#mdzs vs cql

[admirableadmiranda]

After seeing a horribly misguided take on the ambush of Wei Wuxian at Qiongqi, can you explain for the class what a canon compliant reading of that moment is like? Because I think it's so easy for someone (like me) who has read the book after seeing the webseries adaptation to get things confused. (It's hard to forget your first and The Untamed was my introduction to the story.)

Thank you!

Of course! It’s not a scene I go over too often, but let’s see if I can break it down in a satisfying way.

The setting is perhaps a year after Wei Wuxian leaves to protect the Wens. They have all been living on Corpse Mountain, doing their best to avoid the jianghu’s rage and just keep living a day at a time. There is a fragile sort of hope blossoming in that it’s been almost a year and because Corpse Mountain and Yiling are kind of cut off from the jianghu that things might be getting better because they are still alive.

Wei Wuxian receives an invitation to a party for Jin Ling. I’m genuinely not certain which party as due to the Jin being the Jin, they are throwing a lot of parties for him. It’s usually referred to as his 100 day celebration, but I think in the book it’s a month after his birth. Unlike in cql, we have no idea who delivered this letter, but it is most certainly not from Lan Wangji as we would have known if he did.

For people who are living in fragile hope, it is a good sign! Wei Wuxian buys new robes in white(!) and makes an incredibly powerful gift that will essentially protect Jin Ling from all minor spiritual evils in his life. It is a gift people would kill to have. He sets out to go to Jinlintai with only Wen Ning at his side as a show of good faith and non-aggression, but not defenseless.

On their way to Jinlintai, they are stopped in Qiongqi Path when someone fires an arrow at Wei Wuxian that Wen Ning catches. Jin Zixun, Jin Zixuan’s less likeable toad of a cousin, comes out and tells Wei Wuxian that he’s surrounded by three hundred archers and demands for Wei Wuxian to remove a curse that he’s put on him.

Now we know later that it was actually Su She that cursed Jin Zixun for being an arrogant toe rag and that Jin Guangyao likely knew this as they were buddies at the time already, but he has told Jin Zixun that it was Wei Wuxian and due to the rumors flying around about him, he wholeheartedly believes it. He refuses to listen to Wei Wuxian and refuses to accept even the burden of proof in that Wei Wuxian has no markings of the backfire from such a powerful curse because obviously, being Wei Wuxian, he could just make them hit someone else, right?!

Jin Zixun is very much not a smart man. Anyway, Wei Wuxian is preparing to fight here because he’s been ambushed! And to add injury to insult, this is a planned ambush where they removed all of the bodies and anything that Wei Wuxian can influence with his guidao for at least ten miles. He literally only has Wen Ning here, his only line of defense against three hundred archers and an ambush based on lies. He removes a talisman that’s designed to help suppress Wen Ning’s rage as he’s going to need all the help he can get in this stacked fight looming in front of him.

Jin Zixuan, who has heard of his cousin taking three hundred archers and going out to ambush Wei Wuxian, who he has invited to Jin Ling’s party from Jin Guangyao (none of these facts are in fact a coincidence), shows up now. To our great and unyielding disappointment, despite this clearly being an ambush on a man he invited as his guest and Wei Wuxian and Wen Ning being two people against an army of three hundred, takes his cousin’s side. He demands for Wei Wuxian to stand down, he tells him that he’ll be tried at Jinlintai and basically ignores everything about the situation that points out that his family may not be in the right on this. Jin Zixun crushes the bell that was meant to be a present for Jin Ling beneath his foot.

At some point while he and Wei Wuxian are arguing, he draws his sword and starts to lunge at Wei Wuxian, a war veteran. Faced with sudden, escalating hostility, Wei Wuxian reacts on instinct and commands Wen Ning to stop Jin Zixuan from attacking him. Wen Ning does. Fatally.

Now this is not what Wei Wuxian wanted at all and it is a loss of control, but also how many stories have we heard in real life about people with strong triggers associated with being attacked having someone approach them in an obviously aggressive way and react on instinct? Wei Wuxian had no reason to believe that Jin Zixuan wasn’t a part of this whole mess from the beginning, and while later clarity of mind and Jin Zixuan’s last words give him some indication that it wasn’t planned, at that very moment he was reacting to an escalating threat.

The real loss of control comes when he sees what has happened, Jin Zixuan dying on Wen Ning’s arm in front of everyone. After a year of living and waiting for the hammer to fall, that cautious hope that an invitation to his shijie’s son’s month birthday party might mean that they’re not inevitably doomed and then the utter betrayal of the ambush and Jin Zixuan’s actions, he loses control and Wen Ning kills everyone in Qiongqi Path before carrying a nigh-catatonic Wei Wuxian back to the safety of Corpse Mountain.

It is a tragedy in all senses of the word. It gives the Jin exactly what they need to rile up dissent against Wei Wuxian into actual action. It gives them a concrete action to point too. Jin Zixuan’s invitation to Wei Wuxian was well known, so it wrecks what remains of his reputation and at this point no matter what Wei Wuxian or anyone else does, the people living in Corpse Mountain are doomed.

Qiongqi Path 2.0 is basically the ultimate machination of the Jin and the collapse of what little stability Wei Wuxian had left in his first life. Less than a week after this, Wen Qing will be dead and Wen Ning heavily implied to be manipulated into killing the Nie and Lan cultivators who came to see their executions; when they were promised by Jin Guangshan that if they turned themselves in, he and the others would leave the people on corpse mountain alone. What with the two clans that didn’t have an active vendetta against Wei Wuxian now dragged in by Wen Ning’s murder, it will be easy for the Jin to rally them into an army against Wei Wuxian at Nightless City and spark the final chain of events that leads to the end of Wei Wuxian’s first life.

Wei Wuxian is culpable in the extent that he lost control and killed everyone there. But given the factors in play, he is certainly not an unreasonable aggressor or reacting without cause to anything that’s going on.

Jin Zixuan has never been kind or reasonable to him once whenever they’ve met in person. As a teenager he disparages Jiang Yanli in front of him multiple times and Wei Wuxian is honorbound to defend her from the societal impact of Jin Zixuan’s careless words. As adults, Jin Zixuan tells Jiang Cheng to control his servant in Wei Wuxian’s face when he continues to defend Jiang Yanli from a man who has at that point still shown her no respect or care in the slightest. They have a terrible relationship and one that while equally hostile from both ends, is more built off of Jin Zixuan’s actions than Wei Wuxian’s. We can even see that in the Xuanwu Cave that Wei Wuxian admires his willingness to stand up for Mianmian when the Wen are going for her.

The fact of the matter is, is that Jin Zixuan had a history of deliberately antagonizing Wei Wuxian and also taking his first interpretation of a series of events as truth and refusing to listen to contradictory evidence. He gets away with it for a number of years due to his prestige and position, but eventually he takes that childish attitude onto a battlefront, and it gets him killed.

There may be no second flute user at Qiongqi Path in the book and the blood is on Wei Wuxian’s hands. But to claim that it is his fault and that he was responsible for things going wrong is a very bad take indeed.

A canon compliant take on Qiongqi Path is that it is the ultimate chess move of the Jin against him, where in the end Jin Guangyao sacrifices a rook and takes Wei Wuxian’s last defending pieces before using him as the utter scapegoat of the jianghu in his and the Jin Clan’s rise to power. And also a reminder that if you continue to push people to their limits and treat them badly constantly, eventually they will have nothing left in which to treat you well.

I hope this helps!

#mdzs #wei wuxian #jin zixuan #jin zixun #jin guangyao #the machinations of the Jin clan #qiongqi path 2.0 #asks #friends #mdzs vs cql #a bit anyway #Wei Wuxian may not have someone stealing control of Wen Ning from him #but that certainly doesn’t make him villainous #or even all that more culpable than drama WWX #just that now he has Extra Guilt tm because he feels like it is his responsibility that things played out that way #when really it was JGY setting up a trap and removing his competition for the position of Jin heir from the equation

[crossdressingdeath]

Do you think CQL did better with the story pre-Time Skip then to post-Time Skip or did you prefer the novel's non-linear narrative?

The thing is that CQL is also slightly non-linear, just in a really stupid way. If you want to put it in chronological order, put it in chronological order; don't start with the post-timeskip stuff and then jump back for half the show, that just leaves everyone completely lost! Anyway, the non-linear timeline of the novel works infinitely better. This story kind of relies on you not knowing everything that happened in the past the whole time to get the full impact, because... it was designed to be told non-linearly. The book came first. It was written to be told the way it is in the book, not the way it is in the show. And CQL's writers were nowhere near good enough to shuffle events into a linear storyline in a way that was narratively satisfying. Frankly they didn't even bother, they just shoved events around until it was mostly chronological and figured that was good enough. There's no grand moments of realization where you finally get all the pieces slotting neatly into place in CQL, because you know everything from the start! It kind of sucks! Also all the characters look like idiots because the audience having all the context combined with some of CQL's shittier changes (the evil rock road trip, anyone?) means nothing they do makes any goddamn sense, as opposed to the novel both being better in general and keeping some of the details from the audience until just the right moment to make everything make sense.

#mdzs vs cql #...i think that was the tag? it's been. a bit #asks #anon

[lifeofmysteries]

There are a lot of things that annoy me about CQL in contrast to MDZS but one thing I’m really liking is that we get to see far more of Jiang Yanli’s reactions. We get to see her react to WWX returning, we get to see her react to her parents death, both things I didn’t know I really wanted until I saw it depicted in CQL. MDZS Jiang Yanli in comparison feels like far less of a real human being being than her siblings due to the fact we rarely get an insight into her emotions. In some ways, it feels like Jiang Yanli in the novel is only there to motivate decisions in Jiang Cheng’s and WWX’s relationship.

#eevee posts #mdzs vs cql #jiang yanli #mdzs

[lanwangjihouse]

#before vs after #and #let's note that they burst into nhs's room and drink his wine #the untamed #wangxian #wei wuxian #lan wangji #xiao zhan #wang yibo #cql #mdzs

[nixster627]

Nie Huaisang: Is Jiang Cheng here?

Wei Wuxian, after Jiang Cheng jumps out the window: You know what? He just left.

Nie Huaisang: Did he?

Wei Wuxian, as Jiang Cheng is reaching through the window for his jacket: ...Yeah, sorry.

#mdzs #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #the untamed #mo dao zu shi #cql #mxtx #incorrect quotes #incorrect mdzs #incorrect cql #nie huaisang #jiang cheng #wei wuxian #sangcheng #source: scott pilgrim vs the world

[friedwizardwhispers]

Chinese censorship: we can't show zombies/the dead so they are all still alive, zombie-like and controlled under there.

Me:

#the untamed #cql #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #also the drug men in woh are very very horrifying #controlling bodies vs controlling people who may still be conscious

[sandu-zidian]

Flying with a purpose (just look at his face >:((( )

#katan art #mdzs #cql #the untamed #jiang cheng #jiang wanyin #sandu shengshou #I don’t draw for a few weeks and then I come back and just draw him #I drew the sketch in one of my classes there’s something about sketching when you aren’t supposed to that makes them turn out so well HAKDJ #I also just took my second sketch and used that as my lineart and it’s red vs black which was fun to do instead!!

[prince-liest]

self-indulgent 3zun ABO AU because I like putting JGY into ~situations~

Alpha NMJ, beta LXC, and omega JGY who has been masquerading as a beta in typical ABO trope fashion, except the dramatic omega reveal happens way back when he murders the Nie captain and gets kicked out of Qinghe.

(I really do wonder what an ABO universe would do to them, psychosocially-speaking, considering that their major flaws can be pretty neatly sorted into “stereotypical” ABO roles that can be used to malign them: Nie Mingjue’s saber-induced anger issues and prior jumping to conclusions, Lan Xichen’s tendency to peacekeep with his loved ones and mold himself into a mediator to a fault, and Jin Guangyao’s....... entire existence as, basically, a tiny venomous snake.)

Present day is post-war Jinlintai before anyone I like (read: JYL, JZX) dies, where 3zun are forced to figure (just enough of) their shit out earlier—WAY earlier—and have been in not just a sworn brotherhood but a mate bond for a while now because in a world with synaesthesic scent markers and mating bites, you don’t get to take things like that back...

... At the very beginning of which bond, NMJ, still incensed and affected by Baxia's resentment, basically accepts the relationship on the bad-faith condition that JGY doesn't "pull any of that manipulative omega shit.” Would he say something like that about Nie Huaisang? No, but he’s just reaching for what hurts. When asked to elaborate on what that actually means, he doesn’t actually have anything in mind and thus rifles around in his mental sack of negative omega stereotypes for all of three seconds before clarifying that he’s talking about all that nonsense with baiting people with heats and baby trapping and whatnot.

JGY, the bitter little gremlin that he is, takes this the worst way possible and has since been taking heat suppressant ✨️indefinitely✨️. We all know how that goes. Maybe he runs out, maybe his body gives out, but most likely Jin Guangshan decides that getting JGY knocked up and too busy to politically machinate against him in addition to all the political machinating he’s doing for him is to his benefit, and arranges the botching of the preparation of whatever tea JGY takes to make this happen. Ideally right in time for NMJ and LXC to be at Jinlintai.

Except this isn’t a sexy, “Oh no, I’m a secret omega and I went into heat! My love must now ravish me!” story. Despite his best efforts, everyone already knows JGY is an omega. Despite his best accidental counterefforts, he technically has two mates already. And still, three hours into NMJ and LXC’s visit, when he realizes what is happening, he fucking panics.

Heat brain isn’t fun brain. Heat brain on top of the writhing bag of neurotic rats that runs JGY’s brain is worse. He’s fucking dead, he thinks. NMJ definitely hates omegas other than his brother (has he met any others? JGY can’t remember, which is terrifying, because JGY remembers everything), and only tolerates JGY’s omega-ness because he’s on suppressants. Da-ge is going to be so mad. And er-ge is going to have to mediate again. Unacceptable! Mortifying! Possibly not an issue because he thinks he might be having a heart attack and dying!

He spends two hours wedged into an emergency bolt-hole he built into his quarters while LXC sits outside going “pspspsps” and NMJ guiltily retrieves increasingly unfeasible amounts of food from the kitchens. It does not end up a sexy heat. It ends up a “hold the hyperventilating omega while he repeatedly forgets how to breathe” heat, because the body is not going to do sexy times while experiencing the most dramatic fight or flight instinct JGY has ever felt. Thanks, chemically-induced hormone imbalance.

(Da-ge turns out to be a good weighted blanket. Compression is good for the anxiety. And guilt turns out good for forcing people to talk things over.)

(And nobody gets pregnant.)

#mdzs #3zun #abo #jin guangyao #nie mingjue #lan xichen #long post #text posts #my writing #don't ask me what the timeline is or what canon it's from #I haven't even watched CQL but due to fandom osmosis #I literally no longer know what's CQL vs book canon QQ #brought to you by the going-to-sleep plays i put on for myself in my brain #omegaverse #meng yao #storytelling post

[symphonyofsilence]

The way in those 13/16 years Jiang Cheng & Lan Zhan were never again called Jiang Cheng & Lan Zhan. And didn't know if they ever will be again.

#Jiang Cheng #was: Jiang-Zongzhu. Jiujiu. Sandu Shengshou. Jiang-Xiong. Jiang-Gongzi #jiang wanyin #but never Jiang Cheng #(and definitely not A-Cheng anymore) #and #lan wangji #was: Hanguang-Jun. Lan-er-gongzi. Lan Wangji. Wangji #but never #Lan Zhan #they're just that shit at making friends #wei wuxian #befriending them was just #unstoppable force vs immovable object #cql #the untamed #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #chen qing ling #my two cents #mxtx

[soph-skies]

i think one of the reasons i’m so drawn to xue yang (besides Hot. and Vaguely Evil) is that every time i see him i’m staring at an alternate universe wei wuxian. he and wwx are absolutely each other’s ‘what could have been’ and watching them interact is so fascinating

#you can so clearly see how despite beginning in the same situation their paths diverged so early on in life #and then we get into the nurture vs nature debate #i’m willing to argue a bit of both here #wwx is so fundamentally justice oriented and we see what lengths he will go to to defend that #literally with his life #i don’t think you could ever change that but i do think the (limited) care of the jiangs certainly shaped him #xue yang seems so fundamentally drawn to cruelty #but it’s hard to see where the pain of abandonment and thirst for revenge separates from his nature #i think he would have always been interested in cruelty i think that aspect of him cannot be changed #if he just wanted revenge he would have stopped at harming those who abandoned him #yet he continued to extremes and murdered entire clans seemingly for fun #i would argue even if he had a loving upbringing that innate cruelty would have still manifested itself somehow #HOWEVER #xue yang with a loving upbringing is still harmful but certainly not to the extent he is without it #i see that version of him as a more twisted wwx type who is into experimentation but ultimately is drawn back to society by his loved ones #they are so fundamentally opposed in their values #and yet on some level they are both that scared abandoned child #mdzs #the untamed #cql #wei wuxian #wei ying #wwx #xue yang #xy #cql meta #the untamed meta #i love 2 am philosophy

[haifoct]

sorcerers!chengzhan almost kissing, cockblocked by hat.

#chengzhan #zhancheng #mdzs #twin lotus of yunmeng #zhancheng museum #jiang cheng #lan wangji #cql #the untamed #jiang zongzhu vs stupid hat

[canary3d-obsessed]

What’s your take on the moment in episode 13 of Untamed where Lan sez- you shouldn’t flirt if you don’t mean it and Wei replies I didn’t flirt with you. I thought Lan was chiding Wei for toying with him.

I do think it's about that, and it's particularly intense because Lan Wangji is jealous of the attention Wei Wuxian is paying to MianMian. The scene in the book is clearer and more extreme - Wei Wuxian, shirtless, is bragging about how Mianmian will remember him forever because he saved her, and Lan Wangji gets angry -

Suddenly, Lan WangJi shoved him hard, raging, “So you also know that she will not be able to forget you for the rest of her life!!!”

and then when WWX is confused about why LWJ is so angry, they have this exchange:

Lan Wangji said, "If you do not have those intentions, then do not flirt with others. You are doing as you please, yet others will be in turmoil."

Wei Wuxian said, "It's not like you're the one I'm flirting with, so it wouldn't be you who's in turmoil either, unless..."

Lan Wangji asked harshly, "Unless what?"

Wei Wuxian, "Unless, Lan Zhan, you like MianMian!"

A moment later, Lan Wangji replied in a cold voice, "Please do not speak nonsense."

Then, Lan Wangji expresses his frustration by BITING Wei Wuxian on the arm, because he is just that intense. Also maybe it's a way to symbolize a romantic bond or engagement. They bite each others arms as a promise in Love Like the Galaxy, and this article says it's a custom of the Yao ethnic group in China: http://en.chinaculture.org/chineseway/2012-08/22/content_439263.htm

#the untamed #cql vs mdzs comparison #asks answered

[web-novel-polls]

Aroace-spec Character Winners' Tournament

[Please vote for who you believe is the most aroace-spec character, not the most popular. It will never be acceptable to post "anti-propaganda" in this tournament or invalidate a suggested identity because "they're not aroace enough." You will be blocked unless it's clearly a genuine mistake / misphrasing.]

Propaganda underneath the cut

Wen Qing from the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation

Submission: Lesbian Asexual

She just has the vibe. Trust me, I'm ace

Jiang Cheng from the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation

Submission 1: romantic and sex indifferent aroace

I love that guy, he’s the most aroace guy I’ve ever met. and his outfit is literally the ace flag plus he’s like wearing a ring that looks a lot like wearing a ring that looks a lot like the ace ring. and the fact that he has no canon love interest and is never shown to want a romantic or sexual relationship. he gives me very “romance is something other people do, I just don’t care for it, I got other things to do” you get me??

Submission 2: Aroace

Despite people trying to convince him to get married/get an heir, in 13 years he never finds someone. His list of bride qualities is absurd to the point of "no one like this exists so I'll never have to get married". Is grossed out by displays of sexual attraction. Purple

Submission 3: Both

No spouse. Wears ace colors. Case closed.

Propaganda 1

#wen qing #jiang cheng #mdzs #cql 'romance' loses forever /joking #aroace spec character tournament #aroace spec winners quarterfinals #polls #queue #coughing baby vs. hydrogen bomb

[lanwangjihouse]

#wangxiao 1-2 vs wangxian 3-4 #and also the cheeks of Yibo 1-2 #the untamed bts #cql bts #wangxian #wang yibo #xiao zhan #wei wuxian #lan wangji #wangxiao as wangxian #yizhan #cql #mdzs

[incorrect-web-novels]

You know what, Nie Mingjue is actually really interesting in the frame of that Bojack Horseman quote - "Because if I don't, that means that all the damage I got isn't good damage, it's just damage. I have gotten nothing out of it, and all those years I was miserable was for nothing" - and honor. Of course everyone should be willing to die for honor and tradition and what is right because if they aren't, if his father has died for nothing, if he will die for nothing, there isn't any point to it, yeah?

#also the nie sect cultivation vs. demonic cultivation comparison - there's something there I can't put into words #nie mingjue #I'm thinking this may be part of the reason why he's so pressured by jgy and those willing to give up honor #idk thoughts hard #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #the grandmaster of demonic cultivation #godc #the founder of diabolism #the untamed #cql #my posts #not a quote

[nixster627]

Wei Wuxian: Step up your game Huaisang, break out the L word.

Nie Huaisang: Lesbian?

Wei Wuxian: The other L word.

Nie Huaisang: Lesbians?

Wei Wuxian: Love, Huaisang. I wasn't trying to trick you.

#mdzs #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #the untamed #mo dao zu shi #cql #mxtx #incorrect quotes #incorrect mdzs #incorrect cql #wei wuxian #nie huaisang #source: scott pilgrim vs the world