat dry bread and my dimples are deep enough to hold all my war crimes see? *ping*

Asshole 1: did someone order some loud and publicly cruel narration about your tragic and slightly damning backstory??

MY: no?? ?

Asshole 1:  too late

MY:  ugh do you allow returns

Asshole 1: WOW THIS DUDE SUCKS

Asshole 2: yeah totally and his dad fuckin hates him rolled him down the steps of jinlintai like a fuckin slinky

MY: well this feels a bit unwarranted

Asshole 1: naaah his dad would have to actually CARE to hate him

WWX:  damn this is brutal hope this doesn’t foreshadow any major plot component that might outline the problem with the idea of reputation vs honor in our society and the place hearsay and gossip plays in the perception of the value of a person that would suck

Random Background person: sure would especially if it greatly impacted you as a person

Asshole 1:  i love shitting on people with u bro

Asshole 2: awww bro

JYL: rude

JC: wow

WWX: jfc

MY:  this is fun so glad i came

LXC:  .......hm.

NHS: 10...9...8...

LWJ: xichen  n  o

Asshole 1: ANYWAY FUCK THIS DUDE

LWJ: u need to stop and not for the reason u think

LQR:  CAN U READ THE ROOM PLEASE AND SHUT THE ACTUAL HELL UP what do you think this is? some kind of high school?? who do you think you are?? children? ? nONSENSE

Asshole 1:  oh shit i thought talking at regular volume in plain sight of a silent room gave me anonymity

Asshole 2: oh no me too what an unforeseen outcome

LQR: anyway, now for-- oh god oh no what are u doing r e s i s t, boy

LXC: [i_need_a_hero.mp3]

Random Lan: love this song

LWJ:  jfc here we go

JC: is this a kissing book?

MY:  sure could use a hug

WWX:  ur gonna get more than that dude

JYL: aww good for him

LXC: why hello.

MY: ho- (where is the saxaphone music coming from)

MY: -ly- am i in slow motion ur very tall did u know ur very tall

MY: shit hey.

LXC: hey :)

LXC:  o h .

LXC:  good god i have gravely miscalculated my investment in the situation what did i come down here for again

MY: hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh u have a mouth i have a mouth what a strange coincidence

MY: i humbly present my body BOX my box this box right here it’s really cool it has a red thing in it it’s for u or maybe the grandmaster i can’t really remember anymore  or feel my legs fuck

LXC: oh yeah the reason i came down here theoretically i should at least pretend to care about what’s in the box

Ambience: [Careless_Whisper_on_Flute.mp3]

WWX: HOLD THE PHONE that’s allowed?? i don’t have to sword fight the gay feelings? he’s beating me at public homoerotic subtext chicken this cannot stand i have to up my game

Pot: I’m a metaphor or something it’s not really relevant at this point is it?

LXC: nope so anyway i could probably fit you into my pocket and cherish you forever thoughts? i’m thinking gentians for the wedding

MY: i can’t feel my face currently but yes to all

MY: ur touching my hands again

LXC: oh trust me i am VERY aware

NHS:  :)))

LWJ: can i go?

Random Lan: probably not

LWJ: ugh i have my own gay shit to deal with

Random background Guy: taking notes for my fanfic

MY: message very fucking received

MY: we are bowing now because we are very polite and definitely not experiencing a life changing sexual awakening in a crowded room

Random Background Person: u guys know people can hear u, right?

LXC: yes very polite definitely nothing gay and certainly no lifelong connection that could potentially end in horrific tragedy for the both of us thank goodness

NHS: guys i didn’t mean elope right fucking now

MY: did u like my box?

LXC: it’s the best box the most adorable box I’ll keep this box forever in my heart

NHS: dude it’s not for u it’s for ur uncle

WWX: i cannot BELILEVE i’m losing public gay chicken i’m gonna get lan zhan a box

BONUS:

Random Asshole 2:

yeah technically he’s zixuan’s brother but jgs treated him like shit what’s ur raction to that zixuan?

JZX: think i’m gonna stick with haughty silence, if i’m honest

Random Asshole 2: that seems on brand

[more brief summaries because yeah]

[fincalinde]

What if Meng Yao had died taking down WRH? Plus points if his last words were something heartbreaking for Lan Xichen and Nie Minjue. Outwardly, it looks like everything is great if you hate JGY! He's dead, but he hasn't done any of JGS' dirty work and the shitshow that led to, he's now a martyr hero etc. But obviously things are going to not be great as JGY wasn't the root of all evil and JGS is still up and running.

The Nie and the Jin would have ended up at war, that's what would have happened.

Like, this is not even ambiguous. If JGY kills WRH and dies in the act, presumably because WRH gets in a retaliatory blow as he goes down, there is another war in the jianghu within a few years.

I don't think I'm going to win the plus points for heartbreaking last words, since LXC isn't present when JGY kills WRH and NMJ is unconscious/so out of it he doesn't witness the moment either, but maybe I can make up for that by pointing out that if JGY dies in the act of killing WRH then NMJ is going to come to and see them both dead and still think JGY is a traitor. Then LXC is going to arrive and have to explain things through his own grief.

But anyway. No JGY means no recruitment of XY to the Jin. It means less expert handling of the Jiang to undermine the JC-WWX relationship while WWX is in exile, and it also means JZX doesn't end up at Qiongqi Path. There's a sliver of opportunity here for the Twin Heroes to limp along for a while longer. Hurrah!

Except there's also no mitigating influence on the Jin-Nie conflict. JGS is going to press on with his thick-faced attempts to become Chief Cultivator. He's going to press on with his experiments in demonic cultivation and he's going to keep undermining JC and demonising (ha!) WWX. And it's all going to be done with a hell of a lot less finesse. Which is going to enrage NMJ further. NMJ thinks the Wenmants need to be taken down and he's not hugely interested in the internal politics of the Jiang, but he sees the Jin power grab and he hates it. And because he's NMJ he doesn't think about the most productive way to deal with that. He goes straight to yelling and waving his sabre around.

There's a key line (EXR translation, Chapter 106): "To this father of mine, I once had hopes as well. In the past, as long as it was his command, whether it be to betray Sect Leader Wen or protect Xue Yang or remove anyone who disagreed, no matter how foolish it was, how hated I'd be, I'd obey regardlessly."

NMJ is a massive thorn in JGS' side. NMJ is toast. But because JGS lacks JGY, he lacks the means to take out NMJ effectively and the result is that sooner or later tensions between the two sects are going to boil over. NMJ, almost incapable of nuance at the best of times, is degenerating further thanks to the exacerbation of the sabre spirit by several years of intense warfare. Cleansing can only do so much and buy him so much time—remember, the vast majority of his violent outbursts in canon are prior to being exposed to the piece blended with an extract from the Collection of Turmoil. This is a recipe for open conflict.

As for who wins that war, my money is on JGS. He can easily paint NMJ as the aggressor since he just has to hold his ground until NMJ makes the first move. JC is busy rebuilding the Jiang, and in this scenario while LXC is NMJ's friend he is not his sworn brother as the sworn brotherhood was proposed by LXC for JGY's sake. LXC also has a lot on his plate and would likely attempt to mediate rather than join any fighting. Remember, in this divergence the Lan are rebuilding without rivers of Jin gold!

For the majority of the other clans, while they won't be huge fans of JGS they are also trying to recover from a devastating war and won't be too enthusiastic about NMJ disturbing the peace. There's a bit of NPC discussion about this where they observe the same few people are competing to be CC and NMJ is the main obstacle for JGS to lock down the position. Even if it's a cold war rather than one with actual battles, the Jin even without JGY just have too much momentum and the fact is that NMJ is going to die in the near future and NHS is in no way equipped to continue his vendetta.

Of course JZX is still alive, but even if JGS pops his clogs within ten years or so, his son will pretty obviously make a terrible clan leader. JZX means well, but he has no idea what's going on around him. He is simply not up to the task, even though he's obviously preferable to JGS. But by the time JGS dies of dissipation or old age or whathaveyou, the task of straightening out the Jin is going to be even more gargantuan. And, as JGY himself rightly points out, WWX is still running around as a loose cannon about to go off at any moment. And when that situation blows up in everyone's faces, JZX might well still end up dead.

So that's what I think we'd end up with: the Nie led by an unprepared NHS, the Lan without financial backing for their rebuilding efforts, and the Jiang still mired in their own rebuilding and the WWX PR nightmare. JGS is going to end up as Chief Cultivator, just by far less elegant means, and there will be no one to take him down and extirpate corruption in the Jin and instate a watchtower programme to benefit remote and dangerous areas. The outlook is pretty bleak.

[angstymdzsthoughts]

AU where, for all his many, many faults as a sect leader, a husband, and a man (and Madam Jin will be more than happy to list them), JGS is, genuinely, an excellent, responsible, supportive father.

Which sounds all fine and dandy, a redeeming factor! And in a lot of respects it is, but can you imagine how much worse JGY would be in an AU where his dad doesn't give him any reason to be disloyal?

Never kicks him down the stairs. Never insults him, lets him hold the baby (though he did fuss about proper holding). Brought Meng Yao in early and raised him himself, alongside JZX and later MXY. He may or may not know about Qin Su, but if he'd known - she's his baby daughter and he loves her.

And JGS talked to Meng Yao, encouraged his intelligence and cunning, whatever interests and phases he had (he also had a few sketches done of more embarrassing ones, but hey, a dad's gotta get his kicks somewhere).

And so it is a deeply loyal Jin Ziyao, formerly Meng Yao, who sees the seemingly abandoned and certainly very stressed-out WWX at the end of Sunshot, and suggests to his dad that there may be an opportunity there.

And/or a young Sect Leader Jiang. Gods knew JFM was uh. Not the greatest dad, in a lot of respects, and certainly not to Jiang Wanyin. JGS never did approve of it; he loves his kids, he can't imagine being like that. But hey, an opportunity!

Who better than an older, wiser sect leader, the same age as their own father, to offer an open door and a listening ear if they ever wanted to vent about the frustrations of a sect leader? He's been there, after all. Times were different but - he gets it. Running a sect is never easy, especially not when you just got the responsibility.

WWX at least won't have as much ego - or political sensitivities - tangled up in it, and JGS is a master at seeing through young people. WWX wants affection and stability, he wants affection without tiptoeing around an abusive stepmother and other people's egos and wariness about never outshining his brother.

And here's JGS, who's offering a listening ear and guidance and praise, or hell, just a nonjudgemental adult to hang out and drink with (the way JGS tells it, it's a miracle he didn't die in a bar brawl, which WWX was not expecting).

He gets WWX on his side concerningly quickly. And then LWJ, because he's weak for WWX, and frankly can you imagine what a bundle of daddy issues that boy is?

And while he's at it, LXC, both because daddy issues and LXC's thing for Meng Yao. And noted blind spots when it comes to him - how can a man who was such a good dad to his A-Yao be really so bad?

Within five years of the end of the Sunshot Campaign, there's a new Chief Cultivator, a greater tyrant than WRH ever was - respected and supported by his sons Jin Ziyao and Jin Zixuan, Sect Leader Jiang, the Twin Jades, and the Yiling Patriarch himself.

Do you have any idea how suspicious I was reading all of this? I kept waiting for the ‘and he’s actually evil’ twist. This is starting to sound like a fix it.

So lets have all his sons - biological, unofficially adopted, and in laws - grow up and realize that he raped Qin Su’s mother and how Mo Xuanyu’s mom was still a teenager when she became pregnant and why Jiang Yanli refuses to be alone with him and why the female servants in Koi Tower never stay long. They can all be disgusted both with him and themselves for once being so close to a rapist. 

For additional angst only a few of them are disgusted with JGS and others still love and support him and ignore the fact that he’s abusing and assaulting women.

[dimpledlianfang]

Three Yaos....

On experimenting with the Yin Iron, Yao managed to split himself into two different aspects and personalities. There was Meng Yao, the polite one, who uses his dimples and puppy eyes as a weapon and Wen Yao, who was intelligent, easy to read emotions, persuasive and a bit rebellious. And then our main snd current Yao that we all know now (in this fanfic)

Yao: what Just happened?

Meng Yao: who are you?

Yao: your alter ego.

Wen Yao: If he is that, then who am I.

Yao: you both are me! Something happened while handling the Yin Iron.

Yao: want to solve this?

Wen Yao: want to show Zewu Jun?

Meng yao: I'm too shy. No. We're not doing anything to Zewu Jun.

Yao: we're married to er ge, guys.

Meng yao: *blush* er ge. We're married to er ge??

Wen yao: I got to admit that he's really sweet.

Xue yang and Minshan: *entering*

Xue yang: what happened here? Lol.

Minshan: three Yaos.

Yao: *sighs* the Yin Iron.

Yao: construct a talisman, and fix this. *opens fan*

Yao: no my fan is broken.

Wen Yao: what about er ge?? I want to show him my Wen outfit.

Yao: *laughs* I never knew I was so mischievous. And especially for my A-Huan.

Xue yang: you're not mischievous? You ate all my sweets in front me, while I was tied up, as a punishment.

Minshan: you deserved it.

Yao: right.

Yao: you stabbed someone without my consent.

Xue yang: but he was just taking up space! It doesn't matter.

Minshan: when will you behave?

Xue yang: when will you change your underwear?

Xue yang: I can smell it from here.

Minshan: you little piece of sh*t.

Yao: ah you two *laughs* well you can work on the talisman a bit later.

Wen Yao: we want to surprise er ge.

Meng Yao: yea.

Xue yang: got ya. Jiggybunsss.

Xue yang: *whispering* aren't these Jiggys hot.

Minshan: hell yea.

Xue yang: dibs on Wen Yao.

Minshan: once I get Yao I'm fine.

Xue yang: Wen Yao looks like a baddie.

Yao: what are you two whispering about?

Xue yang: nothin.

Yao: Minshan. Please repair my fan *hands it over* or get me a new one.

Minshan: say less. I'm honoured.

Yao: call me when the talisman is ready.

~~~

Now the madness starts.......

Xichen: *sitting inside and relaxing.*

Xichen: where's A-Yao all of a sudden. Did he get lost in this mansion?

Wen Yao: *wrapping his arms around him*

Xichen: A-Yao! I didn't see you walk in.

Wen Yao: *sits on his lap and grins* exactly.

Xichen: what are you wearing? And your hair is shorter.

Wen Yao: *grabs headband* don't think about it too much, Lan lips.

Xichen: alright. Then can I kiss your dimple? It gives me energy.

Wen Yao: of course. I'm yours, A-Huan.

Xichen: *kisses*

Wen Yao: why are you so tired?

Xichen: *cupping face* I was organizing your documents, Yaoyao.

Wen Yao: aww. *caressing his shoulders* was it exciting?

Xichen: yup.

Meng Yao: A-Huan, time for your tea. I made a cup for you.

Xichen: *shocked* A-Yao? But you're right here?

Meng Yao: yea. And I'm right here too

Xichen (thoughts): both are so cute. Can I handle all this cute? Too many dimples.

Meng Yao: *blows tea, then places the cup near Xichen's lips* here. Tea!

Xichen: mm~~

Meng Yao: how is it?

Xichen: always tasty.

Wen Yao: come. Let's have a seat.

Both Yaos: *kissing Lan xichen, while he tried to contain his blush*

Wen Yao: which aspect of myself do you like more? *snuggles*

Meng Yao: *Kisses him on the lips*

Xichen: I love all versions of Yao.

Meng Yao: Aww.

Xichen: *teases* now is there more of you?

Yao original: *touches Xichen's shoulder from behind* of course there is.

Lan xichen: *Suddenly gets a nosebleed, shocked to see a third one*

Yao: *kisses him on his forehead*

Xichen: *turns red*

Yao: *grinning and massaging his shoulders*

Wen Yao: *still snuggling and grinning mischievously*

Meng Yao: have some more tea, A-Huan.

Xichen: *blushing* how did this happen, A-Yao?

Yao: something went wrong when I was dealing with the Yin Iron. But Yangyang will take care of it. After I give you love of course.

Xichen: ah.

Yao: *wrapping a guqin string around lxcs neck* don't worry. I won't hurt you, er ge.

Xichen: I know that my A-Yao wouldn't hurt me.

Yao: am I yours?

Xichen: *awestruck* yea!

Wen Yao: *kisses him delicately* Dage saw me in this outfit before you. Just don't be jealous.

Meng Yao: *caressing his chest*

Yao: now say my title lovingly. Lian ~ fang ~ zun ~

Xichen: *blushing* lianfang zun.

Yao: A-Yao.

Xichen: A-Yao.

Yao: *lifts chin* nice Lan.

Meng yao: let me wipe up your little nose bleed.

Wen Yao: *playing with his headband*

Yao: *smiling at him*

Meng Yao: *lovingly poking his face* Lan lips. Oh Lan lips. Am I cute?

Xichen: yes. My A-Yao is the cutest.

~~~

And yes sms and xy are fighting 🤣. Again....

~~~~~

@verycatbluebird

[natcat5]

why the untamed has made me lose my mind, in point form

hmmm, trying to put into words why the untamed makes me so crazy. really trying to understand why I’ve gone so nuts over it. literally i haven’t been this obsessed about something in years. im losing my mind. why is this happening.

Probably it’s, 

reframing of devotion story. 

listen...this dynamic isn’t new. there’s tons of stories of two people, one on a crooked path, or on a path leading to their destruction, and the person they leave behind, who is constantly chasing after them. i mean....yes naruto and sasuke, but also most romantic dramas. 

but the protagonist is always the person doing the chasing. the story is always on the person who’s following, the person who’s devoted, the person who never stops believing in the one they’re chasing after. we’re used to sympathizing with them, and their struggle, and also being like ‘man naruto, you can do better than sasuke, why do you have to keep chasing him?’ or ‘man, she needs to stop chasing after that werewolf/half-angel/brooding male hero of choice, it’s not her responsibility to save him’. 

but in the untamed we’re in the shoes of the one being chased after! the one who’s receiving that unrelenting devotion! and i dont know! it hits different! no longer are we sighing wistfully at our protagonist’s relentless quest to save their loved one, and maybe thinking they should give up on them, or they could do better. in the untamed it’s like, god, you want to take wei wuxian by the face and be like ‘stop running, you deserve to be loved, stop running, you’re not as bad as everyone says, stop running, let him catch you, you deserve his devotion, you deserve to be loved’

shit hits different!! when the protagonist is the one being chased!!! i don’t know!!! it drives me insane i can’t stop thinking about Them!!

also it’s

grumpy/sunshine, but slightly to the left

self-explanatory. usually grumpy is the one on the path to hell and sunshine is steadfastly trying to pull them back. but in the untamed sunshine is a necromancer using armies of undead, and grumpy is lawful good trying to save them. i just think that’s neat

did i mention the grumpy/sunshine dynamic?

but it’s like!! listen, lawful good paladin, who, in a certain light, is actually chaotic neutral, because as it turns out, love trumps law, or maybe, love is its own law? and god, isn’t that always the best. when a person from a rule-ordered society meets a chaotic ray of sunshine who tells them to break the rules, follow their heart, and then they huff and say ‘no way!’ until sunshine is in danger and then lawful grumpy breaks every rule over and over to keep them safe???

this shit drives me nuts. im telling you. 

and we also have a bard who is chaotic good, maybe, but also perhaps, lawful evil? and how can we frame that anyway, in a society where the winners rewrite history, and kill whoever they have to in order to make sure they stay on top?? sunshine bard who’s chaotic good because justice must always be upheld even if justice means raising the dead and killing the unjust with them...but who gives you the right to be jury judge and executioner?

(as an aside, im pretty sure that untamed wei wuxian is chaotic good, but absolutely novel wei wuxian might be lawful evil. i love it.) 

hrngrhgrhf  found family

you know what really made me lose my mind about this? watching vine and tiktok compilations for mdzs and the untamed. it really highlights 

Nie HS, Jiang Cheng, and wwx being dumbass frat idiots before shit hits the fan

the juniors meeting each other like, twice, and then being ride or die with both each other and wei wuxian

wen qing and wen ning and wei wuxian and all adopting each other

asdgjh lxc thought he was doing a found family thing with Nie MJ and Meng Yao but actually NMJ and Meng Yao were doing a hannibal thing, maybe a killing eve thing, possibly just a regular murder thing, 

who lives who dies who tells your story as political commentary

this shit hurted but like, it’s really all in on ‘the winners write the history books’, from the treatment of the wen remnants, to the actions of the Jin sect, to everything that happens to WWX after his death. like, romance aside, that is a good narrative to watch. a painful one, but the show is pretty firm in that the difference between an atrocity and an act of heroism depends who wins and writes the stories at the end of the day. 

hrgdfgdn let’s talk about wwx leaving at the end of the show and NHS refusing to take responsibility...removing themselves from the hero narrative? knowing how easy it is for the story to go the other way? maybe, who knows

endless possibility for time travel fix its

there were so many different points in this story where shit hit the fan it’s made AO3 an absolute paradise of time travel fix its. I love it. no that’s the whole point, I dont have anything else to add that’s it

can i talk about the devotion narrative again?

y’all....I can’t get over it...wei wuxian was a ball of sunshine who also set himself on fire to keep everyone else warm and then died terribly and lwj never ever gave up on him! oh my god, the way the story flips. wwx happy and full of justice always chasing after lwj trying to catch his eye, trying to help him, and then when everything shits the fan and wwx starts going down a dark path and lwj is like. he turns around and wwx is no longer following after him happily. and so lwj has to chase after him, for like the next twenty years. god.

hrghgng he did his pining! sixteen years of it! I weep, honestly

[dual-domination]

what is "Everyone Fix-It - but not Lan Xichen" about?? :D

It's a Modern!Setting, totally based on reincarnation, follows three oneshots (one already published). Anyway, here most characters DON'T remember the past (MDZS Canon), just a few at the beginning and a few more during the story. Still, with or without memories, the past affects everyone in some way. Characters who have had disgraceful lives but remember the harm they've done are trying to live the opposite way (eg Xue Yang). Here, everyone knows each other, everyone has ties to each other, most of the broken families in the past are back together again, (the only creature that has no salvation is Jin Guangshan), Meng Shi and Madam Jin raised a-Yao and The Peacock together, Baoshan Sanren is Wei Wuxian's granny and Xiao Xingchen's mother, a-Qing and Xue Yang are true siblings, Nie Mingjue and Yanli are the best older siblings in the world... Anyway, why is there a note about Lan Xichen? Of all the characters, at the beginning of the story, only Wen Ning, Xiao Xingchen and Xue Yang remember the past. Despite this, the one who seems to live the most affected is Lan Xichen, which makes him a dark character here. He is quiet and rarely smiles, not like a sad person, much more like someone who carries obscure feelings that he never shares, except in rare moments where a best friend Mingjue (who is his opposite, always smiling and calm) shares a cigarette while asking him about. Lan Xichen has been dating a-Yao for a long time, and even though a-Yao is a really good person, sweet and gentle, for some reason that Xichen doesn't understand, he often gets annoyed and upset with a-Yao, pushing the relationship into a state of limbo. This gets worse once a-Yao starts to have undue worries about Mingjue and doesn't calm down until he makes sure Mingjue is absolutely fine. Again and again, verging on panic.

A snippet:

(Mingjue and Xichen talking)

"Did you guys fight again?"

"Maybe if just once, we actually fought, that tension would disappear."

"You try too hard. Why the hell do you do that?"

"I wish I knew too. Sometimes I just want him to stop being adorable and kind, but he doesn't. He never does."

"I don't understand why you keep trying to push his limits. Anyone would be happy to have someone lovely like a-Yao."

"Anyone, including you. But not me."

"Who knows..."

"Oh, I know. And if he doesn't know you want him then he's stupid."

"There are times I really don't understand you, playing on your best friend's hypothetical feelings for your boyfriend..."

"They're not hypothetical. And maybe you're the one who can break his limits."

... It's not 3zun centric (or any of their ships, they share the spotlight with the other characters), but since I guess the LXC's note in the title was what intrigued you, I'm sharing this specific part XD.

[perkynurples]

... May I ask you about the slow excruciating progression from Meng Yao to Jiggy?

also paging @holdmycaffeine and @cadencekismet, who asked me for the very same, and @acutebird-fics, who is my partner in crime deep philosophical discussions about these characters, and a great deal of this messy essay is informed by those

Tl;dr: JGY is a multifaceted character and the author struggles not to lose her mind trying to find the right words to describe that. Literally every single point of this rant is up for discussion, begging for it even, so please don’t hesitate to engage me, but, like... tomorrow, maybe. After I sleep it off.

Meta I used or referenced: THIS ONE explaining how JGS deciding to give him the name GuangYao is all kinds of wrong | THIS ONE talking about the red bindi-like Jin forehead dots, among other things | THIS ONE about his capacity for evil and his own recognition thereof

-

Alright, without any fancy preamble, here goes. Honestly, whenever I think about JGY for more than three seconds, it becomes painfully evident that there are two wolves inside me at all times - one wants to spend tens of thousands of words exploring his narrative, his choices, his abilities and his failings, his capacity for violence as well as his capacity for love...

And the other one just likes to call him a gremlin in chief in a fancy hat, and doesn’t want to go much further than that. I’m going to try and feed them both.

The thing that pisses me off about Meng Yao is just. The fact that he doesn’t stay Meng Yao, and we get to watch it happen in slow motion. You get a tiny little twink-ass kid who suddenly finds himself adopted into the Nie by the Sect Leader himself, and this is Meng Yao, the son of one of Jin Guangshan’s many mistresses, who doesn’t have a whole lot going for him aside from that, at that moment - his cultivation, weak. His opportunities, nonexistent. His dick, small. His political savvy, only just starting to show itself.

And this guy gets the chance of a lifetime presented to him on a Qinghe-silver platter. Like, we can argue about book canon and try and decide if he did anything at all to make NMJ notice him, but show canon makes it all the more hilarious (again, please refer to this gem of a post for a level of humor I’m sorely incapable of) - you’re seventeen, and the Batman of the cultivation world picks you up and elevates your status across swathes of societal norms, to a level you previously could have only dreamed of.

It’s interesting to me to try and imagine if this was the moment that Meant Something - in the grand scope of things, of course it did, because it started MY on the road to JGY, but also to Meng Yao personally, in terms of what he believed he could comfortably achieve. I do not for a second believe he started out wanting to murder people to reach his goal, or that he even had a good goal to begin with - being accepted by his father, maybe. Murdering the (at the time) greatest villain in the world, becoming a renowned spy, landing an incredibly beneficial sworn brotherhood, et cetera et cetera? I mean, the kid has wet dreams, but no way do they reach this far at this point in his life.

But so many things about him are unclear. Show canon changes his timeline, in that he met NMJ before he met Lan Xichen, and even accompanied NHS to the Cloud Recesses. Either way, his stint with the Nie is incredibly personally important to him. I firmly believe he loved and admired them, in his own way. He certainly flourished under NMJ’s tutelage and approval, but in the end, his motivations, his entire raison d’etre, clashed with NMJ’s too much. To Meng Yao, who’d gotten kicked down those infamous Koi Tower stairs for daring to ask for his father’s attention, murdering a guy for slandering him and his mother was a natural outcome of being slandered his entire life, and finally having had enough - to NMJ, it was unforgivable.

But this still isn’t where Meng Yao becomes Jin Guangyao, and it begs the goddamn question - how much of what JGY was perfectly willing and capable of doing to stay in power, had been present in Meng Yao that entire time? You see him make excuses that someone who isn’t NMJ, with his incredibly staunch morals and black-and-white view of the world, might have even accepted, but instinctively, you know - making excuses is just how it’s going to be with this guy.

Because Meng Yao, as well as Jin Guangyao, lies, and he is damn good at it. He is so good at it, that he lies his way to the very top of the Wen, all the way to Wen Ruohan’s side. His lying is what enables him to become Jin Guangyao. And like any good liar, he doesn’t only lie to the people around him - he also lies to himself.

And I can’t blame him, because - been there. Lying to yourself becomes absolutely necessary, when you want to keep everyone else around you believing in a mask you wear. You need to start believing it, at least a little bit, at least sometimes, for it to work.

At this point, you’re probably wondering - but Annie, what about the time he spent a year sheltering Lan Xichen? Did he lie then? Was he not just Meng Yao, a poor but cunning bookkeeper, then? I’m getting there, I swear. Slowly and in a roundabout sort of way, because honestly, I don’t know how I can start talking about the LXC of it all, without it turning into a novel.

Because whichever way you twist it, whatever canon you choose to follow, one constant remains - A-Yao’s feelings for Lan Xichen. I’m deliberately not calling him Meng Yao or Jin Guangyao, because it’s these feelings that divide the two, but also ultimately unify them, fatally so. But we’ll get there.

In one version of events, Meng Yao travels to Cloud Recesses at the behest of NMJ, and falls in love with a statue made of jade there. In another version of events, they meet during something LXC only describes as ‘the shame of a lifetime’. Both of those events lead to Meng Yao sheltering LXC, hiding him, saving his life and those precious Gusu Lan texts.

Whatever version of events you choose to see as the right one, one other truth also remains - Lan Xichen offers freely and without asking that which Meng Yao has had to struggle to attain, that which has been denied to him time and time again, based only on the circumstances of his birth: respect. Lan Xichen never looks down on him, never brings up his origins, and instead extends him respect and dignity in a way only he is capable of - no fucking wonder Meng Yao admires him. No fucking wonder, when this amazing guy, this perfect pristine handsome number one young cultivator, looks at him, smiles at him, and actually sees him, son of a whore or not.

No fucking wonder Meng Yao loves him, and Jin Guangyao continues loving him. No fucking wonder he never means to hurt him, but does so anyway.

But here’s the thing - lying to yourself to make things work only gets you so far. Do I think Meng Yao spends restless nights in cold sweat dreading who he’s becoming, thinking about all the lives he’s taken to further his goals? Absolutely not. Do I think he does good things, often even great things, because it helps him feel better about himself? Do I think he both loves Xichen and keeps him around because it’s beneficial to him, having the Lan Sect Leader in his pocket, but also personally speaking, having someone who so firmly believes in the goodness in him? You bet your overly adorned murderhat I do.

And frankly, reducing Jin Guangyao to one or the other - coldblooded murderer or a man plagued by his own insecurities, helpless and trying to be kind in a world that’s so evidently against him - is doing a character like him a huge disservice. You have to consider all sides, if you want to truly understand him. Hell, I myself am by no means claiming to truly understand him! He pisses me off daily, and I’m writing this stream-consciousness-y thing because he simply won’t shut up in my head.

This kid makes Choices, and here’s the catch - he doesn’t regret a whole lot of them. If anything, I’d like to think he regrets going along with his father’s plans for so fucking long before finally realizing that avenue won’t bring him what he seeks. Killing Jin Guangshan, by the way? Very sexy of him, that I’ll admit. Guy was a pig.

But even the obviously Good Choices he makes? Building those damn watchtowers? Letting Mo Xuanyu stay at Koi Tower? Seating Qin Su by his side at that same throne where his shitty father entertained concubine after concubine? (Frankly, please make up your own mind as to whether he was lying or telling the truth about learning about Qin Su being his sister before or after they’d consummated their marriage, I’m choosing to believe that he hadn’t known.)

How much of it really happens out of the goodness of his own heart, and how much of it happens because he wants to improve his own reputation, kintsugi away the minuscule cracks in his own image until he’s once again a perfect picture of Jin gold? Is he himself even capable of telling the difference, recognizing where his good intentions end and his desire to look out for number one begins? When you spend so much time crafting your own perfect mask, in your own head as well as others’, the lines blur real fast.

I think ultimately, he craves respect as much as he does pity, and those two never mesh well - the cultivation world never truly accepts him, his father certainly never truly accepts him, but Jin Guangyao is not Wei Wuxian, he can’t just look at all of these perceived injustices and slights, all of this gossip and slander, and say ‘Whatever’. No, Meng Yao takes one look at the world standing against him so very vehemently, and decides to fight it, fight tooth and nail for his place in it, until he comes out Jin Guangyao on the other side, gilded and pristine, ascending the stairs of Jinlintai to exact his revenge on anyone who dares not accept him.

The Guanyin Temple, in a way, is a perfect little vignette of his character - we observe him wildly oscillating between seeking out the aforementioned respect and pity, confessing boldly and laughing loudly one second, and pleading on his knees and clutching onto Lan Xichen’s robe the next. To him, that night, and everything leading up to it, is a series of footholds - the ground begins crumbling under his feet when he learns of the letter, and he has to act fast. 

He buys himself time, excuse after excuse, thinking on his feet, and here’s the thing - he’s not necessarily the best at that. Anymore. Up until that point, until the letter and Qin Su and WWX turning up, everything is going according to plan, and his plan at this point is, frankly, correct me if I’m wrong, sitting pretty at the top of his golden tower and making sure the truth about him never comes to light, which... Well, we all know the truth has a nasty way of coming around when it’s least convenient for you. 

And I think Jin Guangyao (not Meng Yao) is, at that point, unused to being inconvenienced. Everything he ever does, he calculates, he twists the public opinion of himself, he twists individual people’s opinions of himself, to suit him - nothing unexpected ever happens anymore, because he’s played the game long enough to foresee most things. Nie Huaisang beats him at that same game, not because he has a huge plan spanning decades of his own, but because he’s good at improvising, kicking the hornet’s nest and then knowing where to direct the fallout - but that is another essay all of its own waiting to happen.

For now, I feel like I need to wrap this up before I lose my mind. Personally (and please feel free to challenge me on this any time), I don’t feel like there’s a single defining moment, or even a handful of them, traumatic or otherwise, that irrevocably turns Meng Yao into Jin Guangyao. Sure, being kicked down the literal stairs leading to a better place for you a handful of times will have you feeling some kind of way. Sure, serving a maniacal warlord while playing an impossibly high-stakes game of spy poker will leave a mark or two. Sure, your sworn brother spitting in your face the very insults you’ve been hearing your whole life and never learned to shake off, will make one more vestige of patience inside you irrevocably crumble to smithereens. But.

Your whole life, you work very, very hard. You know to put your head down and get your hands dirty, but you also know that sometimes, the best way out of a hairy situation is turning on those puppy eyes and appearing just a smidgen weaker, a smidgen more frightened and helpless, than you actually are. And if, when you actually tell the truth and people still don’t believe you, lying becomes easier, becomes, eventually, so easy it feels as natural as breathing? Well. Might as well use that particular skillset to sneak your way through a war, am I right? Might as well use it to build yourself a nest among the very vultures who resent you, and whom you resent, and make sure that they have to respect you.

In the end, to me? Jin Guangyao is the guy who jumps from person to person, from callout to very personal callout, there in the Guanyin Temple, just to stall for time, just to regain some sort of foothold in the situation - he’s the guy who probably views losing an arm as a necessary sacrifice, shakes it off and still gets to work from there.

Meng Yao is the guy who wants to take his mother with, and who asks Lan Xichen the one question he’s dreaded knowing the answer to his entire life - not ‘will you stay and die with me?’, but the one that hides beyond that.

Is this what devotion is? Respect? Love? Is there, at this moment in time, enough of all of those things in your heart that you will, in fact, stay and die with me?

When Lan Xichen says yes, without words but still loudly enough to be understood without a doubt, Meng Yao is relieved, while Jin Guangyao is vindicated.

When Lan Xichen says yes, neither version of A-Yao needs to hear any more than that - the seventeen-year-old boy shooting a shot way above his station and loving a statue made of jade, who wants Lan Xichen to survive, and the man wearing the wrong name and the title of the first Chief Cultivator of his generation, who wants Lan Xichen to live with the weight of all his mistakes and misgivings, are both, for once, in accord. They’re both happy, and they both make that final push to save him.

In conclusion, if there even is one to this jumble of random thoughts... Jin Guangyao and Meng Yao are one and the same. Aspects of one can be found in the other, but neither feels remorse about his choices. Both of them, in turn, are capable of amazing things. Both of them are, in fact, capable of decidedly horrible things. One builds a wall around the other so thick, so impenetrable, you only catch glimpses, and only the ones he allows you to see. One learns very quickly that vulnerability is dangerous, unless employed proactively, and the other one perfects the craft.

Both of them believe they are perfectly justified in their actions. Both of them believe their own line of reasoning, their own excuses. Both of them want to be loved, for very different reasons, or for the very same ones, at the end of the day.

Both of them aspire to greatness, Meng Yao some vague idea of it instilled in him by his mother teaching him to believe his own worth, Jin Guangyao a more concrete vision of it, always one step ahead, one step higher up those gilded stairs. Both of them are willing to excuse a whole lot to reach it, too.

And when Jin Guangyao finally stands in Koi Tower, properly this time, wearing that coveted golden peony, wearing that red zhushazhi and a much nicer version of the hat his mother always told him to wear, but also wearing the wrong fucking name, one that barely gives him a spot in the family he belongs to by blood?

All he needs to do is take one look in the mirror to see Meng Yao staring back, always there with him, always ready to remind him where he came from. He’s seventeen years old, and he just buried his mother, and somewhere out there, the rest of his life awaits. His smile is all dimples, and that, too, they have in common.

Time to get to work, Meng Yao suggests, and Jin Guangyao agrees.

[julieandthefandoms]

Housefull 2 MDZS/The Untamed AU

HELLO THERE MY LOVELIES! I’M MAKING A WILD TUMBLR REAPPEARANCE AND I BRING WITH ME SHINY NEW SHOWS I’VE WATCHED AND PERHAPS THE GREATEST AU I’VE EVER WRITTEN DOWN! 

Okay, so, I’m going to preface this by saying that I finally watched the Untamed over the past summer and now am slightly obsessed. I am also in the middle of reading the novel and watching the animation, so... that’s something.

Anyway, today, I decided that it would be a good idea to rewatch my favorite childhood film, a little Bollywood comedy titled Housefull 2. Upon rewatching this, I realized that the MDZS characters would fit really well into the convoluted mess of this plot and so I wrote a little bullet pointed AU idea thing. 

(I don’t think I’ll have the time to write this, so if anyone wants to use this concept, pleaseeee tag me/tell me about it. Also, if anything like this is already written, pleaseee tell me too, I need the crack content.) (I’m also desi, by the way, so I don’t know much about Chinese culture, so please tell me if anything is offensive or just plain inaccurate.)

So, without further ado, I’ll be presenting this Housefull 2 MDZS/The Untamed AU! 

-As per canon, JZX is emotionally constipated and couldn’t communicate until after his engagement with JYL got split up. Having made their sister cry, JC, WWX, and NHS (who gets roped into it) plan to crush JZX for hurting JYL. 

-They send WQ to crush JZX by breaking his heart but give her such vague instructions that she accidentally falls for Mianmain. 

NHS: “So... who’re we supposed to use to crush this Peacock. I mean, it can’t be any of us.” 

WWX: “I don’t know about y’all, but I’d be great at this mission.” *wiggles eyebrows*

JC *rolls eyebrows*: “I think you forgot that mom will have your head if you do something like this.”

JC: “Hey, you remember her from university?” 

WWX: “Who?” 

JC: “You know, *her*, the one with the needles who could murder anyone and get away with it” 

WWX: *laughing* “Holy hell, the Peacock doesn’t know what’s coming for him!” 

NHS: “And who might this mystery lady be?” He says, knowing exactly who this mystery lady is. 

JC and WWX: “Wen Qing.”

-All the while, JGS thinks that WQ and JZX are engaged because the Idiot Trio sent an envoy ahead that claimed WQ was a head disciple of Jiang and is a replacement for JYL. JGS has now set the engagement of WQ and JZX in August. 

-They find out about Mianmian/LQY and WQ too late, and now JC, WWX, and NHS send someone else, LWJ, to crush JZX’s heart. 

JC: “You can’t continue to do this, what happened to our deal?!” 

WQ: *death glares* “What our deal said was that I needed to woo someone vaguely in relation to the nickname “Peacock” and happened to be in Lanling as payback for JZX breaking your sister’s heart, I don’t think I’m the one who forgot our deal here.” 

JC: “And your first thought was that Mianmian/LQY was Peacock?!” 

WQ: “She’s pretty and a Jin, so…” 

Before there would be a throw down in this place, WWX interrupted: “Okay, WQ it’s alright that you feel for Mianmian/LQY, but who is supposed to help us teach JZX a lesson now?”

NHS: “I don’t know, but it could maybe be someone who’s already close to JZX.” 

JC: “That sounds like a horrible ide- Wait, that’s lowkey kinda genius. Do you remember him from university?” 

WWX: “Him?” 

JC: “Yeah, you know, him, the one who’s entire vocabulary was the syllable “Mn” and whom you pined after for years.” 

WWX *blushing like there’s no tomorrow*: “We can’t send him, he’ll probably send me off to do 50 handstands” 

JC: “Please, he’s do anything you ask him to” 

NHS: *flutters his fan while knowing to an extreme degree what’s going to happen*

-They send WWX as LWJ’s ‘driver’ for him to make sure the plan is on track, but it just ends in LZ/WY pining. JC is also sent there as a businessman since he needs to make sure JGS doesn’t suspect anything too suspicious. At the same time though, because JGS thinks WQ and JZX are engaged and since LWJ spends most of his free time talking to Mianmian/LQY about his hopeless pining, JGS starts to think that Mianmian/LQY and LWJ are to be engaged and plans another engagement. JGS is quick to inform LQR about this and now LQR thinks that his nephew is married to Mianmian/LQY and that they’re getting married in August. 

-At some point here, LXC is in Lanling to visit his bud Meng Yao and that’s when JC and LXC begin talking and stuff. (This can be platonic or romantic, I don’t have a personal preference). 

-Additionally, this is also when WWX and LWJ begin investigating the happenings of Lanling and discover the extent of an asshole JGS is. They'd probably be reported sporadically and NHS definitely sent this evidence to detectives XXC and Song Lan. 

-So far, no one has gotten to properly executing this plan, and JC & WWX are beginning to question things. Because things couldn’t possibly get worse, this is the moment when Madam Yu decides that it’d be a good idea to visit the Jins in order to remind them of their arranged marriage between JYL and JZX. So now, JC and WWX have to drag both LXC and JYL into this convoluted plot because otherwise everything would go horribly wrong. JC, WWX, NHS, JYL, LXC, WQ, LWJ, and Mianmian/LQY (WQ directly told the boys that if they don’t let Mianmian/LQY in on this, she’ll personally shove a needle where it hurts) are in this room together, attempting to processes the absolute mess that has occurred. (Poor JZX is still living obliviously, his father didn’t even tell him that he’s technically engaged to WQ now. JZX is just vibing in confusion and thinks he’s just being buds with LWJ because LWJ is horrible at flirting with anyone that’s not WWX so his job of breaking JZX is... not going well.) In the end, after being on the receiving end of many of JYL’s disappointed looks, JC and WWX convince her to help them with their plot just this once. (She wouldn’t tell anyone that she was secretly pleased, but hey, JYL kept her vengeance deep, deep down low and deserved to exercise it just this once.) 

-(it is important to note here that in this AU, Madame Yu doesn’t know what JZX looks like) 

-The plan would be that LXC would (reluctantly) pretend to be JZX in front of Madam Yu. Additionally, Madame Yu thinks the actual JZX is NHS (because JC panicked and that’s the first name he could come up with when Madam Yu asked who was that kid if LXC was JZX). This was to drive JGS off their tails as he still believed that WQ is engaged to JZX now. (He did email LQR about this as well who now thinks his nephews are now engaged to JYL and Mianmian/LQY, respectively, and are going to be married that August.) This is the part where WWX and LWJ finally start realizing that their feelings are mutual after a pep talk from Mianmian/LQY, LXC, and WQ (who’s pep talk sounded more like a shovel talk) for LWJ and from JC, NHS, and JYL for WWX. This is also when Mianmian/LQY and WQ grow closer and also decide that the rest of the group is useless and team up with NHS to knock some sense into JZX. Finally, JZX becomes less emotionally constipated and confesses to JYL, and because WWX, JYL, and JC think that an intervention from the scariest trio (WQ, Mianmian/LQY, NHS) is apt punishment, they call an end to their payback. (Also partially due to JZX having character growth as different characters grilled him throughout this AU). While this is great for our mains, it can only cause a bunch of shenanigans because of the way the parental figures interpret this situation. 

-JGS and Madame Jin think the pairings are: WQ/JZX, LQY/LWJ, LXC/JYL, WWX/NHS

-Madame Yu thinks the pairings are: JZX (except it’s LXC’s version of JZX)/JYL, LWJ/WWX, LQY/WQ, and (maybe?) JC/NHS (except it’s JZX who got confused for NHS)

-LQR thinks the pairings are: WQ/JZX, LQY/LWJ, and LXC/JYL

-Meanwhile, the pairings actually are: JZX/JYL, LWJ/WWX, LQY/WQ, and (maybe?) JC/LXC

-In conclusion, they’re all utterly fucked. Therefore, they have to bring everyone into this convoluted plot now, and finally JZX’s experiences over the past months make a little more sense to him. While discussing this mess they’ve created, WWX has an idea. 

WWX: “Okay, so, looking at the actual chart of who everyone thinks is who, the biggest disparity is between Madam Yu and JGS’s viewpoints, right? What if we just removed Madam Yu from the equation, make Madam Jin and Madam Yu have a falling out so that Madam Yu won’t be invited to the wedding so that we can focus on one of the false interpretations of all the relationships happening.” 

JC: “Madam Jin and Madam Yu have been the best of friends, how are we supposed to make them hate each other?” 

JYL: “I mean, we could stage something, a betrayal of some sort.” 

NHS: “I’m liking the way you think.”

-So through this plot and NHS’s concerning amount of connections, our group succeeds in breaking apart Madam Yu and Madam Jin’s friendship. JC and WWX also manage to worm their way into convincing the Jins to let JYL marry LXC to “spite Madam Yu’s wish of combining the Jiang and Jin families.” Because of JGS arranging and emailing parents throughout this fic, JYL, JZX, LXC, Mianmian/LQY, WQ, NHS, WWX, and LWJ are basically set to be married in August, except it’s to the wrong person! Soon enough, the wedding day arrives and the gang has a plan: they’ll dress the exact same and have the most elaborate and disruptive headpieces so that their faces are covered. 

(Note: Instead of NHS being part of the people getting married as it should be, JC is replaces him for the actual ceremony. Since the our marrige folks have their faces covered, nobody really notices that JC replaced NHS and is marrying LXC. This can be either because of a marriage of convenience to combine companies, or out of actual feelings. I’m cool with either interpretation in my head. Meanwhile, NHS is out in the crowd and People didn’t him because of his surprisingly useful camouflage fan.) 

-And so, the group sets NHS as their distraction while JC pretends to be NHS for the wedding ceremony. NHS basically knocks into the most expensive vase he can find so that most of the parental figures turn around, giving the group getting married the opportunity to switch places with one another until they’re in the right spot. So, a bunch of stuff happens, Madam Yu barges in to yell about how disgraceful it is for the Jins to go on with this marriage even though they broke the engagement in the first place and betrayed the trust of the Jiang corporation. Madam Yu also just, airs out JGS’s dirty laundry in a real badass way. 

-It’s all chaotic. Hell breaks loose. JGS goes batshit crazy and starts bringing our firearms. And so, basically, everyone ends up hiding behind pillars and stuff, though, eventually, after everyone has to run out of their hiding spot’s because Su She cannot shut the fuck up and keeps getting the other’s exposed, they all pile behind JGS in the world’s worst game combined game of Hide & Seek and Slither.io. It all finally ends when JGS gets arrested for a shit ton of crimes, and everything finally ends with a joint wedding between 8 people, except this time it’s with the right partners. 

So, yeah, that’s the AU that I wrote in a dazed craze in the past 2 hours. I hope it was at least partially understandable. I hope y’all have fun with it! Again, if you know of a fanfic that’s got a similar energy or want to write something similar, please tell me, I need more fanfiction. Also, that last scene is basically a direct copy of this scene from the movie Housefull 2. (I’m sorry though, I can’t find an english subbed version of the scene. :(

[vroomian]

what if courtesan ruizhi 

lwj goes to a brothel cause he horny and sad about wwx, itd have to be some timed at the end of the war but before the wen stealing (after the thing where wwx was day drinking with the ghost brigade maybe??? lwj wanders up, sees yrz in the window, they talk, yaz is... magnetic, cause he leaned waaaay in to the seduction path and just kinda let loose? and we know our boi is smooth as fuck when he wants to be. lwj gets charmed up the stairs (come into my parlor said the spider to the fly lol) and into sitting for (very very good) tea. 

they don’t fuck, because yrz def sees how skittish lwj is, but lwj wants to ask about a ~friends~ situation with this guy he might like more than a normal amount, and yrz plays along and gives some advice like ‘has your friend tried to like say these things out loud to this guy’. lwj says i would rather die, but politely. they chat over books (lwj: this prostitute is very well read??) and it’s a pleasant eveining. when it’s over lwj vows he’ll never got back because it’s a brothel. 

he goes back the next month. 

Theme: Movement - Hozier cause i’m basic and also because yrz offers sword dances as an option(You are a call to motion/ There, all of you a verb in perfect view/ Like Jonah on the ocean/ When you move, I'm moved) 

jzy and yrz end up having the same relationship somehow, but now with the added angst flavor of ‘my not-girlfriend got wind of me visiting my advice-friend who happens to be a prostitute and now she thinks i’m turning out like my gross dad what do’. 

just explain it to her, jzy, you egg - yrz, exasperated 

yrz and lwj fuck but it’s like a ninth visit thing, after they’ve known each other a year or so

lwj learns the beauty of lube and prep

wwx finds out, gets super jealous, starts lucking to find out what's so good about this hussy

it takes wwx and yrz significantly less time to fuck lol

yrz has a courtyard for sword practice and lwj gets treated to a full tiddies out practice and goes oh no

yrz invents the genderbender talisman here too, to better serve clients needs. sometimes she’s a girl. dont worry about it :)

grandmother knows the owner of the brothel. yrz is the only man. 

yrz is amused by the girls working there, because they treat him like a mixture of pampered pet and younger spoiled brother

yrz is both less stressed and sadder in this one, because he didn’t have lwj to pull him out of his depression hole. he likes his job though, just fun, shallow attraction and sexy times

yrz has really fucking high cultivation still and proves this by beating the hell out of some jin assholes sent to ‘persuade him’ to join their sect. 

inside voice is outside voice when not in ‘work mode’, yrz isn’t as worried about manners. 

lxc: wangji has friend! friend is prostitute! don’t know how to feel about this!!!!

you get therapy! you get therapy! everyone gets therapy!

nmj visits yrz often :) 

so does nhs ;)

they’ve both offered to redeem yrz out of the brothels. it’s very sweet of them, but yrz gently rejects them because ha ha cultivation world = no thanks. 

..........meg yao would love yrz and hate that he loves him, because yrz is being offered what meng yao would kill for (nmj’s regard, cultivation glory, a place in the jin sect) and had rejected all of it to be a prostitute. it satisfies a petty part of meng yao he never shows to anyone. 

xue yang is there in the background, lurking 

(protecting the pretty gege who fed him a few times as a child <3 feral brat that he is)

yrz’s tea is really really good. like, he could get into the lan clan on the strength of his tea brewing skills alone. when lqr goes to warn yrz off lwj, he gets stopped by the tea, and the books and the conversation, and goes... lwj. lock it down, boy. 

[gingersnapwolves]

it’s two AM and I have insomnia, so while I’m on the topic of writing posts that generate too much meta, let me drop this hot take: I do not get fandom’s love of Nie Mingjue.

First disclaimer: as always, stan and let stan, ship and let ship, have a shrine to Nie Mingjue in your bedroom, I don’t judge. This is my personal opinion only.

Second disclaimer: no, I have not seen Fatal Journey. I’m of the opinion that one should not have to watch all the extraneous material a show produces in order to keep up with fandom. Fatal Journey looks depressing and I genuinely have no interest in watching it.

So, here we go. Nie Mingjue. Why do people like this guy?

His main positive qualities seem to be that he’s strong and powerful and has a badass sword. That, um. That’s pretty much it as far as I can see. 

He’s hot-tempered and impulsive. He nearly executes Xue Yang the minute he meets him. The whole confrontation with Meng Yao is a little tricky to interpret because of the unreliable narrator thing; we see one thing when it initially happens and then something slightly different when we’re seeing NMJ’s memories later. But either way, he exiles MY from The Unclean Realm after giving MY only the barest chance to explain himself (though, uh, you weren’t doing a great job there, MY, I’ll go to my grave still laughing at ‘Xue Yang did it’) with the implication that if MY hadn’t just saved his life, he would have executed him. Which, given that MY had obviously been his loyal assistant for years, is one hell of a turnaround.

We’re told that he’s a great general and strategist, but all we’re showed is that he tries to sneak into Nightless City and assassinate WRH, a plan that fails on absolutely every level and would have ended in him getting killed if MY hadn’t been there.

And then of course we get into the real hot potato, which is his treatment of the Wen civilians. Like. Dude was downright bloodthirsty about this. He absolutely wants a bunch of non-cultivators who almost definitely had nothing to do with WRH’s actions executed for the crime of existing while related to WRH. Not only does he speak in favor of their harsh treatment, he chastises LXC (gently) and JC (not so gently) for trying to speak against it. He implies that not wanting these people dead is weak and/or foolish. I can’t get over this! I’m not saying it wasn’t historically accurate or whatever, but I just find him extremely unlikable!

We’re obviously told that Nie Huaisang loved his brother very much but we almost never see them interacting. The biggest interactions they have are towards the very beginning, where NHS is scolded (reasonably) for goofing off and not going straight back to Qinghe, and then where NHS tries to ask about MY being exiled and NMJ shuts him down (less reasonably). (Again: have not seen Fatal Journey, do not believe it should be necessary.)

The only scene in the entire show where I found him even vaguely likable was in the flashback where he shuts down the people bullying Meng Yao. But even that is a demonstration of his impulsivity and short-sightedness, even as it was badass and awesome. Because that did nothing to actually help Meng Yao. If anything, it only made things worse because it made the other people in Qinghe resent him even more. Plus it most likely left Meng Yao with lingering questions over whether or not NMJ actually promoted him on merit, or whether he was just making a point to a bunch of assholes.

The reason I’m thinking about this is because I keep going back to that idea for a Mingli fic, and while I love the idea of the One Braincell Trio enacting Parent Trap level shenanigans, I’m less enamored of what the results of those shenanigans would be. Like, does NMJ really deserve someone like JYL, who is an actual goddess?

tl;dr I do not see NMJ’s appeal, can someone explain to me why so many people like this guy?

[words-writ-in-starlight]

Untamed TAZ Balance AU? Don't have to write anything, just consider that (is Wen Ning Lucretia in this or is he too nice for that)

NHS IS LUCRETIA, NHS IS ABSOLUTELY LUCRETIA, I HAVE THOUGHTS, my girlfriend yelled at me for these thoughts.  Hell this got long, I’ve literally been saving it in my drafts until Tumblr fixed the Read More issue.

WWX is Taako, JC is Magnus, WQ is Merle, JYL is in the umbrella (became a lich to keep her brother from doing it), WN is the Red Robe (became a lich because he thought it seemed reasonable), NHS is Lucretia, XXC is Davenport, LWJ and LXC are mutually Kravitz (LXC sets his bro up with the death criminal wizard), Wen Zhuliu is John Vore, LSZ is Angus but also a baby Reaper

ONE

So Wei Wuxian isn’t really a wizard, is the thing.  Like, he does the wizard magic, and apparently he has strong Wizard Vibes because wherever he travels, people ask him if he can solve their magical bullshit problems, but he’s, like, barely a wizard.  He’s an inventor, technically, except that a few years back some stuff went explosively awry while he worked with this traveling show and–yeah.  So he’s working as a wizard because, hey, he can cast Magic Missile and he needs to eat and he’s an Evocation specialist, anyway, so it’s not like he’s out here making food from rocks.  He’s hired on with a couple other random jackasses, a fighter who took a dislike to Wei Wuxian right off the bat and a cleric with a bad temper and an itchy Sacred Flame finger, and they’re doing a job for some dwarf, or whatever.  The dwarf has a guy hired on as muscle, but he doesn’t look like much, all wide eyes and baby face.  He calls himself Qionglin, no last name, and stares at Wen Qing like he’s never seen a cleric before, and Jiang Cheng spends the entire trip to Phandolin messing with his whip, which is the stupidest weapon Wei Wuxian has ever seen.

Well, then everything immediately goes horribly wrong, though, and turns out that Jiang Cheng is pretty okay with that whip.  Qionglin (Wei Wuxian spoke to the man all of one time, but he was sweet, if a little awkward) gets himself kidnapped by a bunch of goblins, and their employer is gods-know-where with whatever a Black Spider is, and suddenly this very boring escort mission is a very not boring rescue mission.

There’s a skeleton in the cave.  Wei Wuxian takes an umbrella from it, and it crumbles into dust beneath its red robe.  There’s a very annoyed man with a sword who calls himself Song Lan and speaks in static, and he’s somehow not the weirdest part of this whole day.

Phandolin doesn’t survive its brush with the Zidian Gauntlet, and neither does Qionglin.  Wen Qing screams when he dies, and Wei Wuxian grabs her under the arms with Jiang Cheng and books it for the empty well in Song Lan’s wake, and they just hide.  

And then they go to the goddamn moon, apparently.

TWO

The goddamn moon is run by an older man with hair still a glossy black, toying with a beautifully painted white fan in his hand.  He calls himself the Director and–after some testing–hires them more or less on the spot.  Something flickers over his face when Wen Qing, bemused by her own upset, makes an offhand mention of a man named Qionglin who died when the Gauntlet brought down so much lightning that it turned Phandolin into black glass.  But it’s not Wei Wuxian’s problem, so he doesn’t worry himself over it too much.  He takes the payment offered to him by the Director’s aide, a blindfolded, stunningly handsome man in Bureau blue and white who rests his hand on his own chest and says “Xiao Xingchen” and not another word.

The Bureau is–weird.  They’ve got a giant jellyfish and a store run by–something Wei Wuxian Does Not Trust and a dorm.  Wei Wuxian laughs and kicks Jiang Cheng cheerfully in the ankle and says “Just like college, huh?” and Jiang Cheng gives him a dark look and snaps “I never went to college.”

“Yeah,” Wei Wuxian says, blinking.  “Me neither.”

Whatever.  They go on a train adventure and there’s a kid, a kid who blinks and stares at Wei Wuxian like he’s seen a goddamn ghost and immediately walks up to introduce himself as Lan Sizhui, boy detective.

Wei Wuxian fucking loves this kid.  He’s not sure why this wide-eyed fifteen-year-old latched onto him so hard, but he’s smart, funny, loyal, and extremely easy to pick on.  13/10 child rating, in Wei Wuxian’s book.

(Sizhui, for his part, more or less kicks down the door to his father’s offices in the Astral Plane the second the Reclaimers are gone and shouts “I HAVE A LEAD ON WHAT HAPPENED TO THE WORLD.”)

(His father, Lan Wangji, the Grim Reaper, is very interested to hear all about it–especially when his son casually name-drops three of the biggest bounties that the Raven King, his adoptive elder brother, has ever sent him after, with the exception of that absolutely insufferably sweet-tempered lich Wen Ning.)

THREE

So…the Crystal Kingdom.

Is it Wei Wuxian’s finest hour, shouting obscure tentacle-related threats at the second crystal construct they’ve seen in the past twenty minutes?  No, probably not.  But it’s been a stressful day, they’re already down one Regulator and Song Lan is fuck-knows-where with Mianmian and, again, this is the second menacing crystal construct they’ve seen in twenty minutes.  Or maybe it’s the same one? 

Whatever, doesn’t matter.  They’re here to hunt down Meng Yao, a scientist who’s been dicking around with some seriously ill-advised necromancy and also the Philosopher’s Stone, and a crystal construct or two isn’t going to stop them.

Wei Wuxian actually physically cannot help himself, though, when the Reapers appear in the mirror, a matched set of beautiful men, and he grins broadly at the one glaring at him most viciously.  They get let go on a technicality, along with a conduit still containing Meng Shi’s memory of a vision beyond the cosmos, and Meng Yao leaves with his life and not much more.

Later, Lan Wangji is absolutely betrayed by the realization that his brother willfully set him up to be the primary go-between for the completely breathtaking deeply irritating wizard-by-way-of-death-criminal.  And that’s before the whole lich revelation.  (He does get a kiss, though, after he watches his brother pulled under by the Hunger.  That’s nice.  He hopes Wei Wuxian will mitigate the death crimes now that they’re dating.)

FOUR

The seven Relics are as follows:

The Zidian Gauntlet, which can generate a lightning blast so powerful that it can obliterate an entire city.  (Jiang Cheng–he watched the others try to lay in protections, try to make their Relics harmless, and he knew it wouldn’t work.  All the Gauntlet does is damage.  It can melt a city down to black glass, but it can’t be twisted, it can’t be made into any more of a nightmare than it already is.  He’s a fighter.  He knows all about damage, knew all about what he was making.  That doesn’t mean it didn’t kill him by inches to watch it leave a path of destruction–so much that his beloved jiejie tried to seal it away.)

The Oculus, which can make any construct real.  (Xiao Xingchen–Nie Huaisang didn’t take everything.  He doesn’t remember the mission, or his own past.  Something strange got confused in the process, and he lost most of his speech.  But he remembers how to fight, handles his sword as cleanly and effectively as ever, and he remembers that he doesn’t think much of Nie Huaisang’s combat skills.  Or maybe it’s just really obvious that Nie Huaisang isn’t much of a fighter.  Regardless, Xiao Xingchen insisted on accompanying him, before–before.  Then they went into the Felicity Wilds, and…Xue Yang is honestly delighted.  He’s never managed to ruin someone so badly on the way into Wonderland before.  It’s just a shame that Nie Huaisang sent Xiao Xingchen away before they reached the doors.)

The Healer’s Sash, which can manipulate natural forces like the wind, the tides, and tectonic plates just as easily as it can manipulate a heartbeat or a pair of lungs.  (Wen Qing–she prays to Pelor, the Dawnfather, the healer and Lord of Light, but she’s long since lost her faith in him as anything but a contracted boss.  It’s a shock to everyone including her when she’s granted a right arm made of glass and magic after losing it.  She was so determined to make a Relic that could be used for good, but–well.  She supposes she should have known better.)

The Philosopher’s Stone, which can more or less transform anything into anything.  (Jiang Yanli–she’s a Transmutation wizard, she’s been feeding the crew of the Starblaster for a hundred years on whatever she can pull together.  If the right person found the Stone, it would have ended world hunger.  The wrong person found the stone.  Jiang Yanli tried her damnedest to hunt it down, but she found the Gauntlet first, and, well–she already became a lich to stop one younger brother from doing it.  It’s not a struggle to decide that she’s going to take responsibility for saving Jiang Cheng from his own guilt.  Then things go horribly wrong, and she spends the next twelve years in an umbrella.)

The Temporal Chalice, which offers complete control over time.  (Wen Ning–he was a strict scholar until his sister was contacted about the IPRE’s creation, but he always did want to travel, and his theories about bonds were too good for Xiao Xingchen to pass up having on his crew.  Everything he’s done since they lost their home system has been about trying not to leave his family, about trying for second chances, he became a lich for them, he’s done everything to stay with them, of course his Relic is a second chance generator.)

The Animus Flute, which offers control over the spirits of the dead and, in the hands of a sufficiently competent expert, the living.  (Wei Wuxian–he’s watched his brother, his sister, his friends, die so many times.  He’s terrified of immortality, but he’s most terrified of being alone.  He meant to make something that could keep the dead present, so that they would never have to fear being left behind again.  Watching it rip Jiang Cheng’s soul clean out of his body in Xue Yang’s hands is the worst thing Wei Wuxian can remember, even after everything is over.)

The Bulwark, which Nie Huaisang never did explain to anyone, but took the shape of a hand-painted fan.  (Nie Huaisang lost the only person who mattered to him when the Hunger ate their home, and then as he slowly, painstakingly, rebuilt something like a family, he had to watch them suffer and die for a hundred years.  And then he watched them win, and grieve like dying all over again for the winning.  He’s sorry they suffered for his actions.  He’s not sorry for what he did.)

FIVE

Wen Zhuliu didn’t mean to make his whole plane give up.  But he had spent his whole life being used, and it all just seemed so pointless.  It all just seemed so pointless.  There was always someone stronger, always something bigger, always a rule he couldn’t break, always something, and he started talking, started telling people as much, and--

Wen Qing is about the farthest thing in the fucking world from a peacemaker by nature, if you ask her, but she’s a healer first, last, and most of all.  And, she thinks as she watches the sun sink with a very tired man crumbling away at her side, she might be the only person in the worlds who ever noticed that Wen Zhuliu needed a healer.

(They aren’t from the same plane, but--some of the others have found distant family, on their new home.  It’s an unanswerable question, if they might have been family, a few dimensions removed.  Wen Ning still thinks about it.)