#xxc please come get your man

[lightbluedevil]

Xue Yang in the new official artttt !!!

With the flowers and posing like that with his tiny ass waist, he’s clearly going on a date

I need the full outfit and clear image now please

[wifiwuxians]

ship game ship game⛵️

ok,first I want to say that xuechao makes a lot of sense,actually. jiaojiao and xue yang are actually a bit similar,if you think about it. true,we don't know about wang lingjiao's past,and I guess she at least did not grow up on the street. but both of them are pretty and love torturing people and are quite overdoing it on the revenge front.

now,since that one got asked already,pick whichever you feel like🍉:

-xuexiao💀 if you want to and you won't be getting haters on here from answering that

-sorry,I'm basic,but,songxiao🌟 I just want to read a love letter to my fav ship and who better to ask than my fav shipper of my ship

-lanlan! (at first I was like,no! song lan would not move on even after 800 years! but then I read some fics and it made sense for lan xichen and song lan to at least become close as friends)(but I want to know what YOU think so don't worry about disagreeing)

omg okay first of all THANK YOU SO MUCH for your compliments!! I am really thrilled I am your favorite songxiaoist lol 😳 Second! You are so big brained actually! Jiaojiao and Xue Yang both have come from bleak backgrounds and are trying to cling to what little they have! I believe Jiaojiao was just about sold by her family lol and she is illiterate 💔 And they are both petty batshit revenge machines! I've actually briefly considered xuechaojiao LOLLL... HMM... but okay, onwards to the

GAME

I'll give you my love letter to Songxiao first so you don't need to go digging for it hehe

I hope I won't get hate for playing the game jhdgjsg I hope everyone will be a little more mature than that

Xuexiao

Do I ship it: I do not. (Tim Allen AHUUUAHH?) But on a single day of the year my aversion to it lessens and I'm able to retweet art of them kinda smooching so my tolerance is overall getting better, maybe? lol

Why don't I: There are many factors... I like mutually destructive toxic mess ships, right? We've established that. But I don't like ships in which one person is doing all the hurting and the other person ends up, uh. Like XXC did. "But DJ I thought you were the fixit king" I am! It's just not exactly appealing to me, and the other big factor as to why is that I just... Never really saw them that way. Like even removing their canon storyline and only leaving their dynamic, which removed from context is lovely don't get me wrong, it never registered as romantic. It registered as XXC looking out for his goofy little brother, you know? I dunno. There's nothing there for me, sorry. "But DJ the devotion" yeah. There are many ways to love someone. Even if that were romantic, it's too onesided for me.

What would have made me like it: If they actually liked each other LMAO I have no issue with the thought of them loving each other, just not romantically! Outside of canon they're pretty much cemented as family in my brain, though very rarely I'll maybe entertain the idea of some sort of QPP dynamic but then it slingshots right back into family again. Just friends who really love each other and tried to do the do only to find out they don't see each other that way is the furthest I'm willing to go for them and this is a HUGE leap from where I was a year ago LOL

A positive: I appreciate that a lot of people just really want them to love each other. Maybe try and find some healing in all the mess. I get what that's like.

Please whoever reads this don't take this as an invitation to start talking to me about it though as it still does cause me to react negatively 💀 some days I really cannot stand it at all, I'm just mature enough to not be a hater 100%

Lanlan

Do I ship it: I'm in the process of being converted, we will see how it goes! Kind of sucks this game doesn't have a maybe option so I'll make up the questions myself

What's drawing me to it: I, like you, was originally like "naur Song Lan has his man already thanks, and after he fixes him he's going to bed", but one of my close friends made the very good point that just because he's on a quest doesn't mean he can't be loved on the side, too! So I'd like to see Song Lan get loved on, and Lan Xichen deserves this, too, and I think stories about processing grief are very potent

Things I like about it: It seems this ship is about healing oneself and each other, and I'm a big fan of that! Both characters also complement each other well, with each having characteristics of someone the other has loved before (i.e. NMJ's righteousness, XXC's gentle energy). I also think canon gave them really sad endings, and in LXC's case it's a bit of a bitter one, too. SL's is at least bittersweet so sharing the joy is nice 🥺

What would seal the deal: Strong characterization aligned with my view of the characters! Being in character goes a long way for me, so if you've got them down pat, then I'll be more likely to give it a chance. If you add that they've both been in love before and that they're not looking for a replacement then we're set! (:

[ameliarating]

oh man your foraging!xxc post made me think of my grandparents, so have a headcanon: when xxc visits jinlintai, he is completely unmoved by all their fancy decorative flowers and trees and flowering trees. however, he notices a patch of weeds growing next to a doorway or like straight up int he middle of the gravel path, and gets super excited and waves song lan over, and starts digging them out. the hosts are not sure whether to be flattered that he appreciates their weeds so much, or insulted.

first of all, I’m pretty sure I love your grandparents.

So imagine this, novel verse, so if they’re at this conference it’s run by PR specialist extraordinaire Jin Guangyao.

Xiao Xingchen on his knees on a gravel path, and oh, Zichen, he hasn’t seen this in ages, did you know this can bring down fever in infants, how clever of them to grow this by the nursery, and yes, by this time he is beginning to suspect that it isn’t clever of them at all, that this is the sort of thing some gardener might be punished over, but still, there’s the chance that this was supposed to be here.

And Song Lan could save him face by telling the growing, disconcerted crowd that Xiao Xingchen, a disciple of the immortal Baoshan Sanren herself, who descended from the Celestial Mountain to fight injustice and alleviate suffering in this struggling world (in these trying times) is really so grateful to be given the opportunity to cut even a few leaves off this plant. 

To praise the Jin Sect for their generosity in offering it. To thank them for their patience, to make up a complete lie on the spot, that there is no greater sign of respect on the Celestial Mountain than to take a cutting from the path of a host. 

In fact, it would be an insult to Lanling Jin if he left this place without some herb in hand.

But the looks on everyone’s faces are pretty funny right now, and you know what, he told Xingchen it wasn’t worth coming to this, he warned him that this would be useless and miserable for them both, and that no one really wanted to hear what they had to say, that if anything it was another attempt to get them to affiliate. 

And Xingchen said he wanted to experience it anyways, that they had things to teach, and they ought to at least try and impart their knowledge.

So as far as he’s concerned, Xingchen can lose a little face over this.

(He doesn’t. Jin Guangyao takes one look at the situation, pastes on a smile, and informs the crowd that the Bright Moon and Gentle Breeze has been looking for this herb for a while, and that he can and will use it to save lives, and that he was so overwrought, overcome by the opportunity that he simply couldn’t wait to ask about it, had thrown himself to his knees in gratitude and delight.

And everyone ooohs and ahhhs and isn’t it romantic and heroic, please, take all the weeds you could ever want, and come back next year Daozhang, and also my daughter is of marriageable age, and also our sect is always looking for guest disciples, it would be an honor to have someone as prestigious as yourselves join us, and oh, how did my handkerchief end up over there - oh, you’re using it to wipe dirt off your hands?

Okay. We guess.)

[isozyme]

:salt: songxiao because i get the sense you have Unorthodox Opinions and i am curious

to get it out of the way: xxc please, a person only needs ONE EYE to see

xxc/sl is like -- i don’t read A Ton of it but the vibe i get is that fic tends to write them as a tragic but stable friends-to-lovers pair when holy shit they are NOT WINNING AT STABILITY. first, like i’ve mentioned a bunch of time, xxc smiles in yi city in a way he never smiles while fighting side by side with sl. he and sl have this powerful “we’re married” sympatico, and obviously they’d die for each other, but xxc is a lot less honorable than sl imagines he is, and sl doesn’t make xxc laugh. this is a problem! then there’s a bunch of massacres and sl blaming xxc and almost certainly having a truly relationship-ending fight before xxc goes off to be a wandering blind cultivator.

xxc and sl love each other and it’s not enough! they’d do anything for each other and it’s not enough! what a good tragic love story, like, damn. (lz cannot handle their story even a little bit, seeing a love like that end so pointlessly literally drives him to drink)

i don’t think that xxc/sl/xy would ever work as a triad or poly thing in any type of formation. sl and xy absolutely want to kill each other. a lot of fic positions xxc as the glue between the two creating a stable relationship but, man, i don’t see it! xxc is very sweet but that doesn’t mean he’s good at mediating between people, or that he has any inclination to do so. he ignores every single one of a-qing’s warnings about xue yang. his reaction to “i had a fight with my sword husband” was to go wandering blindly around the countryside! you ask him to stick around and finish talking stuff out like “hey xxc and sl, do you want to come to qinghe and help us finish up this xy business?” and he says “nope! ps i’m sort of your uncle but still, nah. your grandma doesn’t love you enough to say hi, byeeeeee!” xxc isn’t the level head at the center of your disaster-thruple; he’s a constant risk of wandering off in search of simpler things to do, like killing zombies or weaving a nice basket.

sl and xxc are a messily divorced couple who aren’t being helped along by xxc’s narcissist boytoy, and maybe they could have made it work again after some therapy but instead this is swordgay murderworld and they just died.

[lotstradamus]

Okay but if you didn’t have to pick the top three, what are your ships in the untamed?

OH HELL YEAH BABY LET’S GO. I don’t think ANY of these will come as a shock, because this fandom is actually really good at Agreeing About Ships, which is a new and thrilling experience for me. I’m gonna talk about most of these in the context of WHAT FIC DO I LOVE TO READ because I’m me. 

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are a bit like that evergreen #Winters/Nixon: understood tag -- I don’t even need to say it. can you watch The Untamed and NOT ship them?? what would be the point????? I go back and forth on how intensely I’m into them, because sometimes I get mad at them for fucking DOMINATING EVERYONE ELSE’S TAGS, but let’s be honest: they invented love. 

any and all combinations of the Venerated Trio: Nie Mingjue/Lan Xichen/Jin Guangyao. tender and sweet lxc/jgy? pre-canon nmj/jgy? lxc’s Two Boyfriends Who Hate Each Other? yes, thank you, all of it. all of ‘em. I have a particular soft spot (i.e. I enjoy hurting my own feelings) for AUs where they are all just dating... and happy... imagine... BUT I also like post-Sunshot nmj/jgy where nmj is just FURIOUS and HORNY and TAKES IT OUT ON JIGGY. YEAH.

sorry about it, but SONG LAN/XIAO XINGCHEN/XUE YANG. as above: any and all combos. they’re even more down the ‘two perfect, wonderful people and one feral little fucker’ spectrum than nmj/lxc/jgy. two Taoist priests and a psychopathic serial killer. honestly. I don’t even want to get Into it because it’s just so fucked up BUT I’M GONNA. as much as I love Yi City identity porn fic, it is SO DISTURBING AND TRAGIC that instead I tend to gravitate towards xxc’s Two Boyfriends Who Hate Each Other. (hmmm... a trend.) modern AUs in particular are [100 emoji] for this thrairing/dynamic -- anything where established xxc/xy bring sl into their relationship and xy and sl pretend to like each other for xxc’s sake but are glaring daggers at each other over his shoulder 24/7... I love it. I love them. Lord forgive me. 

Lan Sizhui/Jin Ling... I just love them... opposites attract... one tornado of emotions and hormones and one Nice Young Man... two little war babies whose lives were completely upended... raised by surrogate fathers... my adopted dad is your uncle’s adopted brother... my other adopted dad and your uncle are on sight... Lan heir/Jiang-Jin heir... such similar life experiences but experience life so differently... contrasting Wen Ning feelings... THERE ARE JUST SUCH DEPTHS TO PLUMB. 

those are the ships that really rustle my jimmies, but I’m at the level of frothing-at-the-mouth robsessed where I will read fucking anything. anything. ANYTHING. Jiang Cheng/anyone. Nie Huaisang/anyone. Lan Jingyi/anyone. when I first finished the show and asked for recs I was like ‘oh my god, people are sending me the most off the wall shit, what the hell’ and now I’m like Please God, Send Me The Most Off The Wall Shit, Thank You. 

[crossdressingdeath]

That WN and JC bonding post (lol, it hurts to write this) reminded me of another weird part of JC discourse, and it’s that people think that for some reason everyone would benefit from having JC in their life and would super get along with him, and it’s just weird? WWX is super friendly and I love him as a character, but I 100% recognize that many characters won’t at all get along with him or just plain hate him or don’t care about him. Like SL, JGY, NMJ, LQR, many sect leaders, even LXC can(1/3

be a hard sell, from the top of my head? And yet, JC is supposed to get along with LXC or apparently WN--who has a genocide standing between them as you pointed so eloquently!-- and I have seen posts about bonding with the Lan juniors and wouldn’t LSZ be chuffed to be complimented on his guqin playing by JC? (Pretty sure, he wouldn’t care to be complimented by someone who doesn’t know the first thing about magical guqin playing on top of not liking JC personality.) It’s like because WWX is(2/3)

super popular when compared to JC or LWJ is really admired for his character and cultivation, so JC must have the same things too when he’s a really different person personality-wise and regarding values so it would only make sense he wouldn’t get along with the same people as WWX?(3/3)

Yeah, it’s bizarre. Especially considering... every character we meet outside his own family is neutral towards JC at best? This man has no friends. There is no reason to think anyone would be particularly pleased to see him. With WWX an argument can be made to have him bonding with pretty much anyone except a few of the more egregiously shitty ones, and even then he wouldn’t be the antagonist in the dynamic. Like, I could probably come up with a convincing argument for him to bond with SL (SL’s boyfriend is WWX’s uncle, they at least maintain a friendly neutrality for XXC’s sake) or NMJ (two strongest combatants in the Sunshot Campaign, being the linchpins gives them a starting point), or even JGY (two underdogs scrambling for any scraps of reputation they get and completely reliant on public opinion, unlike the other powerful characters), but... JC? He has no people skills, never makes any attempt to charm anyone, and like a solid 80-90% of the cast outright dislikes him. He’s incredibly rude to everyone in a setting where your manners are Very Very Important and is incredibly obvious about who he thinks is beneath him. Also, tortures people to death. I don’t care who you’re torturing, if it’s well known that you make a habit of torturing people to death the less outright terrible members of your society will not like you. WN and Sizhui are the worst people for stans to insist would be sooooooo happy to have JC as a friend; JC led the slaughter of their entire family. Why the fuck would Sizhui be happy to be praised by the man who cost him everything and caused his favourite teacher/father figure to mourn for over a decade? Why would WN feel anything but loathing for the man who betrayed and abandoned his best friend in the world and then led the murder of WN’s civilian family?

I guess what I’m saying is, if you’ve got one character who’s super charming and another character who has zero friends and actively antagonizes everyone who gets near him... do try not to give the asshole the traits of the charmer just because you’re determined to make the asshole your favourite, yeah?

[nikosomething]

Hehe you can call me bunny! I like it! Oh wow your art is so pretty, Niko! I love all your favorite characters too but Jiang Cheng is my most favorite. So, I'm just going to ask your random questions now. If you could spend your life living in one of the sects in MDZS, what sect would you choose? Did you listen to the character songs of CQL? What all songs did you like? Oooh, who do you think had the best fashion in CQL? I have many more questions I wanna ask but I'll stop now. We have an entire month after all. - 🐰

Heya bunny! Glad you like it haha

Ohhhhh danggg, thank you!! You’re making me blush haha

Jiang Cheng is great, I love him so much! My best friend is actually a lot like him (it’s uncanny), so I love him even more than I normally would have I suppose haha

Which Sect Would I Choose?

Hmmm, that’s an interesting question! I quess motto-wise it’s the Jiang sect, ‘attempt the impossible’ sounds pretty sweet and I like that they are so down to earth and free, in a way.

The strong hierachry and etiquette within the Jin sect would probably frustrate me to no end and while the Lan sect has a good motto ‘be righteous’, their endless amount of rules is just... oooph. I would probably go crazy and leave the sect at some point (or I would have stayed a quiet wallflower, had I been born into it, but I like who I am now, so... sry for disappointing you, Lan Qiren)

The Nie sect wants honour, but probably not my kind of honour, so that could be problematic. Also they have that dark problem looming over them.

I like the idea of the Wen sect ‘compete with the sun for radiance, match the sun in longetivity’, so with the right leader, it could be quite cool, it’s all up to interpretation

So yeah, I guess the Jiang sect it is - or I’d attempt what XXC and SL wanted to do. I’m a big fan of that. - what about you? <3

CQL Character Songs

Omgggg I did! And I love all? But the character songs I listened to the most are (lemme quickly check Spotify):

Qu Jin Chen Qing (That melody! Xiao Zhan! These lyrics! ahhh)

Huang Cheng Du (It makes me so sad)

Duo Hen Sheng (I just love the changes in pace and the lyrics)

Bu Wang (Wang Yibo! The sadness!)

Gu Cheng (my heart!!)

I love them all, tho. All of them give me feels, all of them remind me of what a great time I had watching CQL, though Zui Shi Shao Nian Bu Ke Qi always amuses me a bit. These sweet youngsters.

- what about you, bunny?

Best Fashion

Danggg! I can’t do a rangking, cause I suck at that, but LXC had amazing outfits, esp that dark blue one I drew a while back. Oh and JC!! Man, he dresses up so fashionably! I also adore WWX’s choice of clothes, he got great taste in fashion and I totally get that he doesn’t usually wear long sleeves cause they - are - in - the - way - all - the - time (yet long sleeves are extremely elegant and beautiful). I also loved XXC’s choice, I myself like wearing white and light grey or black for contrast, such a simple yet ethereal aesthetic. Oh and how could I forget my boys XY and JGY! As you can see the more I think about it the harder it gets for me hahaha Now I wanna name them all. Insert everyone, please hahaha

When it comes to my personal taste I’d probably either go for XXC’s clothes or WWX, or both, depending on my plans for the day, you know? haha

Overall I ADORE THE COSTUMES for CQL, big fat kudos to the costume department. From an artist’s perspective there is so much I want to draw bcs of the sheer beauty of it all and how well it fits the characters.

What about you? I suspect you’ll choose JC, because if he is ur fav how could u not haha HE LOOKS SO DAMN GOOD IN HIS OUTFITS

Sorry for the long break, my week was a little intense, but I’m back from night hunting for now and I’m healing up nicely hahaha

[a-very-fond-farewell]

The forbidden crack! Untamed prompts: 25/?

Gaming Chat AU [xuexiao + songxiao = ?]: “Lie to Me”

[tw cyber bullying; tw use of slurs; tw fake suicide mention; there’s a redemption arc, but it starts with 15yo Xue Yang being... well, himself I guess. so be warned.]

[attn!: I don’t know shit about playing games and going to quests with strangers on the internet so bear with me. if you feel inspired by this please, by all means, feel free to use this prompt and write something and then tag me so I can read it and reblog it!]

[enjoy!]

*

It’s been 15 years since that idiotic intern at the school counseling center suggested him to... what did he say? “Channel his anger in something productive”. And then tried to talk Meng Shi into purchasing a fucking computer to let him “get off some steam” by killing fictional people instead of smashing actual valuable objects like, say, the principal’s Mercedes with a stolen golf club, or, the nurse’s desk with a fire extinguisher back in middle school.

Good thing Su She had disappeared under mysterious circumstances after Xue Yang had surreptitiously let the intern’s uni professor know in a detailed email how the aspiring counselor had suggested him (a sweet innocent 15 year old) to use his new computer to watch porn instead of focusing on his studies. Song Lan was much better than him, and bitchier too, which was fine by Xue Yang anyway. Not that he cared.

What good had that stupid glorified television brought him in the end? Most of the computers at school had become intimately familiar with many a malware and virus already with how frequently he used to browse through the deep web. The ones at the local library had let him in on the secrets of 4ch*n since the tender age of 8. Hell, even his pediatrician had made the glorious mistake to leave him alone in her office one merry day of winter when he discovered the wonders of x-rated videos.

But Meng Shi had tried to cheer him up anyway, buying him that stupid thing. Working her ass off at the bar trying to make social services forget she used to be a stripper back in the days. All to provide a place for children in foster care to feel safe, the stupid hag. Xue Yang wasn’t fucking stupid, he knew she was collecting money for every kid ever stepping inside her ratty flat. He knew that she would have never adopted anyone for real because she already had a son and she was working to send him to university anyway.

Yet, she had come home one day with a big smile on her youngish and bland face, hoisting up the heavy computer in a box, and told Xue Yang to share it with his siblings. Yeah, fuck that. That little bitch A-Qing was even worse than him, and she probably used to sell feet-pictures recycled from the internet to disgusting men online. To this day Xue Yang is none the wiser and he doesn’t need to know what that fucking witch had been up to at 14. XuanYu would have used the computer to stream and torrent shit nonstop to sell at school even if he was only, like, 12. Qin Su was 15 like him and she would have been tempted to set up a fucking YT channel and subject him and XuanYu to whatever scientific experiment she would have come up with. And Meng Yao had too much embarrassing blackmail material on Xue Yang already, he didn’t need to have access on his erased search history after digging gods-knows for how long.

Ahah no. No thanks.

But detention got him occupied for so long by cutting library books pages down to papermen without getting bored out of his mind. And he did have his fun that one time when he caught a pervert with a hand down his pants when they chatted on Om*gle after Xue Yang had catfished him good by pretending to be a girl. Got everything on tape and published the whole interaction on the school website for everyone to see. Which had been appropriate at the time, given that the man had been part of the board of directors. Fittingly hilarious too.

Still, boredom loomed over him like a quilt of sadness on summer break and he had been tempted to log in and play games in the end. Nobody wanted him in their stupid ass teams anyway, with him having higher kill counts than them and all, not following tactics and so on. Whatever.

Until one day user shuan_ghua naively trusted Xue Yang when the other assured him that “teabagging“ was just a fancy slang for ordering a cup of jasmine tea. The 17 year old boy named Xiao XingChen had thanked him for teaching something new to him and then proceeded to ask him to join his one-man-party out of fucking nowhere.

Everything changed after that.

[more under the cut. it’s long long tho]

XXC family!:

XXC is 17 at the beginning of the story and he used to live with his mother Baoshan [i know that “Sanren” and “Daoren” are titles, but in absence of a real surname I will use them as such for this prompt. feel free to change that if you take inspiration from this post to write your take on the story] and the rest of their family on a mountain before they moved back to the city in Gusu.

XXC’s mother was barely 20 when she got married the first time and her first son Daoren YanLing was born. two years later her husband died and she travelled a lot afterwards, adopting 4yo CanSe when she was 25. then she married again at 41, had XXC at 44, and then divorced at 48.

CanSe eloped with ChangZe when she was 18 and got WWX at 20, the same year her own mother got married again (at 41).

BaoShan got XXC three years later (at 44).

hence, WWX is 3 whole ass years older than XXC despite being his nephew. both boys find the thing absolutely hilarious.

YanLing and CanSe are only 1 year apart and they still bicker nonstop. both of them went to school with Lan QiRen and his older brother and frequently got in fights back in the days at Gusu.

(if YanLing had a thing for Lan QiRen, well, nobody has to know)

XXC, being the baby of his family, is doted on by YanLing and brought to mischief by CanSe until XXC’s father divorces their mother and they move on the mountain along with ChangZe and 7yo WWX.

up on the mountain BaoShan works as a tour guide and she takes baby XXC and WWX on hikes along with tourists to admire the beauty of the scenery.

XXC’s sight starts deteriorating when he is 12 and WWX is 15. they have been homeschooled until then, so when it gets clear XXC will not improve much so far away from proper healthcare, the whole family moves back to the city in Gusu.

XXC is not comfortable leaving his new home, not with all those new noises and flashing lights. WWX is drawn to them instead, more than happy to enroll in school, where he meets JC and he realizes the boy is the son of CanSe’s middle school boyfriend. WWX declares them to be almost-brothers and is perfectly fine with adopting even JC’s older sister in the family and CanSe can only laugh at that. JC and YanLi visit XXC often as a result and they help him make sense of the new environment without stressing him too much.

YanLing finds a job as a cook in WWX’s school and he is back to making Lan QiRen’s life impossible after learning the man is a teacher there.

LWJ and LXC’s mother is a music teacher there as well and YanLing bonds with her to make Lan QiRen life’s an absolute nightmare.

LWJ and LXC make friends with the mountain gremlins and they are initially horrified by their manners: XXC would pick food from the ground and eat it, it doesn’t have to be his for that to happen to begin with; WWX doesn’t realize he should cut his nails (both for his feet and hands) until he is forced to wear shoes outside and not climb up trees, for he assumed nails simply never grew bc he used them constantly, wearing them down; etc.

LWJ hates himself for falling for WWX but he cannot care less.

LXC notices how lonely XXC feels when wangxian becomes a thing, so he buys him a computer to better gather more information about the world and adjust the settings to maximum accessibility whenever XXC wants to read something.

by the age of 17 XXC is mostly left alone in the house: WWX goes to uni; his mother BaoShan works at a local museum; his brother YanLing is trying to not get fired at his job; and his sister CanSe has started to travel with her husband selling the delicate dizi flutes ChangZe makes as an artisan.

XXC is also on the waiting list for an important eye surgery and he figures he has a couple of years to go before he will either lose his sight or be granted a second chance at life altogether.

XY’s family!:

Meng Shi had Meng Yao at 19 and started stripping the following year in Yunmeng. 

her friend SiSi helped her both financially and emotionally, spending time with A-Yao while she worked at night. after four years she can move out of her flat and finds a job as a bartender downtown. she would have kept her old job, if SiSi hadn’t convinced her to think of A-Yao first, who was painfully shy and didn’t know how to socialize with other kids his age.

at 24 she starts the paperwork to become a foster parent and has to child-proof her entire apartment before the first kid arrives. at 25 she welcomes Qin Su, who is only 5, and initially A-Yao doesn’t want to share his mother with anyone. the situation gets bad to the point social services have to take Qin Su away one year later, because she tried to set A-Yao’s hair on fire in retaliation once, but two years later Meng Shi gets her back.

A-Yao, now 9 years old, has thought about it and reasoned that having a sister wasn’t so bad after all. Qin Su is only one year younger than him and she will not take up much space, right? wrong. but they bond over their shared nerdiness and while A-Su likes to blow things up, A-Yao helps his mother with taxes every year.

at 29 Meng Shi takes in XuanYu, who is not an orphan like A-Su, and still misses his birth mother fiercely. she had to give him up for adoption when he was 3, because she had been only 15 when XuanYu was born and her family threatened to disown her. 

being profoundly deaf on top of that, no foster home wanted to have him and he was kept in the system for three years after his mother had to let him go. the woman had tried to be present for him while he waited for a family to pick him, teaching him sign language and reading lips, but she had been forced to eventually let go.

XuanYu arrives at Meng Shi’s when he’s 6. A-Yao (10yo) and A-Su (9yo) try their best to involve their new brother, but they don’t know how to communicate with him. SiSi takes the children to sign language classes at the community center after school and XuanYu warms up to them. he teaches Meng Shi what they learned the previous day every morning, before going to school. teachers don’t really pay attention to him, but he manages by reading lips when people face him properly, which is a rare occurrence, but he tries his best.

when A-Yao and A-Su realizes A-Yu is being bullied, they start to get nasty, setting backpacks on fire and terrorizing the other children at school. even when they move to middle school one after the other nobody picks on A-Yu, fearing what his siblings could do.

XY arrives at Meng Shi’s when she is 32 (A-Yu is 9, A-Su is 12, A-Yao is 13) and XY is 12. A-Su initially gets jealous bc they are the same age, but XY doesn’t talk to anyone for a year and ignores her attempts to rile him up. Meng Shi had been warned about him: his father had killed his mother and then failed to kill himself afterwards... and XY still believed the man was out there, looking for him to finish the job. XY had lived on the street for years before social services could find him, but he had felt trapped like a dog, not wanting to be touched, frequently running away.

XY doesn’t remember much of his life before entering foster care. he only knows everything is a bother, that his nightmares give him constant migraines, and that he doesn’t care how he lost one of his fingers. but anyone who makes fun of him for that gets kicked, that’s for sure.

it’s only when A-Qing (12) comes one year after XY’s arrival that things get a bit better... so to speak. 

she is even less well behaved than him, thrashing around at night, screaming at the top of her lungs, saying that she doesn’t want to be there. that she’s better than the rest of them combined. 

her anger issues trigger something in XY and the two of them get into fights with each other constantly.

A-Yao (14) and A-Su (13), reminiscing of the 2 years they spent apart because they couldn’t stop hitting each other up, take the issue seriously and convince Meng Shi to ask for help. SiSi is the one taking A-Qing and XY to therapy two times a week and they are followed through by professionals who know how to tackle their issues, an elderly woman who goes by the name of Lan Yi (LWJ and LXC’s paternal grandma) and her assistant Wen Qing, an intern working there for uni credits.

one year later XY is 14 and A-Qing is 13 and they... don’t really love each other, but at least they can talk to one another without trying to kill anyone in the process. they spend a lot of time with A-Yu (11) and learn sign language to keep him entertained.

by the age of 35, Meng Shi has 5 kids and can barely afford food for herself but she is happy like never before. A-Yao (16) is already considered smart enough to attend advanced math classes in high school. A-Su (15) has won a science competition sponsored by city hall. A-Yang (15) is trying to work on his anger issues with video games, making friends online. A-Qing (14) doesn’t let anyone make fun of her for her dyslexia, asking adults and classmates to take her issue seriously for once. And A-Yu (12) wants to learn how to sign in different languages to maybe travel the world one day.

Meng Shi is very happy indeed.

now, the plot: (tw fake suicide mention; tw use of homophobic slurs)

XY (15) and XXC (17) meet online every night before bed, playing video games together. XY made a mistake first time they chatted, saying he was 17 instead of 15 bc he didn’t want the other to look down on him.

XXC trusts him a little too much and doesn’t question if his new friend is lying to him or not. he’s the funnies person he has ever met, after all.

WWX (20) notices something is wrong by the way XXC starts speaking around others, using inappropriate language when he has never been anything but polite and gentle. even if, technically, XXC is WWX’s uncle, the latter sees the other more like a cousin than anything else given that he’s older. so he takes the matter in his own hands and one day asks him to let him play games with him.

XY doesn’t like his only friend not telling him someone else would have joined their party, and initially he covers XXC in insults and threatens to leave. but then WWX is really good at killing fictional people and XY reconsiders. he makes fun of WWX for being the older one AND the other’s nephew at the same time, but aside from that he doesn’t try to run away like a caged animal anymore.

WWX trust XXC when the younger says XY is 17 like him, but he still supervisions most of their sessions just to be sure XY cannot teach too many horrible things to XXC. WWX wants XXC to make more friends and maybe one day leave the house to attend university if the other will feel inclined to do so, but he doesn’t pressure him.

in the meantime, XY changes counselor at school and it is Song Lan (23) who tries to make a better human out of him. SL is deaf and occasionally uses cochlear implants to hear, but only because his family made the choice for him to have surgery when he was only a child. he can speak if he feels like it at times (not frequently, he’s very adamant about reminding others he doesn’t owe them anything. he’s also trying to make a change at the school where he works by organizing classes on Deaf culture and sign language for the students to take as an elective)

XY already knew of SL thanks to XuanYu, bc A-Yu had seen the counselor at the community center where SiSi usually takes the kids to for sign language classes. counseling at school doesn’t really happen one-on-one, detention kids being too many to follow one at a time and all, but when SL comes by to chat with them he’s always funny as fuck and XY (who will never admit it) feels good about being the only one in class able to understand SL only through sign language.

SL forces himself to talk to the kids and read their lips only bc... well, they’re young and did nothing wrong to him. he occasionally asks XY to help him translate, but aside from that there are really too many kids to look after and he doesn’t treat XY differently from the others, nor he notices him much.

two years pass and XXC (19) announces to XY (17) that wangxian (22) is having their wedding. since XY has learned all about their family, he asks XXC if it’s a common thing to get married super young in their household and XXC laughs... but it’s a sad and brittle thing and XY gets a bit worried.

XXC reveals then that soon after the wedding he will have a surgery to (hopefully) fix his sight and he’s very anxious. he timidly asks XY if he wants to go to the wedding with him, because he would like to see his face at least once before the surgery.

XY panics: he knew XXC’s eyesight was bad, but he never knew to what extent exactly; he’s not really of age yet, so he cannot move on the other side of the country just to attend a wedding; he has never talked specifically about XXC with his family and Meng Shi is working a lot and A-Yu should get his hearing aids soon and A-Qing needs help for her finals and... and...

...and he’s not ready to meet XXC.

XY lied to him and told him they’re the same age. he had never told XXC his name, even if the other had revealed his own, always going by his username jiang_zai. he called him and chatted with him and made fun of his own family and the other had been nothing but kind and amazing and... and... and XY realizes he’s been in love for a while and he abhors the idea to the point where he openly laughs at XXC and calls him a sap.

XXC notices the change in his tone immediately and wonders if he’s overstepped, if he’s asked too much by inviting the other over to celebrate with the rest of the family. XXC apologizes to XY and begs him to not step away like he usually does when he feels cornered.

XY feels absolutely cornered and attacks XXC by asking him why he’s so keen on asking him out (“are you a f*g or something?” etc.). the other doesn’t even know what that means but hearing XY so scared hurts, bc he doesn’t want to make the other uncomfortable in any way.

XXC does like XY romantically, but would never dream to say anything and hinder their friendship. yet, it hurts more to hear his only friend so afraid and angry. he apologizes profusely and promises him not to bring the subject back.

after that, XY doesn’t log in much, avoiding XXC. A-Yao (18) notices he’s sullen and tries to spend more time with him, but the younger doesn’t budge and talks less and less. even SL (25) sees XY less and less, but he doesn’t thinks the younger one is actually skipping classes or anything.

but XY is, in fact, skipping school and Meng Shi covers for him saying he doesn’t feel well enough to go to class. she knows something’s up and she also understands the need to have days off in order to take care of yourself when everything goes to shit.

wangxian wedding happens and XXC is both happy and sad. they made him the official photographer of the day, which is both sweet and incredibly hurtful, because he’s the one taking all those beautiful pictures... and maybe he will never be able to look at them ever again after the surgery. WWX and LWJ already had to organize the wedding earlier than what they originally planned to accommodate XXC and the date of the surgery. XXC feels bad but he’s very happy for them.

YanLing and CanSe worry about him and they ask their mother to help them figure out what’s going on. BaoShan agrees with WWX that XXC had a fight with a friend, alright, but that cannot be all, surely...

it’s the week before XXC’s hospitalization and WWX takes the issue in his hands. logs in pretending to be XXC and plays until he takes XY’s place in the rankings of his and XXC’s favorite game.

XY receives notifications about it and initially fumes at the idea of being outranked, but then he understands what XXC is trying to do and doesn’t know how to react.

he does something horrible instead.

WWX waits to be contacted by this jiang_zai boy who broke XXC’s heart, but when it finally happens... it’s not the familiar, high-pitched voice he expects to hear in the chat. it’s a girl (A-Qing), who tells him her brother had died and that he won’t be playing games anymore. she sounds too serious to be joking and WWX tries to ask more about it... but she just tells him her brother killed himself before ending the call.

WWX doesn’t have the heart to tell this to XXC, not before the surgery and not until he has properly recovered (one year later).

XXC had wondered about XY in silence, not trusting himself to reveal all about his crush to his family, worrying about making the other boy uncomfortable. 

XXC misses XY, but he is patient. he can wait.

A-Qing had agreed to lie for XY only because he lied to her first: he told her a creep on the internet had tried to meet with him and he needed a way out; outraged, A-Qing had helped him without a second thought and answered the chat in his place. 

this spurs her to take more seriously what she and her siblings had been doing on the Internet and reconsiders some of the things she herself posted in the past. she will take this topic so much at heart that she will pursue an academic career to become a social worker.

XXC’s surgery goes well, but he still loses his sight after a while. WWX ends up telling him what happened to his online friend and XXC is so heartbroken he doesn’t even blame WWX for keeping the secret from him for so long. 

after some time BaoShan makes sure he goes to therapy and takes better care of him, helping him figure out what to do. she fears people will look down on XXC and, as a blind person, he will probably be hindered by the system to pursue a career, so she retires from her job at the museum and focuses all of her attention on him.

XXC feels guilty for XY’s passing, but he doesn’t think the other had been triggered to commit suicide bc of him: XXC simply fears XY had hid a different type of sorrow from him; a pain so deep that XXC had failed to see while they were playing silly games. so, three years after the surgery, when he’s 21, he enrolls in uni to study psychology to help kids who are struggling to ask for help.

15 years after XXC and XY had met online:

XY is 30 and a professional carer. he studied to become a nurse, of all things, after what happened. he got a lot of time to think about the horrible thing he had done to XXC and considered helpings others to atone for that.

he is the first to say such a choice was very out of character for him, and even if he has to bite his tongues at times he doesn’t mind his job: it keeps him occupied and exhausts him well enough... but after working in the hospital for 5 or so years he decides to become a carer and trains to help disabled people in particular in his late twenties.

A-Su (30) has become a chemical engineer and married a man working as a lawyer (who happens to be LXC), while A-Yao (31) ends up moving in with his best friend (NMJ). A-Qin (29) doesn’t find romance interesting enough to give up on her career as a social worker, so she doesn’t really move out of Meng Shi’s old flat and everyone is fine with that. A-Yu (27) has graduated from uni and travels the world as an interpreter. Meng Shi and SiSi have lived together since the first has adopted all the kids and they opened a B&B near the seaside. they are wives and very in love.

XY lives with A-Qing in Yunmeng until his late 20s and they fight a lot for stupid things (like when A-Qing makes fun of the boring people her brother hooks up with on the regular, or when XY tries to coerce her to do the fucking laundry by tickling her into a pulp of pain and tears), but otherwise they work well together.

A-Qing is working at the community center as a social worker to help the kids find purpose in life and use the internet safely. she still believes a creep had tried to mess with her brother and doesn’t want anything to happen to the kids under her care. XY knows this, but never got around to tell her the truth, believing it would have been pointless to reveal her how everything she knew had been a lie. even her own purpose on top of that.

A-Su’s husband (LXC) rarely got to speak with XY in person, the latter busy with his job as a nurse most of the time, but during a dinner party LXC has to suddenly leave because of an emergency: his brother-in-law had been brought to the hospital after a car crash and lost the use for both of his legs.

one year later, XY (29) coincidentally becomes WWX’s personal carer and decides to move closer to the man’s house in Yiling since it would be troublesome to help him as efficiently otherwise. XY does not recognize WWX (34) from his voice or name (he did play games with him in the past, sure, but he knew him as XXC’s nephew by the name of Wei WuXian, not Wei Ying, which is the name LWJ uses around him) and helps him around the house and out of it.

WWX’s husband (LWJ) is frequently out of the house to work as a lawyer like his older brother and entrusts WWX to XY, even if begrudgingly so. 

WWX pretends to be fine, but he has a tendency to try to sneak out and walk on crutches without anyone noticing, so LWJ has asked for a carer to come to their house every day. XY doesn’t have to bite his tongue as much around WWX, their interactions easy enough for the both of them to work together despite bickering about the stupidest things.

XY discovers WWX is friends with Wen Qing (37) (the same intern who helped the psychologist take care of XY and A-Qing while they sorted their shit out in the past). 

he meets her and learns from her how WWX’s family had moved in Yiling to help him recover after the crash. her brother Wen Ning is the physiotherapist helping WWX regain control of his legs, but there are basically no chances for him to go back to be a professional athlete even if he were to walk once more.

this new information spurs XY to force WWX to rest more and take his situation more seriously. they work together to find possible solutions and WWX decides that he would much rather have his legs cut off from the knee down that suffer through the pain of having multiple fractures splitting him apart day after day. the surgeons had done their best to save his legs, but the fractures had compromised his nerves maybe forever and the pain is now unbearable.

LWJ trusts his husband but he’s weary at the idea of having him evaluated for amputation. XY refuses to feel responsible for the tension in the house, since this is clearly what WWX wants. XY knows WWX is secretly considering running again on prosthetic legs in the future, but he doesn’t want to anger LWJ more by mentioning it. it’s too soon to know anyway, and who is he to tamper down what little hope WWX has managed to harbor for himself after an entire year drowning in grief?

one year later WWX (35) gets permission from his physician to get prosthetic legs fitted for his needs and he couldn’t be happier. his family visit him more frequently now to congratulate him, even his grandmother who has descended from the mountain where she retired to in order to celebrate him.

XY (30) has already met WWX’s parents and his oldest uncle, but he never suspected them to be related to XXC, because he had never knew them by name. 

yet, one day Song Lan (38) comes in with a huge backpack on his shoulders and recognizes XY immediately. XY doesn’t know why his old counselor is there: he knew WWX’s other uncle was coming over, but he never imagined it was SL they were talking about. 

SL is beaming at him, signing he met XY’s bother A-Yu during one of his travels as a tour guide and that they kept in touch. SL has come to know XY is the reason behind WWX’s recovery and he tells the younger man that everyone in their family is happy XY has appeared in their life.

XY doesn’t have time to answer, overwhelmed with this sense of belonging, this sense of being finally, finally accepted somewhere outside of his own family... that someone else enters the house with a backpack on his shoulders.

XY doesn’t know the man and SL enthusiastically guides him over to meet the newcomer. XY is surprised to hear SL speak out instead of using sign language as the older man asks “A-Chen” to come meet “his nephew’s savior”. based on the pronouns SL has just used, XY recognizes the newcomer to be WWX’s actual uncle and he smiles at the beautiful man in front of him...

...only to be filled with horror the minute the other speaks.

XXC (32) greets XY without knowing who he really is, smiling at him without even recognizing the younger man’s voice. the two of them had never seen each other, playing games only through chats and calls... but XY recognizes XXC immediately, aware that his own voice has changed drastically over the years.

XY is still transfixed and petrified when XXC asks him if it would be okay for him to touch his face to have a better idea of who he’s interacting with. XY doesn’t even register himself voicing his consent when he feels XXC’s hands on his face. only then he understands the infamous surgery had failed and that XXC did not regain his sight after his nephew’s wedding.

overwhelmed with grief, guilt and longing for what never was and never could be, XY is unaware of the tears rolling down his cheeks as XXC gently trails his features. XXC apologizes when he feels his palms dampening and he asks XY if he overstepped. next to them SL is distressed, not understanding what’s happening in front of him.

XY shakes his head and simply says... that he lost someone and that XXC reminded him of that person. then he excuses himself looking for WWX, to ask him to give him something... anything to do. he gets himself a task to accomplish and leaves the house brimming with relatives that he will never be able to call his own.

1 year later:

XXC and SL do not leave the city as they originally planned. they have travelled long enough for the time being and they decide to get a house close to WWX and his husband. they spend the following year after their return looking for stability and peace.

XY (31) didn’t stop working for WWX (36) and doesn’t plan to. not now that he got his new legs finally fitted. the recovery takes long, but it’s already been two years since the amputation now and WWX tries his best every day. he believes to be a handful and doesn’t dare ask for things he needs after receiving the prosthetics. XY is there to loudly remind him to stop being an idiot and that he is paying XY to boss him around however the fuck he wants. LWJ is very grateful to hear WWX laugh more and more these days thanks to XY.

XXC (33), however, is frequently around his nephew’s house, keeping him company. before his three-or-so years of traveling with his boyfriend SL, XXC has briefly worked as a psychologist with Wen Qing, of all people and the two of them have applied for a position at the community center in Yunmeng at the same time. there isn’t one available in Yiling and the commute shouldn’t be too bad. during that first year after his return, XXC has met A-Qing multiple times to inquire for a place at the center in Yunmeng and they are quickly becoming more involved with each other because of their shared passion for the job.

XY feels the end nearing, time ticking away. it had been an agonizing, brilliant, terrible year the one he had spent so close to XXC... and it is now coming to an end. knowing that A-Qing will eventually tell XXC how and why she became a social worker, spilling everything about how “her pitiful bastard of a brother had been molested by a pervert online” and so on. he only hopes A-Qing will never get to meet WWX... she would absolutely recognize the other man’s voice and accuse him of being the pervert in question and XY... XY will die.

XY feels trapped and he will most certainly have a stroke the moment XXC will realize that he lied to him, that he is still alive, that his reason to become a psychologist to help troubled kids was not a real thing... XY will die and Meng Shi will cry.

only because he lied about being 17 when he was 15 one day of 16 years ago.

XY disappears the same night XXC tells him he invited A-Qing over. SL (39) is overjoyed at the idea of meeting the girl once more after the time she and her step-siblings used to go to sign language classes at the community center in Yunmeng. WWX is interested as well, having heard all about A-Qing from XY along the years.

but XY disappears anyway.

2 years later:

it’s XuanYu (30) who finds him, but doesn’t ask him to go back home. A-Yu takes XY (33) with him in his travels for some months to hide him. he doesn’t ask him what he did in those two years, but he does force him to call Meng Shi and SiSi at least.

XY complies but still feels empty inside. the single year he had spent with XXC while the other visited WWX will be permanently engraved in his memories and he cannot stop thinking about it. about how gentle XXC had always been with him, how sad he had looked and sounded reminiscing an “old online friend who had died many years back”, how generous he had always been towards him and everyone and... and XY cannot do this anymore.

A-Yu may be younger than him, but he protects him well for those months... waiting for XY to tell him the truth. so one winters night finally XY does, starting from the beginning.

the following week, close to New Years, XY realizes A-Yu had betrayed him.

someone rings the bell of their shared apartment and A-Yu asks him to go open the door. XY does and it’s A-Qing (32) and WWX (38) who greet him with tears in their eyes. A-Qing tackles him on the ground and tries to hit him they way they used to do as kids, fists getting the point across faster than any word ever could, but WWX pries them apart and hugs them instead.

somehow, XY had not been notified of having acquired a new sibling, but WWX clearly considers him a brother of sorts and he had missed him greatly. A-Qing explains that A-Yu had sent her an email with XY’s version of the truth, sure... but she also tells him that she and WWX had solved the mystery soon after XY’s disappearance already, after talking extensively on the matter.

A-Qing had recognized WWX as the person she had talked to in chat all those years ago, that is true, but she also realized WWX was not, in fact, a bad person and that something didn’t add. when she understood who XY’s online friend actually was... she had felt sick to her stomach for having let someone as kind as XXC presume XY had killed himself bc of him.

hurt and confused, XXC’s family and even A-Qing’s one had initially blamed XY for the pain he had caused, the lot of them filled with anger and grief. especially BaoShan, who had felt guilty for not supervising and protecting her younger son better when he was still too naive to understand the ways of the world.

but then, seeing XY was not coming back, Meng Shi and SiSi insisted for XXC’s family to help them with the search instead. after two years the lot of them missed him. yes, even those who still berated him for his poor choices in life.

XXC now knows the truth and only wants XY to come back home.

some days later:

XXC opens the door after hearing the bell and he knows, he knows who the person in front of him is. he already had his suspicions back when he used to visit WWX every day two years back. WWX’s carer reminded him so much of his friend that... that he may have hoped.

but now XY is back and he has a name and a face and is alive and XXC greets him with a smile as the other hugs him and never lets go.

XY has never been happier in his entire, miserable life.

and XXC will never lose sight of him ever again.

the end.

[now imma go weep for fucking ages. also fuck typos.]

[crossdressingdeath]

...In order:

The list is made by female disciples, period stop. There is zero indication that it's the disciples who attend the Lan lessons, because if it was it wouldn't exist before the lessons. Which it does. Not to mention the fact that that doesn't make sense because... y'know... boys and girls are separated by gender during the lessons so the female disciples wouldn't even meet the male ones.

Horrible people (or people who do horrible things) often come across as perfectly charming and gracious on the surface to the point where you wouldn't even realise how horrible they were without catching them in the act. Hell, off the top of my head I can think of four characters in MDZS alone who fit that description, at least so far as "high ranking on the list of eligible young masters" goes. JGS (he charms a lot of women and seems to stay with some of them for quite a while without them realising he doesn't give a shit about them), JGY (no one suspects him of any wrongdoing until he's caught in the act, and he holds the most high-profile position in the cultivation world for a solid decade), XY (especially notable because he manages to convince XXC that he's a good friend to have until XXC is outright told who he is despite XXC knowing what a horrific person XY is), and fucking JC himself, who reaches fourth on the list of eligible young masters despite being... JC. The fact that WRH was actually awful proves exactly nothing.

Sure, seventh arguably isn't great out of five great sects. But! the list is based on every male cultivator presumably of a given rank or higher in every sect in the country. That is a lot of eligible young masters. Seventh is still pretty fucking good, especially since as sect leader he probably doesn't get out all that much. Also, that still does nothing to prove that the previous Sect Leader Nie was anything like NMJ.

...The list is a fucking hot list, not a government document. None of the sect leaders we see are childish or stupid enough to use that to annoy their peers. If they tried they'd be laughed out of the room. No one is going to use a list a bunch of teenage girls compiled about who the prettiest boys are, that's stupid. There's petty and then there's that. I mean, what would you even say? "Haha, a bunch of teenage girls think that my son's hotter than your son"? You'd sound like an idiot with no ability to so much as come up with a decent insult. Also uh. the Lans are canonically insanely hot, literally everyone agrees on that, them being ranked the most eligible young masters does not in any way suggest sect bias. And who cares if it would be boring? In-universe this list is a who's-who of sexy young men, the Lans are always extremely sexy, no one is going to not name a Lan the sexiest young man because it would be boring. What, are they going to pick a different sect's young master to take the top slot as some weird sort of affirmative action? And if you're talking out of universe... well, the previous generation's hot list (assuming it existed, which is... never actually confirmed) doesn't exist out of universe. MXTX didn't write it, or if she did she didn't release it. As such what might be boring out of universe doesn't apply because this is an entirely in-universe thing. Also it's such a minor thing that it wouldn't be boring anyway; if anything it would be funny to confirm that yeah, the Lan sect consistently churns out the sexiest young masters, this is a genetic thing.

...LQR is a fucking teacher. Lecturing the younger generation is literally his job. We never see him lecture his peers, only the people he is actually in charge of lecturing. And WWX, who he actively dislikes and is trying to teach to be a good Lan, please, just for a little bit. Actually apparently he was just a bit of a dick as a teen, which we know doesn't necessarily have a negative effect on the rankings because, well, JZX and JC take third and fourth place. What we do know is that he was a bit stuffy and rules-obsessed; the actual reason why CSSR shaved him involved him choosing protocol over WCZ and JFM's safety. Yeah, there's a canon reason for that incident! LWJ is also a bit stuffy and rules-obsessed as a teenager! Didn't stop anyone from voting him into second place! And "more verbose" doesn't mean "not like LWJ"? It just means "not an exact copy of his nephew". Which is just... how people work, no one's going to be an exact copy of their parent or guardian. Also none of that suggests he acted like a middle-aged man who's been teaching and raising his nephews and running his brother's sect for him for most of his adult life even when he was a teenager. Justice for Shufu, he had to deal with a lot of shit, it makes sense that he's quick to get angry when we meet him! Also uh. it seems pretty obvious that he was the responsible sibling, not the annoying younger sibling. Just, all things considered.

You're right! Between QHJ's unfettered passion and JZX's lukewarm arrangement one does seem a lot easier to get around than the other! The one that isn't bound up in a political arrangement between sect leaders. Passionate infatuations can be waited out or interfered with; you can't fuck around with a political decision! If anything JZX's clear disinterest in his betrothed would make him less popular, because if he could get out of it he would. It's not his choice, it's his parents', and no one could match JYL's political advantages; she's the only daughter of all the great sect leaders! JGS isn't going to give up the chance for a concrete alliance with Yunmeng because his son wants to marry someone from a lesser sect!

The thing with JFM is... he's boring. His personality is frankly kind of bland (he's vaguely nice but mostly just lets people do whatever they like so long as he's not forced to watch outright cruelty) and I don't recall him being described as a particularly skilled cultivator or as particularly attractive (unlike LXC, in both respects). He's a very safe romantic option, he's not going to hurt you or do anything to make you an obedient wife against your will, but... well, the lists are being made by teenagers. Safety isn't generally top priority when a teenager is fantasizing about romance, excitement is. Also like. most people don't actually want to marry a doormat? The only indication we ever get that he's not a total doormat comes from him not marrying YZY when she first demanded it, which no one would've known about before that point.

And of course... I think the most obvious explanation has been ignored so far. Maybe YZY just had a crush on him and decided that since she liked him she should have him, then when she learned he wasn't what she thought he was she spent the next 20 years or so punishing him for it! The simplest solution is usually the best in these cases.

Fun thought: JFM was probably the number one eligible bachelor in his generation. WRH was powerful but a maniac, Papa Nie presumably had a temper similar to his eldest son's thanks to their cultivation, LQR was probably grumpy even as a teenager and I can't imagine Qinghen-Jun was super popular if he was apparentely smitten with Mama Lan at first sight and either didn't take no for an answer or ignored everyone else's advances. Just an interesting idea, considering YZY's need to have/be the best

Mm... I doubt it. WRH clearly knew how to handle people (hence how he got so far along in his domination of the country before anyone made a move) and so may well have been quite well-liked and respected before going all take-over-the-world, even assuming the previous Sect Leader Nie did have a similar temper to NMJ (which as far as I remember is... never actually confirmed, and we know you don’t need to be like NMJ to go into qi deviation because WWX does) the “domineering but genuinely loving” thing is popular enough amongs the sects that NMJ was seventh on the list of eligible young masters, and LQR and QHJ are Lans and so instantly desirable due to being Sexy As Hell (remember that both the top slots on the eligible young masters list are taken up by Lans with everyone who actively dislikes them preeeeeeetty obviously being jealous more than anything else, and it’s not a personality thing because LXC and LWJ are pretty much direct opposites) and even assuming QHJ met Madam Lan before YZY got married (which again is never confirmed) being smitten with someone or otherwise unavailable doesn’t mean you’re not a popular young master right up until you’re actually married (even taking into account the fact that LWJ’s love for WWX was a closely-guarded secret, JZX was engaged and still got third place on the list) and LQR has a similar temperament to LWJ who is second on the list in his generation and only beaten out by his equally gorgeous but more approachable and higher rank brother. Basically... yeah, I don’t think JFM was the number one eligible bachelor of his generation. I think YZY just figured he’d be the easiest to bully into compliance, and... well, she was right about that.