#nie huaisang's post canon mental breakdown

[tavina-writes]

👀 Would love to hear more about forget that tired story

AH! So actually we'd talked about this one, it's the companion to but I'm not in charge of sorrow (so please don't ask me when) because it's from the Leonard Cohen song...

Baby don't ignore me We were smokers, we were friends Forget that tired story Of betrayal and revenge I see the ghost of culture With numbers on his wrist Salute some new conclusion That all of us have missed I cried for you this morning And I'll cry for you again But I'm not in charge of sorrow So please don't ask me when There may be wine and roses And magnums of champagne But we'll never know We'll never, ever be that drunk again

Which in my mind has always been the 3zun+NHS song, especially as it starts with "I used to be your favorite drunk/good for one more laugh" BUT yes this one is the LXC post canon romcom companion to the NHS post canon mental breakdown fic, where he learns! more things! about Nie Mingjue! and Nie Mingjue's impact on the world, as a general, a sect leader, and a person?

the only other sentence I've written for this fic (which I may never actually really write, is this:

When I was a child, the Nie were famous for three things — Qinghe steel, thousand-li horses, and mulberry paper so fine it shone like cicada wings. 

清河钢，千里马，生宣纸。 Anyway I'm NORMAL about Nie Mingjue I promise.

[tavina-writes]

Ah! 😂 Thank you so much for reccing this fic of mine! It definitely is one of the favorites I've ever written for this fandom.

Follower Recs

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I just finished the most incredible fic that I have to recommend, particularly since it’s not ship-focused and therefore doesn’t seem to be getting the attention it deserves. The premise is a post-Guanyin Nie Huaisang who did not expect to outlive his revenge. After a brief period of reconfiguration, he tosses his saber into the Qishan volcano and leaves Qinghe for the south, taking with him his five wards—orphaned junior disciples from various sources that he started accumulating during the Sunshot campaign.

The story is told through a series of bite-sized scenes that flow between the ‘now’ and past memories in a way that’s never jarring. The memories also serve to more strongly anchor him in a family web instead of solely tying him to Mingjue, which I found more compelling, particularly with the themes of grief, aging, and the passage of time that pull the story forward. @jensownzoo

but I'm not in charge of sorrow (so please don't ask me when)

by Tavina (@tavina-writes)

M, 74k, Nie Huaisang

Summary: After the events of Guanyin temple, Nie Huaisang travels to what used to be Nightless City to throw his saber into a volcano. This journey leads to other things, ones that shake the cultivation world and send things and relationships careening into space, the same way boulders might’ve — years ago now — fallen down the Taihang Mountains. Or: Nie Huaisang, post canon midlife crisis.

~*~

(Please REBLOG as a signal boost for this hard-working author if you like – or think others might like – this story.)

[dual-domination]

Post canon ChengSang

Huaisang having a mental breakdown over concealing the secret of his vengeance and A-Cheng helping him through it.

Thank you for this one, I'm overly emotional and it was so good to relief! I hope you like it!

~~What blooms from pain~~

"I don't know how I put up with it all this time, but now it seems like the whole shell I hid in has broken. And yet, when I look in the mirror, all I see is a mask and I don't recognize the face..."

The incessant rain lasted for days, running down the stone walls of Qinghe's paths, slamming down on the flower petals in the Unclean Realm's gardens, shattering them, washing away their remains in the floods, dead and lost pieces of what had once been beautiful. 

In the bedroom, the smoke of incense danced restlessly, the white scent drifting through the air and mingling with the smell of wet earth from outside. In bed, Huaisang's long hair hung over the pillows like black silk, completely unbound, framing the pallor of his face. His eyes had the glint of tears, but the vividness of before seemed lost. Surely that vividness was long gone, but no one had bothered to notice.

No one but the man Huaisang had chosen to love and trust, despite all the fear about trust that still existed inside him. His exception was Jiang Cheng. He had always been his exception when he no longer believed in the world. Surely he had helped him countless times without knowing it, but now, he was there, sitting on the edge of the bed, right next to Leader Nie, aware of what it meant.

Jiang Cheng kept stroking Huaisang's hair with one hand, the other hand was tied between his companion's hands, his concern was clear in his eyes.

"A-Sang… you know who you are and so do I. It would be an illusion to believe you could get away with it after all the years you spent in this, living the way you lived. Even so, this pain doesn't have to last forever. I'm still here with you."

"Doesn't everything I hide somehow turn out to be just as terrible as what he hid?"

Jiang Cheng had already wondered this. He knew the line was thin when dealing with revenge, the longer one immersed in it, the more someone resembled what they said they hated.

"Honestly… at the end of the day, could you say that he was always a terrible person, from the beginning to the end?"

"I'm afraid not. But it doesn't change what he did in the middle. Why would it be any different for me?"

"The difference is that you stopped. It's all over. It's over for you and it will never be that way again." He clasped Huaisang's hands in his, trying to show security about what he was saying.

"What if he also stopped at some point and was still condemned?"

"Was it unfair? The final choice was none of us. You need to bury your dead at once, a-Sang. You need to let them find rest, and you need to rest too. All people keep secrets, you don't have to throw yours away like dust in the wind to live well."

"I ended up breaking Xichen-ge's heart irreparably. I feel like I lost a lot more than I gained, after all.” He rolled over on the pillows, moving to lay his head on his partner's legs, the tears that had been trapped in the corners of his eyes finally falling down his face. "A-Cheng… I feel like I was blind for a long time, not seeing who else I would hit and hurt in the way of my revenge… and now all the secrecy weighs heavily."

"Of course it does." Jiang Cheng brushed the hair that insisted on falling over Huaisang's face, carefully combing it with the fingers. "It weighs because, despite all things, you didn't lose your heart in the process. Maybe you feel like the damned soul was yours, but would you be able to feel that if your heart were entirely corrupted? Would you empathize with those who were hurt and wonder about your enemy if your heart had frozen? It weighs because deep down, the person you were before still exists. And that person was always inclined to compassion. All the pain for the secret, all the doubt you carry now, it's a way of bringing you back to who you really are, to what you've put aside for years."

"I don't know if I can believe this… but…" He turned to look up and face the other's gray eyes. "Who is this person who soothes and advises me so gently?"

"When you gave me my brother back, I think you also had no idea how good you were doing me. All the things I know now, although it took a while for my heart to accept and understand, has changed a lot within me. Gradually I remembered… the Tao. The cultivation way that the Jiang Sect always taught tells us to flow with the river. And I was always rigid as a stone, so I broke. Wei Wuxian is a rebel, continues rebellious, but he always allowed himself to flow with the river. Some of his mistakes were in wanting to be faster than the current or when he tried to swim against the current, but that wasn't his whole life. I have been a stone all my life, but the things we are taught are never really forgotten and it is not impossible to resume a path that should have been followed naturally. Do you see who you've hurt, but have you ever stopped to look at those you've benefited? It certainly goes beyond what your eyes can reach."

"Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"Because I'm trying to learn to talk when people need to instead of talking when I want to. It's going to be a long journey, but you're the one who started this, a-Sang. I hope you're willing to walk with me."

Huaisang's expression finally changed and, wiping away his tears, he sat up to wrap Jiang Cheng's neck in a tight hug.

"I'm free now and there's nothing to stop me from walking by your side."

Outside, the rain continued, now mild, the water that had hurt the petals was also the one that nourish the roots. When the sun would finally come out, new sprouts and flower buds would open, starting over.

[tavina-writes]

NHS archer thumb ring headcanons you say 👀??!!

okay, so this is mildly related to the post I made about Nie Huaisang and gender a bit ago, because ough oh man BUT, book NHS supposedly wears jewelry! Especially rings! and I was kind of 👀 about that because jade thumb rings were really popular for Chinese men throughout the ages, as both a 'rich dandy who wants to brag about how good he is with a bow' and a 'legit I use this for archery bc it helps with the grip' BUT did you know that the 'jue' of Nie Mingjue (while we typically in this fandom translate it as 'jade') refers specifically to a jade ring that has a slight break to it?

Have some examples (originally from here):

So of course, in my mind, NHS wears a jade thumb ring with a slight break in it (engraved with either with the taotie or dragons) called a 'jue' and has been doing that since he was a teenager, but it all becomes MUCH MUCH worse after Da-ge dies.

I have this moment in the Nie Huaisang Post Canon Mental Breakdown Fic:

with this accompanying footnote:

Jade thumb rings were worn by archers, especially among the Mongolian and Manchu cultures to help grip the bowstring. In time, this tradition became a way for men to signify their martial prowess, whether or not they’re actually good archers. I also have found some evidence that this was a tradition from previous dynasties as well. NHS wears one because he likes bling. (Also of course I cannot RESIST the urge to tell you that this incomplete jade ring is called a jue. Which is the same as the character in Nie Mingjue.)

Which is just to say that the 'jue' ring he wears is not a NEW thought I have had, it just makes me cry to think about if I think too hard about it :DDDD

I HOPE THIS WAS FUN.

[tavina-writes]

In celebration of finishing chapter three of "but I'm not in charge of sorrow" aka NHS post canon mental breakdown fic, I thought it would be nice to include an excerpt?

Fic excerpt below the cut bc I have no self control and love showing people things:

Lan Sizhui comes in from where he had been talking to Xilan — who, in a moment of unguarded warmth for this white dressed stranger, had laughed out loud, clapping her hands for something or other — and pauses by the door of his study for a long moment. “Nie-qianbei, can I ask for a moment of your time?”  

“Can I stop you?” It is not quite meant to be curt, but it’s not meant to be polite either. 

Lan Sizhui does not know quite how to deal with it. “Oh, well,” and here Sizhui pauses, staring at his clasped hands rather awkwardly, “Ning-shushu said that…if I wanted to find anyone else who knew the Wen as they were before…” 

“He told you to come talk to me about the Wen.” He can’t help it, it sounds a little flat. 

Must Wen Ning bring a child here to unearth graves over thirty years buried? And for what? For things  that Wen Ning — who says he remembers everything — cannot tell this child himself? 

(If he must admit it to himself, he is a little bitter about that.) 

“He said we were distant relations.” Lan Sizhui’s clasped hands are clasped so hard they might bruise. 

Nie Huaisang remembers his mother’s hands looking like that often. 

White mutton jade bangle on a thin white wrist. 

“Everyone who is someone in the cultivation world is a distant relation, Lan Sizhui.” It had not been so, long ago. But nowadays, you need to be born to power to hold it, or at least born to a bloodline for you to climb where talent couldn’t take you. 

Everyone is a distant relation to everyone else. Yes, even those who would claim they have no Wen blood even as they converged on Nightless City. 

“But yes,” he admits at last, “I suppose we were closer relations than most. What did you want to know?” 

Lan Sizhui pauses there, a long moment. “I have, read things, of course.” He frowns, worrying his bottom lip. “And they were evil. But they were people, weren’t they?” 

“Even evil people are people, yes.” He sighs, and sets aside his pretense at reading poetry. “Even Wen Ruohan was…a man once, before he went mad.” 

Lan Sizhui stands there like a stick, his hands clasped. “Nie-qianbei,” he says, and it looks like he might cry. “Can you tell me about them?” 

“Sit down.” Wen Ning had brought this boy here to dig up graves thirty years buried. “Unclasp your hands and wipe your eyes, Sizhui.” 

But that is not Lan Sizhui’s fault. 

He digs up the graves, and the raw earth of memory spills out between them, words he has not spoken and people he has not considered for years, rising, like fog after an early autumn rain.

[tavina-writes]

so, because apparently LXC had a romcom (with appropriate amounts of pain) in the same timespan as the Post Canon NHS Mental Breakdown fic.... I like to cause myself pain? Have a snippet under the cut:

You’re the same age my brother was when I last saw him, Chifeng-zun says, tiredly running a hand through his hair. 

You’re just a child, he does not say, but she hears it all the same. 

I haven’t seen him in two years. 

There is something here, in his hunched posture that speaks of a defeat too large for words if Zhaohe had the energy to think about it. Not of a general and his armies, not of a sect leader and his sect, but of an older sibling having utterly failed a younger one. 

In the years after the Sunshot campaign, when Chifeng-zun is already dead, she will take this memory out once again, and try to understand it. It reads easier then. 

I chose to be here, she says, voice softer than she wants it. She’d insisted on being here, of following Diedie to battle. She’d paid the price, but she would pay it again. He chose to be where he is. 

Nie Huaisang is not on the front, and she has never met him, but everyone knows that he’d resisted the orders of his older brother to send him away somewhere safe. 

There was backbone in that. 

Enough about my brat of a brother. He rubs the mud from his face with a grimace. Hai-da’guniang, he says, once again a commander, after this is over, I’ll repay you the hand you lost. 

And indeed, three months after the Sunshot Campaign ends, a wooden box with the Nie Sect’s Taotie arrives in Yancheng. 

. 

. 

. 

Hearing this story, Lan Xichen suddenly bursts into tears. 

[tavina-writes]

not sure what second wind I've been hitting today because the fic is DONE. Nie Huaisang post canon mental breakdown is DONE.

now it's time to ship it off for other people to read before it gets lobbed onto ao3.

what a time to be alive.