#and THEN the Wen remnants where WWX had to cut ties with the Jiangs FOR THEIR SAKE | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

plan-d-to-i · 2 years

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i never understood why ppl excuse jc’s inaction with the wens and everything that came after on “miscommunication”. Like what is there to miscommunicate? It doesn’t take a genius much less a sect leader to look at the situation and think “oh this isn’t gonna go well”. jc knew more than anyone the situation golden core reveal or not. He knew wn and wq saved him and wwx and knew the wen remnants were a bunch of old ppl and a child. Where is the miscommunication🤨? wwx did not have to go around announcing that ppl were against him like it’s so clear to even non cultivators. jc stans love to do mental gymnastics to avoid admitting the fact that jc is just a selfish and spineless asshole. sorry this is kinda long but i just wanted to rant 😅

haha rant away xx

On one hand jc is a political mastermind clan leader with an uncanny ability to read the room 🌝, on the other hand he can't figure out that isolating WWX, leaving him no recourse to protect the Wens other than defecting and taking the entire burden on his shoulders, staging a violent duel with him to cut all ties and calling him the enemy of the entire cultivation world would be detrimental to his safety k. The only people inane enough to believe these kinds of arguments are ... other jc stans...

"Why do you care what kind of end they meet? A dead end it is, then—what does it have to do with you?!”

Wei WuXian finally lost his temper, “Jiang Cheng! What- What do you think you’re talking about?! Take it back—don’t make me give you a thrashing! Don’t forget. Who was the one that helped us burn Uncle Jiang’s and Madam Yu’s corpses? Who returned to us the ashes that are in Lotus Pier right now? And who took us in when we were chased after by Wen Chao?!”

Jiang Cheng, “I’m the one who fucking wants to give you a thrashing! Yes, they helped us before, but why in the world don’t you understand that right now any remnant of the Wen Sect is a target of criticism!

there you have it. jc in a nutshell: They helped us, but there's nothing in it for me if I help them right now.

His "if you protect them I won't protect you" isn't a statement on ,ability it's a threat. It's not that jc can't protect him, ppl don't seem to get it. YunmengJiang Clan is fine at this point. LOTUS PIER NEVER HAD TO BE REBUILT BECAUSE IT WAS NOT BURNED DOWN. The Cloud Recesses were burned down. jc just doesn't intend to admit to the cultivation world he's only alive and kicking thanks to some Wens and he's pissed off WWX is not obeying him and making him look bad by doing the difficult, morally correct thing. He's already been stewing that WWX got credit for his immense show of force during the war. This happens all the time where instead of a talented servant, soldier, general etc being rewarded for their talent the dude in power sees them as a threat to his position/rep and nerfs them (or yk ...kills them).

Honestly ppl will really b like : "Wen Ning best boy 🥺 and then defend this:

Jiang Cheng exploded, “Just what are you being so stubborn about? If you can’t do it then move over—I’ll do it!”

Wei WuXian gripped him even tighter, his fingers as tight as iron, “Jiang WanYin!”

WWX made it perfectly clear why he was defecting. To fully protect the reputation of YunmengJiang. jc understood. There's absolutely no miscommunication:

Wei WuXian, “Just let go. Tell the world that I defected. From now on, no matter what Wei WuXian does, it’d have nothing to do with the YunmengJiang Sect.”

Jiang Cheng, “… All for the Wen Sect…? Wei WuXian, do you have a savior complex? Is it that you’ll die if you don’t stand up for someone and stir up some trouble?”

Wei WuXian stayed quiet. A while later, he answered, “So that’s why we should cut ties right now, in case anything I do affects the YunmengJiang Sect in the future.”

As for "oh wwx should've just told him about the core transfer and thrown that in his face that would've totally changed jc's attitude 🥺". First of all we see jc's attitude when the core is revealed. Was it helpful ?! LMAO. Jc is incapable of understanding true altruism and principles. In his mind everything honorable & heroic WWX does from helping in the Xuanwu cave to helping the Wens, to giving him his core it's bc he's showing off what a hero he is.

“Wei WuXian, you’re such a great, selfless person. You did the best things possible, and you swallowed all the suffering and didn’t let anyone know. What a touching story. I should kneel down and cry in gratitude, shouldn’t I?”

Secondly jc already knew he only back his core thanks to WWX. It's not like he found Baoshan Sanren by himself and told her he was YZY's son 🌝 Just like he knew he only survived and got back his parents's bodies thanks to WN & WQ. He just doesn't care. Ppl are out there trying to reinvent logic to excuse jc's behavior instead of just accepting the simple, obvious fact that he's just "a selfish and spineless asshole", as you so aptly put it 💯.

#mdzs #answers #jiang cheng #Wei Wuxian

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featherfur · 3 years

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Meng Yao should have been around when Jiang Cheng was running around with his head cut off trying to make disciples out of rogues and convince everyone to get started on the war. I just think he’d see this, probably manic, idiot who needs help and is 100% willing to be bossed around and who really doesn’t care about Meng Yao station in life because he’s just fucking desperate and wants to die but can’t because Yanli and just go “actually I’m interested”. Because Jiang Cheng would riot if he knew Meng Yao wanted to go back to his dad, and well Jiang Cheng is very pathetic when he thinks he’s being left behind (“You’re leaving me for the Jin just like Shijie? Tears and loud words for you! Tears and loud words dor a thousand years!”)

And Meng Yao would have a spot in Lotus Pier where he is VERY clearly wanted, he probably doesn’t become sworn brothers with anyone (or LXC and NMJ realize that no one needs to give the Jin any more influence and become sworn brothers with Jiang Cheng) unless it’s Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian (unfortunately WWX will still probably be killed or hunted at the very least but atleast Qin Su is alive? Maybe having MY around will help calm JC into the fact that LWJ wants to bang his brother and help him so JC can convince WWX to let LWJ atleast play for him, then maybe WWX can accidentally let slip about him already destroying one half and LWJ can help destroy the other half… Dunno if the Wen Remnants survive either sorry, honestly I don’t know if anyone can stop JGS in the long run)

So there’s two ways this goes: (under read more I have Thoughts)

Meng Yao DOES go to the Jin Sect still because JC gets wanting your Dad’s Approval even when he’s a dick AND he protects Yanli who immediately adopted him when JC showed up to the war with him. Without being stuck between a Rock and a Hard place (sorry NMJ not everyone is a annoyingly stubborn with their morals as you and MY is being hurt :( leave him alone :(( ) MY is able to continue being pressured without breaking and even though JGS keeps trying to get him to manipulate JC, MY won’t and won’t manipulate NMJ either and every time he goes to Lotus Pier to ‘look into’ the Jiang Sect he actually just spends the week being plied with children and listening to Jiang Cheng explain the fashion industry Again and talk about silks vs cashmeres vs wool so he just gets a vacay and is more prepared to stand up against his dad.

Also JC and Yanli catch on pretty quick to Madam Jin abusing MY because they were there after Madam Yu would hurt WWX and they know the signs of trying to hide the pain and Yanli suddenly starts Show Up whenever Madam Jin tries anything because that is her Didi now and she will protect him and if anyone ELSE tries to mess with him she will rip them apart like when Jin Zixun tries to bother WWX.

JGS does eventually manage to frame something on WWX but MY intervenes immediately by telling JC the truth and without the ‘did my kinda insane PTSD ridden brother so this?” Panic thoughts JC gets his people and is waiting for the force of Jin and smaller sects, with his two sworn brothers on either side. Because yeah NMJ absolutely hates the Wen but can he really ignore LXC and JC? Plus NHS on the side? He’s only there to protect WWX, anyone else can get fucked and even then he’s only protecting WWX because JC asked him too because NMJ thinks WWX sucks for choosing the wens because he’s very much of the one track ‘the wens suck’ mind. MY pretends he has no idea what’s going on but he does summon Jin Zixuan on ‘accident’ who shows up, annoyed he had to leave his kid, and is like “are we really going to accuse Nie Mingjue, known Wen hater, of protecting Wei Wuxian and lying about his innocence? Because his sword is the same size as my body and I’d rather Not”

(okay he’s more polite and subtle but that’s the gist) somehow Jin Guangshan dies, I’m voting Yanli poisoned him because I think Meng Yao is 100% willing at this point to simply take the abuse because Jiang Cheng and Lan Xichen aren’t essentially telling him to murder his father and that he’s stupid for not holding harder to his morals (sorry NMJ,,, you just,, I love you but MY is hurting and he’s not as stabby as you) NMJ is still very much crankily telling him his dad sucks whenever they meet but Jiang Cheng gets all sparkly whenever MY is around because MY will say he’s Doing Good, so there’s only so much room before JC start just biting anyone who even looks at MY wrong. (NMJ says he’s proud of JC once and JC just starts crying and NMJ UnderstandsTM why MY won’t leave him alone)

But Yanli has to be the one to kill him because MY wouldn’t because he’s a filial son and probably hasn’t lost his hope he will be Loved, Jin Zixuan wouldn’t because he’s like the only one in the entire show not down with murder, Madam Jin is not about to give up the power and money that comes from being the wife of Jin Guangshan even if JZX would take care of her because Yanli clearly is willing to rip everyone apart who fucks with her family and unlike Jiang Cheng is willing to change the status quo, and if JGS dies on a hunt they’ll blame WWX so Yanli just poisons him slowly and he dies from ‘illness’. JZX takes power, Meng Yao is told he’s amazing twelve times a day because JZX can do busy work and argue against anyone but he cannot have a small talk conversation to save his life. Life continues peacefully, Jiang Cheng keeps kidnapping JZX’s advisor because he misses him. Meng Yao knows how to control literally every single great sect but he’s busy chasing down his nephews and helping Jiang Cheng avoid marriage offers to do anything.

Once Jin Guangshan died, LXC and MY both swooped in to have the Wen Remnants moved somewhere else to ‘civilize’ them (using LXC’s own words here) and WWX is very much caught between Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji arguing over who he’s going home with and he’s honestly never felt more Loved TM. WWX spends six months to break the rest of the tiger rally under the grumpy/watchful eye of NMJ who still isn’t happy anyone from the Wen’s is still alive but he’s weak to puppy eyes and also when he’s being strong armed by his sworn brothers, MY, and NHS (though he still keeps an eye on the actual cultivators, he’s pretty much forgotten the rest of the Wen Remnants exist he just cares about the ones who know how to use a sword). Wangxian happens, idk how I’m voting for a wild Jingyi another orphan decides that he wants to meet the Purple Angry Man and body slams into WWX’s legs trying to get to the Purple man and LWJ catches him and it’s a full on romantic moment of staring into each other’s eyes while Jiang Cheng makes disgusted noises and Meng Yao pats his hand and just tells him to accept it.

Or Meng Yao stays in Lotus Pier because Jiang Cheng has problems and Meng Yao loves a messy loudmouth aggressive bitch with a secret heart of gold. Also Jiang Cheng is the exact kind of Demi-aroace dummy to not realize Meng Yao has a crush on LXC and keeps sending him over to Cloud Recesses to help with trade or something and MY gets to hang out with his crush constantly.

MY is Jiang Cheng’s personal advisor since WWX is currently refusing to process his trauma and staying in a very traumatic place. MY does try to help but WWX doesn’t trust him and probably only half trusts him around JC, BUT MY is very good with kids and helps work with JC on how to slip WWX supplies while negotiating directly with Nie and Lan without Jin glaring over him this time, and Jin Zixuan is more than happy to help when he can because again he’s just like the only one with modern morals and wants Lotus Pier to be strong since if all the sects fall then well the fucking demons/ghosts they hunt will eat them. So WWX is slowly atleast not ready to kill him, Meng Yao finds out WWX already destroyed half the Tiger Tally and tries to get him to let NMJ and LXC help him destroy it further (because that ties the three sects closer and so WWX won’t just stab someone if someone isn’t happy about the Wen’s existing)

Yanli poisons Jin Guangshan again because I think that’s the best way for him to go, Meng Yao does grieve but also that lasts for three minutes before Jiang Cheng shows up with some children he found in Yunmeng and Meng Yao needs to explain to him again that just because the kid latches on doesn’t mean you can take them home. But with JGS out of the way it’s a lot easier to strong arm NMJ into letting the Lan take the remnants (JC and NMJ still aren’t happy about it but NMJ can’t fight the three other sects and JC is getting his brother back and he’ll take the Wen living if that means WWX is too) and WWX returns to Lotus Pier. The truth of the golden core comes out probably via WWX having a flashback or panic attack or something (or that one theory of Yanli knowing,,,) words happen, WWX storms off to find LWJ.

Meng Yao wonders why he likes messy cry babies but still helps out Jiang Cheng because they’re technically brother in laws and also because he really does care about him. Wangxian happens and now Jiang Cheng is really pissed but WWX also said he wasn’t going to just up and leave so they’re on a rotating system but honestly everyone’s just waiting for them to move permanently to Lotus Pier because Lan Wangji has this giant hole in his heart for kids who love Wei Wuxian and Lotus Pier is filled with kids who are Jiang and therefore are insane ans love WWX.

Personally I think this one is the least likely but it sounds very nice right?

#the untamed #mdzs #Jiang Cheng #Meng Yao #Jin Guangyao #fix it #sorta #Lan Xichen #Nie Mingjue #Jiang Yanl #Wei Wuxian #read more #don’t take any of this seriously lmao pls I’m just fucking around

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aliasblack73 · 4 years

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I’ve been having a lot of thoughts about Jiang Cheng lately. He’s one of those characters where I believe his actions aren’t as cut and dried as would appear. As much as I grieve his choices, in a lot of ways I understand why he made them when I look at it from his POV. I don’t consider him blameless or downplay the hurt he caused. I’m just applying the LWJ method of questioning what is good and evil, what is right and wrong, what is in people’s hearts. Let’s take JC’s decision to renounce WWX in Yiling:

JC was groomed from birth to be the future Jiang sect leader. It was drilled into him that his only loyalty and concern was to his sect. He was hyper aware that he wasn’t free to say or do whatever he liked without there being some consequence to his sect. He tries to get WWX to do the same, constantly saying MYOB whenever WWX tries to do something selfless that could cause problems for the Jiangs.

This became even more important once he came into the role of sect leader at such a young age. He knew that his sect’s standing wasn’t assured - with the Wens overthrown and the Jins clearly making power plays, it wouldn’t take much for things to go south. At the Jin banquet, JC tried to make a case for Wen Qing and Wen Ning, but was very quickly dismissed. So was LXC’s attempt to vouch for them. NMJ, who JC greatly admired and considered to be a fair judge, didn’t budge an inch in his belief that all Wens were culpable. Luo Qingyang was ridiculed to the point that she renounced her sect. LWJ walked out, but if no one was listening to his brother the Lan sect leader, then he had even less power or influence.

None of this was lost on JC, he knows about politics. Recall when JGS tried to re-establish his son’s betrothal to JYL at the Nevernight banquet. Even then JC was thinking about the consequence of saying no (insulting the Jins) or saying yes (the other sects will think he’s jockeying for power), not to mention he probably wasn’t sure of what his sister really wanted anyway. WWX took that difficult decision out of his hands and let himself bear the brunt of the political bickering that ensued.

When JC pleaded with WWX to leave the Burial Mounds, he was not just making the case to his brother, he was explaining his own decision based on what had been made crystal clear to him at the banquet: Anyone who defends the Wens will be going against the entire world and suffer the consequences. That is extremely significant here. The only consequence of WWX making that choice is to himself. His ties to the Jiang sect were breakable. He would be the only one to suffer.

JC was the sect leader. He didn’t just have himself to think about, he had his entire people. Yes there were women, children, elderly people in the Burial Mounds whose lives were threatened. But there were also women, children, and elderly in Yunmeng. If JC harbored the Wens, and WWX with his tiger seal amulet and demonic cultivation, the Jins would not hesitate see it as a declaration of war and could easily draft most of the other sects into going along with it - we saw how easily they were willing to see someone as The Evil Enemy with very little provocation.

JC’s home and people would once again face destruction from a power-thirsty sect who proved that they wouldn’t hesitate to do terrible things to them while believing in their own self-righteousness. And let’s be real - the Wen remnants would not be anymore safe in Yunmeng than they were at the Burial Mounds.

#jiang cheng #the untamed #yes this is CQL meta #I dunno how this all played out in the book

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vardasvapors · 4 years

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link to the resentment tentacle core fingering fic please?????????

PSYCH I HAD TO POST A WHOLE LIST OF RECS SORRY FOR THE WAIT ANON anyway these are in no way comprehensive most of them were just recalled by skimming my chat history

sometimes my hands don’t feel like my own by northofallmusic: ok i say ‘golden core fingering tentacle fic’ flippantly but it’s EXTREMELY serious okay. it’s not often that anything written by someone else actually hits that balls-out extremeness of utterly emotionally sincere and extrapolating from a baseline of Abomination Rights intensity of body-horror-wrapping-back-around-to-non-horror monsterfucking that actually satisfies let alone impresses ME, but this one does! same w the rest of this author’s mdzs works lol. shitton of holification vibes which is always good. anyway the golden core fingering is very reciprocated by ‘diy transhumanism bone fingering’ which i Won’t elaborate on.

you are my delightful intruder by hanguang_jacked (lmao): my girlfriend once described this by telling me ‘thanks for sending me that fic where lwj is a disaster autism and gets railed.’ this is actually my #1 favorite fic in the fandom and i’m annoyed that it manages to stitch like, Absolute Perfection into a object-impermanence meltdown and subsequent hyper-intimacy of marking kink RACK. the exquisite depiction of emotions(love)-too-big-and-intense-for-his-form stuff.

catharsis by niixna: there are about 900 ‘lwj grief pov set after wwx dies’ fics but this one is by far the best and most immaculately characterized and utterly devoid of self-consciousness or rationalism in the face of emotional sincerity, even though i’m pretty sure english is not the author’s first language and it’s extremely poorly edited and it shows. i am so picky about lwj characterization and this is like. the platonic ideal tbh. i never cry about stuff i read but i did at this.

like looking through a fogged mirror by xiyaogarbage (lmao!): extremely viciously thematically appropriate (especially for untamed verse) ‘au but is it necessarily an au?’ fic with the premise of ‘jin guangyao did not actually murder his son.’ it’s always ofc been obvious to me that the reason jgy is the unparalleled master of weaponizing this flavor of reputation-based plausible-deniability scapegoating against other people, is precisely because he himself has both observed and been victimized by its effectiveness, and he still continues to be. no one would believe him if he said he was innocent of just this one particular act — in this fic he doesn’t even entirely believe himself. it’s just fucking. incredible.

moonlight by staringatstars: honestly i’m not entirely sure WHY this is one of my favorite fics. ‘nie huaisang nie-huaisanging’ and ‘the collection of turmoil hot’ doesn’t cut it. the uneasily loose-ended and threatening thread of the progression of a political microcosm incident that meanders through a broad swathe of subjects is just good. i guess i just really like chief-cultivator!lwj fics that irresistibly remind me of ikuhara’s liner notes for the end of utena lol.

hills and rivers are waiting by LtLJ: this is a jin ling pov plotty case-fic and it’s perfect, all those yi city field trip/post-canon casefic extra novel chapters vibes. the other fics in this series are amazing too! general revelations about tingshan he, and wen ning song lan mianmian and jin ling scheming to set up their own mini sect, as a treat.

too much, not enough by shamelesscooper: i’m not sure HOW a fic of the bizarrely common interfandom cliche which i don’t even like that is ‘cis male character is cursed with a vagina and needs someone to fuck him in it to get his junk back’ managed to be one of the best wwx & jiang cheng relationship study fics i’ve ever read (and that’s Not a low bar), but it is.

translucent ties that gently bind by katoptris9: It’s short and there are ofc also 900 fics about lxc’s post-canon mental-health-scrapheap out there, but I mostly am reccing for the very cruel but believable self-awareness, and flashback to lxc’s pov of lwj’s drunken selfharm rampage lol

an aging wound by lise: a wwx & jc ‘’’’’reconciliation’’’’’ fic with the absolute most neurotic communication possible, i laughed so hard i hurt myself

my eclectic muse by tahto: okay i actually don’t really care much about anything in this fic EXCEPT its characterization of lan sizhui, which i’m COMPLETELY obsessed with. step on me.

sunshot outtakes by swordgrip: yiling laozu being hot. uh i mean. wwx and lwj wreck an entire repo’d mansion bedroom with uncontrolled magic power while fucking after killing a bunch of people in battle and it’s hot.

like the setting sun by silversshadow: i’m only partway through this series but the premise is basically ‘the lingering ghosts of the wen remnants manifest themselves and follow wwx and wen ning throughout the entire post-timeskip plotline, instead of just briefly appearing at the burial mounds’ and honestly this is just a concentration/externalization of everything that mdzs is about, the wish-fulfillment of murder victims clinging to the world to ensure their murderers come to justice instead of giving up the space they used to take up and proving how effective genocide is. the cultivation world as a system ostensibly intended to protect living ppl from ghosts but actually functioning as a system to suppress and erase dead victims of the gentry’s oppression and genocide LOL. can’t, unfortunately, speak to how effective it winds up given that i’m not finished. but i couldn’t pass up mentioning it.

#the untamed #mdzs #fic rec #SORRY LMAO #i’d rather be eaten by you than fed by anyone else

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rosethornewrites · 4 years

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Fic: the thread may stretch or tangle but it will never break, ch. 8

Characters: Lán Zhàn | Lán Wàngjī, Wèi Yīng | Wèi Wúxiàn, Wēn Qíng, Wēn Níng | Wēn Qiónglín, Granny Wēn, Lán Yuàn | Lán Sīzhuī, Wēn Remnants, Wen Meilin (OC), Fourth Uncle

Additional Tags: Pre-Slash, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Secrets, Crying, Masks, Soulmates, Truth, Self-Esteem Issues, Regret, It was supposed to be a one-shot, Fix-It, Eventual Relationships, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, wwx needs a hug, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Filial Piety, Handfasting, Phobias, Sleeping Together, Fear, Panic Attacks, Love Confessions, Getting Together, First Kiss, Kissing, Boys Kissing, Family, and they were married, Bathing/Washing, Hair Braiding, Hair Brushing, Feels, Sex Education, Implied Sexual Content, First Time, Aftercare, Morning After, Afterglow

Summary: The afterglow.

Notes: This could have been longer, but it would have broken the mood of the chapter. Kind of a soft interlude.

AO3 link

Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

---------------

Mature content so chapter is under cut.

Sex is awkward and messy and quite enjoyable. Lan WangJi can’t find it in himself to mind the inelegance of their joining, as their missteps leave Wei Ying breathlessly laughing, their bodies tangled in ways that are sometimes accidentally erotic.

He’s quite certain, with practice, they will become more proficient in time. He rather looks forward to the process.

Wei Ying falls into a sort of half-asleep daze, worn out, but he stirs the moment Lan WangJi touches him with the wet rag to wipe at the mess they made, murmuring about the chill and squirming a bit. With a bit of qi, he warms the water in the basin and resumes his ministrations, adhering to Wen Qing’s suggestions on sexual hygiene.

His zhiji is vocally displeased with the need to vacate the sleep mat, which also has a bit of a mess on it, but he cooperates enough. Both of them, he knows, will need to bathe properly in the morning.

When Lan WangJi finishes, he folds the old, ratty blanket and spreads it over the freshly-cleaned and slightly damp mat, then pulls two soft white inner robes from his qiankun pouch. He knows better than to try to wrestle Wei Ying into zhong yi—their activities have worn him out—but he bundles him into the garment, tying the ribbons before donning his own. He leaves his forehead ribbon wrapped around Wei Ying’s wrist, where he had tied it when he released his hair from the braid.

He makes Wei Ying drink water and has some himself before he pulls him back to the nest they have made of his travel mat and blankets.

“Aiya, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying murmurs as he lays him on the pallet again and pulls him close. “So good. How is it we didn’t do that years ago.”

Lan WangJi can feel the tips of his ears heat, though not as they might have those years ago. And not now with mortification, but with arousal. Fortunately, his body is not quite ready for more activity, though he isn’t sure Wei Ying will be awake for it much longer anyway. He tucks the blanket around them snugly.

“Clearly a mistake,” he murmurs instead, and gets a breathy giggle against his collarbone in response.

“Mm, clearly. We could have been doing that every day.”

“Every day,” he agrees, combing his fingers through Wei Ying’s loose hair. “Mark your words, Wei Ying.”

“Every day. But try not to wear your poor husband out too much,” is the softly slurred response.

He expects Wei Ying to fall asleep almost immediately, but suddenly he’s giggling again.

“Wei Ying?”

“Ah, just thinking of a-Yuan’s question.”

Lan WangJi can’t help his huff of amusement. The child, far too young to understand the matter, had innocently asked them during the little banquet the remnants held for them if they would be giving him brothers and sisters.

As it turned out, a-Yuan was of the belief that all married couples had babies, and since Lan WangJi and Wei Ying were now married, it logically followed that they would as well.

They left Wen Qing to field that particular question. From the look on her face, she did not appreciate it.

“Ah, we can make a good faith effort,” Wei Ying chortles. “Every day.”

Lan WangJi is again reminded of Wei Ying’s claim of birthing a-Yuan. He had not, then, expected to find himself here, now. But seeing Wei Ying walk toward him in the market had been like watching the sun emerge from behind a cloud.

Wei Ying’s breath evens as he falls asleep, but despite hai shi having passed, Lan WangJi allows himself time to enjoy the feel of his body against his own, separated now by thin fabric.

He had mapped each of Wei Ying’s scars when they had disrobed, touching each and remembering the words he had spoken in the cave, of scars being proof one once protected someone.

The surgical incision down his abdomen, the Wen brand… those Lan WangJi knew about. Faint lash marks on his back, not completely healed when he had gifted his golden core, he learned were an attempt to protect Lotus Pier, freely taken from zidian to try to appease the Wens. The scar on his waist, a stab wound from his staged fight with Jiang Cheng when he seceded from the clan, another attempt to protect YunMengJiang.

Not all of them are from protecting others. A scar on his arm from falling from a tree before he formed his golden core. The scars from the dogs on his legs. Even one that he just doesn’t remember, one he’s had so long he must have gotten it before the death of his parents.

The touching of his scars had morphed to mapping the contours of his body at some point, just to hear the involuntary sounds that spilled from his lips, sounds Lan WangJi enjoyed wringing from him. He had reveled in watching Wei Ying fall apart beneath him, his body spasming, his eyes blown out, his face contorted in bliss.

He wanted to hear those noises, see his face, feel his body like that every day.

Now, Wei Ying asleep in his arms, flush against him, Lan WangJi never wants to let him go. This possessiveness is dangerous, is the sin of his father. But where his father had taken his mother to Cloud Recesses and hidden her away, he would follow Wei Ying wherever he wished to go, would never cage him.

He leans his head against Wei Ying’s and breathes his scent in, musky sweat and spice and sex, then lets his breathing match his zhiji’s until he, too, fades into sleep.

Lan WangJi wakes, shockingly, after mao shi. Perhaps it should not shock him, given the strenuous activity of the previous night and his time thinking after hai shi, but it is the first time he can recall waking late in quite some time.

He is not in Cloud Recesses, he tells himself, but Burial Mounds, and the sun has not yet started to spill into the cave.

Wei Ying is sprawled half-atop him, his thigh brushing Lan WangJi’s groin in a way that is arousing, and he works to gently extricate himself. His move to rise is aborted when Wei Ying groans softly at the movement, the sound carrying a note of pain.

“Wei Ying?”

“Mmm, I’m okay. Little sore.”

Wen Qing warned them of that—not simply that the novelty of penetration might hurt, but that they would use muscles in different ways. Although Lan WangJi had concerns about causing Wei Ying pain, he had insisted, so he had been particularly careful with the preparation.

Wei Ying had not complained at the time, but he often kept his own pain silent, and they had been in the midst of rather pleasurable activities that could have inspired him to ignore it.

“Where?” Lan WangJi asks, his voice insistent, as he leans over him.

“Lower back. Muscles.” Then Wei Ying flashes a grin. “I’m definitely feeling last night, but that’s pleasant.”

Lan WangJi tries and fails not to remember Wei Ying’s comment about his size the previous night; he had never had occasion to do something as crass as compare to others in that manner, and he hadn’t particularly thought his zhiji was deficient in that area himself.

Instead he uses his qi to warm his hands, shifting around to urge Wei Ying to lie on his stomach, and places them at the dip above his buttocks. The pleased moan the warmth draws from Wei Ying sounds filthy and beautiful, and Lan WangJi silently recites the Lan principles in an effort not to respond with action.

Wei Ying murmurs sleepily and ultimately falls back to sleep. He covers him with the blanket, settling in the lotus position beside his sleeping husband.

His husband. He will never tire of that fact.

Lan WangJi should meditate, but instead he watches Wei Ying sleep, maps the contours of his face with his gaze. Wei Ying is objectively beautiful. In sleep his expression is slack, lacking the smile that had enamored him at the gate of Cloud Recesses, even before their duel.

He may not have spared him a glance back then, if not for the accurate diagnosis he had whispered to his brother, that the afflicted Lan disciple was not dead, but under a spell, a diagnosis he gave with barely a glance.

Genius barely begins to describe Wei Ying, for so often those who have genius fail to possess the creativity to do anything with it. Wei Ying possesses that, and has experienced the sorts of tragedies that required use of both.

What he does not have, Lan WangJi has come to understand, is a sense of self-preservation, something he must have enough of for both of them if he is to keep his husband safe.

He manages to meditate for about a quarter shichen before Wen Qing loudly announces that breakfast is ready from the mouth of the cave, clearly deciding discretion is the better part of valor in case they are naked or otherwise occupied.

Lan WangJi wakes Wei Ying gently, with soft kisses, and they prepare for the day, dressing and braiding each other’s hair. He braids his forehead ribbon into Wei Ying’s, and thinks perhaps that is where it now belongs.

#the untamed #untamed fanfiction #mo dao zu shi #wei wuxian #wei ying #lan zhan #lan wangji #mdzs #mdzs fanfic #mdzs fanfiction #chen qing ling #cql #cql fanfic #cql fanfiction #my fanfiction

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crossdressingdeath · 4 years

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Okay I’ve had a very long day and people are being super defensive of JC on my dash so uh. I’m gonna talk shit about him for a bit. Because it’ll make me feel better. And I don’t want anyone arguing with me about this so I’ll put it behind a cut and if you don’t want to read someone talking shit about JC in a super unstructured manner then... don’t click read more, I guess?

So here’s one thing, to start. In The Untamed specifically, I can argue with near-absolute certainty that JC killed WWX. LWJ had him, and that guy is insanely strong; I don’t doubt for a second he could’ve pulled WWX up if he’d been given the chance. Maybe JC didn’t put a blade through WWX’s heart himself, but if he had stayed out of it WWX probably would’ve lived. I don’t know how long he would’ve lived, and I doubt he would’ve thanked LWJ for saving him, but he probably wouldn’t have died on that cliff. Hell, killing him quickly might have been a kindness; I’m not an expert on how far you have to fall to die instantly on impact and I don’t know how high that cliff was, but depending on how he landed and if he bounced off anything on the way down it’s possible (though maybe not likely) that WWX wouldn’t have died right away. If I had to choose between a quick death via a blade through a vital part or a more lasting death via serious internal damage from a very long fall... Yeah, I’d take the stabbing. Obviously I’m not saying that not being able to go through with killing his brother makes JC a bad person; I’m just saying that when his choices were doing nothing (which, reminder, here means letting LWJ pull WWX up (or at least try to)), helping LWJ save his brother, finishing WWX off quickly (JC is trained in combat, I’m sure he knows where to stab for the most merciful death possible under those circumstances), or letting WWX fall to his death... I just find it interesting that JC chose the latter.

Hell, even before that, if JC had done something sooner a whole lot of pain could’ve been avoided. (We’re out of the Untamed-exclusive stuff, by the way.) Now, I get that as a very new sect leader of a sect that was almost obliterated JC’s position is... precarious, to say the least. However! An awkward position doesn’t automatically mean he can pretty much abandon his brother! That is not how familial ties work! Especially when he never takes WWX’s position (which was equally precarious if not more so) into account while talking about how WWX abandoned him.

Put yourself in JC’s shoes for a moment, here. Most of your family is dead. Your brother, you know, was thrown into a hell pit and hasn’t been seen for three months. Then, joy of joys, you find him again! Except now your ever-cheerful, ever-kindhearted brother can raise the dead and, oh yeah, has spent all his time since escaping the hell pit that no one survives torturing people to death with demonic cultivation. What do you do in this situation? I’m fairly sure your answer was not “Throw him on the front lines as your most valuable weapon without giving him so much as a chance to come to terms with all the horrible things that have clearly happened to him”. Yes, yes, they were in the middle of war, but you don’t get to throw your very obviously messed up brother onto the front lines and then be shocked when there are serious consequences for doing that.

Also, going back to positions: People talk a lot about how JC’s position was so difficult, and I’m not saying it wasn’t, but... here’s the thing. WWX’s position was so much worse. JC is the sect leader of an old and powerful sect. The Jiangs might have lost a great deal, but there are still alliances he could call on, favours he could probably cash in, treasures reclaimed from the Wens he could use... He’s not exactly helpless. He has to be careful, but he’s not entirely defenseless. Meanwhile, WWX is the incredibly powerful demonic cultivator with a dangerous weapon everyone wants to get their hands on and a brother he’s known to have a somewhat strained relationship with. We see in canon that the sects are actively hunting for a chance to get their teeth into him after the Sunshot Campaign wraps up. All WWX has is his own power and JC’s support. I keep coming back to what JGY says at the temple, about how JC made WWX an easy target by making it obvious their relationship was rocky, and... he’s right. I doubt JC intended to do it, but he made it very easy for the sects to split WWX off from him. And while JC was still a sect leader and largely untouchable, WWX was infinitely more vulnerable. Again, I doubt he meant to paint a target on his brother’s back, but the fact that he missed it in favour of getting pissy about WWX being better than him yet again says something about him.

The fact that he says there’s nothing he can do after WWX absconds with the Wen remnants says... something else. Now, I’m terrible with politics; while he definitely should have supported his brother in a perfect world, with a sect to look after and JGS hunting for weak points I genuinely don’t know if he could have at that point. (Again, I really do think he should’ve tried to step in before things got to this point, but... well, he didn’t. No use crying over spilled milk and all that.) So okay, he couldn’t do anything. I’ll take him at his word; if nothing else, I can believe he was too bad with both politics and people and too inexperienced to find a way to step in. But he then takes his brother’s request to remove him from the Jiang sect to avoid any trouble coming to their doorstep and goes off and tells the sects that his brother is a traitor. Let me put that another way. He tells the people who are looking for an excuse to murder his brother and take his writings and inventions for themselves that his brother has betrayed them. I think we have reached the point where malice and stupidity become impossible to tell apart. Honestly, I can only see two possible thought processes for this: Either he actually wants to bring the sects down on WWX’s heads (unlikely) or he’s so terrible at politics that he genuinely didn’t realize what the logical result of his words would be (more likely, but means his parents did a terrible job of teaching him how to be a sect leader). Although, given he apparently spent enough of the 13 years between WWX’s death and resurrection spending so much time torturing demonic cultivators to death because either he thought they might be WWX or they just reminded him of him that most of the citizens in his territory are too scared to go to Lotus Pier for help unless they’re in imminent life-threatening danger I don’t think you can argue he was a good sect leader by any stretch...

Oh! Speaking of parents and teaching: Jin Ling. Now, part of this might be a cultural thing that I’m not familiar with, but JC is an absolutely god-awful guardian. Pretty much all he does is insult JL, belittle him, or threaten him. Yeah, he cares in his own way, but take it from me: When your parents (or uncle, in this case) spend most of their time insulting you but also keep you safe from any external danger and do their best to help you grow, you don’t end up a happy, well-adjusted adult; you end up miserable and confused because you can’t hate or like the person raising you and get stuck between love and resentment. JL is clearly desperate for affection, but he can’t admit that to anyone. It’s no surprise he mourns for JGY so deeply even after everything; the guy was pretty much the only one in the poor kid’s life to treat him with open, honest affection before he met WWX! The comparison between him and Sizhui (as the only other child raised by the main cast) is striking; even though LWJ seems like he should be just as bad a parent, he raises Sizhui with love and kindness, and so did WWX before him. And the result is... so very different. Sizhui is the very goodest of boys and I love him with all my heart. Anyway, it’s no wonder JL gravitates towards WWX and defends him once he’s gotten past his initial reaction of stabbing the guy; WWX is so open and explicit with his affection! Is he a perfect parent? No, probably not. But he focuses more on making it clear to his army of juniors that he loves them and respects them as people and wants them to be happy with where they end up in life than he does on making them fit his image of what they should be. Of course someone who’d be raised with JC copying his mother and constantly getting on their case about not being good enough would gravitate towards someone like that.

Okay, this is getting long. Last point: WWX has to put in so much emotional labour in their relationship even before everything goes tits up? The best example for me is the scene where WWX promises they’ll be together forever, Twin Heroes of Yunmeng, the huge promise that both JC and an annoyingly large portion of the audience think he should’ve kept no matter what. Yeah, out of context it’s very sweet, but in context? WWX has just barely recovered from the fight with the Xuanwu. He’s been conscious for... maybe an hour, at most? He nearly died. And yet he has to drag himself out of bed to chase JC through Lotus Pier to comfort him because JFM was paying more attention to WWX. Who, again, almost died. JC is so busy being pissy about this that he forces his brother, still recovering, to chase him through Lotus Pier to comfort him for something their parents did. Most of the time, JC has a right to be upset that JFM so obviously prefers WWX. Looking in from the outside the situation is clearly more complicated than he paints it, but I don’t blame him for not seeing how bad things are for the rest of the family. ...I know that sounds sarcastic, but I do mean it. His siblings are very good at hiding how badly their family situation has hurt them. Anyway, though, on this one occasion I am entirely on JFM’s side here. WWX threw himself into danger so JC wouldn’t have to go to the indoctrination camp alone even though he didn’t have to, then some time later JC returns alone and informs him that WWX is trapped in a cave with the Xuanwu of Slaughter, then when JFM finally manages to reach him the Xuanwu is dead and WWX is all but dead. I 100% do not blame him for focusing on WWX in this situation! He did something fully-grown cultivators with far more experience failed at and almost died in the process! Given JC must be... what, 16 at the youngest, probably older by this point? I would expect him to grasp that. He’s old enough to have developed empathy. Hell, he should be right there with his father and sister, proud of WWX’s accomplishments and relieved to see him awake and recovering. Instead, WWX has to drag himself through Lotus Pier and swear to stay by JC’s side for the rest of their lives just to get him to stop sulking because WWX was better than him yet again.

...Yeah, as you might have grasped, I don’t think WWX had any obligation to uphold that promise. He shouldn’t have been expected to be tied to Lotus Pier by a vow he made as a teenager to get his brother to cheer up. In fact, a very large part of me wishes he’d broken it sooner. Comparing the way JC treats him to the way the Wens and LWJ treat him (setting aside that those are of course very different kinds of love) I can’t help but think things might have gone infinitely better for him if he’d found a different family a lot earlier.

#anyway no discourse on this post pls #this is just me screaming into the void about my deepseated dislike of all this stuff acting like he's a flawless character #grapehate

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shadowglens · 4 years

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my thoughts on the untamed under the cut (warning: it’s really fucking long):

the only two things i vaguely didn’t like about the show:

the fact that we had to listen to meng yao monologue for like two episodes at the end about why he did everything, like i get it, it helps to make those clear connections, but i really couldn’t care less about yao and just wanted someone to stab him already (thank god for nie huaisang honestly)

the fact that most of the female characters die (and kinda horribly) to make the male characters sad / to progress their character arcs. like i wasn’t too mad about it but i liked the ladies so much.

apart from that though i literally loved every moment of the show!!! i LOVED IT!! i haven’t fervently adored anything like this in such a long time and it was so ... refreshing? to like something? and not be worried about other people

there’s just .... SO MANY THINGS about this show that really truly got to me and i don’t know where to start

lets start with wei wuxian: i’m forever gonna be fucked up about this boy because he gave everything he had, LITERALLY FUCKING EVERYTHING, to make sure the people he cared about were ok and protected with little regard for his own life or how people viewed him and i’m SO fucked up about it. like he gave up his own golden core for his brother, he turned against the entire cultivation world to save wen qing and wen ning and the remnants of the wen clan because they were Good People Who Didn’t Deserve Execution. he would have done AnYtHiNg for cheng and yanli!!! and don’t even get my started on lan wangji like fuck. FUCK! he would have done anything, given ANYTHING, to make sure the people he loves are safe and protected. he doesn’t matter, but them??? he would do ANYTHING

and lan wangji ..... arguably my favourite character on this whole show .... i don’t even know if i have the words to describe HOW MUCH I FUCKING LOVE HIM. his progression as an individual and the progression of his relationship with wwx really fuck me up, him coming to realise the world isn’t as black and white as he’d been raised to believe, starting to question right vs wrong. also how the fuck does wang yibo do SO MUCH WITH HIS FACE WITHOUT MOVING IT. HOWWW. all the micro-expressions and the little smiles at wwx really fuck me up a whole lot huh.

on the topic of wangxian, i loved them throughout the entire show but MY GOD post-wwx-resurrection wangxian is by far my favourite era for them. lwj is so tender and caring and at the same time so ruthlessly protective of wwx that he would gladly stand in front of the whole cultivation world, would stand in front of his brother and grandmaster and whoever the fuck else, and defend wwx because he didn’t do it before and wwx Died for it, and now that he has this second chance he’s sure as fuck not going to give it up so easily again. the scene where meng yao has wwx by the throat and you can tell lwj is willing to do anything, because WWX IS WORTH IT. FUCKKKKK. lwj always being there to step between wwx and harm, always there to protect him and show him the love HE DESERVES. HHHHHHH. ALSO I CANNOT BELIEVE HE WAS PUNISHED FOR HIS INVOLVEMENT WITH WWX, THAT HIS BACK IS NOW SCARRED FOR HIS DEVOTION, BUT THE SECOND WWX COMES BACK IT DOESN’T MATTER BECAUSE WWX IS HERE AND HE LOVES HIM AND IT DOESN’T MATTER THAT HE WAS PUNISHED BECAUSE HE’S NOT DOING IT WRONG FOR A SECOND TIME!!!!!!!

i don’t have any coherent thoughts about wen qing or wen ning or yanli or jiang chen (as if Any of this is coherent) but i just ..... they’re all so unique and have their own strengths and flaws and mostly would do anything to protect wwx. still cannot believe wen qing and wen ning, when the whole cultivation world wants wwx dead, literally (magically) tied him down and sacrificed themselves for him. still cannot believe the way jiang chen looks at his brother with such openhearted tenderness when he thinks no one else is looking. still cannot believe ANy of this!!!! FUCK!!

also another group of characters that i honestly did not think i would be this attached to was the juniors. THE JUNIORS. GOD I WOULD DIE FOR THAT SMALL GAGGLE OF TEENAGERS. after the post-wwx-resurrection time jump and now having all the context for jin ling and yuan i just combusted!!! seeing wwx in coffin tower (??) surrounded by a small horde of teenagers and suddenly needing to protect them??? the lan teenagers defending wwx even once they know who he is. jin ling Stabbing WWX but then forgiving him and bonding. yuan. Yuan. YUAN. HHHHH. i Knew who he was but the slow reveal over time, the hints, it killed me, but the bit that REally got me was the scene on the docks with wen ning and yuan. ning realising it’s his yuan, questioning him about it, the growing happiness and on the verge of tears and ning saying he looks like his cousin I MCFUCKING COMBUSTED!! I’M SO GLAD NING AND YUAN ARE FRIENDS AND LOOKING OUT FOR EACH OTHER ALL THESE YEARS LATER. but you know the bit that really killed me?? you all know it was the scene at the end when wwx realises it’s yuan. his yuan. the yuan he carried around and planted as a turnip and took shopping with lwj. the yuan he thought had been executed sixteen years ago for his surname. i really did break. not to mention the way lwj was Looking At Him Like JEsus Christ pleaseeeeeee.

honestly though, cannot honestly believe lwj raced back to the burial mounds, alone and scared, and found a feverish yuan huddled in the corner, and didn’t hesitate to gather him in his arms and take him back to cloud recesses and not only nurse him back to health but Raise Him!! teach him everything he knows!! LWJ SEEING YUAN WHO HAD MEANT SO MUCH TO WWX AND TAKING THE TIME AND EFFORT TO CARE FOR YUAN BECAUSE HE MEANT SO MUCH TO WWX SO BE EXTENSION HE MEANT SO MUCH TO LWJ!! I JUST!!! SOMEONE HELP!!!

also i know they couldn’t do anything too explicit because of chinese sensors but my god i’m flawed that So MUch Made It PAst The Sensors. like yeah it would’ve been nice if lwj and wwx kissed or said they loved each other or something, but there was so much emotional intimacy and protectiveness and banter that i almost Prefered it to if there’d been explicit sex or anything. it made it feel more real, it made me HURT, and i didn’t feel like i was missing tooo much in terms of their romance. THEY LITERALLY CALL EACH OTHER SOULMATES??? I’M

ok i think that’s all, there’s probably fifty billion other things i’m forgetting but i just. fuck. FUCK. thanks for this wonderful show i adored it. what am i gonna do with myself now. [throws myself at ao3]

#txt #sophie watches the untamed #this is one big incoherent [WAILS]

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