#the pain on song lan’s face is heartbreaking

[soph-skies]

why must one so gorgeous be such a conniving little bitch </3 @ xue yang

[wifiwuxians]

i once said i wanted song lan to gut xue yang like a fish so i did it! i did it!!! originally i intended for this to be for frostandsnow but it sort of just doesn't fit, huh

based on a beautiful (yet more intricate and visceral) frame from studio heartbreak's "the lovers" - yet despite the title, 'lovers' is not what i had in mind when drawing lol

[ID: a somewhat stylized drawing of song lan and xue yang. the background is abstract blotches of reds and black, and a lighter wavy pattern shines over the image. xue yang rests on a surface, visible from the hips up and bare as if he were on an autopsy table. his left arm has been severed just below the shoulder and is bleeding, and his torso has been sliced open to reveal some of his ribcage and his intestines, which coil around song lan's arm as he grips them. song lan looms above him, holding a pristine blade, his face mostly out of view. neither looks happy, understandably, but xue yang otherwise does not appear to be in pain. /end ID]

[llycaons]

ep38 (2/3): heartbreaking: the worst person you know just came out

man I feel like xxc is SUCH a romantic. he likes being in love he likes having a partner he's drawn to those idealized fairy-tale romances he doesn't look too deeply below the surface (consciously or not) because he just loves having that kind of connection with someone. and ah he and song lan were perfect for each other. if not for that foolish mistake...! but tragically he's not a main character so his suffering will lead not to a happy ending but to death

anyway. scream? I assume these are yi city residents? fuck, but that's so many. an entire city

he just loves giving those expressions to xy for no reason. unhinged menace

this is honestly hilarious. obviously 'all he wanted was a domestic life with famer's market trips uwu' is a patently absurd claim because look what he DID with that life but I cannot lie this is very funny to me. like sure maybe DEEP DOWN that's all he wanted but my sympathy for him is like. nonexistent because look what he chose to do

also. this man is gasping in fear. does xxc not notice?? willfully ignorant, perhaps

SONG LAN!!!! thank god you're here there is such bullshit going down here xxc needs you. he just lit up so much when he heard about xxc

she's such a little survivalist <3

omg remember that translation meta that described sl's answer as like 'he is world-endingly beautiful' or something? first of all he was right. they casted xxc perfectly, second of all how the hell did she write this and not make them canon gay. insane.

this kills me bc at this point SL KNOWS but I don't think he even considered approaching this with the care he would have needed to. and why not just confront xy? it's not like he knows xy has a tool to make xxc kill him

also sl is standing here in broad daylight and xy just walks past him? I mean his back is to sl but that's weird, I feel like he'd notice him just STANDING there esp if a-qing jerks away and hides

damn I hope she hasn't been hiding every time xy is around. that's her home too. she could technically leave but I doubt she wanted to abandon xxc. and she's not likely to trust any of the sects to intervene either even if she told them. and I don't think she understands that xy is making xxc kill living people

witnessing sl see how xy treats xxc (familiarly, cruelly, lying) is like. that IS a man watching someone he loves involved with someone else who's hurting them. not even jealousy, just heartbreak and righteous anger. li bowen NAILED it

I don't think sl and xxc were ever actually together which just makes this entire thing more exquisitely painful

THE SINGLE TEAR

oohh and the BLOOD

at this point a-qing is distressed enough to grab onto wwx for comfort :(

it's not often that I see the xxc/xy situation described as abuse but xy DID abuse his power over xxc to trick him into murdering people (and then the heavy implication that they were in a relationship too 😬)

I love this expression from SL. no detached justice here. this man is furious and ready to kill

this fight scene is actually good? so many fight scenes in this show are bad and this one just rules. the chemistry, the action, the drama, the tragedy. what a neat and tight little narrative

ohh double-meanings. KILL HIM SONG LAN

this was so insane of xxc to do. man had one great love of his life and he dug out his eyes for him then walked away 😭

this is so funny though. he is the worst. oh SHIT THERE'S THE CHEETAH-PRINT ROBES. what a slay

also now xy won't stop rubbing it in his face and playing on sl's insecurities. deflecting from his own crimes. as jgy does, later in the temple. xy probably learned from him honestly. but don't fall for it song lan!!! he is literally using xxc to murder people!!!

this is a taunt eerily reminiscent of wwx. his voice goes up all high, like 'awww, were you SAD? huh?' wwx taunts like this, all sarcastic. but also he's not like, evil

BITCH YOU'RE THE ONE LYING AND MANIPULATING HIM

when sl's tongue gets cut out, a-qing gets all this splashed on her. ugh

NOOOOOOOO XIAO XINGCHEN!!! THAT'S THE MAN YOU LOVE!!!

[tenshioffcial]

He never will - Charli D'amelio.

I was inspired from this song to make this and plus I kind of love Charli a little bit and I want to hold her and protect her.

Warings!//: Angst, Self-harm, Heartbreak, GirlxGirl! Charli is into ladies in this story (FYI I am not assuming she is into women this is just for fiction), loneliness, Toxic relationship. (also, I am not saying Landon is an asshole just for fiction)

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It was 9:00 AM and I always do a morning jog and shower but when I walked out of my bathroom drying my hair with my towel Charli messaged me.

Charli (bestie): Hey Y/n how are you this morning?

Y/n<3: Same as usually and you?

Charli (bestie): It's been okay I guess...

Y/n<3: You okay Char?

Charli (bestie): Yeah...Is there any way we could hangout today?

Y/n<3: Yeah sure I need something else to do today instead of being at home by myself. What time am I picking you up?

Charli (bestie): How about in an hour?

Y/n<3: Um yeah sure why though aren't you busy right now? with work and such?

Charli (bestie): No, it's fine I already got the green light that I won't be busy today.

Y/n<3: Okay then I'll be there in an hour. See you then. <3

Charli (bestie): Yep. <3

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I did my makeup and hair and grabbed my things and left. The whole drive there I had this song playing over and over in my head... (If he don't know what he's got now, He never will. If he don't know what he wants now he won't until it's too late so don't wait for somebody if you're just somebody he can live without.) I arrived at her place and knocked on the door no response, so I rang the doorbell, Finally I hear footsteps on the other side of the door, and she opened it but the look on her face told me she had been crying and I instantly grabbed her in a hug. "Oh, my goodness Char...are you okay?" She wouldn't answer me. "You want to leave then?" She nodded and we walked over to the car, and I made sure she was in and okay then I got into the driver side and drove away. "So you care to tell me what happened?" She glanced at me slightly but shook her head. "C'mon Char I want to know who and what did this to you." I put my hand on her thigh and gently squeezed. "Fine you don't have to tell me but I'm here if you need me." She barely glanced to me but nodded. We got out at a coffee shop, I got the coffee and sweets while she got us our table. I came back gave her, her food and then her coffee and mean while I had to walk back for my stuff and when I came back she was gone so naturally I panicked. she wasn't outside so I ran to the bathroom and instantly I heard her crying. I found her stall and knocked on it. "Char? please let me in?" She sniffled. "No! I don't need your pity and besides you only talk to me when you want to make tiktoks with me which is the only reason why you're famous." I scoffed. "That is not true Charli and you know that." She laughed sarcastically. "Yeah right no one wants me. Not even Landon." I sighed and rubbed my temples. "Charli that is not true... I know that for a fact." She scoffed. "Thank you but that is bullshit. I'm gonna go." She left me alone there and I paid for our stuff and took mine to go and hers and I dropped it off at her place, Leaving a note for her on it. I got home and dropped to the floor crying wishing I would've told her how I felt, I got up barely wanting to move and went into the bathroom and grabbed the nearest blade from a razor and cut my arm all up feeling some pain relief. I bandaged it myself, hearing my phone go off I picked it up reading the caller id, it says Dixie so after panicking I picked it up and answered. "Hello?" She sighed on the other end. "Hey Y/n? um can I ask you something?" "Yes of course you always can Dix." She sighed and a squeak came out at the end. "Do you know what's going on with Charli and Landon?" I wasn't sure if I should answer but- No i'm sick of hiding this anymore. "Yeah, he hasn't been treating her right and he has been mentally abusing her and telling her he hates her and then stays with her." She started to cry on the other end and I could hear her nex words tremble. "She hurt herself because of him and it was bad she cut her arms up pretty good." I started tear up. "I'm going to kill him!" She started to panic. "No don't do that but you should come to the party tonight and maybe tell her how you feel about her because she deserves better than a toxic relationship." I sighed and started crying but cleared my throat so she wouldn't hear it. "I don't know Dix I-" Stop doing this yourself just say yes this is an opportunity to express yourself. "Yes I will Dix. See ya tonight." I hung up and wore a see through long sleeve and some baggy jeans that are torn up down the front and some black boots that are platform boots. I gave the look one more look over and realized I hadn't done my makeup so I hurried up and put some on, finally the look in complete. I arrived at the D'amelio house, I walked up to the door and rang the bell, Dixie opened the door and instantly hugged me but felt my bandages through my shirt. "What's on your arms Y/n?" I looked down not wanting to answer to which I think Dixie understood because she pulled me in and then dragged me into the bathroom and locked the door behind us, she gestured for me to show her.

I pulled my sleeves up and showed her the bandages, she started laughing kind of but crying at the same time and she hugged me. "Why?...WHY!? Why would you do such a thing to yourself Y/n?" I couldn't stop myself from sobbing and I couldn't help but hug onto her and sob into her shoulder, once I got a hold of myself I wiped my tears away and took a deep breath. "I honestly did it because of Charli...she wouldn't believe me earlier when I tried telling her how I felt and then her being upset was also crushing me so I went home after dropping off her food at your guys' place I went back to my place and cried at the door on the floor but got up went into the bathroom and you know the rest." She whipped her own tears away "So you're who rang the doorbell earlier?" "Yeah I am the one. I want her to understand that I love her and would make her happier than he does." She sighs slightly. "I got an idea but I need you to let me fix this beautiful face of makeup first." I nod. She fixed my makeup and we left. The plan is I gotta go up to the mirophone and keyboard and play this song from it. I got over there and with Dixie's help got situated. "H-hey! can I have everyone's attention?" even though I said everyone I needed Charli's attention the most which Dixie had her right at her side. "This is a song I want a special lady here tonight to hear." [singing: You been the one that he runs to when he's got no one else, holding him up even when you feel like you're sinking yourself and you say he's gonna change we've already been through this, tears on my shoulder to prove it and it breaks me that you can't see, He'll only keep letting you down.] I look up and see that Charli is right next to me holding onto my shoulder crying from the lyrics and Landon is giving me death glares. [singing: If he don't know what he's got now he never will, If h don't know what he wants now he won't until it's too late so don't wait for somebody if you're just somebody he can live without, If he don't know what he's got now just let him go, He'll only know what he's lost when he's all alone, it's too late, no, you don't need to try, If he don't treat you right by now, He never will.] I stood up and the look she gave me was all I needed and I kissed her with so much passion, Her hands found themselves on my shoulders as the kiss intensified. Although nothing had me ready for what was coming to me, Landon waltz on over and punched me hard too. "Don't you fucking touch her! She is mine not yours you stupid bitch!" He went to leave with her but I got up and threw a good punch his way and he stumbled forward, Turning around to face me he threw another one and I dodged it but his second one I was not ready for. He knocked flat but then he climbed on me hitting me repeatedly. "Stop it Landon!" we both stopped and seen who it was Charli finally gained a voice to speak with. "Excuse me?" wow Landon dumbass. "You heard me get off of her. Now!" He raised his hand to hit her but luckily Noah was here and he grabbed him by his wrist and folded his arm behind him. "Well well well what do we have here? You okay sis?" I nodded. "Yeah I am but he has been making Charli's life a living hell." Noah laughed an almost evil laugh. "Get the fuck out of here before I get the cops involved. Now!" He scoffed but left finally shouting. "THIS ISN'T OVER BITCHES!" I turned to Charli not caring about anything else right now. "You okay Char?" She nodded and even smiled at me. "Yeah I am but you need some clean up done." She grabbed my hand and led me upstairs to her room and sat me in a chair opposite of hers. "I'm sor-" We both spoke at the same time. "Go ahead Char." She sighed. "I'm sorry I didn't listen to you earlier and thank you for dropping my food off earlier." I giggled kind of. "You're welcome sweetheart I couldn't let you go hungry plus I get it that you needed space but-" "It's not okay Y/n... I know you hurt yourself earlier after the fact." I winced at that because I didn't want Dixie to tell her that. "Well funny thing I know you do the same." She laughed.

"That's funny in an ironic way." "I know right?" We both laughed for a moment while she cleaned my wounds and such. "Hey Charli?" she turned to face me again. "Yeah?" I sighed preparing to be rejected. "You know I meant every inch of those words and the kiss right?" I wasn't ready for her to nod. "I know and I want you too." She kissed me on my lips this time straddling my lap, intensifying the kiss and then she pulled away. "I love you Y/n." I smiled at her cuteness. "I love you too Char." and after that we both went to bed in her bed.

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A/n: Hello my beautiful/handsome readers! I hope you all liked this one and if you guys have any requests I'll write them but if not that's cool too also I plan to write more Charli one's soon. XOXO Angel.

[loosingmoreletters]

Take a snippet:

“A-Xian!“ Jiang Yanli’s voice echoed through the hall, drawing the attention of everyone as much as Wei Wuxian’s own entrance.

If he was skittish before, reluctant to follow Lan Wangji, then that reluctance was wiped away now. Wei Ying crossed the distance to his sister with such a hurry, not even Chifeng-zun could’ve stopped him. Lan Wangji’s gaze drifted to his brother, standing with their delegation, and allowed himself to find some solace in his brother’s approving nod.

“A-Xian,” Jiang Yanli repeated, now openly crying. Yet, when she opened her arms to welcome her martial brother in a hug, Wei Ying fell to his knees.

“I’m sorry,” he cried. Though Wei Ying didn’t raise his head, his heartbreak filled the room as blood a pierced lung, condemning himself to a painful death. “I’m sorry, they caught us in Yiling. They made me watch as Jiang Cheng—” Wei Ying shut his mouth as if he physically couldn’t bring himself speak of it. Instead, he reached for his hair, took the guan from it and presented it like an offering at a temple.

Jiang Yanli carefully accepted it before pressing a hand to her mouth. The guan had seemed familiar to Lan Wangji, but he hadn’t been able to place it earlier. The guan was a delicate piece of jewelry, reserved for those of the highest standing, befitting of a sect heir.

It must have belonged to Jiang Wanyin.

“I know,” Jiang Yanli replied and put her hand beneath Wei Ying’s chin to tilt his face up, revealing messy tears on a thin face. “With you returned to me, a-Cheng is at peace now.”

Jiang Wanyin had refused to rest even after hours of trying to calm him via song. Jiang Wanyin had shouted and screamed, though never for himself.

My brother, his spirit had cried. They took my brother. They took me from him and I cannot find him anymore.

Jiang Wanyin hadn’t known where the Wen had taken Wei Ying, unable to leave his corpse, caught in his own horrible murder. Had Wei Ying taken the guan from him so the Wen wouldn’t claim and desecrate this piece of Lotus Pier as well or had Wen Chao forced it onto Wei Ying in mockery, his shidi’s cooling corpse lying just next to him.

“You came home,” Jiang Yanli repeated and, though a wounded noise of protest left Wei Ying’s throat, returned the guan to him, another kind of hair-pinning ceremony.

“They’ll pay,” Wei Ying vowed. “I’ll make them pay, I promise. I’ll return Lotus Pier to you, Sect Leader Jiang.”

And though the hall had been quiet before, everyone caught up in the spectacle of the reunion, now the silence of the unquiet dead was upon them.

when stuck in writing block, killing off a characters works like a charm

[pennysdrabbledump]

the rivers in your mouth come pouring out

huaisang, pining.

*** the rivers in your mouth come pouring out Characters: Nie Huaisang, Jiang Cheng I Jiang Wanyin Word Count: 953 Ratings/Warnings: General Audiences, mild angst? Notes: written for sangcheng week 2021 day 1: heartbreak, modern AU, background established wangxian, brief allusion to one-sided unrequited chengxian on jiang cheng's part Alternative Reading Link: [click here to read on AO3]

***

Huaisang finds Jiang Cheng in the apartment’s cramped kitchen, resolutely washing dishes. The whole place is quiet, in the aftermath of the party, but there is an especially oppressive sort of silence here in this room. The only sounds are the running water and the sing-song clink of china, punctuated with heavier clanging noises when Jiang Cheng unceremoniously jams clean dishware into the drying rack. Huaisang almost hates to disturb him, but there is a familiar tense line in his shoulders that is screaming for company – any sort of company – so maybe he’ll do with Huaisang’s, for once.

“Hey,” Huaisang says.

Jiang Cheng starts.

“Hey yourself,” he says, craning to look at Huaisang over his shoulder, “you’re still here? You didn’t go to get ice cream or coffee or whatever? You should’ve; my new brother-in-law,” – he grimaces – “is treating, and God knows he’s got bottomless pockets.”

“Neither did you,” Huaisang says, hefting himself onto the counter and crossing his legs at the ankles, “couldn’t this have waited till morning? Why does it have to be you, anyway?”

Jiang Cheng shrugs. He’s got his dress-shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows. His collar is damp, and there are stray soap suds smeared on his cheek.

“Cleanliness is next to godliness,” he says, matter-of-factly, and then, “Who else would do it?”, quieter, and mainly to himself.

There’s a beat of silence – then he gives Huaisang a wry half smile and says, “actually, you know what? The truth is – well, it’s just that I’m kind of sick of it all.”

It’s not really surprising. Huaisang has always been of the opinion that a day – a ceremony followed by a reception – is more than enough for a wedding. This last week has been a blur, and there’s still the religious ceremony tomorrow evening. He can’t imagine how it must feel to be part of the wedding party, and unlike Jiang Cheng, he actually likes social events. Usually. He hopes that when – if – the time comes, Da-ge won’t be as anal about all of these traditions as old man Lan is. Even Lan Zhan, ever-composed, has started looking frazzled, for all that he’s over the moon to finally be marrying his beloved Wei Ying.

“Sucks to be the odd one out, doesn’t it?” Huaisang says. “Especially at times like this.”

Jiang Cheng snorts. “Not if you’re used to it,” he says, casual, nonchalant. He puts the last of the china in the drying rack, then washes his hands, as if they aren’t clean enough already. Huaisang’s heart squeezes, in his chest.

Before he can overthink, Huaisang reaches out, crosses the couple of inches of space between them, closes his fingers on Jiang Cheng’s shirtsleeve. Tugs.

“Hey,” he says, “Jiang Cheng.”

Jiang Cheng looks from Huaisang’s hand to Huaisang’s face, quirks an eyebrow. “What?”

Huaisang tilts his chin. “Come here.” He pulls Jiang Cheng into the bracket of his knees – the advantage of sitting on the counter is he’s no longer subject to the whim of their height difference – cups his face with his hands. Wipes the soapsuds away with his thumb.

“You want to tell me what the hell you’re doing?” Jiang Cheng says, but there is no bite to it.

“You’re not stupid,” Huaisang says, against his mouth, “you know what I’m doing.”

Jiang Cheng’s lips are dry and slightly chapped, but warm all the same, and the fingers he slides into Huaisang’s hair scrape pleasantly against Huaisang’s scalp. He smells like lotus flowers and the lemon from the dish soap, tastes like sesame sweets and celebration champagne.

“Ever heard of lipbalm, Jiang-xiansheng?” Huaisang asks in the space between their mouths.

“Shut up, Huaisang,” Jiang Cheng murmurs, nose knocking into Huaisang’s. He kisses with his eyes scrunched shut, an endearing furrow between his eyebrows. Huaisang loops his arms around his neck, presses his thumbs into his nape, locks his knees around his waist.

“Ya, Jiang Cheng,” Huaisang says.

“Hey, do you always talk this much when you’re kissing people?”

“This is important,” Huaisang says, “I want – you know I’ve thought about this – ”

Jiang Cheng’s eyes widen, minutely. “Oh,” he says, sucks in a breath.

“Yeah,” Huaisang bites his lip. “You know I’ve had this – ”

Jiang Cheng breathes out, shoulders slumping. “A-sang, I’m sorry,” he says, extricating himself from Huaisang’s grip, “I – I can’t.”

He’s got a half-dazed look in his eyes – pupils blown out – and his mouth is kiss-swollen, wet with saliva. Huaisang wants – needs – to pull him back in, kiss him till he’s breathless and out of protests.

Instead –

“Why?” Huaisang says, proud he is able to keep the bitterness to a minimum, “because you’re still in love with your adopted brother? You’ll kiss me but you won’t even consider being with me? Why can’t you ever let yourself be happy, Cheng-er?”

Jiang Cheng looks stricken. Eyes wide, mouth pained.

Almost immediately, Huaisang wishes he could take the words back. Regret coils in his throat, like nausea.

“Leave,” Jiang Cheng says, and there’s a quiet fury in his voice that makes Huaisang wish he’d just hit him and be over with it.

“Jiang Cheng, I’m – ”

“Please,” Jiang Cheng says, hands curled into fists, “I’ll forget you said it. Just – please just go.”

Huaisang slides off the counter, legs like jelly. Presses past Jiang Cheng, turned away from him, unwavering. Leans against the hallway outside the apartment, unlocking his phone with shaking fingers.

It rings, tinny in his ear, till it is picked up. “A-sang?” his Da-ge says, voice hoarse with sleep, “the party over already? Weren’t you going to stay the night at the Jiangs’?”

“Da-ge,” Huaisang says, forcing the words past the lump in his throat, “please come get me. I want to go home.”

[khazadspoon]

Song Lan and the No Good Very Bad Life

A lovely lovely person sent me a ko-fi donation and asked if I could share some thoughts on Song Lan in return, as he is their favourite character. So, after a good amount of digging and revising, I am hopefully going to make some sense here. 

I got into MDZS through the drama (The Untamed/CQL) so my thoughts on Song Lan mainly come from there. I admit that at first I had very little interest in the Yi City arc and as such didn't have much of an opinion on Xue Yang, Song Lan, A-Qing or Xiao Xingchen. But I have read some meta from fans here on tumblr, had some time to go over what I thought before, and after reading the novel had a bit more of an opinion. 

Song Lan is... He is almost perfect, especially when put alongside Xiao Xingchen. Just like Lan Zhan and Wei Wuxian, the two characters form two sides of a coin that can be more readily understood together rather than apart. Song Lan is the cold, distant and stern half to Xiao Xingchen's laughter, warmth, and gentleness. Both are incredibly talented, have a notion of “ideals above blood”, and seek to form a better world together. That is noble! That is good! They deserve a spinoff! 

As with some of the imagery in CQL (certain heartbreaking camera angles and parallel shots) we see that Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen's relationship is the worst-case-scenario for Lan Zhan and Wei Wuxian. At the end of it all, Song Lan is left alone with little hope, mute and undead, his story unfinished and unresolved just as Lan Zhan's was when Wei Wuxian died. We just don't know what the rest of his story has in store, and we never will. That intrigued me more than most of the things we learned about him in the drama because I am a glutton for tragedy. 

Adding to that tragedy to come is the whole blindness thing he had with Xiao Xingchen. He was made blind by Xue Yang. Then his best friend, his beloved Xiao Xingchen, willingly gave up his own eyes to save him after breaking his own promise never to go back to Baoshan Sanren just to do this. And Song Lan's reaction? An almost childish “I don't want this, go away I never want to see you again”. Yes this was borne of grief and anger, a whole bunch of people dead because of him (in a roundabout way), but that doesn't take away from the pain it caused those around him. 

Song Lan has been through a lot. He has lost so much and gained so little in the face of that loss. He gained his eyesight (and that would have been horrific in and of itself, but let's not forget that Song Lan is canonically mysophobic so that must have added to the trauma almost unbearably) but lost his best friend. He found his best friend again but lost his tongue, and then his life at his best friend's hand. And Xiao Xingchen would then kill himself after learning what he had done, the grief and despair so strong his soul shatters into pieces.    

Nothing went well for this man once Xue Yang was in the picture. 

And then? When all is said and done? He gains the fragmented soul of his greatest companion and what remains of A-Qing's. All he can do is wander the world, try to nurse them back to wholeness, and... and what? That's is. After all he has been through, there is only a longer path ahead. In a world where reincarnation is a fact of life, that would cause major issues. There is little to no hope for either of them of meeting again to set things right.

Song Lan has the greatest tragedy in Mo Dao Zu Shi and no one can convince me otherwise. 

[blog-of-reaction]

I take anything I ever said that was remotely nice or civil about Xue Yang back. He sucks. I excepted him to be in this more but no instead he is the center of a 2-3 episode arc that is one of the saddest and most tragic of the entire show. And this is the Untamed. A show that people really should have warned me away from it is so fucking sad. The tears are a lot. Yanli’s death was just horrible. I had kinda forgotten a bit of what happened in the first 2 episodes so went back and rewatched them once it jumped back to the 16 years later part of the story and that helped me calm down a bit. Honestly, I didn’t while watching and still don’t quite have the emotional fortitude to deal with anything that happened past episode 35. At least, anything sad that happened. I did quite enjoy drunk Wangji. And then he bought the rabbit lantern. Like, my heart. Lol the poor person who’s house they technically vandalized is going to be so confused, like at first they’ll probably just think oh some kids played a prank. But then when it’s revealed that Wei Wuxian is back and him and Hanguang Jun are inseparable they will be like “wait....” also, I really hope Wuxian put those roosters back in their cage so they didn’t run off. And just like oh my stars Lan Zhan giving him roosters ❤️❤️❤️

“Are they good?”

“Uh...yes Lan Zhan, they are very good.”

Wuxian is just so bewildered at Lan Zhans drunken love confession and he doesn’t even realize that it is one.

Oh, and Sizhui is the best. Also, him looking at the toy stand, not just at the stand but at the very same things Lan Zhan bought him way back when. And he feels safe and like he doesn’t need to be afraid or worry when he’s around either Lan Zhan or Wei Wuxian I just 😭😭😭 feels

I can’t wait for when Wuxian realizes that his little kid a-Yuan is in fact Lan Sizhui and that Lan Zhan adopted him (speaking of which I am very eager to learn how that came to be) and when Sizhui realizes it. Of, lots of feels. I can’t wait. But also it’s possible he’ll realize it just before he dies and if that happened that will be the final straw. It will be the last thing needed to break me. I will be a sobbing depressed mess just like when Elhokar died.

Fucking Xue Yang. I hate his guts. I cannot believe what he did to Xiao Xingchen. It is horrible. And Song Lan too. And little Ling. It is horrible and I hate it and why didn’t anyone tell me that for my own sanity and well being I should not watch this storming show? And the worst part, the very worst part, is the way I kind of almost get Xue Yang. I mean like, that “candy every day” it is horrible and heartbreaking and what why does this have to be so storming depressing?! Xiao Xingchen better come back please tell me he comes back. And Song Lan😭😭😭😭😭😭

On a slightly less depressing note, but still a bit depressing just in a different way, Wuxian and Jin Ling’s relationship and the way it has evolved over these episodes. I love it. Of course nothing fucking good ever lasts in this show so I think I’m in for more heartbreak.

I am going to buy a thing of Ben and Jerry’s and eat it while crying my face off. Anyone asks me what’s wrong and I’ll just tell them a stupid amazing show ruined me. Why? But seriously I love this show. The pain is worth it. (Also it activates my tear ducts when nothing else will which can be a good source of catharsis.)

Btw, Lan Xichen continues to be an amazing brother who is way to trusting because if it isn’t Jin Guangyao who is the evil mastermind I will eat Wayne’s hat (if you are familiar with the cosmere, or at least Mistborn era 2 you know how much of a statement that is, if not it is probably confusing in which case I apologize)

Like seriously, I have been betting since like, episode 23 that Jin Gaungyao is evil.

Also, I seriously expected more of Nie Mingjue. And he fucking died?! Why?! I need to watch the movie about him and Nie Huaisang even more now. He was one of my favorite tertiary characters and he died. Why? Jk I know why if it really is Jin Guangyao he probably figured it out and confronted him. But still, I am sad and upset about his death. (However he only ranks like 6th in the sad about this characters death list which actually sucks because like, Wen Qing, Yanli, Xiao Xingchen, Song Lan, Jiang Cheng (he hasn’t died yet but I know he’s going to and it is going to utterly destroy me) and Nie Mingjue. Like, this is worse than a Sanderson series finale. Literally my only comfort at this point is the knowledge that both Lan Zhan and Wei Wuxian make it out the other side and end up being together forever. I am choosing to take the canon ending of the show as a precursor to what I’ve heard about the ending of the book. So in my mind the show ends, they get married and get a farm and are happy for the rest of their lives together. But that is literally the only good thing I know will last. I don’t like this show. That’s a lie I love this show.

[neuxue]

The Untamed Episode 18: How to trick your brother into accepting you as an organ donor, in 4 easy steps

(With bonus Snapshot-Sunshot Campaign, and flashback-within-a-flashback!)

Step 1: find an accomplice (preferably with a medical degree)

I mean it is Wen Qing on the mountain at the end, right?

But oh, the way she looks at him throughout this episode. “You’d do the same for Wen Ning,” he says and maybe she would, maybe she wouldn’t but Wei Ying, most are not quite so quick to throw themselves on the pyre

I mean, on the one hand at least someone knows, and sees, and understands how utterly heartbreaking this all is? On the other hand, ow.

Step 2: Lie for all you’re worth (or take refuge in audacity)

(But don’t let him see your face)

Here’s the thing. I don’t think Wei Wuxian is a particularly good liar. A good actor, yes, but that’s a little different; that’s about commanding attention and then deciding what to do with it. And convincing everyone to play along, to suspend disbelief and instead follow him into the story (“I’m fine” being a common one; he doesn’t hide his injuries but he convinces everyone around him, by sheer force of personality, to pretend they’re not there). So he turns away, hides his face, gives the story with his back turned, and hides his lies in an elaborate fabrication, full of quest tropes and renunciation of his identity.

Seriously I spent a good portion of this episode trying to work out exactly how much, if any, was truth. Because it would be like Wei Wuxian, would it not, to give away not just his golden core but also his inheritance, his name, his very self. After all, what is his life for, if it cannot be given up for his brother?

He is so good at playing up different parts of himself, usually truths, and so here even when he lies he plays to is his past, and the idea of family ties and inheritance and, of course, sacrifice. But a small sacrifice. Just a pretense, really. Almost a game. And makes it, if not convincing, then certainly compelling enough for someone as lost as Jiang Cheng to believe.

(“He will never find out,” Wei Wuxian says, and, I suspect, as a direct result of what you’re doing to save his life, you will go that one step too far, over some threshold beyond which he can no longer reach you. And he will not understand why. HI I’M HERE I’M IN PAIN).

(And when he smiles, just a little, when Wen Qing asks how he thinks he can hide it for the rest of Jiang Cheng’s life… well. I wonder just where he thinks this sacrifice ends. Because it’s easy to hide the truth if you’re gone).

Step 3: Pray no one else notices (or if they do, that they stay silent)

On the one hand we have Wen Ning, whose joy at the thought that there’s a way to save Jiang Cheng is counterbalanced only by the devastating resignation on Wei Wuxian’s face.

(And yet he doesn’t hesitate for a moment. But nor does he tell Wen Ning the truth)

And on the other hand we have Song Lan. Who absolutely sees through Wei Wuxian, because honestly? Wei Wuxian isn’t hiding it.

(That, too, feels appropriate: that he does not hide it but most simply do not see, or will see what they wish to and nothing more. They will see what he shows them, and never think to look further)

(Also speaking of Song Lan I would like to register a complaint: there has not been enough Xue Yang recently. Seriously he gets like 10 seconds in this episode and don’t get me wrong they’re 10 great seconds but. What is his deal with Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen anyway? I have questions. I want answers. And also just more Xue Yang).

And then there’s this face when he says what he seems to think may be his last farewell to Jiang Yanli. Just. Pure raw pain overlaid by the gentleness of necessity and Jiang Cheng still has no idea when he says “when has she ever really been angry with you” and oh, Jiang Cheng, that’s not what he’s afraid of. He’s betraying her, the one who said just moments before that the three of them should never be parted.

Step 4: Do not look back (do not look back, do not look back)

But I have to wonder a little at ‘don’t be so reckless next time’ because…why exactly did Jiang Cheng leave? How exactly did he end up taken? There is the potential for some very good Pain here is what I’m getting at.

Anyway his expressions in this entire episode really are just. Devastating.

(Ow)

***

Sunshot Campaign

I like that translation actually.

But seriously we get the whole thing in what, 30 seconds? Come on, there’s got to be more, right?

Still, it gives us this: sometimes you remember that Lan Wangji, too, is dangerous

Also I like that it’s the slaughter of Yunmeng Jiang that serves as the catalyst here, because Wei Wuxian in so many ways fits the role of catalyst well. (Too well, perhaps).

***

Flashback-within-a-flashback

Because you’re supposed to see your life flash before your eyes when you die, you know? So when is more appropriate than now, when self-sacrifice is on the (operating) table?

Anyway, we learn three (3) key things from this sequence:

Wei Wuxian defaults to self-sacrifice at every opportunity, and cannot stand the thought of bringing any harm or inconvenience or sadness to this family he owes everything to. He will give everything and demand nothing, so long as they are happy

Jiang Cheng loves his brother but is pretty much constitutionally incapable of expressing it in any way other than exasperation, annoyance, and occasional melodrama

Jiang Yanli is the only adult in the room

Bonus: lines that absolutely are in no way prophetic, ironic, or pertinent to the rest of the story

‘You don’t have to apologise for something you didn’t do wrong’ –Jiang Fengmian

“I won’t fall” –Wei Ying

(Next: Ep.19) (Previous: Ep. 17)

[shouldbecelebrated]

federica!! I got an important question to ask sjdnsnsk which evermore songs do you think fit wangxian?

hii anis!! this is hard. i’m gonna go with: gold rush, willow, ivy, and evermore. my awful explanations are hidden under the cut jsjsj

gold rush: after wwx has shown off his archery abilities at the competition and everyone has congratulated him, lwj sneaks up on him and, unable to control himself, he feels the need to kiss him under that tree, even though wwx won’t know it was him. when they meet eachother “by chance” in the woods right after and wwx tells him about the kiss he just shared with an unknown maiden and the other romantic experiences he has had in the past, lwj frozes as if in that exact moment he just realized how much everyone wants wwx. he is scared he is never gonna get the chance to tell him how much he means to him. because somebody else is gonna fall for him and take him away.

willow. i think this song matches perfectly the scene in the temple where wwx (finally) says how much he is in love with lwj. how he only wants to be with him and no one else. lwj repeats every word as if he’s unsure he heard everything right. and wwx keeps repeating them, again and again, as is to assure him that, no matter what, he’s going to be there for him and lwj is going to do the same.

this song also fits the scene when lwj somehow saves wwx from the nightless city battle and brings him to safety. afterwards, lan qiren and the other powerful cultivators come to face him and, in attempt to protect wwx, lwj ends up seriously injuring all of them. while wwx is whispering in the corner, “that’s my man” jsjsj.

ivy. the lan sect’s young cultivators have always looked for approval in lwj. can they admit that they’re scared? is it okay to cry? lwj’s expressions will tell them if and when something is allowed. but when they’re trapped in yi city, lwj is temporarily absent, and the only one there who is able to protect them all is wwx. so when chaos ensues, they look for him. wwx is aware of this sudden change of events and he does what he does best: he conjures up some amulets and tries to protect the kids with his life.. the kids throughout the journey keep reminding him that he and lwj are not so different, they are actually a like. there’s surprise in wwx’s eyes because he didn’t expect to pick up lwj’s abits. but he did. of course he did. and the fact that he stepped up to protect the kids is proof of that. when you really care about someone, it’s only natural to take small bits of them with you. bits you will keep and cherish for the rest of your life.

“i can’t stop you putting roots in my dreamland, my house of stone, your ivy grows, and now i’m covered in you”.

this also works for lwj’s attempts to stop thinking about wwx when he spent three months at the cloud recesses. he’s trying his best, props to him shjsjs. but he is still unable to remove the ivy wwx has brought with him. it keeps growing and growing and eating him from within. lwj is not as focused as usual. he probably has trouble sleeping. he makes mistakes in his homework. he is not the same. he is in love sir!!

evermore. this song is heartbreaking. and it perfectly fits lwj’s journey. how devasted he felt when wwx left for good.. forever. the feeling is impossible to describe. he asks himself: “can we just get a pause” from all this hurt? and live happily? at least for a while?

then we cut back to the present. lwj is standing outside, “catching his breath”, he has boxes of warm food in both hands. food he cooked in the lan sect’s kitchens. for wwx. he’s hoping wwx will like it because he spent hours making it. he walks into the jingshi, “floors of a cabin creeking under my steps”. he looks at the bed. someone is already sleeping. he leaves the boxes on the table and approaches the sleepy body. “and i couldn’t be sure, i had a feeling so peculiar”. he gently brushes his rosy cheeks with his fingers. wwx opens his eyes and smiles. “..this pain wouldn’t be for evermore”.

[trensu]

Episode 33: The One where WWX Needs to Stop Touching Swords of the Un-Sexy Kind

So we start the episode with MAXIMUM PAIN

JC is crying and shaking and clinging to jyl’s dead body and I WANT TO DIE

Plus side, wwx grabbed the guy who stabbed jyl and choked him to death

Now wwx is surrounded by all the stupid idiots that comprise the cultivator world and they’re all hurling insults and accusations at him and MY POOR SUNSHINE BOY IS JUST HAVING A BREAKDOWN

We get a shot of lwj who is fighting tooth and nail against the cultivators but he’s surrounded and can’t get to wwx

Also, just so you all know, LWJ HAS THE BEST FIGHT SCENES. He just stopped two blades at once and knocked the guys down 

Oh noooo, wwx pulls out his demon flute and starts playing! Resentful energy starts going even more crazy!

Lwj: wei ying, stop!

EVERYTHING IS AWFUL

AND IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE

Wwx is crying as he’s playing and i’m DYING INSIDE

Oh no! Wwx just spat a bunch of blood

Lwj sees him spit out the blood

AND SUDDENLY THEIR SONG IS PLAYING ON A CELLO, ALL SLOW, AND IT HURTS SO MUCH TO HEAR IT PLAYED THIS WAY

While lwj is distracted by the sight of his soulmate breaking down some ASSHOLE ATTACKS HIM FROM BEHIND AND CUTS HIS ARM

He takes him down and then slides effortlessly into another attack that manages to legit slice some dude’s neck open

OUR BOY IS NOT HOLDING BACK AT ALL, FOLKS

SO FAR LWJ’S MAD FIGHTING SKILLS ARE THE ONLY THING KEEPING ME TOGETHER

Oh no

Wwx just pulled out Plot Device 2 after getting the high ground, and lwj is watching him from below as he does this

Wwx: since you want it so much, come take it with your own ability

And he just chucks it to the crowd

We get to see all the greed and desire for power from all the cultivators here as they start cutting each other down to get their hands on this thing

It disgusts me

Now wwx is laughing BUT IT IS NOT HAPPY LAUGHTER. IT IS DESPERATE GRIEVING LAUGHTER, I HATE IT SO MUCH

AND LWJ IS WATCHING WITH A HELPLESS LOOK ON HIS FACE

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

WWX IS AT THE CLIFF

THAT ONE CLIFF WE HATE

I CAN’T DO THIS

OH GOD

Lwj: wei ying, come back

He says this so softly and full of desperation

He’s so scared

But wwx just steps back more, closer to the cliff’s edge and HE’S CRYING AND JUST LETS HIMSELF FALL

LWJ FUCKING LUNGES FOR HIM

OH GOD I CAN’T DO THIS

I CAN’T

Lwj barely manages to grab him in time and he grips him tight in his hand with all his might

Wwx looks so surprised, completely shocked that someone would try to save him at this point

Lwj, on the other hand, has a grim determined look on his face. He caught his soulmate, just barely, but he caught him and he will not let go!!

Wwx: lan zhan

There’s blood streaming down lwj’s hand from the wound on his arm and it’s just pouring over wwx’s hand

Wwx just hangs there limply, making no move to pull himself up towards lwj

Wwx: lan zhan, let me go

NONONONONONONO

Lwj’s grip SLIPS FOR A SECOND THAT GIVES ME A FREAKING HEART ATTACK but he manages to adjust his grip and clutch at him HARDER

He hasn’t said a word! He hasn’t said anything bc he’s focusing everything he has on holding onto wwx

Then we see jc striding into the scene and I’M DYING I’M DYING THIS IS GOING TO HURT SO BAD

Jc gets to lwj’s side and looms over the both of them

Wwx: jiang cheng…

And wwx for a split second looks happy; he’s happy to see his brother bc it’s his brother, the guy who’s been with him since they were children

But jc draws his sword and glares at him

And that joy peters off into pained acceptance bc wwx thinks he deserves this

Nononononononononononono my yunmeng bros don’t do this to me, please no

Lwj: Jiang Wanyin, stop it!

LWJ IS SAYING THIS THROUGH GRITTED TEETH BC HE SAW JC DRAW HIS SWORD

HE SEES HIM AIMING IT THREATENINGLY AT HIS SOULMATE 

AND HE DOES NOT HAVE THE STRENGTH OR ABILITY TO BLOCK HIM RIGHT NOW BECAUSE HE CAN’T LET GO OF WWX

Jc takes his sword and tells wwx to go to hell and strikes the stone between lwj and wwx

It’s enough to wobble where lwj is at and wwx SEES this and panics

HE WILL NOT BRING LAN ZHAN DOWN WITH HIM

So he yanks his arm from lwj’s grip and lets himself fall

Lwj: WEI YING

AND WE HEAR LWJ SHOUT HIS SOULMATE’S NAME. IT’S FULL OF DESPAIR BC HIS SOULMATE IS LOST TO HIM NOW

AND HIS FACE IS JUST ALL DEVASTATION AND HEARTBREAK

KILL ME KILL ME IT HURTS TOO MUCH

And then the camera pulls back and lwj looks so small standing on that cliff as jc just walks away

Lwj: wei ying

He says his soulmate’s name one last time in a pained gasp, like he can’t get enough air in his lungs, like breathing hurts, bc EVERYTHING HURTS, HE JUST LOST HIS SOULMATE

And then before, i can spiral into a nervous breakdown from the sheer ENORMITY OF EMOTIONS THIS SHOW JUST SHOVED DOWN MY THROAT...

We get a time skip!

~16 years later~

The scene opens to lwj playing ~their song~ on the guqin

Oh god it sounds so beautiful

It’s played in a way that sounds soothing and peaceful

Probably to keep the audience from finding a cliff and taking a dive…

Also, this is the first time we see lwj with his hair down! Or at least it doesn’t have a fancy hairpiece in it; it’s still tied back a bit tho

It’s a fucking travesty that we don’t get to see his hair like this more often. He looks so freaking soft here…

In fact everything looks so soft here: out of focus shots of wwx and lwj, a breeze gently rustling the curtains…

It really is just what i needed to recover from what happened like, two seconds ago, tho, so kudos to the showrunners

Now we get a quick series of flashbacks to mo xuanyu, the juniors, etc etc

The show’s like hey guys, remember 30 episodes ago we started telling a different story with a whole bunch of other characters??

Yeah, we didn’t think so, let us remind you real quick

AND ~THEIR SONG~ IS PLAYING THE WHOLE TIME

Okay, we’re back at present-day Ancient Fantasy China and wwx just starts regaining consciousness

Of course the first thing he does is tenderly watch lwj play their love song

Wwx: sixteen years...it feels like a dream

IT’S VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU KNOW THAT THE FLUTE PART OF THEIR SONG STARTS UP AS SOON AS WWX STARTS TO SPEAK

Lwj: you’re awake

I AM HAVING FEELINGS

MUCH LESS PAINFUL FEELINGS THAN 5 MINUTES AGO, BUT THERE’S A LOT OF THEM AND IDK WHAT TO DO

Lwj continues to play on his guqin

Wwx: i never thought i could still be alive

Lwj: the day you fell of the cliff, jc insisted on searching for your body but he could only see the bones of the dead

Wwx: what about you? Have you ever tried looking for me?

Of COURSE HE FUCKING DID YOU’RE HIS SOULMATE WHAT DID YOU THINK HE WAS GOING TO DO, OH MY GOD

Lwj: three years later, i went there but there were no bones left

God, they’re both speaking so gently to each other 

like they can’t quite believe they’re able to have this conversation, that this reunion is happening at all.

Wwx: why three years later?

Lwj’s hands freeze over the guqin when he asks this

Lwj: these 16 years…

NOTICE HOW LWJ POINTEDLY DOES NOT ANSWER THE QUESTION

Wwx: if i say i don’t know where i was these last 16 years, will you believe me?

Lwj: yes, i believe you

His voice is all soft and full of feeling

Wwx: lan zhan, did you really believe me back then?

HAVE I MENTIONED THAT THEY’RE SPEAKING TO EACH OTHER EVER SO SOFTLY AND TENDERLY AND GENTLE-LIKE?? I AM FULL TO THE BRIM WITH EMOTIONS RN

WWX IS TEARY EYED THE WHOLE TIME, MY HEART MY HEART

Oh, now we cut to a freaking beautiful shot of lwj sitting on a rock with his guqin on his lap, surrounded by trees and a waterfall

HE’S FUCKING GLOWING IN THIS SHOT

And my god the scenery in this show is just so fucking gorgeous

Like, how did they make it so beautiful???

We cut back to wwx and watch as wwx steps out of the Silence Room (aka the jingshi, aka LWJ’S BEDROOM) and starts wandering the Cloud Recesses

And i’m here like ummm? Where’s your mask wwx? YOU’RE WANDERING THE CLOUD RECESSES PRETTY CONFIDENTLY THERE WITHOUT YOUR MASK. 

WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING.

We do get cute little flashbacks as wwx reminisces about the last time he was here tho

It’s bittersweet

Oh, he’s coming up to the library pavilion and ~THEIR SONG~ starts playing again! 

WE FLASHBACK TO ANGRY BB!LWJ 

LOOK AT HOW PRECIOUS AND LITTLE THEY ARE HERE. 

BABIES, THEY’RE ALL BABIES HERE. 

Y’KNOW, BEFORE THEY GET HIT WITH ALL THAT WAR AND LOSS AND EMOTIONAL TRAUMA

Now we cut to wwx wandering the back hills of the cloud recesses and there are bunnies!!! HELLO BUNNIES, WE MISSED YOU~!

Wwx picks up one of the bunnies and starts petting them

Wwx: little bunny, do you remember me?

SO CUTE, I DIE.

Wwx: i didn’t know that you were still being kept here after so many years!

He’s holding the bunny so gently and petting them AHHHH

Wwx: didn’t that fuddy duddy say he didn’t like you?

HE SMILES SO SWEETLY AT THE PRECIOUS LITTLE BUNNY

Wwx finishes his time with the bunny and casually makes his way towards the cold spring

HALF NAKED LWJ

WET HALF NAKED LWJ

CHILLING IN THE COLD SPRING BEING TOTALLY GAY

Oh, but when wwx realizes who’s in the cold spring, he gets this pleased little smile on his face!!

That smile slips right off his face tho when he sees that lwj’s back is littered with scars

The music here gets all low and ominous here too.

Wwx’s brows get all furrowed and his mouth drops open in shock

Wwx: whips?

Lwj turns around and sees wwx standing there

he seems pretty surprised to see wwx there, actually, his eyes widen and everything

When he does this HE REVEALS THE WEN BRAND BURNED INTO HIS CHEST RIGHT WHERE WWX HAD IT BURNED INTO HIM IN THE MURDER TURTLE CAVE

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Wwx lets out a little gasp and jerks back in shock when he sees it

At that, lwj immediately flicks his gaze downward and to the side in an obviously nervous gesture

He robes up pretty quickly from here (like REALLY quickly)

Wwx is still staring at him with his eyes all wide but not in a “omg hot naked dude” way; more in a “oh no, what happened?!” sort of way

Side note to mention I LOVE HOW LWJ LOOKS WITH WET HAIR, IDK WHY BUT I DO

Lwj: you’re awake

Wwx: lan zhan, the whips on your back...

Lwj: *looks down and doesn’t answer*

Wwx: you have always been a model among the disciples. What on earth have you done to deserve such a severe punishment?

His brow is all furrowed and he looks almost angry

But his voice is soft and serious and full of concern

And i’m sitting here like, OH BOY, YOU ARE NOT GOING TO LIKE THE ANSWER TO THAT QUESTION WWX

Wwx: lan zhan, answer me

WHAT IF HE DOESN’T ANSWER, WWX? HMMM? WHAT WILL YOU DO THEN? 

REMEMBER THAT ONE TIME HE DEMANDED YOU ANSWER HIM AND YOU GOT ALL MEAN AND SNARKY?

BECAUSE I DO

I’M STILL NOT OVER IT, THAT WAS REALLY MEAN OF YOU

Lwj: *pointedly stays silent and keeps his gaze lowered*

And here the some lan disciples interrupt before we can get any answers

They’re here to give us Plot, how dare they

Apparently lqr got himself in trouble; couldn’t control a spirit or smth. What a rookie.

But we don’t care bc he’s wwx’s nemesis lol

Wwx and lwj rush over to the “Underworld Chamber” where lqr is at

Yes, they have a building called the Underworld Chamber bc the lan clan specializes in dramatics i guess

And also, somehow between the cold spring to the underworld chamber, lwj’s hair dries completely and he has it all done up again with his snazzy silver hairpiece??

Which, actually, is freaking hilarious if you think about it

Like, oh, gotta go save my uncle but if he sees me so disheveled he’ll make me write lines for sure...better get myself dolled up before i arrive there

Wwx does his cool magic talisman thing to bust open the doors of the dramatically named chamber and then locks the doors up behind them once he and lwj get in

Lwj looks very worried about his uncle, who is currently swooned into the arms of some rando lan disciple

Lwj immediately takes over the guqin bc he’s the Guqin Master and starts playing Magic Music

and the possessed sword is floating in the middle of the room exuding Bad Vibes™

Wwx whips out his shoddy flute and starts playing the Magic Music too bc it’s DUET TIME, BABY

Lol lqr immediately starts groaning when he hears the flute start up

Wwx’s like oh shit, lqr will recognize me if i play masterfully as i usually do so he switches from playing Magic Music to playing ~Their Song~ but, like, horribly??? It’s terrible terrible flute playing.

(also, like, i know they’re all acting, none of them know how to actually play the instruments their characters play but here i’m like ARE YOU EVEN TRYING?? DO THOSE FINGERINGS BELONG TO ANY ACTUAL NOTES???)

(I know i wasn’t the greatest at playing the flute in high school--okay, i was actually a pretty shitty flutist BUT EVEN I CAN TELL THAT THOSE FINGERINGS ARE BULLSHIT)

(okay i’m done yelling about the flute-playing now)

AND LOL LWJ’S FACE IS LIKE WHAT WHAT WHAT ARE YOU DOING, THAT SOUNDS HORRENDOUS HOW DARE YOU MUTILATE OUR LOVE SONG THAT WAY

Lqr: stop the flute! Get out!!

I’M D Y I N G LOLOLOL

Wwx stops playing and looks at lqr like, yikes

Lqr: no more…

And then he passes out like a drama queen omg

Wwx looks at lwj like “oops, sorry about your uncle??”

But after lqr is very much unconscious he starts playing Magic Music well again

So that all happens and eventually the sword spirit chills out and clatters to the floor

It’s still very obviously exuding Bad Vibes™ and doing this creepy whisper thing so of course wwx is like IMMA GRAB IT

OMG WWX STOP TOUCHING SCREAMING SWORDS

HAVE YOU LEARNED NOTHING JFC

Yeah so for some reason, wwx thinks it’s a good idea to touch the possessed sword and it starts screaming at him obvs and he starts to shake

Lwj is watching him all worriedly

The screaming seems to overwhelm wwx bc he’s flung back STRAIGHT INTO LWJ’S ARMS

Like, no hesitation. Lwj IMMEDIATELY catches him all tenderly as he falls

We cut back to the silence room with lwj at lqr’s bedside, checking his meridians/spiritual energy/whatever the hell

He’s very focused but all the juniors are cheeping at him like baby birds, it’s adorable

Except one of the juniors starts talking about the possibility of the yiling patriarch possessing someone and lwj opens his eyes and glares at him

HE GLARES SO HARD

AND ALL THE JUNIORS DUCK THEIR HEADS IN SHAME 

Lwj dismisses them

Lwj: sizhui, go to bed

Lsz: but dad!!

Lwj: say no more, go

Lsz: yes father

I LOVE DADJI AND LSZ MOMENTS, I HAD TO INCLUDE THIS EXCHANGE

Lsz leaves and bumps into wwx who’s lounging casually outside that building. It’s night time. He’s dressed all in black. Wearing a mask. He looks sketchy af is what i’m saying.

Like, you choose NOW to wear a mask?? WHERE WAS THAT MASK EARLIER???

Wwx: are you okay, random junior that i’m fond of for some unknown reason?

And lsz opens up to him and starts being all Clever and talking Plot Points

Wwx is watching him puzzle this out and he’s so proud and impressed with lsz

Wwx: good analysis, it seems you’ve studied really hard!

More plot talk and then lsz is all why are you wearing a mask again?

Wwx: i’m afraid of being seen by some old friends…

“FRIENDS” LOLOL YEAH OKAY

Cut to a new scene. It’s morning time!

Lwj is staring longingly at wwx

Wwx: you’re not suspecting me are you? I’ve been sleeping for 16 years.

HELLO DENSE!WWX. CAN’T SAY THAT I’VE MISSED YOUR OBLIVIOUSNESS

HE’S OBVIOUSLY USING EVERY OUNCE SELF RESTRAINT TO NOT GRAB YOU AND KISS THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS OUT OF YOU

Also, is this how he’s coping with being dead and resurrected? Pretending he took an extended nap?? this is a crowley approved coping mechanism, and i too approve of extended naps

Lwj: of course i believe you

Now they’re doing Plot Talk but we’re not gonna go into detail

Instead we’re going to enjoy their general proximity to each other and watch their pretty beautiful gorgeous faces as they bask in each other’s presence and talk smart with their wonderful voices

*dreamy sigh*

WWX IS BEING CLEVER

AND LWJ IS KEEPING UP WITH HIS CLEVERNESS

AND THEY REACH THE SAME CONCLUSION AND SAY IT OUT LOUD SIMULTANEOUSLY

BC THEY’RE GENIUS SOULMATES

(their conclusion has to do with Xue Yang and Plot Device 1 that may have something to do with Plot Device 2?? Only mentioning it vaguely bc it becomes relevant to wangxiantics later. We don’t need to know more than this lol)

Ooh, the end of their Plot Talk wwx says something about how whoever planted the sword ghost is obviously coming after him

Like, he realizes that he’s the target (presumably; i suppose it’s a reasonable assumption for him to make at this point). He stares off into the distance totally accepting of becoming the target again

But lwj gazes at him like OVER MY DEAD BODY IS ANYONE GONNA TAKE YOU AWAY FROM ME AGAIN, I JUST GOT YOU BACK!!

Maybe i’m projecting bc OVER MY DEAD BODY AM I LETTING ANYONE HURT MY PRECIOUS SUNSHINE BOY AGAIN,. COME OUT HERE AND FIGHT ME LIKE A MAN/WOMAN/NB PERSON

Now they’re back at the Underworld Chamber where the sword ghost (sans sword) is just chillin there and it’s all glowy and blue instead of smoky black.

Blah blah PLOT blah blah Follow the sword ghost blah blah Find sword ghost’s owner blah blah

Oh, and here lwj says they’re going on a trip together for Plot Reasons

Wwx is very excited about it. He hops and LEANS HARD into lwj.

Like, he’s putting weight into it guys, just getting all up close and personal with lwj’s strong sturdy shoulder~!

Wwx: i finally won’t be controlled by the strict rules here!

UM EXCUSE ME???

WHEN HAVE YOU EVER FOLLOWED THEIR RULES, WWX

WHEN

NAME ONE TIME

GO AHEAD, I’LL WAIT.

Lwj steps back slightly and wwx barely catches himself in time, it’s GREAT.

GUYS, OUR BOYS ARE TRAVELING TOGETHER AGAIN

ON A MISSION

TOGETHER!! 

SIDE BY SIDE!

TO HUNT DOWN EVIL!

TOGETHER!!

JUST LIKE OLD TIMES BEFORE ALL THE ANGST AND TRAUMA HAPPENED!!!

Look at our boys! Together! In qinghe!! Qinghe brings back so many fond memories!

They go into town to explore

Lol, we meet a mountebank selling portraits of the yiling patriarch that are supposed to ward off evil 

Wwx gets distracted by him and stays behind to chat while lwj keeps going

Wwx inspects the portraits and is SUPER DISAPPOINTED AND OFFENDED

THOSE PORTRAITS PHYSICALLY PAIN HIM

Wwx: the yiling patriarch was famous for his good looks! Who are these losers?? If you never saw the actual person, don’t draw randomly!! Stop misleading the younger generation! THEY HAVE TO KNOW HOW PRETTY I AM

Ah, poor wwx. Nobody can capture his beautiful perfect face.

SURPRISE JIN LING!!

ANGRY LITTLE BOY

KNOCKING DOWN THE POOR INNOCENT MOUNTEBANK

He’s all, that guy should be grateful all i did was kick him. I will kill anyone who mentions the yiling patriarch around me!!

Lol he’s such a brat, i love him.

Wwx: *internally* i wonder how his personality turned out this way. Poor temper, strong hostility. He learned all his uncle’s and father’s defects but none of his mother's strengths. If i don’t start working on him now, he’ll definitely suffer in the future…

LOOK AT WWX BEING A CONCERNED UNCLE!! I LOVE HIM SO MUCH

Except he hasn’t had much practice being an uncle so he brings up the time he pinned him to the ground with a talisman 

Jin ling gets offended...

Aaaand here comes FAIRY THE WONDER DOG!! 

Wwx hears the dog barking and making their way towards him AND FLIPS THE FUCK OUT

HE RUNS AWAY SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF HIS LUNGS

IT’S HILARIOUS

And we end on that high note.

Talk about emotional whiplash.

How can you make me want to tear my heart out of my own chest at the beginning and 40ish minutes later have me giggling like a loon??

Return to Masterpost

[inessencedevided]

The Untamed, episode 30 - watching notes

Full disclosure: today, I watched the last 2 episodes (from the moment lwj and wwx meet at the market) again. in the bathtub. With a rose-scented bathbomb. And a face-mask. And a steaming cup of chai latte. That's self-care, bitches!

And delaying the inevitable

So one last thing on the last episode. I adore wwx's character and how the show handles both his many strengths and and his flaws. Last episode, particularly, hammered home that m, while he may try to do everything on his own and save everyone at the expense of himself, that's neither what those he loves want, nor what they need. And nothing was as beautiful as his song about how he walks a narrow bridge alone being followed by the community he lives in and that he has saved, taking him into their midst.

Now, off to more heartbreak

Oh God, Wen Ning. Cuteness won't sell your turnips 😅

Seriously, how can a walking corpse be this cute??

People pretending to be (or know) the Yiling patriarch while wwx is insulted by their incompetence is my new favourite running gag :D

Oh shit

I did NOT expect Jiang Cheng to just turn up like that

Shijie!! 😭😭😭😭

She wanted to him to see her in her wedding ensemble and I'm already crying 😭💔😭💔😭

She's so beautiful :')

Oh my God. They're all smiling and it's almost like before. I can't handle this

Of course there's soup :)

She's pregnant!!! 😭😭😭

WWX you can't name your nephew after your boyfriend! 😂

Oh god, even Jiang cheng is trying

It's so much worse because I know what will happen at the end of this flashback!!!

Show, why must you hurt me this way??

How does this woman just always have soup with her? It's her cultivation power, I'm telling you

She brings some time Wen Ning! I'm crying 😭

Oooh! Wait! That fight was fake???

I am surprised and honestly impressed! Jiang Cheng in a way, helped wwx. Wwx couldn't and wouldn't come back and, like this, he doesn't tear the Jiang clan down. I mean, it's not perfect,but it's at least in both of their interests

This arch gives me so many found family feelings

Also, just wwx ... the orphan who found a family and lost it and now found another ... all by himself

I'm just glad that he isn't on as bad terms with his siblings as I thought

Now hug them goddamnit!!!

Wen Ning is carrying the soup all the way up for A Yuan :')

How does Wen Qing hold all those eye rolls in, I wonder ^^

Of course she found out

Once again this show kills me with flashbacks

Can wwx stop saying he's fine?

Kinda random, but it's nice that even though wwx and wen Qing are both farming all day,they have perfectly manicured fingernails. Nice they're taking care of themselves :D

The "fly" scene is the cutest things I have ever seen. Period.

Oh no

I have no patience for Clan politics rn

And least of all the Jin clan

They actually managed to grow lotus roots 🥺🥺🥺

And the way wen Qing and Wen Ning look at each other all mischievous. My heart! They try so hard to make wwx feel at home !!!

Another one year leap? I wanted to get a glimpse of the wedding! 😔

Wwx excitement at the news that he's an uncle broke my heart 💔

How am I going to survive this?

No one forces a smile quite like Jin Guangyao

Lan Wangji advocating for wwx to be there 🥰

Okay, sorry, I know much has happened since then, but Lan Xichen stopping Jin Guangyao from bowing to him still gives me all the feels. Parallels man!!

I honestly admire Lan Wangji's matter-of-fact way of arguing. While he isn't as brash as wwx, he is so sincere and stubborn that he isn't made for politics either

Jin Zixuan, I appreciate you

I have such a visceral hatred for Jin Guangshan at this point ...

Please tell me they're not going to massacre the remaining wen clan while wwx is away 😳 but then again, why wouldn't we see that coming? Argh ... this is killing me

What is happening with Jin Zixun? 🤨

What's happening?

All of this is way to convenient. This is how everything will go wrong, right?

It's like watching two trains on a collision course and being unable to do anything :/

Btw, while this episode was sad and made me cry on several occasions,it wasn't as bad as I expected it to be. At this point I expect Yunmeng-massacre levels of devastation every episode tbh 😅

But pain will come. I know 🥺

I really want to watch another episode, but I can barely keep my eyes open :/

@sweetlittlevampire @fandom-glazed @elenirlachlagos @allhailthedramallama @luckymoony @kyrrahbird (good night 💚)

[a-very-fond-farewell]

The forbidden crack! Untamed prompts: 2/?

[tw hospitalization] but also healing

Private Clinic AU: “Heart String”

The day Lan Huan awakes in a hospital ward after the coma he hears some of the nurses whisper in a pitiful tone. They say people could die of heartbreak, the tendons and muscles enveloping the human core snapping in places that should not exist. So it wasn’t his imagination when he felt something being cut inside of him when he heard the news. That Guang Yao, his Guang Yao, had killed someone out of some petty revenge.

Lan Huan couldn’t reconcile with the truth and suffered the aftermath of a mental breakdown, along with –apparently– the consequences of a stroke at thirty eight years old. Stressful working hours at the firm, neglecting his health, not finding time for his family just not to feel useless, working tirelessly to make amends, to give his younger brother and their cousins a chance at happiness after losing everything in the fire of five years ago... he had not seen it coming.

Turns out, the stronger one has always been Lan Zhan between them, who has endured the pain of being left alone with grace and dignity. Wei Ying’s disappearance into thin air three years ago, no messages no mails, hasn’t left Lan Zhan quite as broken as how Lan Huan now feels. But as his older brother he knows he’s still waiting for a sign, for a message, for a call that’ll never arrive.

But for as useless and pathetic as he believes to be, nothing could compare with how guilty he feels when he meets the local unofficial cryptid of the ward. A man five years younger than him with angry eyes, a restless sprint, a penchant for sneaking around in his pajama followed and reprimanded by nurses, and the only reason the kids in the ward don’t feel so alone at night.

Nobody knows for how long Jiang Cheng has been a patient, but the heart transplant has only been the last of many surgeries he has undergone and this makes Lan Huan think. That maybe he shouldn’t be there, close to forty, being treated for a delicate heart when someone like Jiang Cheng has fought their entire life for a chance at living a normal existence.

So when he tries to avoid the man’s angry stares and unpleasant attitude, the last thing Lan Huan expects is to be thrown into that puppy pile that is the group of many kids in recovery as they ask him to join “The Heist” every week. A game Jiang Cheng himself has come up with years ago to keep them entertained, wheeling himself and sometimes even them around the clinic to find the most impossible things out of dare. “Get us the secret stash of cookies director Song Lan hides in his office” this, “Snap an embarrassing picture of nurse Wen Ning covered in jello” that.

Plans that should not involve running around after receiving a brand new heart actually bring Jiang Cheng closer and closer to Lan Han in the following months, with all his anger issues and exhaustion, with all his secret perfect tenderness and grumpy antics. But The Heist make the children happy and they missed Jiang Cheng for the three months he couldn’t move after the surgery and Lan Huan shouldn’t be able to fall in love anymore. Not so soon, not only six months after the terrible things his A-Yao has done. And yet...yet.

Until one day one of the older kids, Xue Yang, who has never asked for Jiang Cheng to fulfill any wish of his during The Heist, ask him to find the records of the organ donors one day out of the blue in front of the other kids. Willing to not lose face in front of them, spurred by the fear of disappoint the high expectations that a bunch of children has for him –their hero saving their days from pain and boredom–, Jiang Cheng accepts the unusual and heavy challenge against Lan Han’s warnings.

What they’ll discover and the truth behind it will leave them with a choice nobody would be able to face.

[heartbroken!XiChen + cardiac-patient!JiangCheng = The Heist has no rules]

[vaguely-concerned]

The Untamed Liveblog

Yes hello I watched the whole thing and wrote down some of my thoughts and feelings along the way so I wouldn’t fuckign EXPLODE! Only look under the cut if you’re prepared for a truly outrageous amount of rambling (...no really)  

- I am elated to find that so far every adaptation I’ve seen has faithfully preserved the absolutely bizarre structure of the original book, I am appreciating the dedication haha

- the actor lends this version of lan wangji such an edge of youth and vulnerability right from the beginning, it breaks my heart. I don’t care how good he is with a sword, you can’t expose this pure sweet boy to the horrors of war!!! 

- I am so glad I already know who all these characters are and wtf is going on, I can’t imagine watching this first time without that knowledge lol 

- I love how they’ve made nie huaisang look so small and soft next to all the other cultivator, he looks like a floofy and eternally confused baby birb ;______;

- nhs citing the goldfinch as the reason he doesn’t want to die (presumably because no one will know to take care of it) TOT ur meant to be comic relief in this part of the story buddy you can’t make me cry like this yet!!!

(also the actor for wwx effortlessly sliding into being protective and reassuring and Good in a crisis. wonderful!)

- the actor for xue yang has chosen to go with the sexy baby school of evil acting normally associated with female villains and for that I can only applaud him

also setting up characters who are going to be important later on is something this show is doing better than the original haha, both the extra wen quing & ning and song lan & xiao xingcheng content is appreciated. (especially the latter suffered from ‘oh yeah those two -- actually wait who the fuck are these two again’ syndrome for me when I read the book. additional note: I am very sorry but clearly they are gay there’s no other explanation here)  

- poor jiang cheng, they really haven’t given him much help in this huh. I would sort of have preferred it if they let him be ever so slightly less abrasive in the beginning, like in the book and the animated version; I’m not feeling quite as devastated over this relationship as I did in either of those.

- lan xichen’s soft knowing smile is a blessing every time. just a nice man. did not deserve this. protect.  

- kudos to the actor for jin guangyao for the instinctive creeping unease I feel whenever he talks, even at this stage. he’s a wrong ‘un sir he’s a wrong ‘un

- y’know both the fact that nhs spent three days catching a bird and kept it with him undetected and that he’s the friend you go to for the good porn and managed to not only smuggle it into the cloud recesses but did so without getting caught... some wonderful subtle foreshadowing here (to make up for the very blatant visual foreshadowing that’s already been given out I assume lol)

- anyway lan ancestor lady and baoshan-sanren? gay. sad and gay. (I love how thoroughly wwx is getting to meet the in-laws btw lol how often do you have to meet your future spouse’s family from like three generations ago and take care of her rabbits for her after she’s gone, all before you even get to second base)

- fkadshfkasjdlhfsdjkfh the sheer consistency of nhs wistfully commenting on all the beautiful men surrounding him fsadfkjsdhfksd I think they might oh so subtly be hinting at some stuff here. HILARIOUS that this version, which has to maintain at least the veneer of some plausible homoerotic deniability, is a lot more overt about it than the book, which is free to be balls to the wall as gay as you please  

- oh no nie mingjue just showed up my entire heart is on fire. BIG BROTHER!! so stern yet fair, so righteous, so worried y______y also can we talk about how his ‘hmmm I think imma stab it?’ approach to evil in general and xue yang in particular would have saved everyone a lot of grief later on? and he tells wwx the whole necromancy thing is probably not a good idea? (I really like how he does it too, he has so much Older Brother Energy it spills over when he talks to other kids around huaisang’s age lol. it’s good that they show his temper isn’t indiscriminate at all, he’s not angry at wwx even though his idea is provably incredibly dangerous) sole ornery voice of reason nie mingjue, also did not deserve what’s about to happen, I cry and my tears are blood  

- ‘yeah okay I get that you’re mad but have you maybe considered... I didn’t do it?’ is an unusually weak opening move from jgy considering nmj literally did just see him absolutely 100% do it

- there should be a WARNING at the beginning of episodes where nmj cries so one could be PREPARED for the emotional devastation!!!!! tollest & stronkest man of the cast also stupidly pretty and heartbreaking while crying, it’s not fair

- I love how every cultivation sect’s home (except for the wens b/c they’re cartoon villains) is refined and beautiful and luxurious, even when it’s in a restrained way like the lans’... and then there’s the nie place which is like ‘please understand that this is a fuckn fortress’

- aww this doomed jiang cheng/wen quing thing is cute! too bad about... everything that’s about to happen happening huh

- oh wen ning.  very hilarious that he’s known as the ~*ghost general*~ forevermore when actually... he is baby... cinnamon roll baby... too good for this world, too pure...

- how is this cgi turtle somehow less egregious than the one in the animated version lol. I quite like this bad little friend! long neck.

- oh NO lan wangji finally letting himself show that he’s in pain when they’re in private... i’m uwu  

this beautiful boy is so long and lanky tho, I must admit he triggers my parental instinct more than the hot boy alert at this stage (but that’s fine I’m not the one who’s going to smooch him that’s wwx’s job lol)

the look of absolute disbelief and despair lwj gives when wwx thinks he’s in love with mianmian... this show is a cinematic masterpiece and I will hear no other opinion  

- lwj looking at the love of his life completely missing the point: are you a joke to you (the answer is yeah)

- okay we’ve officially hit the point where everything’s about to go to hell for real, pray for me I’m not sure I can handle this again

- jiang fengmian acknowledge your other son who desperately wants your attention and affection challenge (unfinished)

- watching this scene knowing exactly what this promise means to jiang cheng and that wwx is going to break it... this is fINE

why the fuck did I do this to myself I know what’s about to happen when will I learn to quit while I’m ahead lol

- the change in subtext from the novel that EVERYONE sees wangxian coming from day one is so painful from jiang cheng’s side. this poor boy really has abandonment issues pelting him from every direction huh. tfw your idiot genius brother doesn’t even fucking realize he’s basically announcing he’s leaving your clan and your side to get married one day ;______;

- man mxtx is just so GOOD at peppering in the small private tragedies that somehow sting even worse than huge atrocities going on. the fact that madam yu and papa jiang never manage to reconcile and communicate except possibly in death... oof my friends. oooof.

- WAIT WHAT NO DON’T SHOW ME THE CHILDREN WHO’RE ABOUT TO DIE WHAT THE FUCK YOU MONSTERS

- like we’re right at the worst part now and she is an asshole... but damn madam yu’s last stand is epic tho. like a champ to the end

- wen zhuliu’s actor being able to uphold a look of tremendous boredom at all times regardless of what’s going on around him is Poetic Cinema Bitches

- jiang cheng and wei ying are holding hands on the boat... stab me in the heart... end my suffering

- you know what in this version we get to see that madam yu knew her husband came back for her and they died holding hands and not everything’s on fire yet, so far this isn’t quite as harrowing as the animated version. the dead children are fucking me up but the tone of the animated version is like a nightmare, this is less disturbing to me

also can we talk about how madam yu fought them off the whole day and night and her husband gets his ass owned within five minutes 😔 oh papa jiang

- oh okay turns out jiang cheng’s ‘I want my mom and dad’ gets to me in every adaptation good to know

they’re so young they’re bbs I don’t want to be here anymore haha

- wen ning. a sweet angel. just the goodest of boys. his sister raised him so well ;______:

- wen quing is so ethereally beautiful and also looks like she could stop a train with the force of one glance. like she’s my height but her presence is immense

- oh I see we’ve arrived at the tiny adorable flashback bbs part of this journey, let me just... just lie down somewhere huh

- outside of the central romance this is a tale about people who love their brothers very very much and it’s real sad for everyone involved

- me watching nie mingjue kicking down the doors to reclaim his own dang fortress: YEEEEAAAAH GO OFF DAGE!!! i um love him and his very handsome face

- jiang cheng dreaming about his family is EMOTIONAL WARFARE!!! how fucking dare!!!

- y’know what this isn’t a bad way of adapting the burial grounds thing! also pretty cost effective I imagine, gotta think about the budget when so much of it goes into fabulous wigs and robes

- credit where it’s due, the actor for wen chao makes his face do some shit I didn’t know human faces could do and he’s enjoyable to watch in the capacity as your friendly neighbourhood hate sink

- lwj consistently using wwx’s personal name even when talking to total strangers now... mhm this is also fine

- I can’t beliEVE this show is somehow less subtle about the gay stuff than the book, jin zixuan basically just asked lwj if he and wwx were... y’know... I guess cultivation partners would be the way to go here lol. between that and nhs more or less asking them if they were off fucking after the whole cold cave debacle... what a time to be alive even if they’re not going to kiss on-screen  

- huaisang I hate to have to be the one to tell you this but your brother is an entire snacc. and yet I respect him way too much to ever proposition him, I know he is busy winning a war and being Righteous and slowly being driven mad by the ghost in his sword on top of raising his little brother, I’m not here to complicate things for him any further

I love this version of nmj so much though. this sense that he also sees the stuff that is genuinely good in jgy and has a real moment of grief that the dude just can’t seem to get away from his basic insecurity that causes him to do horrific things, even when handed other opportunities... the fact that he seems regretful and worried when asking jin zixuan how jgy is doing with the jin....... everything to do with his little brother...................... oh no he’s Soft in his private life this is awful

- poor lwj’s ‘I have a bad feeling about this’ face in this scene haha, he’s staring at this talisman like ‘I only know one person smart and dumb enough to pull this off’

- can’t wen quing just get one nice thing. one nice thing just for her. hasn’t she been through enough. give her her brother back and a nice quiet place to practice medicine and maybe some soft romance with jiang cheng eventually this show is kind of selling me on this.  

- unexpectedly my favourite part of the revenge scene is just the camera switching back to lwj and jc watching in horrified silence like ‘...O___o dude this is fucked up tho right?? it’s not just me that’s messed up??’

- one is forced to wonder about wen zhuliu tho. this version reads as pretty explicitly depressed/suicidal to me, he’s kind of an interesting villain since his main traits are unquestioning loyalty mixed with unending indifference and also seemingly not too pressing a will to live

- oh nhs desperately trying to keep it together and pretend nothing’s different ;_____; this version is really driving it home that wwx is a lot of people’s only friend -- jiang cheng is mentioned to not have anyone but his sister to play with before he arrived, lwj was raised primarily on books and rules and his brother is ELATED that he has one (1) friend now, from the sheer depth of the attachment I’m willing to bet nhs hasn’t had many real friends in his life either. wwx gives and gives of himself and doesn’t know how to take help in return.    

- foreknowledge is a beautiful thing; if you look at nhs when it’s revealed wwx didn’t bring his sword you can visibly see his brain kicking into overdrive haha. smart boy.

- big sister ;_______; I am an older sibling so I haven’t really had the feeling of having an older sister to look to, I see why it might be comforting now

- oh this is some real uruk-hai shit!! honestly the special effects in this aren’t half as bad as I’d been lead to fear, some of you guys just weren’t forged in the crucible of shitty sci-fi channel cgi at an early age and it shows  

(honestly the weird fight stuff threw me much worse in nirvana in fire, because that series has such intricate, credible and realistic political world building and then people are flying all over the place through wire fu and it is so disorienting haha)

- oh nhs looking up at his brother like a puppy during the war council T______T baby bird boy

(between this point in the main story and fatal journey it’s very interesting how clearly nhs needs the emotional stability and safety of his brother -- who also seems to be his parental figure -- to function properly, even in his late teens. it looks like he needed more time to grow up than the rest of them even before they were all thrown into this awful bullshit. well he does have a lot of murderkitten brain to grow I guess that’s fair enough lol. wwx has some of the same thing with his sister too)

- whenever lxc and nmj look at each other it feels like the only two adults in the room meeting each other’s eyes like ‘...oh dear’

- aww lwj getting some advice from his brother. this poor kid really hasn’t been raised to handle the moral complexity of the real world huh, good thing lxc is here to lend some nuance to lan qiren’s unforgiving dogma

- oh lan zhan

- nmj’s plan to just idk somehow go in alone and fight the wen overlord mano a mano to avoid any more casualties... a spine made of steel, a heart made of gold, a head made of wood :’) truly a perfect man, good thing his brother got the brains in that family and he has some more sensible people around him

- in the face of inevitability I plead... jiang yanli... please don’t marry this asshole your son is going to be predictably insufferable

wwx has suffered through so much the last four months or so and yet his real breaking point is seeing his sister cry and can I just say -- relatable content

- NO! NO STOP HURTING HIM HE’S JUST GOOD AND HANDSOME AND DOESN’T DESERVE THIS

(could be applied to like 98% of these characters but in this case it’s nmj b/c I love him)

I do find it very funny and oddly comforting that nmj is literally so fuckn mad that it takes three times as many attacks for the evil sorcery stuff to take him down than we’ve seen used on anyone else fsdkfhasdkj too angry to die  

wHY has my brain chosen for me to attach so deeply to perhaps The single most inevitably doomed person in this entire cast, at this point I’m just being cruel to myself lol

- I can’t describe how much I love the fanficiness of this story, in the best ways. the emotional fallout from the destruction of the lotus pier gets more screentime and attention than the entire sunshot campaign, and that’s exactly how I want it to be.  

- they’ve been doing some great work to establish that the jin are also jeeeeeerks for such a long time, how’s that for foreshadowing

- equal opportunity traitor jgy gets his stab in lol one must respect the grift, though, he’s set himself up pretty darn good

*lxc stops nmj from killing jgy, hello darkness my old friend starts playing in the background*

fatal journey builds nicely on this fundamental thing that the nie boys take their responsibility to their people extremely seriously, it seems to be the fact that jgy so blithely talks about them as necessary casualties that really sets him off

- adlfsdfhsdkjh lxc and nmj meekly being like ‘...we could maybe... not commit war crimes? if that’s at all possible? no?’

*slaps ‘I don’t think you even tried at all’ stars on both of them* (I mean I actually do kind of see where they’re coming from a bit, they just came out of a pretty costly war and I wouldn’t feel too comfortable getting right back into it with arguably the wealthiest faction, who’s also been keeping back a bit and thus kept a lot more reserves. well played jin bastards well played)

- I could stop here. if I stopped here everything would basically be as okay as they could be and the world full of hope still. I suppose the question here is... do I love myself enough to quit while the going is good. and the answer is no I already started the next episode

- I think one incredibly endearing aspect of this version of nmj is that he has a look of faint but permanent worry about him. he walked onto the screen with a vibe of ‘...oh boy I don’t like where this is going’ and he’s just kept going ever since

in the book he’s kind of a flat character (whose one trait is Mad), I love that they’ve given him some depth and nuance here! probably partly down to the actor doing a great job, but this version has a real sort of warmth to him and also seems downright uncertain at times -- he thrives when there’s a clear goal and black and white sides, and is probably not  t h r i l l e d with the weird tentative political situation after they take down the wens lol. thank god he has his little brother to make ‘bitch please’ faces over his shoulder when the jin get weird about things

anyway I’m always on the ‘nhs you are SO valid’ train, but in this version nhs is quadruple valid, in fact only mianmian is more valid in this entire world

- one of my favourite parts of this show is when wwx enters a situation and the camera takes some time to zoom in on the faces of his family and friends to convey their sense of ‘oh god what the fuck is he about to say now’ dread    

- jiang yanli asking her little brother if he doesn’t want to stay with them anymore while crying is emotional kryptonite, help

this poor woman, she had to put all her points into emotional intelligence b/c god knows no one else in this family did

- hell YEAH lan zhan go break some rules!! treat yourself my guy

- hey sis if, theoretically, one hypothetically found oneself in -- for the sake of argument -- love with, as the case may or may not be, someone... how would one tell?? asking for a friend

- the whole summary of this fucking show is just ‘weaponized sibling feels’ everything hurts with foreknowledge why did I keep going

- aw no blindfolded kiss scene but here’s a scene with real earnest emotional intimacy stuff going on instead... I will joyfully take it your honor

- I do value and respect the translators giving us these subtitles so much... but they did also force me to read the words ‘bosom friend’ with my own two eyes right there and that was not very cool of them

- why oh WHY must jiang yanli, best person in the world, have been cursed with the horrible fate of being in love with the dumbest man on the planet

*jiang yanli juggling all the idiot men in her life* oh god my little brother is causing an international diplomatic incident again time to bUCKLE UP

oh ho ho you know shit is getting real when big sister gets mad I LOVE HER. suddenly you see she definitely her mother’s daughter after all lol

wwx crying because his sister just fiercely defended him in public... im uwu

- I hate jgy with all my heart but I do feel bad for him too. his barely faltering :) look while all his asshole relatives gang up on him sdfhskahf

- again the jin are dicks but when it comes to aesthetics they do go off, that’s such a beautiful shade of blue

- dsflhsdakjlfhsdakjfl sd this shot of lwj and nmj right before lxc drinks is the funniest framing imaginable b/c lwj is wearing a look of complete stonefaced

-___________-

and meanwhile nmj, who presumably has seen lxc drunk before since they’re longstanding bros, looks worried as fUCK

- awwwww I do love nhs capitalizing all of jc’s attention so the others won’t start shit with him/so he won’t get to say something publicly he’ll regret later because he’s (understandably honestly) mad at his brother for making his life even more difficult than it has to be (I have every sympathy with wwx but buddy... buddy must you make everything more complicated for your bro every darn time this is a real delicate political situation and he’s not suited for that even without your antics)

it’s a very nhs move because he comes across as slightly boorish and rude and thus leaves jc blameless and thus protected, you can get so far if you have no self respect lol  

- showing us exactly how wen ning died is honestly a little too mean this is not fun

- good god this poor grandma has been through the wringer hasn’t she

- oh. oh wen ning, who never meant hurt anyone in his entire life :(

- listen okay the end is in sight just a couple more horrific tragedies to get through and then it’s the weird romantic comedy buddy cop antics of the current day timeline to ride to the end

- it cannot be overemphasized how much this lan zhan is Baby, I so desperately want to help and protect him

- I’m going to stop shouting out individual actors on this show they’re all goddamn brilliant haha (but am I tho)

- most valid person in the cultivation world mianmian

also enjoying the exemplification of nmj’s character that is ‘not sure how I feel about this dumb kid with the big mouth digging his own grave ever deeper but that girl’s got guts and I respect that’

- wen quing is getting a taste of the dangers and pitfalls of having wwx as a little brother dfhskdalfhsdaklj she and jyl should compare notes (he’s so good tho T-----T)

- how does wwx’s actor have such natural dad energy at such a young age, too powerful

- people give so little thought to how fucked up jc’s situation really is here, like he’s just being an asshole for the sake of it. spend three fucking seconds looking at it with some realpolitik in mind and realize that the clans around him have just shown that they can and will wipe out an enemy clan together if need be, and that his own sect hasn’t even gotten back on its feet after the war that almost wiped it out. like wwx is unquestionably morally right but has gone about it in such a way that it’s real fucking hard to support him without going down with him and how do you calculate that risk when you’re responsible for so many more lives than your own

also so sad about jc being so afraid this entire time that wwx would leave him like everyone else... and now he has :( jc doesn’t handle it well but then who would at this stage

- there is something so pure about a quietly horrified lan zhan getting Dad Advice from these guys (well he’s going to be needing it soon enough so)

oh the utter softness of his face looking at wwx and ah yuan ;_______; thank god, some fluff to bolster my heart before we set off into the last harrowing ordeal here

LAN ZHAN’S ENTIRE FACE LIGHTING UP AT WEI YING ASKING HIM OUT thank fuck there’s still some joy left in the universe

this poor love struck man, someone help him  

lan zhan conscientiously grabbing ah yuan’s toys is fskhdfksjdlfhskjdhf

- lan zhan looking around the demon subduing cave: babe I love you more than life itself but this is tacky as hell

- crying because wen niiiiiing

- crying because sibliiiiiings

okay this is the last time the three of them will be together and nominally happy, need to appreciate it through my tears

- actually I take it back please just let the bad thing happen now so I don’t have to live in suspense anymore lol (...this probably says a lot more about me as a person than I’m strictly comfortable with)

- the fact that none of wwx’s little adopted wen family are AT ALL intimidated by him anymore is just... it’s too much to bear

again tho this book/show is so willing to let you dwell in the emotional stages of things in a very fanfic sort of way, I think it’s what makes the sad parts so much worse (and makes you feel so incredibly attached to these characters)

- I gUESS it’s a testament to jin zixuan’s character that he has any decency at all, considering who his dad is and where he was raised

I’m cracking up at their dad being the one who still doesn’t trust jgy tho lol snake recognizes snake

- jgy’s faint look of ‘are you fucking kIdDiNg me rn’ whenever all these jin douchebags talk is very entertaining. if he didn’t go on to do all that murder and incest and (probably) infanticide I’d sort of cheer for him no matter what kind of sociopath he is

- not to be a downer or anything but isn’t one month a little premature to be celebrating the survival of a baby in fantasy old timey china tho

sometimes I feel like looking back at history is just seeing a whole lot of dead children (and this is why I think that even if god did exist it would be morally inconceivable to worship him! sorry just a quick detour into my personal grudge against the inherent cruelty of the world there, let’s move on)

- it’s uncomfortable to watch even the outlines of the jin sect’s slow insidious stranglehold on power. even these random shopgoing nobodies know that nmj is Not Happy about these watchtowers and that it’s probably going to happen anyway. the jin are snakes but at least they’re clever about it and I do kind of respect that

- oh everything’s about to go so wrong I hate it

NOOOOO don’t make the zombie baby fight, nothing good will come of this

- man this is hitting me worse than lotus pier actually I’m just... crying haha

it’s almost cathartic tho... there’s something about wen quing’s dignity and certainty that really helps? I just really wish they hadn’t brought the whole little group, god I want them to be okay so badly and ah yuan will be all that’s left and. and just throw me into the ocean and let me sink tbh

- I know this is all so much black cgi smoke (pls let us see the red version again at some point btw that was cool as shit) but the emotional metaphor of wwx that you can’t take on more and more of other people’s suffering and trauma and not care for yourself because you will lose control of that at some point is just. very nicely done. (he’s a bit of an odd serial codependent for a lot of the story, isn’t he. thank god lan zhan is not a quitter)

- jin zixuan’s mom is breaking my heart a little here. this lady has been married to THAT GUY all this time and now this as well. sorry lady, I guess jgy probably Took Care Of You at some stage after this

- a) this is just real good acting for wwx. this is the perfect level of unhinged for this, even though I’m always like ‘just. just shut your mouth for one time in your life and stop digging this grave any deeper six feet should be enough for anyone huh’ at this stage of the story and b) I am cackling inappropriately at the shot-reverse-shots between wwx, jiang cheng and jgy. jiang cheng looks like everything he ever loved is falling apart around him and jgy is like ‘oh wow I didn’t even have to provide him any rope he’s doing an excellent job at hanging himself without me’

I love wwx so much but it did take him an unconscionable length of time to realize that when you set big enough things into motion you will not be able to control who it crushes along the way or who might steer it in the wrong direction. other people exist and have agency and a lot of those people are bad honey :(

- ah yes lwj being stopped by a barrier made of the physical manifestation of wwx’s trauma when he tries to reach him :’) this is okay and cool and fine    

- it’s admirably obtuse of everyone to look at wwx at this stage and still think he’s in control of uh anything lol

- oh okay that went better than expected I don’t know if I’m just inured to sadness at this point

jiang cheng looking like a little boy clutching his big sister’s body is tugging at my heartstrings a bit tho

- ooooh this battle hardened intense lwj!!! I guess I can sort of see it now

- oh lan zhan 2, electric boogaloo

- finally! time for some comfort up in this hurt

- my man nmj still so fucking angry in the afterlife that anything even remotely connected to him is shaking with rage in sympathy in the real world. a mood

- fdsahfsjdklfhsdajk wwx being like ‘I can take everyone saying I was evil but how DARE you not mention I was also a snacc’

- when do you think nie huaisang really realized that his brother wouldn’t have children and that he was up for the sect leader seat next? nie mingjue seems to have known pretty far in advance himself and tried to prepare his brother accordingly, but that kid really didn’t want the job so I imagine he’d try to live in denial as long as possible

vaguely related: no other family is ever mentioned by either brother or anyone else, and nie huaisang straight out says that he is the only main disciple (I seem to remember and with the caveat that I might have misunderstood the translation) when there’s the talk of them being sent to the wen as hostages -- I suppose you sort of have to be very selective when your ancestral cultivation method is sketchy enough that you should keep that shit on the down low and you know people die young from it. so I think it’s possible if not probable that huaisang is the last of his family. isn’t that a fun little thing to think about? haha. ha. help me  

- this random street vendor is an unexpected strong comedy performance, every face he makes is pure gold

- fkshafkjsdhfasd best introduction of adult nhs

- the quiet luminous love on lwj’s face whenever he looks at wwx in the present... give this man all the awards. it’s nice that wwx gets to be scared and childish and vulnerable with someone who loves him no matter what too, he’s been through some shit

- oh okay I see so the reason they chose to make fatal journey the way they did was because they already had the set built

- *nhs dropping one set of robes like that one gif from anastasia to reveal another even more luxuriously dandy-ish set under it* oh wow what a surprise to see you two down here, coincidences amirite (anyway here’s the testament to all the sins of my ancestors & a trail of breadcrumbs to lead you to the murderer of my brother)

no wait that’s slightly later isn’t it. well the point still stands

- dead!nmj is truly a mood -- “I don’t know where I am, who I am or what the fuck just happened but I do know that I am PISSED OFF”

(actually in the book I found that almost comforting -- at least the dude got to spend his afterlife doing what he loved (i.e. being angry), but this more nuanced and sympathetic version being trapped like that just. makes me very very sad)

nice of him to stick around to play a few rounds of hot or cold with his little bro’s friends tho lol. I mean from what I understand of this take on canon it’s actually the spirit of his sword and not him in person? but close enough, let me keep him as long as I can okay

- jin ling getting his dumb ass cask of amontillado’d within ten minutes of entering the tomb smh

look at your ROBES young man what is your (other) uncle going to say??

- hAH what did I say. pedagogic mastermind jiang cheng at it again

enjoying the fact that they chose the floofiest most benign-looking of dogs to play this ~*terrifying hound*~ so much

I have a lot of sympathy for jiang cheng, and the actor is doing a good job at aging him up here (not as good as lwj’s but then you can’t beat perfection). the way he’s calcified into bitterness and anger b/c he can’t express his emotions in a healthy nuanced way feels very... real I guess, people get like that sometimes

- I am somehow really endeared to this version of jin ling. a dumb baby, but a baby

- poor lan zhan lol “I LEFT YOU ON YOUR OWN FOR TWO HOURS AND YOU ALREADY MANAGED TO TAKE ON SOMEONE ELSE’S CURSE??? BABE!!!!!!!”

he consistently uses jiang cheng’s personal name too huh. well it is his brother in law I guess ETA: actually I’m an idiot ignore/forgive me, that’s jiang cheng’s courtesy name isn’t it. lan wangji is being salty/maybe-deliberately-maybe-not-(but-definitely-tho) distant/polite with him I think 

- y’know... as I watch lwj carry the love of his life around on his back with all the tenderness in the world and I see people in the comments yell about why do you always need everything to be gay they’re just good friends you’re all crazy... I realize all over again that there really is no level of queerness they’ll ever find legitimate or acceptable. which like. feels bad, but there’s also the freedom in remembering they are always going to be assholes no matter what I do, there’s literally no need to listen to them at any time.

- I am CRACKING UP; watching this episode right after seeing fatal journey sure is a treat hahaha. nhs really must enjoy the acting on a deep level because he is hamming it up and I am living for it    

“It’s nothing at all like unorthodox demonic cultivation methods!” he protests with his big innocent doe eyes, having yelled the exact same accusation at his brother within ten seconds of finding out about it dsfdskjha

- awww that’s such a sweet way of telling nhs who he is while both of them still get plausible deniability :’)

this show is making it a LOT easier to figure out nhs’ deal earlier just through visual storytelling and his reactions when lwj and wwx aren’t looking, but I guess you sort of have to do that without the benefits of selective POVs that you can do in written stories

- lan zhan’s little smirks are such a blessing

- can we talk about how INCREDIBLY rude lwj and wwx are being barging into other people’s ancestral tombs like they own the place. I know I said break some rules lan zhan but there’s such a thing as common decency too at least wipe your feet at the entrance or something

stop being big bullies!!! (nhs actually sounds a little salty at how debonair they are being lol he’s like yeah you’re doing what I want you to but you don’t have to be such dicks about it)

- nooooooo nmj don’t die ur so sexy ahaha (I jest so I do not cry godddddd my heart big brother come baaaaaaack)

I’m honestly finding it very hard to live with knowing that the last thing nmj saw in life was jgy having his little brother in his clutches D:D:D: looking at it like that... of course he came back mad as fuck, I’d probably do the same thing

- boys boys I love and support you but could you maybe not stand around talking about how this was totally a horrific murder like the murderee’s little brother isn’t standing right there?? i mean it’s useful for him but it’s kind of mean of you, I know neither of you were raised in a barn  

okay there’s wwx irrepressible protective instinct that’s better. I just... nhs standing there looking small and sad and soft and lonely isn’t the whole truth but it is part of the whole truth, it’s nice to see wwx being like this even after all those years. (the physical closeness in their friendship in their youth in this version is so gooood. outside of wwx the only two people we see nhs consistently allow close or seek out closeness from is his brother and MENG YAO, who can frankly burn in hell even more than usual for the flute thing in fatal journey.)

- lan zhan contemplating the inherent impermanence of everything good in the world and then immediately getting blackout drunk -- MOOD. also I have never seen a scene where someone so obviously was about to press a soft kiss to someone’s forehead or cheek, don’t worry wwx I see you through the censorship lol

(it’s incredible how well they’ve adapted the love story considering the fact that they technically uh can’t)  

- wen ning: shambles, zombie-like and disheveled with horror movie monster eyes, into frame

all of us: omg a BABY ToT

- live action drunk lan zhan is living up to the hype I am  d y i n g

this poor repressed man

fjskdfsdkjhf he could do sword fighting in his damn sleep probably

I will say that leaving ‘wei wuxian was also here’ is going to scare the crap out of these poor people whose only crime was keeping well fed chickens

- they r so in love someone hold me

- this nmj!kid I am LOSING IT, this is so cute I want to lie face down on the floor and cry

- the yi city arc is my least favourite part of this story, so I’m fortifying myself to get through a couple of hours of sexy baby xue yang here

- Dad/troll teacher!wwx is in fact everything

- oooh wwx has the same weird crooked fingers as me when they’re extended! just some small Facts About Your Friendly Neighbourhood Blogger there

- this is not at all a bad take on ah quing! she qte

- ‘what’s your husband look like?’ song lan, crying: beautiful

- xxc you didn’t think it was a little weird the dude wouldn’t tell you his name -- even a name -- all this time. honestly

I know you’re in a bad place and this is sort of a rebound thing from your actual true love but stop letting him gaslight you like this buddy :(

- time for some MASSIVELY FORESHADOWING PARALLELS my friends

- I don’t know if I’m just a heartless monster but I honestly don’t care that much about anyone but ah quing in this little sideplot lol (probably my complete disinterest in xue yang tainting everything else)  

- xue yang and jgy: the ‘sad backstory dude still inexplicably extra mass murder’ club

- godddd I’m so bored I’ve listened to this guy cackle ~*madly and evilly*~ for three episodes now when will it fucking end

- lan jingjy you are VALID

- fhsdkfhsdkj can’t get over baxia being like ‘OI you two stop gazing soulfully into each other’s eyes for five seconds and get on with avenging me’

must be annoying spending your afterlife in a pouch third wheeling the two most obnoxiously in love people in the world, I think this spirit sword is being admirably restrained and patient all things considered

- big brother I am so sorry you had to hang out under there all this time while this boring bullshit plot happened above you ;________________________;

I’m actually not clear on what the nie sect does with the bodies of the dead -- the saber tomb seems to be exclusively for the weapons/we see that some of the cultivators will go down there while they’re still alive to sacrifice themselves... maybe they go in the walls? I guess nhs is breaking tradition in a lot of ways tho so who knows!

- ‘from what I’ve seen he’s not so bad’ wei ying he smilingly asked you to use POWs for target practice I’ll allow lxc to be this dumb but you really have no excuse

- this duckling in red is a gentleman and a bro, one to watch

- wwx seductively arranging himself in the open window to cover his panic fsdkjfhsda

- lot’s wife WISHES she had the level of salt jiang cheng does

- ‘if they ask me any weird questions I don’t know the answers to I’ll have to pretend to be a total psycho’

lan zhan, dragging his husband with one deadpan face: I’m sure that is going to be a huge feat of acting for you babe

- NIE HUAISANG FALLING INTO FRAME AND LAUNCHING HIMSELF FROM ONE PERSON TO ANOTHER LIKE A GORMLESS WET RAG, I STAN ONE (1) BOY

‘but new problems appeared’  how is he such a mood

again tho you can give your unknowing accomplices so much space to investigate if you just don’t bother with self respect or dignity at any stage of the journey lol

- fjshdfkjlsahd that beat of lan zhan clearly taking a moment to contemplate the idea of wei ying confessing his love naked in public there

- uncle and nephew bonding time T________________T  

- fsakfhsadkjlfhsad I can’t deal with this mission impossible ass music in the background as a little paper gingerbread man scoots around the palace

whoever animated this was clearly having a lot of fun, I love the little details like his dangling legs and him rubbing his lil paper bum after landing

- poor qin su, one of the most screwed over people in this whole show. at least in the book he didn’t mean to

- ah su, you’re being very unreasonable about this, what is a little incest between friends

- straight culture is this being chill to keep in the adaptation but god forbid anyone got a loving queer kiss at any point (not blaming the showrunners at all, they’re clearly stretching the limits as far as they will go and maybe a bit more at a few points)

- YES SISTER CALL HIM THE FUCK OUT I always felt like she’s known something was a little off for a long time but never could put her finger on what exactly

- ‘can you still not let me go’ hey jgy you piece of shit who’s keeping whose head in a weird serial killer cabinet here

- THANK YOU FOR BRINGING HIS HANDSOME ALIVE FACE BACK TO MY SCREEN IF ONLY TO MAKE ME SAD

- he’s so beautiful and righteous and strong 😭😭😭😭 dage come back to us

(makes even more sense that he’s so pissed off about what jgy did if he’s already shown clearly that he’ll shut down the people fucking with him if it’s brought to his attention. he gave you every opportunity you little oh-it’s-never-really-my-fault worm of a man)

- another nmj about to cry warning needed here help me

dON’T FUCKING TOUCH HIM YOU SLIMY FSKJLDHFKSJDHFSKDJLHF

the nie traits are undying loyalty, rage, and the intergenerational trauma of watching your parental figures succumb to death and madness through the same cultivation path you practice

- my cause of death: nmj’s eyes shining with unshed tears

this version has that edge of vulnerability to him, you suddenly do realize he was once just a kid watching his dad die a horrifying death and then having to take on all that responsibility and raising his brother

nie boys unfailingly devoted to the people under their protection I’m gonna go bury myself under a tree or something

- I’ve had to turn the volume down so I can barely hear anything b/c my emotions are too big to for my dumb body to contain already I can’t listen to this

- extremely sad but also a little funny that part of the reason nmj died was that he had no interest whatsoever in the arts. ‘music is music right?’ says local jock

- I’ve just been whimpering the last twenty minutes this is awful

- huaisang’s voice breaking on ‘big brother, it’s me’... sdlakhgsdjklfhsadjkghsdkjlfhdskljhgsdalkhgsdklgjhsdjklhgkdjslhgjskd I’m going to the bottom of the mariana trench and I’m staying there goodbye

- I can’t wait to watch nie huaisang end this putrid trash man’s whole career in the most devastating way possible tbh

- I’m just so SAD T______________________________T I hate jgy so much my heart burns with it I’m so glad he’s about to get some dramatic irony shoved up his -- but I digress

- haha poor jin ling standing there watching all this messed up shit like ‘O.O thanks i’m nine’

- I wish I was as good at passing the fuck out on command as nhs, I feel like it would solve a lot of my problems

- just some low key soulmate shit no biggie

- wwx is basically fantasy old timey naked again here the SCANDAL except no scandal they’re clearly married

- wwx is being so much more patient with lxc than I would have found it in my heart to be at this stage. he’s like ‘lxc you are my brother in law and I truly appreciate you and everything you’ve done for me but it’s sadly up to me to gently confront you with all the ways you’ve been a dumb ho just b/c you think jgy has pretty dimples 😔’

- “You’re not qualified to talk to me” oh lwj I love you so much. I thought committing murder was forbidden by the lan sect rules but there you go  

- it honestly baffles me that some people think nmj would be the strictest parental figure in this universe when a) everything about huaisang suggests otherwise and b) lan qiren is right there

madam yu has that ‘super unforgiving to her son’s face but will also tear anyone criticizing him a new one’ mixed energy too  

- lqr: I raised a perfect obedient righteous cultivator

me & wei ying: you’ve ruined a perfectly good boy is what you did look at him he’s too repressed to breathe

- well their dad clearly paid enough attention to worldly matters that two kids resulted from it, I’m not quite sure where we’re going with this lxc

one’s an accident two’s a pattern etc.

- wow I was so confused about ‘confidante’ being used here b/c it makes absolutely no sense in context, and the comments helpfully informed me that it’s more accurately translated to ‘soulmate’ or something like that; that does make a whole lot more sense yeah

- bb!lan zhan kneeling in the snow is more than anyone’s supposed to have to live with tbh

- lxc being like ‘so yeah my brother will keep loving people long after they’re gone and unable to give him love back! just a fun fact there, something to think about anyway here’s wonderwall’

- soft, ever-so-slightly messy haired at home lan zhan deserves the world

- oh wwx’s shift away from thinking the truth doesn’t matter at all to realizing the truth of you being held fully and with love by one person in your life is enough as lwj plays their song ;______________________________; this is almost more romantic than a kiss scene would be honestly jesus christ  

- little apple is the best of us tbh

- apologies but they have 100% started to fuck off-screen at this stage, the looks wei ying is giving him dsafasdfhsjkd

- I take it back mianmian and little apple are the best of us

- imagine just finding the light bearing lord, second peerless jade of lan in his immaculate white clothes, peeking out from between your hay bales one day

- the exponential increase in lan zhan’s blessed little smiles lately: my oh-they-fawking thesis is validated yet again

- wei ying lying through his teeth: of course I remembered your face at once who do you take me for  

(lan zhan: smirks in quiet satisfaction)

- walejhgskdjhgsjdaklfhsadjkflafhsjakdsf wen ning is so cute I don’t know what to do with myself

- wei ying this is where you first asked him out of course he remembers

- lan zhan is like ‘oh shit I forgot to tell him about our son and at this point I’m kind of embarrassed to bring it up’

- I am NOT thinking about the lotus pond they made for him here, you can’t make me

- ‘the worst time in their lives’ yeah, but there was such love there too. it  h u r t s 

- the actor for wen ning is so good at making his expressions look deeply earnest but also a little uncanny, like moving his face doesn’t come naturally to him anymore but his Good Boyness shines through

- DRAGGED in public by his own son. rip wwx he had a good run of it before his untimely murder

- wow thank goodness sect leader yao survived all this time, his death would as we all know have been a huge loss to society as a whole

- “I’m just here to round up the numbers” I love him more than I can convey to you in words

I’m a simple person, I hear nhs’ chronically befuddled voice and a burst of pure joy is released in my heart

sdfhjksadhfsad his soft little 😕 face peeking out from behind people’s shoulders fkjsdhfsdjal

- will I ever get enough of nhs masterfully manipulating a situation through his own apparent cowardliness and uselessness? no is the answer to that it’s always entrancing to watch

nhs as a teacher, nodding sagely as his disciples exchange glances: it’s never too late to go home instead of going big. saying ‘fuck this i’m outta here’ is always an option

- also nhs seemingly doesn’t use a saber at all anymore, where he at least used to have one back in fatal journey times. I’m very happy he’s trying some new things, time to break that very sad traumatic chain of dying young and furious

also him getting someone else to do the work of fixing the ward or whatever fskdfhaskdlf

teacher nhs, waving his pupils away b/c he’s busy painting or something: class dismissed. and remember, if at all possible, get someone else to do your homework for you. as long as you don’t get caught that’s an automatic A

- wwx is literally the cat surrounded by knives meme here lol

- lol lol lol wwx just removed his outer tunic thing to reveal lan zhan’s undershirt still under there and you can see lan qiren silently seethe with ‘that little hussy has seduced my nephew away from the righteous path’

(do I personally believe in slut shaming of any kind? nah it’s dumb as fuck. do I think lqr does? yeah)

- hahaha I can’t tell if nhs’ slightly glazed look here is b/c wwx did something he didn’t plan for him to do or if it’s because he’s for all intents and purposes half naked in front of them. (tbh I think there’s a case to be made in this version that he has a sort of wistful would-never-act-on-it-for-a-million-different-reasons-lan-zhan’s-furious-jealous-stare-being-foremost-of-them crush on both wwx and lwj from back when they were teens)

- WOW all these dicks inviting themselves to lotus pier!!! r u d e

- lan zhan flexing on lan qiren by raising a happy well adjusted child even while he’s mourning the love of his life: what like it’s hard

- wen ning kept that toy for sixteen goddamn years don’t touch me

- I’m crying about jin ling give me a moment. he is baby okay he’s even younger than ah yuan by at least four years

the image of him hugging the only thing he’s got left of his dad... fsdalkfhasdjlkfhsjdakhfsjdk

- lan sizhui has a crowd of good uncles/dads and poor jin ling has a crowd of utter disaster uncles and it’s very unfortunate (yes wwx is on both of those lists)

it is very sweet that it’s jiang cheng who consistently actually looks out for him, even in his feelings-wtf-are-feelings sort of way. the least disaster uncle, but only by comparison lol

- I think this ouyang kid might be duckling in red from before? LOVING the interspersed nhs reaction shots to him, anyway fsakdfh (I’m going to make it sad: how many conversations like this do you think he had with his brother as a kid? that’s fine we can both cry now I don’t want to be alone in this)

- ‘mr ning’ im Y___________________________________Y

- extremely Here for yet another full costume change from nhs hahaha (he’s changed at the boat already, god knows how he pulled that off but I’d expect no less from him)

- nhs must have been a sect leader for at least a decade at this point, and he still manages to exude such a powerful ‘kid at the adult’s table’ aura. incredible. mindblowing, inspirational

- ...oh they went with the same version of the previous jin leader’s death huh (but GOD FORBID that anyone should be openly gay amirite lol) O___O again though WHY is jin ling here, jiang cheng??????? he’s like sixteen, he’s never going to dare to even kiss anyone after this

- nhs has the look of a man who’s had to sit on this disgusting knowledge alone for years and finally gets to share that icky burden around, merry christmas everyone if I have to know about this so do you

- I don’t know if this is just me imagining things or reading more into it than what’s there, but I think nhs is actually sitting in the same pose his brother used to a lot in this part of the scene (the upright posture with palms resting at the top of the thighs/hips, fingers turned inwards/towards each other; it looks sort of... solid and self-contained, I guess)

- I would call jgy knowingly committing the incest character assassination if he’d had enough character to assassinate even in the book, I would never have put it past him

- y’know... god knows nmj had flaws (I think my immense depth of love for him in this version comes precisely from how hard he tries even while being deeply flawed. him dumb but him always trying :’) well actually he’s not dumb at all, he’s shown to be pretty darn politically savvy, I’m just having a hard time finding the right word here. ‘inflexible’ is maybe closer ), but the big defining difference between him and jin guangyao (and consequently xue yang) is that both of the latter are completely open about the fact that they see themselves as more important than anyone else -- xue yang considers one of his fingers worth more than fifty people’s lives, jgy kills twenty sex workers as a mere afterthought to his own revenge on his father. meanwhile nmj gets Messed Up by people dying under his protection to the degree that he came up with one of the dumbest plans I’ve ever heard just so he’d be the only one at risk, just so no one else would get hurt anymore. hmnghsjhfs.   

- wen ning, proudly: my sister was the best doctor in the world 

me, openly crying: she sure was buddy

- wwx: hey lan zhan are there any sweet patient lan ladies with an open mind around

lwj: ...why

wwx: I just think our zombie son should start thinking about getting friends, maybe even a real home

lwj, subtly relieved: oh

- JIN LING BABY BOY NOOOO D:D:D:

- nhs I need you to come in and end this man I cannot look at his awful face anymore

- ugh this garrotte sound effect is really unpleasant actually well done

- THERE HE IS!!! conveniently swooning his way into the scene again, my guy ;_______; smol and soft-looking and about to utterly obliterate a man on every conceivable level 

I love every moment of the camera dwelling meaningfully on his innocent vulnerable face, this is going to be so great 

it’s too bad he’s a behind the curtain sort of dude, I would kill for a poirot-style ‘I’m sure you’re all wondering why I’ve gathered you here in the library’ moment here lol

- tbh jiang cheng’s got a point about that whole ‘making huge sweeping decisions about someone else’s life and never telling them about it’ thing

wwx has sort of structured himself as a person so that you’ll never be allowed to really reciprocate his dedication and sacrifices (unless you’re lz lol), and while that is a very sympathetic trauma reaction essentially it is sort of a dick move interpersonally.

- the weight and wisdom that comes along with the scars of older wwx... you love to see it

- nhs, with effortless grace, rousing from his disney princess slumber just as the real drama’s about to begin... your honor he is simply the best

-  T__________________________________________________________T big brother 

- the tinge of coldness in nhs’ eyes while he watches jgy through this whole scene even as he keeps up the ‘im baby don’t worry about me’ act.............. fashdfjlksdahfslkadj, not to say askfksjhafkjsldhfkjsalhfksjaldhfkls

- to say that jgy has perhaps ‘gone overboard with this’ might be the biggest understatement of any century lxc

- watching him kneel by his brother’s coffin here I’d like to propose that Nie Huaisang has exactly the same capacity for all-consuming rage as the rest of his family, except he can’t just vent it by hitting something real hard with a haunted murder saber so he has to get creative and that was real unfortunate for Jin Guangyao  

- one thing that’s always tickled me is that nhs did give jgy the choice. the people around him -- the people he claims to love -- could have been left out of it, no dishonor being brought to either his name or any of theirs... if he’d been willing to sacrifice himself. (probably a gambit where he knew that was never going to happen, but still!)

- nhs standing there in the background like ‘yeah yeah we all have horrifying family legacies buddy, we just don’t knowingly marry our sisters or arrange for mass murders over it’  

- arguably killing the previous jin leader could actually count as a good deed if not for the horrifying way he did it lol. jgy all over, he could have done something helpful, *john mulaney voice* and then he didn’t he just killed nineteen innocent women while he was on a roll instead

- while it’s sort of bullshit that some responsibility is taken away from wwx in jin zixuan’s death here it’s also making a bit more sense to me like this -- seems like an uncharacteristic gamble from jgy to just idk hope wwx would lose control at exactly the right/wrong moment. wwx is still at fault for how casually he treated wen ning as a weapon when he didn’t know what the consequences could be, I’m okay with this

- jin ling and the terrible horrible no good very bad week :( protect him

wow lan xicheng let’s stand around some more letting this awful excuse for a person tell this sixteen year old boy that his parents deserved to be murdered basically, I’m sure there’s a lot more fruitful discussion still left to be had here  

- talk shit about nie mingjue’s brother get hit su she hell YEAHHHHHH

big brother still looking out for him I’m fsdklfhajsdlhf 😭😭😭

- I’M SO FULL OF FEELINGS ;________________________________; at least in this version the implication feels more like he’s finally at peace? (hilariously wwx managed to purge/cleanse the saber spirit, which is the entire conflict of fatal journey haha, nhs really did get his best friend to do his homework for him yet again, INSPIRATIONAL)

- HELL YEAH FINALLY GET REKT YOU PIECE OF SHIT! PRESS F TO PAY RESPECT EXCEPT JOKE’S ON YOU I’VE GOT NO RESPECT TO PAY

They did do away with any and all ambiguity around nhs here and I’m totally cool with it, that was awesome

- I’m playing the world’s tiniest little violin right now, wow much sad fuck you and your dumb hat

- may I just say that the fact that jgy uses his last moments on earth to make lxc, a person he proclaims to love, feel as bad as possible about his now inevitable death even though it clearly wasn’t really his fault... is just proof that he has never actually loved anyone at all except possibly himself 

contrast with wwx, who tells jc that he’s sorry, dries his tears in the here and now and says to let the past go because there’s nothing either of them can do about it now and there’s no point in hurting themselves over it again and again anymore. jgy has the opportunity to give a similar kindness here and instead twists and twists the knife, so lxc will be in as much pain as possible when he’s gone. he’d rather be kept alive in lxc’s suffering than let him, someone he ‘loves’, ever heal and be happy. anyway I hope hell is real shitty for you jgy

- jgy you absolute piece of shit you couldn’t let my man have TEN FUCKING MINUTES to nap in peace? after sixteen years of your fuckery? urgh bye  

- nhs looking at lxc sadly when lxc can’t see him... one last ‘I don’t know’ finally closing out his arc... I love all of this so much, there’s such a nuance of... he is genuinely a bit sad about causing lxc pain but he also doesn’t regret what he did At All. (I guess most of what he’s done must be pretty easy to rationalize/justify to himself, since the vast majority of his work went into finding the horrible shit jgy has done and showing them the way home to roost, rather than creating fresh suffering from scratch. and then there’s also the whole mo family but uh well eggs omelettes amirite lol)   

- lan qiren telling people not to run or talk loudly b/c they’re at a temple, even under these circumstances fhakjsldfhkjsdafhkjsaldhf 

- god the casting people for this show have a perfect track record of finding heartwrenchingly cute kids my GOD

- jfdsafhaskdjfh I love how they’ve done the moment with the hat -- the way the flashback sort of indicates that nhs does recognize on a deep level that the dude he just killed was someone’s son, was after all once an innocent child, like anyone... and again, it doesn’t make him regret it. he looks tired and sort of empty, but not like he’d take any of it back. he’s seen jgy for all that he was, good and bad, and made his decision. his reaction to seeing his hands ever so slightly stained with blood is mostly ‘...eh sure’ (and he knows none of this will ever bring his brother back and I am HURTING) . just. I love him so much what an interesting character 

- lan zhan raised a child who can talk about his feelings, unprecedented & wondrous 

who’s chopping onions in here

- never getting over ah yuan being the best person in the world at roasting his dad 

- okay okay okay I’m going to have some incoherent feelings here -- the expression on nhs’ face right after wwx asks him if he intends to be chief cultivator is just... hm. how do I describe this. it looks almost like he’s thinking ‘oh yeah I forgot you don’t actually know me anymore (yeah okay that’s my bad)’? the previous scene is about lwj and wwx, The symbolic representation of true love in this world, naming each other/knowing each other for exactly who and what they are. that’s the thematic victory in this story; to be truly known, accepted and loved for the entirety of who you are, if only by one person in your whole life. (notably all sorts of love, parental, familial, platonic etc., not just romantic/sexual) and to get his victory, nhs has had to completely forsake that because his whole plan hinged on it; he hasn’t been emotionally honest with anyone for well over a decade at this point. no one really knows or understands him, and if someone ever did he’s long dead now and never coming back. and in this one moment both wwx and nhs seem to come to the quiet understanding that neither of them are who they used to be as kids and it’ll never be like it used to be again, and reach a sort of live-and-let-live truce about it.  d u d e this goddamn story 

(after all part of the reason jgy is so incredibly terrified of nmj is that he’s the first person to see straight through his bullshit to who he is behind it, and that it’s u g l y  back there. jgy + nmj = being known without being accepted or loved (b/c honestly he doesn’t deserve to be loved or accepted yeah there we go I said it), jgy + lxc = being accepted and loved without being known, which turns into disaster all around.)

- man this was actually a really solid adaptation, it was excellently done! they did rush a bit towards the end there (it was never explained why jgy didn’t kill sissi along with all the other sex workers in this version, for example, leaving a rather substantial plot hole, and they never reveal why exactly lan zhan had to take over as sect leader which breaks off lxc’s arc at the end), but all in all that was wonderful and even added some stuff I liked better than in the book! now please god never let mtxt write a sequel, just let them be in this happily ever after, all of them have been through enough ;________;

- also the music was truly epic! I don’t even begrudge them using some parts more often and blatantly than what’s probably necessary, I want to wallow in this love theme as much as the next person lol

- what am I going to do with hours upon hours of my life now? I don’t know either, I suppose I will just have to find some way to hobble on 

[local-void-creature-izzy]

Cloud Recess Wrath

Chapter 6: Xue Yang and Ouyang Zizhen

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~Main Story Start~

Rain, that was the weather tonight. Endless rain with the occasional lightning and thunder. Rain always made Xue feel uneasy, because whenever it rained something bad would happen. He sat alone in his shared bedroom with his mates. They were out on a job and wouldn’t be back until later in the night, but that wouldn’t stop Xue as he waited patiently for them, he hated the night missions. They took too long and Xue feared that if he fell asleep alone, he would wake up alone...permanently.

So he stayed awake until they walked back into the apartment, until their scent enveloped him upon entrance. “2am....that’s almost a new record.” Xue muttered to himself as he fiddled with the ends of his silk robe, a gift from Song Lan. Deciding time will pass by faster if he did something, Xue stood up and made his way to the kitchen.

From there, he raided the wine shelf and took a few bottles to drink. Not bothering with glasses and just popping open one of the expensive wine bottle and drinking straight from it. “At least text me...stupid alphas.” Xue whined to the empty space of the apartment. As he begun to drink more, the shrill tone of his phone rang through the apartment. He instantly launched for it and saw the number, while it wasn’t his alphas, was Ouyang. He answered the phone immediately.

“YangYang what’s wrong? Its 2am, you should be asleep you have classes in the morning.” Xue lectured but didn’t get a response. In fact it was deathly quiet on the other end, and that type of silence shook Xue to his core. “Zizhen this isn’t funny if its a prank. Answer me you brat.” Xue’s voice shook as he spoke, the kid was like his own son and the thought of anything bad happening to him send him and his inner omega into a panicked frenzy. “Zizhen please I’m ser-“

“C-Can you come get me please....I’m scared Yang....” Zizhen finally spoke, cutting Xue off, and he was crying on his end. That alone broke Xue’s heart and made him extremely worried. “I’m in the a-alley behind my favorite bookstore...Yang please...” Zizhen pleaded and Xue didn’t need to me told twice.

He ran out his apartment door, forgetting he was in his pajamas and his robe was quite thin and see through, and ran like his life depended on it down 6 blocks to the bookstore. The rain was pouring more heavily now, Xue soaked to the bone but he didn’t care...Zizhen needed him. Within 10 minutes he was there, he turned the corner of the alley entrance as fast as he could. “Zizhen! I’m here! I’m-“ Xue’s words died on his tongue, face turning pale, completely unprepared for the site standing in front of him.

“Yangie....” Zizhen cried out, legs shaking. Xue wrapping his arms around Zizhen, trying to comfort him and snap out of his own shock. He begged in his head that what he was thinking happened didn’t happen, that Ouyang’s clothes were torn in a struggle and not....that. “Shhhh, I’m here. What happened?” Xue asked, wanting answers and who to kill.

“I-I was on my way home when a alpha pulled me into this alley. H-He was drunk and said I s-smell good, smelled l-like a pretty omega. He licked my cheek and I tried running away b-but he was stronger t-than me. H-He tried to rape me but then was shot by someone. Yangie I’m scared...t-the one that shot him was my teacher Wen Zhuliu. I’m scared he’ll want something in return...and I don’t want to give that something to him...” Zizhen sobbed and the rest of his words faded into heartbreaking sobs.

“I won’t let that happen, I’ll kill Zhuliu if he so much as breathes in your direction.” Xue promised, shaking with rage but tried to stay. calm for Zizhen’s sake. He rubbed Zizhen’s head in a gentle way to calm him before he had a panic attack.

“A-Yang!” A voice screamed from behind them, Zizhen clinging tighter to the older omega, and Xue turning his head in the direction of the voice. “Alphas...?” Xue couldn’t fully turn around before he was encased in his alphas arms, when he felt their warmth that’s when he realized he was shivering.

“Baby what are you doing out here. We called you and you didn’t answer and when we got home the door was open and you were gone.” Said Song Lan, leaning his head down and nuzzling into Xue’s neck to scent mark him. Xue realized his phone must’ve died from gett soak by the rain. “A-Yang what’s wrong,” Xingchen asked.

“Take us home please....” Xue said, both alphas now seeing the very upset Zizhen curled up in Xue’s arms. Both nodded and led them to the car, no words necessary to explain what happened. The silence practically rang throughout the car ride home but it wasn’t awkward or unbearable. Song Lan had turned the heat up so Xue and Ouyang could warm up a bit. The drive was short and they were back at the apartment in less than 10 minutes.

“I’ll take the kid to the guest room and get him some spares clothes.” Xingchen said, leading Zizhen to the left side of the apartment while Song Lan took Xue back to their bedroom. He pulled the soaking wet robe off the shorter and went to the bathroom joined to their room to grab a towel along with dry clothes.

As he was drying his baby off, he noticed how quiet Xue was and if there was one thing he learned about Xue early on in their relationship...it was that a quiet Xue was never ever a good thing. “What’s on your mind my sweet?” He asked, noticing how Xue calmed down a bit at the pet name.

“YangYang nearly suffered the same pain I did back when i was with...you know. And out of all people that could’ve said him it had to be Wen Zhuliu. Lannie I know how that man works, he doesn’t care. He doesn’t feel anything, doing everything he can to appease and please that damn Wen Chao! Wen Zhuliu just doesn’t do things like that out on a whim and because he can, he did it because Wen Chao ordered him and I’m scared....I went through hell with Wen Chao and the fact he’s taken an interest in Zizhen means he hasn’t given up on me or worse...” Xue was ranting at this point and only his alphas got to see this side of him.

The side that was broken and still shaken and traumatized from his past. The side that proved Xue was human and not the psychotic omega everyone thought he was 24/7. He enjoyed that title and power and practically thrived off it, but even he had his breaking points. Song Lan could smell the distraught and panic radiating off Xue, his alpha instincts telling him to kill off the source. “Even if he still wants you, he’ll die trying. You are ours baby, and we have no intention of letting you go.” Song Lan said as he pulled the dry shirt down Xue’s body and tossed the wet ones away.

“He’s right A-Yang. Your our omega. We claimed you and no one can remove those marks from your neck, ever.” Xingchen said walking through the door. “I put Zizhen to sleep. I know you wanna go check on him.”

Xue gently kissed his mates before going to go check on Zizhen. Leaving his two alphas alone to plan Wen Chaos 3rd death. But to make it permanent they needed to find the one that revived him the first two times.

To be continued....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Angst is just gonna get worse, just a fair warning.

[queenpersephonesgarden]

from my song to yours

Wangxian Week Day 2: Music

“Perhaps we should save the rest of our speculations for the morning.”

Lan Wangji blinked gritty eyes and looked up from where he’d once again been studying the malevolent disembodied arm currently floating just above the qiankun bag it was normally kept in, meeting Wei Ying’s eyes across the table.

“Already?” he asked, mildly surprised; more than one memory of cheerful laughter and quicksilver smiles shining in the light of the moon served to remind him just how late into the night Wei Ying preferred to work and play in equal measure, and one quick glance out the window confirmed the moon hadn’t even fully risen into the sky yet. “You’re tired?”

Wei Ying snorted a laugh, a lovely, light-hearted sound that seemed appropriate coming from a face as young as the one he now wore.

“No, no, I’ll be fine for another four hours at least.”

A finger rose to point accusingly right at Lan Wangji’s face, who blinked placidly.

“The investigation can wait for tomorrow because of you! I know all about you Lans and your ridiculous nine o’clock sleeping schedule!”

Can also be read on AO3

He was worried… about the Lan sleep schedule?

Lan Wangji raised a placating hand. “I am fine.”

“Are you?” the rising of Wei Ying’s right eyebrow was entirely skeptical.

Confusion made Lan Wangji’s own eyebrows furrow the slightest bit. “Night hunts often run far past midnight on serious cases-”

“But this isn’t a serious case,” Wei Ying interrupted, then quickly amended “Well, it is serious, but it’s not the kind of case we can solve in a single night of staring intensely at the problem, so instead of doing that, we should focus more on things we can achieve in a single night. Like sleep!”

Without waiting for Lan Wangji to attempt a response Wei Ying swept the resentful arm back into its pouch, tying the bag firmly shut before setting it back down on the table where they could easily keep an eye on it.

When Wei Ying stood, Lan Wangji haltingly tried to slow him down from heading back to sleep in his own room next door. “We. Don’t have to-”

“Hanguang-jun.” One eyebrow rose imperiously as Wei Ying scrutinized him with too-dark gray eyes. “If we go any longer, you’ll sleep in past noon and bring some calamitous dishonor upon your ancestors. How would the Cloud Recesses ever recover?”

Such a bizarre statement said with such gravity almost made Lan Wangji reach across and press fingers to Wei Ying’s forehead, thinking perhaps he had somehow contracted an unnoticed fever, before the slightest shine of amusement in Wei Ying’s eyes gave it away.

Ah.

Still playing the madman he’d been reincarnated into.

While he wished fiercely Wei Ying didn’t feel the need to keep up the act around him, Lan Wangji couldn’t deny that it was… nice, to be the focus of this strange farce, because as elaborate as it is it still feels intensely familiar.

It was such a nonsensical, roundabout way of showing concern.

It was unnecessary.

It was bizarre.

It was- it was exactly the kind of ridiculous game he would have tried to play in their youth, reaching across a sun-dappled table in the Library Pavilion to tug at Lan Wangji’s sleeve, crying dramatically, “But who in their right mind is ever tired at nine o’clock, hah?”

The tidal wave of nostalgia makes it hard to keep steady when he stands from the table.

Wei Ying, eyes sharp as ever even in a new body, caught the infinitesimal slip in posture and grinned triumphantly. “See? I was right all along!”

“Of course.”

Two slim hands laced their fingers together and rose up above Wei Ying’s head in a languid stretch. “Well, I suppose I better leave you to sleep,” he sighed contentedly.

Stay.

The thought comes unbidden, but not unexpected; letting Wei Ying leave his sight for any length of time since his return has been difficult.

The reluctance in his silence must be truly palpable, because Wei Ying pauses and looks back at Lan Wangji despite not allowing even a single muscle in his face to so much as twitch in protest.

Dark gray eyes light up with some unspeakable mischief. Lan Wangji does not glare as he once would have as a teenager, another stark difference from his memories.

“Aiya,” Wei Ying bat his eyelashes in an outrageously flirtatious manner. “Would the great and noble Hanguang-jun like this one to sing him to sleep?”

Despite the sour pang in the pit of his stomach at the tease, the clash of foreign-familiarity of the new face and old mannerisms had Lan Wangji responding without thinking especially hard about it. “Mn. If you wish.”

Wei Ying stared, frozen in an exaggerated coquettish pout.

Lan Wangji stared back, resolutely keeping his expression as blank as ever even as his ears grew hot. He refused to regret the slip.

“….. huh.” Wei Ying said intelligently, looking genuinely poleaxed, and if Lan Wangji were a pettier person he might have felt the slightest bit smug for their positions during many an afternoon in their youth to be reversed. But he didn’t, of course, because the Second Jade of Lan was not petty.

“Haha, um, I don’t know very many songs suited for a lullaby.” Desperate verbal backtracking was something Lan Wangji had never expected to see the most shameless person he’d ever known do, but there it was.

Lan Wangji turned and padded over to the bed, fingers trailing up to pull the pins that held his hair in place out with a confidence he didn’t really feel. “You are clever. I am sure you can think of something appropriate.”

A strangled sound came from behind him, and for the first time in a very long time, Lan Wangji resisted the urge to smile the slightest bit.

Yes, being the one to initiate the teasing was far more enjoyable than getting teased himself, he decided.

For a moment he balked the slightest bit at the thought of slipping into bed with Wei Ying still in the room, the far more recent memory of his warm weight laying across him making his breath catch, but Lan Wangji could admit to himself that he was always stubborn to a fault; if either of them was going to back out of this, it wouldn’t be him.

So, he slipped into bed, and did a rather remarkable job of keeping an expectant look off his face when he glanced over at where Wei Ying was still standing rather awkwardly next to the table with the qiankun pouch.

Wei Ying stared back, still clearly flummoxed, but rallying to the challenge.

A softer grin painted his new face in a different way under the moonlight, and Lan Wangji felt his heart stutter.

“Oh, don’t worry, er-gege~,” Wei Ying said cheerfully in that way that always made an aborted shiver run down Lan Wangji’s spine. “I think I know just the right song for someone as lovely as you to drift off to!”

And because time was cruel and heartbreak was his oldest friend, he began to hum the song Lan Wangji had written himself in the throes of frustrated, sun-drenched love as a teenager, and his blood froze solid.

This was-

This was a mistake.

This was a mistake, and Lan Wangji was a fool, but if he asked Wei Ying to stop, to sing something else, he would ask why, and Lan Wangji-

He couldn’t.

His eyes fell shut, but only because looking at Wei Ying as he was now, happy and lovely in the muted candlelight and singing the song Lan Wangji wrote for him, felt too raw.

The only solace, Wei Ying knew the melody, but that was it. He’d never heard the lyrics before, the words Lan Wangji had slowly dared to thread through the harmony during thirteen years of waiting. Thirteen years of yearning. Thirteen years of missing Wei Ying with every breath of air in his lungs.

But that was alright, because those painful words were still locked behind Lan Wangji’s heart, and the melody was still all that was needed for an impromptu lullaby.

It seemed a much kinder reversal of the first time Lan Wangji had sang it to Wei Ying, trapped deep within a cave with no guaranteed escape, the both of them injured and wracked with fever for days on end.

Yet it was also strangely crueler, because despite the gentler setting they were still so very far apart. In the cave, at least Lan Wangji had been able to touch Wei Ying, to try and soothe him between intermittent bouts of shivering on the cold stone floor.

Here, now, Wei Ying hummed the song that had taken root in Lan Wangji’s heart on the night they had first met, and Lan Wangji desperately tried not to drown.

Do you know?

Do you know what that song means to me?

Did it ever mean the same to you?

In the wide empty space of the bed, fingers clench almost painfully hard around a handful of fabric.

Did it ever mean anything to you?

Only decades of discipline kept his face as smooth as unfeeling jade when the song tapered off slowly, Wei Ying’s voice – so different from before, slightly higher in a not unpleasant contrast to Lan Wangji’s even tones – growing quieter and quieter with each repetition until he ended it with a deep, quiet sigh that tugged incessantly at Lan Wangji’s heart; the voice was different, but the cadence was exactly the same.

I know you, some wild thing shrieked in Lan Wangji’s head. I know you, how could I not? How could you ever think I would forget how you are when you’re happy?

A rustle of fabric, a squeak of a floorboard as Wei Ying stepped away with a small sound of satisfaction, a soft breath of air as the candle was blown out.

“Good night Lan Zhan.”

He must have turned away, must be focusing on something else, because if he were still looking at the bed there is no way he could have possibly missed the way Lan Wangji’s hands spasmed reflexively at the sound of his name.

For several heartbeats it’s all he can do just to keep breathing through it, the terrible heaviness clamped hard around his chest in an agonizingly familiar way.

He breathes in deeply, twice, three times, long years of meditation serving him well in getting his breathing back under control.

Once he is certain his voice will remain steady, his heart will not shake apart under another onslaught of emotion, he forces his eyes open to try to say- something, no matter how breathlessly quiet his voice is-

“Wei Ying-!”

But the door has already shut softly behind the man, leaving the room aching and cavernous in the silence.

--

A/N:  Yeah you know how there's a scene in the audio drama where Wei Wuxian just absent-minded started humming Wangxian.mp3 while he was cutting out a paperman?? Yeah my heart may never recover. ~Persephone