#madtomedgar

[veliseraptor]

Top 5 canon divergence options for xue yang

oh interesting! had to think about this one mostly because I was trying to figure out a solid top five when I feel like there are many good options and I truly enjoy a lot of them. but hmmmm here goes

1. divergence after xue yang kills the chang but either (CQL) xiao xingchen and song lan end up taking him away (instead of going to the nie) or (MDZS) somehow he and xiao xingchen are intercepted before reaching jinlintai. This is one where it's mostly like...diverging at a point before things go completely to shit in a really personal way, so much potential for hostile road trips and reluctant bonding, get song lan in there or don't, either way there's some fun times a-comin

2. xiao xingchen knows he's dealing with xue yang from the get go in yi city. I mean, obviously I wrote a big bang fic that ran away from me entirely on this premise, clearly I'm into it. but also in general! just a thing I find fascinating, because I like forcing xiao xingchen to reckon with moral dilemmas and thinking about him trying to figure out what to do with (a) his responsibility for a wounded person he's taking care of, (b) his responsibility to Justice (and also song lan), and (c) the fact that I just don't think xiao xingchen really wants to personally kill people. that's not what he descended the mountain for, you guys!

and then having xue yang alive and fully himself, no lies or pretending at all, makes for some very interesting character dynamics, and actually does meaningfully change the shape of their relationship in some ways.

3. just straight up...keeping things in weird happily domestic but also vaguely ominous limbo (i.e. no song lan intervention). this one is the one that has maybe the most potential to be fucked up in a fun way, because the way I always want this to feel is kind of like... okay, things are fine, things are okay, stable and working out. and it's also the one that just looks canon compliant, but it doesn't have to be canon compliant, and my favorite are fics that make it...not canon compliant in some way (like, for instance, xiao xingchen finding out who xue yang is but not killing him/choosing to say nothing for whatever reason). it's that sense of...all is not quite well but it could be. but it isn't. but it is. but it isn't.

4. xiao xingchen comes back to life! yay! somehow this does not fix everything, shockingly. I mean I always have a weakness for "character is resurrected but things are actually still fucked up and the psychological damage is real" as a trope in my narratives, and doing that here has the bonus of all the splash damage because xiao xingchen being alive but fucked up means xue yang has achieved the goal driving him! he has xiao xingchen back! and he will do anything to keep that. but also now he doesn't know what to do because there is not a clear problem > solution pathway anymore. and making xue yang deal with that and have to figure it out pleases me.

5. xue yang survives yi city somehow and hooks up with song lan (not necessarily sexually but also maybe). we all know I love a good "enemies brought together by common grief" as a thing, and at this point things are so tangled up between these two that it's like. nobody hates you like I do. nobody understands you like I do. I want you dead/destroyed. the world would feel wrong without you in it. good fucking shit.

[guqin-and-flute]

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Madtomedgar: So it's possible that Nie Mingjue qi deviated so hard he Wen Ninged himself. Overwhelming resentment plus massive energy plus death. In that case seeing if they can control him with the seal could be a way to try to stabilize him or bring him back. It could also be a way to keep him from attacking Jin Guangyao singlemindedly even after death

That's a very generous read tho. Mostly I think it was an attempt at suppression through demonic rather than conventional means and when it fails they gotta chop him up and suppress the peices in different places...

Yeah, the internal logic of CQL regarding puppets vs. corpses is uhhh tenuous at best, because it doesn’t actually make all THAT much sense? And I gotta read up more on what exactly a qi deviation is and is not for sure, but I always thought that Wen Ning was an anomaly because WWX made the effort to bring him back? So, in theory, it would have been possible to bring back XXC if his soul hadn’t been so fractured already. So maybe there is an argument to be made?

And YES, keeping him from just attacking JGY would be a main benefit if he WAS planning on using him for anything. I’m definitely not arguing that JGY was necessarily bringing him back for, like, hangout time or a conscious way to get around what his father wanted, but more of a ‘we can have another tool in our belt and it will further our understanding of the Stygian Tiger Seal’ with ‘Da-ge not being perma-dead’ as a secret side benefit he’s not looking at too closely. But I totally own up to this being a very generous read, especially since we know that once JGY gets past the point of no return with someone, he has no compunction about being ruthless! If JGY had any plan, he would probably have like 5 different contingencies planned for something like this because it had so many variables

[leatherbookmark]

tropes: sex pollen, fuck-or-die, forced proximity (like trapped in an elevator but setting appropriate)

HI, I HOPE YOU'RE WARM N COZY INSIDE MY BRAIN

sex pollen and fuck or die are ^_^ already answered, but

forced proximity: since these are in a way similar, this one gets a thumbs up too! i feel like only one bed/fuck or die/sex pollen have a rather predictable ending/goal, but forced proximity is... just that? so it works just as well in other, non-romantic scenarios, ie. enemies having to bear each other's presence/cooperate so as not to die, etc... And if we're talking about a literal elevator or a similar small box/closet/etc -- ooh the potential for discomfort, panic attacks, almost suffocation! the ~unwanted vulnerability~! 👍👍👍

[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).

[thatswhatsushesaid]

tagged by @eleanorfenyx oooh this is fun, I like this meme

WIP ask game -- post the last sentence you wrote and then tag as many people as there are words in that sentence

k i'm gonna cheat a little bit because I feel like if I separate these sentences out too much, the context is lost. also apologies, I have not edited or proofread any of these words yet.

--

...On its heels comes the familiar, futile swell of his fury, black and fathomless as the sea; but the levies he'd built over decades to contain the resentful animal inside him are strong and sure. He has already experienced the consequences of allowing his emotions to rule over him even one time, and he won't court such disaster again.

(Not even when he knows, in the coldest chamber of his heart where his oldest love keeps company with his hatred, that it was deserved. That it was no worse than what had been done to her. He will never regret it.)

--

from my post-canon fix-it xiyao WIP wherein jgy comes back from dongying to help jin ling, find his mother's remains, and settle a score (which does not go quite the way he'd planned).

tagging: ummmmmm there's no fuckin way I'm tagging that many people, I'll just do a grab-bag!! also apologies if you get tagged and you either aren't a writer or just aren't comfortable sharing your stuff, no pressure either way! @lansplaining @veliseraptor @cryptidafter @crithir @inappropriatewenning @poorlittleyaoyao @spinecorset @madtomedgar @darrenious @thepurplewombat @chaos0pikachu k go!!

[labyrynth]

Lock screen, last song, last picture taken, and last picture saved

tagged by @thatswhatsushesaid !!

i haven’t changed my lock screen in years lmao

(also please go listen to the genshin soundtrack—it’s all on youtube and spotify!! my favorite ones are the dragonspine ost—aka Vortex of Legends, and the chasm ost—specifically Millelith’s Watch - Disc 1: Wrinkled Peaks—but none of it disappoints!)

uhh i’m not super confident abt tagging people but. i’ll tag @poorlittleyaoyao @cerusee @madtomedgar @kyannnite @piosplayhouse and

Viewers Like You!

(and hope that none of you were already tagged lol)

[gryphon982]

tagged by @madtomedgar

WIP ask game -- post the last sentence you wrote and then tag as many people as there are words in that sentence  as i feel like

The actual last sentance was a run-on monstrosity, so you get this one instead:

“Lan-zongzhu is currently wrist-deep in white silk, kneading like a cat.”

@thesweetpianowritingdownmylife @esmeraldablazingsky @zeldahime @tellingetienne @nothinghereisworking

[veliseraptor]

For the tropes: emotionally significant road trips, proxyfucking

ah, yes. sighs like I've just had a sip of a fine vintage.

emotionally significant road trips: I guess I'll give this one a B only because it's not across the board, any dynamic that I want emotionally significant road trips for, I specifically want them for characters where it is going to involve coming to some kind of new understanding of their relationship with each other.

this is why "hostile road trips" is kind of my thing, because it's a great way to stick people together in a metaphorical car and force them to experience the mortifying ordeal of having to recognize someone they dislike as a person possibly more complex than they previously admitted.

proxyfucking: I have gone on record about this one. A, absolutely top tier trope. fucky in both the literal and figurative sense. is it about grief? is it about hatred? something else? whatever it is it's sure not about the desire to be actually fucking the other person! v v good.

[guqin-and-flute]

I will sacrifice my vote to give you a do-over and choose JiaoJiao for you 😔🙌 Because that is what friends do

[leatherbookmark]

i have been tagged! by @lansplaining, @thatswhatsushesaid and @aeide-thea, thank you! the templates are a tiny bit different but i'm just gonna smush them together ( ‵▽′)👍

last song: this post took me a LONG time lol, so shatter by dreamcatcher when i started, to be by your side by nick cave (i know it from the bird movie) approximately in the middle and suga's interlude by halsey and, well, suga right now as i'm finishing it.

favourite color: yellow! warm tones in particular. i was very into red (not pink!!! not pink!!!) as a kid, then blue and purple and, gasp, pink, but at some point i realized i'm drawn to warm yellow objects because they just feel so happy. so. 💛

currently watching: this one youtuber does yearly videos on their favourite and least favourite kpop album packaging, and the one for 2023 came our like, yesterday. it's a surprisingly fascinating topic! (darts a look at my most recent book on polish typographic book covers. darts a look at another book i have on polish Boxes and Packagings. or maybe i'm just interested in that stuff. hm) i also kept on nodding along almost every sentence, because I Too am ridiculously opinionated about album packaging, lol.

last movie/show: the new percy jackson show!

sweet/savoury/spicy: complicated question, need at least two business weeks to ponder. but if i had to rank them, it'd be sweet > savoury > spicy? i don't care about spice, tbh! but that might be because i'm pretty bad at handling it, lol. when i cook ramyeon, i have to add half of the soup powder packet and additionally soften the spice with coconut/rice milk :')

relationship status: single, and unsure if i'm sad about it or glad i don't have more stuff to be anxious about lol.

last thing you googled: "tag piping", after some posts about how ao3 doesn't do it for the silmarillion characters anymore, apparently. i think it's supposed to be like, appending aliases/other names to the tag, like my | jgy, but i'm not sure why it's called that exactly. i also went to check what the tags look like now and hm. i'm not sure if adding (tolkien) to the names of very obviously tolkien characters is much better, but i don't really go there, so

current obsession/s: my lads my dudes my little guys ateez, i guess! but that aside, hmm. i don't currently have any microobsessions, but before, it was mechanical pencils and their leads. oh! analog cameras and identifying them on photos of kpop lads is also somewhere out there. whatever this is. my last.fm account. gifmaking and how the hell do people make their gifs so sharp and crisp? actually, um, let's define an obsession, shall we...?

tagging: feel free to do it, feel free not to, etc, @natandacat @madtomedgar @labyrynth @crashorpie @gloriousmonsters @raise-me-up-take-me-up @woobifiedvillain @paperchamomiles @mariposakitten

[madtomedgar]

oh shit wait. the jiang family went bankrupt as the result of a ponzi scheme that wen ruohan was running. which meant if the boys were going to go to college they needed to get merit scholarships. wwx somehow switched their SAT scores without telling jc, so only jc got to go to a good (private) university and wwx was like “lol looks like i’m going to go be a beach bum hahah.” jiang cheng dedicates himself to rebuilding the family’s fortune (in real estate, i assume). wwx gets snapped up by and/or starts some biotech start-up with wen qing whose plot is basically that of the redhead lesbian in the good fight, except instead of law she was going into biomedical research. they are on a separate coast from jc to enhance the Abandonment thing.

[thatswhatsushesaid]

tagged by @lansplaining 🤝

Last song I listened to: “guns for hire,” woodkid

Three ships: xiyao (objectively the best i agree), kim kitsuragi/harry du bois, fitz/the fool

Currently reading: /sweats in adhd, uhhh. rereading mary renault’s the charioteer as part of my annual tradition, stuck at various places in vol 1 of svsss, tgcf, and erha, so what if i’m rereading mdzs again, so what, and also rereading robin hobb’s fool’s errand. and a bunch of fic. at the same time.

Most recent movie I watched: i’m not much of a movie watcher lately, but the series i most recently began rewatching is the case files of jeweller richard, which is delightful. i’m also watching the last of us each weekend.

Craving: freedom from this fucking sinus infection

tagging (no pressure to participate!): @chaos0pikachu @leatherbookmark @crithir @cryptidafter @verdantrivers @veliseraptor @labyrynth @madtomedgar @varethinsilico

[henshengs]

💙💢💣💘 for ship meme

Ship that you used to have as an OTP: I still like Wangxian, but I’m not as wild about it as I was when I first watched. They’re great but their story is complete and has been very thoroughly explored.

Ship that is most misunderstood: I feel like I have to give this prize to 3zun, because there are simply so many ways to have hot takes on these three complicated characters and four complicated relationships. I love the fandom but it’s rare I 100% agree on every aspect of another fan’s take on it.

Ship that pisses you off: well, that’s pretty harsh wording, I’m strongly ship-and-let-ship, and anything could be done interestingly, but I do have an instinctive “what, why, no” reaction to seeing LXC or NMJ shipped with women (unless it’s reincarnated/reembodied JGY who is still recognizably JGY.) there’s nothing wrong with it it’s just not my headcanon

Ship that is unpopular but you still like: suyao my beloved rowboat

[arikeia]

possibly controversial opinion on nhs being a terrible sect leader/possible chief cultivator, making this because make a new post feature costs 0€ and I’m not about to clog people’s posts

there was a discussion going on in one of madtomedgar’s posts about who would be the best chief cultivator or why the cultivating world is/is not in trouble

and it seems people think nhs is actually secretly a very competent sect leader and the only reason why he’s not considered as such in the story is because he “puts on an act of not knowing anything”

and I get what they’re trying to say but... are you telling me that his canonical incompetence pre-nmj’s death was also just an act? because he was pretty damn incompetent then, with no benefit to him or anyone else from acting stupid. nmj makes it pretty clear how disappointed and ashamed he is of his little brother and how weak his cultivation is, even saying that he probably couldn’t even protect himself if he needed to - how is he going to lead an army if any conflict arises? how will his disciples respect him if he’s so much weaker than most of them? just on the basis of his birth alone? (well maybe... considering the circumstances of jgy’s birth were continuously held against him despite his political genius)

nhs had one thing going for him, and that’s being friends with jc and wwx (not really lwj though), but like madtomedgar pointed out before in several posts, nhs put several people in danger just to avenge his brother (wwx will remember that - he even makes a comment to nhs about “don’t associate with evil”), even jl (jc disliked that) and then didn’t even have the guts to finish off jgy himself, he tricked lwj’s own brother (arguably, but not really arguably because I refuse to have a discussion about this, the only voice of reason and diplomacy of them all) into doing it (lwj will remember that) who is so hurt by the fact that he was literally tricked into killing his best friend that HE GOES INTO SECLUSION and leaving a very unprepared (and shall we say demonstrably rigid) lwj to fill his shoes (lwj disliked that)

even his grand plan to oust jgy was mostly just putting people in situations™ and hoping they resolve in his favor rather than actively resolving them himself, is this really how one should deal with politics?

and are we going to ignore the fact that nhs never wanted to be a sect leader in the first place, and refused to train to become one in the future, despite his brother (who knew he’d die young) asking him to take it seriously? and now he’s going to make not only a great sect leader but also a chief cultivator?

[veliseraptor]

always here for more head canons about the horrible coworker duo of Jin Guangyao and Xue Yang. Also I am sorry you are having a bad brain day.

some of these brought on by talking to @paradife-loft about these two earlier today! 

specifically they were talking about the way that Jin Guangyao’s feelings about Xue Yang - specifically his fond feelings, which are there, I think he is a little fond of Xue Yang even as he recognizes that he’s unpredictable and dangerous and not the kind of half-feral asset he can keep around forever - relate to the way that Xue Yang is someone who treats him very differently than others do - specifically the way he treats Jin Guangyao as a person in a way other people don’t. 

Like, he’s crude and has no sense of personal space and is often infuriating in ways that Jin Guangyao knows are intentional, he’s a wild card who can only barely be counted on to do as he’s told pretty much as far as it suits/interests him, but he also. Teases Jin Guangyao, but not like he’s specifically trying to demean him. Talks to him like he’s a peer, which is ridiculous because of course he’s not but on some level probably also refreshing, purely in the way that it disregards all the hierarchical bullshit of the rest of the cultivation world. He doesn’t have to put on a persona or a mask with Xue Yang. Oh, his guard is absolutely still up, but he doesn’t have to perform in the same way. 

There’s something kind of nice about that, for all it comes with a lot of the ugliness that Jin Guangyao doesn’t actually savor about his double life. Having Xue Yang around is sort of like having a walking, talking id around, and for someone as wrapped up in webs and layers and layers of performance and persona and plans, I think he values that straightforwardness that Xue Yang has. The way he just does not give two fucks about all the rules and strictures that bind Jin Guangyao so tightly.

(I’d bet there’s a certain envy, there, too.)

He’s also, like. Really entertaining, when he’s in a good mood. Xue Yang is funny. And, like Xiao Xingchen, I bet he’s good at making Jin Guangyao laugh.

And when it comes to Xue Yang’s feelings about Jin Guangyao - there’s the ways in which he finds him fascinating as a person, and specifically as a person whose priorities are so wildly different from his own in a way that he finds frankly baffling, and sort of hilarious. He just doesn’t get it. Why does he bother? Why does he put up with all of it? Don’t you just wanna go apeshit, Lianfang-zun? 

But there’s also the way in which I think Xue Yang actually appreciates that Jin Guangyao treats him more like a person than most people in his life ever have. I’ve talked a lot about how that’s a factor in how he relates to Xiao Xingchen, but I think it also comes into play here. Because yeah, while he’s also a useful tool for Jin Guangyao, Jin Guangyao doesn’t just treat him like one. He treats him like a smart, capable person who is useful not just for his ability to kill things but also for his ability to think. He gives him a courtesy name, and while that’s half a joke (Xue Yang thinks) it’s also not an insignificant gesture. He is valuable to Jin Guangyao, and I do think Xue Yang is flattered by and appreciates that.

Even as he knows it is something that comes with an expiration date, and he figures one of them is going to kill the other eventually. But, like, it won’t be personal! It just happens. If Xue Yang killed Jin Guangyao he’d probably still like him. He might even...not feel bad about it, but sort of be like “huh too bad about that. will miss that guy. o well.” And when Jin Guangyao hits first, while on the one hand he is mad about it, on the other hand he can’t really be. 

That’s just how it goes! No lasting hard feelings. Mostly. Though he’d still probably (if not for Yi City disaster happening) kill Jin Guangyao if he saw him again, just on principle. 

[guqin-and-flute]

Replies to Kazoo Man Crimes post:

malicemismanager: Oh NOO 😱

@malicemismanager​ YEAH LIKE UHHHH???

madtomedgar: When I worked at a museum is was doing a program where we passed around a ships biscuit and this guy ATE IT! The 5 year old didn’t even do that but this middle aged guy just. Popped my educational tool in his mouth!

I......did he think that everyone else was just touching it......for fun? What did you do?? What did you say???

greenwitching: JAIL

@greenwitching​ I FUCKING WISH, I WOULD PUT HIM THERE