#nie mingjue is not like him

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Trapped in a vicious cycle of pining? Try gay sex! (More things to learn over at Tiger Tiger!)

[admirableadmiranda]

I’m pretty sure it comes back down to the division of souls and what pieces remain versus which ones go onto the next life, which makes it much more that Wei Wuxian was able to restore that.

@jiangwanyinscatmom explained to me that one of the Daoist concepts of the soul consists of ten parts, the three hun and the seven po (for legend of Zelda fans, I’m pretty sure it’s the exact same thing) and the hun is Yang oriented and goes on to the afterlife when someone dies, whereas the yin po lingers on earth and must be settled through proper treatment of the body, being buried within a certain amount of time and dying with few resentments in life to bind it there after death. The more resentments or the worst a body was treated after death, the more the po lingers on earth and must be dealt with in other ways, such as the liberate-suppress-eliminate triad. This is also part of what creates resentful energy in the world in general, all of this is yin energy that lingers after the Yang has passed on. Po souls are especially susceptible to corruption over time, born out of resentment for the living for having what they do not, which is what creates malevolent ghosts. This is relevant for why people wanted to know where Wei Wuxian’s ghost had gone when he died, and what’s really notable about him remaining a peaceful ghost for all of those 13 years that he was dead.

So when it comes to fierce corpses, most of them are going to be purely po or yin driven, the living part of their soul has passed on and this is what’s left over. It dwells on the regrets and grudges the person died with, and can only be settled by handling those regrets and grudges so that the po can feel satisfied and let go. With the Intrusion ghost, his po was easy to satiate, he wanted to find that lost jade necklace and return it as a genuine regret he had at death, but also he needed to punch the asshole in the face for all that he had done for him in order to let out that anger in his heart. Being liberated now, he could move on fully and become a full soul in his next life. However this doesn’t always work, as the larger a grudge you hold, the worse the resentment afterwards and it is possible to make a spirit or fierce corpse that cannot be liberated. This is where Nie Mingjue falls in on this scale, he’s too full of rage and resentment to have his spirit eased by anything now, he’s just walking around hunting anyone who’s living and anyone of Jin blood in particular, and has to at the end of the story be sealed away, or suppressed, in order to deal with his resentment because he’s just too far gone.

Most fierce corpses are just Po creatures wandering around being mad at things, but the problem with that is that they are made up of completely dead, stagnant energy and those bodies and spirits still decay with time too. Fierce corpses rot, specific grudges decay into just pure rage. In order for a body to be preserved and maintain its strength, you need that Yang energy back, you need a balance of some sort.

This is where Wen Ning and Song Lan come in. And this is what Wei Wuxian does that makes Wen Ning unique and scary.

Wen Ning is initially an ordinary fierce corpse, animated by his resentment towards the living and specifically the people in the Wen Prisoner camp who tortured him and others he knew to death, but it’s not really safely focused and he’ll slowly lose what little sense of himself as time passes on. Wei Wuxian is able to, at Wen Qing’s behest and with a lot of experimentation and Lan Wangji’s help, summon his hun back into his body and make Wen Ning in a sense, a living soul inside a dead body. Now his body is preserved, he can talk and interact with the world again, and he is his own person more or less, though since Wei Wuxian is the one who summoned him back, he is in a sense somewhat under Wei Wuxian’s control.

This is completely different from ordinary fierce corpses and it is somewhat terrifying if you are the sort of fool who would think that Wei Wuxian could just do that to anyone or teach others how to do it. Wen Ning is a man who feels no pain, who has some level of healing ability given that we know he breaks his arms multiple times but they never stop functioning as arms, can fight without tiring and has all the rational thinking of a living being to aim and hone these skills. As fierce corpses go, he truly is unique, and perhaps what is most scary is that he and Wei Wuxian fight in harmony as allies, rather than a puppet master and a puppet. Wen Ning is someone who has most all of the perks of being dead and being alive, and the downsides are things that many people would not mind as much as they might think.

Song Lan is like him in the end, but Xue Yang was never able to achieve what Wei Wuxian did as well, hence needing the needles to control him. As for how and why he could do it, he did have access to Wei Wuxian’s notes and plenty of time in order to try and recreate another corpse like Wen Ning for his own use, since as he told us, Wen Ning is too loyal to Wei Wuxian and even his needles couldn’t override that, but even his biggest success was still a failure in comparison to Wen Ning, who defeats him handily in Yi City after fighting hordes of lower level fierce corpses all night and protecting the juniors in the process.

So in answer to your question, he’s special because he has his consciousness and because it was restored by Wei Wuxian and he is not playing by the same rules as ordinary fierce corpses, especially since unlike all the rest of them, he also gets to choose when he’s done and return back to the cycle of reincarnation. He is a true act of necromancy and one who is as fine as someone could possibly be with his current situation, since he has been given a second chance at not just existing, but living.

Was Wen Ning so special as a corpse because he regained his consciousness, or was he special as a corpse because Wei Wuxian was able to return his consciousness?

[add1ctedt0you]

Now I have to remember you for longer than I have known you, C. C. Aurel

[lgbtlunaverse]

Weirdest possible NMJ take is that he's a hypocrite. "Oh he only believes in justice when it's convenient for him" I cannot stress enough how the problem he has is the EXACT opposite of this. Nie Mingjue holds onto his values even if it makes things objectively worse both for himself and others. He will stick with his idea of justice even if it's patently not suited for the situation. "Well he expects other people to take risks that would kill them only because he can take them with no personal harm" Nie Mingjue has, out loud, with full intent to follow through, declared that he's willing to commit literal suicide if it's what his moral code recquires. Nie Mingjue thinks dying for the cause is both reasonable and morally good and is- with the saber curse- doing it himself the entire time. I fucking WISH he would prioritise his own wellbeing at literally any point in the story it would probably make him more chill and easier to talk to.

[benevolenterrancy]

I do NOT want to see what Baxia diving for a hug with Jin Guangyao looks like. x_x Poor guy will think Mingjue wants him murdered.

@little-meowyao Baxia is a Great Dane that thinks its a lapdog. JGY is not sure how to communicate to a volatile sabre spirit that it is most assuredly not.

continuation of this sword hug saga...

[sunderwight]

Nie Huaisang pulling a Jaskier where somehow everyone thinks he's physically tiny, because of how he tailors his clothes and the way he moves and acts and refers to himself, but in actuality he's almost the same height and shoulder width as Nie Mingjue and the impression of him as "just a little guy" is a carefully crafted illusion that would shatter if the main cast all lined up naked together.

[roncheg]

another practice with references got out of control (idk what is happening anymore))

[barawrah]

brother

[least-carpet]

how I approach chengxian vs. how I approach nieyao

I was thinking about it and like. When I see Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng in fanart or an edit, I stop to think about whether the poster is framing them as romantic or not before tagging. Is it meant to be platonic or romantic? People have strong feelings. I think the incest discourse is nonsense (because part of what makes that relationship interesting is the conflicting messages they get about what their relationship should be vs. what it is—like the fundamental lack of safety that comes with the lack of definition is part of what drives the dissolution of their relationship) but people are allowed to feel how they want about it! I like completely platonic takes on their relationship, too! They were, in fact, very sweet as children! There are many options I'm happy to explore!

Meanwhile, no matter what kind of fucked up shit is happening, I see Jin Guangyao and Nie Mingjue and am just like: Nieyao. Jin Guangyao taunting him in front of Wen Ruohan? Nieyao. Nie Mingjue fucking punting Jin Guangyao down the stairs? Also nieyao. Jin Guangyao sawing off the head of Nie Mingjue's corpse and then locking it in his treasure room blindfolded? Nieyao. Soooo nieyao. I hope he fucking talks to Da-ge's head! I hope he gives it a little smooch sometimes! The coffin is a MARRIAGE! I'm sorry you don't see the VISION!

[waitineedaname]

I was thinking about this post comparing sqh and jgy, and then this chart happened. this is less about what they're Actually like, and more about a combination of intentional persona + public perception of them

[cubbyhole-for-flea-bee]

what if NMJ just poofs into an owl when qi deviations loom tho

Bonus from a later reblog:

FWUMP

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

While you were fighting in the war, I was falling in a pit.

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[aphel1on]

will never stop being funny to me that nmj near the end of his life was extremely paranoid and delusional, but he was correctly identifying jgy as a threat, but, like... for wrong reasons only. you'll see ppl going "nmj was right about jgy all along, it's sad no one listened to him😭" but no. jgy isn't inherently evil, nor is he a power-hungry monster. not everything he ever said or did was part of some conniving ploy. when given the opportunity, he generally does try to return kindnesses and help people! but - oh, yeah, no, he's totally gonna murder you dude. no, yeah, he's gonna be so sneaky about it that it'll take a decade for the truth to come out.

it's like making 2 mistakes on a math quiz that just so happen to cancel each other out and give you the correct answer.

[lgbtlunaverse]

Most annoying NMJ or JC take is when someone that dislikes them is like "oh you're a fan of him? *scoff* Well obviously you've only seen cql, where he was super watered down. In the novel he's a dislikable asshole and that's the objectively superior canon I'm working from instead of your woobified fanfic." Meanwhile your main canon is novel canon and you genuinely find novel Jiang Cheng and Nie Mingjue complex sympathetic characters.

[benevolenterrancy]

@hereticcryptid I appear to be slowly but surely developing an entire series about how Hensheng and Baxia apparently get fed up with their owners' inability to express their feelings and take matters into their own hands...