#theres more about the nie sect

[violet-petals-in-the-rain]

Okay, but like imagine, Nie Mingjue being impressed with Wei Wuxian's "Demonic" Cultivation because it's like an improved version of what Nie Sect's is, and idk poaching him post war and then starting to develop feelings

(Ik theres the wen conflict but hey maybe wwx can teach him more about righteous or something something angst hurt comfort slow burn miscommunication)

[dvasva]

this is why i think the discussion of class, which is usually ignored in the mdzs fandom space unless talking about the antagonists, is VITAL to like understanding key relationships in the story, ESPECIALLY jiang chengs and wei wuxians. they do really love each other as brothers, but there is a class disparity there, an unequal power dynamic in the relationship. wei wuxian isnt just jiang chengs brother but also his subordinate and theres moments where jiang cheng is angry that wei wuxian is acting like one role when he wants the other role. wei wuxian is the son of a servant, its brought up more than once and not just cause its set dressing, its an important aspect of his character and defines a lot of his relationships. jiang cheng becomes upset at wei wuxian because of the promise that wei wuxian will always follow him, but when wei wuxian found something else he felt obligated to, the wen remnants, that was both a brother breaking his promise and a subbordinate betraying his leader.

i mean, thats part of the reason the book goes to such great lengths establishing wei wuxian as lan wangjis equal, because of the class dynamics in play. lan wangji always seems to ignore class dynamics, and always is defined by his distance and unwillingness to participate with the politics of cultivation society. Wei wuxians interactions with everyone else minus the wens, lan wangji, and the juniors, are defined by his place in the hierarchy, class, and what he has the audacity or gall to do based on that. Nobody complains when nie huaisang doesnt carry his sword but when wei wuxian does it, he is rude. Nobody bats an eye when jin guangshan is a womanizer, but when wei wuxian is rumored to be one, hes a crass dog.

this all comes back to a major point of all of mxtx novels that i mention all the time, which is that Mxtx novels are about outcasts to society trying and failing to find happiness in society because of their failure to adhere to the status quo, and how in order to find happiness, they need to reject that status quo, and society at large. This kind of theme is integral to mdzs, and jin guangyao is a big example of it. His downfall was being an outsider who did everything in his power to conform to society including things that were morally questionable or downright bankrupt, and in turn society turned on him, destroying him. Wei Wuxian rejected society before his death and society turned on him, destroying him.

I also habe said this before, but Jiamg chemg serves as a litmus test on societies opinion on wei wuxian. Jin guangyao says himself that if jiang cheng hadnt paid any attention to the rest of cultivation society, hadn't listened to the snake in his ear telling him wei wuxian was disrespectful and needed to be controlled, they would have been fine. Jiang cheng serves, in the story, as the voice of the status quo, and his relationship with wei wuxian, even at the start, involved a lot of him telling wei wuxian that he is acting in a way that isnt befitting of his station, or that is rude or shameful. he does it in the cloud recesses, does it during the cave scene, during the war, does it after the war, etc. His imternal struggle is trying to reconcile the position and power he holds over wei wuxian as his sect leader with his concern and feelings for wei wuxian as his brother.

And, unpopular opinion, thats why im ok they didnt reconcile at the end. Neither of them know how to create a relationship with one another that doesnt involve their class dynamics.

(Also, since i know people have brought/will bring it up, Every character in mdzs minus a few antagonists and the juniors, have engaged in a cycle of self sacrifice that ultimately ends in tragedy. Its a big aspect of the books. Wwx gives his core, jiang cheng runs out, lwj takes 33 whips for saving wwx, wen qing and wen ning turn themselves in, xiao xingchen and his eyes, etc etc. antagonists whos priorities are mostly selfish or who are acting in their owns elf interest like jin guangayo (regardless of how altruistic his actions are) and xue yang, are excluded mostly, and juniors arent apart of it as a way to break the cycle of trauma that the older generation has gotten invovled with. its not just wei wuxian and jiang cheng who do self sacrifical actions for the sake of a person that ultimately ends in a firther tragedy, its all of them)

currently crying in my place of work thinking about how jiang cheng fell in front of wei wuxian begging his mother not to hurt him, not to cut his hand off. how in the cave he screamed for wei wuxian to follow him out and promised he'd come back for him when he realized his big brother was staying behind with lan wangji in order to make sure everyone else could escape. how he let himself get captured by the wens so that wei wuxian could be safe, and lost his golden core. how devastated he was telling wei wuxian that if he continued protecting the wens, jiang cheng couldn't keep him safe anymore. and people have the audacity to say he was a bad brother...

[imaginaryelle]

Meta: Luminaries and Power in MDZS

Apparently I’m doing meta for the Untamed Winterfest “star” prompt (day 14) because I keep thinking about “rising stars” and “falling stars” and supernovas and the sun and guiding stars, which makes me think a lot (a lot a lot) about Wei Wuxian, and the Wens, and Jin Guangyao, and Lan Wangji.

Like, we have the Wens here, right?

And the Wens are basically the cautionary tale for the whole rest of the plot. “Do Not Covet Power” the story tells us over, and over and over, “Power Will Turn Against You,” but the Wens come (chronologically) first. They wear the sun, and the phoenix. They stand triumphant, the brightest star in the sky, and they start thinking that means they are the sun, the source from which all other power flows, the unkillable generator of life. And so the sun turns scorching—there are too many suns in the sky, shoot them down or all life will burn—and the rest of the world snuffs them out, one by one (until one single sun is left, excuse me while I cry over A-Yuan; okay, we’re good).

Pretty blatant, in-your-face cautionary tale for a whole generation, right? Maybe even two generations? “Hey, look, those people over there, they tried to gather up all the power and they died horribly, maybe we should not do that.” Except none of them learn anything. Anything. They still all think it’s about who’s right, completely ignoring the fact that they’re all operating under a “might makes right” mentality, the lot of them (Especially Jin Guangshaun, of course).

Wei Wuxian starts out as a rising star—the child who came from nothing, but he has so much talent and he shines so bright that no one can ignore him. Even when they hate him, they can’t look away. (He’s also pretty much the only cultivator who regularly talks to the everyday people of the world as if they’re equals, but that’s a whole other thing.) He freely gives power away when he gives Jiang Cheng his golden core. It doesn’t define him, it’s just a tool, which has been very useful but which he can do without.

Honestly, I think if Wen Chao hadn’t found him and dropped him in the Burial Mounds he would have found something else to do. He’d likely stay with Jiang Cheng (who would have to know about him not having a core, once he found Wei Wuxian basically half-dead in that town, I don’t think Wei Wuxian was originally planning to hide that part once it was finished), and still be part of the Jiang sect and consult on tactics and do work that you don’t have to be a cultivator to do (which is a lot, really). He’d still have all the competent-gentleman-skills: archery, riding, calligraphy, etiquette and math, as well as all the general knowledge he’s collected from a truly rarefied education. He can’t use a cultivator’s sword, and he’ll never attain immortality, but there are plenty of other cultivators whose sword skills and quest for a longer lifespan are suspect. Maybe he’d still go on night hunts. Maybe he’d write excellent training manuals or mentor Jiang-sect kids. Maybe he’d make lots of talismans and just wave that in everyone’s faces, idk, it’s really hard to say how talismans work in this universe. Point is, I think he would’ve made things work in a less drastic way than what he ended up with, because at the time the power didn’t matter to him.

But instead Wen Chao does find him and does drop him into the Burial Mound, and whatever happens there (I really, really want to know what happens there), he comes out of it with TOO MUCH power. Power no one has ever seen before. It’s the only way he can survive there. He hoards power for good reasons, for his own survival and (later) to ensure the survival of others, but he is absolutely biting off more than he can actually deal with, and it immediately starts fucking up his life. He’s a supernova in the making. That bottomless source of power not based on his own physical limits + the Tiger Seal + his apparently endless well of traumatic life events means that he is absolutely going to collapse in on himself at some point. He loses reputation, and standing, and then people. He is almost universally reviled, with multiple actions both correctly and falsely attributed to his name. He knows it’s happening—Who can tell me what I’m supposed to do now?—he’s lost every reason he had for hoarding the power in the first place, he’s having uncontrolled explosions of power where thousands of people die, and so he tries to give the power back by destroying the seal so no one can have that power, but power doesn’t work that way: it has to go somewhere, and it goes through him in an event that people are still talking about over a decade later.

And yet. Does anyone learn anything? “Hey, that seal seems like a super dangerous tool there, maybe it should … not be used ever again? Be destroyed? It made that guy incredibly unstable and then he exploded over the whole cultivation world, maybe we should… not?”

No, of course not. (Aside from Lan Wangji, the Nie sect and Wei Wuxian. Lan Wangji seems to have developed this knowledge early. Wei Wuxian learns the lesson; it goes hand-in-hand with his (novel) daydreams of leaving the life of a cultivator to be a farmer with Lan Wangji. I think Nie Mingjue knew it too, because the Nie sect has some themes going on with the damage power can do, but he didn’t get a chance to talk about it much. Nie Huaisang, in addition to Nie sect things, is very observant and doesn’t have strong ambition at all until he starts getting fucked with, so he has less to figure out on this front.)

Everyone else still thinks it was about the Wens, and “corruption” and that Wei Wuxian was just wrong, even though they were the ones you know… killing children and elderly people in a culture that supposedly values both quite highly. Power is just power, right? Nothing wrong with power, in fact, maybe we should expand that power even more, with a centralized system of control. Supervisor posts? No, no, these are watchtowers. They’re for your benefit too, I promise. Also blackmail, lets use lots of blackmail and some really deep dungeons, but it’s totally okay because it’s us doing it, right.

Jin Guanyao is Hou Yi, the archer who shot down the sun (that link again), and rose to become an imperial tyrant—whose cruelty led his wife to abandon him (I’ve read multiple versions of Hou Yi, but this one fits here) and cut short his quest for immortality. His whole life is about gathering power, and justifiably so given how aware he is of the precarious nature of his position for most of it. Anytime someone feels like it, they can cut him down with a single reference to his mother. It doesn’t matter what his talents are, or how clever or well-spoken he is. Everything he’s built up for himself can be taken away in an instant, because he’s the son of a prostitute and that means he doesn’t matter. This is not to say that he doesn’t deserve Nie Mingjue’s reprisal or Nie Huaisang’s revenge, of course. He absolutely does horrific, terrible things every step of the way, and for entirely selfish reasons. But he’s Wie Wuxian’s closest foil: here’s what happens when someone of merit, rather than bloodline, seeks power: they’re creative, and innovative, and oh boy are they going to shake the world. This is what happens when cruelty and manipulation take the place of love and affection in a child’s life: each perpetuates itself on a larger scale—I will kill even those closest to me vs. I will die to protect a stranger. This is how the quest for power plays out when the motivation is selfishness, rather than selflessness. In the end, both are inherently flawed, because the power itself is the root of the problem.

Unlike Wei Wuxian, Jin Guanyao holds onto his power until the very last second. Literally, any scrap, even just Lan Xichen’s affection for him. His fall is fast, and guttering—so fast that it’s over before most of the world even knows it’s started. He’s a meteorite, his origins worse than obscure, growing ever brighter in the sky until he crashes to earth, leaving devastation in his wake. And I mean that literally, the power-structure of the world is shattered by the dual events of his exposure and his death. It’s so completely broken that in their rush to consolidate power once more, the person all these leaders turn to is Lan Wangji, who just happens to be the most reputable guy still standing at the end.

So, let’s look at Hanguang-jun, the Light-Bearer.

Lan Wangji is the lodestar. He’s a constant that rarely, if ever, wavers in his convictions, and for the purpose of the plot he’s effectively the example of what an “ideal” cultivator should be (I know other people have written about LWJ and the Confucian ideal, especially @rustycol so I’m not going far into that here). He’s arguably the most successful character in the canon. He has both bloodline and merit working in his favor, and he’s pretty much the most respected cultivator in the world by the time he’s 35 (ages in this canon are a mess). He can disobey or even betray his clan and not be uprooted, which is a luxury literally no one else has (yes, he’s punished, yes, there are consequences, but he attacked 33 elders and didn’t get kicked out or killed! He’s still respected and part of the clan! Don’t tell me that’s not because he’s the clan leader’s bloodline—there are a lot of things that can be said about LWJ and his clan and morality but they’re for yet another post).

The protagonist thinks highly of him. The next generation looks up to him, pretty much universally. He is respected even by people who don’t like him, and has almost zero actual enemies (Su She isn’t even a luminary in this meta analogy, Su She is a dude with a lantern trying to blame the stars for the fact that he can’t fly). Lan Wangji is the guiding light that goes into dark places where chaos reigns and brings clarity, and calm, and (often unforgiving) justice. He doesn’t seek power, and he doesn’t hoard it. In the novel, the only prize he takes away from Jin Guanyao’s fall is the certain knowledge of Wei Wuxian’s love. He doesn’t want anything else, and that’s why he gets to walk off into the sunset with the love of his life and keep his peerless reputation, even in a culture as steeped in homophobia as the novel’s world. Obviously the drama has a different ending, but I think the point still stands: Lan Wangji is so well-respected and utterly reliable that I doubt anyone even thinks twice about offering him the position of Chief Cultivator. Who else could they choose, shocked and appalled as they are in Jun Guanyao’s wake, but the star that never moves no matter how the heavens turn?

It’s been a rough 15 years. Between Lan Wangji, Nie Huaisang and that last Wen child, maybe they’ll finally get that lesson about hoarding power to stick in a few more people’s minds. We can only hope.

[lovingsakusa]

i know this reiteration and dance bringing nuance onto the jiang cheng / wen survivor discourse has been done time and time again but i will do it anyway bc i want to rant. to be clear, anyone who thinks of themselves as an ‘anti’ pls do not interact <3 i think a lil discourse is fun for many people but i don’t have the energy to dedicate to fighting antis, jc or otherwise. no character bashing is tolerated on this post ! there is also a good chunk under a readmore bc i can’t do Long Posts w/o a readmore

i read a few replies that talked about how wen mainline (and distant lines) were killed for to avenge and honour your ancestors who were killed by them (its more complex than this but i am not the expert so im not going to elaborate) but ! not every wen disciple was a wen mainline member or even a distant member of the line. while the sunshot campaign primarily rallied to kill wrh and his tyranny and with that, end wen hegemony, *not everyone wearing wen sect colours was surnamed wen*

the sunshot campaign did not spare them regardless. it was worse for the people left of dafan wen bc they bore the surname no doubt, and what happened to them was atrocious, but like. are you getting what i’m putting down here? the whole cultivation world was not morally correct. the sunshot campaign in its methodology was not morally correct. war choices are not morally correct and you cannot square this blame solely on jiang cheng’s shoulders.

yeah what jc did and said to wwx about the wens was not an entirely morally correct choice but it was a diplomatically justified choice. y’all immediately point fingers at jc but you forget nie mingjue condemned the wens for being wens by name alone: he had a canonically black and white perspective on justice (which i personally headcanon as something different & more nuanced but lsdkjfs this is not about that & to clarify i love nmj w my whole heart).

in addition, where was the lan sect? arguably if the lan and nie sects together had worked, they *could* have saved the wen survivors. they had enough political power and money to do so and their sects had a presumably long-standing alliance already considering the closeness of lxc and nmj (also drawing on how nhs calls lxc ‘xichen-ge’). qinghe nie in particular was known for the opposition of jin guangshan — would it not be in good faith for jgy to have turned over the wens to his sworn brother, who probably would have treated them more fairly regardless of them being wens, to show that lanling jin honoured nmj’s late father and trusted them in this alliance?

nobody in the cultivation world did anything to help the wens. lmao the person who probably did the most was jiang fucking yanli. there is, so much more here than some individual choices and NOT to discount them but theres just. more nuance. more backstory.

did jiang cheng owe a debt to the wens? yes. contextually, is it different for him than nmj or lxc? yes. does it make him an *inherently bad and irredeemable person*? no.

jc had a sect to look after and major and minor sects on his heels. the lan sect initially helped him rebuild his disciples in numbers but you see how many died when wen chao came. after sunshot, there are so many expenses and yunmeng jiang was in a socially, politically and economically unstable position. i could go into how he probably really needed money but i won’t bc sldkfjs that isn’t the point here.

the point is that jin guangyao and jin guangshan would probably eat him alive if he fucked up and there were inevitably mid-sized sects rising to the top, particularly around lotus pier, that were swallowing up smaller subsidiary sects and eyeing the rest of yunmeng jiang. it was the wens and his brother , or his sect / what was left of it: the people he recruited in sunshot, who he probably promised a home and food to; a sect he had to rebuild from its ashes.

his brother was frankly being extremely unreliable atm (for, valid reasons bc this mans was coping the best he could but jc did not know what was going on) and not telling him very much. i love wwx and think he was simply trying his best and i feel so sad when i think about him during this time but since this man was very unwell, he was not exactly the pinnacle of diplomatic excellence in a unified political jiang front, for a variety of reasons.

then suddenly he had taken war prisoners from the only sect they were formally allied with (and once again, jgs and jgy would swallow lotus pier up if they could) and yeah jc could have stood up for the wens and im not saying he was right in not defending the wens okay im not saying that. he should have. so many others should have too. i AM saying this is not a ‘he was good’/‘he was bad’ thing. this is a nuanced discussion involving morals and people and sociopolitical situations

[sneakydraws]

Well, here it is - a lengthy explanation of each card in my mdzs major arcana deck and what I meant to convey/what i would have changed in retrospect/what alternatives i considered! It’s a bit messy and my typing style is lazy but hopefully it will be an interesting read to some of you :)

And so you don’t say I didn’t warn you - jiang cheng’s section (11 justice) is absurdly long lmao

0 the fool  I elaborated on this in the post itself but yeah basically jin ling is kind of representative of all the damage and trauma caused by the past, and there’s a kind of danger there of him falling victim to the same vices as the older characters and repeating the same mistakes and perpetuating the cycle of war and misery (the cycle that we already see with how the jin sect became the new wen sect, and later with how jgy became the new wwx) and he has a lot of room to grow! He grows so much over the course of the novel, comes to realise the complexities of the past and gets a harsh life lesson in how nothing is as black and white as it seems. But ill save talking about his progress for the end, for now whats important is that he has room to grow and also a dog. I don’t really have a justification for the sun, i mostly just thought it looked sick? It made its way to the next card as well, where it makes a bit more sense, but then i realised it was a dumb motif to include 1 the magician I still very much like wwx for the role, and that illustration would have probably had him raising a corpse on his left and pointing threateningly to the sun on his right. I considered including the table as well, with some mdzs relevant items replacing the card suits. Anyway, like i said wwx got a few cards to himself already so i went with the alternative wq design, since i think she fits the card as well. Both she and wwx are highly skilled people, extremely driven once they set their mind to something. The card to me symbolises the creative mind as well as a general drive for action, which fits them both - wwx was famously a prolific inventor, and wq came up with a previously unheard of surgery, after all. This card strays pretty far from the rider-waite deck design, largely because i was still figuring out how i wanted to approach this series, but you can still see the influence. 2 the high priestess I was actually going to skip this card at first because I couldn’t think of a fitting character, but once i considered a qings character post death, it all fit pretty well. She was already a highly intuitive person in life, and in sharing her memories with wwx she is, in a way, relaying a kind of secret knowledge. Anyway she’s one of my fav characters so im glad i got a chance to include her. The coffins could be interpreted to be xxc and sl or xxc and xy 3 the empress Theres other mother figures in mdzs who got to be mothers for a longer time, but jyl definitely embodies the positive aspects of this card the best. She’s nurturing, kind, emotionally supportive, she already mothered wwx and jc quite a bit when she was young. Plus i liked that the rw card had both water and flowers, making an easy lotus connection. In retrospect the stars look kind of out of place and i should have replaced them with something more relevant... Also, i should have had her hold a lotus seed pod instead of a flower, haha 4 the emperor Like i said I considered jc for the role but hoching bullied me into admitting that nmj was better… they’re both more of an inverted emperor than an upright one but then again theres hardly any character in mdzs who would fit upright emperor so. Jgs was also considered but he’s even uglier than nmj so i couldn’t bear to draw him 5 the hierophant It was pointed out to me that lqr would have fit this card better and the truth if that statement haunts me to this day. Unfortunately I have no space in my brain for lqr so lxc got the role instead. My main reason was his role during the wen destruction of gusu lan, when he ran away with the contents of the library - this is why there’s bookshelves behind him. The keys, take, from the rider-waite deck, are meant to represent the gusu pendants that allow you to enter 6 the lovers Im sure many people would have chosen wangxian here but I uhh don’t really care abt wangxian personally? And also their love story is so convoluted that jyl and jzx seem idyllic by comparison lol. Also i didnt really have an idea for who to put in the angel’s place for wangxian… mme jin certainly did not get these two together in the end but undeniably she and mme yu did initially give them a chance to fall for each other so. Thats something i guess. Anyway the trees became their sects’ flowers and the mountain became the burial grounds - an omen of their tragic fate, basically 7 the chariot There might have been other characters who fit this card better but i couldn’t really think of another card for lwj and i thought it would be weird to not include him… anyway i don’t really care for current timeline lwj BUT i do like that he was clearly influenced by wwx to walk his own path in life based on his moral convictions rather than follow his sect’s rules blindly. The chariot is to me a card of self control, self determination and focused action, so it seemed fitting. The composition felt kind of empty without the actual chariot so i padded it out with the guqin, the cloud recess in the bg (it doesn’t look great but i tried to replicate the drama design….) and the bunnies which conveniently fit the colour scheme of the sphinxes in the rider-waite design 8 strength Like i said before, my interpretation of this card is more… morally ambiguous than the quote unquote official meaning, so i thought about manipulative or duplicitous characters more than kind characters whose strength is expressed through gentleness (though i did consider jyl briefly for the latter interpretation). As such, i considered both jgy and nhs, but ended up going with jgy largely because i couldn’t pass up the opportunity to put the nie sect’s beast as the lion. 9 the hermit My thoughts immediately went to bssr lol. It may be an overly literal interpretation but whatever, i like it just fine. And i like that i managed to echo the rider-waite silhouette in the mountain and the tree (and even in bssr herself) 10 wheel of fortune God i love the parallels between these 2… this card to me is about how you cant trust your current situation, good or bad, to last forever, and these 2 embody that perfectly imo. Wwx went from son of a well off servant and a powerful cultivator, to street rat orphan, to adopted son of sect leader jiang, to double orphan, to MIA, to terrifying but admired warrior, to terrifying and despised traitor, to dead, to, at the very end, suddenly respected and trusted again. The dishonesty and cheapness of whatever the public’s current opinion of him is is portrayed beautifully as far as im concerned. And jgy of course claws his way up to power only to instantaneously become public enemy number one, to the point that he’s probably blamed for stuff there’s no reason to believe he had a hand in. Wei wuxian’s silent astonishment at how quickly the cultivation world turns against jgy and towards him again is a delicious moment of thematic resonance.  11 justice I settled on this card for jc after he got booted from the emperor seat but i do think it fits, in a somewhat convoluted way. I turned both the sword and the scales into visual representations of the golden core transfer (can you tell im obsessed with it). According to biddy tarot, the justice card is partly about searching for the truth, and the scene where jc finds out about the transfer is of course a big deal. I was also very influenced by the reversed meaning again - which is about being reluctant or unwilling to face or accept the consequences of your actions. I feel on an intuitive level that this fits jc but I’m not sure how well i can explain it - it’s something about how he’s a little too comfortable scapegoating wwx for things that were also, if much less so, influenced by his actions, and also something about the way he keeps wwx at an arm’s length emotionally but still leans on him and accepts his support when he really needs it, and somewhat hypocritically expects wwx to put the needs of him and the jiang sect before the needs of others. And also something about the core exchange is the consequence and proof of wwx’s deep - terrifyingly deep, even - love and care for him, which is something jc doesn’t seem to let himself acknowledge. Maybe even something about how you could argue that the way all of the jiangs acted around wwx - jfm’s favouritism that left him with the feeling of a debt he needs to repay, mme yus insistence that he be a servant more than a brother to jc, prepared to give his life for jc, and jc’s own unwillingness - or inability, he was a child after all - to clearly acknowledge wwx as an equal to himself, enabling wwx’s self sacrificial and protective tendencies - that all of this was what caused wwx’s complete and unquestioning willingness to do whatever it took to protect jc, and therefore paved the way to the golden core transfer. And i don’t mean this to be scapegoating jc - especially considering how young he was when this all went down, it wouldn’t be fair to expect this level of emotional perceptiveness, awareness and maturity of him - but i think adult jc has to grapple with the fact that the chain of cause and effect was not as simple as wwx fucking everyone’s lives up to be a martyr, and that both jc and his parents had a role in that story as well. I don’t even necessarily think this is something that jc only realised in the current timeline - i think it’s something he felt on some level this whole time, and it probably led to a lot of feelings of guilt - but the suibian reveal definitely puts it in sharp focus, and i think he’s now better equipped to handle this introspection than he was as a recently orphaned, traumatised teenager, lol. ANYWAY the window with the fabric is both a nod to the rider-waite design and a reference to the destruction of lanling - i actually did some basic ass research for this, and it seems that in ancient china fabric would indeed be hanged in a window if the normally used paper was damaged. The design of the window, as well as the very idea to use it to imply the reconstruction of lanling, was taken from this great piece of jc angst by my pal moroll1! Oh yeah also the covered window kind of works as a denial of forgiveness for jc because it’s like a halo but covered up... Also I completely forgot to put a blindfold over his eyes which would be perfectttt because blind justice and the core exchange......... ok moving on 12 the hanged man I always have issues with this card because i cant find a satisfactory summary of what it’s really about. Best i can tell it symbolises a need to hit pause, surrender or let go of something… ive also seen it tied to sacrifice? So mo xuanyu doesn’t fit perfectly, but sacrifice is definitely there in a surface level reading kind of way, and the idea that you have to surrender or let go in order to achieve your goal does fit the whole deal of getting revenge but giving up your life in exchange and not being there to see it 13 death This is probably one of my favourite cards, definitely not because I have huge issues with change or anything…. I see this card as signalling the necessity of change or putting an end to something / leaving something in the past in order to start anew? At first i considered putting past wwx, mxy and current wwx here as a kind of transformation and one cycle flowing into the next... But firstly, I’d already used mxy in the very previous card, so putting him in again would feel like overkill, and secondly, the longer I thought about it the less convinced I was that this would even fit with the card’s meaning? Because coming back from the dead doesn’t like... trigger an internal transformation within wwx or anything? Anyway, fun fact: the design I ended up going with was actually originally intended for judgement! I thought I was being very clever with the whole “figure plays an instrument and the dead rise” parallel, but apparently I’d just completely forgotten that the judgement card had a completely different composition... Truly I was boo boo the fool... But yeah anyway at the end of the day I figured the design would kind of work for death as well, with Wen Ning and the theme of transformation, (since in his case coming back as a fierce corpse does actually mark a certain transformation in behaviour) and Wei Wuxian’s protection of the Wen people essentially signifying an attempt to break the cycle of oppression if that makes any sense? Like, wwx is trying to revolutionise the way the world works a bit, if you catch my drift 14 temperance  The centrist card! Again this is probably going off track from the “official” interpretation, but to me this card has a certain “don’t commit fully; do everything in moderation; don’t take either side” flavour to it that i personally find infuriating irl and that i very much assign to lxc. It’s entirely possible that I’m misinterpreting his character because i didn’t really pay him (and the 3zun in general) much mind while reading, but hell, I’m allowed to pick favourites and choose who i want to interpret deeply vs shallowly. Again, i wish id chosen lqr for hierophant because its so annoying for a character i don’t care about to get two cards…. But oh well 15 the devil My alternative idea for this was jgy as the devil and lxc plus nmj as the figures, but since all three had been featured already (multiple times, even!) i figured I’d go with xy instead, especially since he’s among my faves lol. I think the devil signifies something along the lines of unhealthy attachment, obsession or addiction, which isn’t 100% accurate in the case of xxc and a-qing, but if i stretch it a bit to cover toxic relationships in general, and especially manipulation or negative influence, i don’t think it’s half bad. My main struggle here was to choose who amongst the xxc/sl/aq trio to choose for the human figures. 16 the tower Arguably jin zixuans death and the following massacre of nightless city were the final and most direct reason for the siege of burial mounds, and the tiger seal is good shorthand for wwx’s loss of control over his powers, which led to the deaths of jzx and jyl. When reimagining major arcana i like to feature some kind of building in this card (spoilers for a possible future project but in my rose of versailles major arcana set the tower is bastille) and even if it’s not a tower, the image of wwx looming over the gathered crowd from atop a rooftop is so good i couldn’t resist 17 the star Struggled with this one - considered both jin ling and lsz for it, as symbolising a hope for the future, but that was kind of covered by the world so it wouldn’t make sense to include here as well... As usual when I struggle with interpreting a card (as opposed to understanding it but struggling with matching a character to it, like with death or moon) I went to biddy tarot and read all the details about its meaning. What i got was that this card signifies an incoming period of introspection and inner peace following a time of turmoil, as well as a general moving on into a new, better phase of one’s life or finding new meaning and purpose. The figure also suggests someone vulnerable, but possessing a keen sense of intuition as well as a good degree of practicality and common sense. Given all those, I settled for mianmian because IM LOVE HER..... I also kind of see her as a prelude to the “just one person is enough” theme present in tgcf!! And i think her decision to abandon her sect because she saw the toxicity and corruption in it is a very inspiring action - even if it didn’t make a large visible impact, i think the appearance of her and her idyllic family at the very end of the novel - paralleling and mirroring wangxian - implies that at the end of the day, it was a meaningful one 18 the moon Another card i ALWAYS fuxking struggle with - this time less because i can’t grasp its meaning and more because I can never find a character that fits it well. I usually get fixated on the “dreams and subconscious” part, but if i lean more on the “disguise, deceit, anxiety and fear” part, i eventually figured the whole yi city arc wouldn’t be a bad fit. I say the entire arc because it really does encompass all those themes if you include both the past and the present - xue yang’s disguise, his tricks with the villagers, a-qing’s lies and even xxc’s reluctance to talk about his past as well as xue yang pretending to be xxc all fit the disguise and deceit angle, and the general mystery and creepiness of the current timeline yi city work well with the anxiety and fear - the mist, the slow uncovering of the past, even a-qing being revealed to be an ally after scaring the shit out of the protags. I definitely struggled with including all the elements and characters, and even moreso with making them vaguely fit the rider-waite composition, but i think it ended up okay ish. OH and i completely forgot to draw mist swirling around them :( 19 the sun I was considering mianmian’s family for this one, but since I used her for star, I ended up with wwx and his parents instead. Once again I’m reinterpreting the card a bit - normally I think it symbolises incoming times of pure happiness and abundance, as well as a connection with the inner child, but I gave it more of a nostalgic or sentimental twist - wwx looking back at the brief glimpse of his happy childhood. 20 judgement another card that i struggle to interpret a bit... Here i actually used the tgcf tarot zine as a reference! In it judgement is summarised as “rebirth, following duty, absolution” SO i figured that nhs, mxy and wwx all together would fit pretty neatly... wwx achieving (public) absolution through clearing his own name after being reborn, and nhs sort of calling on wwx to expose jgy’s crimes... It’s a bit messy but not bad I think! 21 the world This ties very closely to my read on mdzs as a story - which is that it’s, at the end of the day, largely about cycles, and about how hard it is to break them, but how we gotta keep trying and have hope anyway. Or maybe more precisely, that the people directly involved with and influenced by the trauma of the past might not be able to get over said trauma and that the hope for healing from it will be shouldered by the new generation. Or something like that… Basically what i mean is that jc and wwx and lwj and lxc and nhs and jgy and all these people who were in the thick of the sunshot campaign and the siege are so profoundly affected by it that it genuinely feels by the end of the story like there is little hope for them to ever truly overcome that trauma and build a better future without repeating the same old mistakes - but there is a glimmer of hope in the new generation, specifically in jl and lsz. And it’s a bit paradoxical, because they have also been directly impacted by the past tragedies - lsz having his entire clan wiped out after wwx failed to protect them, jl losing both his parents to wwx’s mistakes - but despite that loss, and despite coming from arguably the two opposing sides of the past conflicts, they are both, in the end, capable of moving past that tragedy, of recognising the complicated nature of those conflicts (jl’s moment of clarity at the end is both heartbreaking and hopeful) and forging friendships between clans in the process. I honestly think that the extra where jl is struggling to assert his authority as sect leader, to treat his subjects well and to cooperate with other sects in a truly amicable way is the single hopeful ending note for the larger themes of the novel - it allows us to imagine that maybe these kids can learn from the mistakes of their elders rather than getting sucked in by resentment at those mistakes, and actually build a brighter future for the cultivation world. And sidenote, this is also why i have a soft spot for jin ling and lan sizhui as a ship... speaking of which their poses were directly referenced from the lovers card ehehe

Looking back, I’d like to add some symbol of jin ling’s trauma so that it mirrors baby wen yuan in the tree stump... maybe his father’s sword? 

[angstymdzsthoughts]

(I LOVE BAD LANS) Wen Ruohan was a man who valued power and might over studies, so when Gusu invited Chao-er to attend their lecture, he turned them down with a chuckle. He refused with a sneer when they offered a second/third/fourth time, even as every other sect gave in. By the time Gusu announced that their visiting students would be staying even longer to "correct their impurity” he could only sigh and send Xu-er a message to start gathering up disciples who were skilled at fire cultivation.

Wen Ruohan didn’t trust the Lans. Something about the broken look in the eyes of their younger members that slowly changed into cold indifference as they grew put him on edge. He himself was by no means a saint or a good man, but the Lan clan as a whole seemed like it was teetering on the edge of snapping. He wanted nothing to do with them and he certainly wasn’t about to hand over either of his sons.

He can’t even say he’s surprised when four of the great sects have a secret meeting a year later. “The Lans are holding my children hostage!” Jiang Fengmian cried, the perfect picture of a grieving father. “They refuse to see reason!” Nie Mingjue rages- theres no doubt that he had tried to use his closeness with the Lan heir to get his brother home. “Now, now, lets be reasonable,” Jin Guangshen soothed. Spineless coward.

Wen Ruohan gave a great sigh. He had better things to do with his time then listen to this drivel. It’s their own fault for entrusting the well-being of their children to people who grow more unstable with each passing day.

Still... having three of the great sects indebted to him could come in handy.

“Xu-er,” he addressed. “Gather your men and go to Gusu. If the Lans want to be purified then they will be by fire.”

[one-doesnt-simply-walk-in-bagend]

MDZS Pacific Rim au

Ok I’m gay and love soulmate shit like souls just meant for each other whether platonic/familial/romantic just that shits so good and what better way to express that than in huge robots beating up giant monsters?

So jaegers right? Ok sect backgrounds

Yunmeng Jiang: Specialize in water battles with controlled yet fluid movements. They specialize in midranged battle with swords and whips that keep kaiju at a distance but theyre also very adept at close combat. They definitely have hidden daggers in every open crevice of their jaegers

Gusu Lan: Specialize in more aerial battles, not like sustained in air battles but using different maneuvers to gain the advantage over kaiju. They tend to work in pairs and work in tandem to disorient and overwhelm the kaiju. They’re strict because not only do you have to vibe with your copilot but you also have to know what other pilots are thinking so you can work together 

Qinghe Nie: Ok so Nies made some of the og jaegers with nuclear power and low shielding because it give them a Massive Boost in power but it was also dangerous for their pilots. While the other sects went for better shielding and less dangerous power sources, the nies kept the trade off because pilots felt that risking their lives was worth protecting their people. Nie pilots tend to die young

Lanling Jin: Kind of like the Nies the Jin style has trade offs. They opt for thing light plating so they are quick to maneuver and get at weak points on kaiju. They specialize in speed and precision to keep them alive and effective. They’re basically squishy genjis 

Qishan Wen: Idk I feel they have experimental but dangerous tech that they test. The sects are wary of them but they get results so there’s not much they can complain about. The wens have the advantage because so many of their population are drafted for their pilot program where the other sects take volunteers and people who want to become disciples.

This might get long so imma put the rest under a read more :L

Ok so do we want plot or soulmates first? Hmmm plot to explain the soulmates

We start with wwx and jc. Yzy trains them fast and hard with the other disciples and they both excel in their training. Wwx and jc have a jaeger named Night’s Envy. 

They are a team to be reckoned with as they balance each other. Wwx is impulsive but has great instincts and his ideas are brilliant if risky. Jc on the other hand is calculating and analytical and he takes his brothers ideas and turns them into a viable plan they can both pull off. 

Yzy is always harsh on wwx for his tactics saying hes going to get his brother hurt one day but wwx just laughs it off with jc bc they trust each other so well. 

Also because they drift, they know of each others insecurities and help each other when tensions spike etc etc. We are here for supportive brothers ok?? They are the Twin Heroes of Yunmeng and are inseparable. 

God I havent even gotten to the plot yet. Ok this is a bit of a step back to their training days but this is where wwx and lwj met. Wwx and jc go to the Cloud Recesses training facility because its the most advanced in the country. It’s strict there but their training is top notch and keeps their pilots alive. Ofc wwx gets busted by lwj for alcohol and thats how wwx gets on lwjs radar.

Lwj doesnt know how to feel about wwx, besides annoyed, because hes such an amazing pilot but doesnt control his actions. Wwx excels in the studies and training but is so carefree and flippant about everything that it frustrates him to no end. Doesn’t help that wwx loves to rile lwj up to get a reaction

They end up developing a competitive relationship and always try to outdo each other in training sims and sparing. All the other disciples know about the top two students duking it out for top spot but they keep switching between each session. Before they get to actually try drifting together wwx gets into a fight with jzx and gets kicked out (spoilers they are drift compatible) 

Ok back to our Twin Heroes. Night’s Envy gets deployed for a kaiju but their fight starts to drift into Wen territory. Idk regulations or smth say they shouldn’t infringe on anothers territory so yzy tells them to come back but wwx spots the kaiju headed for an undefended village. It would take the wens time to deploy their own pilots so wwx and jc look at each other and nod. Wwx says their headed to save the village and yzy is furious telling him off for being impulsive and not listening but it was also jc’s idea (he wont say that tho bc he doesnt want him to get into trouble)

Wwx has a wild idea, jc finds out how to make it work, and they go after the kaiju as it bears down on the village. They’re able to push it back but it gets a hit in and jc gets injured and knocked out. Wwx is left to pilot solo and manages to subdue the kaiju before piloting the jaeger to crash next to the village

This is where Wen Qing and Wen Ning come in because this is their village and they pull wwx and jc out from the wreckage. Wq stabilizes both of them and wwx is the one to wake up first. Their comms were broken in the fight and the village doesnt have advanced enough comms to get to the jiangs so wwx stays and helps the village while taking care of his brother who is still Out

Little do they know that the Wens are Unhappy about them infringing on their territory and bar yzy from sending parties to collect her pilots and jaeger and theres now Tension. (Wens are just using this as an excuse bc they want more power in the jaeger industry and want to incorporate the other sects)

Once wwx catches wind of this, he enlists wn’s help in getting them out and they’re able to get an unconscious jc back into the jiang’s hands but then he himself gets caught by wen chao and wen zhuliu. he’s able to say wn was his prisoner and forced so hes safe but wwx is now in their hands.

He gets beaten, tortured, etc for information but manages to escape and find his way back to the wen village. Wq helps him back to health bc he protected her brother and he stays there because he can be safe there. (This is where he basically adopts a-yuan bc i say so)

When jc wakes up hes back with the jiangs but his brother isn’t there. He goes Off and hes doing everything he can to try and get back to find his brother but he was unconscious and has no clue about the village let alone where it is. 

Soon war breaks out between the sects bc the wens are using their weird tech to take territories from the other sects and now the sects are fighting on two fronts: the kaiju and the wens. Finding wwx is lowest priority for the sects but jc is still out there searching and when lwj hears of it, so is he

I think once the war breaks out wwx starts to move his village of wens to a safer territory from both the wens and other sects bc he knows no one will be spared. During his time at he village, he ventures out to bigger wen cities and learns about their experimental/dangerous tech and learns how to use it and program it to his advantage

He makes his way back to the jiang territories once he has amassed a thorough knowledge of the wen tech. he uses that knowledge to take out wen pilots and outposts in the territories he pushes through and becomes a ghost. the only evidence of his presence is the destruction left in his wake. 

Jc and lwj at this point have just started searching together and thats when they stumble upon wwx using wen tech against the wens. Jc is so angry with wwx for leaving him and being away so long but hes also crying as he hugs him close. Lwj is wary of the tech wwx is using because its experimental and dangerous idk. Jc takes wwx back and they continue fighting the war.

Now the jiangs and thus the rest of the sects have an advantage because they have an insider who knows the wen’s plans (meng yao) and someone who knows how their tech works and can use it against them  (wwx). wwx is able to set up some tech to hold off kaiju so certain forces can be pushed to the wen front to end the war quicker

in the final battle wwx is able to get them a huge advantage with the tech but gets hit hard with backlash and gets knocked out during the battle and lwj and jc defend his unconscious figure as meng yao gets the final blow on wrh and the battle ends. 

Idk i want lans to still be healers cuz i want lwj to take care of an unconscious wwx while jc and the others deal with the end of war idk meetings etc plus there are still like,,, kaiju attacking lmao

jgs is gonna be targeting wwx since he knows the wens tech and its uses etc. the jins go after the remaining wens bc they want their tech blah blah. they find wq’s village and wwx goes off. he goes and rescues them (wn is injured but alive) and takes them away. jgs spins this as wwx trying to amass his own tech to take over or something and people believe that for some reason w/e

the massacre at nightless city is wwx trying to talk to them about the wen remnants being no fighting army etc etc but doesnt matter and someone attacks him and he fights back but of course experimental tech isnt always good and it accidentally gets too powerful and hurts a Lot of People (jyl is alive). wwx is knocked out by the backlash and lwj takes him to safety. 

wn is there and he takes wwx back to where the rest of the remnants are hiding and lwj fights off 33 elders who try to follow/intercept wn and wwx

I haven’t decided how the rest is gonna go but I have Ideas. Tbqh there’s a lot missing in between the bullets but i wanted to get this all down 

[rubyneo]

📃💎🎶 cj idk anything about mdzs!! please tell me a little :) 💜

📃 what is the plot of your hyperfixation? and is it a movie, game, show, etc?

okay, okay. spoilers ahead!

mdzs is a novel, manhua, donghua (animation), audio drama, AND live action drama. the basic plot is this: wei wuxian (the main character) creates 'demonic cultivation', which basically uses resentful, or 'yin', energy instead of 'yang' energy, to help win a war against one of the five great cultivation sects. throughout the war the other four sects either praise him for what he's doing or turn a blind eye, because it's helping them. after the war is won, though, wei wuxian doesnt put his demonic cultivation away and return to the 'righteous path' and people just keep getting angrier with him because of it. then wen qing, who helped him and his brother when their home was burnt down and their parents were killed, comes to him and begs for help because her little brother has gone missing in a prisoner of war camp. wwx finds wen ning dead, raises him from the dead, and frees the prisoners. spoiler! people are not happy about this! even though these prisoners of war are elderly people who couldnt fight anyway, a Literal Child, and only two cultivators (wen qing and wen ning)!!! shit goes down, wwx believes wen qing and wen ning have been killed, and he goes on a rampage, killing thousands of people. in the live action drama, its implied that jiang cheng (wwx's brother) kills him, but in the novel and other related media, its said that his army of fierce corpses rip him apart. the rest of the wen remnants are slaughtered. 13 (16 in the drama) years pass and people finally start relaxing. theres no way wwx will come back! the yiling patriarch is gone for good! yay!! (wrong!) mo xuanyu, the bastard child of a sect leader, sacrifices his body to bring wei wuxian back. lan wangji shows up on the scene, finds a severed arm that is Fucking Pissed, takes mo xuanyu (wei wuxian) back to Gusu-Lan sect with him because jiang cheng has been hunting down demonic cultivators and killing them for the last 13-16 years and lan wangji isnt Gonna Let That Shit Happen. from there, wwx and lwj travel about trying to piece together this hunky zombie man puzzle, wwx gets exposed as. well. wwx. figures out lwj is in love with him, SOLVES the hunky zombie man puzzle, finds out whos behind a bunch of murders n shit, and then they live happily ever after!

also they have a son.

🎶  if your hyperfixation has songs/an ost, what is your favorite song from it?

THERE IS AN OST. WITH CHARACTER SONGS. AND I LOVE A LOT OF THEM!! Wú Jī/Unrestrained is the opening and WangXian's CANON lovesong 🥺🥺, Qū Jìn Chén Qíng (Song Ends with Chenqing) is Wei Wuxian's character song and it FUCKING gets me bro, Bù Wàng (Won't Forget) is Lan Wangji's character song and. GOD...., Qīng Hé Jué (Parting at Qinghe) is the Nie Bros theme song (more specifically it's Huaisang's song to his older brother I think? But both of their actors sang it live together so!!!) and the feelings it gives me...😭😭😭😭, and finally there's Gū Chéng (Lonely City) which is the Yi City arc theme song and. god...GOD.

actually fuck it here's the wiki list of the drama's music and i recommend it just as much as i rec the rwby ost

💎  are there any fun facts or trivia that you would like to share?

Wei Wuxian's nephew, Jin Ling's courtesy name, Jin Rulan, and his own SON'S courtesy name, Lan Sizhui, are basically Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji's love letters to each other. wwx is actually called out by jiang cheng for it after their older sister, jiang yanli, asks wwx to pick jin ling's courtesy name. its also a bit more lowkey than sizhui, who's name means "to recollect and long for" BECAUSE LAN WANGJI IS A SAP WHO MISSED HIS CHILDHOOD CRUSH FOR 13 (16) YEARS 😭😭😭😭😭

ANYWAY I HIGHLY RECOMMEND MDZS/CQL BUT CONTENT WARNING FOR THE EXTRAS IF YOU READ THE NOVEL BECAUSE THEYRE. GROSS. LIKE. REALLY BAD.

[nyahuaisang]

Nie Sect Headcanon/Meta

So it's pretty apparent that the Nie Parents(nie daddy, mingjue mom, huaisang mom) were all in something of a content relationship, like they were all happy with each other, given how Huaisang is Mingjue'd half brother but there's no rumors or gossip about that aspect of him even though everyone's always talking about how much of a slut JGS is and the idea that JFM could be WWX's actual dad.

So assuming the Nie Parents were in a consensual happy threesome relationship, imagine how everyone else reacted to them, mingjue, and huaisang.

Like you got YZY constantly at odds with JFM about how he might've been in love with a dead woman, Madame Jin having to deal with JGS fucking every woman he sees, and QHJ and Madame Lan secluded from each other but then theres the Nie Parents who manages to be happy with each other despite there being 2 wives. Like from YZY and Madame Jin's perspective, that shouldn't work out, but for whatever reason it does.

And imagine the children! Huaisang as a child was probably the one everyone envied cause he has such a great relationship with his family when everyone else had issues with theirs, like imagine bby JC wondering why Mingjue isnt annoyed at his dad 'taking in' a child from another mother or WWX asking Huaisang why his step mom isnt angry at him for having another mother cause like YXY hates WWX for maybe being JFM's child and potentially bringing dishonor to his sect but then here's this wimpy ass kid that looks like he cant do shit for his sect and the sect heir KNOWS this kid is his father's child but literally no one seems to hold a grudge against him, his stepmom loves him, his brother is clearly protective over him, and the entire sect seems to dote on him.

And JZX! Imagine him asking Huausang why his stepmom isnt mad at his dad for liking another woman and throughout all this, Huaisang's just confused cause why would anyone hate for all those petty reasons when his parents and brother loves each other and him so much?

This headcanon also makes it so much more depressing when you realize that the one sect that, at the beginning, probably had half brothers who shared a strong bond and parents that communicated and was probably in a happy relationship, ended with only Huaisang alive and having no one by the end of the story.

[otterplusharchive]

whats your fic idea?

im very sleepy and out of it so i feel like ill explain the idea badly but theres a scene early on in the untamed where wwx and nhs are teasing jiang cheng about his impossible standards in what his idea of a perfect girlfriend would be bc theyre very ridiculous standards and the idea was like writing a scene shortly after that happened where nhs talks to wwx more about jiang chengs standards in this kind of way where hes joking about it but wwx can tell that theres more going on and that nhs is thinking about it so wwx jokes along with him more before finally being like "bro is there something going on" and nhs just brushes it off with some vague statement about either his own standards or about how hes never fit the standards of the nie sect and wwx is like 👀👀 i see fellow bicon. and then the next scene is a big time skip to after the end of the show where jiang cheng has just 1. realized that hes not straight 2. confessed to nhs that he likes him and nhs has a moment of suddenly remembering that first scene of wwx and him teasing jiang cheng about his standards and he goes "oh god do i fit your ridiculous standards since you like me??" and he and jiang cheng both collectively lose it when nhs brings the first scene up but also have like a nice moment of jiang cheng being like. no ur not the same as what i thought i would want in a partner when we were in highschool because i was an asshole kid but youre what i want in a partner now. anyway im emotional

[kronk-a-donk]

My Mo Dao Zu Shi Couples Headcanons

Hey it's been a while since I've posted some hcs and I'm back to continue my mdzs couples ones! Feel free to ask for or submit headcanons, ideas, prompts anytime. I'll leave instructions for that at the bottom :) anyway here we go!!

Nie Huaisang x Jiang Cheng

NHS likes the chase, he likes pulling JC close and then pulling away until he gets what he wants. They're constantly in this game and NHS loves the thrill.

JC was the one to confess, it was very interesting and somewhat aggressive.

They were together for over a year before anyone figured it out.

Together they have a lot of pets, like JC has several dogs and NHS has his bird, and probably some snakes and a cat and whatever pets his brother left behind

NHS is always there waiting for when JC comes back from a nighthunt on the rare occasion he doesn't get taken a long

JC buys NHS new fans fairly often, some plain and some more fancy. For their wedding JC had a fan specially commissioned, it was red and gold with both their names and their sects emblems.

They both love to debate things and it almost always leads to rough and somewhat angry sex.

JC makes NHS special desserts and meals for special occassions.

They're both fairly vanilla when it comes sex, NHS is the one to initiate exploration into new kinks.

JC likes listening to NHS sing, he finds it very calming.

Anytime JC tries to learn something NHS is there to support him in anyway possible.

There's a lot of teasing between them.

They tend to be on the same page for the most part.

Jiang Cheng x Nie Huaisang x Lan Xichen

LXC is just the ultimate sugar daddy to his two lovers. JC sometimes gets irritated by it, but soon just goes along with it since theres no way of stopping him.

They're all sect leaders so they don't get to spend as much time together as they would like, but when they are together they are almost inseparable.

LXC is the most outwardly affectionate of the three. NHS and JC vary on who is more affectionate.

Both NHS and LXC love to tease JC.

JC tends to be the shyest when it comes to initiating any sort of intimacy.

LXC really helps make them both feel better and be more honest about things.

Both NHS and LXC make sure JC knows how much he is appreciated and loved for who he is no matter what.

They both try to get JC to teach them how to cook, but ultimately get banned from the kitchen.

LXC and NHS once showed up at the lotus pier unannounced with the same gift for JC, 12 puppies each. JC was very surprised and shocked, but now he loves his army of 24 doggos. One time when he went to the cloud recesses he brought all of them and WWX almost had a heart attack.

They like to spend time together outside, JC with his head LXC shoulder NHS resting his head on their legs.

Both JC and LXC like to buy NHS fans or tassles for fans.

LXC once tied both NHS and JC together while they slept with his forehead ribbon.

NHS is more of a power bottom, JC is a switch and a bit of a pillow princess, and LXC is a switch though he mainly tops these two.

LXC likes to make sure that both of them feel equally loved and cared for, he helps them with things, tells them how much he cares for them all the time, shares things and listens to them.

When they get married LXC gets two forehead ribbons, one for each of them. JC uses his to tie his hair back and NHS wears his on his wrist.

NHS is really into Roleplaying and JC and LXC get into it because NHS makes it very interesting and thrilling.

To on none mobile - Please the Kronk

To submit - Submit to the Kronk

Yes I'm aware they're weird and vaguely sexual, but I promise you I just like getting asks.

[miixz]

#mdzs#mdzs meta#wen sect#lan sect#all good points#i don't think i agree with the one about the lan not waiting around when another clan is attacked first#because didn't that happen?#i though the wens were subjugating the minor clans way before they attacked the lan clan#but no one in the cultivation world batted an eye other than some grumbling under their breaths and hushed discussions#it could have been different if a major clan was hit especially the nie clan on account of lxc's friendship with nmj#but even then i'm not sure since lxc is not the leader yet#and lqr is much more ruthless and coolheaded#so while maybe the lan wouldn't sit and do nothing like the jiangs were someone else attacked first#i don't think they would have rushed to the help either#more like they would have focused on their own defenses @sienne-k

Hi, thank you for bringing this to my attention, I don't think I explained that part well!

Mostly why I think that they would not wait around when another major clan was attacked is because it's a sound strategy to band together. I am arguing they are in the best shape, yes, but Qishan Wen was still undeniably better. This isn't a fight they could win alone and unless they want to hide in the Cloud Recesses forever the push back will have to be bigger than just maintaining their own defences, so it makes sense to reach out to allies and do other such things.

It's one of the things I thought would contrast with the Jiang, that effectively did nothing while it was obvious their clan would be attacked at some point, since the Wen had already attacked a great clan and were doing power plays like the indoctrination. War was coming, it's a question of getting ready for it.

I do see them helping the Nie mostly because of the connection between Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen, but its also a good idea in general not to have a territory conquered by the Wen Clan.

In Yunmeng I see some insistence from Lan Wangji to at least go himself and try and make sure if Wei Wuxian is okay which grants them some aid probably. They're also very close to Gusu and checking on that situation has its own advantages considering their closeness and how useful of a spot Yunmeng is when it comes to accessing everywhere else in the Jianghu.

They have really no connection to Lanling at this point which is why on them I was sort of "uhh maybe? If it was advantageous and they had some reason for it", it's genuinely the one great clan I can see going completely ignored while preparations are focused entirely elsewhere, because while there would be an element of kindness to their actions, especially from Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji, I think any aid offered would be strategic as well.

On joining with minor clans, I do think theres an element of "well you ignored us until now!" but if the choice is between that alliance and being subjugated by the Wen, then plenty of people might be willing to join an alliance with a bigger clan that they can trust not to turn on them. And the reason for an alliance at all is back to the point about them still not being able to win this alone. It just seems to me that with the certainty that war was coming, that'd be a part of getting ready for it.

It has been brought to my attention that we’re not all in agreement that the Wen attacked the Gusu Lan Clan first because they’re their biggest threat as an opponent and not because they were petty about the archery competition placements, so I guess this is a post I need to put out there.

Warning, lots of words ahead!

Let’s think about the other clans first, and what we know about them at the time: 

Nie Mingjue is young. His father died at Wen Rouhan’s hands and though he is very mad about this, he hasn’t been able to retaliate, which says a lot about the position he’s in. He would fight back with all he has during an attack, but he’s likely not to fare well by himself against all of the Wen’s resources.

Jin Guangshan is clearly a cunning person, but he’s also a slimy bastard who’ll take the opportunity that's more advantageous to himself and everyone seems to know that. I can see why Wen Rouhan would think that he’s more of a controllable element, especially when he’s holding the most power. Jin Guangshan has enough self preservation and lacks enough morals that he just wouldn’t oppose the Qishan Wen too strongly while they’re winning really.

Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan’s relationship is known to be a bit of a mess and their leadership works, but they’re not coordinated and seem easy to break apart, as well as not being very politically minded or full of alliances. Yunmeng is a really good location to have, but there does not seem to be a rush to take over it since they’re destabilized enough that they wouldn't fight back as strongly if not attacked first. Which they don’t, they stay in Lotus Pier pretending a war isn’t on the horizon until it comes to their doorstep.

In comparison to these, Gusu Lan is kind of thriving?

Yes, the whole thing with Qingheng-jun and Lan Qiren is sort of a mess of its own, but it’s a controlled mess. It doesn’t reach or affect them outside of the Lan, it has not made them lose any respect that we know of, the management seems to be going fine, they’re well respected enough that the lectures are a big deal event that plenty of the other clans participate in, not just because it's a tradition but because they want to be there.

There was a virtuous and prestigious elder in the Gusu Lan Clan - Lan Qiren. Everyone in the cultivation world accepted three characteristics which described him: pedantic, stubborn, and a strict teacher who produced outstanding students. Although the first two points kept a lot of people at a respective distance from him, some even to the point of secret dislike, the last one made them try everything they could to send their children to study under him. He had brought up quite a number of excellent disciples of the Lan Sect. As long as they stayed a few years in his classroom, no matter how pathetically useless they were when they first entered, they would at least seem to be decent when they depart, especially in terms of appearance and etiquette. There were plenty of parents who were so excited that tears flowed down their cheeks when they picked up their sons.

That’s the kind of thing that requires good organization and coordination between clans, a measure of respect, that they all do seem to have for the Lan and for Lan Qiren (effectively their leader). Those things are very important. 

Not to mention this creates a sort of network of all of the former disciples that would have come to classes and hold their own feelings of respect for the Lan Clan because of their time spent there. Plenty of people have a relationship of sorts with the Lan.

So, so far the Lan Clan has that the others do not:

A good functional environment within the Cloud Recesses where outsiders don’t really know of any strife.

Good relations and a history of coordination with other clans.

An experienced adult as a leader (or two, considering both LQR and QHJ sort of count).

They are also known to have the sort of beliefs that would evidently clash with Wen Rouhan’s conqueror ideas and wouldn’t be bought or manipulated on them.

Then we have the archery competition, which yes was a bit of a hit to Qishan Wen’s ego, but was also a great opportunity to look at the other clan’s disciples and ascertain their threat levels. strengths and weaknesses and such things. And it did prove that the Lan, along with what I have listed, seem to have the strongest and most well adjusted clan heirs - which isn’t exactly a surprise, they were already known as such. But it does add to the list of reasons why they’re currently the most well adjusted and the biggest threat, as even that reputation among the juniors counts as influence which is dangerous.

The respectable title of the Two Jades of Lan was given to the two sons of the Gusu Lan Clan’s current leader - Lan Huan and Lan Zhan. Just after they passed fourteen, they were deemed by the elders of each clan as exemplary models to compare with their own disciples. They were exceptionally famous among the juniors, so it was only natural that everyone recognized the names.

The Cloud Recesses are also on a pretty defensible territory should they be warned about an attack and ready for it to come. The terrain is in their favor. We know that in the war they did need to defend themselves from attacks, and that Lan Qiren was the one holding the fort, and since we don’t hear of any big attacks having landed on Cloud Recesses other than the first one, this proves both this point and also that as much as I don’t like him, Lan Qiren is as capable of handling this sort of operation as I’ve implied above.

During the Sunshot Campaign, stories of praise were told about all three of the Venerated Triad. The ones of Chifeng-zun were about how he swept over all obstacles, leaving not even a trace of the Wen-dogs after he finished. Zewu-jun - Lan Xichen - however, was different from him.

After the situation of the Gusu area had settled down, Lan Qiren was able to defend it with great tenacity. Thus, Lan Xichen often traveled to aid others, saving lives from danger. In all of the Sunshot Campaign, he had countless times recovered lost territory and assisted narrow escapes. This was why people were ecstatic whenever they heard his name, as though they gained a ray of hope, a powerful trump card.

Every time Lan Xichen passed Hejian as he was escorting other cultivators, he would rest shortly, with Hejian acting as some sort of a transit station. Nie MingJue led him to a spacious, brightly-lit hall. A few other cultivators also sat within the hall.

Let’s think of the situation where another Clan is attacked first and the Lan are left alone to prepare for what's to come. I can’t see them being okay playing nice with the Wen, and I can’t see them simply waiting around like the Jiang did.

They have a good relationship with all the other leaders they can reach out to. If Qinghe Nie was attacked, I think they would try to come to their aid while also raising their defenses, as they had a close relationship - and that's clearly possible for them to do all at once considering that passage I just included about Lan Xichen helping people in the war, a capable and whole Cloud Recesses would hold itself together even better.

If Yunmeng Jiang was attacked I’m not sure if they’d offer aid as strongly, but they likely would as well, as they’re very close geographically. 

Lanling Jin… I’m not sure.

But either way, whichever Great Clan is attacked, they are in a good position with the remaining clan leaders to reach out to them and coordinate strategies, and not even them, there are a lot of minor clans that based on the lectures and other similar interactions based on sharing knowledge would have good relationships with them. Not all of them would rally behind the Lan, but some would, and some is much better than none.

That makes for a lot more functional opposition.

Being knowledgeable of the possibility this may happen, it really just makes the most sense that they went for them first. This is their one opportunity to use the element of surprise to their advantage, obviously it’d be used to attack their most well adjusted enemy that has a better chance to fight back.

I’m unsure where to put this, but I do think that the indoctrination was also a sort of proof that the regard the cultivation world as a whole had for the Lan Clan was noticed by the Wen Clan and it bothered them (which makes sense, considering they wanted to be seen as the unquestionable leading clan).

It’s a very similar scenario to the one we are presented in the lectures, that functions as a mockery of them, a dark reflection where instead of the boys being invited to learn and socialize, they are being exposed to the cruelty of the Wen Clan and the consequences of disobeying them.

[trans-axian-archive]

Why is 3zun bad? I genuinely don’t know.

the issue with a romantic relationship between jin guangyao, lan xichen, and nie mingjue is jin guangyaos actions towards the other two. he spends the entirety of his relationship with lan xichen manipulating and lying to him. he manipulates him so much that even after lan xichen knows all of the terrible, terrible things jin guangyao has done and is literally in the midst of one of them, he tries to make excuses for him and find a way for jin guangyaos behavior to Not be bad. that's literally a sign of intense manipulation and abuse. he lies about Everything to lan xichen and literally has him teach him an instrument and form of cultivation significant and meaningful to lan xichens sect in order to kill one of lan xichens close friends. I think that lan xichen loved jin guangyao, and I think in his own sick, awful, twisted way jin guangyao loved him back, but their relationship was literally so ugly and toxic that lan xichen had to go into indefinite seclusion to recover from it and I'm not really down with people who actively romantically ship them in a positive way

I feel kind of silly having to spell this one out but... jin guangyao literally Kills nie mingjue? like on purpose? like slowly and painfully and horribly? and then does horrible things to his dead body? jin guangyao literally Hated nie mingjue and nie mingjue pretty much hated jin guangyao back? that's just like... a baseline nono in any relationship? I don't know how else to explain that putting someone and their murderer in a relationship together is bad like theres not much more nuance to it then that

[trans-axian-archive]

i agree with most of the people in the list but i don't know about the nikudon one. i don't think they didnt color the nie brothers darker with the stereotype in mind. it's kind of harmful to put someone who may not know these things also like anon who didn't know about genderbending being transphobic. if you've talked to them they might be more aware? you're getting hate, but people who might just be unaware is also getting hate putting them on a list w/ people who ship incest is a bad move imo

I love how everyone responding with this criticism just completely ignores the fact that nikudons ships characters who met for the first time under intense power dynamics. jiang cheng was 15 when he went to the cloud recesses and met lan xichen, who was at least 20 years old, already a fully fledged sect leader, and probably even taught or at the very least assisted in some of the lessons jiang cheng received

jiang cheng, still age 15, met nie mingjue shortly after, who was Also at least 20 (more likely around 22/23) and a fully fledged sect leader. nie mingjue addressed jiang cheng and wei wuxian with respect and honor but he still addressed them like they were children and he was an adult because they Were

if jiang cheng had met the two of them for the very first time when he was like 25 and already a sect leader, that would be a different story. but he didn't. he met them when he was a child and they were adults. even if you don't think they would have gotten together until later, its incredibly insidious to suggest that nie mingjue and lan xichen would "wait" for someone they met when they were adults and he was a child, to grow up. if you change it so they meet later or alter their ages to make the age gap when they meet less troubling, you're just admitting theres something wrong there in the first place

further more, it is Not my job to educate every single person who creates and supports genderbends. if someone comes to me very politely asking me to explain it to them, then I'M the one making the choice to do so. telling me who I should spend my emotional labor on is incredibly disrespectful and rude. minorities do not exist for the soul purpose of educating every ignorant person on the planet

do Not compare people too cowardly to stand behind their own words and opinions with a face and a name calling me ugly, telling me theres something wrong with me, and completely disregarding my personhood, to me making a list of people who are popular but participate in behavior that I, or people I want following me, would not be okay with. I didn't tag them. I didn't tell anyone to send hate. I didn't spread lies about them. I provided information and sources. if you do not like my list, then block me. how dare you come into my ask box Anonymously trying to tell me what morals I can and cannot have

[redafi]

dont make me choose i love most of them… for various reasons

Like mo xuanyu? i love his vibes, he’s adorable in fanon, and he was a key point in bring wangxian back together so like… i love him

Nie huaisang, i love him because i love smart characters so much, i dont even know why. Just look at him he could stab you and youd never see it coming, i love that. Sneaky boi.

Jiang yanli? She isnt really characterized much in the book—i actually saw a meta post about why once, no idea if i could find it again but its basically that shes depicted as more of a memory—but she is such a mom. I mean, shes trapped in a bad situation with her family—eldest sibling syndrome oh no— and i know she can seem kind of naive because of… various reasons. But she is also lovely and i love how she shows her strength through kindness. She has her flaws and is wonderful all the same.

Lan xichen i can get a bit annoyed at, but that doesnt mean i dont love him to absolute bits at the same time. Supportive brother for the win! Outside of the leadership position part, i can see a lot of myself in lan xichen, particularly in the… more naive portrayals of him lol. My heart breaks a little for him, because it turns out the one of the only people he had left wasnt a good person after all, and then he was tricked into killing that friend before he even had a chance to come to terms with the betrayal. So sad, i love him. i also love in early wangxian aus where he matchmakes wangxian >:)

Then there is mianmian. She is so great; took one look at the absolute bull happening in the cultivation world’s politics, went ”youre all stupid” and left it all behind even though it jeopardized her future and endangered her life—i cant imagine its easy to be a rogue cultivator without backup

And wen qing as well of course! i love her, she is very smart, sticks to her morals and just *gestures at wen qing*. She Is Awesome. Never offend a doctor.

then theres lan sizhui, and wen ning, and jin zixuan (hes so awkward, i know hes supposed to be a peacock but honestly i think of him as a duck. Funky lil guys, they have no idea what theyre doing. This is probably not accurate for ducks but ignore it, its just how i think of ducks) and some of the characterizations for wen ruohan are so freaking interesting (i read a few fics where he was wwx’s grandfather and figured it out at a conference because wwx looks like his grandmother/wen ruohan’s first wife/cangse sanrens mom. So interesting, none of them were completed, i am still sad about it) and then theres also lan jingyi, and jin ling, and ouyang zizhen. Nie mingjue is a great big brother and maybe the best parental figure in the story. Jiang cheng is so angry, he reminds me of my sibling (they/them). I acknowledge late canon jiang cheng but i prefer fanon jc lol. Lan qiren in fics where wwx joins the lan sect (in fix its) is such a great teacher and i wish i had a teacher like that.

Honestly i love mdzs because of the characters, i dont know how to pick one T-T

who’s the best mdzs character and why is it wen qing

[nyahuaisang]

YES YES YESSSSS

I just wrote a whole rant on their relationship but im gonna rant more here cause YES THEY LOVE EACH OTHER SOOO MUCH

NMJ knows that he's much more susceptible to a qi deviation then other sects, he could literally drop dead at any time, and that he's huaisang's only family(i mean theres probably a distant aunt or sumn but shes not here so *shrug*) so if he died, huaisang would be left all alone, unprepared for the sect leader position and the wars thatll come with it, and with no one to support or guide him and NMJ refuses to let that happen. Thus, he had to ingrain as much knowledge and skills into huaisang, even it made his brother dislike him.

And for all he complains, huaisang KNOWS that his brother is only harsh because he cares. But being a naive teenager, he took his brother for granted, believing that no matter how harsh mingjue gets, he's never gonna leave him. But he did.

From huaisang's perspective, he let his brother die thinking he despised him. All their interactions before mingjue's death with him avoiding mingjue and complaining about him and his brother died before huaisang could tell him how grateful he is to him and make him proud.

And this is why both his mingjue's resentful energy and huaisang's vengeance is so immense. Whereas JZS died knowing wei ying didn't intentionally kill him and JYL died protecting her brother, the little time the nie brothets had with each other was takem away from them prematurely with full intent, and NMJ died doing the one thing he wanted to avoid: leaving behind a brother who wasn't prepared either in leadership skills nor strength, who he injured and traumatized and never made up with. And huaisang knows this, which is why he refuses to leave his brother's death the way it was.

I don’t know how many people will agree with me (everyone’s entitled to their own opinion) but NHS had every right to be angry and want vengence. Imagine watching someone you love suddenly dying a horrible death and then learning afterwards that it was caused by someone you trusted. Did he do the right thing? No, he definetly didn’t. Did he know that? Probably. Did he care? No and he didn’t have to. He just backstabbed the one who did the same back that’s all.

*shakes bc i love NHS so much*

NHS must have really loved NMJ so much that he shed his own innocence and deceived everyone bc he feels his brother won’t be able to rest in peace otherwise if they don’t get their revenge (and yet despite how infamous nie mingjue was with his rage and temper, i think that if he had the chance, he would have let go of all that if it meant keeping his little brother’s innocence in tact with his safety and happiness)