#no one is saying wwx is actually straight for a start...
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I sometimes see the opinion that MXTX took the clichéd tropes she'd critiqued in Scum Villain, and played them straight in MDZS. But though a lot of them appear in MDZS, I'd argue that none are actually played straight at all!
The main point of MDZS's tropes is subversion. Yes, WWX has a 'tragic backstory', even an arguably overused one (orphaned by his parents at a young age, forced to live on the streets with nobody to rely on, etc) – but how things differ in how it's used. Tragic backstories are normally used to build sympathy for a character, to make us care and get invested in them. But... we're never actually shown any of those street days, we're never shown and never dwell upon how much he suffered during them. They're only really mentioned in passing and whenever dogs come up! If the goal was to make us feel bad for WWX, this would be very ineffective writing. But what's actually important here isn't that WWX went through tragedies – it's how he doesn't let the tragedies he went through define him. He doesn't dwell on them, the narrative doesn't dwell on them, it's never used to earn sympathy points... because what defines WWX is his choices and how he chooses to act, not a backstory completely out of his control. What gets us invested in him is his personality and the character writing of MXTX, not tragic events used as a substitute for identity.
And this trope treatment fits extremely well with WWX's personality itself – he's someone who 'forgets the pain as soon as the wound has healed'*, but also who actively chooses to focus on the present because you can't change the past; someone who holds the belief that 'gains and losses [should] remain uncommented on' when choosing what to do.
The use of the tragic backstory isn't the only thing that's subverted, either – the other main thing is the 'blackening' of the protagonist, and its impact on the protagonist's fall. After being thrown into the Burial Mounds, on a surface level it does seem like this blackening has occurred: the first thing we see when he returns is his gruesome torture of the Wen cultivators; he's 'forsaken' traditional cultivation in favour of an 'evil but more powerful' path; and frankly, Sunshot-era WWX is terrifying. But MDZS is not a blackening story, and so the events of the Burial Mounds aren't used as a catalyst for that purpose. Though it's true that WWX's not entirely the same person he was before (because how could be be?), underneath it all, his morals, worldview and core** stay the same. Though gruesome, his revenge is directed towards the ones who wronged him, not those past that and certainly not the entire world. His experience in the Burial Mounds doesn't lead to him being some evil, blackened overlord... like everyone says he is at the start! That's subverted, because again, WWX's values and choices are more important to the story than genre conventions.
But the most crucial thing? What leads to WWX's downfall isn't any blackening! It isn't any vengeance or morally dubious actions***– he was praised for those things during the Sunshot Campaign! No, what leads to his downfall is something completely unrelated to that, something which would've disappeared had the trope been played straight. It's him doing what's right by defending the Wens, it's him following his moral code when it opposes the world's, it's him standing up to the injustice of others – not others standing up to the injustice of him. That's the subversion here.
(Also, once again, the fall of Lotus Pier, the Burial Mound, etc, aren't used for sympathy points – and if it was relevant, they wouldn't have been used to excuse any actions, either. Using tragic events as an excuse for doing bad things is critiqued many times in MDZS, through characters like Xue Yang and Jin Guangyao. And that's not exactly a trope subversion, but it is a critique of badly handled 'excuses'.)
These are by no means all the tropes MDZS subverts – the nature of guidao vs the usual nature of modao being another very major one – but they're the main ones that feature in Scum Villain.
So, though at first glance MDZS seems to play the tropes MXTX critiqued there straighter, it's not a simple case of using them as cliches, and we see that by how they're used to impact the narrative, and how that differs from what they're traditionally used for. MDZS doesn't fall back into clichés Scum Villain satirised – it's the subversion to Scum Villain's exploration and critique.
--
*Which I know is generally used negatively, to describe someone not learning a lesson from a punishment, but it really describes WWX in general, too. He doesn't dwell on that pain, he does his best to move on from it.
**...heh
***And, because it's often debated – whatever the morality/culpability of Nightless City is doesn't even matter! The events happened at a pledge conference against him that was already taking place. WWX's actions there didn't make people want to kill him because that was explicitly happening beforehand.
#these books are SO strongly tied to each other#and enhance each other so much#svsss mdzs the contrasts and parallels between you i love you so much#also this is a lot of what i mean when i say wwx's agency is so so tied to mdzs' narrative#i really really need to write that entire meta (talking about this but about other aspects of the narrative too)#(like how his agency WITHIN the story is also framed as so important throughout)#(etc)#wuxia xianxia tropes in mdzs#mdzs meta#my meta#mdzs#魔道祖师#mo dao zu shi#grandmaster of demonic cultivation#gdc#wei wuxian#svsss tangentially
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Hi rainbowsky! I'm a new-ish (autumn 2023) Yizhan fan - it's been so much fun to explore and read everything available, your blog included! I really enjoy your opinions and insights. I have a question and a request. Question: When CQL first started airing, what were people saying about the relationship between WWX and LZ in the show, and about the actors playing them? Did the CP start right away? Request: Then later on, when the BTS started appearing (when was that - after the show finished airing, right?), what were people saying about the real interactions between the two actors? Were people shocked? Amazed? Even more curious? I can imagine social media was on fire! But I'd like to hear from someone who "lived" through it in real time. Please give me a description of what it was like - especially what your thoughts and feeling were as you saw it happening. I wish I could have been there! Thank you!
Hi Blbrave! Thanks so much, I'm glad you're enjoying my blog!
This is all a very, very long time ago, but I'll do my best to share what I can remember.
Actually, the CP started before the show began airing. The supertopics were opened during filming in 2018. I think this was inevitable, given that the series is based on a BL story. Of course fans of the novel will go into all of this with an eye toward the two characters and, by extension, GG and DD.
Similarly, as the show was airing of course there were a large number of viewers who knew it was a BL and viewed it as a BL at that time, even though it was being billed as a martial brotherhood series. There was a lot of analysis from fans trying to spot various ways that the production team managed to get around censorship and signal the queer romance between WWX and LWJ.
Others have done far better, more comprehensive analysis of all that than I could ever do, but it's so long ago I don't know where those posts might have gone. Some of this was discussed in my post about queerbaiting, so you can look there for more info.
As I said in that post, one of their smartest ways of highlighting the queer relationship was to downplay romance between the straight characters. We never see a straight couple doing something that we don’t also see LWJ and WWX doing. Yanli's wedding happens off camera, yet we see LWJ and WWX do their bows on camera. There’s never a kiss or any kind of PDA between straight characters, yet we see LWJ and WWX in each other’s arms throughout the series.
We got a gay kiss:
We got gay sex:
There was also the headband repeatedly being described as the domain of only family and spouses, and the various ways they connected it with WWX. WWX grabbing it when he was possessing the paperman, and also at one point being tied to LWJ by the wrist with the headband - all of this signalling that WWX was a spousal figure for LWJ.
There was the drunk scene with LWJ giving WWX chickens (a wedding tradition in China).
And many more examples I won't get into.
There were many of those types of things in the series, and they were discussed enthusiastically at the time. However, I don't think there were many bystanders who made those connections. It was primarily fans of the books/show (i.e. those who appreciated it as a BL story and not as a bromance/friendship story) who saw and discussed those hints.
I know the idea that anyone could be so oblivious to the gay subtext throughout the story that they miss the queerness entirely is hard to get one's head around, but straight viewers usually just see WWX and LWJ as best friends and sworn martial brothers. The show could never have been made or aired if that wasn't the case.
In fact, newer fans might not be aware that there was a lot of controversy during filming because of leaked early attempts to create a straight romance between Wei Wuxian and Wen Qing. Some relationship-building scenes between them were filmed, and at one point in the BTS GG is heard complaining about the straight romance and saying that all those scenes should be deleted.
In the production team's defense, there was doubt at the time about whether the show could air given its source material as a BL novel. They likely had investors and backers pressuring them to make sure that the story was unambiguously straight.
Fans of the novel made a massive uproar about it, threatening to boycott the series. The backlash was so extreme that it became a bigger threat to the success of the show, and the straight romance was killed. We all owe a lot to those agitators! 😅
The BTS
The BTS clips were first discussed in an Untamed press conference (that section of the interview starts at around 36:30). The producer said that in the future some of the behind-the-scenes moments would be shared. GG and DD exchanged a glance and looked extremely uncomfortable with it.
A lot of turtles find that clip funny, and laugh about what GG and DD might 'have to hide', but I have never understood how fans can find GG and DD's discomfort funny.
It might surprise some newer turtles to hear that there were moments where GG and DD appeared to be uncomfortable with the BTS, but there were.
Another moment happened in an interview where GG and DD were asked to explain a BTS scene of the two of them in the boat, where GG is lying in DD's lap. DD turns to the interviewer with a shocked and displeased look on his face and says, "They released this?"
There were other moments as well, but I haven't kept a comprehensive record of all that. This happened long before I clued in on how quickly clips can disappear in this fandom.
I believe that it is totally normal to have mixed feelings about the BTS, and I believe GG and DD are no exception to that. No doubt they enjoy some of the clips and feel uncomfortable about some of them, just like many turtles (myself included).
There were official BTS clips released during promo, but the unofficial BTS clips didn't come until later. I talked in more detail about the unofficial BTS and how they came to be released here.
The unofficial clips began being released by fansites in the fall of 2020. It would be hard to overstate how different the atmosphere around them was to what it is now. Now it's quite common to find BTS clips all over the place, both in C-social media and on international sites like YouTube and Instagram.
However, back in 2020 they were extremely hard to get ahold of, and sharing them outside of where they were initially released was strictly forbidden and frowned upon by fans. In fact, if you dig back through my 2020 posts I'm sure you'll find many posts where I admonish people not to share the BTS clips, and where I bitch about people sharing them without authorization. I also answered a lot of asks about these issues at the time (just one example).
Times have changed a lot, and now everyone is sharing them all very freely without any concerns.
The situation was a lot different back then:
GG and DD had gained a tremendous amount of popularity from the show, but their reputations and careers were not yet fully established and secure.
227 was still an active concern that was still making news and still impacting GG's life directly. He had not yet recovered from any of it and was still mostly lying low. He was constantly being attacked and antis were constantly out to get him.
The Untamed was still fresh and current, and being discussed regularly in the media. Because filming was still fairly recent, what happened during filming would still run the risk of impacting GG and DD's lives and careers.
Fans were coming under very close scrutiny because of 227 and other fandom-related scandals. The government was starting to crack down heavily on fandom culture.
This was all uncharted territory. No one knew how the BTS might be received, or how it might impact GG and DD. Fans were very freaked out about the possibility of anything compromising getting leaked and harming the boys.
No doubt fansites were also worried about how fans might respond to some of the releases, and wanted to ensure they didn't upset or anger fans, or stir up more excitement than could be safely contained within the fandom.
All of this contributed to a climate of extreme caution and secrecy around the release of BTS clips.
We never knew when one might be released, and when they were released they were typically only put online for a few minutes, then deleted. This was all done in an effort to limit the exposure of these clips primarily to turtles who have GGDD's best interests in mind.
The clips were heavily watermarked and overlaid with visual and audio curses that 'reuploaders must die!' ('banyun biss', which I'm sure most of you have encountered in some of the clips you've seen).
Early clips were heavily watermarked.
Those who missed out were out of luck. It was extremely socially unacceptable to re-share clips once they'd been deleted. Those who missed out would have to rely on recaps and transcripts from those who had seen the clips. Fans took to staying up all hours watching and waiting for a release.
Back in those days people tried to save every clip they could, hoarding them greedily. Turtles' phones were filling up with large video files. It's funny to think about now, because the clips are everywhere and so easy to find these days, but back then it was a whole Thing.
The initial releases were sporadic and quite tame as fansites dipped their toes in the water of how all this would be received. Gradually over time clips became more frequent and stayed up longer, and some of the more salacious stuff began being released. Those clips were often accompanied by hilarious intro images.
(For those who don't get it, it's the PornHub logo).
Of course all of the clips were heavily discussed as they came out, and a clearer picture of GG and DD's relationship and of their experience of filming began to take shape over time. Some of the fake rumors (such as the 49 fake candies and the CPN that GG designed a racing suit for DD) were gradually proved to be true as these clips were released. However, that was mostly confined to fandom circles.
There were occasionally times when these clips or their content would cross over into the mainstream and start trending on Weibo. In many of those cases, the hotsearches would be bought and pushed by antis of GG and DD who want to see them cancelled. At those times turtles would jump into action to wash those topics and replace them with mundane, unrelated content.
There were fan theories and fake rumors about GG and DD's reaction to the clips. Sometimes when new clips were released GG and DD would be seen online and turtles assumed they were watching them. Of course, considering the clips featured them, it's highly likely that they did eagerly await releases just like the rest of us.
I suspect that it was likely a mixed bag for them. Some clips might have really stressed them out either upon initial release or after reactions began to emerge, while others likely made them laugh and feel nostalgic about filming.
A large percentage of BXG light banners and slogans came directly out of the BTS, some of which you can see GG and DD discussing in LRLG rumors.
Dumplings, rice noodles, 3+2 biscuits (cr @knivescharade in this post), discussed in this LRLG rumor.
There were definitely a few scandals and close calls that came out of the unofficial BTS, and solos and antis frequently tried to use them against GG and DD and tried to spin negative narratives about their relationship using disingenuous takes and edits of them (they still do to this day).
For example, the clip where GG tells DD that he prefers a natural look to idol makeup was used against GG at the time, and antis tried to make it seem like GG was homophobic and that GG was against men wearing makeup. Some of the clips where they were playfighting or bickering were used to try to create a narrative that they hated each other. That kind of thing.
BTS and fan service
One of the most common questions I've gotten about the BTS - and I still often get this question - is, "Aren't the BTS just acted out/scripted as fan service to promote the show?"
There are a few reasons people have this question in their minds.
Solos #1 narrative about GGDD is that their CP was just for the show and the BTS was all fan service, and nothing about their relationship is real. They push this claim very aggressively on social media anytime GGDD or The Untamed is discussed, and new fans will almost always encounter those claims in this way.
CP fan service is a normal part of how dramas are promoted, so people familiar with Asian dramas will often immediately jump to that assumption about GG and DD and about the BTS.
Heteronormativity leads many people to immediately dismiss the possibility of a gay relationship, which leads them to try to come up with other explanations for those clips.
People naturally have a hard time believing what they're seeing with some of those clips. Some of it is pretty jaw-dropping and it's understandable that some people will be skeptical.
However, there are a lot of really good reasons why these clips are obviously not fan service.
For one thing, the show was billed as a martial brotherhood, not as a romance. Some of the official BTS clearly did try to appeal to CP and MDZS fans and could be counted as fan service, but those weren't even the ones BXG are most excited about. (There is a playlist of some of the official BTS clips here).
The most exciting stuff was never released during promo, and almost none of it is overtly romantic. A lot of it is really crude and totally unreleasable as promo. GG and DD are lewd, crude and often rude in ways that only two people who are really close could ever get away with. In many cases it's the casual way GG and DD constantly cross polite social boundaries with each other that shows their intimacy, rather than anything overtly sweet or romantic.
A lot of it is also totally incomprehensible to regular audiences. You have to be a turtle digging deeply into GGDD to understand the significance of most of it. For example the way GG took care of DD on his birthday, or the way DD constantly bargained and haggled with GG to get him to eat more.
Most importantly, if it was all fan service then why did GG and DD never do any joint CP endorsements? The entire point of doing that type of fan service is to make a buck. Other drama CP - including BL - do this all the time.
And it doesn't make sense that a production that was as low budget as The Untamed could afford to have the two lead actors learn a whole second set of lines and do a whole second performance that never ended up getting released.
And of course, none of that explains why the bulk of the BTS clips ended up in the hands of fans and released years after the show finished airing. A lot of it still has never been released to this day.
I've often joked that if the BTS were scripted they were far more complex, more melodramatic and better written than the drama itself. You just can't come up with this stuff in a writer's room. 😅
Anyway, this post got a bit long but hopefully it gives you a bit more of a picture of what it was all like at the time. Sorry, I guess I didn't talk much about my own feelings/reactions, but hopefully you can get somewhat of a sense.
Overall it was exciting, but I also had some deep reservations about it all (and got a lot of hate mail for voicing those feelings, too). Keep in mind this wasn't long after 227, so I think it's understandable that I was feeling very wary about everything.
But that's all water under the bridge now. It's been many years, and if the BTS were going to harm GGDD it would have already happened. I think it's all pretty safe territory now.
Edit: some more of my thoughts and feelings at the time:
One of the most exciting things for me about the BTS clips was seeing so many of the fake rumors being proved true. There were a lot of rumors (including the 49 fake candies) that I totally scoffed at when I first heard about them, only to later find via the BTS clips that I had been totally wrong about them and that these things had actually happened, and even crazier things were gradually revealed.
Things were changing pretty rapidly for a while there now that I think about it.
Learning more about their relationship and seeing just how much they looked out for each other was another big one for me. Also the timeline. The BTS really reinforced my belief in The Devil's Timeline (the belief that they got together prior to filming).
But overall that was a very different time in the fandom as well. There were always so many candies coming out, not just BTS clips but things that came out of GG and DD's activities and social media posts. It was a really really busy time in the fandom.
Since then there has been a government crackdown on fandom culture, on the entertainment industry, on LGBTQ etc. in China, plus DD's split with Nike and him having to delete a lot of his GG candy posts from his Weibo account.
Things are so different now, and unfortunately a lot of it for the worse. Being a turtle is not always easy, and I'm sure being GG and DD can't always be easy either. We make it work, but I do sometimes look back wistfully on the freer, more exciting times in the fandom.
More such times could come in the future. We just have to keep moving forward and hope for the best.
Somewhat related: I did a semi-comprehensive post about GG and DD's reaction to turtles here.
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One of the first meta posts I remember reading when I got into The Untamed fandom was about the mask that Wei Wuxian wears in CQL (an adaptational change from the book, where he doesn't wear a mask because he's still got MXY's face and body.) Western audiences would not be familiar with the context of masks in Chinese opera, which are often used as a visual shorthand to indicate that a character is now embodying/channeling/becoming some manner of supernatural entity or spirit. Which I thought was really cool!
But now gives me an idea for a situation in a CQL story where Mo Xuanyu is going around saying "hey everyone, guess what, I did a ritual and now I've got the Yiling Laozu's spirit on tap, check this out" and he puts on the mask and starts talking like WWX. Which leaves everybody in the audience wondering, is he doing this because:
he thinks he has Wei Wuxian's spirit in his head, but it's some other kind of ghost or spiritual entity that is deceiving him
he thinks he has Wei Wuxian's spirit in his head, but it's a symptom of some other illness Mo Xuanyu has got going on
he's straight up just lying
he actually does have Wei Wuxian's spirit in his head
And the only people who know for sure that it's not #4 is Wei Wuxian himself, who has already been Sacrifice Summon'd into someone else.
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So, this is my first post, so hello everyone! I don't really know how to properly navigate this platform just yet, but I'm sure I will figure it out, so please bear with me.
Having said that, unfortunately, I've come here today to rant a little on social media about things that make me borderline insane just from listening to. Most specifically, from MTXT's works. (Because if I ever see another wrong characterization for those fictional people I've became very attached to, I'm actually going to go mad.)
(This is not meant to be an attack of any sorts, I'm just a teenager on social media pulling my nerves into writing because who knows, maybe I can finally be at peace then.)
Let's start then!
Xie Lian is not owo small cutie or sum, and if I hear that one time... my man may be short, but he could fight off almost anyone, just thanos clapping people out of existence. He's also very insane and very horny about the Calamity attached to his hip. My guy is pretty smart and also just kinda gives patient auntie vibes (you know, that auntie that can see beyond everyone's bull but choses not to).
And if I already started with TGCF, may as well continue with it. Hua Cheng is a switch and you can't convince me otherwise. (If his Dianxia wanted to top, he would be as elated as he would be if Dianxia wanted to bottom. My man doesn't care.)
Luo Binge being referred as a white lotus and people not knowing what it means ("In Chinese internet novels, the term "white lotus" refers to a character who appears innocent, naive, and pure on the surface but uses this reputation to backstab, blame, or sling mud on others.") (I believe maybe people confuse this with the other meanings of the white lotus, like, actually naive or pure in character, but those are obliviously not what they mean in the chinese novels)
Shen Yuan is Kim Dokja, but chinese (or maybe KD is SY but korean)
Lan Wangji did not like Wei Wuxian despite him being 'evil', he loved him exactly because he isn't evil. I can't stress this enough. If wwx was a actually bad person, lwj would not hesitate to cut his head off and be done with the matter. Whenever I see someone saying something about him liking wwx even if he's evil, I'm slowly loosing my mind, bcz no, lwj is not such a shallow person, to be attracted to someone based purely on looks (and we do know this bcz he loves wwx in mxy's body just as much as he loved him in his original body.)
Now, we're moving into a territory I like exploring. I just want to start this off saying that I don't like Jiang Wanyin. I just don't care very much about him and I find him annoying as a person. With that being said, I'm a little miffed with fellow jc dislikers bcz they sometimes invent some things up about him or such shenanigans. Like. Man, you do not need to invent things to hate abt him, there are already plenty of them. I'm pretty unbiased when it comes to actual judgements about others. I will protect someone if the points made about them is incorrect as much as I will point out every thing they actually did bad.
And the next point is still abt jc (wow, what a surprise) just bcz, honest to god, a lot of his fans are straight up annoying. I've said it. A lot of y'all are hella annoying. (Not to say that there exist a lor of annoying fans for other characters, it's just that jc has a very high number of them) Some of the ones I don't find bad are those that like him just becouse of how bad of a person he is. I can respect that. What I can't respect is another owo he's innocent and traumatized and a tsundere and everything is wwx's fault owo jc fan. Fam, did we read the same book, or has media really rotten our colective brain that much??
(I believe I have more comments on this jc topic, but my brain is starting to hurt.)
And the last one is Wei Wuxian, probably the most controversial character in all of MTXT's novels. First of all, I have to be clear about this, but in all of this post, I'm purely referring to the characters from the books, not the other adaptations. This is important, bcz the adaptations further skewed wwx's image in the fandom.
I have saved him for least because of just how much things tick me off in this fandom when discussing wwx in special.
Disclaimer that I sincerely believe that you should enjoy and do art and fanfiction of characters however you want. If you want wwx to be, idk, a demon that terrorizes people and breaks lwj's heart and then jc comes and saves the situation from the evil patriarch and then french kisses Lan Xichen, then go ahead, idc (Unless you say he's owo, you have no excuse that would allow you to do that unless you're a child, and if you are, then you shouldn't even be here). But I draw the line when people lie about canon characterizations.
And there is just so much misconceptions on wwx's character that I would need an essay just to compose a list of them. They range from huge details that somehow miss people like how their neurons miss firing, to small details, like his handwriting (I believe the novel said it was cursive, not messy, like how almost all the fandom has apparently mutually agreed on. Do corect me if I'm wrong on this, some things are lost from translation to translation)
I will be discussing just some of them here. Maybe I will do another post where I go in more detail, we will see.
ADHD Wei Wuxian. The people that believe wwx has ADHD should probably reread the novel, bcz that characterization comes mostly from CQL. In the novel, wwx is a very chill guy that can stay in one place perfectly fine. I will not go into more details, just read the novel.
Wei Wuxian is the reason for the Jiang's collapse. Bull statement, everytime I see it, well, I go a little more insane. If you know a little politics, you would realize the Jiangs were next on the list for sure. Why, you would ask. The Lans already burnt themselves to the ground. The Nies have a fortress for a sect. The Jins are almost-not-exactly allies with the Wens. Now, guess who is the most unfavorably positioned gentry sect (lakes are not a good strategic spot), with lax protection (how did the Wens just march in like that like what) and a little too carele leader (Jiang Fenmiang really thought the Wens will give them back the swords after that whole disaster that was the indoctrination? Really??). Oh! I think I know who it is! And maybe you guessed it too. Glad we're on the same page.
Now, wwx being the reason why jc lost his core. Very many people already came to their own conclusion on why jc gave himself up. Brotherly affection, suicidal thoughts or just straight up idiocy. Whatever you believe, it's fine with me (but I do have a brother and I can assure you, wwx and jc never really seemed like brothers to me. They are a little too far to the left to be considered brothers, but this is my opinion, take it however you will). So, was it wwx's fault?
We're finally getting into the juicy stuff. The blame game. I hate it with my being, still, as long as I'm in fandoms, I must persist. My answer is yes & no. Did wwx deliberately made it so jc would be captured? Of course not. Did it still happened? Unfortunately, yes. To go deeper, we will look a little at fate. There are some things that are outside of our control. As much as we prepare, some things will still blow us over. So the definite answer is no. Jc made the decision to be seen by the Wens. It might sound callous , but the decisions you make are yours, even if you protect someone's life or not. Wwx did not ask to be protected. In conclusions, it's not his fault.
And that is a very good statement to make, seeing as we got to the core transfer. People often criticize wwx for giving non-consensualy his core to jc. I always thought it as a weird thing to hate him about, but whatever, I still shall address it. I will start with an exemple. If you loved someone very much, and they would die if they don't get, idk, a new arm (maybe think of something less inconspicuous, but you understand the ideea) they would die. You are the single person that can do it. But you're sure that if someone told your loved one that you would give it, they would refuze it. Are you still going to give your arm? Will you let your loved one die? Knowing that you can help?
And for those that say jc was not on the brink of death. He was suicidal. He would not have resisted a week with the shame of inferiority plus all the trauma that the Lotus Pier massacre was, combined. 'Regaining' his core might have actually made him feel better, like he beat the odds, like he has another chance. That's also why wwx never told him he gave him his core. Bcz he knew jc would not take it easy, finding out that all his accomplishments were thanks to wwx's sacrifice. Because jc has a big ego that's clearly evident through the story.
Anyways, let's continue.
Ghostly Cultivation. It's more popularity used the Demonic Cultivation term, but they are not the same think for Christ's sake. Modao Zushi does mean The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, however the title is for click bait. In the actual novel, I believe wwx talks abt ghostly cultivation, not demonic. It was probably lost in translations.
I don't think I need to explain how wwx needed guidao to escape the Burial Mounds, so at least half of my job is already done. Now I go into dangerous territory however, bcz guidao is not expended upon. Still, I would rather listen to wwx when it's about, you know, the path he himself created?
To explain my stance, we would need to go deeper into the novel's points. A novel can have multiple themes, ranging from obvious ones, like love, family, to obscure ones, like, the importance of standing up for oneself (not the best exemple, but I believe y'all understand what I mean).
I'm someone that loves thinking abt MDZS. It's my dearest. So, I tend to analyze it pretty often. And the themes I usually get are things like 'the danger of hearsay and mob mentality', 'the importance of standing true to your ideals', 'the inherit unpredictability of life' and so on, and so on.
Anyways, what does that have to do with guidao? Well, everything, I believe. The MDZS world has a mentality resembling that of the curent China. Or well, the China of when MXTX wrote the novel. If you know some history, I believe you can connect the similarities. What does that mean then?
Wwx is someone that does not fallow the path set by the ancestors. He creates his own. When the cultivators see that, they are revolted. Becouse everything that strays from the 'right' path must surely be evil. And so, after Wen Ruohan, the Jins paint him as the new anarchist, and the rest is history.
Now, I would actually love to continue, but I've been typing nonstop for hours now, I need to stop. I will continue my points in another post, bcz I still have a lot of them.
Thanks for reading, and have a wonderful day 💐
#mxtx#mdzs#tgcf#svsss#wei wuxian#lan wangji#jiang cheng#xie lian#hua cheng#shen qingqiu#shen yuan#luo binghe#can you tell that I love mdzs#my head is about to explode from a headache#and I just typed for hours on end#the power of being done with fanon gave me strength
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hi hi hi!!! since last time u asked for hcs or ideas, and i couldn't come up with any in the moment, I AM HERE TO SHARE (mine) AND ASK UR OPINIONS ON XIANXUAN (WWX X JZX) NOW... 😩
dont even get me started, personally for me, its HARD TO NOT ship two men who have punched each other for at least once in their life. AND WHEN THEY BOTH ACTUALLY HV CONSIDERATION FOR EO DEEP DOWN LIKE from hating each other's guts to punching each other's face to competing to an extent (over one girl literally) to actually having no hard feelings for each other to having consideration deep down for each other to believing in each other (to love the girl genuinely) to wwx accidentally and unintentionally killing jzx to mourning over his death and blaming himself for all of it to living again and taking care of his child...😩 i...ok half of the grief came bcs of shijie but ONE CAN IMAGINE AAAAH.
im sorry for making this long, help. (honestly ure the first ever acc i have found shipping them in one of ur arts so i HAVE to rant omg)
i love their dynamic sm, somehow i want wwx to top jzx at any fucking cost. WHY ?! because he wanna prove he's better and better and BETTER than this fucking peacock and he wanna crush his attitude so bad like...and jzx just tryna keep up with him and this fucker is back with new tricks to put him where he belongs. then ends up putting him under himself. oMG. help. im crazy. bye.
SJSHSKSK MY GOD. looks like im gonna go on a brainrot.
They were some of the most obvious to me too only to find no one talking about them, I guess the whole WangXian tunnel-vision and Jin Zixuan not having a fandom will do that to a dynamic.
I just hoped in canon they'd have...more. I wanted to see their arc, I wanted them to fight side by side, wanted to see Zixuan defend Wei Wuxian in front of the gossipy pricks and his word mattering to them, wanted to see Wei Wuxian punch someone for Jin Zixuan, instead of punching him for Yanli.
Straight Zixuan is also extremely boring to me and him secretly crushing on the brothers, maybe even popping a boner while wwx gets REAL CLOSE to him during a fight and needing to leave RIGHT NOW... He'll be a good bridge between the two, he's quiet, arrogant and loyal to duty as Jiang Cheng is, but wwx is what he wished he could be like in certain aspects, not to say that with their constant teasing and play-fights, some truths will come out sooner rather than later.
And when it comes to smut I love to imagine that something that starts as a hate fuck with neither backing down but both their inexperience starts showing but unlike jzx who's more honestly embarrassed about it, wwx has this fake confidence and "need-to-take-cate-of" impulse that turn it into something a bit clumsy but respectful and with a genuine goal of the other enjoying it. Maybe wwx can keep it as their secret,as jzx parades himself around like the straight guy people think he is afterwards.
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Modern MDZS au where WWX gets in a debate with college professor LQR about LGBTQA+ stuff, probably bc WWX is “corrupting” LWJ with the gay agenda. And stealing all of LWJ’s turtlenecks, for some odd reason! The boy clearly can’t take care of his own clothes, they’re all tattered and his hair is a birds nest.
Anyways, LWR is going on about how the homos are lecherous filth that have fallen to temptation or smth while covering up their transgressions by naming themselves odd things. Really, LQR asks, “what even is a pan-sexual?” (Or some other such thing that shows he doesn’t actually know anything anout being queer)
“Oh, you don’t know?” WWX asks, eyes wide and innocent and CLEARLY up to Some Shit. “Professor Lan, Professor Lan, Professor ‘show your sources do your research’ LAN. Do you not know what we’re debating about?”
LQR huffs and starts saying something about family values and continuing on bloodlines, but WWX is grinning like the cat that caught the canary.
“Professor, have you ever actually researched this? Or are you just wasting my time?” (An actual LQR quote from earlier in the semester)
LQR puffs up, and he’s all “of course I haven’t-“
“Well then, Sir,” WWX interrupts, manic joy written all over his expression, “may I just say that you have the audacity of a white man insisting that Mandarin is just a type of orange.”
The bell rings before LQR can get a word in, and WWX grabs his bag and books it to the door.
“I’ll send you some reading, Professor Lan! Let’s do this again when you know what you’re talking about!”
And with that he’s gone.
Now, WWX is only a little bit of a hypocrite, bc he definitely thought he was straight and only just managed his Revelation of “oh heck Lan Zhan is so pretty he turned me gay?” *research montage bc he actually has resources (and NHS definitely helped.) “Oh maybe girls are just pretty and I’m demisexual.”
However, the fact that he only JUST did this, means his ADHD self still has all the tabs open. And, like, he did say he’d send stuff, and this is Lan Zhan’s uncle. So, he compiles a helpful list of sites and articles, includes a link to a place where you can ask questions to the Queer Council, and sends it off.
LQR is initially going to ignore it, but then his scholar brain gets the better of him. WWX had made a point, he was woefully unprepared, and so with the intention of finding points to throw in that little brat’s face, he braces himself for horrible outlandish untraditional family-breaking nastiness, plus whatever else WWX might have put in there (ancestors if that horrid boy sent him PORN he’ll have him expelled) and opens the links.
He finds a bunch of actual helpful websites.
Definitions for all the names, labels, flags. Helpful tips for understanding yourself. Pictures of couples holding hands, smiling happily.
“Love isn’t just for procreation.”
Resources for kids who’s parents kicked them out. Survival tips. Unsafe areas.
And, because I’m personally a big fan of Demisexual WWX, a whole bunch of websites on the Asexual spectrum. You know, where people say, “oh yeah, apparently other people actually DO feel that urge to have sex with people. The songs aren’t making stuff up y’all. We’re just built different.”
LQR: nani tf?
Thus begins a confused deep dive into asexuality, what it means, allosexuals and all that jazz. LQR actually does end up asking a question on one of the sites, something like:
“I always believed that people who allowed themselves to be lustful and fall into bed with others were simply unrestrained. Is it true that some people feel an actual need for this? I have felt attraction for a woman before, but I never felt the need that some popular media attests to.”
There’s a bunch of replies, but one sticks out to LQR:
“Gonna be crude for a sec, excuse me- did you actually want to bang her? Or were you friends and heteronormative society insisted that boys and girls gotta want to fuck?”
LQR, who as a young man looked at CSSR and thought “If I have to marry, I wouldn’t mind her”: 🤯🤯🤯
Oh no.
He has to face that smirking little brat WWX.
#lan qiren#wei wuixan#wangxian#ace lan qiren#demisexual wangxian#mdzs fanfiction#mdzs prompt#modern mdzs
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all my irreverence and shitposting aside I am genuinely alarmed by two trends I'm noticing in the mdzs fandom, tho this can obviously apply to other fandom spaces too:
younger fans (under age ~24) in general (as in I know this won't apply to everyone, don't @ me) seem to struggle with critical analyses of the canon if the analyses in question are longer than a handful of paragraphs. I understand the value of being succinct where possible since that helps with clearly communicating an idea to an audience. but there is a significant difference between presenting a succinct explanation of a complex idea, and presenting a shallow misrepresentation of a complex idea because you haven't taken the time to carefully read the source material and then think about it before drafting your response.
there's a big problem (again, predominately among younger fans, or at least those who publicly display their age on their profiles) in certain corners of this fandom with conflating a fan's sympathetic reading of the antagonist characters (e.g., jin guangyao and jiang cheng) with that fan's real world attitudes around such issues as violence against women and children, sex crimes in general, and class consciousness.
like. case in point, I just erased over half of this post because I anticipated that many people would skim over 60% of the content and jump straight to the angry keymashing. but it's worrying to me that this is most prevalent among younger fans because you guys are the ones who are up and coming in fandom spaces. you're the ones who are going to be driving these conversations. isn't it important to you to be sure that you are understanding what someone else is actually saying to you before you decide to tell them why they're wrong?
genuine request: can we collectively agree that no one in the mdzs fandom actually thinks rape, murder, corpse desecration, or child abuse is okay? can we collectively agree that, when a jgy or jc 'stan' attempts to contextualize jgy or jc's actions within the source material (or dares to draw a narrative parallel between jgy or jc and wwx), what we are not doing is trying to diminish the seriousness of rape, murder, corpse desecration, or child abuse in the real world?
if we can just reach some kind of mutual agreement on this point specifically, maybe we can move on from kicking this fierce corpse of a horse and start talking about, idk. the novel.
#do i dare put this in the tags#hmmm#i will contemplate#yeah i'm doing it#jin guangyao#jiang cheng#wei wuxian#mdzs meta
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Just saw your MDZS thing and I half agree and half not. Like, on the one hand, I think it's absolutely justified (though I don't generally support any torture, but this is fiction and...it's Wen Chao...), but on the other hand, it's not supposed to be black and white??? MXTX clearly wanted her readers to understand the cruelty of this moment. Wei Wuxian was so traumatized he became kind of twisted, at least with the people who massacred the Jiangs. But even though we all know WWX is NOT the evil overlord that the cultivation world thinks him to be, he is not meant to be seen as someone who can do no wrong. He makes mistakes! Some of the fault does, in fact, lie with him! He's not 100% sunshine boy! And THAT'S OKAY. In fact, him being complex is WHY he's such a good character! And it boggles my mind how people will go to any lengths to make him perfectly innocent and pure in everything (rather than being traumatized and human) while also vilifying Jiang Cheng and Jin Guangyao and Xue Yang and whoever else. Like, the latter two obviously did really bad things, worse than WWX, but they are very obvious mirrors to WWX. Xue Yang grew up an orphan on the streets. If WWX hadn't been rescued by Jiang Fengmian, he might've turned out the same way. Jin Guangyao was consistently denigrated for being the son of a prostitute. WWX also faced classism (to a lesser extent) for being the son of a servant (which Yu Ziyuan and Jin Zixun used against him). And don't even get me started on JC. People will go to any extent to vilify him when all of his actions make sense as someone who is also human and flawed and traumatized. Does this absolve any of them of their actions? No. But it does explain them. And just because someone does make mistakes doesn't mean they deserve to be hated and condemned (unless they're Wen Chao, who didn't make mistakes but who instead had an entire personality dedicated to being horrible. Pretty sure he's the only one who MXTX wanted to be a straight up bad guy, though if you can give me evidence to the contrary, feel free). Readers thinking in black and white and condemning other characters for xyz actions without trying to understand them while holding up WWX as a shining beacon who can do no wrong miss the entire point of the novel and do disrespect to WWX himself. Anyway... There's my rant over. Feel free to ignore this if you want, haha.
I’m not completely sure what you mean in regards to “half agreeing and half not” tbh. It seems to me like your disagreement lies with vilifying other characters when the main character is a morally complex character, which was my point? The morality policing was specifically what I was criticizing in my original post? Because, like, I agree with the broad strokes about Wei Wuxian and other characters’ moral complexities and grayness.
My point was that, even if justified or understandable, the torture of Wen Chao was horrific and brutal, and I don’t completely understand how anyone who DID read the novel (which I understand not everyone has and/or has a different interpretation) is willing to harass actual, flesh-and-blood people over liking a character when the main character has literally tortured someone. That’s it.
I actually made my original post after a bunch of Jiang Cheng antis (who I do actually like talking to and seeing their opinions when they’re not harassing others) found an Aroace-spec Character Tournament poll with Jiang Cheng and were incredibly condescending about it. Which is honestly better than the death threats and threats of violence and doxxing, but it did hurt more than it probably should have to have people so unwilling to even TRY and see why I, and others, connected to Jiang Cheng, even after reading the same book that made them hate him.
Seeing a character say, “Hey, what you did was not okay. I know why you did it, but it doesn’t change the damage you caused. I do not forgive you." to the main character was something that I needed to hear and see. It was something real, even if it might not be justifiable or “correct.” I like Jiang Cheng not because I think he’s always in the right or a perfect person, but because he’s not. And it’s fine if people don’t like him or think he’s the scum of the Earth or whatever, but I also think that prioritizing the debate about a character that doesn’t exist over actual people is cruel and unjustifiable. Ultimately, I do not care about any fictional character as much as I care about how willing people are to be so unbelievably inhumane for just disagreeing with them.
And, somehow, this also ties into my opinions about the torture and killing of Wen Chao. I don’t think Wei Wuxian was unjustified, per se, for punishing Wen Chao, but I do think it was wrong in the sense that the action itself is wrong. It’s not a “WHOOO! WE KILLED THE BAD GUY” moment to me but a moment showing the brutality of war and a literary mark of descent to the “single plank bridge.” As someone else said (and so many more have probably said), it was fucked up, and acknowledging it was fucked up doesn’t mean Wei Wuxian is a “bad person” or a character you CAN’T like (paraphasing). It just means acknowledging that the act of torture itself is fucked up, no matter who does it or who it’s done to. Comparatively, sending death threats and threats of violence and doxxing is also fucked up, no matter who the other person is and what they’ve said. Putting a fictional story and character - no matter how much they may mean to you - over actual people for often no reason is fucked up.
But yeah, I think “just because someone does make mistakes doesn’t mean they deserve to be hated and condemned” is one of my favorite aspects in a lot of web novels. I like that characters have “bad aspects” that while I may not condone IRL, including them make the characters… characters. That the “person” (character) is more important than whatever “bad aspect” they may have or mistake they might have made.
Anyway, I hope this clears up what I was trying to say lol. Not everything I wrote was meant specifically because I think you don’t agree or to argue with you, but to get my opinion across properly. I feel like we’re broadly saying the same thing, even if I’m not sure if I agree or disagree with the finer points like “Wei Wuxian might have become like Xue Yang.” Sorry if any of this comes off as aggressive, btw; it's not meant to be, but I lose my fight with tone everyday.
#not a poll#asks#discourse#long post#hopefully I got your point(s) right as well but lmk if I didn't#I wouldn't respond if I wasn't somewhat confident I figured it out but communication is not one of my skills lol#web speaks#mdzs spoilers#spoilers
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surprise! I read volume 1 of svss
conclusion:
okay, on a serious note - I know, I know, but the curiosity was really getting to me, and I like to know what I'm dealing with when I criticize something (if you were following me when I decided to read the mdzs novel, you'll remember I did the same thing then). anon who asked me if I'd ever read it because they wanted to hear my thoughts and I said no - well, if you're still out there, you got your wish. but only volume one (1/4 of the full story). read on for my impression and review.
many thanks to jana @neixins for being my discord reading buddy for this project! her support, insights, and companionship made this far more entertaining than it would have otherwise been
fun fact before we start: I don't know why svss is exclusively referred to by its english acronym, but the acronym for its mandarin title would be RZFZX (full title Rén zhā fǎnpài zìjiù xìtǒng). I suppose svss (or SVS, or SV) is snappier
this is the official translation I'm reading, and the writing style is fine. definitely easier to parse than orv. and the art really is lovely
tw for discussion of grooming, abuse, and rape
brief overview of the plot: protag shen yuan, a modern-day young adult, is reading a long, terrible male power fantasy/stallion novel and complaining about how contrived and stupid it is. he dies at the moment he finishes reading and is transmigrated into the novel in the body of the infamously cruel and sadistic teacher of the protag, shen qingqiu. he knows that the young protagonist of the novel (luo binghe) will enact terrible revenge on the teacher when he grows up for all the abuse he suffered under sqq's hands, so he tries to make nice and get the lbh to like him
shen yuan (now sqq) has to navigate the rules of the system while trying to save his own skin, avoid acting ooc while trying to be nice to the mc, advance the plot, get 'badass points', and resolve the issues that led to the work being of such poor quality. his modern, internal monologue contrasts with his scholarly air in very funny ways, and his constant critiques of the writing are likewise fairly humorous commentaries on lazy and stereotypical writing
however, the parodies of contrived, cliched, and foolish writing tropes do not stop mxtx from writing these very same tropes into later works like mdzs or tgcf, nor does her pointing out those tropes automatically make her book good, so it's an incredibly exasperating experience. I thought she improved since writing mdzs, but it seems like she knows that what she's doing is cliched or pandering but she does it anyway. much like sy, we're exasperated because this could have been a really cool work and the execution is just not what it could have been
this book also has the dubious honor of being the only mxtx book to reference incest without condemning it or recognizing it's disgusting
I do think mxtx has a genuine talent for critiquing sexist and absurd romance tropes for straight couples, but she writes as if whatever gay people do to each other is fine. readers of tgcf and mdzs will know....in fact as much as I hate to say it, the moment in mdzs where wwx apologizes for assaulting lwj is one of the better ways she's handled these things. of course it's ruined later because lwj literally doesn't care he's been raped and they move past it immediately etc. but I would be shocked if the inappropriateness of the svss relationship is EVER addressed, so mdzs may actually be the one where it's handled slightly better. we know the age gap never comes up in tgcf, of course
anyway mxtx makes fun of the idea of a female love interest providing the mc with free therapy while she constructs a scenario in which sqq has to take on a love interest's role of support/inspiration
examples: this is a character that's presented as poorly-wriiten
this is LITERALLY how xuan ji tgcf was written except she hates pm instead of being obsessed with him like was in the past!! don't critique shitty writing for female characters if you refuse to do better!
the characters are not especially noteworthy, and unlike in tgcf or mdzs the mc has no real distinctive style, either visually or personality-wise. almost everyone was either very one-dimensional, unlikable, or just boring imo. I get that we're very early into the novel, but I don't really care about these characters at all. shame because it sounds like the side characters are really fun later on
the modern-day origins of sy make for some funny references - there are mentions of harry potter, and the book he gets isekaid into apparently has a ton of fanfiction
the horror is quite good - some of those monsters are freaky as hell. she always did have a knack for horror
much like mdzs has a ton of literary references, svss has a lot of references to modern films and tv shows, and to things like chinese ads or websites that a modern-day chinese reader would recognize, but that a translator would need to explain. it also does have some proverbs and wordplay as well
as for the elephant in the room: I consider the relationship in this novel to be grooming rather than csa/pedophilia. they may not get together until they're adults, but the mc is 14 years old when sy is isekaid in and there is absolutely already some kind of mutual something going on as early as chapter 1, despite sy criticizing other characters for being creepy with their students and referring to lbh as a child repeatedly. while sqq doesn't act on any of these feelings, it is impossible to ignore in their interactions and it did give me a helpless sense that I was in a horror movie
mxtx toes the line and tries to get away with as much as possible - adult/child relationships and grooming are a joke to her and her readers, something exciting, something fun, but like in tgcf, nothing actually happens
they would have had a much better relationship as simply master and student. or if the romance needed to be there, sy could have been isekaid into one of lbh's peers, as he had plenty of bullies his age - gay love changing the course of the narrative is a fun trope and if they'd been the same age, I genuinely would have enjoyed it. but lbh venerates and hero-worships his teacher, and this kind of power dynamic doesn't just cease to matter once he hits 18. he was an abused and vulnerable child offered kindness and support, and he latched onto and became obsessed with his teacher. getting a crush on a teacher is fine, but it shouldn't have turned into a romance. like tgcf, the issues with the main couple are foundational, but they could have been eliminated by the author just not being a fucking creep
also, sqq is vain and self-centered, and while he treats lbh kindly and praises him, he also treats him like a servant and shamelessly exploits his hero-worship to get good food and manual labor out of him. he's out for his survival so I understand him acting selfishly, but he internally talks down to all the characters he meets if he thinks they're poorly written, and it makes it a nightmare to be in his head for very long bc he's so mean. he is funny, but but he fucking sucks and I dislike him as a main character. compared to wwx and xl, he's the worst main character in terms of personality (even if he's much better than the original sqq)
for specific examples for the inappropriate writing of their relationship, all in this volume:
there are several vague descriptions of ~feelings~ on both sides when they see each other (lbh is 14)
at one point, sqq is poisoned in a way that he knows can only be cured by sex with lbh, and he thinks of it briefly before laughing it off like 'wow that would be CRAZY' as always mxtx, jokes are a great way to handle statutory rape. excerpt:
💀💀💀💀💀
lbh overhears that sqq praised him, and the character he overhears it from is described as a wingman (lnh is 15)
one of the disciples is angry that sqq suddenly favors lbh. excerpt:
after lbh 'dies' at age 17, sqq scolds himself, saying he's acting like a widow who's husband has died
so while nothing romantic or sexual happens this volume, the groundwork is there. see this screenshot from chapter 5 of the novel (originally chapter 30), at the very end of this volume:
if sqq had no attraction to his student, there would be no reason to be so panicked
it's like...nobody acts normally about this. lbh and sqq have the weirdest quasi-flirtatious conversations that skirt the edge of being explicitly romantic/sexual. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that this was written to appeal to people who are into age gaps and grooming, if not outright csa. have some more excerpts
like...what IS THIS?
at the end of this volume, lbh is sent away for five years by sqq (he was forced to drop him into a demon abyss bc he needed to advance the plot) so when lbh returns he will be 22 and presumably VERY angry with sqq, and will probably use his newfound power to...torture him? or something? I don't know how their relationship will go from now on, but I have no interest in reading it when I know it's going to end with them as lovers. yeah, even if it does happen when they're both in their late 20s
otherwise, the first few chapters of the novel are extremely funny. it and has a lot of original ideas. but it's difficult to ignore such a premise, and I don't think it's worth it to grit your teeth through unless you have a particular interest in reading this book, to either critique it, enjoy the humor and creativity, or try to figure out why people are so hell-bent on defending it. and honestly by chapter 4 (around ch25 in the original novel), it's not even that funny anymore and the parody aspect has worn out since there's so little of substance to replace it. the og novel is mocked for being a cliched mess, but these are mxtx's actual characters now and she doesn't really seem to do much better with them
the age gap in tgcf is creepy too and I definitely don't like that hc became fixated on xl at a young age, impersonated a little kid, and then reverted back to a little-kid form, but xl not actually knowing him or forming a relationship with him back then is part of why I'm less grossed out about it than I otherwise would be. xl didn't know who hc was when they met and they had barely any relationship when hc was a little kid. he was just a fun guy and they started hanging out together. hc wasn't a young boy placed under his care who he started developing feelings for oh my god I hate sqq so much
there was a side character that sqq describes as 'beautiful' who he had a somewhat antagonistic relationship with who would have been a PERFECT love interest for sqq if he wasn't a fucking creep and im so mad that they didn't become lbh's gay dads instead of whatever the fuck went on
tl; dr: an engaging and original premise with a lot of humor. clever and insightful in many ways, with some great horror scenes, but as in other novels, unable to be normal about gay people and inescapably, unnecessarily ruined by the grooming between the main character and his love interest and the abuse that apparently comes afterwards. also ignorant to its own faults, sexism, and illogical stances even as it parodies others
spoilers for the rest of the book
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according to a beloved mewtual who has provided me summary for the rest (thank you for the info!), the relationship is fucked up for the remainder of the book for completely different reasons
ready? after lbh comes back, sqq is freaked out and doesn't want anything to do with him because he thinks lbh is going to kill him. lbh in fact doesn't want to kill him, but has apparently undergone a complete personality change and is now just a bitter and VERY yandere asshole and proceeds to torment, stalk, harass, torture, and sexually assault sqq until sqq agrees to be in a relationship with him. this abuse and shifting of power dynamics could have been handled in an interesting way, but it isn't, and who's surprised
later in the story lbh is risking qi deviation, so sqq reluctantly (and painfully?) dual-cultivates with him. I heard years ago about some kind of rape torture porn scene and I assume this is what it was referring to
I cannot imagine the appeal this romance holds for fans because this sounds completely fucking miserable and victim-blamy as hell, but uhhh they get married in one of the extras
as for the side characters, a lot of them are kind of doing their own thing? they sound like a ton of fun compared to the main guys. there's a demon snake guy, they're a cool demon lady who's kind of in lesbians with another disciple, there's another gay couple who are like insane and assholes but seem perfect for each other so 👍
anyway bingqiu is abusive but surprisingly not because of sqq, though I haven't forgotten him being creepy about his student this volume either. I can't believe svss was just proto-killing stalking this entire time. aside from glorifying abuse and victim-blaming, that's just so fucking boring. what a disappointment. for all their faults, mdzs and tgcf had legitimately magnificent scenes, complex relationships, interesting plots, heartfelt emotional moments, and compelling characters. no wonder this is the unfavorite of the batch - it's absolutely the worst in every way and it sounds like it doesn't get much better
if you're going to send me anon hate about this like 'your interest is problematic too' or 'let people enjoy things' just save yourself the time and block me first. I absolutely do not care about your opinion and I'll just delete it unless you're explaining something I've misunderstood in good faith. and even then I think so lowly of the fans of this novel I might just delete it anyway, after screenshotting it and sharing it with my mutuals to laugh at. get some fucking taste. that's all
#if you dont wanna read the whole thing: it sucks it goes from grooming to the groomed kid being an abusive yandere as an adult.#dont read it. first chapter was funny for unrelated reasons#ive been vagueposting about this all week and i can finally come clean#cor.txt
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If I were to re-edit CQL, this is how I would do it.
Let’s face it- the first episode of the show is nearly unwatchable. I know it’s accurate to the book, but it is confusing, off-putting, and definitely turns people off of the show before giving it a chance. Here’s what I’d change:
First, I would keep the opening exactly the same. The scene of wwx’s death at Nevernight is an AMAZING intro and introduces us to the major characters (wwx, lwj, and jc) and where the story is going. Keep it all. 11/10.
The first change I’d make is what we hear as wwx falls. In the show, the storyteller hired by Nie Huisang begins speaking in voiceover. This leads into the future timeline.
Scrap that. Instead, you’d hear an echo of Yanli yelling “A-Xian!” Text would then appear indicating that we are jumping back in time (“Before”? “In the Past”? We don’t actually know how long the Sunshot Campaign is)
It’d then fade in on the first chronological scene: Wwx lounging on a boat in the town near Cloud Recesses. We hear Yanli calling “A-Xian!” until he notices, just as it plays out now.
The show then proceeds through Wwx’s first life. We are immediately intrigued to learn that the person we just saw kill him is in fact his brother. We are also intrigued by the fact that lwj, who we just saw try and save him, starts out despising him.
No craziness at Mo Manor, no trying to piece together what the heck is happening… just straight (lol) narrative.
Then, we get to wwx falling again. We know how this ends. We hear lwj say “Wei Ying” softly. It fades to black.
But wait a minute. We’re only 33 episodes in. That’s the end of the story……right????
BOOM text appears saying “Sixteen Years Later” The audience goes “THERE’S MORE???” and now we hear the storyteller: “As for Wei Wuxian, sixteen years ago…” It fades into the Lan juniors listening to the story, and off we go with wwx’s second life.
We now KNOW who wwx is! We can see first hand how the legends about him have ballooned. We know who the major clans are. We can guess that nhs is behind it all (if you’re paying close enough attention) and we feel the same confusion and uncertainty as wwx does about “I’m supposed to be dead, why was I brought back?”
Notably, we get to see post-time skip lwj for the first time with the same anticipation as wwx. We can guess who Jin Ling and Sizhui are before wwx does (as it is now, we have to piece together that he had a sister at some point but I guess she died? Again, it’s so confusing for first-time watchers. Also, this way, you would have NO idea that Yanli dies until it happens. Imagine). We know the baggage of Jiang Cheng and wwx’s relationship. We remember the dancing statue lady from previous episodes, instead of learning about it for the first time.
And oh my GOSH the reunion between wwx and lwj?? The anticipation?? The emotion?? There’s a reason people go back and rewatch this scene after finishing the show: It is 300x more emotional with context!!
Wwx still faints after reuniting with lwj and jc, but then he wakes up afterwards at Cloud Recesses, and the show plays out from there. He reminisces, and so do we.
——
Not everyone will agree, but I think it works MUCH better this way. Anyways, maybe I’ll make an actual edit of this show one day to rest my soul 😂
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haunted house au
lwj goes into a haunted house with his brother. he doesn't think it will be anything particularly exciting; maybe someone will jump out at them, or something will pop out of a hiding place. nothing special, in other words, but his brother wanted to try it out.
they pay the admission fee (not much, its a temporary set up not a permanent fixture) and head inside. immediately, lwj notices the musty smell of seldom used props that only come out of their boxes once a year, complete with artificial cobwebs in every corner.
the first tacky ghost-monster-thing pops out of a coffin (they're not a vampire, and they have hair covering their face) and lxc covers his chest with his hand, and yelps politely, so as not to make the ghost feel bad. at least, thats what lwj assumes-- it wasn't scary at all
he rolls his eyes and moves on. the next corridor is full of boobie traps, and eerie lighting. at one point there's a lightning strike, and atmospheric rain sounds played on a subpar speaker which lwj thinks is hidden behind one of the skulls.
lxc gasps and jumps back at the appropriate moments, but lwj can tell he's slightly underwhelmed by the whole experience as well. a pity, really. another ghost-monster pops out at them towards the end, and actually manages to take both of them by surprise. so much so that
it takes lwj a few moments to realise that its the /same/ monster-person. as he recovers from his shock, the ghost starts to laugh, "Hah! that's what you get for ignoring me the first time!" the ghost says, pulling back the curtain of his hair to reveal a shockingly handsome face
lwj narrows his eyes at the beautiful ghost man, and clenches his jaw. he only realises that he's outright /glaring/ when his brother rests one hand on his arm, a gesture that he rarely has to make
he stalks past the ghost, who is now wheeze-laughing so hard that he's having to lean against the wall to stay upright, and out into the daylight. his brother is close behind him, "Wangji, please, he wasn't making fun of you." lwj is pretty sure he /was/, actually.
but that's not important. with purpose, he makes his way to the back of the (very short) line again, and brushes off lxc when he tries to get his attention. the attendant gives him a funny look when he pays to go in a second time, but doesn't say anything.
lwj steps through the faux-stone doorway, alone this time, and allows the spooky ambience to wash over him. without his brother here, he doesn't stop to look at the skeletons in the closet, or the hands sticking out of the walls. he heads straight for the coffin room.
exactly on cue, the coffin door bursts open, and the pretty ghost-man, now recovered from his laughing fit, comes staggering out with his arms outstretched. lwj grabs them, and pushes him right back into the coffin, leaning bodily over him
"what the-?" the man gasps, peering up at him through his hair. lwj pushes it aside, a little too roughly, and bites his tongue. "I'm sorry. Did I frighten you?" lwj asks, his voice hoarse. the man just blinks at him, his mouth hanging open slightly.
"Uhh. My name is Wei Ying." he says, instead of answering his question. his face is visibly pink, even in the greenish light. "....Lan Zhan," lwj replies.
his wrists still trapped, wwx arches away from the back of the coffin and into lwj's body. he bites his lip, and lwj snaps, ducking down to bite them himself.
their kiss is unpracticed; sharp, and rushed. still, wwx opens up when lwj pushes his tongue inside, and hums appreciatively when lwj moves to leave marks on his throat. "this is a first for me," wwx almost-laughs, "normally when i make ppl jump, they get embarrassed, not hard!""Shut up," lwj grunts, crowding him up against the wall. "Is this a thing for you? do you, like, get aroused in scary situations? ahh, wait, wait, stop /biting/ me!" "You are not scary," lwj murmurs, close enough that his lips brush wwx's earlobe. he squirms.
"I'm a ghost, uhn, of /course/ i'm scary," wwx says, but he's unconvincing. wwx's costume is frustrating-- it's a full length gown, so lwj can't get his hands underneath, even though he wants to feel his skin. wwx moans anyway, even when lwj gropes him though his clothes.
(anyway they get caught and lwj gets booted out of the haunted house. lxc is waiting outside, and is nice enough not to comment on how red lwj's lips are) (as he gets frogmarched out, wwx tells him his shift finishes in two hours )
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y'all can prise straight boy wei ying from my cold dead hands because sbwy is canon wei ying <3
#i think 99% of discourse abt this comes from misunderstanding the meaning anyway#no one is saying wwx is actually straight for a start...#sbwy≠mocking wwx for taking time to understand his sexuality (tho some people do this)#making humorous situations out of the trope≠mocking him either lol this literally happens throughout the entirety of mdzs#and comphet is a common experience for queer people. it's normal to want to read/write about it through your blorbo#i love fics that recreate wwx's journey in understanding his sexuality and i loved writing that in catboy fic too <3#cbwy was directly derived from sbwy tropes btw <3
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Parents of The Untamed in Parent-Teacher Conferences
POV: You are a private school teacher and these adults are privileged messes even without the magic.
YU ZIYUAN: Madame Yu is highly involved in her children’s academic careers. “Her children” specifically mean Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli; one time at the beginning of the year you included her on an email about Wei Wuxian, and she informed you that he was NOT her responsibility, how DARE you make such a careless error, and it was a WHOLE THING. She reads all your emails and knows exactly what is going on in your classroom at all times, and does not hesitate to criticize teaching she doesn’t agree with. She brings JC and JYL with her to conferences so they can experience the consequences of whatever you have to say in real time.
JIANG FENGMIAN: You CC Jiang Fengmian on all emails about JC and JYL, but Madame Yu is the only one who ever responds. You’re pretty sure he doesn’t actually read your emails, because WWX is often missing supplies and never seems to have his field trip forms or lunch account refills in on time, and you know that kid’s not that much of a disaster. At parent conferences, he and Madame Yu always get passive-aggressive at each other in front of you and their kids and it’s super awkward. You keep telling Jiang Fengmian that WWX needs to be screened for ADHD because he would benefit from added learning supports, but he insists that WWX is “just being a boy” and “will settle down eventually.”
MADAME JIN: Madame Jin signs up for literally every school event and proceeds to micromanage it, but you tolerate it because at least SOMEONE is signing up. You made the mistake of giving her your cell phone number for emergencies when she chaperoned a class field trip and since then, your life has never known peace. You dread sending her emails about Jin Zixuan’s behavior because she will not accept that her son has done anything wrong. Did he make JYL cry? A misunderstanding! Did he and WWX get into a fight? WWX started it! Is he missing 75% of his assignments? It’s for sure not because he keeps playing Roblox during class time! She once straight-up gave you a card with cash in it during Teacher Appreciation Week, and you’re not sure whether that’s reparations enough.
JIN GUANGSHAN: You have met Jin Guangshan exactly once, at a school fundraising event. He pronounced your name incorrectly and used a slur ~as a joke~ BEFORE the alcohol came out. Your coworkers all agree that his vibes are rancid, but unfortunately, he’s the school’s largest donor. You had to name your new sports field after him. You hate it SO MUCH. He has never been to a parent conference in his damn life, but honestly, you’re kind of relieved.
MENG SHI: Meng Shi is your favorite parent. She works a lot, so she can’t chaperone anything or attend school events, but she is 100% up-to-date on what is happening with Meng Yao’s education. You enjoy sending her emails when he does a good job on something because she’s always so delighted, and she signs off her communications with a variant of “Thank you for being amazing!” You hook her up with loaner class materials because you know Meng Yao’s on financial aid and money for them is tight. She sent Meng Yao to school with homemade cookies and a handwritten card for you the last day before winter break and you got a little verklempt. You are extremely grateful that she signed up for the last conference slot of the day so you can end the slog on a high note.
NIE MINGJUE: Nie Mingjue is also a student at your school, but he’s the one doing most of the parenting for his little brother. He has his own car, and picks up/drops off Nie Huaisang (and occasionally Meng Yao--Meng Shi is very good about telling you when this is the case). He packs NHS’s lunches too, except they’re always, like, a protein shake and a banana. Nie Mingjue is affronted when you explain to him that no, you cannot not have a “parent conference” with him about his brother while he is attending the same school, but you “accidentally” leave your online gradebook open to NHS’s profile so he can check out which assignments his brother is missing.
LAN QIREN: Lan Qiren is refreshingly respectful towards you, but he’s very serious, and the lack of exclamation points in his emails make him sound like he’s mad at you. His nephews are both in advanced placements across their subjects and are completely overscheduled with extracurriculars, and you kind of worry they’re not sleeping enough. You find out that Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji were not permitted to watch SpongeBob when they were younger and that explains everything. You figure your conference with Lan Qiren will be easy, but apparently LWJ’s 94% in Science is UNACCEPTABLE and he is “very disappointed” that you did not separate LWJ from his distracting lab partner WWX when you noticed his grade's “sharp decline.”
WEN RUOHAN: Every day, you hope that Wen Chao is going to be absent. Every day, you are disappointed, as it turns out that Wen Ruohan simply does not give a shit and is dropping him off an hour late. You wish you didn’t have to email him every time there’s some kind of incident with Wen Chao, because you know he won’t actually DO anything about it, except for that one memorable occasion where Wen Chao set another kid’s hair on fire and he responded to the email with “lol.” You’re shocked when Wen Ruohan shows up at parent conferences, but it turns out that while he doesn’t care if his antisocial son is injuring his peers, he does care about his math grades.
#THE NICHE CONTENT I MADE THIS BLOG FOR#CQL#the untamed#as for the parents of the younger generation...#Jiang Cheng is exactly like his mother#JGY is the mom from a few years back who gave her son's teachers bottles of wine with his face on them and a vaguely apologetic card#LWJ just stares at you implacably for the duration of the conference and you have no damn idea how he feels about anything you told him
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on one hand i’ve been wanting to talk about this for a while, and on the other hand i’ve been avoiding it for the massive potential it has to go from us having a conversation to devolving into the most annoying discourse possible
but i got another comment that just broke the camel’s back so i’m going to talk about it anyway
a lot of things i see people are saying are “wrong” in untamed fanfic are actually just translation preferences and just because someone chooses to translate something differently than you doesn’t make it wrong
first, before we get into what i’m talking about, we have to talk about what translations are and the motivation behind them
translations are taking something from one language and making it understandable and consumable in a different language
this can be as big as the differences between chinese and english or as small as the differences between british english and american english, which are considered different enough that books published in both places will have words and phrases translated to make them more digestible to the population it’s being marketed towards
there are few different ways someone can translate something
there’s a direct translation, which is just finding the closest applicable word and plopping it in there like a smarter google translate
there’s translating to preserve the intention and cultural significance behind a word/phrase as closely as can be replicated in the foreign language
there’s translating to convey the vibe/feeling as closely as can be replicated in the foreign language
there’s not translating at all, which doesn’t technically count, by definition, but is brought up often enough that we’ll talk about it
there’s an infinite number of ways this applies, but for simplicity’s sake, and because it’s the one people keep bringing up to me, we’re going to go with jiujiu / maternal uncle
because i don’t speak chinese, my first job is to gain some level of understanding about what this word really means in the original language and the way it’s used. only once you understand that can you make a semi-educated choice on how to translate something (since most of us aren’t fluent in the language or culture, semi educated is about as good as it gets, but for smaller words like these i think it’s easy enough to get most of the needed context). so we need to start off with: maternal uncle, respectful, people don’t use names to differentiate between uncles like we do in english, using first names and/or birth names is either intimate or disrespectful depending on circumstance
now, the simplest way to translate this is just as uncle. in english, referring to someone just as uncle is a little unusual, but common enough that this works as a good translation all around. if one wants to translate the maternal aspect of it, then “uncle lastname” works pretty well. the issue with that is that naming convention only ever happens in english maybe with grand uncles or “uncles” that fall more under shushu than jiujiu, so if i was translating it then that’s something i would avoid, because i wouldn’t want the readers to think that the characters have a less close relationship because o this, but it’s something that’s easy enough to do without distorting the original meaning so i think it also works
if the character only has one uncle
but we are, specifically, talking about jin ling here
so if he’s talking about both jiang cheng and wei wuxian in the same scene, and referring to them both as uncle, how do we differentiate them?
uncle wei and uncle jiang work here, because they’re both maternal uncles but they have different last names, which is really just us getting lucky in this situation. but it presents the problem we have earlier.
to an english ear, that creates distance between jin ling and jc/wwx. if i want to show them as being close to an english speaking audience, that’s not a translation i personally want to use
the most obvious solution is to then have jin ling refer to them way most english speaking people would refer to their uncles (that’s not just straight up having him call them by the their names, which is what i actually think is most common. i only refer to my uncle as uncle when i’m talking ABOUT him to someone else) which is “uncle first name”
however first names also present a problem in untamed because of courtesy names and because courtesy names are used ahistorically and inconsistently in canon
wei wuxian uses jiang cheng’s birth name but jc doesn’t use wwx’s. wwx is basically the same age and lower in rank than jc, so it would make sense for jc to call him wei ying in turn, but he just ... doesn’t. same for jiang yanli. she’s arguably the one wwx is closest to and has the most positive relationship with through out the show and she’s older than him. it would make a lot of sense for her to call him wei ying, or even a-ying to mirror the way she calls jc a-cheng rather than calling wwx a-xian. lan xichen calls lan wangji by his courtesy name rather than birth name, and i’m pretty sure lan qiren does the same to both his nephews, which doesn’t really make sense to me in world
i think the real purpose here was to give wwx and lwj names that they only call each other for special intimacy reasons rather than to create a consistent more in the untamed universe
however, going with that and jin ling obviously being so much younger and wanting to retain at least some of the respectfulness that would be inherent in the original language, i do think that uncle wuxian and uncle wanyin are good translations
u n l e s s
see the thing is that jin ling refers to wwx as “wei ying” before he knows him as a way to be disrespectful to him because he believes that he killed his parents. i personally like the symmetry in him shifting to calling him that in a positive manner to make up for him calling him that in a negative manner, which isn’t something that can really work in chinese, but can work in english
as for jiang cheng, probably because the story is told from wwx’s pov even in the show, we’re used to seeing his birth name rather than his courtesy name, and honestly no one uses his courtesy name unless he’s being a bitch. because of this, the use of wanyin creates a cognitive sense of distance that the often used wuxian just doesn’t. so if someone uses his birth name for that reason, i think that makes sense too. so i think uncle ying and uncle cheng can also work
there is, of course, just using jiujiu and trusting context to take care of the rest, but that’s less a translation choice than it is just choosing not to translate
i’ve done different things in different works with different contexts. in rotten work specifically, i had jin ling refer to jc as just “uncle” because i imagine that’s what he’s been doing for 16 years with no other maternal uncle, and because he’s the uncle he’s closest too among all of them, and i wanted to reflect that. i have jl refer to wwx as “uncle ying” a little bit because of the reasons above, but also a way to stake a claim on him to everyone and to demonstrate that they have a close relationship before the really have one as a way to partially shield wwx and to goad those around him (plus a bonus plot reason that doesn’t get revealed until the final chapter)
my point here is that there’s a lot reasons why someone could choose to translate something one way versus another. i used this one thing as an example, but this same thought process applies to lots of things
you do not have to agree with everyone’s translation choices, or like them, or think them appropriate. but translation is by its very nature imperfect and there’s a lot of different potential reasoning behind people’s choices and i really don’t think there’s one perfect way to translate something and that all other ways are wrong
#this is your grandma talking#if you disagree we're going to do it nicely and have a normal fucking conversation#or you're getting blocked#i am not getting into a bitchy fight about translation opinions
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Prompt: what if jc was lxc's age (and jyl maybe 2 or 3 years older) and wwx was lwj's/nhs' age when he was brought to lotus pier? (Or anything that involves a much bigger age gap bw the jiang sibs and wwx - where wwx is babey)
Untamed
“You know what,” Jiang Cheng said to his sister, who looked at him. “I’ve changed my mind. I’m not marrying a woman.”
Jiang Yanli’s lips started twitching uncontrollably and she hid her smile behind her sleeve. “Oh?”
“Nope. I’m going to marry Chifeng-zun.”
“On the basis of…?”
“If you take two adult men in charge of two Great Sects,” Jiang Cheng said, doing his utmost best to keep a straight face, “with all the power we can generate between us, we might – maybe – have a chance at disciplining our baby brothers.”
Jiang Yanli burst out laughing.
“There, there. It’s all right,” he said, grinning, reaching out to pat her on the shoulder. “You can join us if you’d like. There’s enough room in Qinghe for two wives.”
“We are not both running away to Qinghe,” she said, giggling. “A-Cheng!”
“What? I think it’s a great idea. If our parents want us back, they can negotiate with Chifeng-zun for it – may they have more luck than they had with the whole medicinal herb debacle.”
“A-Cheng, I am officially tabling this idea,” Jiang Yanli said, still snorting. “Older sibling privilege.”
“I let you out of the womb first as a matter of courtesy,” Jiang Cheng sniffed. “And now you use it against me? A-Li, how could you?”
“Call me jiejie! It doesn’t matter how much older, a few shichen or a few years, older is still older.”
“You probably elbowed me with those sharp pointy things you have on your arms. Weapons of war.”
“Older is older!” she sang. “Now tell me, what did A-Xian do this time?”
“Would you like it in chronological order, or in order of severity? I can also group it by theme, if you prefer.”
“Oh no,” Jiang Yanli said, covering her eyes. “Oh no.”
“And the chief-most theme,” Jiang Cheng said, continuing anyway, “is still called Lan Wangji.”
“Oh no!”
“He has the worst crush,” Jiang Cheng said, shaking his head with endless amusement. “And he just – refuses to admit it. ‘Nooooo, shixiong, we’re just friends, he can’t even stand me most of the time, he’s always trying to get me in trouble, but sometimes he lets me sit next to him and spend time with him and he’s so handsome and I really just want to make him laugh –’”
“We have,” Jiang Yanli said thoughtfully, “raised an idiot.”
“He was fine when we got him,” Jiang Cheng disagreed. “We have spoiled an idiot.”
“This is true. Maybe we should go form a mutual complaining society with Chifeng-zun; isn’t his little brother also an idiot?”
“Oh, you have no idea,” Jiang Cheng said. “Worse: they’ve teamed up. Nie Huaisang buys Wei Wuxian porn now.”
“Oh no…”
“In return for help cheating on his tests!”
“Oh no!”
“So that’s why I’m going to marry Chifeng-zun,” Jiang Cheng concluded. “Our parents may be disappointed by my decision, but with our powers combined, we might be able to save the world from our respective younger idiots.”
“Maybe,” she said, and shook her head. “A-Cheng – about our parents…”
Jiang Cheng shook his head as well, echoing her action but more in denial. It wasn’t anyone’s fault that she took after their father and he took after their mother, that she was born a shichen prior to midnight and he a shichen after and their personalities completely different as a result; it was no one’s fault that their parents didn’t get along, with their mother disdaining what she perceived as Jiang Yanli’s passiveness and lack of passion and their father despising Jiang Cheng’ prickly temper and difficulty communicating his affection without scolding.
It certainly wasn’t Wei Wuxian’s fault for being younger and more brilliant, talented at everything he did and with just the sort of personality their father liked best – the combination of his former best friend and the girl he’d once thought of marrying – and that he’d always made that preference very clear to everyone, even to their mother who often worried that her husband would dispossess her children in favor of his foundling and who lashed out at everyone in response.
That had hurt – hurt a lot, even, and Jiang Cheng was soft and sensitive underneath all his defensive layers, but any time he got angry over it he would look at Wei Wuxian, their little A-Xian, baby Xianxian, who adored his older siblings more than anything and was adored in return, and he forced himself to get over it. He was old enough, by the time Wei Wuxian arrived, to know to whom the blame really belonged.
“I spoke with Nie Huaisang while I was at the Cloud Recesses,” Jiang Cheng said in an undertone, one reserved just for his sister. “He’s asked me to pass along a message to his brother, the next time I go night-hunting, about the whole debacle – he’s so terribly apologetic, you understand, he couldn’t wait for the post – if we get to Qinghe by tomorrow, Chifeng-zun will be able to get to Gusu in time to intervene before our father does something wretched like cancel your engagement and take A-Xian home early from his studies.”
“The engagement I wouldn’t mind,” she remarked. “If Jin Zixuan feels so strongly about it that he’d get into a fistfight with A-Xian, it’s better not to marry, no matter what our mother might think. But on no account is A-Xian to be sent home early! He needs his education!”
Unsaid was everything else he needed, things he could get better at the Cloud Recesses than anywhere else.
“Then we go?”
“We go,” she agreed. Between the two of them, Jiang Cheng had more talent at cultivation, but she was steadier, even in her overall mediocrity: when the two of them flew on a sword together, they could make it much further and faster than anyone expected.
Qinghe wasn’t really close enough for a quick jaunt – they flew all night without stopping – but Chifeng-zun was amendable to their scheme, jumping at once onto his saber and making his way straight to Gusu. A waste of spiritual energy all around, really, but far faster than their father would move, with his Sect Leader’s dignity and retinue, rushing to the Cloud Recesses to save his precious little Wei Wuxian from having any connections in life that weren’t to the Jiang sect, and the Jiang sect alone.
And never mind how much he needed those connections: needed to have friends his own age, needed to have more time with that crush of his, needed independence and freedom and everything the Jiang sect supposedly stood for - needed for them to support him and act as the foundation beneath his feet, rather than the chains tying him down to earth.
Chifeng-zun – who was only a few years older than they were – was really a very understanding person, getting the problem at once and immediately agreeing with their view on things. Perhaps there really was something to be said about the difference in generations…
“Let me show you to rooms where you can rest,” Chifeng-zun’s aide said, a slender young man with a polite smile on his face as he saluted. “I’ll arrange for refreshments as well.”
“We hate to trouble you, but in all honesty you are a lifesaver,” Jiang Yanli said to him warmly, and he unexpectedly flushed red at the cheeks. “A-Cheng, let’s follow this handsome young man and rest a while before we return to the Lotus Pier.”
The young man was blushing.
“What’s your name?” Jiang Cheng asked, and the blush faded away at once as the man paled a little: it would be one he expected them to recognize, then, and not in a good way.
“This one is Meng Yao,” he said, and saluted again even though he’d already saluted once before, and Jiang Yanli’s eyes flickered to Jiang Cheng’s very briefly before she caught his arms and raised him up.
“I’ve heard of you. Smart and talented enough to get Chifeng-zun’s attention, even so far as becoming his personal deputy - you must be brilliant. Truly, you deserve a better father,” she told him, and he stared up at her, dumbstruck.
��Don’t mind her,” Jiang Cheng said. “She’s trying out this new thing in which she says everything she feels without thinking first.”
She elbowed him. “And isn’t it your fault?” she asked snappishly. “You’re the one who needs to speak your mind more; I’m just modeling good behavior!”
If she’d been older than him – really older, rather than just a few shichen – maybe she would have held her tongue more and played the role of the peacekeeper, trying to protect him from his father’s indifference the way she had tried to when they were both younger, just as he had tried to distract his mother from her with his hard-fought accomplishments. It wasn’t until they had little Wei Wuxian to spoil and care for, a joint task that required both of their attention, that they realized that splitting their forces like that was pointless and self-defeating: it wasn’t actually helping that Jiang Yanli suppressed so much of her spirit until she felt like little more than a reflective mirror with no content, nor that Jiang Cheng nearly worked himself to death trying to prove that he was worthy of his father’s love and respect that he would never receive, and it never would.
So they stopped.
They were trying very hard to stop, anyway.
“You’re very kind,” Meng Yao murmured, and led them to their rooms.
The moment he closed the door behind him, Jiang Yanli turned to Jiang Cheng and said, “I’ve changed my mind about your plan – we can run away to Qinghe. You marry Chifeng-zun, and I’ll marry that charming boy out there.”
There was an audible thudding sound from the corridor outside, as if someone had accidentally walked into a wall, and they both grinned at each other.
“Mother would kill you,” he warned her in an undertone.
“And being married to someone who disdains me enough to fight over my worthlessness in public wouldn’t?” she retorted, smiling even though her expression was tinged with pain: if she had one ambition in life, it was to never become their mother. “The marriage agreement might have been forged by our mothers, but the text of it says ‘the Jin sect leader’s son to the Jiang sect leader’s daughter’. Why can’t I marry him?”
“He hasn’t been acknowledged.”
“Only technically. Everyone knows he’s the real deal, or else his father wouldn’t have made such a fuss about it.”
“But –”
“Anyway, he must be a good man, or Chifeng-zun wouldn’t have promoted him.”
“I don’t know about that,” Jiang Cheng said. “Chifeng-zun doesn’t have the sense of self-preservation the heavens bestowed on a lemming.”
There was a vaguely audible snort from outside their door. It seemed Meng Yao, at least, had the good sense not to leave guests in his house unattended, and no discrimination against the very useful business of listening at doors.
He also had a sense of humor, which was good given Jiang Yanli’s newfound ambitions in his regard.
“Yes, well, I wasn’t saying I’d elope with him tomorrow or anything,” she sniffed, eyes dancing. “Give him some time to prove himself to me.”
Jiang Cheng couldn’t help but smile back. “That’s true,” he said, raising his voice a little. “At Chifeng-zun’s side, he’ll be able to make a name for himself until the whispers all say that his father was an idiot for keeping him away.”
“And if even that doesn’t work, I’ll marry him in and make him help me run the Jiang sect,” she said cheerfully. “Who needs Lanling Jin?”
“Wait, since when are you inheriting the Jiang sect?”
“I’m older! And anyway, aren’t you marrying Chifeng-zun? That means you’ll be away helping run his sect, and that leaves an opening at home for me.”
“…huh. Good point.”
“Maybe you can just swap places with Meng Yao,” she said, starting to giggle again. “And we can all see how long it takes anyone to notice…”
“Our parents might not,” Jiang Cheng said dryly. “But Chifeng-zun would. If only because I have my sights set on his bed, and I don’t think Meng Yao does.”
“You don’t know that; everyone wants Chifeng-zun. Maybe you have competition.”
“Better to have competition than be oblivious. Do you want to hear the whole story about A-Xian and Lan Wangji’s tragic mutual pining disaster? Xichen-xiong told me all the details he’s been leaving out of his letters.”
“Tell me everything!”
#mdzs#jiang cheng#jiang yanli#meng yao#nie mingjue#my fic#my fics#jiang sect twins#crazycat27#mingcheng#meng yao/jiang yanli
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WWX decides to kill two birds with one stone and with the help of WQ reforges the Stygian Tiger Seal into a artificial golden core replacement which she implants into WWX.
WWXs eyes are now permanently red and he has the full power of the seal at his fingertips at all times because its part of him now.
Another side effect of this Stygian Core is discovered when WWX misses JZXs ambush and is instead attacked and disembowled in Carp Tower in full view of the cultivation world but then immediately regenerates without a scratch and blood ruined robes.
Watching WWX be more annoyed at the bloody robes than being disembowled because the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation has apparently cultivated to immortality USING RESENTMENT shakes a lot of people.
“Huh.” Wen Qing says as she observes yet another failure of Wei Wuxian’s inventions quite literally blow up in his face. “So this Seal of yours protects you?”
Wei Wuxian coughs from the smoke of his busted invention, “Well, yeah. What about it?”
“It’s sentient, correct?”
“Yeah....?”
“Hmm.” Wen Qing observed the Seal slowly bobbing up and down. “Can you circulate resentful energy through the Seal for a moment? Don’t make it do anything. Just channel resentful energy through it like you would if you channeled spiritual energy normally.”
“Okayyy??” Wei Wuxian was perplexed but nevertheless obeyed and watched as Wen Qing’s eyes brightened. “What? What is it? Wen Qing, tell meeeeee! Don’t leave me out!!!!!”
“Brat, I’m trying to concentrate.” She scolded him, but her tone was fond.
Wei Wuxian waited a few more moments before it seemed like Wen Qing had seen enough.
“I want you to calm down when I say this, but I think you can reforge the Seal into a core which I can transfer into you.”
Wei Wuxian was silent......for about two seconds. “............What?”
Wen Qing sighed. “Wei Wuxian, when you channeled resentful energy through the Seal, the Seal acted much like how it would if someone were to channel spiritual energy through their core. The Seal can be made into an artificial core is what I’m saying.”
“I.....you are sure?” Wei Wuxian asked. He knew Wen Qing wouldn’t joke about this.
“Yes. I’m about eighty percent sure this will go well. I can even knock you out when I cut you open this time.”
“I.....okay.” Wei Wuxian was at a loss for words.
“So I’ve rendered you speechless.” Wen Qing smiled. “That kinda feels good.”
Wei Wuxian pouted.
...........
It took a few days to reform the Seal into a form that would resemble a core but Wei Wuxian was a genius and having Wen Qing there to bounce ideas off of helped in giving him a clue as to how a core should look and feel like.
“Are you ready?” Wen Qing asked.
Wei Wuxian, who was one hundred percent not ready, said, “Yes.”
Wen Qing saw through this. “It will be alright.” She squeezed his hand. “This time, it will be alright.”
That was the last thing he heard before he was knocked out.
.
.
.
When he awoke, his eyes had burned for a little before the pain dissipated.
Wen Qing had been in the midst of declaring the operation successful when she suddenly paused, “Huh.”
“What is it?” He asked nervously. Did something go wrong?
“Oh.....it’s, hmm. A’ Ning, get me some water, will you?”
Wen Ning returned not long later and locked eyes with Wei Wuxian. He seemed quite startled and that made Wei Wuxian even more curious. Based on Wen Qing’s reaction, it wasn’t anything bad, but still.....
“Wei Wuxian.”
“Yes?”
“Look at your reflection and you’ll understand why A’ Ning and I looked startled.”
Wei Wuxian did.
And he was shocked to see that his eyes have now become a brilliant shade of red. “What the hell?”
“Mmhm.”
“Why are my eyes red???”
“Well, Wei Wuxian, I’m not sure if anyone’s told you, but you’re aware your eyes turn red everytime you use demonic cultivation, right?”
“Umm, no??”
“Well, they do. And considering what your core is, well. I’m not entirely surprised this happened. It was certainly unexpected though.” She finished cleaning up and left Wei Wuxian to just sit and admire his reflection.
...................
A week and some carefully supervised experiments later, Wei Wuxian had full control over his core. It was really just the same thing as how one would normally use a golden core, so it didn’t take long for him to get the hang of it. However, considering his core is the Seal, he also had the ability to control thousands of corpses and this time without any of the side effects.
He also spent time trying to get Suibian to respond to him using resentful energy. Considering that the sword was a spiritual sword, he was unsure of the compatibility but Suibian seemed to adapt well enough and Wei Wuxian was so glad he didn’t have to give up ever using his beloved sword again.
The next step on his agenda was to update the wards. Using the power of the Seal to strengthen it was a walk in the park and Wei Wuxian finally felt like despite how the cultivation world was always on the verge of killing him and the Wens, they’d be safe. The wards would hold out.
He then started absorbing all the deep-seated resentment in the soil to make it more fertile as well as trying to clear the Burial Mounds resentment by listening to the stories of the dead and helping them pass on. He also painstakingly dug up all the strewn about corpses, burned them and held proper funeral rites for them.
The crops flourished, the Wens and him were well-fed, and the Burial Mounds started to lighten up. Wei Wuxian no longer looked to be on the verge of death and he was able to cultivate without any problem.
Like this, time passed peacefully.
..........................
He was invited to his nephew’s one month celebration not long later and Wei Wuxian decided that this would be a good time to show the cultivation world that he truly is the grandmaster of demonic cultivation they all claim him to be. (In truth, he never considered himself to be any sort of grandmaster considering how little he knew of demonic cultivation, but it was different now.)
He told Wen Ning and the other corpses - of the resentful spirits that stayed behind saying they wanted to help him - to watch for any Jins since he trusted they’d take this chance to attack the Burial Mounds.
After he put on a concealing talisman for his eyes - since he knew that his different eye color would make a huge uproar -, he took to the skies with Suibian and nearly teared up. He’d missed flying. He’d missed this feeling. Laughing happily, he circulated the resentful energy in his core and sped up, becoming a black blur as he flew straight over Qiongqi Path.
When he landed at the foot of Koi Tower, invitation in hand, the Jin guards seemed surprised to see him there but had to let him in, not wanting to offend him.
Jiang Yanli-- no, it was Jin Yanli saw him and waved excitedly, beckoning him over. Out of his sight, Jin Guangyao and Jin Guangshan seemed surprised to see him there.
“A’ Xian!”
“Shijie!” The form of address slipped out.
Her face softened. “You made it!”
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world!”
The whispers of the people around him, wondering why he was there, surrounded him, but he ignored it. “Shijie, here’s my present!”
She looked at the bell with a little bit of wonder. “What does it do?”
“It’ll ensure that high level resentful beings and below won’t be able to move!”
“Oh, A’ Xian! This is perfect.”
“Thank you.” Jin Zixuan said, awkwardly. Wei Wuxian had forgotten he was there.
“No need! If it’s for Shijie’s son, I’d do anything!”
“He’s my son, too.”
Wei Wuxian made a face at that. “Well, yeah.”
“Wei Wuxian!” Jiang Cheng called and then stopped. “You have your sword?”
Wei Wuxian shrugged, “Yep!” He twirled around. “I started picking Suibian up again! But let’s not focus on that, Jiang Cheng!”
Jiang Cheng seemed hesitant but dropped it readily enough as they started bickering like they used to.
Suddenly--
“Wei Wuxian!” Someone yelled.
Wei Wuxian groaned. Can one day go on without someone yelling my name with hatred??? Like, please??
“Yeeeeeees?” He drawled tiredly.
And some Jin guy that vaguely looked like Jin Zixuan stomped in, looking murderous. “You, remove the curse that you put on me!!”
Murmurs started up all around them.
“Curse?” Wei Wuxian looked confused. “What curse? And who are you anyway? Am I supposed to know you from somewhere??”
“You know who I am!!”
“No, I don’t actually.” Wei Wuxian scratched his head as he walked forward to get a better look. He really didn’t know!
“That’s Jin Zixun.” His shijie said, coming up to him. “From the Phoenix Mountain hunt?” Before Wei Wuxian could say anything, she continued. “The one that was supposed to apologize to you.”
“Hmm?” Wei Wuxian thought really hard. “Oh! I remember you now!” He said to a rather red-faced Jin Zixun. “Sorry about that buddy, but uhh I didn’t curse you! I didn’t even remember you until now!”
“It must be you! It has to be you!!” He screamed and it was really grating on his nerves. “See! Look at this!” He ripped his robes open and everyone gasped at the evidence of the Hundred Holes curse on his torso.
Wei Wuxian whistled. “Well, that’s quite some curse. But I still didn’t do it.” Jin Zixun looked ready to refute so he continued, “Why would I curse you secretly when I usually make a big production of those I kill?”
People had to admit he had a point.
Jin Zixun continued to scream expletives until he finally rushed forward and in a rather bold move, drew his sword, plunging forward. However, in his anger, he completely missed his target and the direction of the blade pointed towards Jin Yanli.
“A’ Jie!!” Jiang Cheng screamed
Wei Wuxian was the closest to her and pushed her back, stepping in front of her taking the sword to his gut.
“A’ XIAN!!!” “WEI WUXIAN!!” “WEI YING!!” Jin Yanli, Jiang Cheng, and Lan Wangji, who was actually there, all screamed.
And Wei Wuxian who had just been disemboweled, grit his teeth and pulled out the sword. Which, in hindsight, was a horrible decision since blood got everywhere. Though not so much when his stomach stitched itself back together. “................Huh.” I knew I regenerated quickly considering how often I got hurt plowing the fields and digging up the corpses to put them to rest, but damn that was quick. Though..... “My robes!” He fake-cried, turning his attention to a stunned Jin Zixun. “You ruined my robes! I just managed to scrounge up enough money to buy this new pair and you ruined them!!!!” He fretted over the large rip over his abdomen. “What am I going to tell Wen Qing? She just told me not to stain them!”
The entire cultivation just stared at him in silent shock, making Wei Wuxian feel a little self-conscious.
“Uhh, what are all of you staring at me for?”
“Wei Wuxian,” Jiang Cheng said with all the patience of an exasperated brother. “Is that the only thing you can ask?!” He glared, signaling for two Jiang disciples to restrain Jin Zixun from anymore stupid ideas he’d like to enact. “When did you cultivate to immortality?”
“I didn’t??? What do you mean??”
“Wei Ying.” Lan Zhan said, checking him over. “Are you alright?”
“Hmm? I’m a little dizzy considering all the blood I’ve lost, but it’s nothing big!” He grinned. It felt nice to have Lan Zhan care for him rather than fight with him.
“Wei Wuxian, stop flirting with Hanguang-Jun and answer the damn question.”
Wei Wuxian turned his attention back to his brother and pouted at him, missing Lan Wangji’s red ears. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“A’ Xian.” Shijie said and Wei Wuxian abruptly realized her robes had his blood on them.
“Shijie, I’m sorry I got your robes dirty!”
“It’s fine.” She patted him. “But A’ Xian, I know you didn’t pay attention to those lectures, but only immortals can heal from wounds like that that quickly.”
“Really?”
“Mn.” Lan Zhan confirmed.
“Huh. So I’m immortal?”
“Yes.” Jiang Cheng deadpanned. “And you didn’t even notice it. In true Wei Wuxian fashion.”
Lan Zhan frowned then. He had still been checking Wei Wuxian’s pulse. “Wei Ying, what happened to your core?”
“Hmm? .........Oh shit.”
“Why is it covered in resentment?”
“Oh. Umm.” Wei Wuxian really was at a loss for words now. “We can discuss that later?”
“Wei Ying.”
“Aiya, how do you make my name sound like reprimand?”
“Don’t try to deflect the conversation.” Jiang Cheng said, now paying attention.
Wei Wuxian groaned. “Okay. Well, everyone would have found out sooner or later but umm. I might have cultivated to immortality accidentally via demonic cultivation? Haha, ha......”
No one laughed with him. They all looked pretty shaken and Wei Wuxian wanted to laugh at their reaction. He felt pretty detached from it all, to be honest.
“Can we all just forget about this and continue celebrating Jin Ling’s one month celebration?”
And everyone collectively said, “No.”
“Aww.”
___________________
To this day, I’m still unsure of whether it’s Carp Tower or Koi Tower.
#mdzs#wei ying#wei wuxian#wen qing#immortal wei wuxian#fluff#wei wuxian has a new core#but it's not a golden core#wen remnants#jiang cheng#jiang wanyin#jiang yanli#jin zixuan#jin zixun#humor#lan zhan#lan wangji#mild warning for blood
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