#nmj had a very bad day

[stiltonbasket]

For wen!wwx: "you are a fool wei wuxian," Wen Qing hissed angrily. "What of a-yuan? How will you protect him if you are dead?" She asked, violence on her face. "This poison will destroy your jindan, if not outright kill you!" But A-Ying had already made his decision. She can only have faith. They may not be of the same blood, but Wen Zhuliu had taught him all he knew. And there was no one alive or dead who knew more about the jindan than the core melting hand himself.

I'm guessing that this prompt assumes that Wei Wuxian was behind his own poisoning/is preventing his recovery in some way, so here's some more background for the AU.

This wasn't covered in previous asks, but Wei Wuxian has been subtly influencing battles/supply runs in favor of the Sunshot alliance for years, since the obedience seals bound to his life-force prevent him from openly rebelling against Wen Ruohan. Until the year before his poisoning, WWX was ferrying information across the Jiangling battlefront to Yunmeng by way of Yu Zhenhong and Li Shuai; and when he was forcibly retired and sent back to the Nightless City, he could no longer interact with his spies and gather information in person. Furthermore, the safety of his household depends on how well he serves Wen Ruohan, which means that Wei Wuxian has to be more useful to WRH as a wounded battle strategist than he was as a general on the front lines.

Wei Wuxian would much rather have found a cure and gone back to the Hejian (Qinghe) battlefront, but Wen Qing couldn't find a remedy for his core-poisoning in time—which is unsurprising, because the poison was developed in Gusu Lan as a last recourse in case of siege, and never tested on a single human victim prior to Wei Wuxian.

Re: the poisoned arrow, Jingyi was the archer who shot Wei Wuxian. He switched places with one of Nie Mingjue's disciples and sneaked in as part of his dad's first regiment; and when he actually got to the front lines, he panicked and shot WWX. :/

[leatherbookmark]

an interesting thing abt jgy antis is like. where is the source of their, shall we say, negative opinion of jgy? like, 1. jgy is a villain, he does horrible things with no remorse, he’s willing to do everything to achieve his selfish, egotistical goals. --> 2. the source of this claim: this, this and this scene. --> 3. alright, but to me -- says someone who’s not an anti -- this reads differently. that he did all those things, and did them on purpose and without remorse, is not that obvious to me. why do you think that? --> 4. well, obviously because he’s a villain and does horrible things with no remorse.

like... he’s evil because he does bad things, and he does bad things because he’s evil. i’m interested in how antis came by those opinions, but a, unfortunately i have them all blocked, and b, even if i or someone else made a poll, it wouldn’t be authentic because no sane anti is going to say “well, people hated him and wrote all those things about him on twt, so i started hating him as well”, or “i only care about wgxn, you could sell me anything about other characters if your arguments were convincing enough because i zoned out during the parts when wgxn weren’t on screen/pages of the book”. it’s all “written in the book/shown in the show” and “logical arguments you’d agree with if only you could read”.

[ohsweetflips]

[id: the “they don’t know” party meme with one lone guy standing in the corner while couples dance all around him, and he’s thinking “they don’t know that i actually have a lot of thoughts on lan xichen and wei wuxian’s relationship and i’m only gonna have more when i read novel guanyin temple” /end]

(they don’t know bc every time i want 2 talk abt lan xichen’s attitude towards wei wuxian pre-nightless city vs. the post-res, i end up blue-screening before just thinking abt how lxc has the patience of a saint for not losing his shit earlier in the novel. and then i never say anything at all)

[textualviolence]

Meng Yao/Jin Guangyao's Lovers Fuckability ranking

Level minus zero: Lan Xichen. Does not have even a shred of a fatherly relationship to JGY. Treats him like an equal. Is kind to him. Respects him as a person and genuinely likes who he is. Probably inspires JGY to become celibate so they can be chaste together. Some erotic tension if they don't fuck, brushes of hands, purity and chastity causing a rising of tension etc. But there's no way they can have actual sex outside of maybe the hiding from the Wen context. I bet they write poems to each other though. That's very nice. 2/10

Level 1: Nie Mingjue pre-Meng Yao's dismissal. Is technically probably Meng Yao's first dubious fatherbosslover figure. I do imagine he had a certain degree of guilt about it which isn't hot for anyone being victimized by an older authority figure. Definitely probably a lot of the sex they had and especially the kind they didn't have hinged on the fact that Meng Yao looks exactly like Nie Huaisang. I think if NMJ had been willing to cross that line and actually made Meng Yao kinda sorta pretend to be his little brother he would be further up the ranking, alas. The most morally dubious it gets is that Meng Yao is his servant and social inferior and probably aged around 15. However the incredibly high amount of approval he probably dished out regularly and easily alongside sex and orders did prepare the grounds for Meng Yao to then crave that kind of validation all the time and go to ridiculous lengths for it. 4/10

Level 2: Wen Ruohan. Will groom Meng Yao without subjecting him to his weird morality complex. WRH is just a bad guy and doesn't care. Also will favor Meng Yao over his actual blood children, partly as a manipulation tactic and also because his children kind of suck. Definitely loves to play people against each other and will use the trading of sexual favors as a political tool. Actually old enough to be his dad and is also in the same social position as his dad, currently beating his dad in a war, and acting as his dad dangling promises of legitimization in between throne room handjobs and prisoner torture sessions. Can humiliate both NMJ and JGS. Honestly the ideal situation. Too ideal? It's just too straightforward. Give yourself over to me body and soul and do my evil bidding and in exchange i'll give you all the validation you crave. That's so reliable that its suspicious and kind of a turn off. Where's the excitement and rollercoaster of unpredictable reward/punishment? 6/10

Level 5: Nie Mingjue post-Meng Yao's dismissal: No more little brother issue now it's all about how NMJ just wants to kill him at all cost and will risk political disaster in order to do so. NMJ who used to shower him with affection and validation, telling him all the time that he was proud of him and what a good job he was doing as a deputy, now wants him dead. The dick must be incredible. They probably don't have sex often & its never not violent & dangerous, but the high of it lasts for days. It doesn't lessen the rage in the long term but it evacuates it in the short term & where before the sex was coexisting with the validation now the sex IS the validation. Which makes it hot no matter how unvalidating its actually meant to be. Half those bruises he's hiding under his sleeves aren't from Madam Jin let me tell you. Plus he's writing poems to Lan Xichen and strongly considering the benefits of a chaste existence in between. The guilt and hypocrisy and having to lie to Lan Xichen's concerned and loving face when he sees the bruises is only making it more intense. 9/10

Level 7: Mo Xuanyu: He gets to become his dad(s) and take advantage of the willingness and admiration of a beautiful youth who would do anything for him. On top of that they're related. It's 100% reenactment power reversal fantasy combined with the horror of his marriage to Qin Su finding a concrete twisted sexual outlet. This time he fucked a half-sibling on purpose!!! And then he can dismiss him for sexual impropriety the second he comes to his senses and be rid of the sin forever which was half of the need. And then he can feel even more like his dad. 8/10

Level 10: Jin Guangshan: What more can I say. He slaps with one hand and caresses with another. Literally makes Jin Guangyao do the most secret taboo vile political tasks he can't offload onto anyone else and then refuses to touch him because of it until Meng Yao performs some kind of cleansing action, for which he is briefly rewarded with mild approval and even certain shows of affection, but never outside of the bedroom. Keeps a large retinue of whores and plays them off against each other, includes Meng Yao in the games to make sure he feels like one of them. No way to ever feel too comfortable in the certainty he has his father's anything because any shred of positive interaction is extremely hard-earned, unless he shows sign of wanting to leave or waver in his loyalties, in which case his father WILL pull him back with more love and care than he's ever shown which will feel like a drug. I bet he had more than one fight with NMJ over the issue of which groomer his son was to listen to and he won everytime. One show of possessiveness equivalent to 10'000 hours of basic respect in Meng Yao's heart. 10/10

[larothoughts]

fem!jiggy thoughts (part 2: the war)

part 1: qinghe nie

hmmm so this part of the au I've been thinking of is a lot less coherent. some of these are just events i imagine happen with lots of holes in-between. i'll have to think of the logic between them all later when i'm smarter lol.

lan xichen arrives

meng yao, after being publicly accepted as a daughter to save face with the nie sect, is shuffled away to the edge of the jin estate and 'forgotten.' no maids, servants, etc. she has to do everything herself. no one is willing to acknowledge her and incite the wrath of madam jin. she isn't allowed to train with the jin disciples. she isn't even allowed in koi tower. she had to give jin guangshan a thinly-veiled threat that her starving to death would likely give nmj incentive to kick down the jin's door just to receive a stipend that allowed her to eat.

it's soul-crushing, but meng yao has already built herself up from nothing once. rather than despair at everything she's lost, meng yao takes this transitional time to analyze the lanling situation.

it's a mess.

madam jin is a tyrant whose hold over the servants is near-absolute. her ignoring meng yao is actually the best case scenario, since madam jin definitely has the power to making meng yao's life a living hell if she wants. jin zixuan is... spoiled and naive in a bad way, the kind of way that infuriates meng yao because he is allowed to be naive. he doesn't care that he's excluded from most sect matters other than in swords/bow training and night hunts. as lanling jin's power is almost entirely political/monetary, this means he has no real power at all.

jin guangshan is more of a mixed bag. on one hand, meng yao is an illegitimate child guaranteed to piss off madam jin. on the other hand, at least she's a girl illegitimate child, perfect for use as a political pawn and no real threat to jin zixuan's claim to sect leadership. on a third hand, the fact that nmj essentially forced jgs to acknowledge her hurts his pride, because who does this upstart brat think he is? thinking he could get one over on him???

on the final hand, meng yao is a pretty girl just like her mother, and jgs always loves being surrounded... by pretty girls.

(meng yao is so so grateful sisi convinced her to eschew going to the jin sect after her mother's death. the way jgs looks at her makes her skin crawl, even if she sometimes uses his disgusting interest to her advantage when trying to keep madam jin from arranging an 'accident'.)

a few possible subplots during this arc: interacting with mianmian (she pities meng yao and understands her struggles as a woman in lanling jin, but she isn't in a good position to help even herself, much less meng yao;) sending letters to nie huaisang (who is VERY upset at nmj's actions but is powerless to change his mind;) and maybe even sending letters to lan xichen who one day stops replying.

so when meng yao, still living on the outskirts and having to venture out into lanling herself to run errands, finds an injured lxc in town-- she immediately sneaks him into her living quarters.

three-zun

now meng yao is familiar with lan xichen, and their relationship is complicated by their relationship(s) with nmj. the first layer is nmj and lxc's relationship, being close friends from childhood whose status as clan heirs/sect leaders prevented things from developing into anything more. even when meng yao was nmj's lover, she knew a part of his heart would always belong with xichen; hell, after getting to know him, part of her heart may belong to him too.

because the second layer is lxc and meng yao's relationship. during the cloud recesses lectures, lxc treated her as a fellow cultivator and not as someone barely above a servant. he knew how much nmj cherished her and so he showed her care because she meant so much to nmj. how could meng yao not love his earnest affection for the man she also loved?

it's different than her feelings for nmj, because nmj and lxc are incredibly different men.

nmj is a pragmatic man who loves honesty and honestly. while his love his unconditional, his acceptance relies on what he considers right and wrong. lxc's acceptance relies on whom he loves, whom he also loves unconditionally. this often results in a situation where nmj is viewed as judgmental/callous by refusing to fully accept the ones he loves (see nie huaisang as a good example of this); and lxc is viewed as passive and an enabler by refusing to condemn the actions of those he loves (see him not interfering with lan qiren unreasonably punishing lwj for him loving wwx)

all of this to say: in this awful situation where meng yao's actions resulted in her expulsion from the nie sect (despite knowing nmj still loves her, the fact that he rejected her stings like her parents abandoning her all over again,) lxc's appearance in lanling is like a beacon of hope.

a cynical reading would say meng yao cozies up to lxc just to secure her position in the gentry now that she's lost nmj. a kinder reading would say meng yao, appreciating lxc's unconditional love in the wake of her expulsion, finds herself incredibly motivated to live up to xichen's expectations of being a good person. knowing he forgives her transgressions makes her ironically more honest than she was with nmj, whom she actively hid things from because she knew he wouldn't approve.

so meng yao takes lxc in and nurses him back to health. her quarters are perfect because the servants won't ever stop by (scared of madam jin,) the jin cultivators won't care (mixture of being scared of madam jin, scared of 'ruining' jgs's political pawn, and looking down on her for being a woman,) and the townspeople won't tattle. the one group meng yao has managed to endear herself to are the lanling townsfolk. they've been suffering under pompous lanling jin cultivators who only help the wealthy for decades, this nice young lady who goes out of her way to help them is baby and they won't turn her in no matter what.

(i imagine at this point meng yao, being ignored, acts the way she did in qinghe aka like a young man, not caring a bit that she's alone with a man in her personal quarters. this part needs more fleshing out, tbd later when my brain comes back online.)

the wens

eventually, the wens give up scouring the town and storm koi tower. they demand lanling jin reveal any intel on lxc's location, knowing from reports he likely passed by. madam jin, knowing meng yao and lxc were familiar, can't resist the chance to get rid of her husband's embarrassing mistake by dragging her before them.

but of course meng yao has already smuggled lxc back into town at that point, and the wens find nothing in her chambers.

even more embarrassing, the wen see the poor conditions jgs's 'beloved daughter' is living in. little comments about how lanling jin couldn't even afford to provide for their family, how quaint, loses so much face for jgs he finally intervenes and moves meng yao into living quarters closer to the main family. while this definitely raises meng yao's position within lanling jin, it also means she can no longer hide lxc (she can't rely on the townsfolk's good will to keep him hidden forever.)

so she uses her move from one courtyard to another to slip lxc away, taking advantage of the hustle and bustle to disguise any carriages being rented out and horses used. she keys him into the butterfly talisman she managed to reverse engineer from watching jin disciples send each other messages across the estate-- so she can send him messages no matter where he is.

(now the exact state of xiyao at this point is something a smarter me needs to work on... mostly lxc's point of view.

when meng yao was a disciple of qinghe nie, lxc found himself charmed by her intelligence and sharp wit. if he had to give nmj to anyone, a-yao would certainly be his pick. in their male-dominated society where men can have multiple wives but women can't have multiple husbands, it was always going to end in only one of them marrying a-yao.

being a nie disciple, it made sense for that to be nmj. but what nmj cannot forgive, lxc can; and if nmj will not find a wife in a-yao... then perhaps lxc can do so instead.)

the indoctrination camp happens. jin zixuan and the other clan heirs are sent away, lxc is hopefully able to use the busy roads to hide his path back to the cloud recesses, and meng yao becomes very aware of how much jgs wants to suck up to wen ruohan. even before they find out wen chao had left jin zixuan for dead, meng yao could already see jin guanshan planning ahead.

(that's what she would do. the most disconcerting thing about spending time with her father in such close quarters is realizing how many traits she had in common with him.)

when jin zixuan returns, jgs makes a big show of welcoming him home. he 'shudders to think' how the future of lanling jin would be like if they had to rely on meng yao to continue their lineage. the implication infuriates madam jin (did he really suggest his illegitimate daughter may inherit the sect if jzx dies?) but raises alarm bells for meng yao. there is no way jgs would ever allow her to inherit, so making a bit show of it here can only mean one thing: he's talking her up like a product he's going to sell.

so meng yao isn't surprised at all when he announces that he is negotiating a marriage between his illegitimate but still blood-related "only" daughter to wen rouhan's heir, wen xu.

off to nightless city

madam jin is quickly on board. no one else in the sect protests or even cares. she's being thrown into the lion's den like a sacrificial lamb and meng yao refuses to let the wen take her life.

war is coming. everyone knows it, including jgs. marrying her to the wens is genius: if the wens win, then lanling jin has a connection to the wens' inner circle. if they lose, jgs can denounce meng yao is illegitimate (he was forced to accept her because of those darn nies) and let her be executed for 'being a wen.'

it's lose-lose for her the moment they take their bows, and so the path forward is simple: until the war is over, meng yao must not marry wen xu. she can't stop jgs from betrothing her to him, so what meng yao needs to do is keep them in the betrothal period for as long as humanly possible.

eventually everyone agrees to meng yao moving to the wen sect and living there for a trial period, because despite being jgs' daughter, she was only recently recognized. this is to make sure meng yao is an 'appropriate' bride for wen xu, at least according to wrh and jgs.

while jgs probably doesn't care at all if she's taken to nightless city and assaulted/killed etc. right away, meng yao obviously does not want that to happen. using xue yang's words after his escape, she rightfully deduces that wrh accepted the betrothal not because she is a jin, but because she was nmj's former right-hand woman. she has intel he wants, and all she has to do is convince him she's amenable to betraying the nies of her own volition. let him think he can convince her to switch sides with sugar instead of the stick, because getting her on his side would help him destroy the biggest threat to the wens in this upcoming war.

the night before she leaves for qishan, meng yao sends a messenger butterfly to lxc. she will use the opportunity within nightless city to give him information to help the war effort. it is the most a political pawn like her can do. she does not send a butterfly to nmj, who she was also able to key in out of sheer familiarity with his spiritual signature. because nmj is so honest, he needs to think she betrayed him. if he even catches a whiff of her possible double-agenting, he won't react properly, and wrh is a terrifying ruler for a reason.

lxc, on the other hand, is very unlikely to come face-to-face with wrh. he is also more passive and harder to read. more importantly, lxc still has a good opinion of meng yao for saving him. he'll believe her without question, and in a tumultuous time when even meng yao isn't sure where her loyalties lie other than towards "i have to survive," she finds his faith in her addicting. he is a steady rock in a sea of uncertainty, and she knows she won't ever have to worry about him doubting her if she sends him reports instead of to nmj.

the sunshot campaign

this portion roughly follows canon, with meng yao endearing herself to wrh once the war begins as the perfect, ruthless daughter-in-law. there's probably some subplot with wen qing as well: both women are considered important to wrh's cause, both are at his side for dubious reasons and with questionable survival odds. ultimately, they loathe each other; they both get in each other's way in their game to withstand wrh's moods.

canon progresses. when wen ruohan loses patience with the long betrothal (it's war time, marriages have been conducted in even shorter time,) meng yao arranges for wen xu's death at nmj's hand.

she would have preferred lxc to do the honors as revenge for the cloud recesses' burning, but for the sake of her plan it has to be nmj. it gives wrh incentive to capture nmj, to set up the scene meng yao's been waiting for. because betraying nmj is the final act that will solidify wrh's trust in her. meng yao is a great actor, but wrh is far too shrewd. the only way to make her lashing out believable... is to lash out for real.

losing her standing with the nies had hurt meng yao to the core; it was the first time she was cast aside after she'd gotten used to being accepted (which hurts worse than being cast out by a stranger.) while she puts on a brave face in lanling and knows intellectually that nmj set her up for success by limiting the rumors and forcing jgs to acknowledge her as a daughter... that doesn't change the fact that he cast her away. the same way her father did by not once coming back for her.

nmj thought handing her over to lanling was righteous, that jgs would take good care of his daughter. he probably even thought meng yao would be grateful, being able to take up the role she'd wanted as a child. he couldn't fathom a world where lanling was a cesspit more dangerous to her than even the worst misogynistic pigs of qinghe nie. he couldn't fathom a world where meng yao no longer yearned for her father's acknowledgement, not as long as she had nmj's.

now she doesn't even have that. so yes, she killed her former sect members without a shred of guilt. she beat nmj with all the viciousness she'd kept bottled up. she enjoyed it,

that's what made the act real enough to trick wrh, because it was real. loving and hating nmj are not exclusive. in fact, she's certain he feels the same way about her. if any other nie cultivator had been caught murdering their brethren, nmj may have very well demanded their execution. but he sent meng yao off to lanling with honors. he still loved her even as he condemned her, and that makes the bitter part of herself hate him even more.

especially when she finally kills wrh and reveals herself to be working alongside lxc the entire time. lxc is ecstatic and so, so relieved meng yao managed to make it out the other side of the war alive. nmj instead sees the dead nie cultivators on the floor and condemns her further. that he doesn't seem to realize the true danger she'd put herself in to get to this point, because naivety is the privilege of the powerful.

regardless of his feelings, it doesn't change the fact that the war is over-- and meng yao was the one to deal the killing blow.

after the war

the landscape after the war is a mess. wwx used demonic cultivation to turn the tide in their favor. meng yao slaughtered her old sect mates in a cold bid to get wrh to lower his guard. jgs barely contributed to the war effort and used the after-party as the opportunity to seize political power, and actually succeeded.

with wen xu dead, meng yao's betrothal is obviously annulled. her return to lanling jin is unbearably awkward; no one had expected her to live after being shipped off to nightless city, much less come back as a war hero.

meng yao doesn't care. the only reason she came back to lanling jin was to receive actual, legitimate recognition of her place in the jin sect: legitimacy worthy of a sect leader's future wife.

when jin guangshan attempts to rename her jin guangyao, lan xichen innocently asks why his future wife, the great lianfang-zun, would be denied her generational character. one would think the jin were insulting the lans instead of forming an alliance with them, if he so clearly viewed meng yao as lesser even than her twit of a cousin jin zixun. so begrudgingly, meng yao becomes jin ziyao, shortly to become the future lan furen.

it's a fairy tale ending, one that meng yao has literally sacrificed blood, sweat and tears for. except it's not. and it's all wei wuxian's fault.

[poorlittleyaoyao]

re: NHS’s vengeance plan (or lack thereof), and how he’s sabotaging his own sect with exaggerated incompetence purely on the grounds of “this will inconvenience JGY and also reduce expectations for me, so if one day I do take action, hypothetically, he won’t see me coming!” since he has no proof of wrongdoing for years…

This choice is arguably MORE deranged in CQL canon, because my least favorite scene of Fatal Journey establishes that he does have proof that JGY killed his brother! He knows that the song JGY taught him wasn’t Cleansing! And since it’s CQL canon, where Turmoil is an obviously different tune and NMJ simply doesn’t know what music is, NHS could have just played Turmoil within earshot of any Lan and raised eyebrows.

(“Why do you know that song, Nie-zongzhu?”

“ohhhhh yes I know this is a secret Lan technique but we were all trying so hard to help poor Da-ge so San-ge taught this to me 🥺”

“You PLAYED this for him?”

“yes I did my very best to play Cleansing but it just wasn’t good enough! 🥺”

“Nie-zongzhu, this isn’t Cleansing. You shouldn’t even know this song.”

“Whaaaaaat??? 🤯 but San-ge said!!!! 🥺”)

And sure, maybe he suspects LXC as an accompliance for that very reason! But is he going to distrust ALL of the Lan? Someone would go and check the Forbidden Library and find those score pages missing.

So CQL NHS is out here with concrete proof that something weird happened there, and decides to still spend more than a decade being bad at his job on purpose so he can… gather evidence that he already has.

(And then if you REALLY lean into CQL peculiarities, NMJ isn’t a rampaging fierce corpse who had to be suppressed via dismemberment; they confusingly say that he “went missing” after his qi deviation, so the discovery of his corpse in Yi City is the first concrete proof that he’s actually dead. It’d make complete sense for NHS to cry and wail that da-ge isn’t REALLY dead, you can’t make him believe that, where is your proof? etc etc, so it’s CRUEL of you to expect him to take the rulership that rightfully belongs to his brother! He could’ve refused to take the title and put someone else in charge of sect business! Or he could have actually done a decent job (albeit in a way that was super compliant with whatever Jinlintai wants) on the stated grounds that he doesn’t want his brother to be mad at him “when he gets back,” which will have everyone doubting his faculties but in a much more sympathetic light than they do when they just think he’s incompetent. What are you doing, CQL Huaisang! You are an enigma!)

[lgbtlunaverse]

I think i need to explain why this line makes me go so feral

I think the "fine! I'll kill myself after I kill you" line from nie mingjue in chapter 49 permanently altered my brain chemistry and it has something to do with precisely how i got into the mdzs fandom space in the first place.

I've mentioned it a few times but i started watching the untamed in late 2019 right as it was blowing up everywhere and, likely due to a combination of undiagnosed adhd wrecking my ability to be interested in anything for longer than 4 seconds and me very much not being used to the specific style of acting, especially during fightscenes, i never finished it. The only concrete memory i have of it is seeing wen qing's face and meng ziyi completely short circuiting my little gay brain. I remember more of staring endlessly at pictures of her than I remember of the plot. Press F to pay respects.

Flash forward a few years and a friend recommends me a fic writer for an fma fic (the fic riter in question is metisket) and i like their stlye so much i decide to read other stuf they've written. Here we get to our prime suspect: "the one body problem" a genuinely hilarious fic where jingyi gets posessed by wei wuxian like a year before the plot happens and they become awkward brain buddies. 10/10 i loved it (and still do) even though i remember huasiang showing up in my first reading and I, having fully forgotten his name, had no fucking clue what was going on. (Little did i know...)

Anyway flash forward ANOTHER year and I decide to reread that fic, and then the other untamed fic metisket wrote, a wen qing time travel fix it that's also real fun. And then i'm like. huh. that's fun. wonder if there's anything in their bookmarks.

And then, within 20 days, I had read approximately 350 fics. Many of them 100k+ words. I cannot stress enough how much this CONSUMED my brain's ability to do or think about anything else. I now think back to the early days of getting my adhd diagnosis and insisted that while i had pretty much all other symptoms, I did not get hyperfixations. Lol. Lmao, even.

I am mainly focused on wangxian and the junior quartet becuase they are my baby ducklings and i love them. I do come across some 3zun fics and I think huh... this is interesting. But the 3zun brainrot is LIGHT at this point.

The thing about reading more than 350 fanfics is that at some point you kind of piece the plot of the source material back together backwards. Especially because my favorite genre was time travel fix its, where characters relive the whole plot and like to make allusions to all the ways everything went wrong last time.

Because I'm still squarely in my wangxian + juniors (plus a heavy dosis of yunmeng sibling reconciliation) corner here... the feelings on jin guangyao in my fandom corner are. different from where I'd end up soon after. He is my special little guy though, so I do kind of immediatley develop a fondness for him, and I approach my 3zun and early nieyao thoughts specifcially from the assumption that the widespread opinion is that nie mingjue is a fine good guy and jgy is the evil one (I have not seen the bad nmj takes yet. well... I am seeing DIFFERENT bad nmj takes but they're nice to him. In, like, the wrong way. With no solid undertanding of the inherent tragedy at the heart of him that makes him so blorbo to me. But still.) major reactions to the stairs scene as I see them on twitter are "girlboss! He should've kicked him harder 💅"

And the baby jgy apologist in me goes :/ me no likey. And at this point I am also actively seeking out metas and analysis posts so i'm seeing some better opinions than that and getting a halfway solid graps on the themes. wwx and jgy being foils becomes very obvious to me very quickly. So, with my curent understanding of the plot, I go... you know all you people who are like "god i wish nmj would have killed jgy sooner" it uhh... kinda sounds like he'd have died if he did that. If he'd killed him before meng yao had gone off to spy there is a very big chance they'd have lost the sunshot campaign and most of the main cast would be dead. If he'd killed him at the stairs that's... well that's killing your sworn brother, which by the canon's own admission is a universally reviled crime, and jin guangshan could easily take advantage of this by demanding nmj's head in retribution, since he already wanted to get rid of him anyway. He doesn't give a fuck about a-yao of course but he could pretend well enough that he does. And what leg would nmj have to stand on? The jin clan is canonically both willing and able to slaughter entire clans for the murder or attempted murder of the leader or his family, and nie mingjue is the kinda guy who'd immediately offer himself up if it meant the rest of his clan would be spared.

This combined with jin guangyao specifcally dying for his murder of nie mingjue, with huaisang basically not caring much about everything else he does and wanting to get revenge only for his brother, it gives nieyao a sort of mutual doomed soulmates feel. For either of them, killing the other would spell death for themselves. They either both die or they both live, one cannot live on without the order. That's crunchy. I like it.

The fire palace though? well, on meng yao's part there is a real argument that if he'd let nmj get killed immediatly instead of dragging it out he wouldn't have been able to get wrh alone and distracted enough to assasinate him, so that's one half of the mutual doom coin, and if nmj had killed him during their fight there he's also done for. But after? Right before Xichen intervenes? I had no answer for that yet.

(You know what's coming. I did not)

It is at this point that i realize that if this is gonna keep being A Thing then i need to read the source material before I catch fatal fanon poisoning. Yes, I can piece together the plot and themes from seeing what stays consistent across fics and what are the author's own opinons. But I know just as well that sometimes fanon just agrees on shit that didn't happen and treats it like canon, and I have no way of knowing which is which. So I start reading the novel.

And of course, eventually I get to the empathy sequence. And remember, my "nieyao both live or both die" theory is heavy on my mind at this point, and the only stickler is that nmj could sort of have killed meng yao after the confrontation with wrh, still believing meng yao was actually working for him, and not a spy, and get off... not scott-free, Xichen won't be happy, but it's not gonna cost him his life.

And then I read THIS.

Please Imagine dropping a whole block of pure elemental sodium into water. Except the sodium is this quote and the water is my poor little delicate brain. Not only is my theory right, it is ten times more unhinged than i thought it was.

And considering that Nie Mingjue does not seem like the kind of guy who'd consider something like a life debt to have an expiration date, and because after this he will link himself legally and socially to jin guangyao as family and declare that one among their brotherhood turning against the others is to be met with a painful death, I can no longer read the scene at the stairscase in jinlintai without the impression that he is still planning to die afterwards. Which, if you wanted to make that scene even more painful, this is a very efficient way of losing all your remaining hinges.

I think I'd have gone crazy about this line no matter what context I heard it in, but this one specifically? where I'm already obsessed with idea of nieyao's deaths being connected by the narrative and missing just this one piece and having it confirmed? out loud? from one of the characters himself? It's like giving cocaine to a baby.

[lansplaining]

burning hot take: nmj is/was a better sect leader than nhs. nmj has All His Problems yes but nhs committed to the bit of "im bad at this auuuugh" so hard he convinced everyone on earth that it was true

(inspired by the anon talking about a jc anti 'ranking' sect leaders. do you think there's a jianghu sect leader ranking in universe. personally i do. i do think this)

is there any question??? NMJ had some uh major issues, but he was clearly keeping the Nie sect running smoothly and maintaining their reputation and standing with great success. the succession planning thing is... a huge problem for a sect leader, but if you set that aside, he is clearly succeeding by a lot of metrics

tellingly, very few of those metrics are related to being easy to work with, good at compromise, or pleasant to be around. that is one way to be a good sect leader, but if your goal is the power and prestige of your sect, it's very clear that NMJ's way is working, too

NHS, on the other hand, allows the sect to fall into compete disrepute. people who want him to be this Moriarty-level genius mastermind might argue that maybe he's running the sect well in secret, but if that's the case... a) how has he convinced everyone to keep that secret when it's to their direct detriment to be members of a sect that everyone things is a trash fire and b) part of successfully running a sect is recruitment, so how is it good leadership if everyone thinks your sect sucks and doesn't want to join it, even if that isn't actually true

as for a sect leader ranking, I think you're absolutely right that there is one in-universe, and to some extent we know exactly what it is: the ranking of which sects have the most influence and power. obviously in the immediate aftermath of the war, things are up in the air and influenced by a lot of external factors, but by the time of the present-day storyline, I'd argue that things have leveled out to the extent that the power dynamics we see are a pretty much a reflection of the skill of the current sect leaders. amongst the main sects, we don't know the details of the middle of the list, but there's no question that jin guangyao is at the top and nie huaisang is at the bottom

[whumpbby]

Ok, listen.

Had a little fucked up idea for omdzs omegaverse.

Nie Mingjue is slowly going down with the QI Deviation, against Xichen's best attempts to help him. The Lan alpha is despaired - NMJ is his oldest friend, his confidante and his support. He can't stand the thought of him dying. He can't imagine the world in which Da-ge is not there.

So, he goes into the Lan archives and obsessively researching ways to help him.

After days of throwing himself from book to book and taking pages of notes, he finds it - the way to halt a QI deviation in its tracks.

It's so easy it left him stunned - so obvious, but at the same time too obvious.

An alpha needs to be bonded to an omega. That's it.

That's it? Maybe it hasn't been common knowledge in ages, because omegas are very uncommon to begin with? There's so very few of them - creatures that can carry and birth regardless of their primary gender. Beings that carry and birth babies that will take after their sire's blood entirely - a perfect way for a dwindling sect to carry on their genes and in-born skills, no blood dilluted, no offspring wasted to inferiority.

Where does one even go searching for an omega? After Wen Ruohan hunted and kidnapped all he came across for decades. Omegas, if there are any out there, learned to hide, to live their lives away from any alphas able to sniff them out. Whenever one was born in a cultivation sect, they were jealousy guarded and kept behind closed doors, providing their sects with heirs.

The last known omega was the wife of Sect Leader Ouyang, she bore him a horde of string daughters and a single alpha son, and was beloved by her sect until a bad pregnancy killed both her and her youngest pup. Maybe it was better this way, many whispered, soon after the Wen sacked Bailing, she would have been lost in their grasp...

But there is one more omega Xichen knows about. It's a knowledge he gained by accident, something he was sworn to secrecy over by the Yiling Patriarch himself. Something he was willing to take to the grave, no matter how many rut-addled dreams it fueled since the Sunshot Campaign.

Something no one else alive knows outside of the innermost echelon of Yunemeng Jiang - that would throw the cultivation world into an uproar.

Sect leader Jiang was an omega. Snappy, temperamental and tragic, but an omega nonetheless.

Lan Xichen wasn't going to break his oath.

He just needed to find a way to get Nie Mingjue and Jiang Wanyin into one place and have them mates by the end of the month.

[wisedawn13]

AroAce WangXian

Childhood friends wangxian who suddenly are ripped apart for some reason or another and ultimately lose contact. LWJ, of course, is completely distraught. LXC sees this and feels for his didi. He not only lost his best friend but also the first person he ever loved.

LWJ spends years grappling with his grief and as time goes on, LXC starts to worry. His didi isn't going out and meeting anyone, his didi hasn't dated at all or even had any hookups. This is very strange and concerning to him (an allosexual/alloromantic polyamorous person)

Eventually, LXC starts to hint at LWJ to go out and meet people. Make friends and "maybe you'll meet someone you like." But LWJ is disinterested. LXC eventually starts bringing LWJ out with him and pointing out some people he thinks his didi might like, but nothing.

Finally, LXC can't stand seeing his little brother so hung up on a boy he never even had a relationship with years later and sets up a date for LWJ with MXY (who he met through NMJ's little brother)

LWJ apologies to MXY and says he is not interested in dating and turns him away.

Then, LWJ finds his brother looking at him with disappointment. LXC tells him that he can't keep being so hung up on WWX and he just needs to get over him and move on. LWJ blinks entirely confused. He then explains to his brother that that's not the problem.

He will always love WWX and carry that love with him, just as he carries his love for their mother with him. He may never see WWX again, but that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if he ever gets to be with him in a romantic or sexual way either. He loves him.

But his lack of interest in sex and dating isn't because of that. He is just on the asexual and aromantic spectrums. He is completely content to not be with anyone and genuinely can't see himself wanting to be with anyone but WWX if he had to be with someone.

LXC is shocked. He hadn't realized that was really a thing and feels bad that he kept pushing that on his didi. He apologizes and promises to research more about it and to be a better, more supportive brother.

Then, sometime later, wangxian meet again by chance.

They rekindle their friendship and gradually fall into an easy relationship. LWJ doesn't have to explain his feelings to WWX because WWX is the same way.

----------

Anyway, I might try and write out a fic for this some day. Aroace wangxian my beloved 🥺🖤

Link to thread

[symphonyofsilence]

I believe that no matter what he did, there was no happy ending for Jin Guangyao.

Whether he stayed with the Nie (he would always wish that he could have been legitimized by his father. [Because of the better social standing it would bring him which was a very big deal actually he would have been miserable unless he was legitimized, because he really wanted his father's acceptance, because he had to replace that horrible last memory of Jinlintai in his mind, because it was his birthright, & most importantly because it was his mother's last wish], he would get bullied & humiliated & get looked down upon every day by almost everyone, he would always wish [& know that with his potential] he could reach much higher and make the changes he wanted to make in the world) or didn't, or join the Lans (the same problems but maybe with less bullying and fewer shit talks because it would have been against the Lan rules and also the Lans owed JGY big time) or the Jiangs, whether Meng Shi survived or didn't (I think JGY wouldn't have told her about that staircase incident, then who knows what lies he'd make up and what he would do to hide that he was not accepted by the Jins from his mother or get accepted by them at any cost and what it would result in) whether NHS planned his downfall or didn't (he still had the head of NMJ in his secret room that he claimed "wouldn't let him go", he still slept in the same bed as his sister, he still had and had lost a son with her that he claimed that "his blood ran cold everytime he looked at him" & whether he did have him killed or not he blamed himself for his death [I've explained here why I think that], he still had to live with the knowledge that no matter what horrible deed he committed for JGS, no matter how hard he tried he was never "worth mentioning" to his father, and had to lose all his considerable filial piety & what was essentially his life's mission to the point that he murdered his father) whether he went to Dongying (he'd have still lost all he built in his motherland, despite years of trying to build himself a good reputation and prove anyone who taunt him wrong, he'd still always be known as the rotten "son of a prostitute" there. And He'd have to start from scratch in Dongying, He'd still had to leave without Meng Shi's body, NHS would never get off his tail, and he'd be separated from LXC and JL [even if they followed him, he likely would feel bad for separating them from their sects and their families. Those were things that JGY himself longed for most of his life. He wouldn't want them to follow him.]) or didn't. & don't even start with him marrying LXC which would make all his problems exponentially worse. It would probably get LXC in trouble too (maybe he'd had to leave his sect) and that would be something that JGY would never want.

Certainly, what happened to him in canon was the worst possible scenario and he might have been less miserable in some of those other scenarios, but there were just no happy endings for him.

[hannigramislife]

#4 Scene of my Random Mdzs Fanfiction

Prompt: What if 3zun reincarnated in modern au?

Scene: Lan Xichen remembers the past, and tears both Nmj and Jgy a new one.

Walking towards Nie Mingjue’s office, Jin Guangyao had a sinking feeling of dread settled in his gut, and it was growing by the second. He hadn’t heard from Lan Xichen in over a week, all his texts and calls having gone unanswered, which was unusual, as Lan Xichen took only a couple of minutes to reply. Jin Guangyao thought he had been grateful for the opportunity to have Lan Xichen back in his life, but now that he didn’t wake up to good morning texts, and didn’t receive random pictures during the day with Lan Xichen’s humorous captions, Jin Guangyao realized he hadn’t appreciated them enough. Only a week, and he felt Lan Xichen’s absence like a limb. If something had happened to him, Jin Guangyao would never forgive himself.

Going to Nie Mingjue for help had been something of a last resort; Jin Guangyao didn’t trust the man, wouldn’t turn his back on him if the gang leader had both his arms broken and tied behind his back. He was much more volatile than Jin Guangyao remembered him to be, and he could no longer be trusted not to go too fucking far. Lan Xichen was a bleeding heart with a strong sense of justice; how long until he got in Nie Mingjue’s way. How sure could Jin Guangyao be that this Nie Mingjue wouldn’t harm him?

If Nie Mingjue had something to do with his disappearance, Jin Guangyao would kill him, no questions asked. Even if it was the last thing he did in this life, he’d kill him.

If not, then he’d made the right choice in going to him, and if Jin Guangyao had to beg Nie Mingjue on his knees to help him find Lan Xichen, then so be it.

Lan Xichen was worth it. He had always been worth it.

Once he neared the man’s office, Jin Guangyao heard faint voices coming from the small room, its door ajar. Curious and immediately on edge, he made his steps as light as possible, pressing close to the wall.

“…alm down for fuck’s sake, so we can tal-“

“Calm down?!”

Jin Guangyao almost felt his heart stop at hearing Lan Xichen’s enraged voice echo through the room.

“You want me to calm down, da-ge? You want to talk to me now, don’t you? Well, what shall we talk about first? Wanna talk to me about what the Jins are doing? Want to talk to me about how I had to wait for hours to talk to you 3 days ago because you were busy bleeding out in a hospital bed? Or, my personal favorite; when were you going to tell me I was regularly having coffee with the man who killed you, hm?”

Jin Guangyao felt like a bucket of ice cold water was dumped on him. His heart thumped wildly in his chest as his mind processed the words Lan Xichen had screamed. Too many emotions whirled inside him for him to make sense of them all; shock, joy, sadness, fear, anger, regret— and stronger than them all, desperation.

Desperation to prove to Lan Xichen that he wasn’t the same person, that he wanted nothing more than to be a man that could stand by Lan Xichen’s side proudly. He wanted to beg for a second chance, an opportunity to be better. Other people could do it easily, why couldn’t Jin Guangyao?

It took a moment for Jin Guangyao to realize that Nie Mingjue had gone suspiciously quiet.

He only had time to blink, and lean back slightly, before the door was flung open, and Jin Guangyao found himself facing a very tall, very intimidating, very shirtless-while-wrapped-up-in-bandages Nie Mingjue.

“It seems this conversation is no longer private.” He said as he stared down at Jin Guangyao, crossing his arms in disapproval, shifting the suit jacket he had thrown over his shoulder.

No. Bad brain. Not the time.

Jin Guangyao swallowed painfully, keeping his eyes on Nie Mingjue, if only so he didn’t have to face Lan Xichen. “For a private conversation, you sure are loud. And the door is open.”

The gang leader snorted, before pulling Jin Guangyao in.

Jin Guangyao stumbled in as Nie Mingjue closed the door firmly; with his only exit closed, Jin Guangyao had little to do but face his friend, his former sworn brother. Hesitantly, he locked gazes with Lan Xichen, and was taken aback by the emotions he saw in them. The shock he had anticipated, once Lan Xichen remembered, the heartbroken pain, too, because Lan Xichen had always been so honest in his feelings, but the anger- the anger was new.

Lan Xichen was facing them both, eyes shifting from Jin Guangyao’s curled in figure, to Nie Mingjue standing tall behind him.

Lan Xichen was indeed angry. More than that, he was furious.

“Er-ge,” Jin Guangyao started, for once unable to find the right words to say.

Apparently, that wasn’t important, as Lan Xichen wasn’t planning to let him talk. “Was it fun?” The man cut him off, voice shaking from a kind of emotion he had never seen in him. “Tell me, was it fun? Leading me around by the nose again, pretending to be my friend?”

Jin Guangyao wished Lan Xichen had just punched him instead; it would have hurt less.

“No, no, Er-ge, it wasn’t like that—“

“Was it amusing for you, seeing me fall for the same act twice? What was your plan this time, A-Yao, were you waiting for my memories to return, or was a nice, dramatic reveal what you had planned?”

There was a time Jin Guangyao had seen, and caused, many lives to be destroyed, many suffering in people, even those who had been closest to him, and he’d done so without so much as batting an eyelash. And yet, Lan Xichen’s cruel words were enough to make him want to sob— and Jin Guangyao had heard his fair share of cruel words.

“I wouldn’t— I woudn’t do that to you, Er-ge. I would never hurt you like that.” Jin Guangyao said desperately, wanting Lan Xichen to believe that, if nothing else.

“You wouldn’t do what, Jin Guangyao. Wouldn’t do exactly what you did last time?” Lan Xichen was trembling with badly concealed rage, though he never raised his voice.

Jin Guangyao’s mouth clamped up, his words failing him. Lan Xichen wasn’t listening, he didn’t look like he planned to listen anytime soon, and there was nothing Jin Guangyao could say that wouldn’t come off as fake, manipulative.

In their few weeks of ignorant bliss they’d shared together, Jin Guangyao had forgotten what the events in Guanyin temple had reduced him to in the eyes of his Er-ge. Every word was now open to doubt and suspicion, every smile was fake and planned, every touch meant to draw out trust.

Lan Xichen had no naivety left to give Jin Guangyao, this time.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, shifting uncomfortably on his feet. Besides him, Nie Mingjue tensed, and Jin Guangyao didn’t know if that was a good sign or not. “I’m sorry, Er-ge.”

Lan Xichen blinked in disbelief, before letting out a slight scoff; another thing Jin Guangyao had never seen him do. He had the uncomfortable realization that, like Nie Mingjue, like himself, this Lan Xichen was also different.

“You’re sorry,” Lan Xichen repeated, voice hard as steel. “Isn’t that a bit too little, too late, A-Yao? A couple of centuries, maybe? What am I supposed to forgive you for? You didn’t hurt me, after all. No, that’s the one line you wouldn’t cross.”

Lan Xichen was, indeed, much different. His words cut deeper than his sword ever did. It had been foolish to hold onto a man that hadn’t existed in centuries.

Or maybe, his mind whispered, this is the same Lan Xichen, and that’s just what he would have always thought about you, had he known the truth.

Sometimes, A-Yao didn’t like his own mind.

"That's not what I'm talking about," Jin Guangyao said, struggling to keep his voice even. "I meant this life, our friendship. I didn't mean to hurt you by getting close to you. I assumed you would not remember."

Lan Xichen took a deep breath. "How is it," he said, "that the only way you can be close to me is when you keep me blind?"

[bytedykes]

Nie mingjue and liu qingge for the character ask game?

Sexuality Headcanon: im a nieyao/3zun truther so like he likes men... lqg is my beautiful aroace swordguy <333

Gender Headcanon: I LOVE BUTCH WOMEN!!!! ok both of them are men to me as canon, but like. take my hand. butch nmj and he/him butch lqg okay?

A ship I have with said character: i guess i already said but Big fan of nieyao i like it when weird assholes tear each other into pieces ^-^ 3zun is also good. for lqg i like him in bingliushen but only the way i personally like it and not the way people usually do it. hes a part of their marriage in the sense that he's their nonsexual nonromantic chew toy that they like sooo much. also lqg/tlj can be really good sometimes (thinking of raitala's 'the reluctant suitor' series - very nice tianliu series but also one of my fave lqg characterizations i've seen lol he's such a weirdo in this one)

A BROTP I have with said character: nmj and nhs!!! i love you nie siblings you rock. also i like nielan childhood friends i think its very fun especially when they start falling apart in the later years <3 an interesting take ive seen before also is nmj&wq which is pretty fun. LQG&SQQ THE BESTIES <3 theyre everything !!! i really like them i like how much they genuinely enjoy each others company and how fucking Bad they are at like. being in a friendship its awesome. also as a treat for myself lqg&yqy is sooo tasty i love it when lqg genuinely likes and looks up to him and yqy is fond of him in turn. could a sect leader and his coworker-subordinate really be... friends?

A NOTP I have with said character: obviously ew incest ships but aside from that i cant really think of anything? lqg x romance my notp i think he's so aro. also okay. okay honestly. liushen sometimes NOT all the time but sometimes the way ppl act about it irks me and i automatically look away. like the blatantly ooc fandomized liushen. bye </3

A random headcanon: lqg forest puddle water drinkerrrr dkjaskdss no im kidding im kidding. my random headcanon ("random headcanon" lol) is that he has good dad energy. he could pull thru. give that man a baby :] can i plug spring in bloom here again does anyone want to read spring in bloom by kay my friend kay <3 also i think he's immune to sex pollen bc he's an aroace jock who just exercises it out of his system. no basis for this one other than it's hilarious

for nmj... i think he secretly has a very annoying sense of humor that many people don't know about but he terrorizes nhs with. dad jokes type of beat... da-ge jokes <3

General Opinion over said character: I FUCKING LOVE THESE GUYS!!!!! i love it when there is a guy with a big fucking sword who has sooo many problems. lol! anyway ok more specifically:

i thought nmj was very interesting while reading the novel and definitely had a "hey wtf dude" initial reaction to him, but he's reallyyy grown on me <3 partially bc he's been on my mind a lot and partially bc of his presence in cql! (cql nmj is my type also so that definitely did smth to me as well lol) i think he's a really interesting character to explore both bc of his general backstory and bc of his relationships w other characters, as well as the fact that (in the novel) we never really see him of completely sound mind, so there's lots of room to play w how you portray him. he's fun!

lqg i love soooo much i loved him from day ONE i loved him as soon as he showed up. he's so good. i think his appearance was a very funny surprise (?), esp the way sqq narrated it lmao, and i really like him in general. i loveee the loyal sword character trope and i like how lqg does it (so well <3). his general awkwardness and extreme talent to put his foot in his mouth is also really charming ("its ok you can just get a new disciple" what is wrong with him). i also think there's room to explore w him, especially his family + relationships w other sect members, i love you liu siblings... lqg is a character who goes through a lot of growth imo and it's very satisfying to see that + how his rs with sqq changes through the novel. lqg is also a character that is so fun to put into situations and also make fun of. bc he's so sucks <3 ANYWAY I FUCKING LOVE LQG if there is no lqg lovers on this earth i am dead etc

TYSM FOR THE ASK KAY <333 sorry it took me so long to answer LMAO it was really fun though

[llycaons]

so there's a ton of weird sex stuff from that author I have no interest in, but asides from that there's a few lines where lwj talks about not 'deserving wwx' which is so silly I think…you can litigate what wwx thinks he' 'deserves' all day but lwj doesn't really think in terms of deserving imo.

honestly it's just not a perspective that either of them I think really put much weight on? they may ask are they allowed something, sure. is this something they can prioritize above their responsibilities? is this something they want? is this something they can ethically do? is this something they can defy the elders for? worth risking their siblings for? is this something they're willing to sacrifice for? is this something they're even willing to pursue? is this something they CAN pursue?

but 'deserve' is like….this is going to sound weird but it feels like a very individualistic and even selfish consideration. bc the contrary is I Deserve This and if you talk about not Deserving something it's like you considered whether you have a specific right to it. does anybody in the entire show care about deserving things? they care about protecting their loved ones, and visiting vengeance on their enemies, and taking blame for things going wrong, and punishing those they consider stepping out of line, and ostracizing the outcasts, and consolidating power. it just doesn't seem like a very useful way to approach characters within that setting. maybe nmj would say jgy deserves death, lol. but idk it always struck me as an odd element to introduce into the story bc of the implication

especially for lwj...his hangups as an adult (in cql) have much more to do with not acting like his father and balancing his responsibilities with something that he's wanted for a very long time. once those issues are sorted there's no reason he'd deny himself or doubt himself imo. he may have taken years to get to a place where he's comfortable expressing himself to wwx but once he's there, he really wouldn't worry about whether he, specifically deserves any of it. he'd just embrace it. i can see the novel version of lwj being a little disbelieving or in shock early on bc it was SO fast, but even then he's pretty confident as soon as it happen he just takes charge like okay...it was such a long-simmering thing in cql tho that I imagine their get-together was just very natural and smooth and expected

and hang on, when the characters in fics talk about 'ohhh I don't deserve this' it's NEVER actually about the shit they actually did to each other. I have never in my life read a fic where(novel) wwx was like 'having sex with lwj while he was drunk was really shitty and I know I already apologized but maybe I don't deserve this with him' or with (novel) lwj like 'forcibly kissing wwx while he was blindfolded was probably really bad and I SHOULD TELL HIM and maybe I don't deserve this relationship UNTIL I TELL HIM AND APOLOGIZE' like it's always for this vague 'ohhh I'm ~unworthy~' shit that they really don't exhibit in canon and that feels WAY more like the author projecting their own insecurities onto two genuinely very powerful and righteous and confident characters.

wwx has his own hangups and regrets but he genuinely had the moral high ground in the past and he knew it, he takes joy and safety when he can, he never seeks punishment for what happened in the past, he defends himself against people who slander him, and he has full confidence in his inventions and cultivation abilities. that's not someone with low self-worth, and that's not someone who will hang-wring over a relationship with an equal that's been building for years. don't forget lwj abandoned HIM back then, and he may not blame him for it but it's a little nonsensical to claim he doesn't feel he deserves someone as good as lwj when he himself knows how lwj let him down. if anything he'd be worried about his reputation sullying lwj's and his presence damaging lwj's standing in his sect, but that's not the same as "I, personally, Do Not Deserve This', he may doubt his place in CR but after the get together I really don't think he doubts his place with lwj on a personal level, and lwj certainly doesn't doubt his place with wwx despite arguably having more to regret. bc neither of them wallow in regret, right? they keep moving forward and they do what they can to rectify their mistakes. wwx teaches jl how to fight. and lwj supports wwx like he always should have

[truly-morgan]

[a|b|o, ace α!JC and Ω!LQR]

RenCheng | Mo Dao Zu Shi Omergaverse + Modern AU 22-08-2021

[#rencheng with ace α!JC]

Same trope as the previous one: alpha jc, who miraculously managed to date lqr (he was so happy that the older man gave him his chance, while lqr ends up surprised by his feeling for jc (this is somewhat new for him)).

gets overly anxious, protective and possessive when he gets in rut. lqr doesn't exactly mind when they are home, he can deal with the younger alpha sticking to him and wanting to be close, doing more than needed to please him and make sure he does good to him. but sometimes he gets exasperated when times come for him to go do his lectures. He has had more than once jc pacing outside the door (He could sense and smell him very well, so did his students).

He even busted inside once when some alpha was getting agitated because his grades were not good enough (this is what happens when you sleep in class and half-ass your reports) and had said that has an omega he better listen to him. It took a hot minute to calm jc down, as he seemed ready to beat down the alpha who was two times his size.

yet lqr still managed to calm him down (ordering him to wait at his office or he /will/ leave without him). he was quite unimpressed by jc reaction, after all, the man knew he preferred pacifism over fighting, especially over such small matters. (He was not born yesterday, he had lived in a society that was much worst towards omega, he had seen worse).

And jc listened to him, going to wait at his office (which was filled with lqr scent, it was soothing in a way).

lqr was ready to scold his mate for the way he acted, wanting to make him promise he would never do such a thing again.

yet he stopped before opening the door, listening to the pacing around inside his office. quiet mumbling he could half hear, all jc trying to find the best way to apologise and ask lqr not to leave him because he was a bad alpha.

This made the older man soften and sadden a little bit, taking a deep breath. the moment he went in jc froze, looking intensely at him, yet not meeting his eyes, mouth open as if ready to say something yet unable to start, eyes shiny with tears.

lqr simply closed and locked the door, taking a long stride to his mate, enveloping him into a tight hug.

jc melted into it, hiding into the reassuring scent of lqr. he started apologising, mumbling against him, as if scared lqr would leave him here (it was more heartbreaking when lqr knew jc's previous partner had left him because of this side of him).

He simply kept him close to him, trying to use his scent to soothe him, gently running his fingers through his hair, whispering reassurance.

maybe it was exasperating by time, and maybe he was unimpressed by what he did, but he would never throw jc away, not after everything they had together now.

He waited for jc to calm down to reassure him properly, still scolding him (although much more softly than he would normally do with other alphas).

since he had no other lecture he allowed the two of them to just relax in his office, jc doing his own little ritual of making sure lqr was okay in every way possible, scenting him (again) and cuddling a lot, not leaving his side until he felt better. lqr would lie if he said he hated those moments, there was something nice to it, especially if it made his mate feel better.

after that day when jc would enter rut he would be allowed into his lecture (only if he didn't have anything else to attend at the same time) as long as he didn't disturb the class.

It was a bit weird, but everyone got used to the alpha sitting in the back corner, either looking with love-filled eyes at their teacher (the mystery of lqr mate was now resolved apparently), or would glare at any alpha even trying to pull something on lqr (not that it ever worked, lqr had a reputation of being a though omega in the university).

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I don't know why, I feel like these tropes fit jc even more than nmj and oyz, with the usual self-esteem and anxiety his stan give him jiefib

also now I absolutely hc lqr as being on the a-spectrum. In this one I could easily imagine him being demi he never found a mate because he never left anyone close enough to him to do so and was busy raising his nephew (omg now imagine two liddol kid alpha trying to act though to protect their shushu )

Original

[fortune-maiden]

😊📚✨ for the fic rec asks!!

Thank you :D

😊 A fic that made you smile on a bad day

As before I don't really remember fics in terms of bad days/good days so we're just going with smiles haha

This is a delightfully silly drabble series :D

Eveything's better with a little murder :D

📚 A fic you wish you could display on your bookshelf

SO MANY!

The one pm/nmj fic I linked earlier is a contender for sure, but let's go with this one, which I saved with the bookmark note:

"If you only ever read one fanfic in your life, let it be this one."

(sadly hardly anyone has read TKA so this fic would be a bit hard to follow without a basic overview of the many characters that appear (i myself barely remember half of them lol) but but this fic is just everything! Comedy! Drama! Shenanigans! SO MUCH CREATIVITY!)

✨ A fic you wish you could read again for the first time

I guess any mystery fic since reading it a second time kinda loses the mystery part xD

...

...

....So I actually had a very specific fic in mind here but when I went to find it I... couldn't... There is absolutely no way I hadn't bookmarked it or subbed to it so I'm left to conclude that it was deleted T_T

For a fic that I'm not mourning now though, this one:

This is an extremely unique fic/logic puzzle but it's the most fun the first time since you have no idea what to expect as you hunt down the clues :D

It's very fun!