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silkiemae · 1 year

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Lightlark by Alex Aster

My rating: 1/5

Okay, so before I even explain the actual story I’m going to attempt to work out the world-building happening here. And see if I can make sense of it. This book is so poorly constructed and needed far more exposition in the beginning before throwing us into this competition, imo. Like it compares itself to Hunger Games but at least that book explained the games before Katniss ever actually gets put in them. Not to mention you actually get to know Katniss as a person before she's ever a tribute in the games.

Thousands of years ago, Lightlark was an island with six isles. On each of these isles was a different -ling type of magical person. Sunlings, Skylings, Moonlings, Starlings, Wildlings and Nightshade(lol). Then, five hundred years ago, the island was split into shards and all the people of Lightlark was cursed. Everyone who ruled the isles died(by sacrifice? I think?), and all their powers were transferred to their heirs. Most people fled from Lightlark and settled on the shards of land because the island was super unstable now, yet some decided to continue living there because the island gives them power.

So each realm has a unique curse based on its power(somehow). Starlings are cursed to die at age 25 but I have no idea how that connects to their power. Wildlings are cursed to kill the person they love and live exclusively off of human hearts, their power is that they can control nature but also are considered 'savage seductresses'. Moonlings have super high tides during the full moon, and it kills a lot of people. This one makes sense, I guess but just...go inside when there's a full moon? Sunlings are cursed never to see the brightness of day. Nightshades can’t go outside during the night.

Since the curses, every 100 years Lightlark hosts a Centennial where all the rulers of the realm gather(by invitation) to a ‘competition’ in the hopes to end their realms curse. Whoever wins gets the power it took to spin the curses, which seems like a bad idea. Also, inviting a Nightshade who can already spin curses isn’t the brightest plan, but okay. It also says the island appears once every 100 years, but it’s really only accessible every 100 years because it’s plagued by storms, but couldn’t Isla just use her star stick to get there? It also says that if a ruler elects to not participate they can't get any of the grand prize but like? If the grand prize is to break the curses of Lightlark how can they control which curses get broken?

To break the curses, one ruler must die, but to my understanding, this will also destroy that ruler's entire realm. Now, Oro, who happens to be both the king of Lightlark and the ruler of the Sunlings is also a part of the Centennial, and if he dies then all of Lightlark dies so why in the hell is he allowed to participate in this alleged ‘to the death’ competition? What do the people in these realms do while they wait for the Centennial to be over? Are they just freaking out for the next 3 and a half months wondering if they’re going to all blink out of existence??

So, the rules of the Centennial make not a lick of sense. For the first 25 days, each of the rulers has to choose a trial to show their worth. And by worth, it means what realm deserves to survive the Centennial. But I was under the impression this was meant to be a fight-to-the-death type thing. But apparently, these trials will end in a vote to decide which ruler should die to end the curse. So does this mean there won’t even be a Hunger games type battle? After the quarter mark, they get partners whom they cannot kill. In fact, they can’t kill anyone until after the 50-day mark. But aren’t they just going to vote on who to kill? So…what is the point of any of this?

So, Lightlark centers around Isla, who is the ruler of the Wildlings. Isla’s mom didn’t follow the rules of her curse and kill the man she loved like she was supposed so instead, he killed her. After their daughter was born, of course. As a result of her mother failing to kill her father, Isla was born with no powers. Yet, each of the -ling realms is powered by their ruler's magic, and as Isla doesn’t have any magic, her realm is slowly dying, as are her people. She’s been kept in a glass dome all her life by her guardians as a way to keep this secret, and they’ve basically abused her, trying to train her for the Centennial. They have this whole plan set up for her that she’s going to seduce King Oro because it’s said that whoever wins his love will also win his power or something, but Isla is like uGH fuck that I’m gonna do my own thing. Isla found a star stick that allows her to teleport between realms, and she went to the Starling realm and made besties with the ruler there, Celeste(honestly, they should've just gotten together). Together, they made a plan not to follow the rules of the Centennial and search for an object called a Bondbreaker together. The Bondbreaker needs enough blood to kill a ruler in order to work, and they think if they split the cost, it’ll be fine. Allegedly, this bond breaker can break both their curses without killing them. If the blood trick works, that is.

Now, here’s what I want to know. If Isla has this star stick, why didn’t she hop on over to grab Celeste and then teleport to Lightlark and start searching for the bond breaker early? Yes, I know that Lightlark isn’t accessible because of storms, but do magic portals really matter in the face of storms? Can’t she just open a door directly into the library of each of the Isles? She could’ve searched these libraries so much simpler and quicker if she just thought to use her damn star stick. Also, if this bond breaker exists, why did no one else think to use it? If Celeste and Isla break their realm's curses without having to go through the crap the other rulers go through, won’t they be pissed? Wouldn’t they try to seek vengeance for Celeste and Isla, basically cheating the system? If they had 4 other Centennials before this, why are no realms freed from their curses? If the Starlings all die at age 25, why doesn’t the ruler choose not to have any heirs and then just die? If the ruler has to die to end the curse but dying also kills the realm, then what is the point of any of this? Or did I misunderstand that entirely? Honestly, if I did, I'm not surprised, given how convoluted this book is.

Throughout the first 25% of the book, nothing really happens. All the rulers fap around and show off how powerful they are. The first trial is a duel, and yet Isla didn’t think to bring any weapons along to this competition. She entered well, aware that it was a fight to the death. Another trial is for the rulers to display their powers, but Isla gets away with using a throwing star blindfolded and knocking off King Oro’s crown because everyone is so impressed by how ~skilled~ she is. One time she sings on a balcony, and she’s just so unnaturally good that the king of Lightlark applauds for her and then saves her when she almost plunges to her death like an idiot. Isla is supposed to be playing all coy so that people underestimate her, but she can’t resist showing off and being the best sword fighter ever.

One thing I wanted to mention that I found hilarious. I saw a lot of reviewers mention that they never saw Oro coming as a love interest in the story because they were picturing him like an old dad. But, uh, Grim and Oro are prob the same age, right? I know Oro is an Origin or whatever, but Grim is also centuries old, and Celeste and Isla are the only young rulers. This brings me to another point. The power imbalance there. If this were actually a fight to the death(it’s not), how could either of them hope to win against these age 500+ rulers? (Plot armor, that’s how.) But yeah, back to the Oro thing. That was literally the original plan for Isla to seduce him. I knew that shit was coming when he applauded her ‘unnaturally good singing’.

Oh, it's later revealed that Isla can't use her star stick to places she's never been before, which would've been useful information much earlier on. But then, how did she get to Star Isle? How did she get anywhere when she was falling through puddles of stars or whatever? Did she just free fall and hope she wouldn't land smack dab in the ocean? Personally, I think that if this story had maybe started like several weeks before the Centennial and it began with Isla finding the star stick and then just getting sucked to the Star Newlands cuz maybe she activated it or something and it just immediately took it to like the place of its origin or something and then we get to see Star Newlands and see her meeting with Celeste, etc. I think that would've been a cool place to start tbh. But no. We get thrown into Isla getting ready for her special day with little to no backstory on who she is as a person. I still don't know. Or really care.

And here is where my will to read this book petered out. I made it about 40% and when nothing improved I decided that there are better books that make far more sense, out there for me. So, I'm off to read one. There's no way this book is getting made into a movie. I don't see it happening and if it does then there is NO HOPE.

#lightlark #Alex aster #book review #book blog #book worm #book rant #young adult #fantasy

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iheartgod175 · 2 years

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Speaking of the Cerulean Avenger…

I now have a few more ideas of how this story would go, thanks to watching Date a Live for the past week!

I’m working on how Droop-a-Long will fit into this story. He’ll kinda be like this story’s Shido Itsuka, minus the harem elements, lol. And because he’s going to be this story’s Shido, well, he’s gonna be put through the ringer a bit in this story. But that’s for another post!

@blazing-shadows has been really helpful in creating a few of the ideas for Ricochet and Huck’s beef in this universe, but I had a few ideas of my own. It started because Huck killed Ricochet’s sister, Rose, during a mission, and in retaliation, he killed Huck’s first wife, Clementine, when the hound endangered Mireya, Ric’s last link to Rose. This would fully cement their vitriol and hatred for each other. However, as with most things, Rose’s death and Clementine’s murder weren’t exactly cut and dry. In fact, these were outright planned. I took some inspiration from Honkai, DaL and Star Fox: Assault.

In this universe, Rose and her husband Isaiah lived longer and had a happy marriage, raising Mireya together until she was about 5 years old. She was a close friend of Hokey Wolf, whom she had helped turn his life around, especially once he discovered he had a son, Ding-a-Ling. Unlike most of the people, she knew of the Celestials (this story’s version of Spirits), and had heard of their incredible power—she had initially given Huck his code name, “Avenger”, after witnessing him exacting vengeance on a murderer—but had the belief that they should be regarded as people rather than as enemies or playthings. While Hokey initially shared this belief, Ding-a-Ling’s gruesome death at the hands of a rogue Celestial twisted his mind with grief and it gave him the notion that he could cheat death—he just needed a Celestial’s power to do it. His obsession with both finding the “Celestial of Origin” and to obtain their powers concerned Rose, but he assured her that this was nothing to worry about and he wasn’t doing anything illegal.

Her concerns were heightened when she discovered that Hokey was ordering Huck to kill rogue Celestials in order to harvest their Imperium Crystals—the source of their incredible power—in order to use them to gain enough power to resurrect his son and avenge his death. Even worse, Hokey’s missions were layered in a way that Huck wouldn’t feel bad about doing so, taking advantage of Huck’s desire to bring the guilty to justice and stating that these rogue Celestials were beyond saving. Rose attempted to warn Huck and expose the truth, but not only did Hokey thwart her attempt, but also infused her with an Imperium Crystal in order to forcibly turn her into his personal servant. It backfired horribly when Rose’s body and soul rejected it, causing her to start going berserk.

Her last words to Ricochet—who hadn’t received his powers yet— were to tell her husband and daughter that she loved them.

Her last words to Huck—who had been told of a “failed experiment” going berserk in the labs—was a final request to kill her before she went completely berserk, as she didn’t want to be an accomplice to “that fiend”. With a heavy heart, Huck carried out her request.

And Ricochet, who watched her die, vowed then and there that he would make it his life’s mission to end Huck’s life. He sought power as destructive as Huck’s and would get it from Hokey, who used the same destructive Crystal that had taken Rose’s life to give Ricochet his “soul reaping” ability. While he initially played on the rabbit’s grief and rage, the wolf’s true reason for this was so he could use his power—specifically, if and when Ricochet underwent an Inversion.

Unfortunately for Hokey, both Ricochet and Huckleberry Hound had outside forces to keep both of them stable and from undergoing said Inversions, which pissed him off. So he decided to speed up the process by killing Desert Flower—who Huck met years later and was starting to open his heart towards—and Droop-a-Long Coyote in front of Huck, Ricochet and Drag-a-Long, Droop’s brother. Huck’s Inversion form nearly levels the city and killed the population of Jellystone…which would bring about Yogi’s desire for revenge.

So yeah. You can thank Hokey Wolf for the insanity that Huck and Ricochet go through in this story, folks.

And one more thing. Yesterday, I was scrolling through some Looney Tunes fan art, and I got hit with an idea:

I had a funny idea to make this a Hanna-Barbera/Looney Tunes crossover, with inspiration from Date a Live (and probably taking elements from that Lippy and Hardy story that I was working on). I got to thinking if Bugs Bunny was like Huck and Ricochet, in that he’d be like this world’s version of a Spirit.

The reason I got to thinking that was that his code name would be something badass, like “Warmonger”, inspired by his famous phrase, “Of course you realize, this means war.” In the story itself, he’d probably be close to his canon self—real easygoing and friendly, doesn’t take BS from anybody, and is cool under pressure until someone does something to REALLY piss him off. And then he’ll get his revenge in any way he sees fit.

Warmonger vs the Reaper (Ricochet) would be one heck of a fight. I love this version of Ricochet, but my money’s going on my boy Bugs.

#hanna-barbera #looney tunes #ricochet rabbit #huckleberry hound #bugs bunny #date a live #fanfic

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admirableadmiranda · 3 years

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Debts and balances: or how much does one man have to pay over the course of his life?

Good morning everyone! Today we’re going to be talking about debts, and why Jiang Cheng needs to shut the fuck up on debts because he is the one in the wrong pretty much the entire time.

Let’s start by acknowledging that I am not of this culture so I may perhaps state a thing or two wrong, but I also have several functioning brain cells to rub together and I pay attention so I will probably be more right than most of the “hot takes” I see on why Jiang Cheng is not actually in the wrong here. Because he is. He so is.

So, debts. First of all, there are multiple levels and layers of debts and to whom do you owe them too. So let’s start with the first one where the story is subtle about it and yet both Jiang Cheng and Madam Yu are in the wrong. We know that Cangse Sanren saved Jiang Fengmian’s life at one point when they were young. Life debts are big. To only be alive because of someone else’s actions is a debt that it is possible you will never be able to pay back. There are multiple stories of otherwise good people protecting the obvious villain because they owe that.

Jiang Fengmian’s only way of being able to pay back that debt after Cangse Sanren and Wei Changze die is to take care of their child and raise him how they would have. I.E, as a cultivator. This is not a debt that Wei Wuxian owes to the Jiangs. It is quite literally, the least of what Jiang Fengmian owes him and his parents to do.

Jiang Cheng cannot claim that Wei Wuxian owes them for his life. He is wrong.

Next debt that even Jiang Cheng does not try to claim, only his ever so pleasant stans, the fucking dogs. The fucking dogs that he does not actually give a fuck about.

Wei Wuxian does not ask anyone to do anything about the dogs. He is not in a mental state to. He is in a state of triggered phobia where his brain literally goes into run away screaming mode. This is also not funny and Jiang Cheng is a jackass for making fun of it whenever it happens. Jiang Fengmian is the one who decides that it’s better for the dogs to go. Even though Jiang Cheng is upset, he does not actually hold this as a lingering grudge against Wei Wuxian. He lets it the fuck go. And even if he didn’t, the resentment and anger should be aimed at the person who actually made a decision about it. Not Wei Wuxian. He does not give one singular fuck about his dogs later on. Let the fucking dogs go.

Third off: The Fall of Lotus Pier. There are different levels of blame that we can lay on this. Wei Wuxian is not close to responsible for this. Jiang Cheng knows this and elects to blame him anyway.

The first people we can lay the blame on the fall of Lotus Pier is the Wens, who came with ships, warriors, Wang Lingjiao to rile up the notoriously short tempered asshole Madam Yu, and Wen Zhuliu the Core-Melting Hand. They came prepared for battle and they got what they wanted. Madam Yu is the second one we can lay the blame on, for deciding to attack and demean Wang Lingjiao, not for making her do anything she didn’t want to do, because holy hell did she want to whip Wei Wuxian until he couldn’t move and leapt at the chance to do such a thing, but because Wang Lingjiao is a servant who was elevated by her lover and Madam Yu is a classist asshole. This is the only reason she flips out. Wei Wuxian did nothing wrong. Wei Wuxian does not have the blood of Lotus Pier on his hands, he is tied to Jiang Cheng and told to protect him at the cost of his life, a debt he does not owe.

The four debt he attempts to claim, the only one that might be considered to have some teeth if it weren’t for how much Wei Wuxian gives him back almost immediately. Jiang Cheng goes to distract the Wens from Wei Wuxian and ends up getting captured and losing his golden core. So first off, in this world a golden core is a lot to lose, I won’t deny that. But, first off, Wei Wuxian is only in danger because after being whipped a lot, then strangled, then having to run after Jiang Cheng multiple times because he would rather go die at Lotus Pier than listen to either of his parents and escape, he still goes into town to get them something to eat because otherwise Jiang Cheng would rather lie on the ground and die. Fucking great sect leadership there, huh Jiang Cheng? But yes, Jiang Cheng sees the Wens, sees them notice Wei Wuxian, goes off to distract them and then gets captured and loses his golden core.

Now we’re getting to some of the debts that Jiang Cheng owes and refuses to pay back, because that’s definitely going to get him far in this world. Wei Wuxian in his panic and attempt to find Jiang Cheng, finds Wen Ning, who after some struggles manages to convince him that he can sneak in and get Jiang Cheng back out. In addition, he also retrieves the bodies of Madam Yu and Jiang Fengmian. This is huge. Jiang Cheng now owes him both a life debt for again, saving his life at great cost to his own: Wen Ning is literally committing treason here, and also for restoring the lost honor of not being able to bury his parents properly. Wen Ning gives them a proper burial and later after the war he is able to lie them to rest in the Ancestors Hall so their spirits will be at peace and he will have fulfilled his fillial duties. By all means, the debt he owes Wen Ning in particular is so great that he should have taken in every Wen in those camps and sheltered them because it is as close as he will ever get to repaying that debt. And that’s just Wen Ning!

The next debt he owes and refuses to pay is to Wen Qing, a genius doctor and respected by Wen Ruohan, who uses the prestige and skills she has to protect both him and Wei Wuxian in at this point enemy territory when they are being actively searched for, being the new sect leader and head disciple of Yunmeng Jiang. She hides them and then later uses her skills to give him a new golden core so that he can go and fight back against his people, revitalizing his clan and eradicating hers. This is another debt that could only really be paid back by protecting her people if she came to him. He owes her literally his life, his power and his people.

The third debt he owes and refuses to pay is to Wei Wuxian, who more than overbalances the scales back in his favor by giving him his golden core. He pays his chance at immortality, his power, his strength, his cultivation, everything that he has to his name so that Jiang Cheng won’t starve himself to death over losing his core. In addition, he tells Jiang Cheng that this comes from a once in a lifetime favor from his mother’s master so even before when he didn’t know about the core, this is still a massive, massive debt, a limitless one time favor from an immortal that he uses Wei Wuxian’s chance to get and never actually thanks him. So at this point, his own golden core as a debt starts to seem a little hollow. Either way, it’s been repaid. An action you do in service of someone else is not a weapon you get to hold over their heads for multiple lives.

Moving on! The next debt he would like to claim is that Wei Wuxian apparently has no right to do things he does not approve of. Excuse me? Is he now a computer program that crashed? What the fuck Jiang Wanyin? Wei Wuxian has less rank than him, although Jiang Cheng is so high rank in this society that he only shares his rank with three other people and there’s no one above him so it would be very hard for him to not be, but he is still a person, with his own thoughts, wishes, dreams, hopes and beliefs. He is not an extension of your hand, to make your clan look good and stand behind you as a hammer to smash on people. Wen Qing goes to Wei Wuxian to ask for help for finding her brother, her people because they are literally being tortured to death. This is a debt that by all means, Jiang Cheng should be repaying. See that part where Wen Ning committed treason to help him and restore his family’s honor? See that part where Wen Qing literally gave him the ability to go back to war against her family? This is the point where anyone with honor would recognize this is the only thing I can do. I will throw myself on my sword if I must, but I must repay this debt to them. There is nothing less I can do. But Jiang Cheng has only the honor of a mangy cur and ignores this, and when Wei Wuxian goes to fulfill this debt, he tells him to stop. To him, his multiple life debts are an inconvience to shoving his nose so far up Jin Guangshan’s ass that he’s tasting what he had for dinner that day.

The next debt that he would like to claim is the death of his brother in law. This is a debt that Wei Wuxian would owe to specific people. This debt is to Jiang Yanli, Jin Guangshan and Jin Ling, one of whom is wanting to forgive it, one who is too small to decide at the time, and one who straight up does not give a fuck beyond advancing his power. Jiang Cheng is not one of these people. His sister is fine, she’s not his concern anymore, she’s a part of the Jin sect. The only reason why he died is that Jiang Cheng decided the best way to repay his debt to Wei Wuxian was to throw a temper tantrum and declare him an enemy to everyone, ripping out every support from under his feet. Regardless, Jiang Cheng is an asshole and does not get to claim this debt.

The final one of Wei Wuxian’s first life that he keeps hurling at him is the death of his sister...the death of his sister who chose to leap between Wei Wuxian and a sword. The death of his sister at a battle that broke out because Jiang Cheng has been with Jin Guangshan whipping the cultivation world into a frenzy against the Wens and Wei Wuxian because of power and jealousy. The battle that would have not happened if they’d left them alone. Jiang Cheng has been to the burial mounds. He has seen the farmers, he has seen the baby there. He has decided that rather than do anything to repay these various deaths, he will kill them on other people’s swords instead. Because he is also a coward and won’t pick fights he can’t win. In addition he likes to steal Yanli’s agency, she’s the one who chose to come, she’s the one who chose to get in the way and she doesn’t die with regrets. And she is not his debt to claim. Again, the one who actually gets to claim this death that Wei Wuxian is not responsible for is Jin Ling, who actually shapes up and decides that it doesn’t matter, he doesn’t blame Wei Wuxian for it. He forgives him his role in that space and moves the fuck on, unlike a certain sir stabby grape mcwhipinnoencts.

And then Wei Wuxian dies and any debts he may have still owed to Jiang Cheng, not that there were any, die with him. Jiang Cheng has no claim on him, he was not part of his sect, they were not brothers in any way, indeed Jiang Cheng called him his enemy. Even most people with far more real grudges at this point would let it go. Wei Wuxian is so dead that no one can find his soul, no matter how hard they look. He comes back to life and reaps the rewards of his actions, finding new allies, getting the chance to actually interact with Jin Ling and make his apologies, and in the end, settle down to a peaceful life with an adoring husband and nothing left to be repaid. If there is still a debt he owes, it is only to Mo Xuanyu, who gave up his entire cycle of life to let Wei Wuxian reincarnate early with his memories, a sacrifice he only asked for repayment in the death of his family. He may owe more still, but that is all Mo Xuanyu wanted from him in repayment for this great sacrifice. The cultivation world is in the wrong when they’re trying to persecute him again for the actions of his previous life, he owes them nothing anymore. The debts he carries towards Jin Ling are the ones he chooses to take on, feeling guilty that he grew up without his parents due to the world’s general actions and also no one else taking responsibility for how far things fell.

That is what Jiang Cheng finally realizes in the temple, crouched on the floor and sobbing like a spoiled child over the golden core sacrifice. Is that he is in the wrong and has been in the wrong the whole time. That there is nothing he can hold onto, no debt that Wei Wuxian ever owed him that he could demand to be paid. He built it all up in his head as he left his honor, his family and his dignity in the wake of his arrogance. And it’s a painful thing to realize, the consequences of your decisions, but all he can do is live with his own ruined reputation, his own loneliness and the fact that no one wants to be around him. He’s blacklisted by multiple matchmakers, his disciples are more like thugs, Wei Wuxian chooses every opportunity to get away from him and even Jin Ling likes him less and less over the course of the book, not forgetting that he seems to prefer Jin Guangyao to begin with as he actually talks to him sometimes and doesn’t hit him. Jiang Cheng refusing to pay his debts gives him exactly what a debt deserter deserves. No one has a reason to trust him. The one bit of positive character growth he does is giving up and not trying to reel him back in by telling him of the sacrifice. At this point, all it would be is just him trying to get another debt he cannot hold because it is long since repaid, never quite made up for what they gave him to make up for it, and worthless in the face of Wei Wuxian’s new life. Wei Wuxian owes him nothing and never has.

Also, just to tally up the relationship between Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng on things given between the two of them, Jiang Cheng gives him: a lot of whinging on how unfair it is that Wei Wuxian is a prodigy, and a one time immediately regretted and held over his head sacrifice of a golden core. Whereas Wei Wuxian gives him: many lessons on how to be a kinder person that he ignores, the patience and tolerance of his stinkbug attitude, his love, his affection, his fucking golden core, his reputation, his blood, his livelihood, taking over his debts, trying to keep any of his actions from reflecting on the Jiangs even though if Jiang Cheng had repaid any of the debts he owed, there would have been no problems because if the Jin’s did decide to attack, Wei Wuxian would fight back and he can level battle fields on his own, his honor, his relationships, and even his life in the end, because if Wei Wuxian had ever turned on him like he claimed, he would have been a bloody smeared spot on the ground. And Jiang Cheng gobbles this all up and demands more with Wei Wuxian’s blood and tears dribbling from his mouth.

Would you give that much for someone who doesn’t treat you well? Would you find that a reasonable price to pay for someone who demeans you at every opportunity, who tells you you deserve your misfortunes and that no one likes you? Why are you surprised that in the end Wei Wuxian would rather walk away with people who care about him, why he gives up, leaves any opportunity for anything in Jiang Cheng’s hands. Wei Wuxian has given more than any person should for almost nothing. It is a sign of triumph and victory, of recognizing his own worth and value in the world and who he wants to be with, that he leaves, that he walks away with his head held high. He owes Jiang Cheng nothing, and Jiang Cheng will just have to fucking live with that.

#mdzs #jiang cheng #canon jiang cheng #let's talk about debt #long post #let's use fuck as a exclamation mark #modaozushi is the story of walking away from an abusive relationship and we should recognize that #no yunmeng reconciliation #wei wuxian #wei wuxian did nothing wrong #addressing common misconceptions when it comes to debts to be paid #let's stop excusing Jiang Cheng avoiding paying any of his debts

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darkandstormyart · 3 years

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Xicheng fic recs

(figured i might make a list of my own)

(to be expanded as i dig out more treasure/remember stuff)

in no particular order:

Deep as the Yearning Night by FreckledStarKnight

“At first, it was pure chance. The second time was accidental. And the third time? Well, they say the third time’s the charm, after all. Lan Xichen discovers that Jiang Wanyin sings beautifully and is immediately enamored by it. His pursuit of Jiang Wanyin’s secret talent leads to a discovery and a series of events that he did not anticipate at all. Not that he’s complaining, of course. He got what he came for and more. Or, how two sect leaders get together through the song called love. CQL-verse.“

post-seclusion lxc

trying to get jc to sing

bonus lxc & jin ling feels i hadn’t considered before

cute

Always use protection by hesselives

“In which Lan Wangji attempts to hire a new bodyguard for his older brother, a well-known traveling exorcist. Jiang Wanyin doesn’t even make his carefully considered list of Top Ten Candidates, and yet here he is.

Lots of wandering in the countryside, distant yelling, and mildly inconvenient spirits.”

bodyguard au

honestly just really intersting worldbuilding

Rewrite the stars by Arashii

“Five great kingdoms have been fighting for years and when the kingdom of Yunmeng is destroyed, the Crown Prince Jiang Cheng vanishes.In Gusu, Lan Xichen makes an offer impossible for Jiang Cheng to refuse. His life or revenge? There’s only one option and Jiang Cheng swears loyalty to the man he hated the most his whole life, the Crown Prince of Gusu, Lan Xichen himself.Written for XiChengFest2020 - Day 4“

ROYALTY AU ROYALTY AU

enemies to lovers!

flashbacks! i love flashbacks so much ohmygod

No paths are bound by Arashii

“In seclusion, Lan Huan has the support of a ghost no one has seen since the massacre of Yunmeng Jiang. His feelings start changing with the often visits and conversations they share. Before Lan Huan can confess though, he ascends, leaving everything and everyone behind him.

Two hundred years later, back to the Human Realm and without powers, the Martial God Zewu-Jun has a mission to uphold. His Heavenly Calamity started. The clues are little and the support comes in the most unexpected form, the current Ghost King: Sandu Shengshou. Now they need to stick together to contain a menace that is slowly growing.“

TGCF AU TGCF AU

ghost king jiang cheng come on

doesn’t follow tgcf plot, just the setup so no spoilers

jiang cheng gets the dogs and the xichen he deserves

once upon a dream by cafedeolla

“Xicheng soulmate AU

An au where your dreams are small snippets of your soulmate’s day. They’d show small things like buying coffee, reading a book, or hanging out with people from their perspective.

The problem was that people always have expectations and Jiang Cheng knows he always falls short of them. Time and time again.“

soulmate au, but being soulmates is more a problem than a solution

misunderstandingssss all over the place

now with a squel (in progress?)

Lan Furen series by jagaimocchi

“Jiang Cheng leaves Lotus Pier before the Wen Internment Camp and before the destruction of his home. When he meets Lan Xichen on the run from the Wens after the burning of Cloud Recesses, his plan to live a peaceful life away from cultivation sects is quickly derailed. Now, free to make his own choices, he cannot find it in himself to leave the other man's side.

With love, patience and time, Jiang Cheng finds his own happiness and peace with his past.“

have you ever wanted a fic where jiang cheng peaces out from home in search for a better life, bc he’s Had Enough??? jags got you covered

adorable xicheng

good uncle-dad-figure Lan Qiren

ongoing <3

Just around the riverbend by JungleJelly

“One day.

Jiang Cheng just wanted one day of peace and quiet, away from home, away from his responsibilities, away from his idiot brother and his nutcases of a mother and father. Just a few hours alone — him and a boat and nothing else.

Clearly, that was too much to ask for.”

now with a new story in the series which is adorable too!!!

mermaid!lxc need i say more?

Bad ideas (where they lead) by JungleJelly

“Jiang Cheng is a busy man. Fortunately, he is also a huge pushover when it comes to his sister, so when she recommends that he start doing yoga, he agrees pretty easily.Featuring Lan Xichen in yoga pants, Jiang Cheng’s inability to handle a crush, and, perhaps most importantly, a big fluffy dog.“

done for 2020 MXTX MiniBang

yoga instructor Lan Xichen

Jiang Cheng is: struggling with a crush on the yoga guy from youtube & very angry about that

If there’s a price for rotten judgement by TheWanderingHeart

“All Jiang Cheng wants to do is, well... his job, really. Other than that? Keep the city safe, keep his nephew alive, keep his sanity intact (if possible).

So when his brother calls with unexpected news, he knows all of that is about to fly out of the window.

***

[Every instinct is telling him don’t ask, you don’t want to know. By this point, Nie HuaiSang has scooted closer to listen. Jiang Cheng takes a steadying breath and pulls out his antacids. “What did you do?”]”

superhero au, come on

jc just trying to do his job in peace

(he can’t)

i love it so much oh my god *sobs*

The Form of Boneless Ice by TheWanderingHeart

“Mythical beasts have long ago been driven to extinction by the gentry — hunted for sport, but more importantly for their magical cores. Since then, there remains only one creature that has never been caught. The Jiang’s retreated a long time ago. Abandoning land altogether, they sought safety where the humans could not reach.It all comes to a head though, purely by chance. (Or is it by fate that a spontaneous decision allows for them to meet? If fate were a rock!) Jiang Cheng suddenly finds his whole life balanced on the head of a pin — on the flimsy promise of a human boy. In his opinion, things cannot possibly get worse!(But then they do when the Wens decide it’s finally time to search for the elusive merpeople, and suddenly nowhere is safe.)“

there she goes again, with another beautiful xicheng story full of awwww and mythology

actually one of the first xicheng fics i read

i chose it because there were mermaids

painfully accurate takes on Jiang family dynamics

kids! lots of kids!

Let me Slytherin to Your Heart by TheWanderingHeart

“Jiang Cheng never thought he'd return to Hogwarts, but in hindsight, he probably should have known that someday he would.With his nephew about to start school, he reluctantly takes his good friend's bad parenting? career? advice and ends up tumbling head-first back into the madness that he hoped he'd left behind... and rediscovering some feelings he thought he'd left behind too.“

Harry Potter au!

just really fecking cute

lots of snakes

[I am not going to link all of Jo’s fics, though I probably could, just my 3 favourites. UOSB is there by default]

Talent Hunt Crew Finds Angry Guy Shouting On College Campus, Recruits Him For Vocal Projection Abilities by oh_fudgecakes

“Jiang Cheng, resident Angry Guy and heir to a conglomerate empire, has never been the apple of his father’s eye. Quashed under the shadow of his brilliant brother, the music prodigy Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng sees his chance to turn things around when he is recruited by the All-Stars Lan Talent Hunt. One problem: he can’t sing to save his goddamn life.As he struggles to develop his nascent singing abilities, Jiang Cheng finds himself sucked into the whirlwind drama of reality TV, helped along by his adoring siblings, his irritable vocal coach Wen Qing, and strangely enough, the unfairly attractive host of the All-Stars Lan Talent Hunt, Lan Xichen. Somewhere in the glare of the stage lights and an unexpected first love, Jiang Cheng stumbles upon the thing he was searching for all along: the courage to dream — and to attempt the impossible.“

done for 2019 MXTX Big Bang

uuuuuuuuuuh i might have cried maybe

heartwarming? painful at times? lots of family love?

slowburn xicheng being lovely

The Provenence of Hope series by velithya

“A chance meeting on a night hunt sets a course of events into motion that will change everything. Featuring Xicheng getting together, recovery for Lan Xichen, healing for Jiang Cheng, and always, always, hope.“

got everything. feels. hope. love. ~~healing~~

A Small Measure of Peace by Sandstone112

“With his brother in seclusion, Lan Xichen finds himself in temporary custody of his nephew with little to no expertise in the child-raising department. Uncertain and alone, Zewu-Jun is willing to do everything to be the person Yuan needs—even if it means inviting Sandu Shengshou to a playdate.“

a loooot of adorable family times with jc and lxc taking care of their nephews

good grandpa lqr!

canon but fixed and less painful

🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋if you wish to avoid scurvy:🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋

Some day I’m gonna make you mine series by locketofyourhair

xicheng getting together through the years

friends with benefits but the real benefits are the friends we made along the way

Take me over (take me tonight) by velithya

jiang cheng has a tattoo and lan xichen doesn’t stand a chance

i'd be the sweet feeling of release (mankind now dreams of) by piyo13

two bros, chilling in a cave, no feet apart because they don’t want to lose their cultivation powers what are you gonna do

haven’t read yet and shame on me, but AM GONNA:

Upon Our Silver Bridge by TheWanderingHeart obviously

““When the path ignites a soul, there's no remaining in place. The foot touches ground, but not for long.” ― Hakim Sanai

Lan Xichen's sorrows have caught the attention of something. Unlike the adventures and foes they have faced before, there is no obvious enemy here to defeat. If this is the same thing they thought had taken Nie Mingjue's life, then he believes it is fated for him to die as well. Nothing can stop the black fire when it wants to burn.Jiang Cheng is sure his part in this is over. Wei Wuxian is back, his grand adventure concluded, and he'd never been at the centre of it anyway. So what does it matter what happens to him in the end? Slowly, he will come to realise that there will always be a battle to fight, a story to tell, a choice to make, and there is no such thing as an end to anything.“

it was difficult to do things in 2020 and few i regret not doing more than not reading uosb yet :’(

i will tho

Emergency Help Wanted by piyo13

“EMERGENCY HELP WANTED I lied when I got my job. I told them I had a kid so I could leave early from work to pick him up from daycare, take him to doctor's appointments, and occasionally miss a day when he's sick. Long story short, I'm in too deep. I didn't think it through. Looking to rent a kid for bring your child to work day. Must be a boy ages four to six, longish dark hair, likes soccer. Must also be artistic as the macaroni noodle paintings I made seem a little advanced for his age. Also, I will pay extra for someone willing to play the role of husband when dropping him off. He's a prosecuting attorney who often brings his work home. Message me for further details. Serious inquiries only.“

Running Our Hands Through Embers by MarvelousMar

“If asked, Jiang Cheng would compare falling in love with Lan Xichen to a moth inevitably drawn to a flame.It burned.***In which Jiang Cheng discovers that even death can't help him escape from his trauma, so he embarks on a quest to save the people he loves, fix what he can, make the love of his life fall for him, and maybe, somewhere along the way, do a little bit of healing.”

The Beginner’s Guide to Moving On by InvincibleMel

gone from ao3, but i think there’s a link with a pdf going around

#xicheng #fic rec #Jiang Cheng #lan xichen #mdzs #the untamed #the grandmaster of demonic cultivation #mo dao zu shi

535 notes · View notes

aiyexayen · 3 years

Note

re: that "I'll live for you post" - WHERE'S THE ESSAY

this post? [innocent face]

alright, alright, JUST TWIST MY ARM WHY DON'T YOU, just force me to talk more about my boys!

4.9k word essay under the cut

Wei Wuxian

Let us take a look at Wei Wuxian first. Wei Wuxian has no problems throwing himself in-between the people he loves and danger, or even certain death. Hell, sometimes he just throws himself into it for fun and profit!

To some extent, putting yourself in danger to help others and being willing to die is something of a cultivator thing in general, a hero thing in general, right? And Wei Wuxian is a prodigy, exceptionally strong and clever, so he has more reason than most to be a little cavalier. But most of the point of training so hard as a cultivator and getting strong and aligning yourself with a sect is kind of so you can be in real danger of dying as little as possible, one would presume.

So we're going to set aside the danger-as-a-profession thing for now, because I think it's only tangentially related.

The real point is, Wei Wuxian is sacrificial to a fault. If there is a problem, he decides he's the one who needs to fix it. And his first go-to solution is to throw himself at it, to give up anything of himself if it's viable. As clever as he is, if he finds a workable solution that involves his own sacrifice, he doesn't stop to look for anything else.

Some of it is pride--not wanting to admit he needs help from anyone else, and the shame of being seen as weak.

Some of it is arrogance--a very natural kind given his competence, the presumption that he knows best in a given situation (neurodivergent arrogance walking hand-in-hand with self-esteem issues is always a fun time).

Some of it is appropriate--ranging from his own moral imperative to protect the weak and do what's right to his understanding of his place in culture and in his own sect and relationships.

Some of it is a natural bent toward caretaking, "fixing," and heroics--someone has to do it, so it's going to be Wei Wuxian. He won't hesitate to take initiative in any other area of life, and this is no exception.

And some of it, yes, is a lack of value placed in his own life--between a more youthful, dramatic perspective on 'I would die for you/for this cause' taking priority in his worldview, and some genuine self-esteem issues. Issues largely stemming from his uncertain place in the world growing up and his uncertain relationship with parental/guardian/master and other familial figures, all stewing under the surface and brought to light sharply when the world went to shit and choices were made and he lost or seemed to have lost everything from his reputation to his home to his extant support structures. The paranoia and voices in his head (the ptsd and resentful-energy-as-ptsd-metaphor both) only drove that home.

Basically, Wei Wuxian was already trending in some unfortunate directions but his circumstances and the people surrounding him kept him grounded, and the events of the story as it unfolded really pushed him all in. No one thing or one person--even Wei Wuxian himself--is really to blame for that, which is the beauty of the story really.

I also think Wei Wuxian started to buy into some of his own stories at his lowest points--the things he said or came up with, lies he told publicly, justifications he made for his choices once the heat of the moment and the panic was over. Justifications he made to himself and to others. He purposefully led people to believe much that was incorrect about him and his character and his status, to which the response was distaste and horror, and even though he planned it that way in order to push everyone away I really think he started to believe it himself. Depression and trauma are just really fun times.

I'm getting a bit off-topic.

The point remains, Wei Wuxian is extremely sacrificial. He comes by much of it naturally, and not nearly all of it is bad or melodrama or angst or even unhealthy or problematic. It's one of his good qualities, too, and it's one of the ways he knows how to love.

All of the threads weaving together to make Wei Wuxian and the situations he finds himself sacrificing things in are all true, but it also really comes down to love. He loved Jiang Cheng enough to sacrifice his everything and risk his life doing so. He loved his sect enough he was willing to sacrifice his right hand. He loved his sect enough to sacrifice his very ties to it. He loved Lan Zhan enough to sacrifice their friendship. He loved Jin Ling enough to sacrifice himself to the curse he got in the Nie tombs. (And more!)

Wei Wuxian loved, and so he sacrificed. Thus, the initial post.

Jiang Cheng

Let's switch gears for a moment and talk about my darling Jiang Wanyin.

Ah, Jiang Cheng, Jiang Cheng. Taking the initiative and sacrificing at the drop of a hat and so forth are not really characteristics of Jiang Cheng's the same way they are for Wei Wuxian.

And yet, is he not also a disciple of Yunmeng Jiang; is he not also a young hero? Has he not pride, and the incentive to do good?

Does he not also see love as sacrifice?

Zi Zhizhu was his mother. The woman who sacrificed to get Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian to safety. The woman who killed herself and crawled across the ground to hold her husband's hand in death.

You think she wasn't Like That the whole time? You think Jiang Cheng picked up nothing of such behaviours from her, even before that day?

Hah.

Besides which, there's absolutely an underlying theme of Jiang Cheng trying to be like Wei Wuxian for much of their lives.

Partially just...Wei Wuxian, strong and clever and popular shige, always manages to get credit and glory and good stories and good favour, exemplary of the Jiang motto--the one Jiang Cheng's own name is tied to. They were supposed to be shuangjie, besides. How could he not want to be like him at least a bit? If nothing else, it's a little brother's curse.

And partially this is also due to Jiang Cheng's parents and that whole Situation.

It was complicated for so many reasons, and absolutely left Jiang Cheng feeling inferior to Wei Wuxian. As though he needed to be more like Wei Wuxian, to emulate him, in order to be worthy of his title and station and inheritance, something that turned out to be categorically untrue in the end. There are many kinds of leaders, and many kinds of strengths.

As an aside, I personally think that's something Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan knew, themselves, as adults and leaders and political figures in their own rights. Adults often don't realise or think about how the things they say can influence children's entire worldviews and senses of self (why, no, I don't speak from experience, why would you ask such a thing ahaha).

Jiang-zongzhu and Zi Zhizhu got a lot of their own relationship difficulties and misunderstandings and conflicts and conflicting attempts to want the best for their children (and ward) tangled up in everything. I think if they'd ever been able to speak plainly, if they could manifest into the Ancestral Hall and speak to Jiang Cheng, they would say so.

Just as Jiang Cheng would have cause to be horrified by much of what Wei Wuxian believed about himself, I think Jiang Cheng's parents would have cause to be horrified by much of what Jiang Cheng believed. (I mean, and Wei Wuxian, probably.)

Anyway.

Jiang Cheng has plenty of reasons to aspire to those same ideals of sacrifice. And it's not just aspirations, either--we see him follow through.

He walked outside from that inn, saw Wei Wuxian in danger, and made a decision in the space of a single breath--a decision with full understanding, too. He knew he was giving up his entire life for Wei Wuxian's. He said goodbye in his head.

I would argue (and I'm sure I've said this before somewhere too) that his sacrifice was the purest example of this in the entire story.

Perhaps some of it is that many of Wei Wuxian's sacrifices are premeditated and just about all of them have alternative solutions that don't involve him just diving in and giving pieces of himself up.

That isn't to say that Wei Wuxian wouldn't see a sword aimed at Jiang Cheng and take the blow himself. But we never see him do that, exactly. As much as Jiang Cheng has internalised this ideal of Wei Wuxian's, he both encounters fewer of these situations and has other problem-solving tactics in his repertoire.

The way Jiang Cheng hates himself doesn't lead him to think of himself as disposable. I could get into a (very amateur) discussion of negative schemas formed in childhood and their various similarities and differences, and the different ways Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian's brains appear to work (Jiang Cheng sees himself as inferior, while Wei Wuxian willfully dehumanises himself in other ways), but basically, it's simply a different set of psychological issues.

But! When he is faced with the choice, Jiang Cheng absolutely dies for the ones he loves.

He loves his sect and his family, and he internalises love as sacrifice, and when it comes down to an extreme moment he chooses to die for them.

And then he doesn't die.

And then the war happens.

Jiang Cheng's Growth

There are a lot of reasons for Jiang Cheng to grow in this area, and I think it starts with inheriting the sect.

(This leads to excellent thoughts about What If Wei Wuxian Had Somehow Become Sect Leader but that's an au for another day.)

If sect heir was a position full of responsibility and reputation management, how much more so is zongzhu? Jiang Cheng is suddenly responsible for all these people. Whether he's good enough or not doesn't even matter. The job is there and it's inescapable and he's the only one there to do it.

I'm absolutely sure he still has all kinds of inferiority shit he's dealing with by post-timeskip and he only just gets to touch on some pieces of resolution by the end of the story, with the one person still in the world who would even know anything about the life that gave it to him.

Jiang Cheng has been responsible for people before, in small ways--night hunts and such, I'm sure, and he was certainly in charge of the Yunmeng Jiang disciples who went to Cloud Recesses. But being at the top of that hierarchy entirely is such a different matter, and he did so at a very young age and in a very fraught time.

The fact that he had to deal with all this new responsibility and duty to people more than his family and to causes greater than the first people in need he encounters is a huge perspective shift. Especially as a sect with nothing to give and no wiggle room where it comes not only to basic resources post-war, but to things like reputation and political standing. This is, of course, a huge facet to the conflict between him and Wei Wuxian (and the Wen remnants) at that point in the story.

But on a personal level it also speaks to the sacrifice thing. If Jiang Cheng sacrifices his life, he is not just sacrificing his own life anymore.

When he gave up his life for Wei Wuxian, he had not yet inherited. His parents were only barely gone. There was nothing to inherit. There was no surety of there ever being something to inherit ever again. Everything else was already gone. It was only the three of them, barely surviving, running for their lives. It was only him and Wei Wuxian in a street, and one of them had to die.

But once he inherits? He's a commander. He's a leader. He has all the knowledge and all the networking connections. He has the reputation. He has the social standing. He might still have a long way to go in developing his skills, but he has a natural leadership ability and he does have training appropriate to his station.

What happens if he personally sacrifices his life? What happens to all of that? What happens to everyone depending on him?

That's not very satisfying, very epic-worthy. That's not very dramatic or romantic. It's gradual, and messy, that kind of change and realisation. Becoming that kind of person. Making choices based in that reality. Deciding that you do not belong to yourself.

And I think it really comes to a head when his siblings die.

I think it comes to a head personally. Not just in his role as Jiang-zongzhu. We don't see Jiang Cheng choose not to die, in as many words. But we certainly see him choose to live.

Or, perhaps, we see the evidence of that choice.

Jiang Cheng could have faded away. He could have started delegating all his responsibilities, gotten help from other sects, trained up a replacement. He could have made such things necessary by getting more and more reclusive. He could have pulled a Qingheng-Jun.

Hell, with a-jie gone already, he could have just said fuck this and followed Wei Wuxian off that cliff, and if you don't think he wonders about that sometimes--at least at first--then we have very different interpretations of Jiang Cheng as a person.

And no, none of those are sacrifice. But at some point, he still chose to do the opposite.

He chose every day to live for his sect, to keep growing it into something powerful and secure. He took that vow that he made and he fucking stuck to it.

And he chose to live for Jin Ling.

I don't half wonder if that was a bigger driving force at first than anything else.

Jiang Cheng could absolutely have left Jin Ling to be raised by his Jin family in the absence of his parents and fucked off to hide away in Yunmeng and had nothing to do with him. He could have done a lot of things, let himself develop in a lot of ways, unhealthy ways.

But he so very clearly did not.

Jin Ling and Jiang Cheng have a close relationship. Jin Ling defers to Jiang Cheng, is answerable to him on night hunts and beyond them. It's never questioned why he's basically just in the Yunmeng Jiang party by himself. Yunmeng Jiang disciples answer to Jin Ling in turn, follow his orders without question in the absence of their zongzhu. It's a Yunmeng Jiang disciple who hands Xianzi off to Jin Ling outside the Guanyin Temple in Yunping, and Jiang Cheng is intimately familiar with Xianzi's commands and is apparently a trusted person to give them (which, we find out, Jin Guangyao is not.)

As much as Jiang Cheng is not good at saying what he means, and especially after everything he's been through his softer bits have grown harder and harder carapace around them, Jin Ling never seems to misunderstand what Jiang Cheng means. They snipe at each other and snark and bitch and roll their eyes and so clearly love each other.

Jiang Cheng's love for Jin Ling shines brightly the second you know how to interpret Jiang Cheng, and Jin Ling absolutely does. Jin Ling's trust in Jiang Cheng is incredible.

Jin Ling is practically Yunmeng Jiang's heir, and practically Jiang Cheng's son.

That sort of thing doesn't just happen, because you're related or whatever. In fact, the story goes out of its way to present blood relations not being close, especially father figures.

Which means from a young age, Jin Ling knew Jiang Cheng's love. Jiang Cheng, struggling young zongzhu of a struggling newly-rebuilt sect, who just lost everything, barely more than a kid himself, figured out he needed to not only stay alive, but needed to live for Jin Ling.

He needed to teach him everything, needed to figure out how to be the best of his own father and mother, and the best of Jin Ling's father and mother, and live up to every lost bit of love Jin Ling should have had, and try, and try, no matter how unworthy or unfit or inferior he felt. No matter how much he fucked up and didn't know. No matter how much grief he was dealing with. No matter how many people hated him and how few friends he had. No matter how much there was to do. No matter how overwhelming the endless tide of days, of forever in front of him felt, horrible and empty of everyone that had come before. Jiang Cheng still chose to live.

He carved out that new life because of love. He didn't die for anyone, and he didn't die for anyone's memory. He lived.

"I never thought I'd be worth the work it would take to piece myself together," but he did, for his sect, his disciples, his family's legacy, his siblings' memories, and Jin Ling.

And, as a bonus knife, the things we see him chide Jin Ling the most for? Are specifically things Wei Wuxian would have done, and even things he would have done in following him. Grandstanding, not asking for help when needed, wandering off alone, making unnecessary sacrifices.

Wei Wuxian's Growth

That brings us to Wei Wuxian coming back. And, well, the boy still has a long way to go. He goes through a lot of kinds of growth post-timeskip. And I think this is one of them.

For one, he's already fucking died once.

Honestly, almost ironically, that death wasn't even fully a sacrifice. Perhaps in some ways it was, in some ways he internalised that it was. But regardless, after all his sacrificing, he finally died. And, much like Jiang Cheng's sacrifice, it didn't stick. He woke back up. Albeit 16 years later.

Now, he wasn't keen on dying, or he maybe would have just gone back. But that doesn't mean he'd suddenly decided to live for anyone rather than die for them.

And, indeed, we still see that side of him come back with him in full force. He starts off by deciding he will just live this new life without Jiang Cheng and Lan Zhan altogether.

I think, for Wei Wuxian, this matter of sacrifice ends up being tied into a lot of other pieces of his growth--none of it happens independently of each other.

First, he is shown and told that he is wanted. That's the first thing. He cannot simply go on without inconveniencing/endangering/roping anyone else into his shit because his ties to other people don't work in only one direction. He is wanted.

Lan Zhan wants to be at his side, has not forgotten him, and loves him unwaveringly. That is a huge first step, right there at the beginning, when Lan Zhan grabs his hand, and they make eye contact, and by the time Lan Zhan turns to look away Wei Wuxian is grabbing his hand back desperately and that pretty much says everything it needs to right there.

The idea that Wei Wuxian can act at all without having any negative affect on anyone tied to him is something we see even outside the concept of sacrifice--how many times before his death, even before his defection, do we see him say things like "you can insult me, but don't involve the Yunmeng Jiang sect" like. Like. Wei Wuxian please. That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works.

So I think him realising that other people will willingly be tied to him and there's nothing he can do about it, that his actions affect the people who care about him all the time, is something he still has to learn/relearn even after everything that happened leading up to his death. I think, in particular, Wei Wuxian realising that it's not just his mistakes and fuckups that affect people, but his intentional actions, too. Like sacrifices. Even if they're at his own expense. Because people care and that's okay and good.

Lan Zhan drives that home with things like noticing that Wei Wuxian has transferred Jin Ling's curse to his own leg, and then insisting on carrying him.

Lan Zhan notices. Lan Zhan cares. This act of sacrifice does not end with Wei Wuxian suffering. It has cascading effects, even something this small. It is, perhaps, more effective a lesson on a small scale with fewer complexities woven in, than it would be on the larger scale issues he dealt with before his death.

This idea that his sacrifices affect people beyond him is carried through the rest of the story, too, from the way everyone seems to fret about him after the Burial Mounds and Lan Sizhui runs to hold him, down to the fact that he has to answer for how his sacrifice of his golden core to Jiang Cheng affects Jiang Cheng. Both the absence of his own golden core being a catalyst for a lot of other shit, and finding out about the core transfer actually fucking Jiang Cheng up. Which, it turns out, Wei Wuxian kind of knew would happen, he just thought he could get away with not dealing with it if he kept the secret better.

Wei Wuxian can't escape his sacrifices and his actions having an effect on those around him, the ones who care and the ones he cares about, or even the object of his sacrifice, and he really does have to have that hammered home.

He also deals with growth related to his pride and arrogance. He learns how to be weak, he learns how to have alternate forms of strength, he learns how to let others in, and let others stand with him.

Most of this is related to Lan Zhan, and I've already covered it at least somewhat in another meta, but it relates back to this, because those are two driving forces behind his sacrificial nature.

If Wei Wuxian is allowed to be weak, is allowed to hesitate, is allowed to go to others for help, is allowed to look for alternative solutions, that sets a better precedent for cutting down on the habitual self-sacrifice tendencies.

Additionally, he learns that others can and will stand with him in his sacrifices, when they are necessary.

Look at the way he pushes Lan Zhan away on the steps of Jinlintai, but Lan Zhan steps back toward him, and draws his sword, and declares his love before heaven and earth, saying in as many words that Wei Wuxian need not walk his path alone, and they fight together.

And the next time Wei Wuxian goes to sacrifice? In the Burial Mounds? He doesn't even think twice before volunteering Lan Zhan to stand with him. His entire plan revolves around the idea that Lan Zhan will stand with him--without even consulting Lan Zhan--and in doing so, they may be able to prevent Wei Wuxian from actually sacrificing his life.

Already we see him internalising a lot of that growth. He doesn't need to grandstand or prove himself; he doesn't care what everyone there thinks of him, and for the ones he does care about he is secure in their regard for him. He doesn't first attempt to sacrifice himself and be bait to draw the fierce corpses away while everyone including Lan Zhan runs off. He doesn't have to be convinced to accept Lan Zhan as part of his plan. He doesn't have to have Lan Zhan simply stay behind and then deal with the addition of him later.

Compare, if you will, the Xuanwu cave. Wei Wuxian absolutely expected everyone else to leave while he drew its attention, and Lan Zhan staying was not part of his original plan. Yes, later on they attacked the Xuanwu together, but that was different entirely. At first, he was just being bait to get everyone else to safety.

In the Burial Mounds? He's already worked Lan Zhan having his back into his plans.

It's still a sacrifice, but he's come a really long way about it.

So now that we've mitigated some of the sacrificial tendencies, modulated their effects on his choices, we come down to the "live for you instead of die for you" issue.

My positing that Wei Wuxian has reached this point by the end of the story has a lot more to do with having seen the patterns of his growth, watching the way he interacted with Jiang Cheng regarding the issue of the golden core transfer being revealed, watching the way he interacted with Jiang Cheng and Lan Zhan in general evolve, and watching him allow himself to have more and more attachments by the end of the story. And getting the overall vibe that living is now important, and there are things to live for in this world now that he's back in it.

However, if I had to narrow it down to one moment to exemplify this, I would point to the moment where he's caught around the neck by Jin Guangyao.

Wei Wuxian absolutely knows that if Lan Zhan sheathes Bichen, they're all fucked. Lan Zhan could easily take everyone here who would fight him, but not if he sheathes his sword and seals his spiritual power. And at this point it's increasingly likely that if they let themselves be captured they're simply not going to make it out alive. None of them. No matter what Jin Guangyao says.

Lan Zhan's best chance for survival and Jin Guangyao's best chance at being brought to justice/captured are one and the same in this moment--Lan Zhan keeping his sword, and either taking Jin Guangyao down himself or escaping to go fetch the assembled sect leaders and such at Lotus Pier.

Wei Wuxian knows this. It's why he begs Lan Zhan to be okay with his death and to do this Right Thing anyway.

Lan Zhan is not, and does not.

I don't think Wei Wuxian is surprised by this, to be fair.

But he could have ensured it would happen. He could have ensured that Jin Guangyao would go down. He could have ensured, more importantly, that Lan Zhan lived. He could have prevented Lan Zhan from sheathing Bichen to begin with.

He could have sacrificed himself.

It would have been incredibly easy at that point. All he had to do was fight back instead of hold still. Jin Guangyao was not bluffing, probably, though he just as surely knew if Wei Wuxian died then he was next, he counted on everyone wanting Wei Wuxian alive more than they wanted him dead. So if Wei Wuxian had tried to fight back or escape, he would have died.

Jin Guangyao would have been shocked, very very briefly. The resulting chaos would have seen everyone in custody who needed to be. Perfect.

And, you know, Lan Zhan would have been once more Wei-Ying-less.

Wei Wuxian very notably does not make this sacrifice. Even if it means they get captured. Even if it means they likely die together instead of only one of them dying. Even if that math is terrible on the surface of it.

He doesn't make Lan Zhan watch him die again. He doesn't presume that his loss means nothing. He doesn't presume that his life is not worth it, that his sacrifice is worth it.

Wei Wuxian actively chooses to live. He chooses to live for Lan Zhan. For the chance that they will both find a way out, and if they don't, then they are together in this and that matters more.

And he keeps making that choice. At no point in the confrontation with Jin Guangyao, for all those hours and hours and hours of back and forth and monologuing in that damned temple, does Wei Wuxian try to grandstand or throw himself sacrificially into the mix in any way. He is always working with everyone there to whatever extent possible, to the ends that everyone (including people he cedes the political superiority to) decides upon. He releases ownership of the situation, of needing to fix the situation, of needing to fix the situation by giving himself up.

I've been writing this so long I'm starting to lose the threads of my own thoughts, but yeah.

By the end, I think Wei Wuxian learns a lot and grows a lot and finally hits the point that Jiang Cheng hit years and years prior.

"I never thought I'd be worth the work it would take to piece myself together," but he was confronted with the idea of it again and again until it had to stick, and so he did. For Lan Zhan, for Lan Sizhui, for Jin Ling, for the other juniors.

I do think there will always be some element of self-sacrifice to Wei Wuxian's character that remain unchanged. He is a caretaker and a fixer at the heart of him. He is a big brother and I think maturity has only expanded that trait. He's also notably not a leader, and to some extent he does belong to himself both more and less than he ever could before his death.

But that doesn't have to be a bad thing. And it doesn't negate him embracing the idea of living for the ones he loves, getting better for the ones he loves, and letting them keep him in their lives.

I'd like to think that this piece of character growth is another significant thing in favour of Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng being able to forge not just a healthy relationship but a healthier relationship post-canon than they may have ever had before, or at least in a very long time.

#you would not believe how long this took to write out #why am i like this #my meta #unedited #the untamed #the untamed meta #jiang cheng #jiang wanyin #wei ying #wei wuxian #sacrifice #i may or may not be accepting constructive criticism at this time #this whole thing was probably terribly redundant but i'm too lazy to reread it and edit

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songofclarity · 4 years

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The theory that Nie HuaiSang pushed Mo XuanYu to suicide, especially the theory that he killed Mo XuanYu as some kind of eye-for-an-eye revenge against Jin GuangYao for killing Nie MingJue, doesn't make any sense to me because Jin GuangYao never wanted Mo XuanYu alive to begin with. Jin GuangYao was afraid of Mo XuanYu before they even met. In fact, he was likely more afraid of Mo XuanYu than he had ever been afraid of Nie MingJue!

[Jin GuangYao,] “Do you think that I’m in a steady position, here at the LanlingJin Sect? Do you think that I can rise into power the moment Jin ZiXuan dies? Jin GuangShan would rather bring another illegitimate child back than want me to succeed him! You think that I should be afraid of nothing? Well I’m afraid of everything, even other people!” (Ch. 49, ERS)

So Nie HuaiSang getting rid of Mo XuanYu would have done Jin GuangYao a favor. I just can't fathom Nie HuaiSang doing Jin GuangYao's dirty work for him at any point in time after Nie MingJue’s death. After all, Jin GuangYao had done a fine job getting started destroying Mo XuanYu’s life without anyone else’s help.

However, before Mo XuanYu [could] achieve success in cultivation and inherit his father’s position, he was driven back.

On top of that, he was driven back shamefully.

Like adding frost to snow, aside from the event itself, when Mo XuanYu returned, he often behaved in a crazy manner, almost as if his life was scared out of him. (Ch. 2, ERS)

Jin GuangYao was already playing with the dangers of incest, but now he’s going to make it work for his benefit. Claiming Mo XuanYu was toying with incest was possibly the one and only thing Jin GuangShan could not have tolerated. Mo XuanYu could have had anyone he wanted! Jin GuangShan knows it best! But his own half-brother? Absolutely not. Mo XuanYu was so psychologically damaged by whatever happened to him that he can’t defend himself. And to the rest of the family, Jin GuangYao is nothing but the victim of Mo XuanYu’s perversion. Jin GuangYao becomes someone they defend from Mo XuanYu.

[Jin Chan, Jin Ling’s cousin], “Mo XuanYu, you still have the face to return?” (Ch. 47, ERS)

It’s a win-win for innocent A-Yao. But Mo XuanYu could always come back if he’s alive. Reputations can be repaired, especially if they were falsely damaged. Mo XuanYu dead? That would be much better, but it’s not a pressing matter once Jin GuangShan is dead and Jin GuangYao is Chief Cultivator.

But to Nie HuaiSang, Mo XuanYu is far more valuable alive. We only get a few hints of what Nie HuaiSang is thinking, and here’s one of them:

[Sisi,] “But after my savior heard about what happened to me, he decided not to let that pretentious, immoral man continue to fool the world.” (Ch. 85)

Mo XuanYu was just another one of Jin GuangYao’s victims. He was a witness to Jin GuangYao's crimes just like Sisi and Bicao. If Nie HuaiSang went to talk to Mo XuanYu as is commonly believed, the evidence points to him trying to get the dirt on Jin GuangYao. Sisi told Nie HuaiSang about the rape-murder of Jin GuangShan. Bicao revealed Jin GuangYao’s incestual relationship with Qin Su. Mo XuanYu, as well, can reveal Jin GuangYao's ties to practicing demonic cultivation.

This is important because the lack of this information drives part of the story. No one knew Jin GuangYao had a hand in demonic cultivation or the Stygian Tiger Seal until the end at Guanyin Temple. Because no one knew this, there were no other suspects except the Yiling Patriarch wrecking havoc at the Burial Mounds before the second siege, and the cultivation world moved just as Jin GaungYao wanted it to move. Jin GuangYao was able to continue pulling strings from the shadows with Su She.

Xue Yang might have been a slim follow-up after Mo XuanYu to pin Jin GuangYao’s connections down, but even Nie HuaiSang’s role with Yi City is tenuous at best. And then Lan WangJi both killed that evidence and Su She whisked it away via teleportation. Jin GuangYao had many crimes, but the malicious use of demonic cultivation he neatly evaded, just as he evaded having to admit to murdering Nie MingJue.

Again, Mo XuanYu was more more valuable to Nie HuaiSang alive than dead.

Let’s still go ahead with the idea that Nie HuaiSang went to Mo XuanYu to ask questions. What happened to Mo XuanYu at Koi Tower? What did Jin GuangYao do that drove Mo XuanYu insane? What demonic cultivation did Mo XuanYu learn from Jin GuangYao? Where is the entrance to Jin GuangYao's treasure room? How does one get into the treasure room?

Don’t forget that Nie HuaiSang is still looking for the rest of Nie MingJue's body at this point. All he has is an arm. Might Jin GuangYao be keeping Nie MingJue's body close to home? Is that why Nie HuaiSang can’t find him? And he’ll find out not much later that yes, he was partially correct. Nie HuaiSang’s reaction in the treasure room could very well be half and half. Half of him suspected as much, but it doesn't change how shocking or disgusting the reality of it is to the other half. The best lies are based on truth, and Nie HuaiSang showing a weak constitution when faced with horrible news and frightening encounters might not have been completely fake.

(Nie HuaiSang was afraid but he didn’t let fear stop him. It’s the one trait he shares with Jin GuangYao, although their means and ends are quite different.)

Nie MingJue’s head was likely in the treasure room when Mo XuanYu was reading Jin GuangYao’s demonic cultivation collection all those years ago. Mo XuanYu could have told Nie HuaiSang of this, except Mo XuanYu might not have been in his right mind to be telling anyone anything of value.

Worse case scenario here is that Nie HuaiSang, as a willing conversationalist about demonic cultivation, stirred Mo XuanYu up from whatever abused docility he'd succumbed to for years. Mo XuanYu was kept locked up and abused and treated like an animal. Now here is someone willing to talk to him like a real person. Just as Nie HuaiSang saved Sisi from her imprisonment, he could have very well have saved Mo XuanYu from his, but the results were wildly different.

Any hints or reveals that Nie HuaiSang is out for vengeance could stir such wishes in Mo XuanYu in turn, his own trauma provoked, his own need for justice inspired. Mo XuanYu moves forward with his revenge just as Nie HuaiSang is trying to move forward with his.

Perhaps Nie HuaiSang name drops Wei WuXian or perhaps he doesn’t, it doesn’t really matter. Mo XuanYu would already have known who is the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation. Mo XuanYu already knows what evil spirit he needs to call upon for help. Demonic cultivation was likely the only thing he had left to make him feel empowered, and so Wei WuXian is the one who will take care to right all wrongs when no one else will.

Sadly, Jin GuangYao is not on the list of people Mo XuanYu wants revenge on -- because Jin GuangYao is already experienced at making himself look innocent. Mo XuanYu would have had no idea how wronged he was by his half-brother. So Mo XuanYu only wants the death of his immediate family. His immediate abusers.

But Mo XuanYu is missing something: knowing he needs to convey his wishes to Wei WuXian. Without it, Mo XuanYu’s sacrifice is in vain and the both of them die. Or that would have been their fate if Wei WuXian had not figured it out for himself in time.

We already know Jin GuangYao can put an extra piece into a cultivation technique, such as the Collection of Turmoil into Cleansing. It stands to reason that he is just as able to take a piece out of a cultivation technique.

After all, Mo XuanYu got the technique from him. The gap of this knowledge is thus a ticking time bomb just waiting for Mo XuanYu to give it a try and cut the wrong wire. Jin GuangYao also immediately knows and is quite happy to tell everyone the details of what Mo XuanYu did, despite finding out this is Wei WuXian in front of him barely thirty minutes ago and Mo XuanYu was banished years ago:

Jin GuangYao continued, “I’m sure that none of you know this, but back when XuanYu was still at Koi Tower, he had seen a copy of the YiLing Patriarch’s manuscript at my place. The manuscript recorded a dark technique that ‘sacrificed’ one’s body. With the price being the soul and the body, one could summon a powerful spirit to seek revenge in place of themself. Sect Leader Jiang wouldn’t be able to test it even if he hit him with a hundred more strikes. It’s because the person who used the technique sacrificed their body willingly. It doesn’t count as a possession at all!” [Ch. 50, ERS]

“I’m sure that none of you know this,” Jin GuangYao says, because this was all a plot of his own secret design. It benefits him now to reveal the truth of Mo XuanYu’s demise just as it doesn’t benefit him to ever reveal the truth of Nie MingJue.

But Mo XuanYu was as much a victim of Jin GuangYao as Nie MingJue. Jin GuangYao made sure they destroyed themselves on their own time rather than holding the blade himself.

Nie HuaiSang might not have been a holy avenger and mistakes were very likely made, but there is a lack of motive and evidence here that he ever wanted or sought Mo XuanYu’s death. Too much damage had already happened by the time Nie HuaiSang arrived on the scene. I can picture him throwing up his arms in despair and letting Nie MingJue’s arm go free onto this already crazy crime scene. Imagine the struggle the whole Lan Sect had had with the arm and now imagine Nie HuaiSang trying to manage it all on his own. He was not having a good time!

Mo Village was already a crime scene and now here was one more piece of evidence. The Lans knew inquiry whereas Nie HuaiSang did not. Let the Lans take the arm and find the rest of Nie MingJue for him. Let Nie HuaiSang continue to play innocent in front of Jin GuangYao. Let the arm claim more of Lan XiChen’s attention than Jin GuangYao.

But then Wei WuXian survived his resurrection trial and was taken in by Lan WangJi.

The next time Nie HuaiSang sees Mo XuanYu is at the Stone Castles, and by seeing Mo XuanYu, he knows immediately that the sacrifice worked.

But just because he knows and he saw doesn’t mean it was Nie HuaiSang’s doing, especially when Jin GuangYao’s bloody fingerprints were already encircling Mo XuanYu’s neck.

#nie huaisang #jin guangyao #mo xuanyu #nhs vs jgy #mdzs thoughts #thinking maybe nhs shouldn't be blindly accused of 1st degree murder #just for consideration lol #saying nhs killed mxy is so weird to me #nhs becoming jgy to defeat jgy feels uninspired #nhs is that meme where the man is like #do you think a depressed person could make this??#jgy was afraid and wanted power #nhs was afraid but he wanted justice #they are not the same person #you can tell how much i'm procrastinating irl #by how long these spur of the moment posts are lol

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imaginaryelle · 4 years

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I just re-watched THAT scene and a thought hit me: Lan Wangji just stands there watching Wei Wuxian fall from the cliff... Why doesn't he jump onto his sword and swoops down to at least try to save him? Or is he all out of spiritual power? Or does it simply take to long to start and rev the sword? Not saying it's a plothole, I was just wondering...

I mean, I think this is a fair question and I know I’ve seen it discussed elsewhere. I just can’t seem to find the post or remember if any conclusions were reached, so I’m excited to dive into this. As always if anyone has insights or headcanons they want to add on to this, please do.

Because I like pictures, here’s ep 33 Lan Wangji holding his sword and staring in horror as Wei Wuxian falls (what is Jiang Cheng thinking? Who knows.)

Why isn’t Lan Wangji doing anything? He just stands there for long enough that Jiang Cheng backs away and leaves him on the outcropping, all alone.

Poor guy.

Okay, moving on. I think there are at least two ways to approach this, and one is from the production perspective (since this cliff encounter is a thing that only happens in the drama) and the other is from the in-universe perspective (aka, Doyalist vs Watsonian), so I’m going to look at both.

For the production pov, there’s really only one scene (I think) where we see anyone actually riding a sword in the drama, and it’s when they’re confronting the water demon/abyss in Caiyi (ep 5). At that point there’s no prep time, everyone just jumps up and then steps onto their swords (which is actually even more ridiculous to me than the image had already been in the novel because I thought they were at least riding on the scabbard but no! Riding the bare blade like a skateboard. I love it.)

How majestic.

Lan Xichen is the only graceful and cool person here. The only other sword-riding shot in this scene that shows more of a person’s body than their head and shoulders is when Lan Wangji drags three people into the air at once and we get a brief glimpse of Su She’s feet kicking wildly.

So, based on this scene’s execution and the general scarcity of other sword-flying scenes (even with the Nightless City confrontation, Lan Wangji just flies in with his quqin, no sword under his feet), my out-of-universe theory would be a combination of budget and aesthetic at play. If the production can get by on wire work with super extra long jumps that don’t seem to require actually riding the sword, they will. It’s logistically simpler, and it frankly looks better on screen. It’s also a staple of the entire film genre, whereas this sword thing is not, so the crew and effects people would have more experience with it as well. (In-universe I have a lot of questions about Wei Wuxian’s retained ability to do those jumps. Do they not use spiritual energy? Does he still have spiritual energy, just not a golden core? Is he using resentful energy instead? How does this work?)

From a more story-side view on the production, they’re working against the fact that they changed the plot to add Lan Wangji’s presence at Wei Wuxian’s death and they want to capitalize on that relationship, so having Wei Wuxian knock himself over the edge as he destroys the seal (or something where he steps back as Jiang Cheng rushes him or any other number of possibilities) no longer fits with the emotional beats they’re trying to hit. Also they really need Wei Wuxian to die here for the plot to function. Having Lan Wangji mount a sword and swoop down to try and save him again just adds extra complications and delays the desired outcome of WWX = dead and LWJ = distraught. In that sense, it really does start to look like a plot hole, because it feels like they’re ignoring the capabilities of a character in order to get the result they need. I do think they try to address this, but since multiple people have this question and I personally had to watch the scene more than once while actively thinking about it to notice all the relevant details… the efficacy of those efforts is maybe questionable. (Also like.. why does Jiang Cheng wait three days to go look for Wei Wuxian’s remains? Why is anyone waiting at all? Why is anyone surprised they can’t find a corpse when the visual we get implies Wei Wuxian is falling into lava? There are many, many questions that can be asked here and for a lot of them the out-of-universe answer is probably going to resemble “because the plot/original source material demands it” without much helpful in-universe support.)

In-universe (and probably more pertinent to your question), yeah, Lan Wangji could be low on spiritual power (and upon rewatch, I think he genuinely is). He could be physically exhausted as well as injured, too. For someone who carried three people in two hands 2-3 years ago and canonically has only gotten stronger since, he sure is having trouble pulling one person up over the side of a cliff. And that exhaustion really isn’t outside the realm of possibility, no matter how strong and powerful he is. He just traveled pretty far! If the theories that he found A-Yuan before coming to Nightless City are true (since he’s not injured in those flashbacks), he likely spent a ton of spiritual power even before getting into this battle where he first confronted Wei Wuxian and then started fighting pretty much everyone on the field by himself. Then, in a moment of fear-induced distraction, he gets injured! He’s actively bleeding! So yeah. He could definitely just be physically exhausted.

All that blood loss is not a good sign, and it actually speeds up (visually) as he expends this effort. We can see his arm trembling all throughout this scene, and then his grip slips (thus the face). Even after that he slips again, not losing his grip, but losing the strength to hold himself up at all. In the end he’s literally just lying on the rock depending on gravity to keep him in place and putting everything else he has into holding on to Wei Wuxian. He can’t do more than glare in Jiang Cheng’s general direction and tell him to stop.

Bichen is right there. If he had spiritual power left, I think he’d probably be sending his sword out to block Jiang Cheng’s angle of attack. That, or he needs two hands to accomplish such an action (It doesn’t require hand motions later/in the future, but maybe he develops that skill precisely because of these events). So yes. He’s physically exhausted. He’s spiritually exhausted. But I think there’s more going on here, too: He’s also at the end of his rope emotionally, and that’s how he ends up standing there, horrified and unmoving.

He’s had a rough time recently: Everyone hates his best and only friend/love of his life, and he has to listen to them call for his death/judgement at fancy dinner party meetings on and off for over a year. No one will listen to him when he tries to present a different view. Even his own brother is (not unreasonably) much more concerned about Lan Wangji’s personal safety than what his silence on this issue is costing him emotionally, and his uncle is distinctly unsupportive of the friendship from the beginning.

I think Lan Wangji spends a lot of time questioning his upbringing in those months (we see him actually verbally do so when he’s punished after Wei Wuxian’s death, but I think it starts well before that). What is right and wrong? Who decides it, and how? When does justice and holding people responsible for their actions turn over into unjust persecution? What is true, and what is a lie, and how much does that matter when weighed against social/political/spiritual harmony? These are concepts that are buried pretty deeply in the Lan Sect’s teachings but the world is twisting all of them before his eyes, and I have to think that takes a toll on him. Additionally, just as things start looking up (they let him write the letter to invite Wei Wuxian to Jin Ling’s celebration! They listen to him, other people support his idea!), he has to deal with the facts that:

1) His best friend who he’s in love with just killed a bunch of people, including Jin ZiXuan and some of Lan Wangji’s own Sect brothers.

2) Wei Wuxian is clearly losing control of his resentment-based cultivation path, and is thus personally in danger on a spiritual level, and

3) Everyone now wants to kill Wei Wuxian again, possibly even more than they did before, and anyone who supports Wei Wuxian is an enemy of the entire cultivation world.

Later in the series, Lan Wangji says he regrets that he wasn’t at Wei Wuxian’s side at Nightless City. That he didn’t support him, despite what we see of him trying to help Wei Wuxian find Jiang Yanli and then, after she dies, stop him from killing himself. To me, this could very easily imply that Lan Wangji is still trying to walk a tightrope in those scenes, or perhaps trying to be a bridge. He’s deliberately not choosing a distinct side, because he refuses to hate and reject Wei Wuxian, but he’s also refusing to declare open support. He’s acting entirely on his own, in a balancing act between friendship and love vs his family, his entire life’s teachings, and all of his society. Certainly I find that sort of situation exhausting, and I’ve never had to do it for something so high-stakes or large-scale.

Then there’s the actual cliff scene itself, where he’s visibly desperate. How intense does an emotion have to be for Lan Wangji to so clearly show it?

Wei Ying, he says, come back. He knows Wei Wuxian is breaking down. He at the very least guesses that he’s going to do something wild like step off that outcropping, which is why he follows him in the first place. But he has no idea what to do, so he tries the same thing he’s been trying for years: Come with me. Let me help you. This is a bridge, and he’s offering to help Wei Wuxian cross it. But just like every other time he’s tried it since the Sunshot Campaign ended, it doesn’t work.

Note that Lan Wangji actually is flying here, without the sword, so if he doesn’t have any spiritual power when Jiang Cheng shows up, this is probably a last, desperate burst to go with this last, desperate act.

I don’t think he really has a plan here. Not a new one, anyway. This is a still a plea of Let me help you. And, notably, Wei Wuxian doesn’t accept his help.

Not once during this whole scene does Wei Wuxian reach up with his free hand or try to help Lan Wangji help him in any way. He smiles, and he says: Lan Zhan, let me go. Because he doesn’t want a bridge. He doesn’t want to go back. Honestly it’s a pretty explicit and heartbreaking message: Lan Wangji’s offer of help is not enough to make Wei Wuxian want to stay alive. Not right now. He needs more than that. He’s lost too much to believe, right now, that anyone is going to choose him and his side, or that he’s worth that effort. And to be clear, Lan Wangji isn’t even offering that in this situation. Wei Wuxian is one slippery handgrip away from death, and Lan Wangji is still not saying “You, I choose you.” From anything Wei Wuxian can be expected to infer, his offer here is no different than it’s ever been: let me show you the way back to the right path. Let me help you fit back into the world the way you used to. And Wei Wuxian can’t do that; he has no golden core, it’s literally impossible even if the rest of the world would let him try. But at this point he doesn’t want to go back either. He doesn’t even want to try. That world hates him, and willfully misunderstands him, and has taken too many people from him now for it to be worth staying in. He wants to die.

And then Jiang Cheng arrives.

Wei Wuxian’s reaction to his brother’s presence is to smile, say his name, and just–accept his hatred. He closes his eyes and waits for the sword to fall even as Lan Wangji calls for Jiang Cheng to stop. The only time he shows distress between stepping back off the cliff and his actual death is when Jiang Cheng twists his sword and compromises the stability of the outcropping so that Lan Wangji is also in danger.

I think it’s possible that if Jiang Cheng had also reached for him and tried to pull him back up, things might have gone differently. Maybe that would have been enough to alter Wei Wuxian’s thinking. But as it is, when Wei Wuxian falls, he falls with his limbs relaxed and a smile on his face. There’s no flailing and screaming like when he was thrown into the Burial Mounds (in ep 33. There’s some arm-waving in ep 1). And I think that moment of him pushing Lan Wangji back and then letting go, more than anything, is what stops Lan Wangji in his tracks, because Wei Wuxian could have saved himself. He had strength and energy left. Enough to push Lan Wangji up and back and nearly to a standing position. He could have accepted Lan Wangji’s help, easily. But he didn’t, because he wanted to die, despite all the effort and inner turmoil Lan Wangji has gone through on his behalf (most of which Wei Wuxian doesn’t know about but, still).

That’s a pretty serious emotional kick in the head. Lan Wangji cannot ignore, at this point, that even if he did have any physical or spiritual energy left, Wei Wuxian doesn’t want to be saved. And that’s when we get this face (actually from ep 1):

He has nothing left. He has at this point spent over a year, maybe two, trying to save someone who, when it came down to the final moment, didn’t want to be saved. There’s nothing more he can do, in this state of exhaustion and despair, and it wouldn’t matter if he tried.

Personally, I think he looks like he’s about to be sick, and I don’t think it’s just the image of Wei Wuxian falling and dying that’s working on him here. It’s also the knowledge that he fucked up. He didn’t do enough, or more accurately, didn’t do the right things, in order to encourage Wei Wuxian to keep fighting for himself or anyone else (I’m not saying this is a healthy or reasonable thought, I just think it’s a thought he’s having). And I think this realization plays directly into how he treats Wei Wuxian when he comes back sixteen years later. He knows that questioning Wei Wuxian on his path of cultivation doesn’t go where he wants it to, so he doesn’t do it. This time is going to be different. He’ll break rules. He’ll drink alcohol. He doesn’t scold Wei Wuxian for making dumb, selfless decisions like transferring the curse mark from Jin Ling’s leg to his own, he just accepts it and expresses concern over Wei Wuxian’s well being. He stops asking if he can help and starts just doing it: Wei Wuxian can’t walk so he’ll carry him. Wei Wuxian needs someone to speak for him, so Lan Wangji will do that, with his brother and with the whole cultivation world. And then we come to this:

This is exactly the same move. Wei Wuxian will protect Lan Wangji, but not himself.

But.

Lan Wangji is no longer trying to be a bridge. He’s not going to hold out his hand for Wei Wuxian to accept or disregard. He’s crossed over to be on Wei Wuxian’s side. And that’s what makes the difference.

#lakritzwolf #cql meta #the untamed #chen qing ling #wangxian #lan wangji #wei wuxian #possibly i got a bit carried away #but this was fun #tw: blood #tw: suicide #in the novel lwj makes that change before wwx dies #and is thwarted by a combination #of wwx's breakdown and his own clan #but the drama cut that scene #so it had to happen after #long post #so long #seriously

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xhanisai · 4 years

Text

Blanc Noise - Chapter One

AO3 / FFN

Summary:

It first began with the feeling of being watched and the flicker of shadows.

Then along came missing items being returned in the most odd places.

Soon it was the glimpses of blue eyes in the darkness and a silhouette of white that haunted her.

Marinette thought she saved him, that she saved her Chat Noir from the dystopian timeline.

She was wrong...oh so wrong...

A/N: Wassup mah d00ds! I hope you're all doing well and everything! Anyways, on tumblr, I made a quick AU of 'What if Chat Blanc comes back but as a ghost?' and it got lots of positive attention hence I decided to start a full fledged story. After all, I am a fucking slut for Mariblanc~ Big thanks to my good friend @/gale-of-the-nomads for the title name (sometimes, he has a good idea or two despite the amount of terrible puns he spews lol). Nevertheless, enjoy! P.S: The story takes place after the episode: Ladybug. Therefore, Maître Fu is still around, the love square is still going strong and Ladybug is not the guardian. Additionally, I've tweaked the timeline. The duo have now started their final year in collège in September (the events of Ladybug happened just before the summer holidays). Do I make myself clear? Good. Have fun! Song listened to whilst writing: White Silence - TK from Ling tosite sigure

~(x)~ . . . "MmmMhmm! That smells amazing! What have brought this time, My Lady?" The feline hero leapt to his feet, faux ears and tails wiggling with delight and pupils dilating with elation. Ladybug laughed softly at her endearing partner, sitting down on their favourite beam of the Eiffel Tower and beckoning the boy to come closer, wiggling the Tupperware in her hand teasingly. Chat Noir didn't hesitate to scurry towards her, plopping down on the spot opposite the heroine as she placed the container in his greedy hands. If he wasn't such a gentleman, he would have immediately tore off the lid and scarfed the delectable goodies down his throat like the alley cat his Lady proclaimed him to be. "Guess." Ladybug humoured him. "And before you ask, the clue is that it's a savoury dish this time. Don't shake it up too much." She playfully took it away from him and then placed it on the spot between them, grinning as Chat's face scrunched up into a thinking expression. Lips pursed, eyes narrowed and arms folded. Absolutely adorable. "Hm...it can't be steamed garlic prawns. You brought that yesterday." Noir mused. "And it doesn't smell like duck pancakes either." He added, scrutinising the mystery within the container. "You mean the Běijīng kǎoyā? Not after that horrible heartburn it gave you last week." Ladybug cheekily flicked his forehead, earning an annoyed grunt from him. "Geez no need to flex on the Chinese, Mlle. I don't know a lick of Mandarin." He tried to swat away Ladybug's hands when she attempted to poke him for making fun of her, chuckling at her mock angry face. "Okay okay! I'll behave- the heartburn was worth it by the way~ I started to crave for more days after, hahaha-" "I know SOME Mandarin, stupid!" "Insults and crude words do not count, My Lady." "Just guess the food in the Tupperware already or else I won't share!" Her threat froze the black cat comically. Chat quickly blabbered out apologies, clearing his throat and then eyed the container again. The sound of his stomach rumbling broke the silence, embarrassing the hero whilst his partner barely kept in her snickers. "Vermicelli rolls?" "Nope." "Kung-Pao chicken?" "Nah." "...wontons?" "You're getting closer," "Agh...okay from when I shook it, it sounded quite hard and crispy so..." He carefully shook the container once more, ears pressed against the cool surface as he tried his best to identify the treasures. Finally, an idea struck him, evident in the way his faux ears and tail shot upwards. "Aha! Spring rolls! It's spring rolls, isn't it?" His face looked like one who won the lottery and Ladybug couldn't help but coo internally. He was such a dork. "That's right, Chaton. Now, if you guess the correct fillings, I'll let you have some." Ladybug added nonchalantly, eating up the way Chat spluttered and the frazzled gestures he made, eyes begging to let him have the treats already. "Oh come on! You're not that cruel, Bug." He pouted but didn't attempt to snatch away the container. He directed his beady glare at his Lady, arms folded. "...La-aaaaady-bu-uuuuug..." He whined. "Just kidding~ Here, Bon appétit ," Ladybug didn't waste time, tearing off the lid and beckoning Chat to take some of the spring rolls. The boy's eyes widened at the sight of the delicious looking treats. The pastry was golden and crisp, the size of each roll were consistent and big enough to finish in three bites and the enticing, spicy scent made the feline salivate. And, they were still piping hot. Hell yeah, Bon appétit indeed! Without hesitation, Chat took a bite, unaware of Ladybug's anticipating look. . "Holy shit...I'm in heaven..." The teen blurted out, eyeing his spring roll with a tearful look, as if it was too beautiful for him to eat. He shoved the whole pastry in his mouth, moaning in delight without a shame whilst his Lady's tinkling giggles was like music to his ears. What a way to spend the last evening of summer before school. A beautiful summer night, a beautiful lady and amazing food! 'Yes, this cat is content for life,' He purred to himself, smiling at his partner as she offered him another roll. "Thank dieu you enjoyed it. I wasn't too sure if you were going to be keen on the secret ingredient I mixed in with the vegetables." Ladybug twirled her roll, cheeks ever so slightly flushed with happiness. "Is it that exotic spicy scent that I've been smelling this whole time?" "Yes. Maman's friend who's from the south-east gave her these homegrown naga-chillies. They're really, really hot on their own but without the seeds, they're bearable to me and make the vegetable filling taste so good." She bit into her roll as if to emphasise her point. She was blind to the way Chat Noir watched her with a pleasant, fulfilled smile. The warmth that pulsed in his stomach provoked his heart to skip a few beats or so- a standard reaction that the love of his life always gave him. 'I wish you would be mine forever...' His unsaid words were left floating in the back of his head as he nibbled on his food. The duo spent the rest of the night laughing, joking, exchanging bizarre stories without giving away their civilian lives and before they knew it, it was midnight. "Uh-oh...I'm turning into a pumpkin! Save me!" Chat Noir wailed dramatically, curling up into a ball and leaning against Ladybug. Her hearty laughter grew in volume, the girl clutching her stomach as she gasped for a breath only for Chat to join her with his contagious laugh. Soon, they calmed down. With the calm came the thoughts. The crescent of the moon shone like a beacon. The temperature of the summer air started to cool and the beautiful city lights below shone like diamonds. The two were hesitant to leave, wanting to prolong their last summer night. The older of two wanted to spend as much time as he wanted with the girl he loved. The younger on the other hand? She wanted to keep him happy and close. After all, She would rather die than fail her partner again and let him be akumatised. Little did she know how potent her sadness was. The atmosphere turned tense in a flip of a switch, sending shivers down Chat's spine and he was quick to glance at his now, forlorn looking Lady. As if they didn't just have a laughing fit and a mini picnic. It was that damn empty, distant looking face again. The boy under the mask absolutely despised it. He would do anything to get rid of it. "You know I'm always here for you, Bug." He placed his hands on her forearms, beckoning her to look at him. Ladybug refused to meet eye contact so he tilted her chin up with a finger, delivering a soft, sad grimace. "It's been months now and yet you wouldn't tell me what happened. Did you think acting more sweet around me would distract me from your tears?" The girl hadn't noticed her eyes were watering till her Chaton pointed it out and wiped away a stray tear. She knew he was much more smarter and perceptive than most would give him credit for yet she couldn't help but pray that he would leave her be. 'He's always been too good for you. You know it. I know it. So why don't you just hurry up and throw the earrings away so that someone else who's actually worthy of utilising the power can properly look after him?' "I told you, nothing happened. Just silly, civilian stuff." Ladybug tried to shrug him off, quickly wiping her eyes and trying her best to not sniffle. "Let's just go home-" "When will you stop lying to me?" The boy hissed out, tail lashing against the beams in anger and feline ears pressed against his dishevelled locks. His acidic green eyes pierced through Ladybug's being. A deadly scowl that would surely cause the blood in Le Papillon's body to freeze and petrify him. Ladybug tried her best to not show how he surprised her, keeping a poker face and swallowed quietly. However, with the way his hands were clasped around her wrists, she feared he could feel her rapid pulse. Why was it always her that caused his rare anger to rise on an occasion or two? It was simply not fair. How righteous his anger was towards her. A sudden gust of wind swept through their hair, ending the summer season and introduced the newly born autumn with a howl. It felt like ice seeping through their suits. Yet, the polka dotted heroine didn't dare move a muscle, observing her partner with a cool, neutral expression. Chat Noir hated it. He absolutely hated it. It was one of the few faces she made when she was forced to keep a secret away from him even if it took a toll on her body and mind. He felt disgustingly useless. "I'm fine, Chat Noir." Ladybug wiggled her hands to free them of his grip, bringing them to her chest as she glanced towards the city below. "Can we please not do this tonight? Please? I want it to end on a good note." Her wish was met with a defeated sigh from her partner, not flinching for even a split second when his tail whipped against a stray beam. An echo of his anger prior. Just as it was quick to come, it was quick to leave, thankfully. "I'm not give up on you," His resolute tone induced a quiet gasp from Ladybug, the girl herself cut her gaze towards him with parted lips. "But for tonight, I'll let you be." He didn't smile but...he didn't frown either. Reaching for her hands one last time, Chat Noir brought them to his lips. His bold, fiery greens never left her soft, steady blues whilst his lips brushed against her knuckles in a traditional kiss. Taking advantage of her lack of hesitation, he kissed the backs of her hands too and then brought them to his chest so that she could feel his fierce, beating heart. It began to lash against his chest when a light rouge tinted her cheeks. "I'm always here for you, always. No matter what, you can count on me to protect you." Then, with a determined nod, he launched forward and pecked her head before letting go of her swiftly and vaulting away with an impeccable speed. Ladybug remained frozen in her position, cheeks flaming until his figure became smaller and smaller in the distance. By the time she could no longer see him, she sunk to her knees, grasping her chest as her throbbing heart felt like it was going to burst out and explode. Millions of emotions ran through her body, fighting against each other as the memory of him kissing her head replayed over and over again. Like the sweetest of poison. Addicting but deadly. Despite the warm, fluttering butterflies, despite the smooth, softness of his lips, despite the comforting, protective touch of his, Ladybug couldn't help but have the memories of the other timeline flare in her mind like a warning sign. An unwanted threat that has never failed to wreck her mind. Biting her lips, she tried to keep her tears at bay, body shaking and pushing against the sobs that threatened to spill out. She was so tempted to run back to him and tell him everything. To care for him like the way he deserves. To love him like the way he needs. Yet the haunting, crazed ice blue eyes of the past invaded the temporary soaring feelings like a virus, eating away all the positivism and hope she tried her upmost best to maintain. 'You have no right to be happy...' An ugly gloom hooded her eyes, killing all her emotions as she staggered back up to her feet, using a beam nearby for support. The harsh wind clawed through her hair, ridding her trademark ponytails of their ribbons and blowing them away to the other side of Paris. Ladybug simply didn't have the energy to get them back, using muscle memory to swing herself back home. Her ribbons long forgotten. It was a cold, bleak September now. ~(x)~ It was quiet. Too quiet. Standing up from her crouch after detransforming on her balcony, Marinette immediately spun around and glared at her surroundings whilst Tikki hovered close. Not a single sound was heard. Not even the wind. Suddenly, Marinette's heart began to pick up pace as beads of sweat started to form on her forehead. The only thing she could hear was her heartbeat as she felt something weird. Her entire neighbourhood was asleep, evident in the lights out and the pitch black environment. The only source of light in her vision were the few lamp posts on the streets as well as around the park. Yet, she couldn't ignore the feeling of being watched. Not wanting to show fear at a possible stalker, Marinette took large strides till she was at the edge of her balcony, clutching the railings and scanned the scene with more scrutiny. One of the lamp posts merely flickered as moths buzzed around it. The trees simply swayed along with the inaudible breeze. The streets and roads remained empty. Not a single soul out. Marinette exhaled softly, eyes never stopping its study of her surroundings. She took a step back, tension leaving her body bit by bit, leaving an aching throb in her chest. The adrenaline that fuelled her veins vaporised. "I don't think there's anyone around, Marinette." Tikki whispered, clutching the girl's loose strands as she also watched for anything suspicious. "Can we go back inside? I'm cold." "...okay." Marinette glared at the scene from her peripheral vision once more, almost swearing that she saw movement under one of the lamps only to brush it off as paranoia and made her way back to the trapdoor. Since she wasn't paying attention, the teen bumped into her table, almost tripping over her feet but thankfully caught herself. "Eek! Are you okay?" The little Goddess freaked out, flying in front of her charge and scanning her from head to toe for any injuries. She was waved off with a tired smile. "Don't worry, it's probably just a little...bruise...?" A slither of red caught Marinette's attention from the corner of her eye only for her to gawk. There, on the railing of her balcony was... ...One of her ribbons. Inhaling sharply and leaping towards the railings, clutching her treasured ribbon, Marinette spied around the neighbourhood desperately like a hawk. Tikki's presence on her shoulders did nothing to alleviate her stress as sweat from palpitation grew on her palms. Her mouth on the other hand ran dry and she refused to blink. She didn't dare to tremble. She was Ladybug. Nothing should scare her. ...with her partner's possible akumatisation aside that is. Regardless, Marinette fixated her stare at the specific lamp post. The area where she brushed off momentarily. The light flickered back and forth whilst moths carried on fluttering around it without a care in the world. She watched. And watched. And watched. . Still nothing. Without looking away, knuckles white from her grip on the ribbon and her free hand cradling her beloved kwami, Marinette walked backwards, gingerly going down her trapdoor and quickly closed it till it was locked shut. . The silence haunted her all night. ~(x)~ "Ma-ri-nette!!!" Instantly, said girl was glomped by her best friend in a hug that would surely asphyxiate a commoner. Thankfully, Marinette was not only Ladybug in disguise but also trained vigorously in many of the martial arts by her dear maman. "Alya! I missed you! How was Morocco with Nino and his family?" Marinette leaned against Alya as the taller of the teens hooked their elbows together, leading them inside the school. "Girllllll I have so many scoops to share, so many deets-" "The million texts and selfies you sent me daily weren't just it?" "They barely scratched the surface! But anyways, it was amazing! I couldn't believe my parents were willing to let me go even when Nora threw a fit haha! I got to relax so much, spent quality time with Nino and his extended family, took so many pictures and tried so many different food. Ah~ Best. Summer. Ever." "Oh the food...I can't believe you shamelessly ate all of that without sharing it with me," The raven-haired girl teased, pushing her hip against Alya's who pushed back without a beat. "You wouldn't be moping if you came along, Mari. Remember the tagine you tried at the local restaurant nearby and you thought that was divine? Lemme tell you, it is nothing compared to the authentic, fresh tagine made by Nino's tante. One taste and I was in heaven. Absolute heaven." "Alya you're making me jealous, I get it, I get it." Marinette playfully scoffed but then her energy soon wore off and fatigue took over her body. Alya was quick to catch the tired girl as soon as she began to sway, perfect brows sculpted in worry as she eyed her best friend. "Marinette...girl...you do not look okay. I'm telling you this 'cos I love you. Go back home and sleep." The brunette brushed Marinette's fringe gently, noting the tired, dark rings under her eyes and the unhealthy paleness of her skin. It was as if Marinette avoided the sun all her life. "I don't wanna..." The stubborn girl whined but didn't fight back when Alya led her to a nearby bench, sitting them both down. "I've been missing you all too much and couldn't wait to see you all again," She admitted, earning a coo from the curvy girl and another hug. Alya's sun-kissed honey skin was a stark contrast against Marinette's pale, porcelain skin. "Alright then but I'll be keeping an eye on you, girl. I can see the effort you put into your cute bun and soft make up. How you do your eyeliner freehand without a guide will always baffle me~" Just as Marinette was about to retort back, the duo were engulfed by a surprise hug from the back. Neither fought back as the familiar laughter and soft, masculine brown arms were registered. "Babe! And dudette! My best girls!" Nino popped his head forward, in between the girls and squished their cheeks against his. "Heyyyy~" He waggled his eyebrows stupidly, his shit eating grin widening when his girlfriend burst out laughing and Marinette following with a quiet giggle. "Nino, g'morning," Alya quickly pecked his lips. To further his dramatics, Nino pretended to swoon and flopped backwards between the girls with a dopey smile. "Finally, a good lundi morning," Nino sighed with exaggeration, his girl still trying her best to stifle her laughter whilst Marinette fondly rolled her eyes at him. "I can now brave through these useless lessons and deal with M. D'Argencourt's bullshit rambles during registration. Oh how amazing the power of lo-oooove truly is!" "Oh yeah, I almost forgot that we won't have Mme. Bustier this year. Was about to say that I was gonna miss her but not gonna lie, she lost all my respect when you got expelled." Alya huffed, pulling Marinette against her like a worried mother hen. "To think that I almost had to spend my last year here without my precious Marinette~" "But Babe! What about me?" "You wish you were as precious as sweetcheeks over here." Alya blew a raspberry at her boyfriend, cheeky grin widening at his dramatics. Marinette on the other hand simply smiled, savouring every moment. The fact that there was a possibility that she would have had to attend a different collège for her final year without her friends made her quiver and she didn't falter in snuggling closer to her best friend. She's been through so much this year. Surely she deserved some sort of happiness. Even if she failed her partner at one point... Right? 'No. You do not deserve anything but pain and suffering you selfish, self-righteous brat. Because of you, how long did your beloved partner go through that hell? How many nights did he spend wide awake after destroying the world? Face it, you don't deserve him or your friends or any sort of love-' The dark, twisted, ugly thoughts and whispers that preyed upon her mind was quick to diminish at the sound of pure sunshine. "You guys! Hey!" Marinette didn't get a chance to look up fully as she and the rest of the small group was tackled by their loving blonde friend in a comfy, sweet hug. Her heart malfunctioned on the spot as all she could smell was the fresh, crisp autumn air that lingered in his soft hair and coat. Her mind rebooted over and over again at the feel of his strong, sturdy arm wrapped around her. Her lips quaked at the feel of his brushing against her cheek despite the gleeful smile he wore. "A-A-Adrien?" The model pulled back slightly to face the stammering girl, lips quirking into a silly but sweet smile. Not thinking twice, he pressed his forehead against Marinette's tenderly, their fringes intermingling with each other and their cool breaths hitting each other's lips. Adrien's eyes sparkled like emeralds and the aspiring designer couldn't help but be mesmerised. "Missed me~?" His nose was touching hers now and his pearly whites gleamed mischievously. Poor Marinette couldn't help but blink, blush already blooming in her cheeks. Dammit. They may have gotten much, much closer yet there were still times that the boy rendered her speechless! What's with the green eyed blonde boys in her life and making her heart a complete wreck?! "B-Bro...can't breathe...I don't wanna die!" Nino's muffled pleas shattered the moment and Adrien immediately broke the hug, snickering at the way Nino gasped for air and clutched a deadpanned Alya. Though, he took a seat besides Marinette and kept an arm around her waist, leaning against her as they watched the couple bicker and banter. "Enjoyed your holidays, Adrien?" Marinette began, playing with the fraying threads of her purse and peeked at him below her lashes. Adrien hummed, sitting up and then directed his gorgeous greens at her. 'Be still, my heart.' Marinette couldn't help but beg. "It was alright. Didn't leave Paris though and had too many photo-shoots. What about you? Didn't you get to go to Shanghai for a week?" Adrien's question almost went unheard as Mari couldn't help but be hyper-aware of the warmth of his hand on her waist. The way his finger casually tapped against it. The innocent smile he had on his lips. This boy was going to be the death of her. 'But you don't deserve him. You don't deserve either of them. Be lucky that they even acknowledge your filthy existence.' The eerie whispers clawed through her brain, her body begging to run away and cry. Yet, she forced her fingers to move away from her purse and pull on the seams of her navy pea-coat, smile never faltering. "Yes, I did. I really enjoyed it there. I wish I got to stay for lo-longer..." She trailed off, swallowing down any babbles or word soup as Adrien squeezed her waist as a gesture of comfort. He was being really sweet today... "I don't blame ya- all the pictures you posted online looked so cool. The skyline at night, the food, heck even your relatives! If I hadn't known better, I'd have thought that cousin of yours was your brother." "You wouldn't be the first to mistaken us as siblings," She giggled. "When we were younger and they came over to Paris to visit, some people used get mixed up between me and him. It didn't help that I had my hair really short at the time and wore nothing but blue and red." "That would have been really cute to see. Hmm, it also makes sense with how easily you accepted that Félix and I were just cousins instead of that weird conspiracy theory that Kim concocted up." "Oh I wouldn't say I accepted it too easily. You and your cousin are like mirrors of each other. It's insane! I thought for a minute that you had an evil twin." Marinette winked merrily, her giggles simply grew while Adrien rolled his eyes at her. "Come on. Not you too." His fake pout didn't last long and he quietly chortled alongside her. Just a smile from his Princesse was enough to brighten up his day despite the small fight he had with Ladybug eight hours prior. Yes, Ladybug was the love of his life. Yes, he would go to the moon and back for her. However, he would be an absolute idiot and horrifically obtuse to deny that his feelings for Marinette weren't as strong. With rare wisdom from his lazy kwami, Adrien learned that having feelings for more than one person was not only natural but also healthy in a way. It showed that he wasn't forever stuck on one person and it eased the pain of his Lady's rejection to his advances. Ladybug and Marinette were his best friends first and foremost and he wouldn't dare to sabotage his precious friendships. It didn't mean he couldn't wish for Ladybug to fall for him one day. Same for Marinette. He's still a silly teen; he could keep dreaming and fantasising! Till then, he was going to go with the flow and see what the future entailed. As far as he was concerned, his future was leaning more towards Marinette and frankly, he did not mind one bit. Abruptly, the morning bell rang, indicating that it was time for the students to head to class for registration. Grunts and groans were heard from the swarm of students in the courtyard, Kim's distinct "It's time for hell, bitches!" being one of the more prominent voices in the crowd along with Alix's curses. "Thank fuck Mari-bee was the class president last year and made sure that we got our class to be the same for this year. I'd have eaten my own hands if I had to deal with that one annoying kid obsessed with magic again." Nino shot a friendly punch against Marinette's shoulder and then wrapped an arm around Alya's waist as she led them to their new classroom. "Did he just indirectly mention that he'd rather have Chloé and Lila over Jean as his classmate?" Marinette huffed with endearment, taking the hand that Adrien offered to help her up. The sudden rush to her head caused her to wobble on the spot. Luckily, Adrien steadied her without a word, hands clasping her forearms. "S-Sorry..." She attempted to step away but the boy's grip on her tightened, halting her. Marinette glanced back at Adrien with confusion, cocking her head to the side slightly and lips pursed. "...you're not feeling well, aren't you?" A nail in the coffin. Adrien scanned her body from head to foot, frown growing deeper. "You can barely stand." "I'm fine. I just...couldn't get any sleep. I was nervous for the first day of school and also didn't want to oversleep." Marinette answered quickly, looking away from him. She didn't expect his finger to hook under her chin, forcing eye contact. For the first time, Adrien glared at her. Glared. He leaned in closer, bending down so that he could reach her height. "Are you lying?" Neither of them budged. The mutterings and chatter from the students that were around grew fainter and fainter until all that was heard was the classroom doors slamming shut and the echos of the teachers doing the register. Marinette wanted to quickly deny the allegation. She wanted to push him aside and run to class. She wanted to forget how she momentarily confused Adrien with her partner. Though, even the Ladybug could run out of luck. "Adrien," She began. "We're going to be late." Her stoic, cool expression showed that she wasn't going to budge, pissing off her friend completely. The model tsked with irritation, quick to grab her hand whilst using his other one to adjust the strap of his bag over his shoulder. He moodily led her to their class, refusing to utter another word. For a split second, the defiance and stubbornness in Marinette's eyes were a hundred percent identical to Ladybug's. He almost blurted out his treasured nickname for her. The annoyance of said stubbornness and refusal to accept his help grew stronger instead, causing him to try and forget about it and brood later on. What's with his treasured girls and their stupid reluctance to let him help!? . He wasn't aware of the horror that was plastered on Marinette's face. The girl refused to tear her eyes away from the main door behind them as a lone, torn up, dirty ribbon flayed in the entrance. A familiar ribbon that was most definitely not there ten seconds ago. When M. Haprèle closed the door, Marinette could have sworn... ...that there was a pair of blue eyes watching her right back. . . . ~(x)~ A/N: That's the end of chapter one! It's more like a prologue ish, slow chapter since we're building up- so bear with me, aight? I hope you enjoyed reading it regardless. I stayed up till 5am to write it after all :0 If this chapter gets at least ten comments, I will update! Till then, see you next time~

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amethyst-geek · 3 years

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My predictions for Felix’s role in season 4

A few episodes into season 4 (possibly episode 9 as we know that’s the episode titled Gabriel Agreste), Felix will return to stay with the Agrestes while Amelie has to go on a ling business trip. As to why Amelie is having Felix stay with the Agrestes in Shadow Moth-ridden Paris instead of having him stay with relatives back in London, I have a couple of explanations:

1. Just because London doesn't to deal with Hawk Moth, that doesn't mean London doesn't have its own supernatural problems. Zagtoon has a series in the works called Miss Rose, which is about a magical spy and this series will do with crossover with Miraculous in the upcoming London special, so it stands to reason, that London has just as much supernatural drama as Paris, if not moreso. Therefore, Felix probably has to deal with supernatural threats regardless of where he is, but at least in Paris, the damage caused by akumas and sentimonsters can be reversed by Ladybug.

2. Felix’s paternal relatives have sort of lost interest in Felix following the death of his father for reasons that I’ll explain later in the post (though u can probably already guess if u read my post about a possible return of Chat Blanc).

After Amelie leaves for her business trip, Gabriel asks Felix to meet with him in private. Gabriel then confronts Felix about the ring he stole. Felix tries to deny it, but Gabriel calls him out of his bullshit. Felix then states that Gabriel doesn’t deserve the Graham de Vanily rings and ask him if he even know the story of said rings. Gabriel says no, so Felix then proceeds to tell the story that Amelie told him. Felix tells him that when worn together, they give the wearer special powers. Gabriel then realizes how similar this sounds to the miraculous, particularly the Bat Miraculous he read about in the Grimoire. So he then takes off the ring he’s wearing and asks Felix to put it on to see if the story is true. So Felix puts on the ring, takes out the ring he stole out of his pocket, and puts it on his other hand. When he does this, a bat kwami appears.

After silently kicking himself for not realizing sooner that he had a third miraculous literally on hand this whole time, Gabriel then takes Felix down to the basement. Felix is pretty weirded by this, and Gabriel then asks him if he remembers the deal he made with Hawk Moth. Felix responds “how could u possibly know that... oh crap you’re Hawk Moth aren’t u?” Gabriel confirms that he is and transforms into Hawk/Shadow Moth. Shadow Moth then asks Felix to use the bat miraculous to help him in his quest for the ladybug and cat miraculous. Felix (after getting over the initial shock that his uncle is Hawk/Shadow Moth) is hesitant because while Felix had offered to help Hawk Moth back in his intro episode, that was before the NY special (AKA the one where Hawk Moth threatened to start a nuclear war, not to mention having Mayura have a sentimonster wreck Paris then recall said sentimonster before Ladybug could fix the damage). Shadow Moth then proceeds to change back into Gabriel and show Felix Emilie’s coffin.

Gabriel the proceeds to explain to Felix (and the audience) that Emilie had been using the damaged Peacock miraculous (ok we already knew that, but we still don't know how, and I hope that episode 9 will be the episode we find out via flashbacks). After the explanation, Felix then agrees to help Gabriel, but asks him refrain from trying to start another nuclear war (and to also stop akumatizing August. Not only is it really fucked up to akumatize a baby, but it also proven ineffectual).

The next episode mark the debut not only Bat!Felix, but Swan!Lila (for those who haven't read some fo my earlier posts, I predicted a while back that the Swan Island location that was announced a sometime ago will be home to the Swan Miraculous, which Gabriel will get his hands on and give it to Lila). Throughout season 4 (and probably season 5) Lila and Felix will team up both in and out of costume to cause all sorts of trouble (with Felix only wearing the twin rings when he’s about to transform into Bat!Felix while he wears the ring he already had prior to his debut in his civilian life, this helps throw Ladybug off his trail). However, unlike Lila who has almost everyone fooled (save for Marinette, Adrien, and probably Alya now), a good chunk of Adrien’s classmates will be wary of Felix because of the prank he pulled back in his debut episode. Marinette will especially cautious of him because of the shit she saw him pull while she was Ladybug. That said, some classmates r willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume the “impersonating Adrien to make them think he didn't like them” thing was an grief-induced isolated incident that he feels remorseful about (and I can see Rose being among the classmates to give him that benefit of the doubt, as she’s very trusting). He will still get along with Adrien for the most part =, at least in public. Also at some point in this season, we will also be introduced to Adrien and Felix’s maternal grandfather, an actor and film producer who comes from old money.

Around episode 20 of season 4, Felix will then confide in his kwami about his backstory. At his dad’s funeral his paternal grandmother revealed that he was not the biological son of said dad and that this grandmother only tolerated Felix for her son’s sake but now sees no point in acknowledging Felix now that his dad was dead. After the funeral, Felix asked Amelie is what his grandmother said about his dad not being his biological father true. As it turns out, Felix is actually the son of Emilie and Gabriel and Adrien’s twin brother. When Emilie was pregnant, Gabriel’s career hadn't taken off yet and they were financially struggling enough so that they couldn’t take care of more than 1 child. Around the same time, Amelie and her husband were struggling with infertility. So when Emilie found out she was having twins, she decided to kill 2 birds with 1 stone by letting Amelie secretly adopt 1 of her twins (or at least this is Emilie told Amelie; based on the interactions between Gabriel and Felix in the latter’s debut episode, I’m assuming that Gabriel isn't aware of Felix being his bio son and that Emilie convinced him that his Amelie just happened to get pregnant at the same time she did). This lead to Felix to become envious of Adrien for being the one Emilie apparently chose to keep. He also started to resent Gabriel for failing to realize that he was his biological son (because it’s pretty obvious, even if Emilie and Amelie r twins, the idea of them having identical-looking sons around the same time is pretty improbable, especially since the color of Felix’s hair and eyes is more consistant with with Emilie and Adrien than Amelie, so Felix is certain that Gabriel knows on some level he's his bio son (but Felix doesn't want to tell him until after Emilie has been revived as he fears Gabriel finding out any sooner that Emilie hid hid this from him might lead to him giving up his plans to revive her). While bat kwami can sympathize with Felix’s angst about all this family drama (plus the bat Kwami hates Gabriel's guts for obvious reasons unrelated to the twin drama), the bat kwami points out to Felix that Adrien didn’t any more of the say in matter of which twin Emilie gave to Amelie than Felix and that given Gabriel’s controlling nature, Emilie may have done Felix a favor by giving him to Amelie and her husband instead allowing him to be raised by Gabriel. This causes Felix’s resentment towards Adrien to die down a bit... until he finds out Chat Noir’s true identity.

Somehow, Felix will begin o deduce/suspect that Adrien is Chat Noir. Since Felix knows Shadow Moth’s reasons for wanting the Ladybug and Black Cat Miraculous, he sees Adrien being Chat Noir as a huge betrayal and decides then and there to destroy Adrien one and for all. The bat kwami tries to talk some sense into Felix, only for Felix to renounce him and place the bat miraculous in his pocket and put his civilian ring back on (which I headcanon as having belonged to his deceased adoptive father). He then asks Gabriel to akuamtize him into a superior version of Chat Noir. Shadow Moth is confused by this, but complies, and the akuma goes into Felix’s civilian ring, transforming him into the new Chat Blanc (if this sounds familiar, that’s probably because I wrote another post predicting that Felix will become the new Chat Blanc. He proves powerful enough for Ladybug and Chat Noir to bring out several temp heroes, but the heroes eventually manage to defeat him. Also during the battle, Shadow Moth overhears Chat Blanc 2.0 refer to Chat Noir as Adrien and Shadow Moth explains to Chat Blanc 2.0 that he saw Chat Noir and Adrien at the same place at the same time back in Gorizilla, and after the battle Chat Noir (thinking that Felix had been unwillingly akumatized and thus wouldn't remember what Shadow Moth told him) assures Felix that he and Adrien r separate people. Felix then goes home and un-renounces the bat kwami. Meanwhile, in order to ensure Felix believes that Chat and Adrien r different people, Chat Noir later approaches Ladybug and tells her “Felix thinking that I might be his cousin reminds me. Someone in my family keeps asking me if I’m Chat Noir, and don’t seem to believe me when I say no. Can I please borrow the fox so I can throw them off their trail?” So Ladybug loans Chat the fox.

Later when Sabine is akumatized into Verity Queen and exposes Lila’s lies, she also finds out about how Lila framing Marinette back in “Ladybug” was partly motivated by Gabriel offering Lila a modeling contract in exchange for keeping Marinette away from Adrien. Confused as why Gabriel hates Marinette that much, she considers the possibility that maybe Lila fed him some lies about Marinette, but she decides to her lasso of truth on Grandpa Graham De Vanily (who happened to be in the tv studio with them as he and Lila were both scheduled for interviews) to get his opinion on Gabriel, this leads to a reveal that the the reason Emilie gave Felix to Amelie was not because she and Gabriel couldn't afford to raise more than 1 kid but because Grandpa Graham de Vanily forced Emilie to do so. You see when Amelie and her husband realized that they wouldn't be able to have biological children, they deciced to look into adoption. However, Grandpa Graham De Vanily loathed the idea of having a grandchild who wasn’t related to him by blood, so when the then-pregnant Emilie told her father she was having twins, grandpa Graham de Vanily (after asking Emilie is she already told Gabriel she was having twins yet, to which Emilie replied “not yet, he still thinks I’m just having 1 baby and I’ll tell him about the twins when he gets home) suggested that she give 1 of the twins to Amelie, then when Emilie said no on the grounds that she didn't want to choose between her kids, grandpa Graham de vanily threatened to use his connections to destroy Gabriel’s budding fashion career and make sure that he and Emilie couldn't get any kind of work needed to support their children. Bat!Felix (who made it to the studio in time to hear his grandfather’s confession, then asks Grandpa Graham de Vanily if Amelie was aware that Emilie had been coerced into giving her Felix, to which grandpa replies that he specifically told Emilie to not tell Amelie about the blackmail. And yes, this is when Gabriel finds out Felix is his biological son, and this would also be when Adrien (as Chat Noir) finds out Felix is his brother.

Amelie returns soon after this and she is pissed at her father for forcing Emilie to give up one of her babies.

#felix graham de vanily #gabriel agreste #amelie graham de vanily #lila rossi #ml predictions #I'm a sucker for long lost family reveals

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ouyang-zizhen · 4 years

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Headcanon, part 2

So, I’ve seen a few posts in which ZiZhen has plenty of siblings due to his dad being old and all, and I raise you with: ZiZhen has many moms.

A total of 6, to be precise, would have been 7 if his own mother had survive. So here’s the thing:

1 - ZiZhen is an only child.

2 - His father realized, after marrying his third wife, that the problem of conception does not lie with the women he beds but with his own genetic. He’s still hoping it might happen with the right woman though.

3 - ZiZhen is pretty much a miracle baby from an infertile (but not sterile) father.

4 - His mother was the first wife. After she died, the second concubine got that title. The third concubine arrived a year after the first wife’s death.

5 - Ouyang Dad still tried to have more kids, marrying 3 more women, yet never earning any results (3 more instead of 2, because 4 is a bad omen).

6 - He would have kept only those, but his fourth wife got badly sick and she was expected to die within the year. Not wanting to keep only 4 women in his household (again, bad omen), he took another wife during that time. The fourth wife survived, and they are now 6 in total.

7 - All the wives, fully aware they’ll never have a child of their own unless Ouyang Dad adopts (which is unlikely), dotes on ZiZhen like he is their own son.

8 - The second concubine, now first wife, was raised in the Meishan Yu sect, although not part of the main Yu clan. Her family has been part of the sect for three generations. She is the third daughter.

9 - When the Second Concubine married into the Baling sect, ZiZhen’s mom was still childless. She got pregnant with ZiZhen a year or so after the arrival of the Second Concubine, who also remained childless.

10 - ZiZhen knows many stories of his mother through the bedtime tales of the Second Concubine.

11 - The third concubine is from YunMeng. She was a dancer, born from a rogue cultivator, who taught her to train her golden core, and a dancer, who taught her the skills she made a livelihood of after her parents death when she was 16. She was 19 when she joined the OuYang household.

12 - She and the Second Concubine slowly fell for each other and became lovers.

13 - ZiZhen once caught them kissing. They both told him beautiful stories of soulmates and how easily those bonds can be broken by the cruelty of the world. ZiZhen listened with rapture and promised never to tell a soul about what he saw, for his aunties were true soulmates. (Yes, they both manipulated ZiZhen into not telling his father of what he saw).

14 - That moment sparked ZiZhen’s interest in love stories and slowly shaped him into the romantic he is.

15 - He later understood what Second and Third concubine truly meant by their story. It fueled his passion for WangXian more than anything.

16 - The Fourth Concubine was from the Chang clan. She got sick after hearing of their horrible death at the hands of Xue Yang, and how the latter escaped justice for it. Her cultivation has always been weaker than most, which is why she was thought to die from her pain, but, with the help of Second and Third Concubines, she got through. Her body still does not allow her to travel very far, but she enjoys taking long walks in the gardens of the previous First Wife, lovingly tended to by she and the other concubines.

17 - During her recovery, she began to write stories to keep herself entertained.

18 - ZiZhen is her most fervent fan, always poking in her rooms to have a sneak peek of her next story.

19 - Because of the involvement of the Jin Clan in the absence of justice for the Chang, she is the most suspicious of the budding relationship between ZiZhen and Jin Ling. While not outright disagreeing, she always keeps her eyes open to any clues that might tell Jin Ling is not right for ZiZhen.

20 - The Fifth Concubine is the 5th daughter of a rich Baling family. She was raised in the sect, developing a strong core, often helping Young Master ZiZhen, age 14 by now, to train. At age 25, still unmarried, the Fifth Concubine was noticed for the first time by OuYang Dad, on a day she actually bothered to dress nicely. She went back to what I would call an “Ancient Chinese Butch Look” shortly after the wedding.

21 - Fifth Concubine then proceeded to thoroughly seduce Second, Third and Fourth Concubine into a relationship all together. Their laughter can often be heard in the courtyard linking each of their pavillion together.

22 - Sixth Concubine was a rogue cultivator herself. Fifth Concubine saw her at the market one day. They talked and fell in love. Fifth Concubine, with the help of Second, Third and Fourth, who also met Sixth and were charmed, managed to convince her husband to take Sixth in with them. “Four is a bad omen husband, you need another one of us!”

23 - When Fourth fell sick, that’s when OuYang Dad hurriedly tried to find Seventh Concubine. She was a merchant’s daughter, selling her father’s ware at the market. Ouyang Dad tried to haggle something much cheaper than it was worth. She stood her ground. He asked to marry her.

24 - She refused at first. “I am not a cultivator, what am I bringing to you?” OuYang Dad, at this point trying one last time before calling it quit, decided that maybe it would work, a baby with a non-cultivator.

25 - It did not work. But Seventh is pretty happy with her lot. She’s well taken care of, especially by the other concubine who all warmly welcomed her, and they all promised to take care of her the same, even once she’s old and grey.

26 - So ZiZhen is really well loved by his father’s remaining 6 wives. That’s where he gets his “Respect Women” juice from.

27 - The only reason why he’s been feeling down lately with his father’s expectations and mistreatment is because said father also cut the time ZiZhen is allowed to spend with them, he has “Sect Related Duties” now, he doesn’t have the time to play around anymore.

28 - The Wives eventually called bullshit. ZiZhen has been feeling better ever since.

29 - OuYang Dad is painfully oblivious to his Wives relationship together. He is just happy none of them are giving him any headaches.

30 - One day, Jiggy went to Ouyang Dad and congratulated him on the harmony of his household. Jiggy, of course, thought he would be subtly blackmailing OuYang Dad with the scandal of his wives together (where did he learnt that? Fuck if I know!), but Oblivious OuYang just smiled and thanked him, which kinda messed up Jiggy’s plan. Not that he needed to blackmail Sect Leader OuYang, but it’s always useful to do so. Anyway, Jiggy left the conversation thinking Ouyang Dad thought everyone knew already and he was happy with it.

31 - Eventually, Ouyang Dad DID learn the truth, well into ZiZhen’s 20′s. He got mad for about 5 minutes before calming down. “At least they can’t get pregnant from this, it won’t bring me any shame.”

32 - He lets them be, especially since they let him be. He enjoys his quiet evenings away from whatever his wives are doing.

33 - Which is ironic considering he is friends with one of the loudest mouths in the Cultivation world, Sect Leader Yao.

34 - All the wives avoid him like the plague whenever he visits Baling.

35 - All the wives having a golden core, they go to Night Hunts together from time to time. Seventh sometimes tags along despite not having a golden core, while Fourth tends to stay at home after her sickness.

36 - They are all very careful though, since they know ZiZhen’s mother died during a Night Hunt and they all promised ZiZhen they would not be careless.

37 - ZiZhen started calling the Concubines “Autie”, but one day, he accidentally called Fourth “Mom”, and all the others got jealous and wanted to be called “Mom” too, so he now calls them First mom, Second mom, Third mom, etc.

38 - He uses a different, more childish word when talking about his deceased birth mother.

Aaaaaand that’s it for tonight folks! I know some of what I’ve written gets change a little now that I have this headcanon in mind, but I’ll keep this for whatever’s coming next in the OG world (well, canon-divergence world now XD). See you guys soon with some new OS!

#ouyang zizhen #headcanon #mo dao zu shi #the untamed #mdzs #cql #The Juniors #wangxian #jin ling #lingzhen #zhenling #ZiZhen has many moms

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vyther16 · 3 years

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wip wednesday

I know i’ve posted three times more than normal today, but I had thoughts that needed to be freed. Anyway, as promised, here’s some self-indulgent Word of Honor/Shan He Ling fic

snippets and notes under the cut

The basic premise of this au is the following post copy-pasted from my liveblog (x)

Okay crazy thought but how about a really out there au where Princess Jing An doesn’t die and runs away with Zhou Zishu?

I dunno what this would do except give us more than one woman hanging out with the leads and make Wen Kexing jealous but I think it'd be fun.

I’ve watched her death twice and decided she was my favorite character with less than ten minutes of screentime. (My JoL followers know I have one for every fandom)

This is the kick-off for the au, so no jealous!wkz yet. please ignore how the set-up requires zzs to be slightly ooc for how early in the show it is

“Zhou-shixiong,” Li Jiaxing says, standing as her door opens.

Zhou Zishu turns to look at her, eyes cold. “Princess Jing An.”

She looks outside, sees the Tian Chuang members lined up in the courtyard, her father’s guards dead on the ground, and understands. “This is...” she starts, trailing off.

Zhou Zishu finishes with the story Jin-wang has concocted, staring straight ahead. “Li-daren conspired with corrupt officials in an attempt to revolt. He has been killed.”

Li Jiaxing doesn’t believe it for a second. “Impossible,” she says, then repeats it because it bears repeating. “Impossible. My father gave everything to the country!” she screams.

“It’s a pity,” Zhou Zishu starts before the words finish leaving her mouth. “But his actions must be punished.”

Li Jiaxing stares at him, chest heaving, incredulous. Qin Jiuxiao looked up to this man. Jiuxiao loved this man.

He wouldn’t recognize him now.

Zhou Zishu walks to the table set in the back. “I came to visit today to give you a choice,” he says. “I want to thank you for bringing back Qin Jiuxiao’s body to me in the chaotic circumstances. I will never forget your kindness.”

You’re not worthy of saying his name anymore, she wants to snarl, but she knows where he is taking this conversation. Now that her father is killed as a traitor, no matter how false the accusations may be, she will be ridiculed and scorned. If he wants to offer her a way out of that, he’ll have poison.

“Your highness, you have high status,” Zhou Zishu says, pulling out two vials from his robes. “Committing suicide will save you from humiliation.” He sets the white one down on the table.

“Am I supposed to thank you?” she snaps, turning towards him again. “You killed my entire family, and you’re letting me die with dignity.” She wipes away the tears falling, stalking forward.

Zhou Zishu’s hand catches her before she can snatch up the vial. “There is another option,” he says, holding forth the second vial, this one identical but for the blue stopper.

“What, allow myself to be sold off?” She yanks her hand away. “Don’t touch me.”

He takes a breath, shoulders slumping. “I am leaving Tian Chuang in two days. For good. It would be disrespectful to Jiuxiao’s memory to not offer his wife a way to keep living as well. You would have to put up with me for three years, but you would be free of Tian Chuang and the fickleness of court.”

“Why?” she asks, setting her shoulders. “Do you wish to take me instead?”

And she actually gets a reaction out of him at that. He steps back, eyes flashing. “I have no desire to bed you, Princess, nor will I ever. I am offering to take you with me in honor of Qin Jiuxiao. If you would rather join him in the netherworld now, you may go ahead.”

“And if I decide to take the blue vial?”

“Then you will be put into a coma for a day and a half. Long enough to fake your death and sneak you out of the city, where I will meet with you and we will hide together.”

She looks between the two bottles, then at Zhou Zishu’s face, looking for any sign of a lie.

Then, before Zhou Zishu can rescind his offer, she snatches up the blue vial from his hand, popping out he stopper and downing it in one gulp.

It’s fast acting; her grip falters immediately, the vial slipping to thud onto the floor. She clutches at her stomach, sinking to the floor.

She rubs her fingers over the hairpin Jiuxiao gave her, the wood worn smooth in places from her worrying.

“Where did you bury,” she starts, breaking off with a cough, “my husband?” she asks, looking up at Zhou Zishu.

He’s staring at the door, and for a moment, Li Jiaxing thinks he’ll ignore her. But then he takes a breath. “Four Seasons Manor,” he says. “He lays next to shifu.”

Li Jiaxing smiles through the poison eating it’s way through her stomach. She knows he said this would only make her comatose, but it feels like it could kill her just as easily.

“The flowers blossom in all four seasons,” she recites, forcing the words out through the radiating pain. “Knowing everything in the world.” She lifts the hairpin up one last time to look at it, tracing a finger along the delicate carving. “He told me... that after he retired from his position, he would... live with me there.”

The words come out stilted, forced, and as soon as she finishes them she coughs, hard, then knows no more.

Anyway, if you read that entire self-indulgent beginning to my Jing An Lives au, congrats! (For a three minute scene, it’s really rather long lol)

Shout-out to Raina on the Word of Honor Brainrot Hours discord for helping me with Jiaxing’s name! I did some digging again tonight, and I think Li would be their family name, not Wei, but I’m still not 100% sure.

#wip wednesday #word of honor #shan he ling #zhou zishu #princess jing an #me deciding the unnamed lady that shows up for 3 minutes of a 36 episode show is now my favorite?#more likely than you might think!#anyway i hope someone else likes my self-indulgent rambling #sending it to the void now!#jing an lives au #jal au

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shypotato-translations · 3 years

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QTVW Chapter 24

Showbiz* Sexy Queen (XI)

----

After Mei Mu Lan hung up the phone, she opened the webpage and searched for the novel 《Love in a Fallen City》.

As mentioned in the plot, Bai Jieying, a newcomer to the industry, became a sensation after appearing in this controversial film.

And just now Miss S called, informing her to go to Ling's Group tomorrow, the entertainment company's drama team for an audition.

This coincided with her intentions, so she opened the pages of the novel now, and carefully read through, the subject of the novel is lesbianism, 《Love in a Fallen City》.

Love in a Fallen City, a novel set in the early Republic of China; The story takes place in Hangzhou, an ancient water town; The protagonist of the story is the wife of the second son of the local warlord Xiao Sheng Yan.

The wife of the Major, who was a second generation warlord along with her husband, was of noble birth. She is the ninth daughter of Ling Ye Chong, the warlord of the southwest region, and the only legitimate daughter among Ling Ye Chong's 18 daughters. A much higher status than her other sisters.

Although the two Xiao Ling families were married out of interest, the newlyweds were a good match for each other.

And the her husband who is a Major, the second son of Xiao Shi Yan, was a dashing and suave-looking man who fought heroically and was, by all accounts, a wonderful man.

But naturally, such a man has a downside: he is lustful and likes to abuse his partner.

This hobby of Xiao Er Shao's was harmless to the society of the time.

And when he was confronted with the wife of the famous Major, he could not lay hands on her out of love and reason.

Therefore, he left the lady cold and spent many years in the company of playboys and prostitutes, which made her cold to him.

The story opens with the lady sitting on a carved wooden stool, wearing a goose-yellow antique dress and a wooden face as she allows her maid to do her make-up.

Listening to the maid's report of Xiao Er Shao's whereabouts in her ears, like,

“The young master has gone drinking again today,”

“The young master has played with his hands again today,”

“The young master is throwing his money away again today for a 'thing',”……

The lady looked at her reflection in the bronze mirror, the flowery beauty in it, but now her heart was as dry as a half-hundred-year-old woman's.

A young girl, as young as a flower, is tortured by this feudal society and has lost her vitality.

And it was on such early mornings as these for three years that the maid mentioned a woman, a beauty much loved by her own husband, a singing opera singer of unclean origins.

She smiled softly as she listened to the hilarity and said,

“The right way to be a wife is not to be jealous or afraid. I don't blame my husband for being sentimental, he's at that age, he loves to play, so let him go, it's just a thing. If he likes it, he can take it into his house and no one can say a word against it. All right, it's almost time to go and pay my respects to the old lady, let's go.”

The 'thing' that the lady refers to is the other female lead in the story, the lover with whom the lady is entangled for life.

The story shifts perspective to a woman in a large red costume behind a noisy theater stage in the downtown area, now holding a black ink pencil and tracing narrow eyeliner for herself.

The troupe master beside her also muttered to her about this young man who had been so generous recently.

She listened unconcernedly, her hands flowing with makeup, and when she heard the troupe master mention the man's wife, the woman finally felt a little different emotion.

She smiled lightly and said,

“The woman in such a deep house is most uninteresting. From what you are saying, this Major's wife is not a small person. But even if she is the daughter of the Emperor, she is nothing more than a plaything for men to hold in their hands. We are both women, but one is a high-class prostitute and the other a slightly lower class.

I hope this young lady will not be like those ladies before her who could not control their own men and went after men's women, which is really annoying.”

Two women responding very differently to the same incident.

One is as cool as an immortal, the other is as feminine as a demon.

It left a little mark on each other's hearts, so much so that when they first met later, they couldn't help but feel close to each other.

The lady relieves the theater's chastising punishment for the ladies, and the theater's son settles the city's ruffians for the lady; two seemingly worlds apart, and so they cross paths.

One is the wife of a noble and noble family Major, and the other is a lowly opera singer who is trampled on by others. They experience the sweetness of meeting, knowing, companioning, cherishing and loving each other, and the pain of clinging, thinking, remembering and wanting to say goodbye.

Because of the difference in their status, they could only see each other a few times a year, and the rest of the time they were in brocade, but this forbidden love affair brought both of them to life.

The lady refuses to share her bed with Xiao Er Shao for this reason, and is treated coldly by her husband's family, making her life worse every day.

The opera singer refused to share a bed with a wealthy guest for this reason and was tortured by the troupe, in a state of wretchedness worse than death.

Finally, the women decide that they will do something shocking, and that is to elope together and settle down to farm in the opera singer's hometown.

They looked forward to a bright future with each other and each escaped their shackles one winter's day, but the very moment they escaped to embrace each other, both parties sent someone after them.

Xiao Er Shao's face turned blue when he saw the two embracing each other.

How could he let them go when one was his legitimate wife and the other was a opera singer whom he truly loved and now, they were together, making him the laughing stock of everyone?!

He ordered the underlings of the Xiao Family, and took the lady back by force, while the opera singer was beaten alive with sticks by the underlings.

Blood stained the clean white snow, splattered out like cold winter plums, falling and falling, bodies left unmanaged and finally bones.

When the lady learned of this incident, she went mad, but begged for death and was severely tortured by Xiao Er Shao.

She spent every day and night alone in a cold, crumbling house, begging for her life and unable to die.

Until she met the opera singer in red, pale and with crimson lips, a month later on a bloody night, when she winked at her and babbled and sang a soft song under her breath.

Towards the end of the song, her flirtatious phoenix eyes, moist with moisture, stared at her as she said to her,

“Cease to be like this and live.”

The Major's wife began to regain her senses, and because she herself was of noble birth, the people of the Xiao Family couldn't just club her to death like they did with the opera singer, but had to go out of their way to cover up and pretend that the incident had never happened.

The Major's wife, a woman from the deep house of yore, but different again from before, has an additional female ghost in red in her room.

When no one is around, they will snuggle, they will compose songs together, they will be in love.

Doing all the things that lovers everywhere, would do.

Until Xiao suffered defeat, all Xiao's men died in battle, the revolutionary army defeated the warlords and stragglers broke into Xiao's residence.

The ladies live in a trance, rejecting the reality of the Xiao House's decay, while the servants carry their bags and scurry around for their lives.

Once again the Lady sat in front of the mirror, an unseen hand, holding a brush, tracing gently over her pale face.

From top to bottom, the inky eyebrows, the slightly powdered blush and the sweet red lips are a living example of a pretty girl from back in the day.

The lady smiled lightly and changed into a red dress, and the house burned naturally with no one in the second young lady's room in the Xiao residence.

Under the bright flames, a beautiful woman in red can be clearly seen, wrapping her arms around a woman in a long goose yellow dress, slowly swaying and dancing, embracing each other intimately and kissing deeply.

The story ends with excerpts from the novel. Written is:

From a family dinner in spring, one plays out life and death on stage, while the other dresses up as a virtuous wife offstage.

By the cold night of the ninth month, one was intercepted by a domestic servant inside the fence and the other was brutally beaten to death outside the fence.

In the old theater, a woman's watery sleeves danced and her feet moved; a woman's mouth smiled and her feelings were deep. To look at each other is to have no regrets about true love.

Mei Mu Lan's eyes were dazed, emotionally trapped in the story, unable to pull out of it for several days.

She closed the webpage and lay back** with her eyes closed, a story like this, it did hit home, Miss S's writing was excellent, she really wrote this story from an outsider's point of view.

In her writing, each person is portrayed vividly, and a scene of the Republic leaps into the reader's mind.

She doesn't stand up for the state and try to put a sacred veil on this fringe romance; she simply depicts a story that feels like an event that actually happened in the Republic.

In the midst of the Republic, when times were up and down and in turmoil**, everything changed, but only the relationship between the lady and the opera singer remained the same.

They experience great sorrow, great joy, great ups and downs, and every chapter of the story depicts the cold reality.

But, near the end, she recounts the transformation of the opera singer into a ghost, and the novel after this describes the happy life between them.

But, unfortunately, everyone else in the story, and the readers outside of it, all know that the opera singer may be a figment of the Lady's imagination after she has gone mad.

But, it is this plausible description, punctuated by joy against sorrow, that gives the story an unconventional and sublime ending.

The happiness visible in the story, at the end when the two are buried in the fire, the reader's heart unconsciously breathes a sigh of relief for the Lady, thinking: at last it is over, at least the Lady thinks they are living together.

The opera singer at the end paints the lady's make-up and she smiles in the light of the fire, sharing a poignant ending.

A lady in a large courtyard, deprived of the freedom of her body and firmly imprisoned by feudal society; a lowly opera singer in the marketplace, deprived of the freedom of her mind and oppressed by those around her every day.

These are two ordinary women who lived in that particular era, representing two classes.

The women under such oppression fall in love and their lives are rejuvenated, giving rise to the most sincere love, but this emotion meets with social barriers and ends up as a tragedy rather than joy, leaving the reader with a shocking and sorrowful ending.

Mei Mu Lan took a few deep breaths to ease her mind and she began to think calmly.

The novel is about to be turned into a far-reaching film, and in the plot of the novel, it is mentioned that Bai Jieying ends up as the lady in the 《Love in a Fallen City》, while Ling Yi Yao becomes the opera singer in it.

And now, with her ambition for the film, then, after considering her own strengths, she chose to go for the role of the opera singer.

And the next morning, she went to the place where Miss S had agreed.

By the time she arrived on set, the crew had already begun auditions and she was greeted, taken straight to Miss S and then dragged off to have her make-up applied.

This was followed by an ethnic opera which she sang in front of many invested parties.

Her fluent singing voice, vivid expressions and agile figure overwhelmed everyone in the audience in a flash. And she was successfully selected to be an acting actress within the cast of the play.

Mui Mu Lan had been made to look like a fool today by Miss S. By the time she got back to her senses, she heard the news that she had been selected and she grinned broadly with excitement.

After verbally thanking Miss S, she immediately returned to Jiangnan Town, where she knocked on the door and walked into Ling Yi Yao's villa to tell Ling Yi Yao the good news that she had been chosen as an opera singer.

After hearing this, Ling Yi Yao had a strange expression on her face, and under Mei Mu Lan's persistent questioning, she replied,

“Congratulations, Miss Mei, at the same time. Your co-star in this film, unfortunately, is me.”

Mei Mu Lan understood the meaning of her words and immediately jumped up and said,

“Great, you're playing the role of the Major's wife, aren't you? The casting people had a good eye, they could tell right away that we were a couple.”

Ling Yi Yao: “……”

Suddenly, Mei Mu Lan covered her mouth in shyness as she stared at Ling Yi Yao, her eyes cooing and darting about.

Ling Yi Yao suddenly felt a chill run down her spine, and she had an ominous feeling.

Sure enough, Mei Mu Lan said 'shyly' in the next moment,

“Oh, it's written that they did this and that, and the opera singer did this and that to the lady, so I can do that to you too, come on, don't be shy, let's rehearse this and that so we don't get rusty when we're acting.”

Ling Yi Yao: “……” Lifting Mei Mu Lan's collar with one hand, she threw her out the door.

#shypotato #yuri #transmigration #world hopping #QTVW24

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ceescedasticity · 4 years

Text

Jin Guangyao’s Hoarding Problem, part 4

part 1, part 2, part 3

Jin Guangyao is having a really good week, and then suddenly he is having a really bad week.

This is mostly his father's fault. But he does feel that Madam Qin really could have chosen to share this information literally any time earlier in the courtship. Even if it was after Qin Su was pregnant, more time might have enabled him to come up with something! Even if she weren't pregnant calling off the wedding this late would be a significant scandal — what was Madam Qin thinking? Probably she wasn't thinking. No one around him ever thinks.

(He's not exactly thinking his clearest, either, but he doesn't realize that.)

He wants to get out of it. (The marriage still has its good points, if the secret can be guaranteed — but I don't think he would want a marriage which could only produce children who 'had to die'.)

(He could order Wen Qing to prepare an abortifacient, but then, he could in theory procure an abortifacient in any timeline. Honestly I wouldn't even be surprised if Madam Jin quietly keeps a stock on hand in case any of the household staff has a problem. And it seems like something Meng Yao ought to know about, doesn't it? But perhaps Meng Shi insisted he shouldn't pay attention to such filthy things, and he knows no more than most young gentlemen. Still, he could get his hands on one somehow — doing so discreetly is a challenge but not an insurmountable one. The trouble is that without Qin Su's forewarned cooperation, any termination of the pregnancy will be obviously a failed pregnancy, and marrying her is still the only honorable thing, but now with an added taint of sin for premarital sex and the shame of failing to cover it up, he can hear the remarks about his mother already.)

(He could have Qin Su non-fatally poisoned — enough to make her very sick and put off the wedding. But medical examination might reveal the pregnancy, and too long a delay definitely would.) (If he were willing to entertain the idea of telling Qin Su, this would be a good way to buy time to talk. There are so many more possibilities when she's not one of the people who has to be lied to.)

(He could have Qin Su fatally poisoned, and make sure no postmortem exam found the pregnancy, or at least that no one talked about it. But he doesn't have a scapegoat set up for a murder, and Madam Qin might suspect him.) (He also doesn't want to kill her, but that's not what deters him.)

(He could have Qin Su kidnapped, into the Dizang or elsewhere. But he doesn't have a scapegoat ready for that, either, and that still doesn't fix the pregnancy.)

(Now, if he could have her kidnapped, terminate the pregnancy, somehow alter her memory so she doesn't remember there ever was a pregnancy, somehow alter her memory so she doesn't remember the kidnapping, 'rescue' her, give the impression she's temporarily lost her wits from the experience and has probably also been ruined, well, the only compassionate thing is to cancel the wedding, cancel the engagement, send her home to her parents, terrible tragedy, maybe someday she can find happiness elsewhere. If he had a way to alter memories that quickly and precisely he might go with this despite the lack of prepared scapegoat.)

He decides the best option is to go through with the wedding and… deal with it later. Somehow.

(Highlights/"highlights" of the wedding celebrations include, but are not limited to:

It is Jiang Yanli's first major social event since her mourning period concluded. She spends most of her time trying to get Jiang Cheng to stay still long enough for her to talk to him. She's not mad at him!

Lan Xichen averts a disaster when he overhears and shuts down some speculation on whether Jiang Yanli will marry again — she'd have to come with a pretty hefty dowry, what with the health problems and so-so looks and rumored madness — before Jiang Wanyin hears any of it.

Nie Huaisang gets blackout drunk and throws up in the banquet hall, but not before laying the groundwork for five different problems with minor sects he can beg San-ge and Er-ge to help him with.

Su Minshan is totally unaware that Jin Guangyao's good week has become a terrible week and cries tears of joy at his benefactor's good fortune.

Sect Leader Yao gets tipsy and attempts to tell a bawdy story. It does not work very well.

Jin Ling is prevented from inviting himself to the banquet and throws a screaming tantrum not quite out of hearing.

Jin Guangshan comments on Qin Su's hips.

Jin Guangshan offers a minor Sect Leader's daughter jewelry to meet him in an inn in Lanling.

After both of the above incidents Madam Jin glares daggers at Jin Guangyao for some reason.

In fact Madam Jin glares daggers at Jin Guangyao the entire time.

Using the rebuilt Seal, Xue Yang sneaks into Jinlintai proper and steals an entire dessert course out of the kitchen.

On the plus side, he doesn't kill anyone and isn't spotted.

Congratulations!)

(Jiang Yanli eventually corners Jiang Cheng and tells him she isn't mad at him, and he's doing a wonderful job, and as soon as she can get the idea past the Jins she wants to take Jin Ling to Lotus Pier for at least a few months. Jiang Cheng is dubious about the first two assertions but can at least appreciate the third.)

Back in the Dizang it's been convenient that courtship and wedding preparations have occupied so much of Jin Guangyao's attention, because the preliminary results of the 'crying' research have been slightly more disruptive/strange than anticipated. It turns out that it is indeed possible to manually activate the tear glands of a fierce corpse, either by acupuncture needles or by talisman. After this, they will stream for four to six hours no matter what anyone does, which also gives them runny noses. After that, though, their eyes will water when they didn't before. When Wen Ning went through the procedure, he found that he could get tears triggered by emotions. He also discovered that crying gives him a dry mouth — the initial four-hour rain of tears gave him such a dry mouth he couldn't speak for a while.

This spun into everyone getting pulled into a study of 'how do fierce corpses regulate their moisture levels'. Water ghouls don't get waterlogged and fall to pieces. Fierce corpses in deserts don't desiccate and fall to pieces. They must regulate somehow. Missing moisture has to come from somewhere, and extra moisture has to go somewhere, and no one has ever looked into how before. It's disgusting. Xue Yang's never had so much non-homicidal fun in his life. (Well, a little homicidal, since he made the corpses, but not currently actively homicidal.)

Besides Xue Yang, all of this has been productive for Wen Qing and Wen Qing, Wei Wuxian is reluctantly fascinated, and Mo Xuanyu is non-reluctantly fascinated. He Zhi and He Jian are not having such a a good time, because all the fierce corpses besides Wen Ning are, you know, their relatives. Mo Xuanyu tries to help by suggesting Xue Yang can swap out the active experimental corpses with some that used to be whichever relatives they hated? There aren't any?! This leads to a discussion of Mo Xuanyu's maternal relatives. Xue Yang offers to kill them if the opportunity arises. Mo Xuanyu doesn't say no.

As soon as Jin Guangyao can get away for a day or two without anyone noticing — some nominal discreet inspection tour — he comes back to the Dizang and brushes off Mo Xuanyu's attempt to present his report on everything that's gone on while Jin Guangyao was busy with courtship and wedding (he doesn't want to think about courtships or weddings). He just goes and orders Wen Qing to invent a poison that can be administered either slowly or in parts, which will make the victim insane with lust and ultimately cause dramatic heart failure, preferably during sexual intercourse.

Wen Qing doesn't ask what his father did to finally push him over the edge, but it's a struggle. She does point out those are extremely specific requirements and she's not an herbalist. She will try if ordered to, but…

Hmmm. Yes. Good point. Perhaps what we want here is a curse. Yiling Laozu, design me a curse.

Wei Wuxian: What? I don't do curses, that was a false accusation—

Wei Wuxian's internal monologue: 'Mad with lust' curses exist, demons hit commoners with them all the time. I don't know the mechanics — well, I have a few ideas how it might work now that I think about it — I don't know how they work, though. A curse to kill someone the next time they have sex should be fairly straightforward, would be more straightforward if I'd gotten around to having sex, not bringing that up. No, I'm not bringing any of this up, I'm going to try to get out of helping Jin Guangyao murder someone. Even if it is probably his father, who deserves it. No. Besides, getting any of this to work on someone with high cultivation would be a challenge— PROBLEM! Would be a problem.

Jin Guangyao leaves him to think about that — for now — and goes down to the cell in the subbasement to (a) look at practically-a-puppet Nie Mingjue and feel smug about his own triumph and superiority, and (b) fantasize about using Nie Mingjue to kill Jin Guangshan.

He sends a message to Qin Su saying he's been injured, but please don't tell anyone, he doesn't want to show weakness. When he gets back, he claims the injury rendered him incapable of sex — but she can't tell anyone, she can't, he'll be ruined. Qin Su is dismayed, but vows she will keep the secret and considers him no less her husband for not being able to fulfill that duty. And at least they have the one child on the way! What a blessing.

Yes. A blessing.

(Qin Su keeps her word and doesn't tell anyone about the 'injury'. She does tell Jiang Yanli, in confidence, that her marriage isn't quite turning out as she expected it to.)

(Meanwhile Madam Jin has nothing against Qin Su personally, but is very determined that everyone remember Jin Guangyao's wife is not on the same level as other Madams Jin. Jiang Yanli does her best to mitigate it, but she still isn't taken as seriously as she should be. When it becomes known Qin Su is pregnant Madam Jin's attitude sours further.)

(Jiang Yanli is privately of the opinion that Qin Su is welcome to be preeminent Madam Jin; she just wants to go back to Yunmeng for good and have A-Ling adopted as a Jiang. Sadly that definitely won't happen unless Jin Guangshan and Madam Jin are both dead.) (Not that she'd be so unfilial as to hope for that.) (Much.)

(Madam Qin dies, somewhere in here. Jin Guangyao is nothing but relieved.) (Did he have something to do with it, besides causing distress by going ahead with the marriage? We may never know.)

Jin Guangyao introduces He Lei to Qin Su, although obviously not under that name. A-Lei is the mute half-wit sister of a loyal servant of his, he says; the man is often away on business so Jin Guangyao promised to find his sister safe and honorable employment — a touching story.

Qin Su promises to be kind to poor half-wit mute A-Lei, and is very patient with her inexperience as a lady's maid and shy nervousness.

Madam Jin not so much. Despite Qin Su's poor taste in husbands, she is still a gentlewoman and deserves better servants than a mangy stray that son of a prostitute brought in, probably out of a brothel.

Jiang Yanli has to try to mitigate this, too. She also makes a few suggestions about ways A-Lei could communicate without speaking — pointing to pictures, perhaps? Hand gestures? Pantomime isn't very dignified, but they ought to let A-Lei express herself…

He Lei runs away from any such suggestions. She's not willing to 'speak' when Jin Guangyao doesn't want her to and jeopardize her siblings.

Jiang Yanli is disappointed, but respects her shyness.

(Nie Huaisang is not going to respect her shyness, especially when he's mostly sure he's seen her among Jinlintai's servants some time before her official appearance, but for the moment he's biding his time.)

He Lei goes to extreme lengths to avoid Jin Guangshan.

Meanwhile Xue Yang hears that Wen Qing is going to see if she can do anything for Wen Ning's sense of taste, next, and "helps" by providing a half-dozen fresh tongues for her to dissect.

(Wei Wuxian's internal monologue: —just mathematically there have to be at least a few resentful ghosts who have it out for Jin Guangshan with sex-related grievances. Now if you could both locate them, and then use their motivation to direct enough other ghosts to overcome Jin Guangshan's level of cultivation… Well, I could, if I had Chenqing and the Seal. Not sure how you'd package it as a curse— Not that I'm trying to package it as a curse this is idle speculation!)

#jgy's hoarding problem tellfic #more random mdzs thoughts

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