#it looks like what LXC and JGY are doing! that’s why they’re doing it!
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There’s a lot of analysis about WWX and JGY being impacted by the power of public (mis)perception, but I think we need to give more attention to the continued persistence of “Hanguang-jun is an impeccably upright gentleman” as Universal Jianghu Knowledge even though LWJ is routinely rude as hell. Please give him the credit he’s due for being an asshole and stop inviting him to functions. He is trying so hard not to come.
#we know what admirable courtesy looks like in this society!#it looks like what LXC and JGY are doing! that’s why they’re doing it!#JGY is doing it bc he very much does want to be invited to the functions#LXC is doing it bc he feels it’s the right thing to do bc he very much COULD be a douche if he wanted with minimal impact#Lan Wangji
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I made a post talking about my frustration with Lxc mischaracterization and several people mentioned in the tags the adjacent fanon Lxc problem, aka the “himbo” characterization.
Himbo is now just one of those internet words that has been so overused and thrown out of its original context that to me it almost has no meaning. My eyes sort of just glaze over it, which might be why it doesn’t bother me as much. But as far as mischaracterization goes— oh definitely Lxc is not at all a himbo.
Definitions vary but in my opinion to be a himbo one must be three things:
1) Obviously strong
To be a himbo it’s not enough to just be strong, you must be visibly strong. Bimbo and himbo’s were originally negative descriptors given to hot people who were supposedly stupid. What I’m getting at is it’s a visual aesthetic. If a character’s strength isn’t immediately identifiable then they’re not a himbo. I’m not talking “has to have a six pack,” I’m talking clothing that inadvertently reveals their strength. It’s about how they present themselves the same way bimbo is about how you present yourself. To be clear the majority of characters aren’t aware of the himbo label but they are conscious of the way they dress. They’re not dressing to fit a mold they’re dressing to show off in a way they think is cool. (Ex: characters like Itto and Galo walking around shirtless for the vibe)
2) Dumb in an oblivious way
Himbos aren’t book smart, nor are they great at grasping highly technical things, but they do shock everyone around them with their emotional intelligence. This trait comes from the newer, more positive interpretation of the label that the internet has created. Himbos are no longer flat out stupid, no they’re just a little dumb but they have a big heart. It’s the simplicity in their logic that allows them to be so straightforward and cut through the bs to the humanity of any given issue. However, it also means a lot goes over their heads. The obliviousness is the key to their dumb characterization because it’s what allows them to be so open and loud about what they believe in.
3) Kind
I already partially touched on this in the previous blurb but apart of the new understanding of a himbo is their capacity for kindness. Usually himbos are written to have strong internal moral codes that are very simple, but it’s the simplicity that allows them to see past the cultural norms and politics and just be respectful to everyone regardless of their background. That’s why people often say himbos can’t be sexist, racist, etc. Which I mostly agree with, but I do think that there are levels to this. I think if we’re discussing characters, himbos are allowed some minor prejudices as a flaw that they then work through. Sokka, while not a himbo, is a good example of a character who starts a series with a flaw (sexism) that comes from a well meaning place but grows from it. The important thing is the capacity to respect everyone.
Now Lxc does have some of these traits but he doesn’t display them in a way that matches what a himbo is.
Stength:
He’s very strong both in his cultivation and physically. Too bad we can’t see that just by looking at him.
Oblivious:
Lxc’s whole thing is that he’s literally book smart. Never once is oblivious to a situation. He purposely allows himself some blissful ignorance when it came to the situation between Jgy and Nmj but that was his one selfish act. He’s well adept when it comes to handling politics more so than anyone in the book. If you think that Lxc’s internal logic is simplistic that’s a fundamental misunderstanding of his character. The dumbest he ever gets is tied to class, where he struggles to do daily chores, and even then he’s never shown to be oblivious to the social hierarchy.
Kindness:
This is probably the trait Lxc embodies the most. He is very kind. That being said his internal logic system is not simplistic at all. Lxc is a lot more morally grey than he seems at first glance. While he feels strongly about not judging others based on their backgrounds he also has a deep understanding of exactly why certain people aren’t accepted in the first place. He understands his status and accepting Jgy was absolutely a calculated move on his part. It was coming from a good place but he also understood the delicacy of the situation. If he were actually a himbo he would’ve had none of that delicacy and pitched a very loud fit over it.
All of this is to say he’s no where near the realm of himbo. I think the only types of people who refer to him as one are typically the same people who only engage with his character on the most surface level. They mean well because it’s supposed to be a compliment— which might be why I don’t mind it as much— but it’s also just fundamentally the exact opposite of his character. He’s a passive reserved artist who’s been forced into a leadership position where he has to navigate politics.
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Back in uhh May, @wishthefish sent a drabble prompt which was: “xiyao with children, and they’re obsessed with slime. That stuff that is so hard to clean off things. Both LXC and JGY are against it (but jgy tends to indulge children…)”
(I went a bit off track, but today I got inspired for this because I thought of who exactly bought them the slime! Anyway here are 1000 words of rather self indulgent xiyao parenting! Bit of struggle, bit of flirting.)
Since Jin Guangyao returned to work full time, he’s been doing as well as he ever did on the professional side of things - but the anxiety never fully left him. He's handling it, but merely “handling it” is not the standard of excellence he aspires to.
He’s doing his very best not to be a helicopter parent, not to text every hour, not to install several cameras in the house and connect them straight to his work monitors—actually, that idea is still on the table. Wei Wuxian has already sent him a few links to purchase the equipment at a discount.
In short, Jin Guangyao is all too aware of the innumerable bad things that can happen to a child. Two children. Adventurous ones. His husband thinks everything will be just fine, but his husband has a remarkably optimistic outlook on life that Jin Guangyao doesn’t share.
Fortunately, technology is wonderful - and the next best thing to ubiquity. Jin Guangyao works from home three days a week and hires the best babysitter money can buy the other two. He interviewed over thirty of them, and dug criminally deep into their records before confirming his choice.
On the weekends, he and Lan Xichen are obviously dead to the world, since it’s the only time they are both home. Sometimes Lan Wangji will offer to babysit, perhaps in return for the many times Xichen had done so for him - but it happens rarely and, out of unbecoming possessiveness, Jin Guangyao almost prefers it that way. Jingyi won’t shut up about uncle Wangji already.
Lan Xichen takes over in the afternoons most days - it’s easier for him to take the evening off because he works in the family business; Lans, all of them, schedule their meetings at ungodly AM in the morning and often leave the rest of the day for personal pursuits, be it the gym, research or whatever else.
It was working, it really was, until one day Jin Guangyao gets home to three pairs of big, apologetic cow eyes welcoming him in the lobby as he enters, guilt written all over three beloved faces.
“What are you doing?” he asks, eyeing his twins and Xichen sitting on the floor in a line. His husband is in the lotus position, and he can tell the twins have tried and failed to copy him - mostly from the way they’re sitting all crab-legged and red-faced, but thankfully not crying.
“We are meditating,” Lan Xichen says, in a transparent attempt to sound serene, “on some things we should not do again, and why we shouldn’t.”
“I see,” Jin Guangyao carefully replies, putting down his satchel. “And what are some of these things, out of curiosity?”
Without saying a word, Rusong points to the living room, ever the little tattletale.
Jin Guangyao hears Lan Xichen sigh before he takes in the sight of his living room - his pride and joy - now looking like a crime scene. A quick prod with his foot tells him it is neither blood nor strawberry jam that is splattered on the white couch. On the carpet. On the tv. And somehow, up in the air conditioner filters.
“What is it?”
Lan Xichen replies from the corridor. “Slime, I am told. It’s not harmful, just… hard to clean.”
Jin Guangyao sighs. “Well, let’s clean up. Take them to their room, I’m sure they’ve learned the lesson.” Still in his suit, he starts googling how to clean up slime while Lan Xichen ushers the kids to bed.
He does, however, take off his tailored pants to kneel and scrub the carpet. He is still working on it - vinegar, water and elbow grease - when Lan Xichen returns, looking so, so remorseful. And like he absolutely wasn’t caught peeking at his bum - because he’s currently feeling remorseful, of course.
“I’m sorry, A-Yao. Let me take over the scrubbing.”
Jin Guangyao lets him, if just to appreciatively consider the sliver of skin revealed above his waistband when he bends.
“Who bought them this? I know you didn’t, gege. Fess up.” If he knows his husband, he knows Lan Xichen would never do anything so unwise. He may indulge the kids, but he is a very convincing person, certainly capable of diverting them towards a more palatable, preferably harmless toy if the need arises.
“Huaisang brought it and I didn’t get to intercept before he handed it to them,” Lan Xichen admits, sitting up on his haunches with a browbeaten expression.
“So that’s why you were in timeout, too?” Jin Guangyao chuckles, giving him a teasing side glance.
“I should have acted faster,” Lan Xichen says, with disproportionate gravity. Done with the carpet, he stands up and wipes his hands thoroughly before pulling Jin Guangyao into a half hug. He props his head on top of Jin Guangyao’s, heaves a sigh that echoes through his skull. “I’m sorry, A-Yao.”
Jin Guangyao frowns but doesn’t move. “It’s just a couch, gege. We can replace the upholstery.”
“Yes. But I meant… I’m sorry I dismissed your worries so carelessly, when we talked about babysitting. Acting like parenting is easy or-or fun at all times, was really presumptuous of me.”
Well. If it took only a couch to get Lan Xichen to accept Jin Guangyao’s concerns as legitimate (and let him install some cameras), it was all worth it.
“Apology accepted,” he murmurs, pulling back from the hug just to lean up on his tiptoes and tease Lan Xichen’s lower lip. “This A-Yao really needs a shower now, but perhaps my husband could give me a hand with that?”
Xichen blushes happily, then seems to catch himself. “Ah, yes. But before that, there’s one more tub of that unfortunate substance to deal with in the kitchen. They… they tried to make a smoothie with it.”
Jin Guangyao’s eyebrow twitches, which is as much distress as he is willing to display when he’s angling for *at least* a handjob.
“Alright. You do that. I’m going to call Nie Huaisang to thank him for the gift.”
#xiyao#Xiyao drabbles#I don’t usually write pure domesticity so I hope you like it?#ask box#Lan xichen#jin Guangyao#baby cameos
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Thanks for answering my ask.....if you don't mind me asking (again), can I ask your top 5 (or top 3) favorite characters from MDZS? And why do you love them? And your top 5 (or top 3) favorite moments from the novel? Sorry if you've answered this question before....Thanks....
Hello again! Alright, so mdzs list this time!
Favorite Characters:
Wei Wuxian: he’s smart, quick on his feet, a genius in his field, charming, a good person, innocent in love, strong in his morals, willing to fight for what he believes in and what is right even if it makes him enemy to all, has faith in himself, doesn’t shrink away from his emotions, unwilling to delude himself to reality even if it looks bleak, etc etc; he is literally the perfect protagonist in every single way
Lan Wangji: perfect compliment to wwx; they match each other so well in most of the things I listed for wwx but replace the “charming” with “takes no shit” and we got a winner
3, 4, and 5 (in no particular order). Wen Qing, Jiang Yanli, and a-Qing: I know people like to call mxtx misogynistic because “she kills off women!” and “they’re not main characters!” but I would argue that 1) that’s dumb because most of the characters we are introduced to in mdzs are already dead and 2) mxtx writes her female characters as people rather than props. I was enamored with these characters at their every appearance, however short, because they felt so real and expressive. I could get personality and motives, tell what they’d like and what would piss them off, come to enjoy them so much that I felt pain knowing they were already gone. This is the skill of mxtx’s writing.
Favorite Scenes!
Drunken shenanigans #2 where wangxian play the “catch me, kiss me” game, then wwx kisses him on the lips and lwj promptly knocks himself the fuck out lmao
Drunken shenanigans #3/bath tub sex (I feel like this is pretty self-explanatory)
Incense Burner dream #1 where wwx shows lwj his first-life daydreams of retiring to a remote farm together and it’s so innocent, only for lwj’s graphic teenage sex dream to also be revealed; also the actual sex scene
When wwx and lwj put nmj’s body back together sans the head, both of them tell lxc the likely murder of his sword brother is jgy, and lxc says that he is willing to vouch that jgy would never do such a thing… then the chapter immediately ends and the next starts with us seeing that jgy did, in fact, do such a thing and soooooo much worse right in lxc’s face LOL
Second Siege of the Burial Mounds, which between wwx telling the cultivation world that he will NOT bear their resentment as if he’s guilty for having acted against them, the Wen remnants choosing to rescue the people who killed them simply because of their gratefulness to wwx for trying to save them once, the reveal to the CHILDREN how corrupt their parents actually are to have gleefully killed a bunch of defenseless people before desecrating their bodies and lying about it, and how the adults who said they were justified to kill wwx and the wen remnants are the ones shamed by the end? There’s just so many winners in this part
#mdzs asks#dnana 2809 blog#should’ve done this ask yesterday so anon could’ve really been pissed lmao#but yes the sex scenes are really some of my favs in this book#for the sex yes but also other reasons#there’s levels
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yknow what. yes. jgy IS a rat. just a little guy who’s really smart and a great companion, but people are prejudiced against and think the worst of him.
which is why i propose: a modern jgy with a rat as a pet.
the name he gives it is either very Human or the exact opposite, like salted caramel or three plums. despite the fact that he’s busy he always makes sure to hang out together. he’s also wildly protective of it and while doesn’t have people over that often, he Super doesn’t have people over until he’s sure they’re not the “ew rat!!” kinda ones. (xy and sms are on the Good People list; xy is fucking fascinated by the little guy and asks if it can do any cool tricks and sms is awkward/shy around it but often observes from a distance with clear interest)
(jgy already likes lxc a lot but something in him goes soft and warm when, upon accidentally seeing rat pics on jgy’s phone, lxc goes oh it’s so tiny! look at its little feet! in a very cute voice)
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All the Things We’ll Leave Behind: ch 33, pt 6
Previously
~
lwj pulled his head out of the water, continuing to push himself forward with strokes and kicks as he looked for his first obstacle. The general idea of this event was simple enough: throughout the lake—or at least whatever portion Madam Yu had cordoned off for it—there were a number of platforms, where different challenges waited for them. There was then a specific challenge that would allow you access to the challenges set up back on shore. To win, you had to obtain a token from each of the challenges and be the first to present them to Madam Yu—the prize being a chaperoned date with jyl and—in theory—an elevated chance of winning her as a mate.
The key term here was obtain. You didn’t actually have to earn tokens from each challenge, you simply had to have them on your person. The tokens awarded to the winners of each round of a challenge were worth two participation tokens, and stealing tokens, either from the manager of the challenge or another competitor, wasn’t only within the rules but actively encouraged. It was considered in poor taste to not earn at least a few. Given the way zjd was still lingering at shore, however, lwj wasn’t sure his intention wasn’t to wrestle the tokens away from whoever looked too worn out from their own participation to protect their winnings. lwj bristled thinking at that. Even alpha who were known for bending the rules generally partook in events like these with more dignity than that—although, those events were meant to be fun, not actual mating events. Pride was a serious thing for most alphas, though, and to not take part at all was asking to be ridiculed. For the British alpha to be treating it so trivially…
“Which ones you thinking?” his friend asked, slowing his swimming just a few feet away from him.
lwj shifted his weight, cycling his legs under him to stay afloat while they looked around. He recognized a number of the challenges, but from what his brother-in-law had said, there were dozens of potential challenges for the coordinators to choose from. His information had instead largely focused on the ones to avoid—to instead watch and try to swipe a token off someone who did risk participating in them, or wait for the attendant to be distracted and steal one straight from the source. nmj had also made sure to mention the ones that were the quickest and easiest.
“The key,” nmj had explained, after lxc had forced him to call instead of trying to communicate so much via messages, “is to win as many as you can as fast as you can without losing too much energy. Then, you become target number one for those inclined to steal. Well… I’m sure you can guess what you do to the people stupid enough to target you.”
lwj had been able to hear the cruelty in the man’s voice. So had his brother, and he and jzxuan had sat, eating breakfast and listening to the threesome argue over whether setting up traps for your opponents in silly, college events was good sportsmanship or not. nmj and jgy had been for traps, while his brother had been against them. jgy had spent a while defending nmj, and now that lwj knew the beta man had been a fan of the alpha during their college days…
Well, regardless, his brother had taken their shared opinion as “ganging up on him,” which was why none of them were in attendance at the event, nmj and jgy trying to “make it up to him.” The fact that a young omega had appeared shortly before the event started to hand Jingjing over to cym—who, based on the way the child had reached for her, lwj was sure knew about the thruple’s existence—he very much did not want to know how they were making it up to him.
jzxuan had shared no such qualms, nodding to himself as he’d said, “I guess they’re still ganging up on your brother.”
lwj had been tempted to push him into the lake.
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i don’t follow anyone else into mdzs and i’m having thoughts so they’re going into your inbox (sorry… *rattles my cage*) but you know that quote that’s like “when is a monster not a monster? oh, when you love it” well i’m thinking about it specifically in the context of yi city. that’s all bye bye (*cage rattles louder*) (wait i have more to say because in the short time xue yang was actually shown friendship or love or care or however you wish to think of it he just decided to stop being evil. he just got bored. and then it crumbled in an instant and he started being evil again and *i’m shot by a sniper*)
okay. first of all. how dare you come to me, in this the time of my convalescence, and whack me over the head with the iron anvil that is this quote in this context. i’ll literally never be the same again and it’s your fault (<3333)
secondly. i am so honoured you came to me with this!!!!!! i am not generally someone people turn to with their concepts and thoughts (as much as i wish it was different…………alas!), so thank you! i will attempt to answer this with the same care and love i can see even in your short ask. this is going under the cut because uh. it got long. oops!
the thing about xy is, to me, he reads very much as the other side of the coin that jgy is on, to drag my other mdzs beloved into this. in both cases, they’re seen as the lowest of the low—jgy’s mother is a sex worker, and xy is an orphan with no social status. both of them are demonstrated to be talented and have a drive to learn—jgy is a fucking excellent…….whatever his position with the nie is (i can never remember what it’s called, in cql or in the novel, but it doesn’t matter much; he’s undeniably good at his job), spy, sect leader, and yes, xiandu/chief cultivator. xy, on the other hand, is undeniably fucking brilliant—he manages to drag himself into cultivation basically without any help for most of his formative years, and then makes sense of wwx’s basically incoherent ramblings and more coherent, but still incredibly hard to parse to anyone who doesn’t 1. know what they’re looking at or 2. isn’t able to make incredible leaps of logic to connect his work—because wwx wasn’t just a genius, he was a literal, actual pioneer; no one had done what he was doing before—notes. i think this is part of why jgy keeps xy around for so long, even if he doesn’t enjoy his methods—he sees a bit of himself in him. (also, xy is dead useful—dead messy and slightly sadistic, too, but hey, we all have our faults, some of us are just a bit more bloody about them.)
the thing is, though—xy demonstratively did not have any sort of love shown to him at all, possibly ever, in any way, up until yi city. jgy, whose life sucks in so many other ways, had two saving graces of connection: his mother, and lxc. xy had………….no one. zilch. nada. sifir. ling. and so forth. you could argue this is because he makes himself unlovable, but if you think about that for more than three seconds, it’s wildly clear that it’s a (very shitty, self-destructive) coping mechanism—if they’re going to call me trash, if they’re going to call me insane, if they’re going to call me a monster, a nightmare—fine, i will be. i’ll take control of the narrative and show them just how bad i can be.
and then…………yi city. a man who doesn’t even know who he is finds him bloodied and weak, and doesn’t stab him in the back. he carries him to his home, and he cares for him. and xy, i would imagine, is waiting, this entire time, for the other show to drop. surely, he’s going to recognise him. surely he’s going to turn around and say, ah hah, i’ve got you now, you monster! i’m going to take you to the authorities and have them finish you off, because you are a bad person and i am a good person and that’s how this goes. and the entire time, he’s telling himself—as soon as it does, i’m going to kill him. as soon as it does, i’m going to take my revenge. but it………..doesn’t. xxc keeps weaving baskets with him. and going to the market with him. and living his life with him. turning his back and not assuming xy is going to stick jiangzai in it. (and probably telling him terrible jokes that barely count as jokes that xy laughs at far more loudly than he really needs to, because half the comedy is watching the gentle breeze be so goddamn bad at something.)
and xy, for the first time in his life, realises: oh shit. maybe i do want this. maybe i do want peace, of a mundane variety. maybe making myself sharp and harsh and hating and deadly wasn’t making me happy. maybe…………..being happy is letting your guard down around someone, and they don’t take advantage of it. (he would never think the word love, i think, even with a sword at his throat—“trust” is as close as he is ever going to allow himself to come to conceptualising it, less a fuckton of emotional development and growth, but i digress.) and like………..yes, it’s functionally a castle built on a bed of sand. at the start, xy deceives xxc into doing a fuckton of objectively bad shit. he’s the reason sl lost his eyes, and the reason xxc gave his up, and the reason the gentle breeze and the winter frost are no longer spoken of in the same sentence. but also—not to engage in therapy speak here, but this is something where you kind of have to employ dialectical thought: he can have done horrible fucked up things, and still want love. he can have hurt xxc, and be loved by him. he can have done bad, and have stopped doing so. he can be bad, and still be a person. (that last one, i think, is something xxc would fully agree with—were he to have found out xy was, well, xy, but living with him and not causing any trouble (unless you count threatening the farmers at the market who try and cheat a blind man out of his meagre savings, but i think a qing and i are both in agreement that this isn’t really a crime), i think he would not have killed him. i don’t even think he would have turned him in to the authorities. i think xy would be in for, possibly, in the future, a very long conversation he wouldn’t particularly enjoy due to its necessitating of laying things bare, but he would survive it. i think, at the end of things, xxc’s guiding philosophy in life is not, for all his idealism, that things are immutable—i think he would be pleased that xy has changed his ways, and decided to do good, rather than continuing to harm others.)
and then he fucks up. or sl fucks up. or they both fuck up. whose fault it is doesn’t matter; the end result is the same: xy’s temporary peace, his safe haven, crumbles. and he turns back to who he was before, because at least that’s easy. at least that’s certain. peace, happiness, trust—that’s all dust on the wind. you can’t put stock in that, his experience has clearly taught him that, once again, more harshly than anything else. you can love a monster, but if you leave it—it’s going to be a monster again, because that’s easier than trying to crawl on its hands and knees through the mud and pay penance by itself.
#this got very long i am SO sorry i am going to get to your other asks too i swear#anyway. thank you.#ask#c.txt#yi city anon
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What would happen if jgy and lxc got lost hiking and they both secretly got genuinely scared?
After realizing with sudden dread that they were lost, their first reaction is to protect the other without alarming them. It is a total breakdown of communication with the best intentions at heart.
Lan Xichen remains steadfastly cheerful. He knows that someone in their family will come rescue them if they’re not back on time. He won’t let A-Yao get cold or scared. It’ll be like surprise camping! …A-Yao hated camping, unfortunately. Lan Xichen suggests that they climb a little higher to get a good view of the sunset (and the way back hopefully).
Meng Yao smiles at him and says that he feels a little overheated, and that it’d be nice to wash his face in the stream they passed awhile back instead. At the very least, they could follow the water back the way they came…
So it was that the sun set without a single word between them regarding the fact that they were still very much lost. Once dusk settled over them, fear truly set in. They held tightly onto each other’s hand, groping blindly through the brush until the last light faded away.
Neither wanted to be the first to admit that they were very, very lost.
“I think we should sit down for awhile,” says Lan Xichen. They had ignored bigger problems in their relationship with greater success, so why stop now?
“It’s too late to head back now…” Meng Yao says tentatively. Not because they were lost. Just because it was dark.
“We’ll go home in the morning,” Lan Xichen reassures him. As if spending the night in the woods is a normal thing to do.
They both hold each other in the highest esteem, but manage to convince themselves that the other is not aware that they are lost (very lost).
Lan Xichen holds Meng Yao in his arms, sleeping peacefully against a tree on a perfect Lan schedule while Meng Yao lays awake all night. In the morning, Lan Wangji I unexpectedly shows up to fetch them.
“How did you find us?” Meng Yao asks blearily.
Lan Wangji looks at him as if he blinks manually. “The chip.”
“The WHAT?”
Meng Yao pesters him down the mountain but refuses to elaborate.
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Theres been a lot of chatting about how people don’t *get* xicheng. And that’s perfectly fine, everyone’s opinion is valid! But if your intrigued by the ship and want a crash course on why one loser likes them getting together post-canon, I thought I could provide a bit of an entry point!
So here’s 10 reasons I think they’re great:
1. There’s a great dynamic where Jiang Cheng whispers ‘aren’t you tired of being nice, don’t you wanna go apeshit?’ And that’s something Xichen should give some thought to! He might decide that he does not, in fact, want to go apeshit, but he should at least know he has the option! And he can also look right back at Jiang Cheng and say ‘aren’t you tired of going apeshit, don’t you want to be soft?’
They both can only express like two emotions, but they're different ones so together they make maybe one emotionally functional person. Xichen needs an anger translator, and someone who will stick up for him when now he doesn't know if he can stick up for himself. Jiang Cheng needs someone with the emotional intelligence to differentiate grumpy affection and genuine anger, and Lan Xichen’s best friend was Nie Mingjue, who expressed affection similarly
Also Jiang Cheng just needs anyone, give the man a break MXTX.
2. Both of them hate and have been hurt by lies. Lan Xichen knows that Jiang Cheng is like the opposite of jgy, he has never manipulated in his life, he just pulls out zidan. Jiang Cheng may not have as strong of feelings about the matter but he did just get golden core revealed and therefore appreciates lxc hatred of lies.
3. They are just unconnected from each others trauma enough. They both know the other is hurting but they haven't done anything to each other specifically. They can take a step back and reassure the other that what went through is fucked. Xichen probably appreciates that Jiang Cheng was not especially manipulated or hurt by jgy, so he feels he isn't responsible for any of Jiang Cheng's pain and he might be able to express his grief better like that? Jiang Cheng appreciates that Lan Xichen is completely unrelated to both his brother and his family issues. Seeing Lan Xichen isnt a constant painful reminder about anything.
4. But even though their trauma is disconnected, both had a brother kill someone or someone's they loved and then they killed their brother and everyone's expecting them to be happy about it but their not, their not. Also they both understand the weight of societal expectations from being heir, can understand the for the most part the sect comes first
5. Due to all of the above, Jiang Cheng is probably one of the only people alive post Canon who could actually get Lan Xichen to admit to his grief and sadness and the fact that he's not ok. Which Lan Xichen needs to heal! He needs to be poked and prodded in order not to fall back into his eldest sister syndrome pacifying, which got him (emotionally) into this mess to begin with!
6. In a similar vein, jiang cheng needs a soft place to fall. And he needs someone who won't invalidate him or dismiss his accomplishment (his parents), leave him (wwx), or die on him (fucking everyone he's ever loved). Xichen is extremely loyal when he gets attached. He won't jump to conclusions based on rumors. He will, in fact, assume the best of his loved ones until REALLY proven otherwise. He will defend the actions of his loved ones to others and keep loving them even if they might fuck up sometimes. Plus, he seems remarkably death resistant.
7. Outside of the internal emotion of the pair, their outwards strengths can also help each other! They both know what its like to lead a great sect and be a good sect leader. They can help each other out, even with mundane tasks.
8. Uncle-daddy solidarity (who do you think raised a-yuan when Wangji was in seclusion for three years and was also recovering from a near-fatal whipping?)
Related, they both care a lot about Jin Ling and want to see him succeed as sect leader jin (extrapolation for lxc)
9.Hnggggggg boy hot
10. It would probably piss lwj off so much can you imagine his fucking face. Hilarious!
I also know that this list is based on post-canon but I think a lot of it applies to any point in the timeline if you put your mind to it!
I’m a firm multishipper so really this is just one facet of my extreme shipping ability. Don’t come at me if you don’t like xicheng, or prefer someone else, or a JC anti, please.
Anyone who ships them, please feel free to add on!
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transcription of slides under the cut:
[SLIDE 1] the vibes ao3’s top 9 mdzs ships give me (a really stupid thing i made on a lazy saturday)
[SLIDE 2] wangxian: the wholesome canon relationship (with a hint of spice)
ok maybe calling the union between a demonic cultivator and a secret sex fiend “wholesome” isnt exactly accurate…but that’s where the “hint of spice” comes in
other than that tho? i remember seeing a meme somewhere about wangxian and sangcheng and wangxian was described as “domestic gays with a house and a white picket fence and two kids” and honestly? yes
not that they cant be freaky. id say their particular brand of freakiness is vaguely surrealist suburban horror. make of that what you will
[SLIDE 3] xicheng: either its “pair the spares” or just about trauma
their dynamic is 500% “karen/enabling husband” but like in a good way
objectively the best-dressed couple you will ever meet. like seriously why are you even trying? theyve got you beat
jc would own a flower shop and punch you in the face for saying a single bad thing about his flowers. lxc would own a tattoo parlor and hand you a lollipop and tell you how proud he is of you for not crying while he gave you a tattoo
they dont strike me as a “every evening we relax and watch the sunset” type of relationship B U T every other week they go stargazing with a detailed map of the night sky
[SLIDE 4] xiyao: either a) the angst of betraying/being betrayed or b) the angst of killing/being killed
high society gays. they would both unironically wear tuxedos to a mcdonalds. lxc would see it as a fun couples thing and jgy would do it to assert his dominance
i swear they would be among the smiliest of the major couples. only one of them would give you a happy smile
dont mess with them. no like dont mess with any of the couples but so far jgy is the first one who would make your life living hell and keep you around long enough to suffer the consequences
[SLIDE 5] sangcheng: being simultaneously over- and underestimated
i saw a meme about sangcheng and wangxian where sangcheng was described as something along the lines of “wine aunt and vodka uncle” and honestly? yes
they’re both human disasters. nhs would have various splotches of color on his clothes and you cant tell if it was intentional or if theyre actually stains. jc is very neat and organized but will have a mental breakdown at the slightest inconvenience
sometimes they just sit down across from each other and. cry. its how they bond
idk why it popped into my head but they’re both ace Because I Said So
[SLIDE 6] xuexiao: cute domesticity but also murder
i refuse to believe that xy is anything but unhinged in every universe. whether or not thats a good thing is up to you
xy could and would murder you in your sleep and not feel bad about it until xxc told him off. even then he might still decide it was worth it
xxc doesnt exactly know about The Murder Stuff(TM) but he knows some shit is off but he trusts xy enough to not comment on it
they would meet and hook up in a bar and mutually decide that they may as well stay together for the rest of their lives the next morning
[SLIDE 7] xuanli: the token straights (but also? theyre really cute???)
i did not expect them to be as cute as they were but here i am
anyway jyl has jzxuan wrapped around her little finger and shes just too nice to use that to her advantage
if jyl asked jzxuan for some chocolate jzxuan would just buy her the entire hershey company and forget to give her an actual chocolate bar and jyl is too sweet to actually say anything about it
they would definitely have like 20 children. theyd fucking love being parents. the moment having another child became dangerous theyd start adopting left and right. theyre rich they can afford it and their hearts are big enough for all their kids so why would they not?
[SLIDE 8] songxiao: childhood friends to lovers AND perfect power couple
i know they have more nuance than this but i cant help but think of them as The Perfect Couple(TM)
not shipping-wise!! i mean like. theyre both law-abiding citizens. their house looks like a model house. theyre dressed super neat and handsomely. they both know cpr and first aid and one of them is a lawyer and the other is an award winning writer. idk who is who but yk.
they are who people call to deal with problems instead of the police and they delight in that fact. that is what i mean by them being The Perfect Couple(TM)
[SLIDE 9] chengxian: disasters through and through
uhh i am going to be spending the entirety of this slide ignoring the fact that i personally consider them siblings
they would live in a dingy studio apartment in the heart of a city and theyd both never be home
theyre both super fucking rich but theyd never have any money on hand so dont be surprised if they just starve out on the street one day because theyre just that stupid
they collectively have the self esteem of rotting cabbage but theyre keeping themselves and each other alive purely out of spite and sheer force of will
[SLIDES 10] nielan: childhood friends to lovers AND himbo power couple
psst heres a secret: neither of them are actually himbos
H O W E V E R they both 500% pretend they are. they intentionally act as stupid as possible just for the fun of it
the best part is when they stop acting stupid when something important happens. crouching-moron-hidden-badass at its finest
also the older brother energy is overflowing. it does not matter who you are or how old you are. if you meet them then youre going to walk away with two new big brothers
[SLIDES 11] the end (unless i gather the willpower to make a part 2)
#mdzs#mdzs hc#wangxian#xicheng#xiyao#sangcheng#xuexiao#xuanli#songxiao#chengxian#nielan#wei wuxian#lan wangji#jiang cheng#lan xichen#jin guangyao#nie huaisang#xue yang#xiao xingcheng#jin zixuan#jiang yanli#song lan#nie mingjue
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okay so. I am a smart adult with many important responsibilities. I have good taste and care about things that matter. for this reason, I’ve been trying to identify where in cql canon wangxian manage to fuck.
because they definitely do; I like a good post-canon getting together fic as much as the next guy, but it’s just not realistic.
allow them. it’s already been so long.
(just like this goddamn post turned out to be, let’s do a cut)
right. so initially it looks like you could place this right after the time skip in episode 33, because it shows us that wwx is with lwj in cloud recesses. we know that he spent the night in the jingshi because he wakes up there the next morning before he goes for a nostalgic tour of his old school.
and also visits the cold spring, where lwj is mostly naked. nice.
but wait! wwx is surprised by the scars on his back and chest. that seems like something he would have known about if they’d already been naked together the night before, so I’m going to say they did not fuck immediately upon wwx’s return to cloud recesses. okay, fine, they’re taking things slow, that’s cool.
maybe they could work it into the next night, then. oh wait, lqr is injured and... staying in the jingshi? for reasons?
I don’t know why. he must have his own house in cloud recesses, and it’s probably at least as comfortable as lwj’s, but here he is. he lives to stop his nephew from getting laid, I guess.
the next day they do some Q&A with the kids and determine that they need to head to qinghe to figure out what’s going on with this sword thing. great! we love a romantic road trip, plenty of alone time. but they also have to do their jobs, and then jin ling needs to get rescued from a wall of dirt, and jc is unfortunately there being himself, and then they have to grill nhs about his tomb full of angry sabers, etc. etc.
with all that going on, their next obvious chance is at the inn immediately after interviewing nhs. this evening has already included:
wwx gazing lovingly at lwj from afar
lwj carrying wwx on his back
lwj pawing at wwx’s robes trying to deal with his cursed leg
lwj helping wwx up the stairs, serving him wine, fixing his flute, and generally being at his beck and call
a very sexy and homoerotic duet
and now they’re alone and drooling over each other as usual. this seems like a plausible spot, right?
it does! but no. after they go back to the nie basement o’ swords and hear the backstory on nmj’s death, we see them walking in yueyang and lwj asks wwx how the curse mark on his leg is doing. wwx says it’s almost healed, which may or may not be a lie, but his inner monologue says:
he’s more concerned about the wound on his arm from the sacrificing curse, which lwj doesn’t know about, because wwx won’t tell him and they still haven’t been naked together.
also, this silly teenage shit doesn’t make much sense unless they’re still dancing around each other.
you guys love the sound of opportunities as they go flying past, don’t you?
right after this, lwj gets drunk. I’m aware that Stuff Happens in the novel scene that inspired this bit, and they do incorporate some of that into the show by having lwj commit petty larceny and admit that he “likes rabbits” as part of the softest and most loving conversation in human history oh my god
but lwj goes to sleep right on time, and the next morning, wwx is laughing and reassuring him that nothing happened.
after this, it’s time to go on a fucked up field trip with the kids in yi city, so they don’t really have any time alone for a few episodes until they’ve finished that and everyone is back at yet another inn. I wonder if they learned something about wasted chances and poor communication from this miserable songxiao story?
maybe! look, they’re being cute and domestic. there are currently no material barriers preventing them from having sex, nor will there be any specific evidence later on proving that they didn’t.
but they’re still firmly in mystery-solving mode and the juniors and lxc are floating around. the vibe isn’t quite there. if I were to pick the most solid reason why I think they’re saving room for jesus at this point, it would be the tension that happens when wwx again asks how lwj recognized him. lwj asks why his memory is so bad, and wwx replies that he wishes he had a bad memory. even though they’re comfortable and happy being together, there’s still some fundamental distance remaining. there’s no sense of romantic resolution. that was actually a point against all their previous opportunities as well; they’re all very sweet, but none of these feel like the place in a story where the romantic leads Officially Get Together.
okay, off to koi tower! shit is getting extremely real. everyone’s busy insinuating that they recognize wwx, but no one is saying it explicitly. wwx isn’t supposed to be here. the guy he’s pretending to be also isn’t supposed to be here. he and his boyfriend and his boyfriend’s brother are trying to figure out if his boyfriend’s brother’s boyfriend is a murderer. no one is comfortable and the political intrigue leaves no time for fucking in front of anyone’s salad.
I guess there’s plenty of time to make dozens of armed guards and like half the people they know wait while they have a romantic moment, though.
could they be more in love? And that sure feels like a romantic resolution that might be followed by narratively-earned sex.
ah. no, unfortunately wwx gets stabbed again. this certainly sucks, but it does have the helpful consequence of making lwj take him back to cloud recesses, where they are mostly alone and as safe as they can be in the circumstances. now there’s even more tenderness and also some plot-justified touching and skin exposure. plus, lwj just made a very public declaration of love.
too bad wwx has probably been unconscious since he started coughing up blood in the forest near lanling. he’s also still visibly in pain. fresh abdominal wounds tend to kill the mood.
but hey, the injuries on this show are only as serious as they need to be to move the plot forward and facilitate gentle h/c scenes, so by evening he’s looking perfectly healthy and walking around under his own steam like nothing’s wrong. I guess that problem can be ignored moving forward.
lxc then offers the the most devastating highlights of lwj’s backstory, like, all at once. it’s nice that he includes a flute solo to give wwx a second to process this mountain of terrible information. what the fuck.
there he is! the most devoted man in the whole world! turns out they can actually be more in love after all.
and then the following scene... look, I’m lazy and I don’t know how to make gifs, but screenshots cannot properly convey how good it is. you all know. the hesitant way wwx approaches, the slow and gentle piano version of wangxian, the two of them watching the snow together, it’s. ugh.
remember how I was talking about how the last scene with no material barriers was an unlikely candidate because of the lack of romantic resolution?
well, here’s wwx still being cagey at the beginning of this conversation.
and here they are in the middle of this conversation, having some epiphanies about the course of wwx’s life - I love this shot for a lot of reasons, but I extra love it because it shows wwx out in the snow, with lwj as the safety and warmth waiting behind him, god this show goes hard, holy shit
they both recall their vow to live with a clean conscience and internally say some very corny things about each other because they are both So Much, and then,
ah, what the hell. he can say it out loud after all. romantic resolution accomplished.
and then the camera slowly pulls away as wuji plays.
a slow zoom out? swelling music? listen, I am a connoisseur, I know a tasteful fade-to-black indicating a sex scene that won’t happen on camera when I see one. at last, we have a winner!
now you may think this post is finally over, but I actually have one more piece of evidence for you - the next scene shows the two of them the morning after, meditating behind a screen in the hanshi while lxc is waiting for jgy to show up.
before wwx got de-cored, he was a pretty powerful cultivator, right? the chances that he’s just bad at meditating or that he can’t stay focused on this task seem slim to me. so why does he keep falling asleep?
well. he had kind of a late night.
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Same universe as the one where LXC kills JGY on a boat to not-Japan. JRS-centric as he grows up in the Nie clan and deals with his reputation as an inbred son of a traitorous bastard.
so I don't think I've ever written a fic in which LXC kills JGY on a boat, and definitely not one where JRS is a character? I mean, I've written a lot of fics, so possibly I did and I forgot, but I'm pretty sure about this one.
That being said, I don't think I've gotten any Jin Rusong prompts before so I'm reinterpreting this to be a prompt for a fic about JRS growing up in the Nie clan. Fic below!
ao3
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Nothing ventured, nothing gained, Nie Huaisang reminded himself. Risk is proportionate with reward. Your spine should be made of steel, just as your saber is.
He licked his lips, thought of his brother who had loved him, and threw himself forward with tears in his eyes.
“Oh, gongzi!” he blubbered. “Can you help me? I’ve gotten completelylost, I don’t even know where to begin –”
Xue Yang blinked at him, the lids of his eyes moving slowly like a reptile.
“Maybe you know where my san-ge is? Lianfeng-zun?”
The feeling of immediate threat lessened. It seemed he’d gambled right, and the rabid dog that was Xue Yang could still be controlled by reference to Jin Guangyao.
“I’d really appreciate it if you could just give me some guidance on where to find him,” Nie Huaisang said, lowering his voice confidentially. “I’d be sure to pay you back! If there’s anything you want –”
“Do you have any snacks?” Xue Yang asked.
Nie Huaisang, who had come prepared based on the rumors he’d painstakingly collected, produced some dragons’ beard candy.
“Not bad,” Xue Yang said. “Okay, sure.”
Nie Huaisang smiled, and even meant it.
-
“Hey, good-for-nothing,” Xue Yang said, and Nie Huaisang turned to look at his least favorite but nevertheless highly useful source of information in Lanling Jin. The fact that Xue Yang had no idea that he was functioning as such just made it more satisfactory. “You like kids, right?”
Nie Huaisang blinked. “Yes?” he hazarded, not so much because he actually did – he’d never had strong feelings about children one way or the other, though perhaps he was being presumptuous in thinking that the reference did not involve goats – but because that seemed to be the answer Xue Yang was looking for.
Xue Yang wrinkled his nose in distaste, though not, Nie Huaisang thought, at him.
“Theoretically,” he said, and he wouldn’t know ‘theoretical’ if it hit him in the face, “if there were, I don’t know, a whole bunch of them hanging around somewhere without parents, you’d be able to do something about that, right? Especially if they had a talent for cultivation?”
It took only a moment to piece together what must have happened to lead to such a question, given the ruthlessness of the cultivation world and of Jin Guangyao in particular, and Nie Huaisang marveled briefly at the idea that Xue Yang might draw a moral line in the sand over something. Presumably he felt some kinship to the children, being similarly utterly infantile, amoral, and fond of sweet things.
“Oh sure!” he said, playing up the brainless idiot who didn’t know to ask questions. “My sect is always recruiting, you know. We took some losses in the war and, well, I feel like adult cultivators aren’t really all that interestedin joining ever since I took over…”
“Because you’re a waste of space,” Xue Yang said, and Nie Huaisang pouted at him. “Whatever, the important thing is that you have space for kids. Orphans. Think, like, a whole orphanage getting shut down or whatever – anyway, not important. You’d take them back to Qinghe, right?”
“Oh, that would be so wonderful!” Nie Huaisang clapped. “That would suit everyone, wouldn’t it? They don’t have to worry about the children, and we get new disciples. I should tell san-ge – no, on second thought, he might be too busy –”
“Definitely too busy,” Xue Yang said quickly. “Wouldn’t it be nice to accomplish something yourself? You could casually show him that your numbers went up at the end of the month instead so he gives you the credit, without explaining that it’s kids making up the increase.”
“That’s a great idea! He’ll be much more impressed by that, I should definitely do that. Where is the orphanage?”
“…uh, in the forest. The back forest.”
You couldn’t come up with a better lie?
“You already brought them here?” Nie Huaisang asked, batting his eyelashes. “You’re so nice, Xue-xiong! I’ll go tell my second in command to go deal with it right away!”
-
It was in the fifth round of kids getting picked up – small cultivation clans being massacred and there was nothing Nie Huaisang could do about it, because there was either no evidence or else Jin Guangyao had come up with some motive to justify his actions and, inevitably, Lan Xichen would be there behind him, soothing over tempers and providing explanations because he believed him, every time – that something unusual happened.
“Sect Leader Nie,” one of his most trusted subordinates murmured into his ear. “There’s a problem.”
Nie Huaisang found a reason to leave the party early, a reason to go to the rendezvous point, and, once there, found the reason for the problem.
“Oh, hey there,” he said with a smile fixed onto his face by sheer force of willpower, crouching down to make himself seem less intimidating. Not that he was ever particularly intimidating, though given the rage coursing through his veins right now, he thought he might be able to pull it off if he tried. “What a lucky chance! It’s so funny, finding you here, Songsong. How are you?”
Jin Rusong wiped his eyes and looked tearily at him, recognized that the person asking was his Little Uncle Nie, and threw himself into Nie Huaisang’s arms with a howl.
This was pretty typical – Jin Rusong wasn’t much of a crier, but when he did he definitely took Nie Huaisang as his model, something all the other adults in the cultivation world had a tendency to give Nie Huaisang dirty looks over.
The only problem here, of course, was that Jin Rusong was dead.
Or, rather…he was supposed to be dead.
And if Jin Rusong was here – here, in the rendezvous point where Xue Yang put those of his prospective victims that happened to be a little too young for even him to stomach killing, at least without the personal grudge that had driven him to slaughter the Chang clan in its entirety – that meant only one thing.
Jin Guangyao had ordered his own son to be murdered.
Through demonic cultivation, no less, which was a pretty nasty way to go. There was a reason everyone implicitly countenanced Jiang Cheng’s vendetta against demonic cultivators no matter where they were, even when he ignored all territory lines and forgot to not ask for permission – the things a demonic cultivator gone bad could do were just so much worse than what anyone else could that they couldn’t risk any delay in dealing with the problem.
Well, shit, Nie Huaisang thought, even as he comforted Jin Rusong, petting the toddler’s back to try to get him to calm down. What do I do now?
-
“There has to be a reason,” Nie Huaisang insisted. “He’s not rabid. Songsong was his son!”
“Sect Leader Nie, we can’t find anything that might explain it.”
“Look harder. I don’t care how minor it is, I want to know everythingto do with Songsong. Every little detail – every person who saw him – every medical report, every compliment, every good grade –”
“He placed last in one of his classes,” one of his spies volunteered.
“What?”
“He placed last in one of his classes. About two months before his ‘assassination’, and shortly before his father started collecting evidence against the other sects that were in his way, which he later used to ‘prove’ that they had been involved in the alleged murder.”
“He wouldn’t kill his son for failing a class,” one of the others objected. “The kid’s barely more than a baby. What’s he expecting, genius from birth?”
“He’s a genius himself. Why not?”
“If everyone inherited everything directly from their parents, he’d be a whore.”
“He’d be a Jin. They’ve all got that nose, every one of them…”
“I heard he’s having the other Jin bastards killed. All of them, even the women…”
Something snapped in Nie Huaisang’s hands.
They all turned to look at him.
“Investigate Qin Su,” he said, looking down at the mess of wood and paper that had once been a fan. “Come to think of it, she has a Jin nose, too.”
-
“I don’t want to go!”
“I don’t want you to go, either,” Nie Huaisang said, feeling tired and also much more in sympathy with his poor older brother than he’d ever been while Nie Mingjue had been alive. “But you disobeyed me, and that means we don’t have a choice. You have to go.”
Nie Songsong looked down at the ground, his lip quivering. “I didn’t mean to…”
“You did,” Nie Huaisang said. “You have to own your decisions, Songsong. You can’t take them back once they’re done, no matter what the consequences. Not even if you feel bad, but definitely not because you feel bad for having to pay for what you did.”
“But…”
“No, Songsong. You cannot be in the Unclean Realm when – when he’s here.”
Nie Songsong hung his head.
“He’s not your father anymore,” Nie Huaisang said. “You know that, right?”
Nie Songsong nodded.
Nie Huaisang sighed and held out his hands, and his arms were full of a teary-eyed child a moment later.
“He loved you once,” Nie Huaisang murmured into his child’s hair. “I love you now. I wish I could give you more than that – I wish I could give you an answer, tell you why he didn’t love you enough to keep from doing what he did. But I can’t. All I can do…”
Is what I’m already doing.
“You’re enough, er-ge,” Nie Songsong whispered back. “You’re enough. I promise.”
-
“When will I get to go night-hunting?”
“You go night-hunting all the time,” Nie Huaisang grumbled. “You’re a fraction my age, and already my height, my weight, yet you wield a saber like my brother was around to raise you properly. You’re ruining my reputation, you know; now no one will believe that my incompetence comes from how short I am…”
“Not night-hunting with the rest of the sect, er-ge,” Nie Songsong said, rolling his eyes. “With other juniors!”
“Not long now,” Nie Huaisang said, looking down at the paper beneath his hands. It was all finally coming together. “Not long now. Just give er-ge a little more time to finish taking care of matters for da-ge, and you’ll be able to go night-hunting with anyone you like.”
-
“Er-ge! Are you all right? You look so pale…”
“I’m sorry,” Nie Huaisang whispered. “Songsong – I’m sorry. I’m so sorry –”
“What happened? Are you injured?” Nie Songsong demanded, already starting to pat him over, looking for wounds. “Er-ge, what’s wrong –”
“Your mother’s dead.”
Nie Songsong’s hands stilled.
“I told her about your heritage,” Nie Huaisang said, his lips numb. He’d never tried to hide it from Nie Songsong, although he’d introduced the subject very gradually and only once he thought that he’d be able to handle the revelation. “About your father – your grandfather. What they did. I wanted her to be angry at him, to turn against him, to distract him…instead, she killed herself.”
“Er-ge…”
“I shouldn’t have told her. If I knew –”
“Er-ge.”
“I should have brought her in earlier – told her about you surviving – I kept her from you for years –”
“Er-ge!”
Nie Huaisang looked at the child he had raised as a little brother the way his older brother had raised him, a father in everything but name, and who he had the constant feeling of having failed.
He wondered, as he always did, whether his brother had felt the same about him.
“Er-ge, it’s all right,” his little brother, his adopted son, said, and took his hands in his. “It’s all right. You tried, remember? Time after time, you tried to talk to her, but every single time you concluded that she would’ve told her husband instead of trusting you. She would’ve ruined everything. If she did that, I’d be dead all over again, and you with me.”
That had been what Nie Huaisang had concluded. That was why he’d never told her.
But…
“She’s your mother.”
“And you’re my er-ge. As long as you don’t die on me, too, it’ll be all right. Okay? It’ll be all right. It’ll be worth it in the end.”
Nie Huaisang shook his head. He’d already done so much, caused so much chaos and strife, and yet this moment – this was the step too far.
This was the first time he realized that he wasn’t sure he believed that it would be worth it anymore.
But by now…what else was left to do? There were no ways out of the plan he’d made himself; he’d designed it that way on purpose, because he’d known that if there was a way out, that snake would find a way to slither through it. He just hadn’t thought that he would be the one looking for it.
It didn’t matter.
He had to keep going.
His older brother deserved it, even if the younger one didn’t.
-
“I represent the Nie sect,” the young man – just about their age, though shorter than either of them – said with a smile. He seemed kind, gentle and polite, easy-going, but Lan Jingyi and Lan Sizhui looked at each other, and then at Jin Ling, who just scowled. “Can I come in?”
“Were you even invited?” Jin Ling asked in bitten off words. He was still bitter about some of the things that had happened in the Guayin Temple a month before, and of all them the one he was most bitter about was his second uncle’s retreat into seclusion – they were all upset about that.
“But it’s a discussion conference,” the young man said, blinking in confusion. “We’re a Great Sect. Why wouldn’t we be invited?”
In the face of such profound ignorance, there really wasn’t very much they could say, and eventually Lan Sizhui stepped forward with a smile, welcoming the young man – Nie Songsong, he introduced himself – into the Cloud Recesses.
Everything seemed fine for a little while. Lan Sizhui was able to talk to the people in charge of arranging juniors into finding another place for Nie Songsong to stay, although it would be a little delayed – Nie Songsong assured them that there was no issue – and as recompense they even showed him, at his request, a few of the main landmarks.
And then they turned around and their guest had disappeared.
“I knew he was up to no good!” Jin Ling exclaimed.
“Don’t jump to conclusions,” Lan Sizhui told him.
“I’m with Jin Ling,” Lan Jingyi said. “He seemed so nice and understated – just like you know –”
“Don’t talk about my little uncle,” Jin Ling hissed at him. “I know it’s true, but just – don’t, okay?”
“We should find where he went,” Lan Sizhui decided.
It took them a while, but in the end they found him in the most unexpected place: in the rooms their sect leader had chosen for his seclusion, sitting on the bed with Lan Xichen’s head on his shoulder, sobbing as if his heart had been broken.
“What are you doing?” Lan Sizhui exclaimed, unnerved even out of his own habitual politeness.
“I came to greet my uncle,” Nie Songsong said, his manner just as gentle and polite as it had been from the beginning, although it was now evident that he was as stubborn as a rock and not easy-going at all.
“Your uncle?” Lan Jingyi gaped. “How can he be your uncle?”
“You’re Sect Leader Nie’s son!” Jin Ling accused.
“I’m Sect Leader Nie’s little brother by adoption,” Nie Songsong corrected. “It’s through my father that he’s my uncle – and you my cousin, I suppose.”
“Your – father?”
“Oh, yes. My birth name, you see,” Nie Songsong said, “was Jin Rusong.”
-
“Why did you choose to reveal yourself?” Lan Sizhui asked. “Given that everyone knows – well –”
Nie Songsong finished the character he was writing and put down his brush. “Wondering if you should let it be known that you were born with the surname Wen?”
Lan Sizhui jerked in surprise, then flushed. “How did you – that didn’t come out in Guanyin Temple.”
“No, I knew it before,” Nie Songsong said. “My er-ge is very clever, you know.”
“Yes, I suppose I do...why do you call him brother? Shouldn’t he be uncle, or – or –”
“Uncle is probably right,” Nie Songsong said. “But he raised me like a son, just as his brother did for him.”
Lan Sizhui looked down at his hands.
“Why did he publicly reveal your background, knowing that you were still around?” he asked again. “Everyone will know. Who your father was, all those terrible things he did, his relationship with your mother –”
“Why shouldn’t he? He did do all those things, and he did have that relationship with my mother.”
“But what about you? What about your reputation –”
“Are you planning on sweeping Wen Ruohan’s grave?”
Lan Sizhui stared at him.
“He’s your grandfather, isn’t he?” Nie Songsong looked calmly back at him. “Who he was, all those terrible things he did –”
“That’s nothing to do with me!”
“And the crimes of my father are nothing to do with me. My er-ge gave me his surname, just as Hanguang-jun gave you his, and for the same reason – to cut us off from the sins of our original family.”
“I suppose that’s true. But – no one knew about you, just as no one knew about me until I told them, and I only told them because they were my friends. Why’d you tell us? Aren’t you worried we’d tell more people?”
“Of course I am,” Nie Songsong said. “I hope you don’t, of course, but you would’ve found out regardless – second uncle wasn’t exactly subtle in his grief. And I had to tell him.”
“Why? To bring him out of seclusion?” Lan Sizhui hesitated. “Do you care so much for him?”
“Of course not. The last time I met him, I was a small child, and my father was just about to order me murdered; that’s not much of a basis to build a relationship. But having him lock himself away like that, as if he were in mourning…it hurt er-ge. And I won’t let anything hurt my er-ge. Anything, or anyone.”
They looked at each other for a long moment.
“I understand,” Lan Sizhui said.
“I’m glad you do,” Nie Songsong said, and then smiled. “I would’ve had to escalate to threats next, and I’m given to understand that I’m too short to really pull them off properly.”
Lan Sizhui snorted. “I think we’ve all learned that that’snot true.”
-
“Should we talk about this?” Jin Ling asked, arms crossed over his chest and glaring.
“What do you want to talk about?” Nie Songsong replied.
“How about the fact that your father tried to kill me?”
“Sure. Can we talk about the fact that you got all of his affection for years and years after he tried to kill me?”
Jin Ling blanched.
“I wonder if he would’ve gotten me a dog, too,” Nie Songsong mused. “I was too young for that when he ordered his demonic cultivator to feed me to fierce corpses and have my body ravaged until it was barely recognizable…but sure, let’s talk about how he tried to kill you.”
“I was talking about Sect Leader Nie!”
“Well, then, you should have been more specific. Sect Leader Nie’s my brother, not my father.”
“He’s a whole generation older than you!”
“My little uncle, then.”
Jin Ling flinched. “That’s worse. Go back to calling him your brother.”
Nie Songsong shrugged. “Would it help if we fought?”
“…what?”
“It makes me feel better, sometimes. Besides, I may be short, but I’m pretty good with the saber. I bet I could match your sword…maybe not your arrows. But I’ve always wanted to try.”
Jin Ling looked at him suspiciously for a long moment.
“Okay,” he finally said. “Sure. Why not?”
-
“I really hate that you’re kind of cool,” Lan Jingyi told him.
“I am so cool,” Nie Songsong said, and passed him another jar of wine. “Want to see my spring book collection?”
“…yes please.”
-
“Thank you for taking care of him,” Lan Xichen said to Nie Huaisang, who shrugged. “I’m sorry that you couldn’t trust me to help.”
“It’s only what I should have done,” Nie Huaisang said, not for the first time. He’d said it so often these past few days that it felt like a new refrain, an alternative to the old I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. He preferred the original. “I was his little uncle, remember? I held him on his first month party. How could I do any less?”
He did not say that Lan Xichen, who could be classified as Jin Rusong’s older uncle, had done much less, but from Lan Xichen’s expression, he’d taken it that way anyway.
“You never…” Lan Xichen hesitated. “Did you ever have any – concerns?”
“That he’d turn out an idiot? No. I figured he’d be in good company, with me.”
“That’s not what I meant!”
“Oh, you meant whether I was worried that he’d grow up longing for his blood family over his adopted family and turn against me in favor of his real father?” Nie Huaisang asked mildly. “No, not really. The memory of your father ordering you to be mauled by fierce corpses and to make sure your face is destroyed so that there’s a reason to refuse to let your mother see the body, as it would only upset her, is a fairly effective panacea against things like that.”
“No,” Lan Xichen said, though he looked sick all over again at the reminder of how considerate Jin Guangyao could be when it came to those he thought of as people, and how monstrous he was towards those he didn’t. “No, just – your brother always took such a hard line against the Wen sect…”
“Because they were raised with the philosophy that they were superior to the rest of us and my brother purposefully made himself into the symbol of their fallibility, thereby making himself and all the rest of us the primary target for their traumatic realization that they’re just as weak and vulnerable as everyone else,” Nie Huaisang said, rolling his eyes. “Our Nie sect cultivators were always especially targeted whenever we were captured – our survival rate as prisoners of war was less than half all the other sects, and it wasn’t just because we were usually more injured when we got caught. Even the civilians surnamed Wen would pull out knives and try to stab us in the back if they had half a chance! We were in a blood feud with them, er-ge. You don’t put down blood feuds just like that, not even if you want to. That’s not how it works.”
Lan Xichen nodded slowly, thoughtful.
“Anyway, Songsong is mine now,” Nie Huaisang said. “Just as Lan Sizhui is your brother’s, and Jin Ling Jiang Cheng’s. Can’t we all just agree to not care about the rest?”
“I suppose we have to,” Lan Xichen said, bowing his head. “Huaisang…did you ever think about what happens now? I mean – what should we do next?”
“I don’t know,” Nie Huaisang said, and smiled humorlessly when Lan Xichen looked at him. “I’m not joking. I didn’t know what to do when I got Songsong for the first time, er-ge, and I don’t know what to do now, either. I just wanted to see justice done for my da-ge, and I did, and for the rest – I don’t know.”
“That’s fine,” Lan Xichen said. “I don’t know, either.”
Nothing ventured, nothing gained, Nie Huaisang thought. Spine as steel as your saber.
“Would you like to come visit the Unclean Realm sometime?” he asked, pretending to be casual. “Perhaps we can figure out what we don’t know together. If you like.”
“…perhaps I will,” Lan Xichen said.
#mdzs#nie huaisang#xue yang#lan xichen#jin rusong#jin ling#lan sizhui#lan jingyi#my fic#my fics#nothing ventured nothing gained
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sits.
a curse/plot imperative hits nmj and makes him invisible (inaudible, untouchable, etc, etc) while he’s in jinlintai. he’s convinced it’s somehow jgy’s doing, so he sets to find him and make him remove it, except, of course, shouting your san-di into anything is a bit difficult when he acts as if he can’t see or hear you -- the gall, the--oh fuck and walks right through you, as if you were a ghost?! fucked up. really fucked up, alright. and he can’t summon baxia to like, cleave the bastard in half, so he settles on following him everywhere, determined to discover the way to uncurse himself (because it’s clearly jgy, cmon). and also all the atrocities and plots jgy is undoubtedly up to when no one’s looking.
he finds... things, oh that he does. and stuff. such as: what jin guangshan looks like after a merry night with the girls (jgy came to wake him up). or: how jin guangshan behaves with a barely awake girl who passed out last night, and how long it takes for jgy to politely persuade him to perhaps get up and go have breakfast, or madame jin might be cross with him. or: how jin guangshan snorts and pushes his son away, sending him straight into what looks and smells like a puddle of vomit, for some reason. etc, etc
during those very educating hours, nmj does get an answer to the immediate question of why does he allow that to happen to him?!, and the one to provide it is no one else than madame jin, who never wastes a chance to remind jgy that he’s a disgusting bastard, this is not his home, and one wrong step can send him back down those stairs, so watch your place. she’s not the only one to voice her thoughts in this manner, because a couple of cousins also always has something to say. eventually he also learns to recognize the less obvious signs of someone’s contempt -- jgy sometimes does that soulless smile or clenches his jaw and nmj initially doesn’t know why, that person didn’t say anything hateful, and then he learns to notice the facial expressions, the tone of voice, even the backhanded compliments. tl;dr jinlintai is hell, what the fuck, nmj would have beheaded half of those bastards and jgy just keeps on smiling--
i mean he does find the corpses too, okay. he does find them because jgy has to pay a-yang a visit. like this is a thing that happens,
BUT ALSO he witnesses his meeting with sect leader su -- oh his name’s minshan, whatever -- who seems to be... aware of everything that happens to jgy and fucking furious about it, and also something something society. this su minshan notices that jgy has been slapped this day, and looks as if he’s boiling inside for a moment, and then he Snaps, which -- judging by jgy’s face -- isn’t his first time.
nmj finds out about a lot of interesting things after that? such as jgy doesn’t have any place to leave for, and if he “doesn’t like it” at jinlintai, he might as well just hang himself, it’ll be quicker that way; how his sworn brothers must think they’re so great and noble but how can they be any of these if jgy doesn’t feel he can ask them for help; how jin guangshan may be his father but it doesn’t excuse him deliberately putting jgy to the most humiliating, dirty and atrocious tasks, and ordering him to kill nie mingjue is honestly too much, what, can’t he kill him himself, this old, pathetic worm? does he have to send his son? and to nie mingjue, who regards him as lower than an insect, as if it wasn’t him who saved his ungrateful ass, etc etc? it’s a very enlightening evening for nie mingjue, in short
of course sms uses slightly gentler words; but jgy tells him off for that anyway, but at this point nmj... sails off a little, needing time to... (gestures) this ALL
and like. how it ends is honestly not as important as the EXPERIENCE, like LEARN A LITTLE, NIE MINGJUE. nmj is a character that, i feel, hasn’t really been robbed of his agency and power as others have (jgy being jgy, wwx and jc losing their cores, lxc losing his home and family etcetc).
like yes, he’s been living with the looming threat of losing his mind to saber brain, but being so possessed by rage and killing intent that you explode, killing everyone around you is slightly different flavour of hell than being aware that anyone could kill you anytime and no one would care! or notice.
so all the scenarios where he loses a lot of his power -- for example his golden core, i think i had an idea like that on twt, rip in pieces -- and can witness, first or second hand, what it’s like to be jgy or jgy-adjacent, are. good. crunchy. juicy and umami. yknow?
so, does he get uncursed? does he decide to help jgy, now seeing him in a different light? does he See, and feel bad about his black-and-white views? or does he simply -- march into xy’s merry little workshop when jgy is there, drag him out and execute him in front of everyone? who knows, it could be a very interesting fic i’m not going to write, but also, hngggghhh i am sorry for saying this and i love da-ge, his firm titties and his sexey moustache to Bits, but -- yesss nmj can get brought down a peg or seven from time to time. as a treat (for me).
also, it was all sms
#explanation:#sms has a lot of pissed off thoughts he doesn't voice. one of those thoughts was 'hmpf righteous and mighty nie mingjue thinks his word is#above everyone else's! you should try living in our skins! you should try being considered so unimportant you're practically invi-- HEY.'#end of explanation. all hail the king#shut up shrimp#thinky thots#long post ? of sorts? idk
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LAN XICHEN AND JIANG CHENG:
JC stans want Jiang Cheng to end up with Lan Xichen because he is the First Jade of Lan, while Lan Wangji, who is Wei Wuxian’s husband, is only Second. For once in his miserable life, Jiang Cheng will get the better end of the deal than Wei Wuxian, right? But the thing is, as far as the narrative goes, nobody can beat Hanguang-jun other than Wei Wuxian- his own brother included. We are repeatedly given evidence that Lan Wangji is stronger than Lan Xichen, is more of an expert at the guqin than Lan Xichen, is more skilled in Clan Techniques than Lan Xichen, is more righteous than Lan Xichen, etc. etc. Nobody but Lan Wangji could have survived the 33 whip lashes, fought 33 well-trained Elders while also protecting his dying beloved, undertaken dangerous night hunts in desolate areas with no expectations of repayment, and end up Hanguang-jun. When one hears of the name ‘Lan’, one thinks of Hanguang-jun, Lan Wangji, the Second Jade of Lan, and then, Lan Xichen, his brother, the First Jade. Lan Wangji did have more freedom than Lan Xichen, but it is not that much more, and thus we can attribute his values and his morals as his own. Where does Xicheng come in? We know that Jiang Cheng does not care about pesky qualities such as honour or integrity, to say nothing of his homophobic tendencies, but if he were to become a “disgusting” cut-sleeve, he would not settle for anything but the best, which Lan Xichen is not. Jiang Cheng is also extremely jealous and vindicative, easy to offend and anger, and can absolutely never handle being below anyone. Lan Xichen might not be as talented as his brother, but he is still leagues better than the “Wielder Of His Own Damn Sword”, Jiang-Zhongzu. They would not mesh well together. But we know all this. Let us talk about Lan Xichen. Rulers should be good to their people and their primary strength should lie in being able to detach themselves from their personal feelings in kingdom-related matters and take a professional approach. In the book’s context, a Sect Leader should be cold and practical in the matters involving the Sect. Jiang Fengmian fails to do this with his wife, and ends up getting most of his Sect killed due to his cowardice. Lan Xichen does this with A-Yao. As Sect Leader, Lan Xichen’s warmth causes less diplomatic incidents, since he is good with pacifying and mollifying prickly Sect Heads, but he can be easily swayed by weakness, real or feigned, and such beliefs work to his disadvantage. One more thing I would like to point out is that Lan Wangji, after losing the love of his life and being whipped 33 times (with a Spiritual Weapon) for treason, only remained in seclusion long enough to heal his body. If he could function in such a painful situation, all the while caring for an orphaned child and watching his brother happily interact with the person most responsible for, why could not Lan Xichen? He wasn’t even physically impaired! Oh boo-hoo, my most trusted friend of 20 years betrayed me and killed my Sworn Brother? Yes! Yes, he did, and it was a most traumatising thing to do, but he did not do it without your own help and encouragement! It is not Lan Xichen’s fault for being taken by a Master Manipulator, of course, but it is his fault for being passive and taking the easy way out 2/3 times in order not to upset his Sworn Brothers and the rest of the elitist Cultivation World! There are metas that state that once Lan Xichen is given confirmation of ill-will and misdeeds, he does not hesitate to choose the path of righteousness and conviction, but it is the time that he takes to obtain such confirmations is what irks me. He makes no moves of his own, does not go out of his way to investigate events he himself was suspicious about until his brother encourages (read: forces by showing unignorable evidence) him to, and spends most of his time after the Siege sitting on his hands (other than rebuilding his Sect, I will give him that) and entertaining A-Yao! *Sigh* This is quite a cruel take on him, and if we view him through the same lens we do
our favourite characters many of his faults will fizzle out quickly, but I just think he should not be let off as scott-free as he currently is being let. If I have misunderstood something, or mentioned anything wrong, please do not hesitate to correct me! It will help with my understanding of his character and help me write better fics.
Dee - This was a submission not an ask - my reply under the cut off
I try not to say much about LXC and maintain a neutral POV on him because he is, from what I read in the novel, a good character. Not perfect and certainly not as wise as he's often made out to be, but good. Honestly, to me he comes across as someone who is somewhat naive, unaware of his own prejudices, but willing to pursue the truth when prompted. He also seems to be a bit stubborn and is very confident in his own judgment. I believe all of that can be attributed to the fact that he's a Sect Heir and a Sect Leader later. He needs to have that solid belief in his judgment to lead.
To me, LWJ and LXC present interesting parallels. Both loved (platonic in LXC's case, love is love) people from lower social classes, both were confronted with somewhat unsavory characteristics. The parallels are very striking, tbh.
LWJ loved a morally strong man - LXC loved a morally weak one.
LWJ's love for WWX enlightened him - LXC's love for JGY blinded him.
LWJ took WWX to task on every mistake - LXC covered up or made excuses for JGY's red flags.
WWX's taught LWJ to challenge and question everything - JGY taught LXC to trust blindly and accept excuses.
LWJ learned to fight, even if it meant disrupting peace - LXC learned to look the other way in order to maintain peace.
It wasn't until LXC was pushed by LWJ and WWX that he took action but he still took action. Arguably, it would've been just as painful for LXC to suspect JGY as it would've been LWJ to suspect WWX. When you love someone and their character sinks to the gutter, the hurt is immeasurable. It is nearly the worst betrayal you can face. I don't blame LXC for wanting to avoid it.
Also, LXC had a lot of reasons to act the way he did. As readers, we have the benefit of hindsight but when people are confronted with difficult situations and insufficient information, they act differently. So yeah, it is a bit dissatisfying that he doesn't get called out for some of this foolishness, but honestly, it is a minor thing.
As for LXC and JC, I agree. It is definitely a way to one-up WWX with the 'better' Lan. We don't really know how skilled LXC is and how he can stand against LWJ or WWX. I'm rather certain he's stronger than JC at any rate. JGY was able to fight and defeat JC but he had to trick both LXC and LWJ into sealing their powers. His cultivation is strong. He's just not as sharp and intelligent as LWJ and WWX are but they're exceptional.
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i read another one of those posts that was discussing the difference between i-societies and we-societies and how that difference effects interpretation and fandom and they used lan xichen as their example of this, specifically how people view his reaction to lan wangji’s punishment - either as perfectly understandable and expected aka totally morally fine, or see it as heinous crime that goes against basic decency
which immediately caught my attention because i’m sure y’all are aware i have some Feelings around lwj’s punishment and his clan
the reason i’m not responding to this post in a reblog is just because the op said that this was just their opinion and they weren’t looking to engage in discourse. so i’m just making my own post instead
the reason this caught my attention is that my Feelings really don’t have anything to do with the appropriateness of lwj’s punishment at the time that it occurred
the clan decided that wens needed to be killed. the clan decided wwx was culpable of the many crimes of which he was accused. not only did lwj go against his clan’s decisions, he injured his clan members in the process, either by protecting wwx or the wens depending on the media.
we live in a society
do i think that the clans deciding they really needed to kill a bunch of old people is morally reprehensible? yes. do i think they should have reevaluated their perceptions after no army of cultivators was at the burial mounds? obviously.
but they didn’t. they ignored evidence to the contrary and decided to go forward with their perceptions. however i feel about that, it’s what happened, which means from their perspective lwj went against them and injured his clansmen for no justifiable reason
of course they punished him for it. why wouldn’t they? if they didn’t, that would be insane and go against everything shown in the untamed universe and the lan clan in particular about punishment and responsibility
lxc is the clan head. regardless of his personal feelings, he has a duty to uphold the law and order of his clan. if he doesn’t, how can he effectively lead it? especially considering how his father broke away from those rules
all of this is true in universe. it’s what we have to work with. i may handwave or twist things in fanfiction for my persona satisfaction, because that’s what fanfiction is for, but this is what canon has given us
here’s why i don’t like lxc specifically in connection with lwj’s punishment
multiple members of my family have gone to jail. more than once
they committed crimes. they were guilty. they were judged by a trial of their peers and a sentence was passed down by a judge
while there are many things wrong with our criminal system, i know for a fact that they really were guilty of the crimes they were accused, and that their sentences were not overly harsh in proportion to their crimes
we live in a society
i would never say that this shouldn’t have happened or is unfair because it’s important to me that i live in society that has a way to deal with and manage crime (ignoring my specific feelings about the effectiveness and appropriateness of the current criminal system)
but i was always sad about it
i never wanted them to go. i worried about them while they were in there. they’re my family and i care about them and even if they brought it on themselves i don’t like seeing people i care about suffer. i didn’t want it to happen. i regretted that it was happening to them.
sometimes they committed crimes against me specifically or in ways that involved me. stealing from me and other members of my family, or getting in a physical altercation in front of me that i felt the need to try and break up
even when i was personally hurt and affected by their crimes, they were still my family, and i love them, and i’m still on good terms with them today. family can be complicated. love is messy
while lxc may not have been able to stop or lessen lwj’s punishment, and while as the clan leader he couldn’t speak out against the actions of his sect, that’s not really what my specific feelings are about
he never voices regret for lwj’s suffering, except to blame wwx for it. he never says that he didn’t want it to happen and that he hated that it did and that if he could have stopped it while still upholding a functioning society, he would have. even after the truth of everything comes out, and it turns out maybe lwj had a reason for his actions that should have been taken into consideration, he never readjusts his perception or voices that change in perception out loud. sure, you can argue that maybe these things happened off screen because this is a story from wwx’s perspective. but maybe they didn’t
the punishment is instead wholly correct and good without room for personal suffering
i like lxc for a lot of reasons. i find his reaction to wwx and all the accusations against jgy after the time jump to be admirable, for one. i’m perfectly happy to read stories and interpretations where’s he’s a pure badass cinnamon roll
but
the question for me was never really was lwj’s punishment appropriate in the context of his society or what social responsibility to lwj did lxc have as a member of society or as clan leader or his brother
it was: does your love exist outside of the bounds of social acceptability?
is your empathy able to exist outside the realm of responsibility? does your care and worry extend even through the societal failures of someone who matters to you?
if the answer to those questions is no, well
i’m just not going like you very much
#this is your grandma talking#sometimes i feel like some people#want to put every difference of opinion down to#an east vs west issue#but i just think people are more complicated than that#untamed
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Fic Finder
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1. Hi, I'm looking for an Untamed fic, maybe you'll be able to help. It's a canon divergence AU in which WWX doesn't lose his core, Jiang Fengmian lives and it's implied that his core was transferred to JC (heavily implied; JFM retires as the Sect Leader after that). This is absolutely not the most important part of this fic but it's a paragraph that I've got stuck in my head and now I'm searching for the rest @_@ Thanks in advance! ~ @otemporaetmores
FOUND! by @notsobabblespace, who was reminded of I’m aching and I know you are too by edenwolfie (part 3 in series, M, 23k, wangxian)
FOUND! by @jim-is-spocks-thyla, who suggests ❤️ to arrive late is better than not to arrive at all by Moominmammashandbag
(M, 35k, wangxian) [ETA: Oops, not this one. JFM has no core, but he didn’t give it to JC]
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2. Hi Mojo! I’m in need of you/your followers help in finding a fic that I read a little while ago. It was a fic where Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi lived together in Cloud Recesses and their children were Sizhui and an OOC that was younger than him. I remember SiZhui faced a lot of criticism for not being the chief cultivator’s real child? And they were happy he had a younger sibling that would be sect leader in the future because he was blood. Come to think of it, this is probably an ABO fic too. Thanks for your time 💜
FOUND! @andidontmeanto believes this is Blue Blood by PotterheadAvengerDemigod (T, 91k, wangxian, my post)
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3. Aksks it's like 3 am but I just remembered a fic and I can't find it?? I'd really, really appreciate your help. It was a wangxian fic, maybe a oneshot idk, and lwj was kind of a nerd and wwx a badboy? So basically lwj has a massive crush on him and dresses up like wwx etc. (i think he even got an undercut) and after a party they sleep with each other at lwj's place?
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4. i’m looking for a fic set in the where lwj’s mother killed his father? i don’t think that was a main plot point but it did show up in his backstory - any idea what this might be? ~ @thehype
FOUND! @rentslirott thinks this could be ❤️the best of you by sysrae
(E, 42k, wangxian, my post)
FOUND! @castaways-logbook offers The Right to Care by travelingneuritis (E, 39k, wangxian, WIP)
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5. ... same as #6 ...
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6. Hello friend, sorry for the inconvenience but I wanted to see if you could please find me a fic that I lost but I only remember more or less the final part, it goes more or less like this, lan zhan and wei ying are kidnapped by jin guangyao and lock them up if not I'm wrong in some cells next to lan xichen after the fights jin guangyao dies but lan xichen did know how bad jin guangyao had done and he didn't care and then to get revenge he wants to kill wei ying but lan zhan kills him and sizhui gets scared It was more or less like that, please help me ~ @isa0123lol
FOUND! by @wangxiansfics who says that tragically it’s no longer available, but @dulachodladh found it on WaybackMachine here: Thread and Needle by haysel (M, 86k, wangxian)
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7. Hi, Mojo! I'm glad that you're back but I hope you enjoyed your time off tumblr! Can you and/or your followers help me find a fic? I think the summary was talking about wwx and somehow they were asking mingjue for help since he's the only one who can help. The summary was in italics and it's a dialogue from some guy? And a shorter summary below. Sadly this is the only thing I can remember but I hope you can still help me
FOUND! @alwayswenning suggests love, in fire and blood by cicer (E, 360k, wangxian, has it’s own fanfic here, I just finished this last night!, my bookmark)
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8. Sorry to bombard you as soon as you're back, but this one's driving me crazy--a modern AU where they met online. WWX thinks LWJ is an old man from how he talks. I don't remember much except the excerpt made it seem like he still was amused by/enjoyed talking to him, and Wen Qing was telling him it was a bad idea and to stop. It's not How to Fall In Love With a Catfish, tho that one is brilliant! (Also any top notch identity porn would be great) Hope your break was restful, you deserve it! Thanks
Here’s my #identity porn tag, but I’m not sure about this exact story.
I'm the anon for #8 on the fic finder. Though I'm excited to read it, the suggested fic isn't the one I was looking for. I swear I thought I saw it on here around a month ago or slightly more, but searches have failed me.
FOUND! Rating: General Audiences by Mishaa (T, 18k, wangxian WIP) - mysterious author LWJ (speculated to be an old man because of his formality) and infamous artist WWX paired up for an Untamed Big Bang (in an AU where JGY was the series’ antiheroic protagonist; this fic was written before the release of CQL.)
FOUND? could you be looking for Something Real by Latios (G, 5k, wangxian, my post) - wwx thinks lwj is an old man, but there’s no WQ. There are many pictures of bunnies.
SIMILAR! @emilysidhe thought of ID Bro Saga by Bowandtie (T, 39k, wangxian)
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9. Hey, how are you? Could you help me please? I've read 3 fanfics once, but I can't find them anymore. 1 - Nanny Problem, Wei is going to be the babysitter of A-Yuan, he is an omega and Lan is an alpha. 2 - Doctor Perfect, Yibo is an omega nurse and Xiao is an alpha doctor. 3 - The Baby of my Omega, Yibo is omega and Xiao is alpha, both of them are bodyguards, but Yibo has to protect Xiao in the beginning. I think they were at ao3, but I really can't find them. Can you help me please? Thank you!! ~ @weallmad
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10. Hi! Im happy you’re back. I hope you had a good break. I missed your recommendations, but at the same time i got a break from fics and actually studied to my tests haha. [Ah! I’m glad to hear your time was spent productively!] I’m looking for a fic like Linger in the Sun by etymologyplayground. In the fic im looking for wangxian slowly lose their senses instead of all of them at once. Like they lose their hearing, then touch, sight etc, They can’t see each other or hear each other. I’m sorry i can’t explain very well.
FOUND? Could you be thinking of ❤️shadows in the sun rise by Yuu_chi (E, 25k, wangxian)? Only lwj losese his senses one by one in this one, though.
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11. heyyy im trying to find this fic where wwx died the first time he was thrown in to the burial mounds then 10 years later he gets resurrected or something. I can't find it on AO3 and it's been bugging me for days. Thank you!
FOUND! Well, @moku-youbi offers both of these as possibilities:
Did I Not Explain Why the Sunset Turns Red? by 3988Akasha (E, 100k, wangxian)
we're starting at the end by Miss_Enthusiasimal (M, 95k, wangxian)
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12. Hi I am looking for a fic where wwx is a witch (/mage?) in a world where magic is being persecuted (especially in Gusu) except for Yunmeng/Lanling I think but they're still frowned upon nonetheless. Then after accidentally hurting Shijie, wwx runs away, and ends up hiding in Gusu pretending to be a servant to lwj (lwj is a prince, lxc is the emperor) but lwj actually knows of his identity and tries not-so-discreetly to protect him from being caught. Thanks!
FOUND! by @bibliobasilisk who gives us Witchfinder by misbehavingvigilante (E, 86k, wangxian)
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13. Hi! Firstly, I'm glad to see you're back, and I hope your break was a good one! I'm trying to find a LWJ/WWX story that I had planned to read and ending up losing before I could. It was set in the immediate aftermath of the 33 lashes, LWJ is in the Jingshi recovering when a healer(?) discovers he's pregnant (by WWX). It may have been a/b/o verse, but I'm not 100% on that. Part of the story was a flashback to when WWX was still alive. Thank you!
FOUND! by nonny themself. It’s Unexpected Surprise by Glucose_Gremlin (E, 4k, wangxian)
SIMILAR! @mondelgel suggests my heart is kept as pure as ice in a jade vase/一片冰心在玉壶 by Daledesu (M, 21k, wangxian, WIP)
SIMILAR! from @impending-cuttlefish: something new, something white, something blue by ariskamalt (E, 140k, wangxian, WIP)
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14. I'm trying to find this one fic where Jin Ling finds this diary that Wei Ying wrote as the Yiling Patriarch that basically reveals everything, including the golden core reveal and it even has training tips that helps Jon Ling improve. When Wei Ying comes back, he tries everything to keep him there because he is THE best uncle now. I need to find it because it is a N E E D.
FOUND? by @theladypeartree who says, “The Truth (Untold) is jl reading jyl's journals, not wwx's though. And mordant is jl returning wwx's journals that he found, not grew up with. Neither fit #14 properly, but I seriously could not find anything closer after two solid days of searching. Good luck!“
The Truth (Untold) by anxiouswreck0_0 (g, 3k, wangxian, jin ling & wei wuxian)
or this one on ffn:
mordant by tennisnotensai (M, 18k, wangxian, here’s the link for mobile)
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15. I have heard tell of a Sizhui/Jingyi fic where the boys end up going to Wangxian for advice about how to be intimate. Can you help me find it?
FOUND! @manaika-chan says this one is On Advisement by LaMachina17 (M, 19k, wangxian, zhuiling, chengyi)
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16. nm
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17. Hi! Sorry, do you happen to know that nsfw fic where wwx is still studying in the cloud recesses and he’s reading a novel (im not sure if it was from nhs) that features a cultivator couple and there’s a scene in the book where the woman was pegging her husband? Basically wwx got curious about this and tried fingering himself. I remember he was hiding in the back mountains and then lwj eventually caught him
FOUND? Could you be thinking of Deep in the Woods by malkinmalkout (E, 5k, wangxian, my post)?
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18. Ahhh I'm going crazy trying to think of a fic that I've read where Lan Zhan killed Wen Chao in a locker room and nie huaisang stood guard outside the door! Then lan zhan went to lan huan and said I killed someone and he said did they deserve it? Then it's fine. And I can't remember the name of the fic! Have you heard of it? ~ @uchihaautumn
FOUND! @artemisisdiana offers So Full Of Love (Wouldn't Know Where to Start) by witchupbitch (M, 54k, wangxian, WIP)
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19. Hi, I was wondering if you could help me find a fic. I read it a while ago and I don't really remember all the details but it was a modern au where Lan Wangji was a police officer in this small town and Wei Wuxian comes back after years, having left the town due to some stuff. Thank you in advance.
Btw love your blog. I live for your fic recs. [Thank you!]
FOUND? Could you be looking for medium blues by dark_and_terrible
(E,193k, wangxian)? It appears to be taken down atm, but it might come back (it’s done it before).
FOUND! by @grannyweatherwaxshat who offers When a Bird Flies, It Leaves Feathers by Bem_Kofi (not rated, 75k, wangxian)
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20. Hi mojo!! First of all I luv your blog Thank you so much for all those ficrecs. [You’re welcome!] Actually I’m looking for a fic I read months ago. I probably found the fic from your blog. But I can’t seem to find it now 😢 it was a modern au wangxian fic (inspired by call me by ur name?) wwx was like 5 years older than lwj. (And lwj was like 16?) Wwx lives in another city but he spent around a year in cloud recesses with lwj in the past. And wwx yanli and jc visits cloud recesses again and wangxian gets 2gether
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[My ko-fi.]
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