for the ask meme (brain tired right now so here’s some numbers): 4, 9, 13, 16, 25!

4. "what was the last straw that made you finally block that annoying person?"

I'll let you know when I find it 👀 no honestly, I actually make a point of blocking people as infrequently as possible, and so far I have only actually blocked one other user in the broader mxtx fandom (who did not ask me to block them first). and I blocked them because arguing with them was so fucking boring I lost my will to live.

9. "worst part of canon"

the game of stygian tiger amulet hot potato after the second siege of the burial mounds. how it ends up with xy in yi city like.... it's dumb. even if I decide to be exceedingly uncharitable towards jgy and assume he intentionally left the tiger amulet in xy's custody after booting him out of jinlintai, why would he fucking do that?? "for the crimes!!!" the antis shriek, and no! that STILL doesn't make any sense! that is like just letting charles manson walk off into the wilderness with the nuclear codes and ignition switch in his hip pocket and then being like "it's fine, my bestie is keeping an eye on it for me."

13. "worst blorboficiation"

do... do I have to say it. do I have to say good boy protagonist wei wuxian? it's good boy protagonist wei wuxian.

16. "you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)"

I mean. I theoretically understand why people want to turn both jzx and jyl into very nice and attentive family members who take jgy under their wing and offer him their friendship and support in the jinlintai viper's nest, because it surely is something that a good brother would do, and it would be nice if jzx's wife supported him in his efforts. but, regrettably, this headcanon ends up influencing actual canon perception of the story and creates the illusion that jgy has more allies and support in jinlintai than he actually does.

(this is not to throw shade at jyl because that whole situation is very much Not Her Problem, she has her Own Problems to deal with in the form of her demonic cultivator half-brother going off half-cocked and then fleeing into the burial mounds with the wen remnants. I'm absolutely throwing shade at jzx tho, what a chump)

25. "common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing"

"why do the jgy stans always want to tear down wwx just to prop up jgy!!!" we do it to fuck with you specifically

Every so often I’ll come across a fic that has a summary that essentially reads: “after JFM brings WWX to Lotus Pier YZY takes JC to MeishanYu where he becomes the sect heir” and it always acts like this situation is a fix-it for the entire plot of the novel. And I was thinking about this premise over the past few days and realising just how little it makes sense. (I would like to clarify that I have not read any of the fics with this premise but that is because they all look to be written by JC stans and I decided a while ago that I wasn’t interested in anything like that. I would also like to say that I have only the vaguest understanding of Chinese culture so if something is glaring wrong in here I accept corrections.)

So. The logistics of the events coming to pass. The summaries imply that YZY left Lotus Pier with JC in tow, marched into her natal sect and without question JC was named sect heir and never had any problems ever.

Firstly: if YZY is such an amazing mother to take her son away from the ‘awful’ environment of Lotus Pier under JFM, why does she leave her daughter there? There never seems to be any mention of JYL also going to Meishan so this really just feels like YZY doesn’t actually care about anyone other than JC (in a similar way to the author not caring about anyone other than JC).

Secondly: the actual inheritance thing. As far as I can tell YZY and therefore JC are so far down the line of inheritance for the MeishanYu sect that it doesn’t actually matter. JFM calls YZY ‘Third Lady’ which based on my understanding means that she has two older sisters who would be the First and Second Ladies. In the line of succession her eldest sister would be first, then her children, then her second sister, that sister’s children, and then YZY and JC behind them (this isn’t even taking into account any older brothers she might have). I think I read somewhere that marriage order is based at least partially on age so we can assume that the two older sisters got married before YZY, and it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that the eldest child of the eldest daughter could be fifteen when JC is nine, so at the very least the eldest sister could have a child who is close to being of age (though I freely admit that I have little idea as to what is classed as ‘of age’ within this world) while the son YZY brings is a child who throws a tantrum over having his pets sent away for someone else’s mental health and being told he’s going to share a room.

(Sidenote: I know JFM has JC’s dogs sent away but for all we know they’re just taken out of Lotus Pier itself (as in the bit where the cultivators live). We know there’s a market area where non-cultivators live literally right outside so rather than sending three puppies miles away to other cities, couldn’t JFM have just found someone living outside of the cultivator’s part of Lotus Pier to give the dogs to? Wouldn’t that have been the easiest option? And one that could potentially allow JC to visit the dogs he was so upset about? Did he just not ask to see them so JFM decided that he didn’t actually care about them? Did JC go see them every week until they died and was just angry that he wasn’t allowed to own them anymore? What proof do we have that JC never saw those dogs ever again?)

Anyway, back on track. Thirdly: YZY married out of the MeishanYu sect and into the YunmengJiang sect. She was very insistent on this. She wanted this a great deal even though we know that JFM didn’t particularly want to marry her. I believe that by the culture of the time marrying out of a family meant you were no longer part of that family. Like you might visit or write and introduce your children to them but you weren’t part of the family in the sense that you weren’t in the line of inheritance for anything of that family. So YZY marching into her natal sect with her bratty son behind her, declaring that he would be the sect heir to MeishanYu honestly reads to me as YZY flat out not understanding anything about how family inheritance works. She married into YunmengJiang. By the rules of the time, she should be devoted to building up the YunmengJiang sect, not leaving and returning to her natal sect because she doesn’t like the mother of the child her husband brought in off the streets. JC especially isn’t in line for inheriting MeishanYu because he is a member of the Jiang clan. Honestly the best equivalent I can think of is if people expected Jin Ling, heir (and sect leader and the end of the novel) to LanlingJin to also take over the running of YunmengJiang even though nowhere is it implied that he’s in any way in line of that — JYL married out, any children of hers were part of the Jin clan with no inheritance in the Jiang clan (it’s also for this reason that I am firmly of the belief that Jin Ling was mostly raised at Koi Tower rather than Lotus Pier, who lets the heir to a sect be entirely raised by another sect? For all we know Jin Ling spends a couple of months a year with JC and the novel just happened to take place during those months, and it’s saying something if Jin Ling spends the entire time he has per year with JC running away on night hunts without JC there). So, to put a long point short: YZY married out of the MeishanYu sect and has literally no inheritance there and neither do her children.

Also, at this point hasn’t she essentially kidnapped the heir to YunmengJiang? I doubt JFM is going to say “oh you don’t like my best friends’ son so you want to take our son away. Of course you can do that I have no problem at all with losing my sect heir due to your petty dislike of someone who has been dead for years now. Goodbye.” JFM may not really stand up to YZY, but there’s some things even he isn’t going to tolerate from her. So YZY is causing a political disaster between her natal sect and the sect she married into by kidnapping the sect heir of one and attempting to make him the sect heir of the other. At the very least I feel like JFM could divorce her on the grounds of kidnapping his son and trying to depose the sect heir of her natal sect in favour of a child who by law cannot inherit that sect.

From what I can tell these fics look like they’re set up to be fix-its. Again, I haven’t read them, but I can feel just by reading the summaries and glancing over the tags that they’re intended to be stories about how without the father who ‘hates him so much’ and ‘that awful WWX who always held him back from his true potential’ that JC is so much happier and more skilled and also absolutely going to be the best person in their generation at everything and in at least one of these it looks like he ends up marrying LXC (which is just. No). Honestly it could be a fix-it for JYL and WWX who would no longer be being berated for their general existence (WWX) and hobbies (JYL, specifically how she likes to cook). Them growing up without YZY constantly breathing down their necks and having better mental health as a consequence? Yes please.

Honestly I wouldn’t mind seeing something where the concept was written by someone who didn’t think that ‘actually all the positive traits of other characters are JC’s character traits and also JC should have been the main character’. Something where it’s set up as YZY taking JC with her to Meishan, expecting everything to obviously work out the way she wants, only to be shot down. Her eldest sister is potentially sect leader if their parents have stepped down and has a fifteen-year-old child who everyone in the sect is pleased with as their sect heir. YZY and her expectations get shot down, it’s made clear that she and JC aren’t even in the line of succession since they’re officially part of YunmengJiang and not MeishanYu, and she’s told to leave. She returns to Lotus Pier, angry but still convinced everything there will go her way because JFM has never stood up to her before, only to get back and find JFM in the process of organising their divorce. This isn’t an internal matter due to her not doing the duties expected of the mistress of Lotus Pier anymore, this is a political matter where she kidnapped the sect heir and tried to depose the sect heir of MeishanYu. She’s legally part of YunmengJiang, her actions reflect on the sect as a whole and could be taken as hostile intent. Really the only way to keep this from potentially escalating is to divorce her so that everyone knows her actions aren’t condoned by JFM individually and YunmengJiang as a whole. The end result is that instead of JC somehow fixing everything as a result of having less political influence/lower status than before (sect heir of MeishanYu which is a minor sect compared to the sect heir of YunmengJiang which is a great sect) and without an extremely loyal WWX supporting him, YZY instead undergoes some consequences for once in her life and the family dynamic of the Jiangs + WWX might even manage to be healthier without her constantly being around to antagonise everyone.

Yeah, I’m pretty sure YZY’s children would be so far down the line of succession that they’d have to murder a bunch of people to stand a chance of ruling Meishan, and her taking JC, the heir to the Jiang sect, to another sect without his father’s permission and with the intention of deposing the rightful heir of that sect would be... just a bit of a problem, yeah. Also like. I suspect the reason YZY doesn’t canonically do that is because not even she is that stupid. That goes beyond being a bitch and straight into Actual Crimes. Also love the idea that JC, the most useless of all the great sect leaders, would be less useless in a position of infinitely less power. ...To be fair he would certainly do a lot less damage.

*lurks from your posts* I see someone stans Jiang Cheng here as well helloooooo Can you give some thoughts about him and his relationship with Wei WuXian? Also if you happen to know any fics about them (shippy-wise, brotherly, anything with them), can you recommend some? Thank you!

HELLO!!!!! i got your ask when you sent it days ago but i needed some time to calm down over my feelings for my boys so i’m only answering it now lol

*coughs* WHY DO I LOVE JIANG CHENG???

- his interactions with wwx (the teasing, the brotherhood, the dog story when they were kids — “Although, because of this, he held hostility toward Wei WuXian for a long time, after the two grew familiar, they had begun to cause mischief together. Whenever he ran into dogs, Jiang Cheng would always chase them away, then have a good laugh at Wei WuXian, who jumped onto a tree.”)- he really does care for wwx (his reaction when he found out from lxc that the whippings on wwx would take days to heal, when he carried him, when he tried defending him against his mom despite being scared of her, when he saw what happened to him with the branding iron, his worry when wwx couldn’t swim away, THE WHOLE CONVERSATION WHEN WWX GOT BACK***, how he wanted to help wwx when his mother whipped him, clinging to his mother’s leg when he thought she was gonna cut off wwx hand, when they met again after he “restored” his golden core and wwx has finally started controlling corpses, when he defended him against lwj when they thought lwj wanted wwx punished)- “The two knew how to continue each other’s words ever since they were young. Now, one sentence after another, the argument flowed seamlessly…” shows how close they really are (let’s not talk about the context for this bc that one HURTS)- ***the second time he met w/ wwx in a new body (“From the beginning of his memory until now, Jin Ling had never seen such a look on Jiang Cheng’s face before…Although his face had always been clouded, marked with arrogance and satire, it seemed as if every corner of it had come alive. It was difficult to determine whether it was vengeful wrath, fathomless hatred, or raving ecstasy.”) MAN HE HAS BEEN WAITING and i feel like it’s a confusing mixture of hate (why did he kill shijie) and hurt (where did everything go wrong between them) and a very big bulk of relief (wwx is alive, ALIVE and maybe—maybe they can fix things)- OUR BOY KNEW IT WAS DEF WWX y’all perhaps even from the start and WWX knew this as well (“…he exclaimed in his heart that Jiang Cheng really knew the best way to deal with him.” + “…in front of someone who knew him so thoroughly, it’d be impossible to argue. This was an obstacle harder to overcome than Zidian.”) and he even controlled zidian’s force so it wouldn’t really truly incapacitate wwx- The first person WWX became truthful to upon his return was JC even going as far as to somehow admit who he truly was. His first legit conversation was with him im ahdhkslahdkala (‘Jiang Cheng pulled a curt smile on his face, “… Don’t you have anything to say to me?”’ ‘With a sincere tone, Wei WuXian replied: “I don’t know what to say to you.”’)- BUT ofc since our resident chaotic bi is a runner up for miscommunications this conversation went downhill pretty fast. OK BUT IMAGINE IF THE CONVERSATION WENT BETTER AND WWX ACTUALLY EXPLAINED SOME STUFF - and istg it’s not that im rolling on an ocean of my tears here but jiang cheng fucking kept chenqing (wwx’s flute) for the past 13 years and just in case you guys wanna suffer, just think about these two boys who were brothers that became two men unsure of where exactly things went awry bet them- in short, jiang cheng shouting at wei wuxian = jiang cheng caring for wwx in the past (maybe even a bit of that in their present??? nope dont mind me im just crying in the corner here about my boys)

ps to the anon who sent me the headcanon of jc letting zidian recognize wwx as another master without anyone else knowing I WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT I THINK AND SCREECH ABOUT THAT EVERY NOW AND THEN

FOR THE FIC REC, im so sorry for failing you but i don’t know of anything ahshfdlalajdh IF ANYONE KNOWS ANY, PLEASE DO SEND THEM IN ❤️

tl;dr JIANG CHENG: *aggressively cares*

The Untamed: Episode 2

1. “Is Wei Wuxian your dad?” “No, he’s my idol” is the funniest exchange ive ever heard about a long-dead assumed war criminal 

2. the slo mos in this show... like why slow down her dance... idk

3. the hero of this episode is apple. no criticism will be accepted

4. the fact that the first thing wwx thinks of his nephew is “ew hes a peacock like some other jin clan members i knew” is. frankly rude but also kind of painful 

5. it shatters my heart that these brothers are in such shambles right now. jiang cheng needs a hug yall thats it. 

6. ... did wwx really need to cut all 400 spirit nets. also the imp look on his face when lan clan gets blamed for that shit. peak chaotic dick energy

7. lwj watching jiang cheng to see if he’ll activate zidian is so tense but also so funny in retrospect like. they really are so angry with each other. also the whole “i heard you’ve been a lot of places this last sixteen years. searching for someone?” line is just rude like come on jiang cheng are you gonna act like you didnt look for his body for so long that it’s part of the legend

8. first silence spell of the show. victim: jin ling. theres that maternal influence he’s been missing. also why is jiang cheng so rude to his nephew like why are you putting down a sixteen year old kid dude. i mean i feel for the guy because he’s had to live with so much for so many years but i thought his takeaway would be “don’t be like my mother” rather than hold up its evil stepmother time

9. wwx in black hiding behind that tree trunk is possibly the dumbest thing he’s done so far. which is impressive considering other things he’s done is throw a tantrum and steal someone’s peanuts by freezing time

10. god yes we stan lan yuan king of level headedness. which father do you think he gets it from 

11. did lwj tell them not to take risks because he thinks this also has something to do with wwx??

12. that first glimpse they get of each other. ugh

13. YANLI IN THAT REFLECTION>>> my baby deserved better yall

14. why do people talk so loudly about other people’s business in this show. someone get wwx some ear plugs 

15. wwx slapping himself. the self loathing. i think pretty much only yanli has that effect on him.

16. why does yuan’s bud keep attacking innocent people. like we get it youre a cultivator. he’s raking leaves

17. the lanlings need adult supervision. or at least a sign that says “dont approach the dancing human looking rocks”

18. shouldn't nightless city be overrun with soul gathering grass lowkey

19. i want someone to tell me im good at eating

20. someone tell me why im crying in the clan burial ground right now. oh right. its cuz my love wen qing is looking all kinds of mysterious and tragic AND I CANT EVEN SEE HER FACE

21. “they don’t know that god’s can’t even carry themselves, let alone others’ wishes” is such a raw line and its just annoying that jin ling, sixteen year old brat of jin and jiang clans, said it. he takes after his uncle. no not that one.

22. wwx and his fucking paper talismans. the duct tape of the yiling patriarch

23. KIDS WAIT UP. SIR. sir you’ve been dead for the last sixteen years you’re like max twenty five. dying twice really only adds a couple years. and like 0 wisdom points apparently. 

24. sixteen plus years later and wwx is still mad about the lan clan teaching method. a petty king

25. LMAOO i forgot that jiang cheng and lwj literally sat at those outdoor picnic tables in complete silence and waited for their clanlings

26. IM THE IDIOT ASKING WWX WHY HE’s playing flute so terribly as they’re being attacked by the stone lady. like. kid. your master plays the fucking qin every time he’s dealing with any supernatural drama. wwx is just bad because hes out of practice chill out

27. WEN NING THE GHOST KING. i missed him. also the chains? goth look of the decade. also i totally forgot that like. wen ning killed jin ling’s dad and like all that stuff. and that they executed him. suddenly all the freaking out even on wwx’s part makes sense. 

28. he plays the song lwj composed for him,,, to calm wen ning down,,,, and then he wonders for 40+ episodes how lwj recognized him back then. moron patriarch.

29. if someone doesn’t start treating wen ning like a person very soon, im going to lose it

30. when he, walks back, right into lwj, right at the musical crescendo... chef’s kiss and painful agony rolled into one. cinematic poetry. the shocked eye contact. unfollow me now this is all im going to be tweeting about for the next year. lan zhan not letting go when wwx goes back to playing. literally my heart. 

31. the pleading in wei ying’s eyes. the fucking yearning in lan jan’s. i empathize with wwx still wishing he was dead.

32. why is adult jiang cheng... so unlikable. i forgot that literally he’s unbearable after he loses his whole family and is forced to rebuild his entire clan by himself.

33. and so the tale of lwj protecting wwx with everything he has begins. i respect one (1) man and it’s this regal motherfucker who only ever looks scared when someone’s attaching wwx 

34. “you think you can beat people because you’re rich and powerful” IDIOT THATS LITERALLY ALL YOU DID FOR YEARS. i mean not really but. wwx admonishing someone else for being blinded by anger is. ironic.

35. “you’ll be shocked to death if i take it off” is such sibling energy im crying

36. lan zhan!!!!!!!!!!!!! I WOULD DIE FOR YOU and the way your hand goes to your sword when Wei YING’s being threatened!!

37. the expression on his face when the kid says “people say you killed him yourself” he’s so *clenches fists* sad!!

38. i like how wwx’s reaction to literally every sad interaction with his family is to fall

39. seeing the three of them together for the first time for the third time.................... im dead inside

40. wwx was straight up wildin at 16 with his rampant fucking alcoholism... also emperor’s smile coming from lan clan territory is once again peak irony and i love it

41. “i can even recite your words now” five second later, “i have places to be”

42. jiang cheng your daddy issues are literally in the street right now chill

tl;dr

even after sixteen years, local idiot has no chill when it comes to dead brother and related trauma

I seriously think people need to stop being so hard on WWX for the whole core transfer thing. I agree that maybe WWX could have spoken to JC about it first, because even though he wasn’t in a great state of mind, he did calm down enough after WWX said that there was a way to restore his core, and he could have maybe mentioned his plan then. Whether JC wanted it or not, that'd be up to JC - so I do understand why some people have an issue with the consent side of it. However, I think the 1/8

extent of the reactions that some JC stans seem to have is pretty extreme. It's always a blatant, ‘WWX shouldn't have done that, it was a violation, he didn't get consent first,’ ect. and literally no empathy or understanding for his situation. Even if they can argue that WWX could have informed JC about what was going on first, you also need to consider the situation he was in. This was a teenage boy who had just had his whole home destroyed, the people who had raised him/he'd grown up with 2/8

killed; he had been blamed for the whole thing by both his brother and the woman who had abused him for most of his life, and YZY's dying wish was that he protect her son no matter what. Then, almost immediately after, his brother gets kidnapped, and is badly injured and has his core destroyed. WWX was in a terrible mindset by that point, was feeling heaps of misplaced guilt - and then JC wakes up and literally starts losing his mind. Of course I'm not complaining about this, JC had just 3/8

been tortured and had his life achievement taken away from him, of course he would be completely hysterical. But from WWX's side, watching this, of course he's completely freaking out. Just look at this scene. JC has literally completely given up by this point. WWX probably feels like he is about to lose his brother, and on top of that, YZY's words are probably replaying in his head. Then, when JC wakes up again, he is completely suicidal. He refuses to eat, he doesn't even want to move. 4/8

There's a moment when WWX asks JC, “Do you really want to die?" and I think that's the moment when he truly makes up his mind. Perhaps JC might have learnt to live with it in time, or perhaps WWX could have helped him cope with it, but that's not what we're talking about right now. We are talking about a teenaged boy who has been through horrible trauma, has been blamed for the destruction of his home, and is in a terrible place right now. 5/8

All he really has left at this point is JYL and JC, and he probably feels like he needs to protect them to make up for his 'mistakes' - and despite his best efforts, JC has been hurt, and is threatening to end his life. Even when you ignore all of that other stuff, just the amount of fear anyone - let alone a CHILD - would feel, watching someone they loved going through all of this. Of course he would want to do anything to make JC happy again. Overall, WWX was in a terrible place at the 6/8

time; he was in over his head, and he didn't know what else to DO to make the situation better. People who act like he was blatantly violating JC's consent, or whatever else they're saying, don't seem to take into account any of these extenuating circumstances, or the fact that this was a teenaged boy trying to handle a situation he should have never had to deal with in the only way he knew how to. I've seen so many people talk about how JC doesn't need to be grateful because he never 7/8

asked for this, but WWX never asked him to be grateful. He didn't even want JC to know - he only ever wanted him to be happy. And it's just frustrating how so many JC stans refuse to see any of the nuances in these events, or understand that there was just so much going on, and that any of their arguments against the core transfer don’t mean the exact same thing in that situation that they might, say, if the same thing had happened post-canon. 8/8

Yes. WWX was a teenager watching his brother die in front of him! JC refused to even speak to him! All WWX knew was that losing his golden core was killing JC, and giving up his own in return was the only thing he could think of that could possibly save him. It’s not a violation to give someone an organ when the alternative is letting them die; why should this be any different? WWX was raised in such a way that his reaction to a situation like this was... kind of inevitable, too. The Jiangs really did groom him to put them above himself in every respect, so of course his reaction to JC losing his golden core was to offer up his own! And JC did play a part in that grooming; he too very clearly believed WWX should always put himself second, and WWX took that to heart. Why is it such a surprise that WWX would give up such a huge part of himself to someone who always expected that from him without feeling the need to ask? JC had taught him that he expected that level of sacrifice from WWX. That’s a big part of why he was willing to give up his golden core, and it never seems to get brought up in these discussions, likely because it involves acknowledging that... yeah, JC was in fact abusive towards WWX and taught him to put JC ahead of himself in every respect.

And the whole “JC doesn’t need to be grateful because he didn’t ask for this” is like... sure, okay, but he should at least acknowledge what WWX gave up for him? He should recognize how much love and devotion such a huge sacrifice would have demanded? But he doesn’t. I really do get the sense that this was something he expected WWX to do. This was the required level of self-sacrifice. He doesn’t treat it as something incredible that very few people would have the will to do to themselves with such terrible odds no matter how much they loved the other person, he takes it as rightful payment for his family’s deaths. It’s not “Oh, how could you do such a huge thing”; it’s “It is right and just that you would sacrifice everything in payment for deaths that weren’t even your fault but also how dare you permanently outdo me and then not even spend the rest of your life as my servant”. So... yeah, the golden core transfer is a combination of WWX’s desperation on seeing his brother committing slow suicide right in front of him and JC himself teaching WWX that that level of sacrifice would be acceptable that led to WWX feeling that giving up his golden core would be something that JC would be okay with without even feeling the need to ask him (never mind that he didn’t have the ability to ask him because JC refused to speak to him.)