#i think nmj never expected to survive the war against the wen too maybe so after he's both floundering and STILL dying | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

crossdressingdeath · 4 years

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(1/3) It always amuses me how stans try to justify JC actions by his abusive upbringing while there were 3 children in that family and both others turned very kind and/or very moral and not at all like JC (and frankly, he didn't even have the hardest position in the dysfunctional dynamic). Or LXC and LWJ whose upbringing was even more screwed up with a LQ who was certainly playing favorites and wanting perfection, and yet this never draw a wedge between them or created any jealousy.

(2/3)LXC loves for LWJ to excel! Same with "but JC had it so hard rebuilding Lotus Pier, WWX was goofing off with the Wens"...JC was paying people to do that for him, yes, while WWX was trying to start from scratch a settlement over a mountain of corpses with a bunch of weak or old people and not to die of hunger comes winter. While separated from all his friends and hated as a monster by the cultivation world. "But JC was so lonely during the 13/16y, so that justifies him lashing out" And WWX

(3/3) was dead, killed by his brother and thinking that there was not a person left on his side in the end, and yet, that didn't make him act like a dick? Or athg else really, because everything that JC went through in the past, WWX did also, but in a worse way because he lost his parents young, lived in the streets, didn't have JC societal privilege or money and has to harness an unstable necromancy practice on top of that. And yet no one uses it as arguments to explain his actions, only for JC

Honestly? While none of the Jiang kids were in a good position, out of the three of them... JC did have it the easiest. It was still awful for him, don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting his childhood didn’t suck, but given it was made very clear to JYL that her only purpose was to be married off to JZX so her mother could tie her bloodline to her best friend’s and WWX was treated like a servant at best... Yeah. If I had to pick, I’d choose having a distant father and dealing with a mother who’s constantly emotionally abusive over having a distant father and dealing with a mother who’s constantly emotionally abusive and being treated like a bargaining chip/treated like a servant and/or bastard and being whipped for actions that would get the rest of the clan a lecture at worst. Again, I’m not saying JC didn’t have it bad, but his siblings having it worse is... interesting, given neither of them decided to be dicks to Literally Everyone over it.

I do have to say, even though this is about JC, there’s nothing suggesting LQR was playing favourites with LXC and LWJ. He was strict, yes, probably stricter than he should’ve been, and LXC probably did get more one-on-one interaction with him, but given LXC was going to be sect leader/became sect leader at a young age that makes sense. This is not super important to the point of this post, but I do find it odd how often people make LQR out to be this horrible person who’s always awful to his nephews because he’s Strict when we... don’t actually know anything about how he raised them. I don’t like him all that much, and he probably didn’t do a fantastic job of raising them, but the man did try, and he clearly wants his nephews to be safe and happy (even though he has inaccurate views of what that entails...), and given how the parents/parental figures of the cast generally act he deserves some credit for that. Also the Twin Jades ended up considerably better-adjusted than most of their age group, which... isn’t saying much all things considered but it does say something. If nothing else neither of them seem to feel actively unsafe around him, so he’s definitely not the worst parental figure in this novel.

...I had a surprising number of thoughts on LQR there. Whoops, sorry about the tangent. Maybe I’ll make a post about him at some point. Anyway, yeah, LXC and LWJ clearly adore each other! LXC would be delighted if LWJ surpassed him at something! Same with Nie bros; they argue a lot, but there’s no denying that they love each other. That’s what insults and threats out of love look like; NMJ threatens NHS all the time, but NHS clearly isn’t all that bothered by it until JGY starts fucking with NMJ’s mind and the threats become more serious, which really isn’t NMJ’s fault. It’s because in the other sibling relationships both parties are invested in staying close. They love each other and want to be close for the rest of their lives! Meanwhile JC is obsessed with WWX outperforming him at Literally Everything, and WWX genuinely believes that JC is allowed to treat him the way he does and it’s fine and healthy.

And yeah, JC wasn’t exactly rebuilding Lotus Pier all by his lonesome with his own two hands. In fact, going by what we see all the rebuilding was done well before WWX left! And I don’t doubt for a second that WWX was involved in that process; I have very mixed feelings about the scene in CQL where he blows off his duties to go and get drunk, because on the one hand it does do a good job of showing just how bad his mental state is getting (and how JC refuses to acknowledge it despite WWX obviously being Not Okay), but on the other hand... I just can’t see WWX not throwing himself into helping JC with everything he’s got even while his mental state is coming crashing down around him. I mean, this is the guy who created an incredibly powerful weapon that even he couldn’t fully control, not knowing what using it would do to him, to help his brother win a war. I’m pretty much certain that WWX ran himself into the ground helping JC rebuild and run the sect... then when he found himself in charge of a small group of desperate people, scrambling to keep them fed and clothed and healthy, JC just abandoned him to deal with it on his own.

And the whole “Oh, but JC was so lonely, don’t you feel bad for him?” shtick. I hate it so much. If he didn’t want to be lonely, he should’ve considered that before alienating everyone in his age group and leading an army to murder his brother, the only person left who was willing to put up with him! It’s... really hard to feel bad for someone who’s brought most of their suffering on themselves through a series of generally shitty and frequently downright cruel actions with easily foreseeable consequences. If he got sick of being alone, he should’ve apologized to his peers for being a dick to... literally all of them and tried to make amends and strike up some sort of relationship. Or, if that didn’t work, go out! Meet new people! Try not to be as awful to them! Also, he’s a sect leader. If he couldn’t even maintain a positive relationship with other sect leaders, people who, let me remind you, he has to work with on a regular basis and several of whom are actually nice and friendly people, that is on him. If you are awful to people you will end up alone. And then JC decided to respond to learning that the people he was a dick to every time he saw them (and, in LWJ and NHS’s cases, caused the death of someone they cared about) wanted nothing to do with him... by whining about how lonely he was as if that wasn’t largely his fault. Like, he lost his family and that’s awful, but he could have had friends to help him through his grief, and it’s his own damn fault that he doesn’t.

WWX’s life was miserable. He had plenty of friends, yeah, but he spent years on the streets after his parents died brutal deaths; was raised in a family where he was treated like a servant and a scapegoat; lost everything in an event he was blamed for despite having nothing to do with the attack; had to sacrifice his incredibly powerful golden core (thereby losing his primary means of defending himself while on the run and drastically shortening his lifespan) to keep his brother from letting himself die; was thrown into a corpse pit for three months where he had to create an entirely new and experimental (and as such incredibly dangerous) form of cultivation and probably resort to cannibalism just to survive; had to fight a war almost immediately after escaping; spent a... good portion of time (not sure how long exactly because the MDZS timeline is more a suggestion than an actual coherent timeline) being treated alternately as a tame pet or a rabid animal and having to pretend everything was just fine while everyone tried to either control him or remove him and his brother very obviously got increasingly resentful of his skill and power; had to abandon his home, his family, and everything he had left of his old life to save a bunch of innocent people while everyone, including his brother, acted like he’d gone mad for not wanting to let them die horribly; had to go back to the corpse pit he spent three months in because it was the only place where they might be safe; accidentally killed his brother-in-law due to losing control after being ambushed on the way to a celebration for his nephew that he was invited to by people he trusted, almost certainly making him wonder on at least some level if that was why he was invited; lost two members of his new family who he clearly loved because of said accidental murdering; learned their deaths were for nothing and, when he retaliated against the planned attack that shouldn’t have happened because that’s what WQ and WN gave their lives to prevent, saw his beloved sister die to save him; and, after all that, lost the rest of his new family to a siege on a civilian population led by his brother. And after all that, his response was... to destroy the incredibly dangerous weapon he’d made because he didn’t trust the sects to not destroy each other and themselves with it and kill himself rather than risk losing control again and hurting anyone else. In the novel too; I don’t doubt for a second that WWX planned on dying in that siege, even if he didn’t expect destroying the seal to do it.

Take a look at that paragraph. All those things that happened to WWX. And in the end, he was kind. He was so, so kind, and remains kind even after thirteen years of being dead. He would have been well within his rights to go all “Then let me be evil” on the sects, but every time he attacked them they struck first, and most of the serious damage he did happened as a direct result of losing control of his experimental and mostly unknown new cultivation, which is a real risk even with spiritual cultivation; NMJ probably would have happily killed everyone in Qinghe if the qi deviation hadn’t gotten to him first, given how easy it was for him to attack even his beloved little brother. Everything bad that happened to JC is on that list, pretty much. Everything that JC suffered WWX did too, with some variations in the details (and of course dead versus alone for the same period of time). JC had the advantage of a sect at his back and a high rank by virtue of his birth, while WWX’s position was entirely reliant on JFM and, later, JC. And yet some people insist that WWX’s trauma doesn’t excuse his actions but JC’s somehow does. Now, some people argue it’s different because WWX was a mass murderer. Yeah, well, JC’s a fucking serial killer, and he doesn’t have the excuse of losing control due to using resentful energy to cultivate and being attacked by everyone he’d ever known and trusted.

...I’ve kind of lost track of where I’m going with this. Short version: I very strongly disagree with anyone who insists WWX’s trauma doesn’t excuse his actions while bending over backwards to argue that JC’s trauma excuses his.

#well that got... long #and probably not super fun #i have Thoughts about this particular subject it seems #grapehate #asks #anon

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ibijau · 4 years

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Worst engagement AU // On AO3

I think the Nie bros’ father probably died earlier than what I’m doing here, but it’s my fic and this is more convenient for me

nhs is almost 15, lxc is 17, nmj is 20

Nie Mingjue looks as if he hasn't slept in weeks, and startles when Lan Xichen puts a hand on his shoulder.

“You must be tired of hearing it,” he says, “but I'm sorry for your loss.”

It's just the two of them and the coffin in this room, away from the main halls. Because of their sects' alliance, the Lans arrived early for the funeral to help. There's a lot to take care of. Qingheng-Jun even left his seclusion for the occasion, and Lan Qiren came as well. They have offered to handle Qinghe Nie's daily business for a bit, so that Nie Mingjue can focus on the funeral.

While they're meeting the elders of Qinghe Nie, Lan Xichen was sent to retrieve Nie Mingjue. They were told he had not left his father's side since he died, to compensate for the fact that he could not be there during his long agony. Someone had to make sure the sect kept functionning.

“At this point it's almost a relief,” Nie Mingjue whispers, his voice hollow. “There was no way for him to survive this and he just... wasn't dying. For weeks. It's... Am I unfilial for being glad he's finally gone?”

Lan Xichen is never one for physical contact, it's not something he was taught to do.

He still hugs Nie Mingjue, because that's all he can do. It is unfilial to wish for one's father's death, but after such a prolonged agony, and in such circumstances... Lan Xichen would fight anyone who would dare to blame Nie Mingjue for wanting this over.

Nie Mingjue returns the hug, a little too tight. Lan Xichen lets him.

“It's going to be fine,” he mumbles, and that's a lie, and he knows it, but he can't bear to tell the truth. Nie Mingjue too must know that it's not true, that things have just changed in a way none of them are prepared to handle, but he doesn't call him out on it.

They stay like that for a while, until Nie Mingjue pulls away and turns to quietly wipe his eyes. Lan Xichen looks at the coffin to pretend he doesn't notice. It's a big coffin, but it still feels too small for the man it contains. Sect Leader Nie, like his eldest son, was a tall man with a personality that filled up all the space around him, making everyone around him feel small.

Maybe they should have all expected something like this to happen. Wen Ruohan could only tolerate feeling small for so long.

“I'm going to ask your father and uncle to take Huaisang along when you all go home,” Nie Mingjue announces when his eyes are dry. “So he can be in the next batch of students. The lessons only start in a little over a month anyway.”

Lan Xichen stares at his friend.

He doesn't say 'he's just going to turn fifteen in a few weeks and you always say how immature he is, it's just a waste of everyone's time.'

He also doesn't ask 'you told me he doesn't even have a golden core, what good will it do to him, coming to the Cloud Recesses?'

He doesn't wonder 'are you sure you should be alone? You love your brother and I remember how much I needed mine when our mother died.'

“I thought it was agreed to wait one more year, so all the young masters of the great sects could attend together?” Lan Xichen asks instead. “Isn't it a wasted chance if...”

“I don't want him in the Unclean Realm, not when the Wens could take advantage of our current weakness. I don't know if I can protect everyone else but he... he's my little brother. I've got to at least keep him out of harm's way and he'll be safe there. When's the last time anyone attacked the Cloud Recesses?”

Not since before the rise of the Wen, Lan Xichen thinks. Gusu Lan is a centre of knowledge, it has never been considered a threat by anyone. They've never really had to play the game of alliances until recently, when Qishan Wen made it impossible to stay out of it.

“Uncle and father want to see you,” Lan Xichen suddenly remembers. “We should go see them. I'm sorry, I should have told you first...”

“It's fine. I needed this. Thank you for... thank you.”

After one last look at his father's coffin, Nie Mingjue leaves the room, Lan Xichen following closely behind. They don't speak, because there's really nothing to say. When they reach the hall in which Qinghe Nie's elders have gathered to speak with Qingheng-Jun and Lan Qiren, Nie Mingjue hesitates a moment before going to sit on his father's high chair. Up there, he looks both too old and too young, Lan Xichen thinks. He's just twenty. It's too early for this.

Not that Lan Xichen gets much time to gaze at his friend in his new position. When he tries to sit down, his father stops him and sends him to fetch Nie Huaisang instead, since apparently some of what has been already discussed concerns him. Lan Xichen obeys, as he always obeys his father, but he doesn't like it.

It's stupid to get upset about this, when there are so many things at stake, but Lan Xichen hates being pushed aside, and he hates that suddenly, he's probably going to see his best friend even less than he did before. If Nie Mingjue is like Lan Qiren, he won't have the time for all the Night Hunts they had planned to go on. All Lan Xichen can do now is try to be there for him, in whatever way Nie Mingjue will need him.

He hopes, selfishly, that Nie Mingjue will still need him, that he won't lose his best friend.

He hopes, also, that he'll be able to help if Nie Mingjue does need him. His friend's problems are about to become a lot bigger than they used to be, a lot more serious too.

He hopes that Nie Mingjue is wrong about Qishan Wen, that they won't attack Qinghe, that there won't be a war.

Lan Xichen hopes for many things as he looks for Nie Huaisang.

When he finally finds him after asking some servants, his fiancé is in an isolated, half abandoned corner of the Unclean Realm where he keeps some songbirds in cages. A silly pastime that he'll have to give up someday, since pets are not allowed in the Cloud Recesses. And a hobby that feels inappropriate at the moment. How can Nie Huaisang enjoy his birds when his father just died, when his brother, at barely twenty, has to bear the weight of a sect on his shoulder, the fear of a war in his heart?

“Nie er-gongzi, I find you at last,” Lan Xichen says, startling the other boy. “Your brother wishes to see you.”

“Lan gongzi,” Nie Huaisang mumbles with a quick, clumsy bow. “I'm... I'm glad you're here at last. I didn't know you had arrived, or I'd have been there already.”

Lan Xichen doesn't bother pointing out that they had sent word they were approaching, that they could only arrive today or tomorrow, that as the second young master of his sect, Nie Huaisang needs to step up and start helping his brother.

“Let's just go,” Lan Xichen says. “It would be unwise to make him wait.”

To his credit, Nie Huaisang doesn't protest, and immediately walks away from his bird, ready to dutifully follow Lan Xichen. But then again, he was always good at following people. He's that sort of a person.

As they walk together, Lan Xichen doesn't bother making conversation. He knows from experience that Nie Huaisang never has anything interesting to say, that he always goes half mute with shyness every time someone addresses him. And yet, before very long, Nie Huaisang does the unexpected: he speaks first.

“Are we still going to marry?” he asks, nervously picking at the hem of his sleeve.

Lan Xichen stops in his tracks. He should scold him for talking about something like at such an inappropriate moment, but he's too taken aback by the unexpected question.

“Why wouldn't we?”

Nie Huaisang shrugs and avoids his eyes.

“Why do you think the engagement is off?” Lan Xichen insists, glad that at least, they are still in a part of the Unclean Realm where few people wander.

“I've just heard people talking,” Nie Huaisang mumbles. “The elders are worried.” He bites his lip. “I don't think I should have told you that.”

“No, probably not.”

It is unwise for someone like Nie Huaisang to talk about politics when everyone knows he's not terribly bright and probably doesn't get those things, not the way Lan Xichen does. That's all Lan Xichen meant.

Judging by the panicked look he throws him, Nie Huaisang understood something else entirely.

“Please, tell your father to keep the engagement!” he frantically urges, grabbing Lan Xichen's sleeve. “Please, I'll do better, I'll work hard on my cultivation, I'll never skip sabre practice again, and I'll study and be polite and everything I need to be! But you can't drop the engagement, you can't leave Mingjue alone against the Wens!”

Lan Xichen pulls himself free and stares at his fiancé, stunned by that outburst. That boy is really too pathetic to handle, and he really needs to learn to hold his tongue about political matters.

But that's the thing, he's just a boy of note quite fifteen, hardly older than Lan Xichen's own brother. He's just seen his father slowly agonise for weeks, he's probably seen his brother working himself to half to death learning to handle a position he wasn't quite ready for yet, and now he's worrying about what he can do to keep his sect safe. It's... touching, for lack of a better word.

“That's not how an alliance of that sort works,” Lan Xichen explains, with more patience and kindness than he's ever bothered showing to his unwanted fiancé. “It does not matter if Qinghe Nie's circumstances are complicated at the moment, Gusu Lan will stand with you if needed, and help you until things are better. You don't have to worry.”

“I have plenty to worry about,” Nie Huaisang mutters, refusing again to meet his eyes. “I'm not very bright but I've read histories and tactical works. Gusu Lan wouldn't be the first ones to back down from an alliance because it's no longer advantageous.”

It seems Nie Huaisang has decided that this is a day for surprises.

Strictly speaking, he's not wrong. Things like that happen, alliances change along with circumstances, engagements can be made and unmade depending of the fortune of a family, especially in times such as these. At another time, or said about another sect, Lan Xichen would probably agree with this assessment of the situation.

But it's his sect being accused here, and that can't be allowed, least of all coming from a boy like Nie Huaisang.

“Gusu Lan never backs down on what it promises,” Lan Xichen announces. “We are engaged, and we will stay so. We are allies, and we will stay so. Qinghe Nie doesn't stand alone, and it never will until the danger has passed.”

His tone is too harsh, and indeed Nie Huaisang flinches a little, yet still he smiles weakly at Lan Xichen.

“That's good. I just... I just don't want Nie Mingjue to fight alone. I know I can't do anything more for him, all I can do is stay engaged to you.”

“There's plenty more you can do,” Lan Xichen protests, trying to keep his voice gentle, telling himself that Nie Huaisang is going through a lot and he must be kind. “You're not a child anymore, if you ask Mingjue or the elders, they're sure to find something even you can do.”

“I doubt it,” Nie Huaisang replies with a pout. “I'm just not good at anything.” Then, perhaps remembering that he had just sworn that he'd get more serious if the engagement remained, he quickly added: “But I'll still try! Of course I'll try hard! I don't want to be a burden on anyone. I'll make him proud, and I'll do everything I can to help.”

That seemed doubtful, but Lan Xichen decides not to insist. If Nie Mingjue has his way, Nie Huaisang won't get much of a chance to help around the Unclean Realm, anyway. Instead he'll be coming to Gusu, and hopefully he'll learn a thing or two while there.

It will not be pleasant to have Nie Huaisang in the Cloud Recesses so much earlier than planned, but Lan Xichen will bear with it, for Nie Mingjue's sake.

#xisang #nie huaisang #nie mingjue #lan xichen #mo dao zu shi #in which lxc continues being a little bitch but welpppp that's how it's going to stay for a while lol #at least lxc is a good friend to nmj so that compensates right??#worst engagement au #jau writes #ok I'm off to sleep now because fuck it was not reasonable to write this entire thing in a day oops

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sleepymarmot · 4 years

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Re-liveblog: eps. 22-23

[ep 22]

Ooh, Meng Yao as a spy makes more sense. I was thinking about Qing or Ning and wondering since when either of them counted as Xichen’s “old friend”.

I, of course, immediately accepted he was a spy, even before he was textually declared as such and only just appeared as WRH’s right-hand man. It wasn’t until very recently that my eyes were opened to the fact he did lure the army into a trap, a trap that he personally designed, and the battle was only won thanks to WWX and his secret weapon, which MY couldn’t have predicted, in the show at least. So what was his plan? Was it different in the book? Why would he put LXC in harm’s way, when MY|JGY defined their entire relationship by the avoidance of that?

We’ll only see this in the flashback, but I find it very curious that he let NMJ see his true face and live. And in this episode, we see reaction shots of MY being concerned when NMJ is losing the fight -- and since nobody is looking at him, this reaction must be genuine. Which implies that he is not committed to the Wen cause, and is keeping in mind the consequences of their defeat. It would have been a very bad look for him if the allies won and discovered NMJ recently died in his custody. Too bad MY miscalculated how important the lives of those random Nie cultivators would be to NMJ. If only Meng Yao did anything but kill them, I suspect the course of his relationship with NMJ would run very different.

(It’s also funny that the battle plan includes Missiles That Make People Explode... That are used on a couple of redshirts and not, say, on anyone crucial to the allied war effort, and are never mentioned again. And then WWX stands around for about 10 more minutes before deciding to do something. The direction of this scene is... not the best.)

[ep 23]

It’s painful to watch the fear and reverence Meng Yao still holds for his father figure. The flinching, the hiding, the immediate supplication – when was the last time he felt safe and respected, before the bullying with the Nie and having to watch and even partake in atrocities with the Wen? I hope he can finally have some good things in his life now.

First of all, it’s very funny in retrospect to see myself constantly refer to NMJ as MY’s father figure. Well, it’s not my fault that I wasn’t shown the full scene where MY seductively strokes NMJ’s saber until much later! (Although to be completely fair, considering what JGY eventually did to his father, and what else he did in the tv show knowingly as opposed to accidentally in the novel, maybe these interpretations aren’t as incompatible.)

The interesting thing here is that I, once again, completely bought what MY was selling to NMJ with considerably less success... So my interpretation of this scene was completely off-base -- but on another level, I still agree with my initial assessment.

I pitied MY when I thought the immediate overperformance of submission was his natural unfiltered reaction. Now I find it notable that this is the behavior he intentionally chooses -- both as the default survival mechanism over the course of his life, and in this specific scene. And in this scene, this behavior is targeted at and fine-tuned for LXC -- but not NMJ.

The very first thing MY learned about LXC is his protective instinct over him. The best manipulation is not a lie but the truth with certain omissions; he is afraid for his life when a strong angry man he just wronged is brandishing a giant blade at him -- isn’t it nice to have another strong man whose protection you can guarantee by jumping behind his back and grasping at his clothes helplessly? I mean, it’s not much else he can do in this situation, and when I was watching for the first time, I of course didn’t know he had actually killed people in cold blood a few minutes ago, so in this context his apologetic attitude makes more sense, he should be acting like that. But LXC doesn’t know either, just like a first-time viewer! When MY triggers LXC’s protective instinct by crying for his help personally, presenting it as “us against them” (them as NMJ, in this case), LXC doesn’t see the manipulation. When MY shifts the blame on NMJ -- “It's as you can see. In the situation a moment ago, even if I explained, Clan Leader Nie wouldn’t believe me” -- NMJ sees through the bullshit and even laughs at it, but the spectacle isn’t for him, it's for LXC. And NMJ can see it -- he watches MY the damsel in distress tenderly touch the arm of his valiant defender, watches the tidy, polite, performative way MY kneels to apologize, and sighs -- he knows MY has won this round. At least over LXC.

But in addition to what NMJ already knows and what MY has not repaired, MY makes another important mistake. This part of the scene will only be shown in the ep. 41 flashback, but MY still doesn’t understand NMJ’s worldview and apologizes only for insulting him personally. He not only fails to apologize for taking innocent lives, but tries to defend his decision.

Does MY still care for NMJ? From his concern in the previous episode, it does seem so. Does MY still hope to regain NMJ’s favor? Maybe, but due to a combination of not understanding and not prioritizing NMJ, this is instead the scene where MY loses that favor forever.

The above only applies to The Untamed. In the book (chapter 49) the dynamic is very different. When NMJ awakes, MY is carrying him and Baxia to safety alone. In the show, LXC is present from the beginning of the scene, and MY feels safe enough to play them against each other. In the book, he has no means to protect himself and is absolutely terrified. A very interesting paragraph:

He suddenly shouted, “ChiFeng-Zun!!! Don’t you understand that if I didn’t kill them, you’d be the one who died then?!!”

This was actually the same as saying, ‘I’m the one who saved your life so you can’t kill me or else it’d be immoral.’ However, Jin GuangYao was indeed worthy of his reputation. The same meaning but a different wording, and he was able to create a contained sense of frustration and a reserved sense of sorrow. As he had expected, Nie MingJue’s movement halted. Veins stood out under his forehead.

Having paused for a while, he clenched the hilt of his saber and shouted, “Very well! I’ll kill myself after I kill you!”

In the show, NMJ is already selfless and offended only on behalf of his murdered subordinates -- but the book takes it further, and he’s ready to sacrifice his own life if it means avenging them. Then the entire next paragraph is an almost comical chase where “one striked with madness and the other fled with madness”. When LXC finally showed up, “Meng Yao looked as if he had just seen a god from Heaven. He quickly scrambled over and hid behind the person’s back”.

In other words, the full scene in the book reads almost exactly as the incomplete version of it in episode 23 looked to me on the first viewing. There’s no layer of manipulation -- Meng Yao simply is terrified of one man and seeks protection from another. And most of the dialogue is the same -- but just via the staging and acting choices, the scene gains a second, darker meaning. Which fits with the show’s tendency to villify Jin Guangyao. He can’t even beg for his life without it being a manipulation! What in the book was a wholly sympathetic moment of desperation for him, in the show is made calculated and two-faced.

Back to The Untamed!

LOVE how Xichen immediately calls him “A-Yao” while standing right between his shitty fathers

Lol, this was truly a moment for the ages! Too bad we only saw NMJ’s reaction (because he was in the frame with LXC) -- I really want a reaction shot from JGS to this!

The following private conversation between JGY and LXC caused me almost physical pain on rewatch... A note from this (third, I think?) viewing: the line “I’ve followed Clan Leader Nie for so long. I know his intentions. I have also never taken it to heart before” which is a perfect continuation of the previous scene: JGY paints NMJ as unreasonable, and himself as selfless and accommodating. Oh, and of course makes LXC say “No-no of course I didn’t mean you were evil!!” I also continue to feel like I’m the one stabbed in the heart by their sad smiles, when they both know something is ending but can’t or won’t talk about it -- but I’m preaching to the choir here.

What I do want to comment on is another thing missing from the written liveblog -- on my first viewing I apparently misunderstood the conclusion of the scene. What I thought was happening: JGY did proceed to enact the plan he described; the “old, weak, women, and children” he offers to send to Qiongqi Path were sent there, and were the same group of people later rescued by WWX and led to Burial Mounds; the small group of people JGY had with him under arrest are “those who really had a hand in the bloodshed” whom he openly proposes to execute, to which LXC agrees; and the twist at the end is that he relished in overseeing or even performing the execution himself, seemingly in a very brutal way.

But according to this analysis, which I trust, JGY immediately broke his word and executed the innocent prisoners that he promised to only imprison. This would definitely make more sense for the drama of the scene and the meaningful look JGS gives him... But there were only few people under arrest in this scene, and none seemed too old or too young, and where in this case did the Wen remnants of the Qiongqi Path who latter committed the Burial Mounds exodus come from?

[Episodes 4&10]

#the untamed #jin guangyao #nie mingjue #lan xichen #jgyreliveblog #this has been sitting in my drafts for like a month for no real reason #so some of these points may have been addressed by things i've written or reblogged since then #i had to take out the external link to the mdzs chapter so that the post could show up in the tag #sorry about that

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wandering-bitch · 3 years

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Annotations on Falling in Love with Love (Again)

FiLwL(A) is my 3zun cinderella which is actually just about the importance of qin su and also reuniting with your exes. Here’s my behind the scenes/notes/lore for chapters 9-11.

ch 9: nie mingjue being hot

i wrote this before i’d even written the Murder in ch 6;;;;; i just love nie mingjue

i so deeply believe in nie mingjue being smart and able to see through meng yao because he’s straightforward and strategic.

“hmm” i said to myself. “how do i write the bois getting together??” after much thought i decided on “by stabbing one of them a bunch”

bits of this are still funny to me. rip meng yao sometimes you gotta be up close and personal with a hot dude’s bare sweaty chest

also my version of “romantic and sensual” is just “doing math and deciding yeah, against your better judgement, you’re gonna smooch” because i love an overthinking murder twink

“on the bright side, the late-night guest was not jin guangshan’s type. unfortunately he was exactly meng yao’s type: nie mingjue” i can’t believe i let myself write this, bc it feels way too modern, but also the tone of this fic is just sarcastic enough that modern grouchy shit works

ever since i discovered that camel was a delicacy in tang china i became OBSESSED with it. i nearly included it in ‘i have always loved the door’ and it makes an appearance in ‘blood in the cut’

the guan reappears!! or at least is mentioned.in case u forgot it from chapter 1 it is Definitely Not A Glass Slipper Or Anything

“i love ruining a twink’s life” i said in the author’s notes. i was not lying. my hobbies are making nie mingjue look cool and making jin guangyao suffer.

“xichen was disappointed when he didn’t see you there” “and you of course, weren’t” “on the contrary i was happy to see you” is one of the exchanges that was like. core to this fic. similar to “i met someone” “i don’t know what you want me to say to that” “neither do i”

when outlining fics i tend to include some key dialogue/exchanges that strike me as the Mood TM and half the time these exchanges go through incredible rewrites or just get deleted, but it’s always nice to see them survive

the xiangqi was so much fun to write, not bc i have played the game a bunch (i haven’t) but bc it gave me a fun way to talk about the conversation without talking about the conversation.

“a controlled leak qould have been very useful” makes me so happy it’s such a MOOD and nie mingjue immediately going heart-eyes over it is complete wish fulfillment. when will a hot sword lesbian be enamored over my ruthless scheming???? im taking sword lesbian gf applications over in my ask box

“But it hadn’t been easy” this paragraph originally included “Nie Mingjue had broadened his moral compass, and Meng Yao had learned to trust” or something but i couldn’t really figure out how meng yao would describe his own personal growth since he left qinghe. like he DID grow he DID learn that he can trust the people he loves to trust him and that it’s worth bringing people in on your schemes and plans.... but he’s too dumb to describe this.

the xiyao troll’s comment on this was “LMFAO that oocness from both meng yao and nmj where nmj is suddenly JGY levels of cunning and JGY is dumb enough to make mistakes XD”

this has stuck with me so hard

how do you read Falling in Love with Love and only discover after 16k words that i think meng yao makes mistakes?????

how do u consume any adaptation of mdzs and think that nmj isn’t smart enough to go “huh that cunning twink who is absolutely mooning over me and xichen and also plays weiqi like my old buddy seems REAL FUCKING FAMILIAR” nmj canonically sees thru jgy machinations all the time

anyway i love nmj and the xiyao troll

did you know there’s an exchange to celebrate the troll’s works??? i discovered it after signups closed but im going to enjoy reading all of them

ch 10: and with very little trouble

this took me like a month to write oops but that’s just because a lot has to happen

the opening where meng yao is being mean to qin su was so hard to write. meng yao getting overworked?? fine. meng yao getting abused??? cool. meng yao being slightly short with his sister, who is in no way hurt by this bc she can tell it’s not about her??? HORRIBLE!!!

the detective scene happened. there’s not a lot to say about it, i don’t think, except to note that han meilin did try to stand up for qin su

ch 11: impossible things are happening every day

cinderella time mother fuckers!!! this is another one that took time!!

ch 10 took time bc i wasn’t 100% sure how it would play out

this took time bc even though i knew exactly what would happen and how, it has to be Real Good, y’know? it’s tying up the entire fic. if these 2k words don’t work, then the rest of the fic will feel less good and ppl won’t come back to it

(please everyone come back to this over and over if only to laugh at my obvious qin su agenda)

qin su and meng yao fighting over who gets to take the fall for their joint murder. i love them.

i wasn’t planning for this fic to start the sunshot campaign but here we are. in the war.

How did this version of the sunshot campaign go? Well. not good. because someone has no reason to invent necromancy. But not as poorly as you’d think. Jiang Sect isn’t destroyed, and the Cloud Recesses are functional (although not at full capacity), so they have more strength on hand. Plus, Meng Yao encouraged Koi Tower to funnel money and resources into the Qin Sect, specifically so if the war started before he expected it to (whoops!!! it did!!!!), those resources would be somewhere he could encourage to fight.

on the one hand, the sunshot campaign’s territory is divided in half by the wens. on the other hand, that means the wens are fighting on both the northern and southern border (since, again, jiang sect is still alive)

anyway i’d say it’s a more steady war, as opposed to my recollection of canon where like. everyone’s fucking miserable until our sexy goth boi comes out with his corpses and wrecks shop.

then han meilin and qin su look at their families and say “if you do not let us marry right now in a way that combines our sects equally...... we will just do it anyway.”

(meng yao in the background, holding a thin knife: fucking try me. try me. i want you to be mean to my sister just so i can stab you with my knives.)

anyway it’s time for the epilogue where meng yao is vice general and there is no more wen sect

(have i thought about the dafan wens in this ‘verse? no. i probably should not, either, as wwx would be less ride-or-die for them and that means maybe wen qing and wen ning would die in a war camp)

never mind!!! happy thoughts only!!!! like how qin su and meng yao are getting ready to kill again bc they are the bi crime sibling club!!!!

jin zixuan is invited to family brunch but he’s never invited to bi crime sibling club because qin su and meng yao refuse to let him lose his innocence.

“ge, jie, i’m married with children, i don’t have any innocence to lose--” “oh didi, precious baby, our infant brother, shining beacon of our heart...”

mo xuanyu is also forbidden from joining bi crime club. he’s too baby.

they do discover other jin bastards and invite them to lunch and sure, there might eventually be another bi criminal.

3zun visits each other in 2 month chunks, with one to two month breaks as needed. so the epilogue is the beginning of 2 months hanging out in meng yao’s house, and then later in the year they’ll hang out in the cloud recesses or whatever

qin su and meng yao both have secret lists of places to acquire babies for each other. han meilin knows about both of these lists and laughs every time she sees the same orphanages on both lists.

the final comment from the xiyao troll on this was: “Interesting choice to write a bland ooc AU, but I guess this is all you can manage with your writing skill. ;) This way you don't have to worry about JGY lying to Xichen for years, murdering NMJ, attempting to murder Xichen's family in the second siege, stealing secrets from the Lan sect, corrupting a healing song Xichen trusted him with, and fully betraying LXC's and NMJ's trust.”

like. yeah. of course i sidestepped the bad things. that’s what a fix-it au is for. it’s where i say “here’s an alternate universe, where certain bad things do not happen.” it’s where i say “if meng yao had always had qin su around to counteract the messaging his mother gave him, he might not have gone so far in his quest for power”. duh.

also like kiddo, troll, friend. the pitch for this fic is “cinderella except with murder and qin su rights”. i’ve been clear from the top that this is an Indulgent Fic with No Pretenses of Quality. im proud of some sentences and passages, but this ain’t Blood In The Cut where im tryna Say something or either of my jiang cheng-centric fics where im focusing on good characterization.

it’s a cozy murder where qin su gets to live and have a cool wife

#behind the scenes #my fic #falling in love with love

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