#which is for Jin Ling

[jiangwanyinscatmom]

With the encouragement of @admirableadmiranda I had some thoughts regarding fandom and it's expectations that they want, and not necessarily the message coming from the text we read and are supposed to digest. As well as how it places these strict boundaries of not being able to make these characters nuanced as they are constantly called. I feel like what fandom wants a lot of the time is this self fulfilling need in themselves or want served some sort of comeuppance despite that's a call of further unnecessary cruelty and if that's what you choose you aren't any different from the in world condemnation and finding that scapegoat.

If you choose to see a sort of betterment for a character to please yourself it is to deny the heart and harm they canonically caused and underplay their existing personality to play to the wants you have. If you choose to hate them as well it is to the condemnation that they aren't capable of betterment upon the character's core nature that is nothing like our own.

In this sense I am specifically noting the way fandom deals with Jiang Cheng. They do not let him have his own sense of "redemption" or choose to see it as dissatisfying based on their own yearning and self experience. Yet it's not about "us". Self peace of one is not, and should not be, what I need for my own self. For Jiang Cheng his own peace is realizing that sacrifice and the catharsis of that acceptance is being able to accept yourself.

Jiang Cheng decides to be as he is without condemning Wei Wuxian finally for what he is or what he became as an adult. His core nature is still unlikeable, chooses force to keep anyone from arguing and is arrogant. But he uses that to protect Jin Ling, despite how much fandom may dislike this fact, he does love and who loves him in turn. He uses his nature now to protect someone he was not willing to do that for previously. He is not kinder or softer in nature and never will be, but he is standing by someone he truly does want to prosper without the expectation of gain for himself.

He stops forcing his own way onto Jin Ling as we are shown Jin Ling openly continuing his own hunts with the Lans as well as Wei Wuxian without Jiang Cheng interfering or inserting that Jin Ling is wrong for his associations he has chosen. As much as he hated Wei Wuxian, he also hated himself and by the end is able to accept his own bitter core without dying in hate as his mother had done. He is able to escape the shadow of being his mother in full, on HIS terms and no one else's. The point is not what is a dissatisfaction for the audience but what is a peace of self for the character.

What am I to decry a person's peace finally in their existence that does not resemble mine or what I want? That is the arrogance of the self that I refuse to partake of and find even more cruel to force on another and tell them "You are wrong for finding your own sense of self and peace because that's what I think".

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

At your side [End of Season 2]

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[qiu-yan]

imagine that you're jiang cheng and you have a meeting at jinlintai to pick up jin ling / discuss jin ling's educational plans / etc etc.. you arrive earlier than expected, so they tell you that lianfang-zun is still busy with his sworn brothers. that's okay though, you can spend the time feeding the koi in the koi pond with jin ling.

looks like jin guangshan is also busy which is alright because you don't want to talk to him and wait holy shit did chifeng-zun just kick lianfang-zun down the stairs????? huh?????????

maybe it's time to go back to lotus pier

[demonicfarmer69]

hang out with wwx they said it'll be fun they said

[yunmeng-jiang]

every day i wish there had been a better solution for the qin su marriage problem.

in my fix-it fics i either have some other sect leader claim that he was actually madly in love with her this whole time and sweep her away for jgy's sake, have her mom confess earlier, make jgy decide to tell her for her own good and have them work together, or not give them a chance to meet and fall in love in the first place (i guess i could also make qin su have a miscarriage, but that's really sad and awful and not my preferred option at all), but all of those require tweaks to the circumstances, sometimes early on so they don't meet or jgy feels safe enough to talk with her or another confidant, or sometimes later like madam qin finding out they're pregnant before the marriage prep is too far along and telling one or both of them right away so they can make other arrangements.

with the situation being what it was, jgy didn't find out soon enough to do anything that wouldn't involve either marrying her anyway (and he didn't think telling her about it would do anything except make her upset and depressed) or leaving her essentially a ruined woman with no prospects and an illegitimate child who would inevitably grow up fatherless, which is pretty much exactly what his dad did to meng shi. this would be a crueler option than pretty much anything else, and given that he clearly still cares about her, he couldn't do that in good conscience. jgy tries his best to protect the people he loves, unless there is literally no other way for him to survive.

it's one more example of jgy being faced with a situation where the only choices are bad ones, and making the decision that he thinks will hurt the fewest number of people. metatextually, it's one more example of women in fiction being shoved aside and not given agency in their own lives, and getting killed off instead of surviving and growing as people like the male characters are allowed to do. it's just a tragic situation all around and i wish there had been something they could have done.

[nevertheless-moving]

Lan Sizhui the Blessed: MDZS AU #3

Mdzs au where Gui attempt to cuddle Lan Sizhui when he gets too close.

Ghosts and fierce corpses suddenly losing fierceness around one person in particular being a phenomenon that raises questions, Hunguang-Jun forces himself to tell (stops holding himself back from explaining) the full, painful, nuanced truth to Lan Yuan — about where he came from, about the man who protected and helped raise him in the time he didn't remember.

No clue exactly why fierce corpses consistently try to gently pat his son's head and coo softly at him. I mean, they can guess, but for all they know any child raised at the burial mounds would have the same thing happen.

(Lan Zhan cautiously upgrades the likelihood that Wei Ying actually did birth A-Yuan from his own body from 1% to 10%.)

Carefully spread cover story (Lan Xichen's sworn brotherhood does have its benefits) is that all this is the result of an extremely overpowered Lan childhood protection charm, which also neatly explains Lan Zhan’s mysterious three year seclusion as slightly embarrassing, slightly impressive spiritual recovery.

Furthermore, in the interest of avoiding any associations with any infamous demonic cultivators, they more formally define their relationship as father and son. Lan Wanjii suffering through cultivation society events just for the opportunity for Lan Sizhui to call him Fuqin in public, and all but explicitly confirm the rumors that he's his legitimized bastard (definitely not a war orphan from anywhere cursed).

Between Lan Sizhui's natural kindness, his Protagonist Superpower, his polite but undeniably Cool disillusionment with the older generation, and his very endearingly Lan attempts at pranking, Lan Sizhui grows into easily the most popular young master of his generation.

Wei Ying recognizes A-Yuan shortly after his revival, gratified to see his old protection spell still working flawlessly. He was just fucking thrilled to find out that the kid survived! The fact that he grew up in such a respected position — the fact that Hunguang-Jun actually made up nice stories about being friends with the Yiling Patriarch and told them to his son, to the point that A-Yuan was genuinely delighted to be called a mature radish — there's really no way he could ever repay that debt.

He's less thrilled to be leaving Mo Village with a curse scar still on his arm and Mo-Furen still alive, but eh, no one lives forever. What's he going to do, murder her in front of the kid? Right after he saved her life? Might as well enjoy the extra time while it lasts.

Slight genre shift from BL romantic adventure to father(s)-son bonding roadtrip (Wei Ying not noticing himself falling in love with the man Lan Yuan described — apparently Lan Zhan got even better while he was dead, who even knew that was possible!)

Of course he has to keep up the Mo Xuanyu act somehow — fortunately acquiring makeup and a face veil for Wen Ning kills two birds with one stone! Who would possibly suspect that the Yiling Patriarch and the Ghost General would ever masquerade as a pair of cutsleeve rogue cultivators? Ok, they’re a bit suspicious in terms of resentful energy, but that just goes to explain why Hunguang-Jun’s own little ray of light is supervising them!

And, well, as great as it is to eventually meet up with Hunguang-Jun in Yi City and thank him for raising A-Yuan so good (it really is great to see Lan Zhan and not get scolded) it feels a little unfair for him to hate Wen Ning so much, considering how much he apparently warmed up to Wei Ying after his death.

My MDZS AU Masterlist

[waitineedaname]

this is my first real offering to the untamed fandom. i couldn't resist

[halenhusky309]

Me rereading MDZS and having some horror flashbacks about dark shits in this novel just made me realize Skybound comic is kind of lame and childish in comparison.

Transformers brutally killed humans and other transformers??? Lol, tame shit. A demonic arm sucked people dried, a walking statue chomping on human remains, people got sucked into the wall of a haunted building and basically became some form of seal to guard a bunch of magical swords with dark energy. Oh wait, there are much worse shits in the novel.

One species decided to genocide other species for resources? Lol, snoring... MDZS has multiple of them but at smaller scales. However, the reasons for those genocides were very very nefarious that they were just ploys for power grasping.

Revenge and war made you fucked up? I mean if the aftermath of a war was almost everyone who was on board with killing off the renmants of their former enemy as inhumane as possible or apathetic to the suffering of the war prisoners/refugees. Plus, the guy that thought the new "social norm" to use your so-called defeated enemies (that were mainly elders, the peaks, women, and children) as life baits was bad and suddenly he became a boogieman of the society and hated by almost everyone...

Skybound Shockwave is horse-ass at depravity and villainy compared to Xue Yang. And we don't talk about walking waste of a character Skybound Starscream.

Skybound Soundwave? A weakass low-level green tea bitch that should lick the floor where Jins Guangyao walked on.

Skybound Arcee with her rebrand TFP revenge plot but with a father figure??? Besides that neat bonding with Carly, she's a way less cool Jin Ling that reminds everyone about how she felt terrible for her obsession with revenge too much even when the plot didn't ask her to.

Ratchet? If Wen Qing is less cool and barely contributed shit to the story before getting fridged off in the most anticlimactic way to shove a high stake onto the Autobots.

I don't need to compare Optimus Prime to Wei Wuxian because that would be a foul play.

Also, there's no one in Skybound matches the absolute loser's behavior and resentful energy from Jiang Cheng in the most exquisite way. (Starscream after issue 13 kinda similar to Jiang Cheng but sadly Starscream is death cockroach compared to Jiang Cheng)

It's fun to compare a great piece of work that embodies the "More than meet the eyes" motto better than franchise capitalized that motto themselves, lololol.

[thatswhatsushesaid]

I'm sorry but no one is ever going to convince me that #justice prevails at the end of mdzs (even the untamed), everyone seems so freaking sad about the events that unfolded. no one is going to convince me that nhs actually found satisfaction in the way jgy & nmj are now forever just chilling in a coffin, no peace whatsoever. jgy was someone who genuinely cared for nhs and i feel it goes vice versa. Don't even get me started on Jin Ling, that child is devastated, and then having to have dealings with the man that was indirectly/directly involved with your uncles death and that even depends on if nhs picks up the slack as sect leader cause huan and jiggy were doing the work for him.

The watchtowers probably going to get disbanded, don't even know what's going on with the Nie clan, Jing lin being forced to play the role of leader so early on in his life. This was not triumphant it felt so very depressing, like damn.

i mean you're preaching to the choir here, anon, i'm in agreement with you. the only people who are happy after the guanyin temple sequence concludes are wangxian, and i think it is entirely reasonable to presume that a lot of their happiness in that moment is a direct result of getting to fuck nasty. 🤷‍♀️ good for them, i guess.

[stgroversfire]

mmmm dont have time to dig into it rn but. i imagine lan wangji felt a lot of the same things raising a-yuan as jiang cheng did raising jin ling

and of course there are some very big differences too, but i imagine the love they felt for their kids held a lot of the same baggage.

[wangxian2bunnies]

Summary of MDZS/The Untamed:

[symphonyofsilence]

So first of all, let me start by saying that JGY & LXC knew each other for far longer than Wangxian knew each other, or even WWX & the Jiang siblings were together. (Cloud recesses got burnt down and LXC went on the run when LWJ was around 17. At the time of the events of the Guanyin Temple LWJ was around 34. In the CQL, LXC & JGY first saw each other (& developed a huge crush at first sight) when LWJ was 15, and at the end of the story LWJ was 36) so all that talk of "LXC being too naive and blind for trusting JGY & thinking that he knows him"? Or hating him for defending his savior, supporter, and friend of 17/20 years? No. Wrong. Enough of that.

Now getting to the main point, IDK exactly when that teacher/student roleplay of them takes place but it must be shortly before NMJ's qi deviaton. Which is well into Xiyao's relationship. So my question is if these two have only now heard each others' guqin playing as is implied by these lines:

Jin GuangYao laughed, "Well, now that I've heard Brother's guqin skills, I might as well smash my guqin the moment I get home."

Lan XiChen, "Your skills are also considered quite fine outside of Gusu. Were they taught by your mother?"

Jin GuangYao, "No. I taught myself by watching others. She never taught me such things. She only taught me reading and writing, and bought a handful of expensive sword and cultivation guides for me to practice."

And they only now talked about JGY's family history with Meng Shi, and with how when telling his parents' story to WWX LXC talks like he hasn't talked with anyone about this story before, then wtf have Xiyao talked about all those years?!

[demonicfarmer69]

another uncle added to jin ling's growing collection!

[khattikeri]

i'm gonna be honest i believe that jin ling's postcanon opinion of jiang cheng eventually shifts to "you're my family, you raised me and i love you, but you're exhausting to deal with"

[winepresswrath]

Could you elaborate on what the yanli-jc wwx conspiracy is?

They are just generally in cahoots re: making sure he's safe and bringing him home, sometimes in defiance of their parents or society or just the likely fact of his death. The first time Wei Wuxian runs away Jiang Cheng wants to follow him because he's worried he'll get hurt. Jiang Fengmian says no, and when Jiang Cheng sneaks out in defiance of his father's wishes with his little rucksack in hand, Yanli is waiting at the gates to support him and tell him to bring Wei Wuxian home safe, implicitly siding with him against their dad in the matter of whether Wei Wuxian might be in real trouble and if so, whether Jiang Cheng's help might be valuable.

The second time is during the sunshot campaign while Wei Wuxian is missing- she comes in when he's brooding over Wei Wuxian's sword and tells him how grown up he is, fusses over him a bit and asks him to bring him back. Jiang Cheng fervently agrees, and looks actively relieved and pleased she's asking this of him- it's blatantly obvious he was going to do it anyway, but her support and faith mean a lot to him which I think is significant because he's usually so worried about failure and he knows Wei Wuxian has been thrown in the burial mounds and is almost certainly dead, but he's not actually frightened he'll fail her, he's just glad they're on the same page. He gets extra support this round because Lan Wangji is also refusing to believe Wei Wuxian is dead and taking joint missions to Yiling with Jiang Cheng and his own turn at sword brooding.

Breaking the pattern, in CQL she was originally going to go with him to talk to Wei Wuxian after he takes the Wens to the burial mounds but he kind of sneaks off without her when he sees her with Zixuan and then doesn't manage to bring Wei Wuxian home to her; she has a sad prophetic dream about it. The conspiracy is broken!

Until! They conspire to bring Yanli to Yiling so Wei Wuxian can see her wedding clothes. I personally think it's implied by the response to Zixuan's request for Wei Wuxian to be allowed at Jin Ling's hundred days ceremony that they were in on that together- either way they're both playing their part, because everyone from the Lan to the JIn know Jiang Cheng would happily take Wei Wuxian back and Yanli misses him. Whether they planned it or just moped really obviously is debatable buy money is on them being in on it together with Zixuan and maybe even Lan Wangji.

And then of course there's Nightless City, where Jiang Cheng notably does not try to get to Wei Wuxian but Yanli does, and then he finds him and loses him all over again so he can have a much more prolonged and less emotionally supportive round of refusing to believe Wei Wuxian is dead.

Bonus Round: The only time Yanli sends Wei Wuxian after Jiang Cheng it's when he's been captured by the Wen because he was already on top of the send Wei Wuxian home safe to Jiejie agenda.