#suck it meng yao

[oh-dameron]

Lan Xichen and Qin Su had quite a bit in common when it came to Jin Guangyao:

- First met JGY when they were in peril and he came to the rescue,

- Notably kind, beautiful, and good-natured,

- Did not place value on his origin or look down on him for his mother's profession,

- Were vocal in their support of him socially.

Which makes me think that we were robbed of maybe the greatest potential JGY partnership: Wen Ning.

Wen Ning: so ride-or-die that actually dying did not stop him from continuing to be ride-or-die. Wen Ning, presumably in quite the tenuous situation in Nightless City after the Jiang heir disappeared under suspicious circumstances, right when Meng Yao was working is way into Wen Ruohan's inner circle. Wen Ning, the sweetest cinnamon roll.

Slight canon divergence where Wen Qing missed one single opportunity to send Wen Ning out of Nightless City for a while, Wen Ning gets into juuust enough trouble, Meng Yao has the keys to the cell... one flash of Wen Ning's bambi eyes and he would have been a goner.

[sunriseverse]

actually you know what would be funnier. time travel au except it’s just memories instead of full transmigration and nhs inexplicably decides he’s actually jgy’s best friend and is going to save him from becoming miserable and a criminal and step one to this plan is killing jgs when he comes to talk to nmj about something (read: try and take advantage of his inexperience as a sect leader). maximal humour if nhs is like. fourteen or so and stabs him in the neck with a knife with no prior warning because he got all these memories like, five minutes ago and he had to do SOMETHING.

[evilhasnever]

any mdzs thoughts for previous jobs u have held for an au? (badly worded ask for the specific au ask game)

Private University AU:

Lan Xichen is an art history professor as well as the Dean's nephew, and he relly wanted to be an artist fulltime but his family never allowed him to entertain the possibility. Now he paints and does little solo exhibitions as a side gig, but he does not have nearly enough time to dedicate to them and he is almost... embarrassed about doing art halfheartedly, or so he sees it. Fortunately, he likes people though his feelings on teaching are simply neutral. Also, he can see Meng Yao every day... he tries to stay positive!

Lan Wangji doesn't want to be a professor, and fully expected nobody to sign up for his music theory classes because, for the most part, he does not speak - he puts his slides up on the projector and then plays the music in question. He is both shocked and strangely pleased when students consistently show up - not many, but the same little group every time. He overhears in the corridor that they think he is "the coolest".

Wei Wuxian works at the university cafe. LWJ finds it infuriating that he has no interest in pursuing a PhD, because Wei Ying's thesis on the psychology of music changed his life. (the big reveal is that WWX is still working on his research, just on his own time and using uni credentials to access the library and borrow sources because they never revoked his student account). The university cafe is open to the public as well, and some kids from the nearby elementary school wander in sometimes because WWX gives them whatever pastries are left.

Meng Yao is an assistant language teacher working for a multinational dispatch company. He works part time, but spends pretty much his entire day at uni prepping materials and doing his own research. Lan Xichen makes a point to invite him to eat in the student cafeteria with him every day (the first time he asked, he mentioned taking him to a restaurant right outside campus where he often eats, but Meng Yao looked terrified at the prospect of leaving campus even for 30 minutes, so LXC course corrected!) JGS keeps saying the family visa will come through eventually, but in the meantime he needs to get by on a provisionary work visa which means he literally cannot quit his job at the dispatch company or he will be deported. Lan Xichen doesn't know this, and thank god, because otherwise he would immediately offer to marry him for a spouse visa and things would get even more awkward.

Nie Huaisang has been a student for six years and still hasn't finished his bachelor's degree. In fairness, it's because NMJ chose it for him and would not allow him to switch majors! NHS's idea of passive resistance is to do the bare minimum to stay in uni, but waste as much time (and money) as possible in doing so. He spends all of his time in the cafeteria playing geocaching games and swiping dating apps without doing anything about it. Sometimes he goes to classes that are entirely unrelated to his studies (like Lan Xichen's) just to hide away and people-watch, and because he knows LXC would never rat him out. Also he may be writing rpf of LXC and Meng Yao because he sucks. ;)

[lgbtlunaverse]

I've talked before about how I think Jgy's specific attitude to defending his actions comes less from a genuine conviction that he's in the right or holds no responsibility and more from a knowledge that any punishment he'd be given would be more because of who his mother was than anything he actually did, and a person with more power of a "cleaner" background wouldn't be punished the same way. Why accept "consequences" for his actions when that's just a smokescreen for what people really want to punish him for. Daring to stand before them instead of knowing his place.

And if I do envision a socratic dialogue with an imaginary nie mingjue in my head, a counterpoint might be that, well yeah at first, sure. But there's a point where punishment doesn't get worse than, y'know, death. And surely at some point in canon jgy passes the threshold where, even if he wasn't the son of a sex worker, he would... "deserve to die" isn't right here because I personally don't believe in the death penalty but basically that, within the moral framework of the world of mdzs where the death penalty is universally accepted, characters would, regadless of his background, rationally agree that the just punishment was death. The moment jgy crosses this threshold, then- and I have no interest in debating when this would be- it wouldn't matter that in reality his punishment was really for something else, because it'd be virtually the same as the "just" consequences of his actions.

And what I like is that the story FORCES you to ask that question, to entertain that argument, and perhaps see the flaws in it. Because it expicitly kills jgy for something he didn't do. Huaisang couldn't have said anything, and jgy would still have been taken prisoner, and the cultivation world would still have demanded his head. He'd have been tried for his crimes and executed. The story could have done that, and everything i said above would still have been true, but you could very easily wash your hands of it and say that justice was served.

Instead Huaisang lies, and Jin Guangyao is killed for something he never did. And the story asks: does that change things? Does it matter, that he died for something he didn't do when all of his actual actions were already enough to doom him? And if it does, what else does that change? Because that has always been the case. That was always going to be the case.

[layzeal]

obsessed with this snippet from the mdzs unrevised version. jgy ur such a crecher

[lryghe]

MDZS thoughts; dedication to a cause

MDZS has (in my opinion) the most interesting interpretation of loyalty in all of MXTX’s works, and in fact, I just think generally that it’s the most interesting to analyse because it's more put together than SVSSS but less whole than TGCF, leaving a lot of room for subjectivity and creative liberties. This post in particular will be exploring the idea of loyalty in relation to dedication to a cause, because I think it's the most robust of all forms of loyalty, one which allows for a lot of contrasting motives. Yes, this post will contain spoilers.

To begin with, Nie Huaisang, in my humble opinion, is the best example of being dedicated to a cause. In Huaisang’s case, revenge against Jin Guangyao for killing his brother is his cause, and he seriously does it well. The reader is never given the right information to know whether or not Huaisang is actually as useless as he makes himself out to be, but one has to admire his dedication to the bit if he wasn’t faking it. I’m basing this on the assumption that he deserves an oscar for his performance so bear with me, but never once does the mask slip in front of others, even when Wei Wuxian questions him on it at the end of the drama, and subtly implies his involvement in the novel. I think the way he presents himself was a pivotal part in this dedication, because he would have been far more suspicious if he hadn't been presenting himself as useless for his entire life, even before he decided to get revenge against Jin Guangyao for killing his brother. And he definitely would have been doing it for a while, planning and plotting and doing whatever it is masterminds do in their spare time, because the revenge was a long time coming. In fact, it was such a long time coming that even the people who should have been vigilant till the end forgot about Huaisang, and the threat he poses to them. I’ve spoken before in a post a while back about Huaisang and silence through this attitude, how his fan is the very symbol of his scheming and dedication because the fan visually covers his mouth half the time, and that itself is a cue to Huaisang’s dedication to ‘justice’ for his brother.

Another interesting example of dedication to a cause is Wei Wuxian, but specifically Yiling Laozu era Wei Wuxian. One can argue all you want about Wei Wuxian’s personality and his idea of loyalty and righteousness (which omg this reminds me of a post I'm going to be making soon about a comparison of Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian!), but Wei Wuxian’s dedication to the Wens and to never actually speaking out again after the whole cultivation world turned against them is something to be admired. Wei Wuxian lived through some ridiculous things, leaving behind everyone he knew and loved before for the Wens and to ensure their protection, not out of some useless pride (because Wei Wuxian is a prideful man, but not in the sense that he would be protecting them because of his pride), but because he genuinely cared, and he wanted to help right the injustices the world had placed upon these people. 

I actually found it difficult to decide who would be my third example of dedication for a while, until I had a wonderful epiphany about Lan Wangji. Lan Wangji isn’t devoted to something as concrete as Nie Huaisang and Wei Wuxian, who are devoted to people as their causes. And before I have people in my comments like ‘he’s so devoted to his Wei Ying’, I would like to raise you the very basis of Lan Wangji’s character, ‘devotion’. Lan Wangji is someone who is wholeheartedly devoted to people, and to the remnants of those who he cares for deeply. When his mother dies, he spends months sitting in front of her Jingshi, because he knew she was dead, but he didn’t process it right and was devoted to spending time waiting for her. The older Lan Wangji gets, the more he realises that waiting will not solve anything, so he mourns and moves on. This is the baseline of his character, his devotion to the memories of those he cares about, which reveals the dedication he has towards his cause. Lan Wangji is wholeheartedly dedicated to Wei Wuxian, but he spends more time mourning him than he ever knew him, and his dedication to being wherever the chaos is, is an excellent point to consider. It’s a common saying in the timeskip that wherever there is chaos, Hanguang-jun will appear. And it’s revealed later on that this is because he’s trying to find remnants of Wei Wuxian. He knows there is no hope for WWX’s soul, and those years he spends in chaos is not to find him, but to simply to feel a fraction of what it was like to be in his presence. I think this is an absolutely beautiful trait, and something that is so important, because Lan Wangji is a very simple person, he loves simply, forgives simply, and continues living simply. Lan Wangji’s cause is devoting himself to honouring and upholding the memories of those he cherishes, which is distinctly different from the previous two points considered.

Of course, there's a million other types of loyalty you could explore in MDZS, but I wanted to focus on this one in particular.

Words: 913

Reading time: 3 mins

[sunshinerotting]

meng yao did exactly one thing wrong and everything after that was a consequence to that one thing and that’s marrying qin su

[rikasdeaddog]

My friend, completely serious : Meng Yao is Ted Cruz pass it on

[skalidris]

i love lxc for many reasons but i've never seen anyone express a reason for his relationship to asking questions/accepting answers (he does both, btw) that's even vaguely aligned with the interpretation i've come to prefer

[khattikeri]

one of my favorite things about mdzs is that for how heavily its plot involves politics of classism and misogyny... even the characters most directly impacted by it can't and don't free themselves from it. literally the closest exception is mianmian.

meng yao being the "son of a whore" wasn't some sort of commie awakening for him that led him to wanting everyone to be socially equal. he played the political game, climbed the ladders, sucked up to and backstabbed and murdered people, including other prostitutes who actually had nothing to do with how he and his mother were treated at the brothel he grew up in.

he put in so much extra excessive effort for even a fraction of the same respect that members of gentry cultivation clans got. and he did deserve to be treated more humanely! but he feeds into the exact same system that created him, leading to his own undoing.

his efforts were for a fragile upward mobility that was never going to hold up. he never surpassed his origins nor did he empower others in similar stations, because the society he lives in is not one that would accept that.

the second he got caught and all those crimes exposed, he was scapegoated to hell and back, replacing wei wuxian as society's terrible one-sidedly evil boogeyman overnight.

speaking of not-quite male gentry, i think it's interesting that wei wuxian explicitly doesn't try to climb the ladders in BOTH lives, knowing full well that anything he does will be punished just for the sheer fact that he is wei wuxian.

wei wuxian is scolded for giving intelligent and correct answers in school. lan wangji does the same and is praised.

wei wuxian occasionally lounges around with fellow disciples and is punished. jiang cheng does the same and mostly escapes.

wei wuxian refuses to carry his sword around in public (after losing his golden core, which nobody knows) and is scorned as an arrogant upstart. nie huaisang has been doing the EXACT SAME THING for YEARS and nobody bats an eye.

unlike jin guangyao, wei wuxian knew subconsciously from the start that his acceptance was superficial and that he could be cast out any time. when he was 10 and recently taken in by the jiangs, he canonically would not eat or use "too much" food and water because he thought they'd find him a nuisance for "wasting their things" and kick him back out.

now away from just the classism, yu ziyuan is a proud and strong noblewoman in a society that belittles and derides women for everything they do. her strong cultivation doesn't matter. she's victim to the vicious rumors of her husband loving another woman who is strong like her but apparently had a more likeable personality.

it doesn't matter even if jiang fengmian didn't cheat or that wei wuxian is wei changze's son with cangse sanren; yu ziyuan can't bear with the humiliation of herself (and by extension her children) not being "good enough". she's ridiculed for "failing" in that one duty as a wife, mother, and woman.

she lashes out and takes out that anger on everyone present for years, giving her children lasting trauma and also being a key element in how the jiang family and yunmeng jiang sect are effectively wiped out at the hands of the wen clan.

madam jin doesn't even have a name outside of the fact that she's married to jin guangshan. i don't even remember reading anything that indicates if she's a strong or weak cultivator, or what, which in itself proves that to most people, it doesn't matter. she's "just" a woman.

of course she's angry at her husband's affairs and all the bastard children they bring in. but she also can't do anything about them, so she lashes out at the few people she can: servants. non-cultivators, probably. those very same bastard children.

shoutout to meng yao getting shoved down a flight of stairs at age fourteen, because if madam jin tried that move against her husband instead, it would make her lose even more face, which as a noblewoman she'd never do.

and that's not getting into how jiang yanli is consistently sidelined for being physically weak.

that's not getting into how mianmian was actually a good cultivator, but was mocked by everyone around her for trying to stand up for wei wuxian when everyone was turning on him. how everyone scoffed at luo qingyang's words as "just some lovesick woman" who "obviously wants to marry or bed him since he saved her".

luo qingyang is the only one of these characters who HASN'T died. she didn't play society's games like jin guangyao. she didn't dig her heels in confidence of her own abilities like wei wuxian.

she didn't bitterly lash out like yu ziyuan and madam jin. she didn't gently accept it like jiang yanli.

she just LEFT.

she married an ordinary merchant and cultivates separately from mainstream cultivation society, and therein found her own peace and happiness.

mxtx doesn't bother with particularly class conscious or feminist vocabulary to hand-hold readers into understanding these disparities, but that choice highlights them & the deeply entrenched politics of their society even more. i really love it.

[br-disaster]

CQL's crybaby Nie Mingjue appreciation post

I always see people talking about CQL's Nie Mingjue crying constantly, and they're right to do so, but I haven't seen those scenes compiled so I thought it would be a good idea to do it, since it's one of my favorite things about this version of NMJ.

*I'll consider the times he was tearing up too because I think they're important, but i'm only considering "full crying scenes" the ones where there are actual tears falling down his face.

*It's all in chronological order.

Episode 41 - defending Meng Yao

Why is NMJ crying? Crying is his response to everything, okay? NMJ is very emotionally invested in everything he does. He's very mad these men for saying terrible things about Meng Yao while benefiting from his labour. He's so emotionally invested in everything he does.

Is it a full crying scene? No, he tears up the entire time he's scolding the cultivators but those tears don't leave his eyes.

Episode 10 - being threatened by Wen Chao

Why is NMJ crying? Wen Chao is being very disrespectful, as he often is. And it's understandable, NMJ is hurt, his home was invaded, some of his soldiers are dead and it's overall a terrible time for everybody. To be honest, though, I think he's tearing up out of pure rage because Wen Chao just mentioned what Wen Xu did to the Cloud Recesses.

Is it a full crying scene? No. I almost didn't include this one because it's very subtle but his eyes look too shiny to be ignored.

Episode 10 - expelling Meng Yao from the Unclean Realm

Why is NMJ crying? It's a very emotional and conflicting moment on top of a terrible day, on top of a very stressful period of his life. He was betrayed by his friend who saved his life right afterwards; his home was invaded and they're at war! He has every right to cry as much as he did.

Is it a full crying scene? Hell yes, and it's glorious. They even end the episode with his miserable little crying face.

Episode 41 - Everything, really

Why is NMJ crying? Everything sucks, he's defeated and hurt in front of the man who killed his father. He didn't get his personal revenge and he didn't free the world from Wen Ruohan's tyranny either. Instead, he watched helplessly as his men were murdered and now he has to watch his former deputy mock his father's death and threaten to have Wen Ruohan damage Baxia like he did with his father's blade.

Is it a full crying scene? No, only because he's being very brave about it. I have no idea how those tears didn't fall.

Episode 41 - confrontation at Jinlintai

Why is NMJ crying? Very difficult topics being discussed here. People who are way better with words than I am have already written amazing meta on how having his worldview challenged like this affects NMJ emotionally, so I won't go there. But between the song of turmoil making him more emotionally unstable and the disdain with which JGY talks about the men he killed, evoking this very traumatic moment I just mentioned on the previous crying scene; I think it's very understandable.

Is it a full crying scene? Yes! Most of the time he's holding back tears, but you can see the one dramatic tear running down his nose (on the outside of it) on the second gif!

In conclusion: he has so much to cry about, it's surprising he didn't cry more, it must have taken so much strength (or he was just crying offscreen, which is plausible, because sadly this isn't The Nie Mingjue show and we don't see him all the time)

Anyway, I am not here to claim he's not a crybaby because he absolutely is, but on the actual show we only have 2 full crying scenes. They were so impactful it feels like much more crying happened. Fatal Journey is it's own thing so I made a separate post for those tearing up, crying and emotional breakdown lovely scenes <3

[littlesmartart]

The Love You Give To Me Will Free Me

by @eleanorfenyxwrites and @little-smartass

General Audiences, No Archive Warnings Apply, M/M

Lan Huan | Lan Xichen/Nie Mingjue, Lan Huan | Lan Xichen/Meng Yao | Jin Guangyao/Nie Mingjue, Lan Huan | Lan Xichen, Nie Mingjue, essentially NMJ's perspective on the time between chapters 15 and 16, emotionally LXC is doing the world's most emphatic facepalm, some fraught emotional discussions..., ...that naturally can only happen via the conduit of being worried about JGY

Summary

The touch at least seems to bring Lan Xichen back to himself and he sucks in a sharp gasp, eyes wide though he at least doesn’t try to step away and stand under his own power just yet. “You told him you love him?!” “Yes, what’s the problem?!” “What’s the– what’s the problem?!” Lan Xichen repeats, though with quite a bit more incredulity than Nie Mingjue had used. He finally lets go of his sleeve to step back and begin pacing, an anxious gesture he’s not sure he’s ever seen Lan Xichen unbend enough to allow himself, and especially not at such a brisk clip. “What’s the problem, he says, honestly,” he mutters to himself and Nie Mingjue gets the sense that somehow, somewhere, he might have maybe fucked up a little.

[textualviolence]

Meng Yao/Jin Guangyao's Lovers Fuckability ranking

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

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

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

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

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

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

[poorlittleyaoyao]

is jgy different in the books than in the untamed? sorry if u haven’t read them im kind of just assuming u have even tho i haven’t lol but i was wondering if his characterization has any major differences like how wwx in novel vs untamed they sort of sanitize him and take away any culpability and honestly some of his edge. just curious if there’s any major differences in his characterization between the two

I'm not the best person to answer because I've only read the first two volumes of MDZS. Short answer: Yes, he is different, and in fact gets the reverse of WWX's treatment: Drama JGY is more overtly villainous than Novel JGY. However, IMO it's a little more complicated than that!

(Novel enjoyers, please chime in if I'm forgetting or misrepresenting anything.)

A lot of JGY fans greatly prefer the novel and feel that The Untamed did him dirty, because a lot of the show's plot changes that make WWX look better make JGY look worse. Jin Zixuan's death is the most glaring one: in the novel, WWX really does lose control of WN because he overestimates his abilities, and it's a tragic accident. JGY and SMS's implied involvement in the Massacre at Nightless City also doesn't happen in the novel; that, too, was a devastated WWX wreaking havoc and/or losing control. The novel also establishes that JGY is subject to abuse within Jinlintai, so there's an element of duress that one can read into his actions under JGS. Novel NMJ behaves more aggressively towards JGY than he does in the show, so his murder doesn't have the same tinge of malice. (The novel timeline also has JGY and LXC meeting before JGY and NMJ, all during Sunshot, so there's that.) Additionally, the novel tells us that JGY is genuinely a very good leader once he's Chief Cultivator and has implemented policies that have improved the lives of regular people and contributed to political stability. We're also told more about his childhood and his love for his mother, and we learn that his relationship with QS is a tragic love story (he doesn't know they're related until after she's pregnant) rather than something he went through with anyway. So in the novel, he's got a lot of positive things going for him that censorship didn't allow to carry over into the show for fear of having too much moral ambiguity.

HOWEVER!!!

The thing about the novel (and why I don't vibe with it as much) is that it's very much WWX's story, whereas The Untamed spends wayyyyy more time with its supporting cast. You might've noticed that I said the word "told" a lot in the above paragraph, because... well, that's what happens. We're told things about JGY, but we don't see him as much, especially since the novel is focused on the post-timeskip era with the stuff in the past coming through non-linear flashbacks. You don't get to see Meng Yao being Just A Little Guy very much before he becomes the Kitten Thinks About Nothing But Murder All Day meme. Now, you also don't hear dramatic music telegraphing HEY!!! HEY!! VILLAINY IS AFOOT!! HEY!!! every time JGY does literally anything, but you do have everything filtered through WWX's unreliable narrator monologue, and he is out there saying some truly wild shit. (You also get less Xiyao. Like, it's there if you want it to be, but The Untamed really went all-in on that.)

For me, the show works better, because I am a sucker for corruption arcs where you see glimpses of the character before they start the atrocities. Seeing him be Just A Little Guy making the saddest meow meow faces when people were mean to him kept me from totally losing sympathy for/interest in him once things start getting squicky, because I had evidence that he wasn't always like that. Meanwhile, JGY's first big scene in the novel is the confrontation with QS (which already makes my skin crawl and is somehow WORSE in novel form), and I was just like "wow, this guy sucks" even though I knew the story and all the extenuating circumstances already. For others, the novel works better, because "first impressions and society's opinion are unreliable" is a major theme, so the reverse reveal combined with the fact that he demonstrably tries to improve people's lives as a leader is less expected and more satisfying.

So yeah! JGY is different, but the ways in which he is different are due to storytelling methods as well as to plot changes!

[yiling-laozu-is-loml]

For the danmei fanfic nightclub please may I request some modern au Wangxian workplace shenanigans. Where Lan Wangji is just trying to get the job done and Wei Wuxian is a shameless flirt ♡

I aim to please (hopefully) :D

Cooking is Love made Edible (or is it?) - 6.4k Words - Rated T

Summary:

“Wei-xiansheng, please don't,” Jingyi – the Finance intern – begged. “Now if it isn't my favourite intern! I see you’re jealous of me bestowing Lan Zhan with my affections. So for once, I’ll let you have the first taste!”

In which everyone works in the same company, privacy is but a myth and idiocy is in abundance. Feat. Finance Manager Lan Wangji and the bane of his existence, Marketing Manager Wei Wuxian.

Or as my friend summarized the office environment:

Everyone trying to escape Wei Wuxian's life And being sucked in anyway

Fic under the cut!

“Lan Zhan! Lan-gege! Oh wait, you have an older brother, so I guess you’re Er-gege! Lan-er-gege! Look at me look at me!” Wei Ying, the Marketing manager flailed around his desk as if he had nothing better to do. He probably didn't, having charmed all his coworkers into waiting on him hand and foot.

“Work hours are not the time to be messing around,” Lan Wangji muttered, loud enough for Wei Ying to hear. The manager ignored him in favour of pulling out a suspicious-looking container from his bag.

“Look what I made you! It's gingerbread cookies because CEO Lan once spoke about how you liked them. I even sprinkled them with icing sugar just the way you like it!” 

All around him, Lan Wangji heard his subordinates groan. As a finance manager, Lan Wangji delighted in his limited day-to-day human interaction. He knew his subordinates shared the same ideals because the first time Wei Ying strode into that room to introduce himself loudly, one of his employees was startled so badly he fainted.

Lan Wangji didn't like stereotyping, but for once he wished Wei Ying paid attention to the tense atmosphere and forced civility between their departments. After all, it was a well-known fact that the Marketing and Finance departments rarely got along despite their collaboration being the thing that kept firms going.

“Aren't you going to try it, Er-gege? Don't worry about being polite, I made enough for everyone!” 

More groans were heard as the accountants and auditors began shuffling around, trying to escape Wei Ying’s murderous cooking. It was no secret in the firm that Wei Ying had no cooking skills whatsoever; the man was talented in the art of ruining things so badly that rumours about him making the company’s microwave explode ran rampant. The Finance department was in agreement that Wei Ying was sent by Marketing to put an end to their rivalry by means of murder. Meng Yao’s cunning smile every time one of them looked nauseous post-Wei Ying was all the more reason for them to tread carefully.

Lan Wangji would've put an end to the gossip mill if he hadn't been the first to fall victim to Wei Ying’s bad cooking attempts. Many in the office wondered if Wei Ying lacked self-awareness or if he was sadistic and thrived on others’ pain. Some even bet that he was a mafia enforcer in his previous life. But regardless of everything, Wei Ying would always come bearing some culinary nightmare or another on payday. No one knew why he just wouldn't stop, and frankly, Lan Wangji had stopped racking his brain over that mystery too.

Read the rest of the fic here!

Edit: This was supposed to be a oneshot but I got the sudden urge to post the vandalizing incident and the beginning of the end (cooking fiasco's humble beginnings)... so now there's two drabbles which I posted as chapter 2... have fun ig

[untamedmetablogiguess]

In the world where The Untamed is a game of D&D, the person who plays NMJ is the kind of player who really likes exploring the limits and implications of the alignment system. NMJ was designed to play with the inherent tension of making a character who is a Barbarian, which is kind of naturally inclined to chaos, and one who is deeply Lawful. They think it's super interesting to explore the dichotomy of a person who is ruled, on one hand, by an almost-uncontrollable battle rage and bloodlust and, on the other hand, by an unshakeable personal moral code.

The person who plays Jin Guangyao thinks the alignment system is kind of bullshit and doesn't want to engage with that part of the game at all. They think it's reductive and frankly kind of infantilizing to act like all of human behavior and motivation can be boiled down to "good or evil, chaotic or lawful" and have opted out of any items or spells or effects that have anything to do with alignment.

NMJ!player jokes that they only don't want to tell the rest of the group what their character's alignment is because, as a rogue, they want to have plausible deniability to steal from party members later. JGY!player is genuinely offended by this suggestion.

At some point down the line, JGY's player has to drop out of the game for a while (new job? shifted class schedule? whatever reason, it doesn't matter) and works out with the DM how they want to be written out of the campaign. They're actually initially planning on having JGY (still Meng Yao, actually) killed off after being stabbed by Wen Zhuliu, immediately after having done a big murder and been "revealed" to have been secretly "evil." They really love the idea of their sendoff being one big middle finger to the entire idea of alignment - yeah, i just murdered someone and then immediately died for you in a heartfelt and selfless way! suck on that!

JGY's player, as everyone around the table is speechless and devastated by his apparent demise: And as I gasp out my last, dying breath, my final words are... "alignment ain't shit"

(They eventually settle on banishment instead of death as the way to write JGY out of the story so he can come back later if the player's circumstances allow for it, but you can see the same thematic thread being played with over and over again, because the player enjoys it so much.)