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canary3d-obsessed · 3 years

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Restless Rewatch: The Untamed, Episode 26, part two

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Stuff)

Warning! Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Content note: This episode has a lot of lightning, but this post does not have lightning flashes--I’m using mostly stills for those parts, or I’ve snipped out the unfriendly frames before giffing.

Qing-Jie

Having successfully ruined Jin Guangshan’s party plan to get the Yin Tiger seal, Wei Wuxian dashes off to tell Wen Qing where her brother is. She hops up to hit the road with him, but then sorta-faints because she’s starving. In a rare moment of tenderness between these two, he catches her and gently sits her down again.

Normally they’re busy out-toughing each other, both before and after this moment, but right now Wen Qing is openly vulnerable. Wei Wuxian responds to that, predictably, with all of his kindness and with his usual slew of unwise, impossible-to-keep promises.

As she eats the bread he’s brought her--a parallel to an important piece of bread in his early life--he says they have to believe in Wen Ning’s survival. Cut to: Wen Ning, not surviving.

I mean, yes, yes, he’s only mostly dead, but he’s never going to be fully alive again, so.

24 Hour Party People

Back at the party, Jin Guangyao, deliberately, I think, goes to offer his pops a drink while his pops is still super furious and looking for someone to take it out on. The servant lady is like, better you than me, pal, and helps JGY get his drink ready. Pops, predictably, knocks the drink onto Jin Guangyao.

(more behind the cut)

Lan Xichen is standing by with a hanky and a face full of worry. Lan Xichen is so Lanny that he thinks JGY needs to go change clothes after getting clear alcohol spilled on him, rather than just letting it evaporate and smelling pleasantly of booze for the rest of the evening like a normal party guest.

JGY launches into a criticism of Wei Wuxian, which Lan Wangji listens to very carefully, frowning. Lan Xichen, Nie Huasang and Jiang Cheng listen as well, and don’t speak up.

A Clear Conscience

Then Lan Wangji *literally* steps out of his brother’s shadow, and speaks in defense of Wei Wuxian. This right here is Lan Wangji’s turning point, as far as I’m concerned. Xichen is gazing at JGY, totally on board with JGY’s spin of the situation, and his shadow falls away from Lan Wangji’s face as LWJ steps forward.

Lan Wangji says, isn’t what WWX said true? JGY puts on his customer service smile and says that the truth isn’t something you’re supposed to go around saying out loud.

I’d like to say this is what’s wrong with cultivator society but this is really a universal human thing; every society has rules about upsetting the social order, and they are very frequently at odds with basic compassion and morality.

Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng stay silent but Lan Xichen goes and throws Wei Wuxian under the bus carriage, saying his character has changed.

Lan Wangji nods decisively at this, and bows to Lan Xichen, silently asking permission to follow Wei Wuxian. Lan Xichen grants permission, telling Lan Wangji to do his best. Lan Xichen probably thinks he and Lan Wangji are in agreement, in this moment, but that nod of Lan Wangji’s was nothing of the kind.

That nod was Lan Wangji agreeing with himself; he is going to try to bring Wei Wuxian back but he is also going to listen to him. Meanwhile Lan Xichen is tying himself in knots to appease Jin Guangyao. The divergence between the brothers will just grow, from this point onwards.

Lan Wangji leaves to go follow his boyfriend conscience, while Jiang Cheng continues to silently listen to the commentary of others, and gets so mad he crushes a wine cup.

It Was A Dark and Stormy Night.

Wen Qing and Wei Wuxian arrive at the prison camp, and the first person they encounter is Granny, with a defaced Wen Banner in her hand and Wen Yuan on her back.

Whenever I read a meta or a fic that talks about how the juniors are so sweet partly because they are “untouched by the war” I want to point to this moment. A-Yuan endures an absolute truckload of war trauma by the time he’s four years old, and while Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji both deserve a lot of credit for saving him at great risk to themselves, Granny and Uncle Four are the first heroes of A-Yuan’s story. His kind, mellow personality has a lot in common with theirs.

This is followed by an eternity of Wen Qing running around asking if anyone’s seen her brother. Eventually Wei Wuxian gets tired of this and gathers the guards together, threatening them with Chenqing.

He doesn’t need to play it; just holding it up has every Jin dude instantly kneeling and scared.

The guards send him and Wen Qing go to a giant field of corpses, where Wen Qing runs around checking to see if any of them is her brother. Wei Wuxian starts off kind of detached and angry, but eventually snaps out of it, tucks away his flute and starts helping her to search.

Wen Qing finds Wen Ning, mostly-dead with a lure flag speared into his belly. Wei Wuxian grimly takes in the situation from across the field of corpses.

When he arrives at Wen Qing’s side he sees this talisman in Wen Ning’s hand.

This is the talisman that Wei Wuxian made for Wen Ning back in Gusu summer school, before the war. It’s the one that Wen Ning was wearing at his waist when they met up after the massacre of Lotus Pier. It’s supposed to literally protect Wen Ning from having his spiritual consciousness snatched, as well as being a symbol of Wei Wuxian’s sense of responsibility for, and affection for, Wen Ning.

Wei Wuxian, understandably, loses his shit at this point. Less understandably, he is about to decide that the best way to express his sorrow and rage is to re-animate the corpse of his friend, right in front of the corpse’s sister. Like, seriously, dude. Dude.

Ghost General

This super-questionable decision leads to one of the most badass sequences in the show, which is unfortunately chock full of lightning flashes, so not everyone can watch it. Wei Wuxian and his flute and swirls of resentful energy come marching out of the darkness of the corpse field, back to the guards.

The guards have decided to slaughter all of the prisoners and then run away, which would be a good plan except they should really have skipped right to the running away part of things. When Wei Wuxian accuses them of killing the prisoner in the corpse field, they claim that the Wens have a habit of falling off of a hill and dying. Wei Wuxian can relate.

At this point Wei Wuxian summons up Wen Ning 2.0, ultra badass edition, who comes flying through the air with his odd, straight-armed fighting stance and cool solid-black eyes and rock-and-roll hair.

Soundtrack: *Four Sticks*

Wen Ning proceeds to whale on the guards and scare the shit out of his relatives.

Then Wen Qing shows up and begs Wei Wuxian to stop. She explains that Wen Ning is only mostly dead. Like, if he was fully dead would she be okay with this?

Wei Wuxian tries to reel Wen Ning in and realizes that he is not actually in control of Wen Ning. Ok, see, right from the first day of Wen Ning 2.0, WWX is aware that his control is iffy. Why does he think he’s going to be able to control him later?

Anyway, this is where we learn Wen Ning’s grown-up name is Wen Qionglin. Wei Wuxian yells this name, and Wen Ning looks up like a cat hearing the “food noise,” and then proceeds to get control of himself.

This is such a nice symbolic moment, that will be replayed later in the temple, when Wen Ning saves Jin Ling from Baxia.

Wen Ning has a remote-code-execution OS vulnerability throughout the story; his soul is at risk of being stolen, and he is magically controlled by Wei Wuxian, Xue Yang, Su She, and Baxia. Meanwhile Wen Qing, Wei Wuxian, and random kids on the street mostly treat him as a child, despite his clear adult capabilities. Wen Ning’s journey in The Untamed is at least partly about asserting his full adulthood, and his ability to overcome magical control is directly connected to that journey.

After getting Wen Ning to chill, Wei Wuxian calls the floating resentful energy back into his own body, which looks about as comfortable as swallowing a burp.

On the plus side, apparently resentful energy keeps your hair dry even when it’s raining.

Wei Wuxian should take a page from the guards’ book and slaughter all the Jin witnesses to this situation, but he decides to be the better person and let them live. They go running off down the road, where they encounter Lan Wangji and give him the 411, saying that Wei Wuxian resurrected dead people.

Meanwhile Wei Wuxian collects Wen Qing--half-fainted, again, in an echo of the start of their journey--and collects the Dafan Mountain Wen group, who are hiding, wisely. When they see Wen Ning, Uncle Four and some others start to freak out, but Wei Wuxian tells them that fierce corpses are cool, and they all grab horses and mount up.

Where Are You Going?

Lan Wangji is waiting for them, nonconfrontationally indulging in some visual poetry while he waits.

In a show where every prop is exquisitely, carefully designed to enhance our understanding character, his Gusu-toned umbrella reveals surprising red and yellow threads woven in, right above his eye line as he looks at Wei Wuxian.

Wei Wuxian speaks first, saying “you came to stop me?” Lan Wangji doesn’t answer, but asks him where he’s going. Then Lan Wangji warns him that he’s about to abandon orthodoxy forever, if he follows through.

Wei Wuxian challenges this idea of orthodoxy, asking if Lan Wangji remembers the promise they made together, back in Gusu. It’s worth noting that they both appear to think of it as a co-promise, even though Lan Wangji didn’t speak aloud at the time.

The conversation will continue in the next episode, because what’s better than a rainy romantic cliffhanger?

Soundtrack: Four Sticks by Led Zeppelin

#the untamed #the untamed gifs #wangxian #wen ning #restless rewatch the untamed #canary3d-original #my gifs #episode 26

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tanoraqui · 4 years

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Grave dirt baby... 🥺✨

me, procrastinating my actual fic? no... GRAVE DIRT BABY A-YUAN

HEY TUMBLR FUCKED UP ALL MY BULLET POINTS ON THIS THE SECOND I HIT POST BUT IT’S 4AM SO I’M LEAVING IT UP ANYWAY. STUPID GODDAMN WEBSITE.

Wei Wuxian has been in the Burial Mounds for like 2.5 months out of what he doesn’t yet know will be about 3. He’s not even sure he’s going to survive yet. But he has managed to manifest an evil sword - the evil sword - out of the aether/ambient resentful energy/an attunement set with an unwise touch in the belly of an evil turtle

and he does know that he’s not going to survive if he doesn’t get the power of the Burial Mounds under some sort of control

so he cuts his arm and with blood running down the blade, draws something adjacent to the first demon-summoning flag but as an array in the dirt. He stands in the middle and - keep in mind that he more or less hasn’t slept in 2.5 months - plunges the sword into the center, still coated in his blood, and draws in all the resentful energy of the Burial Mounds

was it supposed to go into the sword? Into himself? Into just the single 4ft diameter array area, a column of bound death? who knows, not Wei Wuxian! it’s pure gut instinct

u know what else works on gut instinct, thought? Fairy tales.

And in a fairy tale, why, clay of the earth plus iron enough for a blade plus still-warm blood to show the way...

There’s an implosion and Wei Wuxian is standing - somehow still standing - in a small crater where the array used to be, and his evil sword is plunged into the belly of a baby

He yanks it out in horrified reflex, and realizes a moment later that the baby seems unfazed by this. If there was even a wound, it closes before his eyes, and the glimpse he had showed something more bloody clay than flesh beneath the skin

the iron sword crumbles as he pulls it away, as though rusted a thousand years. the baby turns its head from the iron shavings that falls on it, but then reaches up for Wei Wuxian with a cheerfully demanding cry

he picks it up, of course. (he’d think he was hallucinating if he wasn’t absolutely and utterly aware that he’s not)

it is, as far as he can tell, with physical and spiritual resentful inspection, an absolutely normal baby

oh, except when he looks really closely. Then he can sense the neutron star–dense knot of resentful energy where a golden core might (but will definitely not have room to) form. Also, it can command the dead, and when he holds it, so can he. He’s not sure if it’s a proximity-based power share or if he’s passing his desires through the baby, but even Wei Wuxian, at about 3 months with no food save the rage of the dead and no rest save the promise of final release, has to stop investigating at some point. He has things to do!

specifically, he has Wens to kill

so instead of the iconic shot of the dark flautist in the moonlight, we get the dark, uh...man singing a very spooky lullaby to his baby in the moonlight. It is still deeply creepy. It’s a making-it-up-as-he-goes tune based on a Yunmengi lullaby that he certainly learned from neither of his foster parents, and the lyrics are along the lines of, “let them remember what they did, sweet little potato, let them remember why they’re dying”

yeah he’s been calling this child “Little Potato” for 2 weeks

why

is that not how you name a child

sometimes when he’s more annoyed at it, he calls it “Little Radish”, or even less appetizing root vegetables

by the time he walks in, the baby is asleep in his arms and he’s not singing anymore, just letting the dead do his will. This is what Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji see. The subsequent conversation, Wen Chao and Wen Zhuliu at their feet, goes like this:

LWJ: Wei Ying. You have a baby.

WWX: Oh, uh...

PLAY DUMB!

WWX: What baby?

NOT THAT DUMB!

WWX: Oh, this baby! Haha yeah. I...found it.

JC: What the fuck

WWX: Yeah, weird, right? Right near the, uh...

LWJ: They said you were in the Burial Mounds

WWX: Yyyyup. Yes that is. I found this baby by the side of the road after I walked out of the Burial Mounds.

JC, briefly too morbidly fascinated to think about either the demonic cultivation they just watched or the fact that he wants to hug his brother like he’s never wanted to hug another being in his life: What did you name it?

WWX: ....

JC, desire to hug intensifying together with exasperation: oh my god

Sometime in the next couple days - after sleeping a bit, maybe - it occurs to Wei Wuxian that his raw instincts were right and things will go very badly for little A-Yuan (his siblings insisted he name it) if anyone finds out that he’s a not-yet-walking, not-yet-talking little neuron star of resentful energy. So he takes the iron shavings that are all that remain of the Stygian Turtle Sword and forges them into a Tiger-shaped Seal. He also carves a bamboo flute, like he’d been thinking about before the whole...baby thing. He loudly proclaims both to be dark and terrible weapons

(it really is helpful. The sword was...kind of A-Yuan’s other parent, after all, in addition to their third partner, the Burial Mounds. Chenqing gives him finer control of whatever stray resentful energy he chooses to pick up, and the Stygian Seal lets him channel A-Yuan’s power at need, even when not touching him. Which is good - a battlefield is no place for a baby)

even if that baby thinks ghosts and ghouls exist to pick him up and rock him or toss him around (babies like to be tossed)

Wei Wuxian puts so many goddamn spirit-repelling charms on that child, and lets it be marked down to the paranoia of a survivor

using whatever resentful energy he picks up is generally more effective, actually. Less strong, but it quickly becomes clear that the way this works does, in fact, involve Wei Wuxian communicating his desires through A-Yuan, or at least A-Yuan has to put up with the loan of power. There’s nothing quite like abruptly losing control of a field of corpses because the baby got abruptly uncooperative with anything that wasn’t barfing

the baby does eat, for the record. As far as Wei Wuxian can tell, he doesn’t actually need to, but once WWX fed him once, when they first left the Mounds, he wanted it all the time

he still takes A-Yuan with him when he can. That is the paranoia of a survivor. A-Yuan is...

“A battlefield is no place for a baby, A-Xian,” Jiang Yanli says gently, as he sets out from Carp Tower after another stolen visit, another failed attempt to convince Jin Guangshan off his ass. “And you are...so busy. LanlingJin takes in orphans, you know...”

“A-Yuan...he’s my blood,” Wei Wuxian says quietly. He’s never been good at lying to his shijie

Whatwherewhenhowwho, he’d see on her face if he was looking at it. But he isn’t. It’s not shame, though, she can see (it really never is, with Wei Wuxian). Fear of disappointing her, slight resignation...but mostly acceptance. Determination. Something almost like contentment.

(When Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangj first took him back to whatever resembled a base camp - somewhere in Qinghe, probably, or maybe Lanling - he had to let a trained healer look at A-Yuan, physical and spiritual examination, and he held his breath and calculated how many people he’d have to kill to get out of here, how fast he’d have to move to not hurt his brother or any particular friends; thought, oh, he’s mine, in a way he hadn’t before - as a child, a son, not just a very strange weapon -

“He’s quite healthy,” said the doctor, mildly surprised, bouncing A-Yuan on one knee. A-Yuan gurgled happily. “About three months old?”

the longer Wei Wuxian took to answer, the more disapproving her stare got. But that did make sense)

Then all else can be dealt with later. “You should still leave him here,” Jiang Yanli says firmly. “You need to look after yourself and A-Cheng out there. I can look after A-Yuan.”

It takes a bit under two years to win back the lost and burnt territories, scour the Wens out of every crevice, corner Wen Ruohan in his precious Nightless City and bring it tumbling down. Nobody will know the timing but A-Yuan sleeps through the final battle, smiling at dreams that would make a grown man weep in horror. Somewhere, his father is playing a lullaby

About a week later, Jiang Cheng stalks into Wei Wuxian’s bedroom, which he shares with A-Yuan. One of the first rooms rebuilt in the new Lotus Pier. A-Yuan is there, too, playing with blocks while Wei Wuxian idly drafts talismans

“A-jie said the kid is yours,” he says, crossed arms. “Like, yours-yours. When the fuck did you do that?”

(Wei Wuxian has thought about this, by now; gone over the pros and cons of every possibility, the politics and potentials and maybe even the giddy possibility of telling something like the truth)

(the guiding principle is: he has no interest in drawing on the “Stygian Tiger Seal” ever again. The Sunshot Campaign is over. His loved ones are safe, and he sees no reason why they shouldn’t all live long, happy, normal lives)

(also/though, he will burn Jin Sect, Carp Tower, and all of Lanling to the ground before the new Chief Cultivator should touch his son)

“In Caiyi,” he lies. “Right before I got kicked out. I, uh, snuck out a lot more often than you noticed.”

His brother squints at him suspiciously. But Wei Wuxian can also watch him do the math in his head and reluctantly admit that it works.

“So are you claiming him or what?” he challenges. “’Wei Yuan’? You have a courtesy name - wait, no, you are not naming that kid again. You’re going to make his courtesy name be Carrothead or something.”

“Should I let you pick it, oh wise and noble shidi - no, shushu?!” Wei Wuxian teases, as A-Yuan gets tired of his blocks and starts climbing up him like a jungle gym

Jiang Cheng sighs like the north wind - gusting long and hard, with just the faintest chill to suggest that the skies will be weeping, soon

But...

Despite some evidence to the contrary, Wei Wuxian is generally fully aware of when he’s about to cross a line that cannot be backtracked over. So he meets Wen Qing in the city, and before going to Lanling, he nips into Lotus Pier and picks up A-Yuan

He might leave A-Yuan with Wen Qing in the city when he goes to Glamour Hall, but Qiongqi Pass happens with a toddler watching silently from Wei Wuxian’s hip. Does Wei Wuxian tell him to look away, bury his face in baba’s shirt, or does he not bother, knowing the sort of song that makes up A-Yuan’s sweet dreams?

The Wens become the second through 51st or so people who learn what A-Yuan is. Wei Wuxian briefly considers trying to hide it, but, honestly, there are dead things everywhere on the Burial Mounds, and despite his genuine efforts, he cannot convince A-Yuan that a fierce corpse is anything but the ideal patty-cake companion. (They’ll play with him for hours! It’s a two-nearly-three-year-old’s dream!)

(he doesn’t want to convince him, not really. The last thing he wants to do ever is give A-Yuan anything to be scared of)

nor could he possibly wish that A-Yuan not be...obviously hale and hearty, running rosy-cheeked and strong around these hills of death that slowly seep the energy from any humans, animals, or even sturdy root crops

“So, uh, this is actually my demon baby,” said Wei Wuxian as they all settled in

“this day has been so weird already, this might as well goddamn happen”, said the Wens collectively

“You created a living child out of dead earth, so I’m going to take that as a yes that you can bring my brother back,” said Wen Qing specifically

“...fuck. I mean, yes. I mean - fuck,” said Wei Wuxian. “I- of course I will.”

(it doesn’t work like that, though)

The 52nd person to find out what A-Yuan is is Lan Wangji. Wei Wuxian very much does not tell him. They have a pleasant toy-shopping trip and lunch in town, and then the alarm talisman goes off and Wei Wuxian grabs A-Yuan and Lan Wangji tugs them both onto Bichen and when they arrive, Wen Ning is roaring. Lan Wangji knows what’s important; he takes A-Yuan so Wei Wuxian’s hands are free and he doesn’t have to worry about his son

except Wen Ning, black-eyed with rage, throws Wei Wuxian into a tree hard enough to crack a rib, and even as Lan Wangji raises Bichen, A-Yuan shouts,

“Uncle Ning, stop!”

and Wen Ning stops

(as a rule, Wei Wuxian can’t take over with himself and Chenqing anything A-Yuan is controlling, unless A-Yuan lets him, and vice versa. To eliminate variables, Wei Wuxian had made sure that any reins on Wen Ning were his (Wei Wuxian’s) alone. But in that moment, before Wen Ning came fully back to himself, his reins were swinging free - and they were back within the bounds of the Burial Mounds, where A-Yuan was always strong)

and Lan Wangji puts several pieces together at once and prays to every single god in heaven and every ancestor he’s disappointing right now that this was a miracle of love and a very cute child piercing through a fierce corpse’s mindless rampage. That he simply...hallucinated the burst of resentful energy he just felt from the child in his arms

but he’s absolutely, utterly aware that he didn’t

Wei Wuxian explains, stilted and awkward at the bottom of the hill. Challenging and terrified. Holding on to A-Yuan.

Lan Wangji promises to keep the secret.

Wei Wuxian takes Hanguang-jun’s word

Remember, oh, remember, that Wei Wuxian walks A-Yuan back up the hill until A-Yuan gets tired and Wei Wuxian picks him up, on their one-and-a-half–man plank bridge through the dark. Remember remember remember that before he can finish speaking that line, there is light - the clearing is lit with lanterns and secret-keepers 2 through 51, and I suppose 53 now that Wen Ning is awake, are waiting with dinner and warmth and welcome. Reader, remember this.

But then...

Aunt Qing and Uncle Ning had gone, and then, with a terrible expression on his face, so had A-Yuan’s baba. Now his baba’s anger and sadness is so strong that the weight of it makes A-Yuan cry from hundreds of miles away, and he curls into Granny’s arms and sends his baba everything he can. Will everything be okay, then? Will everyone come home; will they be able to smile again?

(oh, A-Yuan...)

(No.)

A-Yuan - Wei Yuan, Little Potato (when he’s good for baba or bad for Aunt Qing) or Little Radish (inverse); one day to be Lan Yuan, Lan Sizhui - was born in the good old fairy tale way of earth and iron and blood. It’s a hard thing for any child to lose even a single parent - in one day, in one minute, A-Yuan loses two of three, as the father of his blood burns away in hand the last shreds of Stygian iron, and promptly loses control of his own resentful energy

(the Tiger Seal does nothing like explode, in this world. It was never more than a prop - but a vital one. the benefit of proving it destroyed would be worth the loss of a parent, if only a second didn’t follow on its heels)

A-Yuan has been a dead thing (or close enough) come to life all his life, and both dead and living have been his friends and family. But he’s never felt the transition the other way: from life to death

It’s no wonder, really, that he can’t remember it afterward. No wonder that even on the land that was the last part of him, he was feverish and barely conscious when Lan Wangji stumbled, bleeding, off of Bichen, and took in his arms. No wonder that he remembered very little at all, including the dead.

But he would be okay. Under physical and spiritual inspection, he’s a perfectly normal boy. He may not be able to form a golden core (there's something in the way), but there are...workarounds. He’ll grow up in one of the most heavily spiritually warded enclaves in the world, safe and loved as he relearns (mostly in secret) what he can do

(For the sake of this story, and A-Yuan’s survival as something close to canon, let’s say there are some truly dark things in the forbidden section of the Lan Library, that could only be used for nefarious purposes - though, I suppose we already knew that. Let’s say there are talismans that will disguise the very nature of qi, so resentful energy may appear spiritual. Let’s say, Lan Xichen becomes the 53rd to know the truth, because his brother needs help - and it’s Wei Wuxian’s child, okay? It’s just Wei Wuxian’s child, quiet and unsure rather than laughing as he always was. If you were in the inner circle of leaders of the Sunshot Campaign, you have absolutely met this child, probably held him and bounced him on one knee)

(What keeps Lan Xichen up at night isn’t the concealing amulet he helped his brother make, which Lan Yuan wears at all times around his neck. It’s the silence he keeps every time he meets Jiang Wanyin’s eyes over a diplomatic table. If anyone had the right to know Wei Yuan survived... But Sandu Sengshou killed Wei Wuxian, everyone knows that, and now he hunts demonic cultivators - what might his pride drive him to do to his nephew, if he ever learned the truth? (Selfishly, Lan Xichen know that if Lan Wangji lost A-Yuan, even just to living at Lotus Pier, Lan Xichen might lose his brother. That fear ebbs with time passing, but the the longer he hasn’t spoken, the worse it would be to do so...))

They don’t restrict Lan Yuan to the Cloud Recesses, no more than any other novice. For memory of their mother, neither of them could bear that. Jiang Cheng does eventually see him at a conference, and stops dead. Years have passed, but that is an entire goddamn nephew, right there. But - how? No, it can’t be. That’s...everyone knows Lan Wangji hated Wei Wuxian. It’s just...and someone would have told him. The Lans value propriety above all, after all.

Anything that can be done with spiritual cultivation can be done with demonic cultivation, save heal. Lan Sizhui makes up for it with an encyclopedic knowledge of undead and monsters, and a prodigal talent for Inquiry

On their first night hunt, the young juniors face ghosts. Unfortunately, this is when Lan Jingyi learns that he’s terrified of ghosts. He’s hiding behind Lan Sizhui and panic is contagious, and the senior accompanying them is in a different room of the abandoned house, and Lan Sizhui forgets that he’s holding a sword and just shouts, “Stop! Go away!”

the ghost, of course, obeys

Lan Jingyi peeks out form behind him. “Did- did you do that?”

“I don’t know,” Lan Sizhui admits (except that he’s absolutely sure he did)

There’s another flicker of movement, just the wind blowing ashes but Jingyi whips around with wild eyes. “Can you do it again?”

[friendship. my point is, he’s a demon baby but he has family and friends who love and accept him.]

And one day, some absolute fucking morons are going to bring him back home, where he can never be anything but strong, and threaten his friends and family? And the threat is an army of his old playmates, commanded by an attempt at recreating some combination of Chenqing and the Tiger Seal? He couldn’t manage it in Yi City, but now A-Yuan, Wei Yuan, Lan Sizhui stands on earth that has never stopped being part of him, or maybe he’s never stopped being part of it. If he closed his eyes he could feel every foot on it, living and restless dead. And they’re threatening his baba - who he remembers, as the earth remembers its old partner, even though the blood is changed - and his father Hanguang-jun, and his extended family and friends?

No.

#lyratalus #mdzs #the untamed #ficlet #lan sizhui #wei wuxian #uh who else is here #must i tag them all? don't wanna #my fic #hmm need the speaker for the dead variant to get more childhood stuff; they're similar there

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axelsandwich · 5 years

Text

Sorting The Untamed characters

In which I have a lot of feelings about sorting The Untamed characters into @sortinghatchats classifications because I’m a LOSER NERD WITH FEELINGS : D

Wei Wu Xian - Gryffindor primary/Gryffindor secondary

WWX’s Gryff energy is like….what are you so LOUD for. There’s nothing he can do other than stick to his morals and principles and what his gut is telling him is the right thing to do, no matter the cost. Even if it makes him public enemy number one of the cultivation world, even if it exiles him from his family and clan, even if it goes against everything he was taught and involves helping and saving his worst enemies - see: Wen clan in Xuanwu cave, the cultivators in Burial Mound after losing their spiritual powers due to Su She. This is someone who adheres brightly and with his all to his principles simply because it is the RIGHT thing to do and he knows this with unshaken conviction and is steady once he discovers this, which has its own power.

Honestly I was actually initially thinking between Slytherin with Claw and Claw secondary because WWX has an improvisational streak to him, managing to thrive even when thrown into the worst of circumstances with a combination of his own prodigious skill and flexibility when it comes to drastically relearning the dark arts to compensate for a lack of golden core. But here’s the passage that convinced me otherwise: “it is a Gryffindor’s stark, direct honesty makes them them feel the most secure. Lies, or even misdirects, are slippery footing. For a Gryffindor Secondary, their blunt honesty is a facet of their personality and their morality—lying about who or why you are taints the victory. A Gryffindor Secondary can and will lie if the cause is important enough— but it will leave a bad taste in their mouth the same way trusting a stranger with their honesty might terrify a Slytherin Secondary.” The blunt honest is self-evident in…well, WWX’s entire existence lmao but even when young in the Gusu Lan sect. But what convinces me is after WWX gets Chenqing and the way the great lie about why he doesn’t use Suibian anymore is framed afterwards. It kills WWX to lie about all that he is, it’s presented as one of the fundamental tragedies of his story - the ultimate betrayal of himself that he makes for a greater purpose and in pursuit of his Gryff primary ideals. The fact it’s not treated lightly or as a tool to be used to achieve his goals is what makes him a Gryff secondary.

He models a Claw’s curiosity and intellectual fascination with questioning the world order and a Slytherin’s keen eye for motivations and people, but ultimately it comes down to that red thread of charging when backed into a corner - quite literally, he charges towards the Xuanwu, out of Chiongqi Road with the Wen prisoners, into the plaza of cultivators calling for his ashes, directly into Guanyin temple where Jingyi is in danger; he puts himself in harm’s way without a second thought when his gut is telling him he’s right to do so. He also has the classic Gryff secondary trait of amassing an accidental army in his wake of the most unlikely people, all transformed by his draw and that irresistible quality of truth to him.

Lan Wang Ji - Gryffindor primary/Ravenclaw secondary

LWJ is a quiet version of the Gryffindor primary, raised in a culture that forces him into like…the strongest of all Ravenclaw models. He adheres strictly and obediently to the Lan clan’s system of the world because in his mind, it was the right thing to do… until WWX forces him to re-examine his morality, about what he was taught and everything he believed was right. And when his model of the world is challenged, what he ultimately goes with is…his heart. Not necessarily because his morality is guided by how WWX is his in the same way of Slytherin/Hufflepuff’s personal morality, but because WWX embodies the new insight that nothing is truly black or white in the way his clan’s system has taught; because LWJ feels that WWX is good, even when every other rule he’s been taught is saying otherwise and, little by little, he rebels quietly by dismantling those systems that once shaped his worldview.

LWJ wrestles visibly with this the entire flashback arc of the drama, unable to bring himself to denounce WWX despite all the ‘bad’ he had done all the way until the Nightless City battle and when push came to shove, at the very end, he still chose to clutch onto WWX’s hand until WWX made the choice for him to let go. I do think he was ‘stripped’ by the experience - his internal compass, sense of purpose, and even sense of worth broken by the loss of WWX and that’s what he spends 16yrs atoning and suffering for. After WWX’s revival, he accordingly sets himself up against the cultivation world with no hesitation because he’s had 16yrs to regret not following his Gryff primary heart that said WWX’s way of seeing the world is right and he’s not going to falter again.

Ravenclaw secondary bc……his first instinct when his boyfriend was changed by demonic cultivation was to flip the library upside down trying to find a cure and try to invent a whole ass song to cure him nghghghshf. But yes, he’ll fall back on systems, skills and knowledge he’s carefully built from the ground up when backed in a corner, drawing on what he’s known and carefully cultivated, looking through resources to try and gain more knowledge.

Wen Qing - Slytherin primary/Slytherin secondary

Wen Qing’s morality and driver is very simple. It’s her brother at the start, her family, and gradually expands as people help him and - by extension - her: WWX, LWJ, Jiang Cheng. For them, she’ll betray the wider clan with very few qualms because they’re not her people and those who are hers come first. She connects with Jiang Cheng on the basis of both their Slytherin primaries, but understands immediately that he would never have gone with her to rescue Wen Ning because while she may tentatively be one of ‘his’ people in his mind, Wen Ning isn’t, and so any future with him is tragically unaccepted. When it comes down to sacrificing even the brother she holds so dear, she does it in the hope that her people - WWX and her wider family by proxy - may be saved from the cultivation world’s wrath. She’s a Slytherin secondary because she’s adaptable and able to draw on whatever skills she needs and be who she needs to be to achieve her goals, with a knack for zeroing in precisely on people’s true motivations and what will and won’t work with a cultivation society looking to find a bad guy. You can bet she’s the one who figured out how to trick Jiang Cheng into believing he could get his golden core back. It’s telling that her most emotional moments are when she lays down all her defences and sincerely speaks from the heart - whether it’s crying over Wen Ning’s body or thanking Wei Wu Xian and apologising. ; _ ; Wen Qing is a good egg.

Jiang Cheng - Slytherin primary/Gryff secondary

It’s clear from the start that Jiang Cheng’s morality revolves around his family who are his and come above everyone else, along with his pride (but we’re not gonna talk about thatttt...). His impassioned plea of ‘it was enough to just save ourselves, why did you have to save them’ re: bringing the Wen clan wrath upon the Jiang clan proves he could never see eye to eye with WWX’s Gryffindor primary that demands what is right be applied to all, and therein lies the source of their feud, when we get to the pointy end and doing what’s right involves a lot more sacrifice and hardship. Jiang Cheng’s very specialised loyalty is tested over and over throughout the beginning of the series by outsiders casting suspicion on WWX’s motivations, pricking at his pride and his deep set insecurities about his own position and whether he’s actually loved by the people he’s claimed as his own and also on their priority list (see: his father, WWX).

What truly makes him give up and cut WWX out of his circle is when WWX himself says ‘I exile myself from the tribe’. In Jiang Cheng’s eyes, to betray the people who are yours is what is unforgivable and impossible to understand, and that’s what comes out as the most deeply buried point of pain in Guanyin temple and what’s driven JC’s anger the last sixteen years. That doesn’t make him any less of an extreme Gryff secondary than WWX, whether it’s charging straight into the feared Burial Mound where no one’s ever come out alive just to drag his brother out and confront him about all the problems directly, to confronting WWX directly in Lotus Cove, to marching into Guanyin temple’s front door. Which is probably why they fight. We also find out in the end that Jiang Cheng is fully capable of the same dumb self sacrifice that WWX made for him. Ironically, both of their actions boil down to ‘I must protect my brother’, except where WWX does it because it’s right, Jiang Cheng does it because that’s his brother.

Jin Guangyao - Slytherin primary/Slytherin secondary

WWX’s diametric opposite. I do think he seems like a petrified Slytherin - Guanyin temple arc reveals that his world once comprised at least of himself and his mother, and perhaps the idealised image of who his father would be, and he strove and strove until his father shattered all his dreams, until his world narrows until it’s ultimately and dangerously comprised of just himself. I do think Nie Mingjue, Su She, Qin Su and Lan Xichen came the closest to who he would consider ‘his’ people, but even that falls away as they ‘betray’ him and because his actions are ultimately guided by his loyalty only to himself, and warps exactly what he interprets as ‘betrayal’. This is what allows him to betray them when they ultimately fall out of line with JGY’s priorities and give them such cruel endings despite how much he professes to treasure them. It’s what creates his resentment against NMJ that festers until it leads to NMJ’s demise - in JGY’s eyes, to throw aside everything in their relationship for the sake of some lowly, subhuman captain who’s always treated JGY with contempt and to keep holding it against him is incomprehensible, unforgivable. It’s also why LXC stabbing him is met with such choking disbelief and anger - because JGY, true to his word, would have never entertained the concept of betraying a person who was proving to be his and LXC was his last hope. His secondary Slytherin allows him to transform and shift with the wind, shedding personas and layers as easily as water, the same way it pains WWX to do the same.

Nie Huaisang - Slytherin primary/Slytherin secondary

Jin Guangyao’s equal and foil, ironically also putting up a very self-entered front in the world where it seems like he only cares about his own self interests but quietly loyal to a select number of people who are his - WWX, his elder brother - and will quietly work in the shadows playing the long con to systematically dismantle everything about the person he despises. Slytherin secondary allows him to make himself a fool without any qualms about it not being a reflection of his true face or authentic self, and pull the puppet strings on even those he cares about until he gets to where he wants to be.

Lan XiChen - Ravenclaw primary/Ravenclaw secondary

Xichen sticks much more closely to what his clan’s systems are and his carefully constructed understanding of the world and that’s what both blinds him to JGY and shakes his worldview so heavily when JGY reveals himself to be a villain. But his felt morality, guided by the system of being just and fair is also what allows him to reject JGY and entertain the possibility of his betrayal. A Slytherin primary may stubbornly cling to faith in a person that he sees as ‘his’ person, but a Ravenclaw primary will feel guilty and immoral to be sticking with them despite knowing they’re betraying the system of justice that he prides above all. It’s what allows him to be an ally to both WWX/LWJ and JGY for the latter half of the series, trying to understand and question the logical holes in WWX and LWJ’s arguments. Where WWX and LWJ don’t have evidence for JGY being evil, they can feel it in their guts and they charge towards getting that evidence based on those convictions. LXC on the other hand may sense something in his gut but he will not act against JGY without being convinced of said evidence, until he is certain of what the real truth is and will methodically keep digging and questioning the evidence being presented to him until it becomes undeniable. It’s also telling that his anger when Huaisang manipulates him into stabbing JGY is not so much about the fact he betrayed his friend (which is the key pain point that JGY angrily latches onto) but that Huaisang may have been lying, that LXC may have acted on something that was not true and he had been unable to see through that. It’s a subtle difference I think, but what separates his primary. I think his Ravenclaw secondary is pretty obvious in the thoroughness of his methods and the ways we’ve seen him dodge the Wen clan, to be willing to work with JGY during the Sunshot Campaign. It requires flexibility of thinking and drawing on a range of resources and that’s what LXC quietly excels at.

Jiang Yanli & Wen Ning - Hufflepuff primary/Hufflepuff secondary

Both are honestly quite similar — they’ll hold onto their belief in the basic goodness of all people, regardless of allegiance and regardless of their past history and that’s the source of what endears them to people and why they manage to build an army of people who would die and care for them when push comes to shove.

The little we see of both Yanli and Wen Ning’s way of operating from a secondary perspective revolves around being of service to others, being a source of reliability, support and consistency, quietly building, strengthening and contributing to their little community. Wen Ning quietly and diligently attends to WWX’s protection at all times, reliably taking on the roles allocated to him with a genuine commitment to performing them to his best ability.

When they ‘fight’, they fight by drawing on their resources, through a thorough, systematic and relentless persistance. A Li’s approach to the battle of words on Phoenix Mountain is an example of this - she draws upon her position, her knowledge of what is ‘proper’ to do within the community and the goodwill she’s built with Madame Jin to subtly dismantle Jin Zixun’s arguments while still pleasantly entrapping him in the niceties of the community she’s a part of without alienating herself the same way WWX can’t help but do with his bluntness. When JC threatens to push WWX to the limits of his endurance, Wen Ning defends WWX through words, standing up again and again despite being violently thrown back and systematically dismantling all of JC’s defence mechanisms by thoroughly and sincerely pushing back on every false claim and even urging JC to call on the community to verify the truth of his words. They’re indomitable, stubborn and effective and that’s Puff/Puff energy right there.

Jin Ling - Gryff primary/Gryff secondary

Gryff primary…why are you so LOUD for Pt 2. Poor Jingyi, two Gryff secondary uncles and father…he had no chance lmaaaao. Impulsive, reckless, absolutely a ‘charge first and ask questions later’ kid and screaming Gryff secondary. Will bash a hole in a wall when he’s denied entry and get caught by the skeleton demons than like…find another way around, you know? Or charge into Guanyin temple without much second thought. His Gryff primary and his gut morality of what is right - aka. trusting WWX and treating him with fairness - ultimately wins against him being pushed hard into the whole ‘pride in your clan only’ angle by his Slytherin primary uncle, and that’s what allows him to become a WWX duckling (begrudgingly) despite all his puffery and objections. It’s also what lets him survive and accept the betrayal of seeing his other uncle revealed as a villain and how he’s able to reject JGY when his misdeeds become undeniable. I also think it’s super cute he’s the same type as WWX, honestly...it’s why I love their dynamic. He’s the young, unjaded version of his uncle.

Lan Sizhui - Puff primary/Gryff secondary with a Claw model?

There’s a kindness to Shizui that he extends to Mo Xuanyu, Jin Ling and Wen Ning against convention and despite - in Jin Ling’s case - how hard he tries to create distance in that relationship that makes me think Puff primary and his determination to see everyone as people to be respected. I feel like we don’t see enough of Sizhui in action to really be able to determine his secondary - he has something of secondary Puff/Claw vibes in the way he comes across as quietly diligent, reliable and insightful, but he’s also got a certain amount of fire when he needs to - grabbing people’s legs as a kid, making a move towards possessed Song Lan in Yi City despite WWX telling them all to get out, brawling with the other ducklings when tied up, rushing recklessly back up the Burial Mound path to find WWX and LWJ who were holding back the ghouls etc. Maybe a secret Gryff secondary that’s normally held in place by a Claw or Puff model.

#the untamed #sorting hat chats #sort ALL the people!#cql #mdzs #too many characters to tag!#wei wu xian #lan wangji #GRYFF ENERGY OUTTA THE WAZOO

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