#what the fuck is your deal xue yang

[veliseraptor]

rereading the villainous friends extra and

Xue Yang was about to split his sides laughing. "You should've gotten a mirror and looked at your face. That smile was nasty. It was so fucking fake I could have thrown up."

Jin Guangyao snorted. "What do you know, you little delinquent? One has to smile, no matter how fake, no matter how disgusting it is."

Xue Yang lazily replied, "You were asking for it. If anyone dared say I was raised by a whore, first I'd find his mom, fuck her a couple hundred ties, then drag her out and throw her into a whorehouse for others to fuck as well. Then we'd see which one of us was really raised by a whore. Simple."

Jin Guangyao laughed as well. "I certainly don't have such refined hobbies."

"You don't, but I do. I don't mind taking care of it for you. Just let me know, and I can go fuck them for you, hahahaha..."

Jin Guangyao said, "No thanks. Save your energy, Xue-gongzi."

head buzzing full of thoughts mostly:

I will never not love the fact that Jin Guangyao calls him "Xue-gongzi." do you think anyone else does that because I don't and I think Xue Yang finds it hilarious and also kind of adorable (and I think Jin Guangyao is both sincere and also knows Xue Yang finds it funny)

I feel like sometimes I see fellow Jin Guangyao apologists talking about Jin Guangyao like...just tolerating Xue Yang or dealing with him because his father told him to, and the thing I love about their dynamic so much is actually that it seems like Jin Guangyao is genuinely, ruefully fond of him

like here, Jin Guangyao has just had a very nasty experience that we know later on is what finally pushes him over the edge w/r/t Jin Guangshan, and Xue Yang makes Jin Guangyao laugh. by being crass and absolutely kind of gross, but Jin Guangyao's understated verbal reaction ("I certainly don't have such refined hobbies" "save your energy, Xue-gongzi") read to me as teasing.

also between this and Xue Yang's cutting out He Su's tongue after he insults Jin Guangyao too far earlier: Xue Yang's love language is horrific violence. other people will say "do you want me to kill them for you" but Xue Yang will actually do it and be very proud of himself about it.

anyway. just some feelings about them again and I feel like I'm failing to verbalize them appropriately. maybe I should go try to write that "jgy teaching xy to read" fic now

#important text posts #xue yang #jin guangyao #lise reads mdzs #lise does meta #...ish #the sad queer cultivators show #webnovel liveblogging

[whetstonefires]

Thinking about lying in mdzs and how wwx's two primary personal foils also spend significant amounts of time sustaining major lies around people they've got personal relationships with. And how differently that goes.

Because Wei Wuxian, Xue Yang, and Jin Guangyao are very different sorts of liars.

Wei Wuxian maintained his deception about his core for roughly three to five years, the first few of them in close contact with a couple of people who knew him very well. It relied mostly on misdirection and omission. It damaged his relationships and he didn't like it, but he didn't fuck it up either.

Xue Yang spent...a couple of years? Maintaining a lie. And the thing is he's a fairly shit liar, actually. If he'd had to do anything other than 'not tell the truth' to a blind man who voluntarily didn't ask him for so much as a name to call him by, he'd have fucked it up pretty quick.

But the act of deception itself didn't cause him any discomfort at all.

And Jin Guangyao spent most of his life maintaining a ridiculous panoply of lies to absolutely everyone. He of course is an amazing liar, by far the best of the three of them, and this is because he's good at both parts.

His sell is beautiful; he's got just as good a sense as wwx of what other people are thinking so he can adapt his story to it, and does so more consciously and deliberately though also more compulsively. And he's got better discipline over his reactions and (I think) less healthy basic self-respect, so he has more options for how he shapes himself to those expectations. (Whereas Wei Wuxian is more narrowly restricted to strategically emphasizing aspects of his actual self, such as 'proud disobedient prick' or 'impulsive embarrassing flirt.')

But Jin Guangyao's comfort with deception is also top-tier. He probably actually feels more comfortable when he knows he's gotten away with lying to any given person. And his patience with his own lies is infinite, between the excellent self-command, the perfect memory, and what are clearly fantastic multi-tasking skills.

Wei Wuxian likes to lie, but without a pressing reason he also tends to admit it almost immediately so he can laugh about it. When he has to keep it up, he doesn't like it nearly so much--a lie he can't admit to is a trap he's stuck in. And one that isolates him, which he does not enjoy at all.

Of course his Big Lie was largely for Jiang Cheng's sake; judging by how 'Mo Xuanyu' goes he wouldn't have been able to maintain it half so well for his own.

Xue Yang doesn't seem to feel any of that discomfort, he just also doesn't have enough interest in other people's thoughts to tell especially believable lies; he can't tailor his story to his audience.

He lies like it's a magic trick, a special move; you can just open your mouth and say whatever you want, isn't that strange? Isn't that funny? People will do things that are actually bad for them because you gave them untrue information!

And it reliably pisses people off, especially when they know you're lying but you won't admit it! You win no matter what! Haha!

There are a lot of other elements to being good at lying other than 'a convincing sell' and 'keeping up the front,' of course. Lying is complicated. So many moving pieces that all feed into one another. There's having the nerve to lie to people's faces. There's thinking on your feet enough to make up a lie on the spot at all, regardless of whether it's plausible. There's not having any obvious tics that give you away. There's the ego.

All three of them can manage all of these, though. The main variation across the set crops up around the aspects of lying that deal with 1) self-control (obvious spectrum there) and 2) empathy.

Xue Yang has none. He's a human disaster with very limited theory of mind and no self-regulation to speak of; naturally straightforward and almost entirely without kind impulses.

Wei Wuxian has a full complement--his social intuition is actually fantastic, and while he's not reliably nice he is easily moved to compassion. This latter is bad for his lying skills.

(His self-control ranges from reasonably good to fantastic, when he bothers, but his first instinct is not to bother.)

Jin Guangyao's cognitive empathy is also very strong; he can generally determine what someone wants to hear, and say that. Be that. But he seems to be almost wholly free of the instinct to feel bad about tricking people, even people he likes. Is that inherent or habituated? Idk probably both.

So Jin Guangyao is far and away the best liar of the three of them, because he maxes out all the necessary traits.

But then when it comes down to it. Wei Wuxian and Xue Yang, when they're rumbled or the lie isn't useful anymore, they can let it go. When Lan Wangji finally calls Wei Wuxian by name he drops Mo Xuanyu on the spot with no ceremony; when Wei Wuxian calls out Xue Yang's impersonation of Xiao Xingchen, he doesn't keep pushing it, he just laughs.

Jin Guangyao can't. He's unmasked violently and repeatedly, and he drops any story that isn't sustainable or useful anymore, but he always tries again. He's such a fantastic liar that reverting to honesty just. Isn't an option available to him.

#hoc est meum #mdzs #wei wuxian #xue yang #jin guangyao #meta #lying

[callunavulgari]

Year in Fic | 2023

How many fics did you write this year? What was your total wordcount?

This was a very, very depressing year for me fic-wise. I didn't think it was possible, but not only did I write less that I did last year, but I wrote SIGNIFICANTLY less than I did in 2022.

In 2023 I wrote 11 fics, for a total of 39,450 words. Which is uh, almost half what I did in 2022. And 2022 was a slow year for me. But! I will give myself a bit of grace considering I spent most of the year being neurotic about wedding planning.

Fic Roundup!

so damn sloppy | Stranger Things | Steve/Eddie | 4,557 words | Steve smiles, leaning forward just a little bit, and is rewarded by the sight of Eddie swaying towards him as if hypnotized. “We gonna stop pretending that I’m here just for a movie?”

into the unknown | LoZ | Zelda/Ganondorf/Link | 8,017 words |  “What do you think, princess?” Ganondorf asks, cocking his head. “Would having your young knight here with us make the marriage bed more palatable?”

just a little bit closer, baby | Stranger Things | Chrissy/Eddie/Steve | 2,734 words | “He’s sure, Chrissy,” Steve says, voice warm.

Ghost Story | Stranger Things | Eddie/Steve | 2,559 words | Eddie wakes to darkness. 

mommy don’t know daddy’s getting hot | Stranger Things | Steve/Eddie | 1,611 words |  “Just— Christ, Steve. Fuck me, already. Fill me up, put a baby in me or whatever weird hetero bullshit your brain has a boner for, just do it.”

the icarus to your certainty | Marvel | Loki/Thor | 1,687 words | “Can’t you see that you’re lost without me?” Loki asks softly, his mouth twisted into a strange, sad little smile.

build your altar here | Star Wars | Reylo | 5,486 words |  When Leia had first offered up Ben’s condo as a place for Rey to stay while she got back on her feet, she’d foolishly assumed that it was some kind of subletting situation.

for years or for hours | Loki | Loki/Mobius | 1,677 words | “What the shit are you doing?” Mobius hisses, and Loki— Loki is tired.

touch-a, touch-a, touch-a, touch me | Stranger Things | Steve/Eddie | 2220 words | “God,” Steve murmurs into Eddie’s mouth. “You look— I cannot deal with how you look right now.”

these, our bodies, possessed by light | Shades of Magic | Holland/Kell/Lila, Athos/Holland | 2,134 words | Holland tells her simply. “I want to go home.”

this house says your name like an elegy | The Untamed | Song Lan/Xiao Xingchen/Xue Yang | 6768 words | “Good night, ghost,” he says. “We can play tomorrow.”

Best story I wrote this year:

In my opinion? into the unknown was the only fic that I was TRULY proud of this year. Which isn't to say that the others were awful, but into the unknown was my passion project of the year. I saw a thing on twitter that made my brain go ping, and I sat down and said, yknow what, I'm going to write political marriage Ganondorf/Zelda. And then, I went, yknow what would be great? If we added Link, poly, and a great heaping pile of yearning. And it was! Great that is! It was fun to write and I'm really glad that I put it out there.

What’s your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.

Honestly, into the unknown IS probably my favorite - BUT! A very close second is for years or for hours, which I wrote after watching the Loki finale a totally chill amount of times. I couldn't get over the idea of Loki and those timeloops, how lonely it must have been. How he could technically have everything that he wanted and then wipe the slate clean again hours later. I was also planning on writing another Loki fic, one where Sylvie and Mobius end up hooking up and living? traveling? together AFTER, but it just hasn't happened yet. Two people fucking because they're yearning for the same third is just catnip to me.

Okay, NOW your most popular story.

This is actually interesting because my stats are pretty wildly different for kudos vs hits. Normally they're at least in the same ballpark. BUT! for years or for hours was definitely my top fic as far as kudos go by a pretty wide margin, coming in 742 kudos, 217 bookmarks, and 2,397 hits. so damn sloppy (a title that i hated IMMEDIATELY after posting) comes in second when it comes to kudos at 239.

But! If you measure by hits- build your altar here, otherwise known as the excessively smutty reylo fic that i wrote actually comes in first. Which is... weird? But hey, what do I know. Numbers are bonkers.

Story of mine most underappreciated by the universe, in my opinion:

While I'm honestly always a little disappointed by the traffic my SXX Exchange and Yuletide fics get (I get it, they don't show up at the top of the page because they spend weeks unviewable before being revealed), I think my actual answer to this question is Ghost Story. It's one of the shorts that I did for my October challenge this year. 2.5k of Eddie waking up in the Upside Down undead, of him finding Steve's house and hesitating there on the threshold, of Vecna in his head, of him CHOOSING Kas as his own storyline, grasping at straws in the hopes that he'll be able to pull it off. I never go into something expecting kudos because that way lies madness, but I got... 11 kudos. No comments. And I don't know, that's always at least a little disappointing, but especially because I was proud of this one. I liked getting into Eddie's headspace in a horror setting. It was great! It was tragic! And I don't know, it just didn't get love. Such is life.

Most fun story to write:

Okay, so like. I wrote A LOT of smut this year. Almost every single fic that I wrote was either PWP, fix-it, or both. And almost every single one of them came easily (ha). The plot bunnies didn't fight me, they just happened. Which means that a lot of them were fun to write! The one where I got to work in Steve's breeding kink in the most hilarious way cracked me up. BUT! I got to write Steve/Chrissy/Eddie this year! I've been wanting to write it for ages and this year, for the first day of kinktober, I got to write Chrissy pegging Eddie while Steve fucks his face. That was just... an absolute dream.

Story that could have been better?

Maybe these, our bodies, possessed by light ? My Yuletide recipient's requests were of a crueltide variety. And I don't necessarily have an issue with writing that. I wrote it and I liked the end result, but where it comes down to it I'm still pretty uncomfortable writing non-con, even a character that is slowly healing from it. I do actually like how it ended. I think I conveyed what I wanted it to, the style was exactly what I was aiming for, I just haven't been able to shake the feeling that it could have been more. But if I'd made it happier or longer, I think I would have taken away from the point I was trying to make.

Story I wrote to fix things:

Definitely the icarus to your certainty. Some of the others are fix-its in the sense that certain characters are alive, others are fix-it fic not because they changed anything about the canon but because of the sense of catharsis. But the icarus to your certainty was a fic that I've been wanting to write for a while, one where Thor and Loki meet again. I've told this story a couple different ways since End Game, but this one feels more complete because I used TVA Loki. It wasn't just me talking out of my ass about suspected ways that Marvel could fix it, it was about the exisiting character meeting back up with a post-Love and Thunder Thor and going hey, I'm here, I'm not the same brother you watched die, but I'm still a Loki, I still miss you, I know what you lost. I did write it before watching the finale, so there's probably at least one more Thor and Loki reunion fic in me, but we'll see.

Longest completed fic this year:

into the unknown was my longest this year at just over 8k.

Fandom you enjoyed writing for most this year:

The fandom that I wrote the MOST of was Stranger Things, because Steddie is still dogging me even now, more than a year later. And it is certainly the fandom that I enjoyed reading the most, but I also really loved playing in the Tears of the Kingdom sandbox.

Favorite character you wrote this year:

I did like writing Ganondorf in into the unknown a lot, but this pleasure has to go to Eddie. He's just so fun.

Most memorable comment(s) this year:

I really loved all the comments that I got on for years and for hours! The comments from my recipients for the SXX exchange and Yuletide were amazing! I got a comment on the Silena and Clarisse fic that I wrote well over a decade ago! I got an adorable comment on the monsterfucking fishsex one earnestly telling me to keep doing what makes me passionate, even if it's... yknow, fishsex.

But honestly, this comment that I got on Rubatosis takes the cake. It just completely blows my mind that even know, almost a decade after I wrote the fic, I am STILL getting comments on it. And not just the comments that other older fic of mine get, but comments that are so heartwrenchingly genuine, thanking me, weeping and happy about it. I actually did a reread of it after I got this comment and while I can see all the places that could be improved on, I'm just still so floored, so PROUD, that it's something that came out of my brain.

Fics you wanted to write but didn’t:

I DO have an entire graveyard of fics in my googledocs that I've started and haven't finished but, in no particular order:

the steddie one where they hook up pre-series when steve is still king steve and eddie is dealing at one of his parties

the steddie hitchhiking one

the steddie coffee shop one that no one asked for

the gloryhole steddie fic from kinktober

ugh the akuroku farmer's market one about being punk and then getting older

the bodyswap geraskier one

the ust filled one-shot of Jericho and Sam Lloyd from the Diviners

the random plot bunny i got after reading hell bent where i wanted to write alex fucking darlington after the howling

the cnc sxx fic

the uh, vaguely necrophiliac sxx one because xue yang is a freak

the *cough* incest ship one where they find out they're related while fucking and neither stops (i may have entertained this as a han/luke/leia one-shot)

the alex/jonas oxenfree one that i wanted to write as a yuletide treat

the anastasia/dimitri one that i wanted to write as a yuletide treat

Oddest story:

god, probably the breeding kink one. mommy don't know daddy's getting hot. it's not even super intense! i just feel like eddie would be absolutely IMPOSSIBLE if he found out that steve had a breeding kink.

Hardest story to do:

I did fret about this house says your name like an elegy a little. I kept getting stuck describing the house and had to force myself past it.

Easiest story to write?

Again, most of the fics came pretty easily this year. build your altar here may have been the easiest? I'd just finished love theoretically by ali hazelwood and while i'd always known they were a reylo i didn't realize that i'd actually read some of their fic! anyway, read a couple reylo fics for nostalgia and then realized that i wanted to write a free use fic. All 5k of it came out in one sitting, it was nuts.

Most mining of your own history in one story:

I don't think any of them? I mean, maybe so damn sloppy if you count the fact that i've actually been in a family video before, but other than that? yeah, nothing.

Themes, or absence thereof:

A lot of smut, tbh.

Where did you publish/archive your stories?

Ao3, as per usual. I didn’t crosspost too much this year.

Story I haven’t yet written, but intend to:

i REALLY want to write the steddie ones that i didn't write this year, specifically the hitchiking and the pre-series one.

Sexiest moment (excerpt):

He fucks Eddie breathless. The corset isn’t helping, the pearls like a collar around his throat. He wants Steve’s hand in his hair, wants to be fucked until it hurts, but Steve is so gentle with him. 

There are tears in Eddie’s eyes when he finally surrenders, gasps quietly into the dark and says, “Please, harder.”

Steve doesn’t get a hand into his hair, but he does splay his palm out over the curve of Eddie’s throat, just under the pearls. The hold isn’t a tight one, his fingers loose enough that Eddie could slide right out of the grip if he wanted, but Eddie sobs a little, bucking up, wanting wanting wanting—

Steve fucks him harder. 

.

“Would you like to have him first, then?” Ganondorf asks her, a low whisper in her ear, and her legs clench tight around him, making them both groan as his cock jostles between them. 

“Please,” she says, and he makes a sound like a laugh, and pulls back, away, moving them so that he’s propped up against her headboard and she’s reclined against his front, her back hot where their skin touches.

Ganondorf makes an amused sound when Link hesitates, and his hands take hold of her hips and — mortifyingly — spread her legs open.

“Do you need me to tell you where it goes?” Ganondorf asks, almost conversationally, and Link narrows his eyes. 

It’s not— there was a moment, when she was younger, when she’d thought of this. Of what would happen if she could just take what she wanted. If she could have Link on his back in the hay of the palace stable or if he’d ever bear her down into the fragrant grass of Hyrule Field.

It was a silly dream. A girl’s dream. She’d never imagined this, her husband holding her open as Link pushes into her, but perhaps that was a good thing. She’d been an excitable girl.

He makes a noise when he first pushes into her that she’ll remember forever, even if they never get to do this again — a slight hitch in his breathing, like a hiccup, then a moan so soft it’s almost a whine. They are green, untested, so very new to this. She’s wanted this for so long and so hard that it doesn't even hurt. The rhythm is rocky and awkward when they start, but Ganondorf helps them find it quickly, his hands reaching out to steady Link's hips, coaxing him into a better pace.

It is perfect, even if it wasn’t what she’d dreamed. She gets to bury her face in his neck the way she’d wanted then, gets to hitch her legs up around his hips and clench him tighter, deeper, his fingers threaded with hers.

But it is over too fast, and her eyes are wet when he goes still inside of her. It’s too much. It’s not enough. 

Ganondorf gives them a minute, lets her shake, lets Link breathe. She hadn’t expected patience from him, but then, there’s a great many things about this night that she hadn’t expected.

“Okay,” she tells him when Link is collapsed backwards beside them, watching with hazy eyes as Ganondorf turns her to face him. His cock is between them, hard against her belly, and it’s so big that for a moment, she wonders if she’s ready for it. She can feel Link’s spend licking the insides of her thighs and knows that Ganondorf can feel it too. 

She looks at Ganondorf, chin held high, and says, “I’m ready.”

He is big.

His cock inside of her is such a tight fit that her breathing goes ragged as he’s fitting it into her. She’s sweating all over and it’s so much that she worries it will break her, that she’ll never be the same again. Link had felt good inside of her, a perfect fit, no pain, just frissons of pleasure up and down her spine as he moved inside of her, but this — this is nearly too much.

“It’s okay, princess,” Ganondorf tells her, petting her back once he’s completely inside. “You did good.”

.

Against all odds, the noise is what wakes her. She would have thought— well, she would have thought that she’d have woken to other things. The gentle rocking of the bed. The weight on her hips. Rey had assumed that if anything were to wake her, it would have been that first slow press inside her — her body yielding slowly to the blunt press of him between her legs. 

However it happened, the noise is what wakes her. She surfaces slowly, first latching onto the sound of the rhythmic thumping of the headboard striking the wall over and over again before her brain wakes enough to take note of the rest of it. 

She’s warm, that’s the second thing that she notices. Most of the time, Rey wakes with her fingers and toes freezing, and she’ll have to spend the first thirty minutes of her morning huddling for warmth beneath her blankets. This morning though, she’s overly warm, her blood already running hot, her chest and belly slick with sweat.

That’s when the rest of the details come to her. The heavy breathing above her. The warm sticky skin pressed to the bare stretch of her back. The creaking of the bed. Her own shallow breathing, little noises escaping her even as her brain comes fully back online. And of course, the feeling of a cock stretching her wide. She must have been wet, she thinks hazily, still halfway between waking and dreaming. Had she been dreaming? Or had he put his mouth on her before he’d bullied his way inside? They hadn’t really discussed the mechanics beforehand, only their wants and limitations. She’d wanted this, she remembered confessing. This specific thing, mentioned in the late hours of the night, her face flushed.

But he’d done it. She hadn’t thought that he would.

She’s still sluggish, but her body is already lighting up from the touch. Already awake and responsive, even as Rey starts to slowly stretch, her toes curling against the sheets as her palms scrabble for a grip to ground her. Ben rocks into her again, a particularly deep thrust, and a noise punches out of her, shocked and urgent.

She hears a chuckle from above her, and then his mouth is dropping to press against the sharp blade of her shoulder, lips dragging indulgently across her skin.

“Good morning,” he whispers, his own voice gritty with sleep. She whines under him, her fist finally getting a hold on the sheets, and he laughs at her openly, rewarding her with a particularly ruthless grind of his hips, pressing so deep that she rocks forward into the pillows.

He works a hand into her hair, and she’s— god, it’s so much so fast that she’s actually dizzy from it, so when he drags her up to her knees, she’s reeling, wobbly like a newborn animal. Her breath catches in her throat, her stomach tensing as he slides his palm down to cradle the shallow dip of her pelvis.

She doesn’t have to enjoy it, that wasn’t part of the bargain. The deal was anytime, anywhere— within reason, of course. She’d thrilled at the idea of it, imagining him bending her over the back of the couch, over the kitchen counter, imagined crawling into his lap during one of his shitty zoom calls and having him like that, where any one of his sleazy corporate overlords could hear her panting for him if he decided to unmute them.

She hadn’t thought that this would be his first move on the chessboard, that less than 24 hours after shaking on it she would wake to him inside of her, stretching her wide, the very first thing that she’d told him she wanted.

Anything, though. And just because she hadn’t imagined this happening the morning after they discussed it does not mean that she can’t enjoy it. 

He fucks her hard and fast after that, as if her coming awake beneath him has made him desperate for it. Her scalp aches under his grip, but the pull is a good one. She’s wet and aching, his cock so good, pressing so deep— she’d forgotten what it was like, what he could be like. 

She makes a noise, something quiet and pleased, and he must like it because he moans for her, his grip turning harsher, his thrusts more punishing. She wants to ask him for it, wants to tell him harder, but he hasn’t said that she can talk yet, so she bites her lip and holds on for dear life.

He comes inside her, letting out a long and guttural groan, his hips pressed flush against hers.

She’s trembling and she doesn’t want him to pull out yet, wants to come with him still inside her, but doesn’t—

“Touch yourself,” he tells her, his voice strained, cock still buried to the hilt inside her. She lets out a breathless little sob, already reaching, and it barely takes more than the press of her thumb to her clit before she’s coming, so hard that knees go out from under her. She bites down hard on her pillow to muffle the helpless little keen that makes its way out of her. 

Crackiest moment (excerpt):

Eddie is giving him shit when it happens. It’s been a little over a half hour since Eddie turned to him, bored and pouty about it, and asked if Steve wanted to fuck him.

“Obviously,” Steve could pretend that he’d replied, because that was smooth and cool, and not the reality of the weird grunting noise that he’d made in response, as if his brain had briefly forgotten that it was human and not still ape.

Eddie had snorted, but forgiven him this, and Steve had gone to work dutifully, because the reality of getting to fuck Eddie was still new and visceral. But then here they are, well past foreplay, and Eddie is giving him shit, cracking jokes, and Steve is still somehow completely hard. Which is to say, Steve is buried all the way inside of Eddie, balls flush against his sweaty ass, and absolutely breathless with laughter, trying to muffle the sound of it into Eddie’s shoulder when Eddie throws his head back theatrically and moans, “Yes, daddy, yes. Harder, please. Yes, Steve, put a baby in me already.”

And it’s—

He’s joking. Neither of them ever get even close to brushing against their mutual daddy issues. It’s a joke, the same way that the theatrical porn star moans he’s been driving Steve crazy with for the last half hour have been a joke. The same way that his nicknames getting more and more absurd every month is a joke. 

But Steve’s breath — it catches. He’d been halfway through another shaky thrust, tears still in his eyes, and then, at Eddie’s words, his movement stutters. He doesn’t quite gasp, but his exhale comes out shaky, a nervous huff of a noise.

Eddie goes still under him. He twists, peering around his own shoulder at Steve, his eyes wide and dark. He blinks and asks, “Really?”

.

“Fuck,” Eddie says again, voice thready. Steve tugs on his hair again, just enough to hear him hiss. “Just— Christ, Steve. Fuck me, already. Fill me up, put a baby in me or whatever weird hetero bullshit your brain has a boner for, just do it.”

Steve’s breath catches, his brain abruptly knocked offline. He doesn’t— later, he’ll try to wrap his brain around why this works for him. Try to figure out whether it’s the daddy issues, the unspoken desire for a kid, or just the idea of filling Eddie up with his come, but in this moment, the only thing that he can think of is those words in Eddie’s mouth, the reality of what he’s about to do. 

Steve’s a good, smart boy. Smart about this, at least. He likes to have sex. He’s safe about having sex. Even with Nancy, he’d never—

He fucks Eddie until he’s wailing, working his way up from the slow grind. Short, slow strokes, hard and deep. Harder, a little faster. It’s so much harder to fuck Eddie right like this, but it’s so intimate, tucked so tightly together that he can’t make himself move.

“Please,” Eddie is saying, and Steve isn’t even sure if Eddie’s aware that he’s talking out loud. He’s got his head buried in his arms, his body rocking forward every time Steve fucks into him, and his voice is throaty, his body shaking with every thrust.

“Please Steve,” he gasps, breathless, sweaty. He lets out an uneven moan at Steve’s next thrust, hard and deep, just the way Eddie likes it. “Do it, just do it, pump me full of your come, do it, please.”

Favorite dialogue (excerpt):

“Good morning, Princess,” Ganondorf tells her, still smiling. “That isn’t your usual guard.”

“No,” she tells him, and leaves it at that.

He hums thoughtfully, his eyes going to the guard again, and for a moment, she thinks that he may press the matter, as if it’s any of his business where Link may be, but after another moment, he drops it, leaving it with a polite nod.

They watch the birds in silence for some time. 

Ganondorf, as it turns out, has a bag of feed with him, which he offers her when the robins have finished what's on the ground and turn to eye them expectantly.

She dips her hand into the bag, delighting in the cool press of seeds against her knuckles, and comes out with a palmful, which she gently tosses to the grateful birds. As she watches, a few more descend.

“Do you come to this spot often?” Ganondorf asks as she brushes the lingering kernels from her hands.

She looks at him, wondering if she should say. If he does mean her harm, this place that she only comes to when she means to be alone would be a delightful place for any would-be kidnapper. But, on the other hand, if he is to be her husband, he will learn soon enough.

“Yes,” she tells him, reaching to brush her knuckles across the rose nearest her, the last few drops of morning dew clinging to the downy softness of its petals. “I love this place.”

“It is lovely,” he says. “Quiet, peaceful. I was happy to find a place to myself.”

She turns to look at him, curious despite herself. “Do you have a place like it? Back home?”

Ganondorf is still watching the birds, but as she speaks, he turns to her, his expression soft. 

“I do,” he says, sounding pleased. “We have orange trees growing in what passes for our garden. They grow in a small alcove tucked away from prying eyes. There’s a fountain there. It’s peaceful.” He seems to hesitate, then adds, “They smell divine when they’re in bloom. Perhaps one day I can show you.”

“Perhaps,” she replies, for politeness sake. She is her father’s only heir. He would never let her venture out into the desert, not even if she had all the guards in Hyrule with her. 

Perhaps, she thinks, when she is queen. If her husband has not attempted a coup by then.

They have drawn an entire flock by now, not only robins, but jays and turtle doves. They bicker amongst themselves for the seed, their chatter light and easy. She only wishes that her entire day could be this quiet.

“Are you looking forward to the feast tonight?” she asks, only half listening as she watches one of the larger jays wallop one of the doves with its wing.

“I never look forward to feasts,” Ganondorf tells her gravely, which surprises her enough that she lets out a sharp bark of laughter.

When she’s done laughing, she looks at him, tears in her eyes, and confesses, “Neither do I.”

.

“Looking for your knight, princess?” Ganondorf whispers out of the corner of his mouth. He doesn’t duck his head towards her, but there’s a barely noticeable tilt to his head that means he wants to, that he wants his lips pressed right up against her ear, where he can speak truly to only her. The whisper, she thinks, will have to suffice.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she whispers back, her eyes finding Link’s even as the words leave her mouth. He is watching them, but there’s a faint crack in his mask, a flash of pain bare on his face for all of Hyrule to see before he catches her looking and schools it into careful blankness once more.

Ganondorf chuckles, a warm rumble that she can feel through her entire body, from head to toes.

“Of course, you don’t,” he tells her, something faintly mocking in his voice. It makes her hackles go up, spine straightening as she lifts her head to look at him.

He is looking down at her now, and on his lips is a smile that she hasn’t seen from him yet. It isn’t the soft private smile from this morning, nor is it the polite smile that he gives her father and the rest of court. This is a strange smile, just for her, and it appears entirely genuine. 

“Are you mocking me, sir?” she asks him.

“Perhaps,” he tells her, unexpectedly lifting her into a spin. She reels, a bit dizzy when he sets her back onto her feet. He smiles again, as if he’s laughing at her, and ducks his head to whisper in her ear, “Is it working?”

She blinks hard, finding Link over his shoulder again.

“Is what working?” she asks breathlessly.

She can feel his smile against her ear, the feel of it curving upwards. She shivers.

His lips move against her ear, his breath warm against her throat. “Am I making him jealous?”

She flinches. Not hard, but just enough to make her misstep. She corrects herself, but people have already seen.

There will be whispers. Rumors.

She huffs, and looks away from him, careful to keep her gaze away from Link.

“I told you,” she says coolly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He laughs again, but obligingly straightens, taking his mouth far out of her reach.

They dance in silence until the music stops.

Favorite lines (excerpt):

“You can, you know,” Mobius tells him, and Loki wants to ask what, wants to ask if that’s freestanding permission— to take anything he wants, anything he needs. 

“Can I?” Loki asks, his voice a rasp in the dark.

Mobius nods, his nose sliding against Loki’s. He’s holding his breath, Loki thinks, and that won’t do. Loki needs him to breathe. 

He kisses him. 

Mobius makes a thin noise, like he hadn’t really expected Loki to do it, then something heavier as his mouth slides open under Loki’s. 

Loki reaches, curling his fingers against Mobius’s cheek, pulling him closer, until they’re almost on top of one another. Loki wants— he wants a great many things. He wants to kiss Mobius until his breathing goes erratic. Wants to crawl backwards onto the desk and let Mobius have him there, just like this. Wants to touch him all over, map out every square inch of his body until Loki knows every whorl of hair, every wayward freckle.

“Mm,” Mobius hums as Loki breaks the kiss. Their lips make a wet sound as they separate. The sound of it is thrilling. It makes him want more. Mobius clearly is on the same page, his eyes flickering open slowly, watching Loki through slitted eyes. As Loki watches, he smiles and asks, “Feel better?”

He does, actually. 

The panic is ebbing, his heart regaining its normal rhythm, his vision no longer tunneling. He doesn’t feel as out of control now, like time itself is slipping away from him.

Loki licks his lips, ignoring the way that Mobius’ eyes linger on his mouth, and nods. He leans in for another kiss, this one shorter. He is very aware of the light of the loom, going ever brighter outside the window. Not long now.

“Don’t worry about it,” Mobius tells him, leaning smugly back against the computers when Loki has finished with him. He looks rumpled. His hair askew, his lips bruised. Loki wants to wreck him.

“Don’t worry about what?” Loki asks, distracted. 

Mobius jerks his head towards the loom, the timelines, the constant writhe of them against the blackness of the void. “That. Don't worry. You’ll get it right next time.”

Loki hisses, his head jerking up. He meets Mobius’ laughing eyes. Says, “When did you figure it out?”

Mobius shrugs, flashing Loki a look. “You didn’t get that good at physics overnight, Loki. Come on. How long have you been at this?”

Loki doesn’t know. Not really. He’s lost count. Lost count quickly even. “Too long.”

Mobius eyes him. He’s still reclined back against the computers, his elbows planted firmly under him, legs slightly splayed. Loki can see the length of him, hard in his slacks. It’s tempting. He is tempting. If they had more time, then maybe—

Mobius is still watching him, like he can see Loki's every thought printed out and set before him in real time. Who knows, maybe he can. 

“Next time,” Mobius tells him, like a promise. 

The light outside the window is growing brighter, the rattling of the entire structure around them getting louder.

Loki breathes. 

“You won’t remember,” Loki says, feeling a tug of… something at that. Hurt, maybe. Grief, perhaps— for this version of Mobius that his hands have touched, this version who won’t exist five minutes from now.

“Maybe not,” Mobius tells him with an unconcerned shrug. “But I can promise you I’ll be receptive.”

Loki snorts. “That sure of yourself, are you?”

Mobius’ smile goes soft, secret. A little sad around the edges.

“With you?” he says. “Always.”

.

Ganondorf is enormous, well over seven feet tall and thick with heavy, corded muscle, the bulk of him great enough that in the months prior to his arrival, the castle staff had seriously considered widening several doorways around the castle. And while she is glad to know that he is able to fit through their doorways without issue, his size is… intimidating.

His hair is swept up into a glinting gold crown, the color a deep russet red that’s several shades darker than the rest of his kin. He's bare from the waist up, his naked torso heavily adorned, golden hoops in his ear lobes, a heavy looking necklace of gold and ruby draped around his throat, intricate designs swirling down to just above his navel. Delicate chains link the neck piece to golden cuffs squeezed tight around his biceps and then, even further down, another pair of arm guards that run from forearm to wrist. There is even, she realizes, her face going red, a pair of simple golden hoops through two brown nipples. They glint back at her in the afternoon light, mocking.

Zelda, who had missed the first of the introductions during her inspection of her betrothed, blinks hard, head jerking up when she hears her own name echoing through the chamber. She turns towards her father, who is looking back at her expectantly. She has no idea what he’s said, but she can guess. 

She clears her throat, stepping forward until she is at the very edge of the dais. Her eyes find Ganondorf’s. 

His eyes are warm. Gold. There’s intelligence there – slyness and cunning, yes – but even as the force of his gaze holds her in place, she recognizes something more there. A challenge. The potential for cruelty, perhaps. It will be a game, she thinks, looking at him. He will do his duty. He will wed her and unite their peoples, even swear fealty to Hyrule. And yet, she’s somehow sure that he will spend the rest of their lives testing her, looking for cracks in her armor, waiting and watching for a chance to usurp her throne.

She watches as he goes down to one knee before her, and finds her mouth wet as he reaches for her hand, saliva pooling against her tongue. Suddenly, she is very aware of everything. Her father beside her. Link at her back. Ganondorf’s kinsman watching her with a careful blankness masking their curiosity. There are wolves in the castle and they are hungry.

“Hello, Princess Zelda,” he says, mouth quirking upwards into something that’s more smirk than smile. His voice is warm, smooth like liquid honey. 

“Ganondorf,” she makes herself say, willing her voice not to waver as she gives an estimation of a curtsy. It isn’t quite proper, but it is within the polite boundaries of etiquette. No one will be able to fuss.

His smile grows as his gaze flicks over her right shoulder, to where she knows Link is standing. She cannot allow herself to look, but she can guess that Link is likely standing there, his face carefully blank, the perfect soldier. She wonders what drew Ganondorf’s attention – a tightening of Link’s fingers around the hilt of his sword? A flicker of an expression around his mouth?

Whatever it is, Link holds Ganondorf’s attention for several long moments. Zelda can feel her hand begin to sweat against Ganondorf’s palm and longs to withdraw it. Then, Ganondorf’s smile goes a touch crooked, showing teeth, and still holding Link’s gaze, he ducks and presses his lips to her knuckles. Only then does he return his gaze to hers.

“It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Ganondorf tells her, releasing her hand at last. Zelda can feel the burn of his lips against her skin, warmth blossoming outwards, sending seeking tendrils crawling down her wrist. She has to fight the urge to hide her hand behind her skirts.

She swallows again and makes herself smile, even as a shiver runs through her. “The pleasure is all mine.”

.

A hand touches her elbow and she flinches, expecting Link, but when she turns, it’s Ganondorf. He’s looking at her seriously, his heavy brows knotted. There is no calculating or cruelty on that face, only understanding.

“Wife,” he says, and that’s a little stab of agony as well, knowing that it is done, knowing that she is as good as shackled to the man next to her. “We don’t have to do this tonight.”

Her head jerks up, mouth parting. She’d expected cruelty, she realizes, looking into his eyes. Never in her wildest imaginings had she thought that Ganondorf could be kind. 

It is a sweet offer, but a barbed one, as well. Even if she were to put the night off – how long would he wait? A week? A month? Years? What if she never wished to bed him? Would he allow that or would he go to her father and declare the marriage contract null. 

No, better to get this over with.

Zelda swallows and shakes her head. Her eyes go to Link, standing just to the left of Ganondorf. His face is like stone, still refusing to look at her. He will hold vigil, here at her door. He will… hear. She’s known that all along, but now, it’s like an arrow in her gut. She shouldn’t have kissed him. 

There’s a soft sound in the hallway, a quick inhalation, and her eyes go to Ganondorf, who is looking down at her with something like realization. A knowing. Even a soft smugness.

“Oh,” Ganondorf says, voice thick with understanding. Her heart drops as Ganondorf looks between them, face creased. “It is like that, then. I had wondered.”

Link doesn’t look up at either of them, his jaw merely tightening as he stands straight under Ganondorf’s gaze.

Ganondorf laughs, a soft thing, colored with amusement, as he leans back against the door to her rooms. Light from Zelda’s candle glints off of his crown, off of the plate of gold laid over his chest. He’s still looking between them. 

“Hm,” he says once he’s finished laughing, reaching for Zelda’s hand. She gives it to him, her heart hammering in her chest, and sucks in a quiet breath when he steps forward and gently draws her over the threshold to her rooms. He takes the candle from her, setting it into the waiting sconce, and looks back over his shoulder at Link, who is still stone-faced and silent at the door.

He quirks an eyebrow at him and says, “Well, aren’t you coming?”

Shock explodes across Link’s face, blue eyes going wide as a ruddy blush instantly colors his cheeks. His mouth drops, lips parting as a huff of surprise leaves him. He stares at Ganondorf, open-mouthed, the emotion bleeding back into him all at once. 

He glances towards Zelda, as if looking to confirm what he’d just heard.

Zelda, who finds that her mouth is also open, only shakes her head in disbelief. 

Link’s eyes go back to Ganondorf’s, only to dart away again, skittish.

Ganondorf chuckles again, stepping forward until he’s once again looming in the doorway. He cocks his head, as if curious, eyes running up and down Link’s body, heavy with intent.

“I will admit,” Ganondorf tells him, that same strange smile playing around his lips as he reaches out, brushing a wayward curl from Link’s face. “It’s been some time since I had a boy in my bed, but having the both of you won’t be such a hardship.”  

He casts a glance over his shoulder towards her even as his palm slides up to cup Link’s cheek, an almost proprietary grip, his thumb coming to rest at the corner of Link’s mouth. She’s shocked to realize that she wants to see what would happen if Link opened his mouth and sucked it in. 

Ganondorf must see something of her thoughts on her face, because he laughs again, louder, a rumble deep in his chest. 

“What do you think, princess?” Ganondorf asks, cocking his head. His smile is wide, knowing. “Would having your young knight here with us make the marriage bed more palatable?”

Fic goals:

No goals this year, I don't think. Only to write what I want to write. And as per my resolution, work on the original work as much as I can.

#heather says what #year in review #new year's memes #heather writes #2023

[truly-morgan]

[a|b|o, omega bonding]

SongXueXiao | Mo Dao Zu Shi Omegaverse AU 20-06-2021

[#songxuexiao a|b|o]

What if omega can bond too. Not in a physical way the same way they would with alpha, but some end up bonding with each other and they can feel reassured and soothed with each other (it does help when they also have the same alpha).

Now, what if Ω!xue yang and Ω!song lan end up with a bond too, despite everyone's expectation. You couldn't find two more opposite people on this earth, yet here they are, bonded and still looking ready to kill each other.

of course, not many people know it (tho α!xxc is very aware of it) and they sometimes try to coax one of them to go against the other. Of course, this never finishes well for anyone suggesting this because /how dare they/ suggest they would betray the other?

I'd see it like they accidentally create a bond between each other? and their first reaction to that is "OH hell no!!", but despite denying everything, they still go pretty well with one another anyway and refuse to let anything happen to the other (even when it is accidentally caused by xxc).

sl is probably the first one to just accept it and try to take care of xy in his own way. xy is more than averse to people being kind, so sl has to find alternative ways (xxc is impressed at how well he can deal with xy when he himself fail to do so sometimes).

neither of them is what you would expect an omega to look like. sl is tall and muscular, not very emotional nor soft, he is barely affected by alpha pheromone and /will/ kick your ass if you dare treat him lesser.

xy on the other side is a chaotic gremlin who will murder you (and don't take his threats lightly, hey are promise). He doesn't act like a meek omega and you can be sure he ain't submitting to anyone. growing up on the street and being hated by everyone make him wary of everyone, and if anyone tries to make him submit he'll just bite harder.

and this was something he never had any problem with ever before. "Ah, no one would want of me anyway, why act like a proper omega?".

but now? now he has xxc and sometimes he is struck with panic. because what if xxc and sl think he's not a good enough omega? What if he's just too much to deal with when he refuses affection sometimes? What will he do if xxc leaves him? He's fucking bonded to him now?!

and then he spirals down into doubt, making him worst than usual.

xxc can never pull him out of those doubts even when he tries to be as reassuring as he can be, it somehow makes xy more on edge.

sl ended up learning how to deal with him, trying to soothe him first as he talks softly about how they are not going to leave him, he is stuck with xxc and sl now, if xy isn't a good enough omega, then sl cannot be either.

It always takes time, but xy eventually calm down and those are the very rare moment where he willingly let sl cuddle him and let him gently bath in the reassuring scent of the other omega as (xxc always leave them to this more intimate time, knowing it wouldn't help to intervene).

I just want sl and xy to be really close to each other in a weird way, where everyone seems to think they hate each other, but in reality, they are still very important to each other and they more than once /panicked/ when the other one suddenly disappeared or got heavily injured.

Original

#tweet archive #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #songxuexiao #song lan #xue yang #xiao xingchen #omegaverse #omega song lan #omega xue yang #alpha xiao xingchen #omega bonding #mated pack

[deathbyoctopi]

for @fieri-sentio-et-excrucior

oooh!! WIP 9 is actually something I had forgotten about! Thanks for bringing it to my attention XD

iirc I wanted to write a night hunt with xue yang and xiao xingchen, they went off to investigate a fur seller whose family was haunted by a fox yao

(tbh I think this might have been the initial idea from which A Comedy of Yi City Errors sprouted, I took the concept and just... made it crack. add song lan in the mix for some fun XD

it's not very long, so I'll just put what I have so far under the cut :)

Prompt: A fur merchant needs help deal with a yao. A-Qing needs a new fur cloak for winter nights, The math is very simple, thinks Xue Yang, but Daozhang was never very good at adding up.

They were running low on wood. Xue yang noticed it, absent-mindedly, because he could see the lower cracks on the wall where they stored the logs. He hadn’t seen those until early spring last year, and they were barely in the middle of winter. That much, he was pretty sure of – last winter hadn’t been that fucking cold.

Oh, well. It was something to worry about tomorrow. A trip or two to the woods, find the driest logs and haul them back home. Now that his leg was healed, he could work much faster… Though, if he were to feel a bit under the weather -the cold did make his bones ache sometimes, particularly his hand’s- then daozhang would surely lend him a hand in the woods. In more than one way, if he played his cards right.

But for the time being, he just picked a couple logs and brought them to their little campfire before sitting in his spot, thinking of some ways to entertain himself. Next to him, a-Qing shivered. He thought of getting his knife and carving something out for her, maybe a new hairpin for the new year… but soon got distracted watching Xiao Xingchen, who was twisting and braiding twigs into a new basket. We should start selling those, thought Xue Yang. That’s the third one he’s made since the last one broke, they’re starting to pile up.

However, even working such menial tasks, Xiao Xingchen possessed an ethereal beauty that captivated him. It was the same beauty that he’d longed to ruin ever since the moment he’d laid eyes on him. That he got to ruin and defile whenever he wanted now, and in ways that didn’t leave lasting damage and actually had Xiao Xingchen beg for more.

Xue Yang knew some day he’d give the final blow, his crowning victory, and he’d get to see him crumble one last, definitive time. He certainly wanted his vengeance, but… not just yet. No need to rush. They could stay like that for a bit longer. Xiao Xingchen looking absolutely devastating, him mesmerized by the sight… and a-Qing, still shivering.

“Little Blind, if you keep trembling like that your arms will fall off” he said eventually 

 ((something something, segway))

The night is cold, and a-Qing shivers. She huddles up next to Xiao Xingchen, and Xue Yang is not one to miss such an opportunity, so he comes right along to his other side. They bicker over it (because of course they do) and she goes to sleep, with extra clothes tonight. Also a stone from the bonfire for added warmth. Xue Yang will be all the warmth Xiao Xingchen needs.

Next morning, they go to market and a-Qing pretends to bump against a fur stall. She’s in love with a white fox coat, and dares Xue Yang to get it at a discount. He says potatoes are easy, fur is fucking expensive, and it’s a wandering merchant, which means he doesn’t know him. Then she tells him to steal it (suggests, more like, and discreetly making sure Xiao Xingchen is nowhere in the vicinity), to which he asks who does she think he is. Then she threatens to cockblock him for the remainder of the winter, crying at daozhang that it’s too cold and she’d prefer to sleep with him, and see, that is effective.

Don’t you dare.

Just you watch.

Then he tries to haggle a bit, but the merchant is terribly shrewd and won’t give… (He also seems like someone who’s seen some serious shit, and therefore won’t be easily intimidated. At this point, Xue Yang is already thinking of murdering him on his way out of town and hiding his body in the forest, though he’ll have to find a convincing excuse for a-Qing’s and his own, and daozhang’s new set of furs. He’ll shower him with bloody presents!) Until he sees Xiao Xingchen, and he changes his tune immediately.

Merchant has a yao-related problem, it seems! And needs help, which he can’t find around because of the fucking sects being away, uncaring and fucking expensive. His house is two days away from here, but he’ll make it worth their while. With the fur coat, probably.

[marquisguyun]

mdzs/cql ask meme: 1, 2, 6, 12, 25 :)))

1. which adaptations have you seen/watched? which one do you like best and why?

I’ve watched both the donghua and CQL (and read the book and some of the manhua). I’m not sure if I have a definitive answer to which visual adaptation is better? The donghua is gorgeous, especially all the demonic cultivation in the third season (plus it was my first mdzs adaptation, my first danmei of any kind actually). I do really enjoy CQL tho, and there are things I like and dislike about both adaptations. That answer is a total cop out but it’s also the truth 😂

2. top 5 favorite characters? what specifically do you like about each one?

Okay so I thought I had this, no problem, and then I counted again and realized I had six characters lmao... I’m not doing this in order bc that’s too many decisions to deal with

1. Wei Wuxian - What can I say, I love a tragic hero! I am intrigued by how smart he is (inventing demonic cultivation, lure flags, etc) but also how he makes mistakes and does some really fucked up stuff even tho he has good intentions. A great complex character!

2. Lan Wangji - I mean who doesn't like Hanguang-jun? He's a badass and a romantic, plus he's stubborn as shit. I really appreciate his relationships with the juniors. I also think his whole teenage angst about liking wwx is fantastic, and also him being super horny and dominant... I am a fan of novel dynamics for wangxian's sex life lol

3. Xue Yang & Xiao Xingchen - I am a slut for a good tragedy and for messed up characters! Plus I love identity porn. Yi City and XueXiao were basically tailored to my personal taste.

4. Lan Sizhui - He's just a good boy! And I like the added complexity of his identity.

5. Jiang Cheng - Honestly it took me a little while to latch onto him as hard, but he grew on me steadily. I originally mostly thought about him in relation to WWX, but damn he's been through a lot! Raising his nephew and running his sect on his own after he's lost everything? Really fucking sad and angry about it? That's good shit!

Also want to note that I like all of these characters in all adaptations, but their actors all did a fantastic job in cql and really added to my love for the characters, especially Wang Haoxuan as Xue Yang and Wang Zuocheng as Jiang Cheng!

6. unpopular opinions?

1. I don’t hate Jiang Cheng or Lan Qiren? those can be pretty unpopular opinions

2. I’m a white American and my reading of danmei is definitely colored by my different experiences/worldview... I try to be aware of that as much as I can be and to read meta by Chinese disaspora (EDIT: I wrote this like a year ago and idk where I was going with this, but I think I was trying to say something about how I try to make sure my opinions aren't culturally insensitive? Bc some of the takes you see definitely are)

12. do you like any other of mxtx's works? is mdzs your first of hers or did you watch/read the others first?

It’s less obvious on tumblr bc there’s less content I come across compared to twt but your girl is a Scum Villain main lmao (EDIT: That was written a year ago when I started answering this ask. One of the advantages to twt's whole mess is that there's more scum villain content on tumblr now!!)

That said, I have read all three MXTX novels, watched all three donghuas, watched CQL, and read at least part of all three manhuas (rip sv manhua)

my order of watching/reading (with some overlap) was something like: watched mdzs donghua s1-2 >>> read mdzs novel >>> watched cql >>> started scumbag system >>> started heaven official’s blessing donghua >>> read scum villain >>> read what little there is of the sv manhua >>> waited several months?? and then read tgcf >>> dabbled with mdzs and tgcf manhuas >>> watched mdzs donghua s3

25. queer headcanons? 

- I definitely see Wei Wuxian as bi, altho I can understand reading him as a gay man who isn’t actually attracted at all to the women he flirts with - On the other hand, 90% of the time I see Lan Wangji as gay. The other 10% is me going “but what if Wei Ying was a girl tho”

I don’t think I have a lot of definitive non canon queer headcanons for mdzs honestly? There are definitely ones I enjoy and ones I don’t really see, but a lot of times I’m just happy to be taken along for the ride of other people’s headcanons for a fic or meta. Here are a few I’ve enjoyed:

- Asexual Jiang Cheng - Bisexual Jiang Fengmian (in love with Wei Changze) - Trans headcanons/AUs for various characters

#mdzs+ #mdzs #cql #clearing out the old drafts #besides the notes i added really the only thing that still needed done was why i liked the characters #apparently i was too lazy to finish that a year ago

[sorrowschengmei]

ageplay

yes i have a LOT of thoughts about littlespace!Xue Yang lol

i imagine he would be VERY enthusiastic about being a little with the right caregiver, even if they were doing it in an intuitive way w/o knowing of ageplay, let's say in their canon setting

his 'caregiver' could just be cuddling with him and decide to do stuff to him one would do to a child like pinching his nose or cheeks, tickling, giving gentle kisses on the cheeks or forehead... he'd be like 'lol wtf' but it would FEEL so good he wouldn't resist

i can imagine it could turn even a bit addictive like. him purposefully seeking his bf/'caregiver' and demanding him to spend some time just being silly together away from the sight of everyone. absolutely NO sex, just play and care.

pictured: probably a common sight of Xue Yang in his littlespace 🙈🙈

plus this very cute and innocent smile. probably when the caregiver already spent all his energy [and he has a LOT] and he's too tired to play, so he just keeps looking at the caregiver in a blissful state, panting, probably a couple of minutes away from falling asleep

okay more thoughts on this 

-little!Xue Yang is a very BITEY BITEY thing and he tends to bite when he doesn't get what he want [usually sweets]. his caregiver gets him a binky or the period equivalent of a teething toy 

-he misbehaves a lot and enjoys being 'punished' like getting tickled, getting a blanket thrown over him while he's on the bed [making him a bit disoriented and trying to dig his way out], if there's a strong enough caregiver or a fierce corpse being held upside down by his ankles. it's all play, it doesn't hurt or scare him

-YangYang is clingy af and if you try to leave before he's done with you he grabs you by the waist or climbs your shoulders so you can't move 😂

-he finds it specially soothing being tucked in and put to sleep. to fall asleep knowing someone he trusts is around...😭

-if he has space enough, he really likes to run. just run. he doesn't like too much if you try to catch him--he's had enough of being persecuted for a lifetime 

-he doesn't like playing with toys too much. if you give him some he'll play a little and then just destroy them lol

-actually he LIKES toys... but 'girl' toys? he likes to set up a fake table and invite people to 'dine' with him. he enjoys the whole process of tidying up his 'home' and receiving visitors. he'll serve real food for him, and dirt for you. maybe bc he never had food or a home :’’’)

-i do believe there's a chance he'd enjoy pretending to be a girl sometimes during his play. not bc of any hidden desire or anything, just bc... curiosity. its probably not something he could even think about experimenting bc of strict gender roles yadda yadda

-bonus: 'she' stages a fake wedding to the caregiver, everything very formal, everyone using courtesy names and doing formal greetings. nothing sexual, just a queer street kid acting on his desire of having been born in the upper classes and finding love    😭 

honestly its all about letting someone who suffered a fucking lot his entire life pretend, enact and externalise things he craved when he was a child but couldn't even dream of having: a family, food, a home, freedom to just be silly w/o dealing with gruesome consequences 😭

#xue yang #xue chengmei #the untamed #Sorrowful Thoughts

[sunriseverse]

constant war in my head between wishing someone had actually helped xue yang work through his trauma vs. just straight up liking that he is fucked up and evil and monstrous

oh literally same on the one hand i’m like. oh god chengmei my love you’re so fucked up please can i pluck you out of your universe and stick you in therapy or at least invent someone to save you from the literal horrors of your childhood and help you deal with the issues you have so you can try and process things and become a decently-adjusted adult and be happy. and the other part of me is like [watching him cut out sl’s tongue] go girl!!!!!! be evil!!!!!!! fuck them up!!!!!!!! you deserve to be your best self!!!!!!! red is in!!!!!!!! hell yeah murder and viscera and war crimes!!!!!!

(also i feel like so often as xy fans we often are told we need to “justify” why we like him??? which. no thanks. pass. he’s fucked up and i enjoy that. this is fiction i’m here for what’s interesting not what’s, like, morally correct, you know.)

(also also i feel like people who do try and justify him……..miss or erase a large part of the nuances of his character? like. he can be someone who is funny and charismatic and smart and someone who’s done incredibly fucked up things and hurt people and not felt remorse for it. he’s human and messy and that’s 90% of the appeal.)

#the other 10% is my staunch insistence on reading him as bipolar but that’s a me problem #ask #slowly SLOWLY getting through these. thank you anon for you thoughts #c.txt #yi city anon

[inexchangeforyoursoul]

Whoops I forgot to post, save organize these, so the blogging will be a mess/// one volume at a time though, one at a time

SO ANYWAY, second one.

Bring tissues and something to lower blood pressure because some parts will have the goo in your vessels boiling and not everyone gets their just desserts - yet.

One thing to point out in general is that this volume is very flashback heavy and all of these are depressing, really. The order of things is basically as follows: crying, laughing, gay, mission impossible, intermission, well shit, angry, and crying. Has a snot framing, if you like.

I'd say it's a solid 8.0 as the three flashbacks come with a windfall of flavor text, though this is also the reason they are enjoyable short stories of their own. I wasn’t all that into the middle one, though. Maybe obecause of its fragmented structure. Oh, and gay rating is 5 bc there's like one kith but then not really. It's the only real breather in the whole shebang so savor it.

So, quick characters update. But mostly for the supporting cast because Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are doing their usual shenanigans and gay panic until the last chapter. All in all, Wei Wuxian is hella embarrassed about tween him and slowly he's beginning his own gay panic. It's funny. Also it turns out he semi-accidentally started a revolution. As he would… and as he should. He’s also a very good teacher, I really respect that.

The first person, or rather group I’d like to talk about is the Xiao gang,,, A-Qing is among the bravest people around and I hope her and Xiao will be okay, although I'm not worried because they are in good hands. Ohana means family, and family means no one gets left behind. That's all. (Fuck, I'm crying again,,,, moving swiftly along,)

(theirs is the best flashback imo)

Xue Yang gives me like,,, especially warped Toga Himiko vibes if you know what I mean. At one point, he has no way to get the “candy” he so desperately wants and the realization is where he really goes crazy, obsessed with that victim to the point of mimicking him as best as he can. Whether it's for revenge still, or a way to make the victim out to be something he wanted him to be, OR even vica versa, envying what the other had and wanting to become more like the other(s), is left hanging in the air. He’s probably doing his own weird roleplaying gig out here in his personal shrek swamp and has long lost contact with the outside world.

He definitely deserves what he has coming, but with the little additional things sprinkled in, it is still just… sad and regrettable. I think we'll hear from him in the future, one way or another(TM).

Jin Ling is even younger than I thought?? (Fifteen instead of seventeen, dude. Fifteen. You have no business running off alone, kiddo.) and has never ceased worrying me. He's confused and angry and I don't blame him for what's happened.

Speaking of Jin Ling, the thing I want to keep him away from the most is his uncle. The other one. As in, the other one who is officially his uncle. That guy is a deranged control freak and it's definitely in him to either kill the kid himself or have someone else do it for him. Or trick them into doing it. Someone else I'm not gonna name again had to learn the nuances of these things somewhere. I hope this mofo will be the first real victim to Jin Ling's new trick, hell, I want it to be the thing to tip the scales. After all, he isn't supposed to know that.

I'm glad the Lan boys are not around to see this shitstorm. They've had enough to deal with for the time being.

I really like Wen Ning, hope he becomes permanent comic relief. Mainly because as of right now, I desperately need either that or some soft bonding time. Him and Wei Wuxian seem like the best of friends and it warms my torn little heart. I'm also wondering how they met because the Wen name certainly does not scream friendly or nice, but he sure seems to be. I imagine him having, like, the softest voice for some reason...

Anyhow, later the Wen duches do pop out of the woodworks and yeah they definitely are no good news, hell, along with uncle, they are the most despicable kind of people up till now. The reason is as simple as posing as heroes when they are actually unabashed villains

I will also disclose my opinion that young Mo Xuanyu may have been a victim of something other than just getting outed and promptly ostracized. He either made a mistake to get mad or got the pointy end of something to “help” him there. Explains it more than anything else.

Anyway, cat's out of the bag and we are kinda on the run now.

#Kate reads

[veilchenjaeger]

In the scene where Song Lan decides to fight Xue Yang instead of talking to Xiao Xingchen - what the fuck was Song Lan's plan there?

I get the initial decision! It pains me that I can't check back with the novel rn, but wasn't it text that Song Lan wants Xiao Xingchen to never, ever find out about his friend being Xue Yang? So Xue Yang has to die first, then everything else can be dealt with. (Other reasons might have played into the decision, of course.)

But, like. How was Song Lan going to deal with that? What was his plan? Just not saying anything and letting Xiao Xingchen believe that his friend just left - thus breaking Xiao Xingchen's heart? Making up a story about how Xiao Xingchen's friend died - thus, again, breaking Xiao Xingchen's heart? Everything is better than Xiao Xingchen's friend being Xue Yang, of course, but could he have kept that from him forever? A-Qing was there, too! Song Lan could have talked to her and made her an accomplice, but all this secrecy just sounds like a recipe for postponed disaster!

And even if he had been planning to mention the Xue Yang thing, what would that have looked like? "I'm sorry. It wasn't your fault. I didn't mean what I said back then. By the way, the friend you lived with for three years was Xue Yang, but don't worry, I killed him already"??? You'd get the worst of both worlds like that! Song Zichen, what the fuck were you thinking?

The answer is probably that Song Lan didn't think all that much in that moment, but I now kind of want a fic that deals with the inevitable fallout of Song Lan both killing Xue Yang and desperately trying to avoid telling Xiao Xingchen that he killed Xue Yang.

#the untamed #song lan #xiao xingchen #songxiao #[talk less smile more] #/a-qing (a gremlin): what're you gonna do now? what's the plan? #/song lan (the most prim and proper person you'll ever meet after the twin jades of lan): I DON'T HAVE A PLAN #/zichen i love you <3 #/this au would be improved significantly if xue yang's ghost started haunting song lan #/xue yang: hey. daozhang's silently weeping over the loss of his friend again. this is the third time today. when are u gonna tell him? #/song lan: go away. #/xue yang: exorcise me then #/song lan (eaten by guilt): no

[veliseraptor]

flying across the country later this week so as usual it's time for a 150 WORDS MEME!!! send me a number (or up to three) and I'll write 150 words in that wip. annnnd go, excerpts under the cut (and you can find summaries for the fics here)

1. “I didn’t ask this of you!” Xingchen said. “That you would - sully your hands with demonic cultivation, bring back the person you hate most in the world, for my sake–” 

“You never got that you were the only one who really mattered, Daozhang,” said an all-too familiar voice behind him. Song Lan’s entire body seized up and he twisted around to see Xue Yang perched on the windowsill, his eyes fixed on Xingchen like there was nobody else in the room – in the world, maybe. Song Lan’s blood turned to ice. Xingchen’s mouth opened, his head lifting, but Song Lan couldn’t decipher the expression on his face.

“Xue Yang,” he said, his voice a trembling whisper. Xue Yang’s face broke into a smile, his eyes feverishly bright.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s me.” (Life After Death)

2. “So,” he said, and then realized he didn’t really know what to say next. Xue Yang watched him with a look of wide-eyed innocence that said he knew Xiao Xingchen was struggling and wasn’t going to help him. A spark of annoyance had Xiao Xingchen pressing his lips together.

“So what do you do when you’re not…”

“Getting scraped off the road by nice boys?” Xue Yang said with a crooked smile, and Xiao Xingchen’s face heated up a little.

“I assume that’s not how you spend most of your time.”

“Not usually, no,” Xue Yang said. “Maybe I should try it more often, though.” (Redux)

3. By the time they pulled up to the house Pete and Macau had apparently picked out, Vegas was exhausted, despite the fact that all he’d done was sit in a car for a half an hour. That was bad enough, but then the walk up a short flight of stairs to the front door left him out of breath and a little dizzy. He ended up leaning on Pete, the burning in his chest not just from what apparently counted as exertion now. 

“Fuck,” he said under his breath. “Fuck. Are you fucking kidding me?”

“It’s okay,” Pete said soothingly. “The doctor said you’d get tired–”

“I know what the doctor fucking said,” Vegas snapped at him. “I didn’t think that meant ten stairs would be a problem.” His heart was beating very hard. What was he supposed to do? If riding in a car and a few stairs wiped him out like this–

Useless. Worthless. Pathetic. (post-canon vegaspete long(er) fic)

4. “Pete said the shootout happened around noon,” Vegas said. “By the time you told me, it’d been hours.” 

Porsche wasn’t very good at hiding his emotions, so his discomfort was obvious. “Well,” he said, “there was a lot going on, and–” 

“Don’t bullshit me, Porsche,” Vegas growled, interrupting. “You held off telling me what happened on purpose. Was that your idea or somebody else’s?” 

The fact that Porsche didn’t look happy just made Vegas angrier right now. If he at least had the grace to be smug and shitty about it then that would be something Vegas knew how to take, and how to deal with. (Undercut)

5. He realized that for all Xue Yang’s vicious words, he had never spoken in any detail of that time. There was his mention of a garden, his assertion that Xingchen had been happy, and that one brief goading allusion to a relationship that he didn’t want to acknowledge. Other than that…nothing. It would, he thought, be an easy weapon for Xue Yang to use against him, to rub Song Lan’s face in the knowledge of their – friendship, however false it had been. 

And yet there was silence there. That’s not yours, Xue Yang said, like memories were something he could hoard, possess, like a stolen sword or – or a piece of candy. (Walking Far From Home)

6. Nai had a strange look on his face, vaguely distressed but also like he was thinking very hard. “What was his name?”

Wolfwood opened his mouth on a lie but found himself saying, ���Vash.” He filled his lungs with smoke and held his breath for a little while before letting it out, watching Nai closely. His expression looked like he was trying to remember something, and a chill went down Wolfwood’s spine. What happened if the old Knives suddenly just…woke up, like this, got all his memories back and…what would he do? What would he be able to do? 

But then Nai shook himself and squeezed his eyes closed. “Vash,” he said again, out loud. “And you’re Nicholas D. Wolfwood.” The way he said it was so careful and serious that it was hard not to crack a grin. This was all still too weird to actually follow through with it, though.

“Wolfwood works,” he said. 

“Why not Nicholas?” Nai asked, apparently genuinely curious. “Doesn’t sound as cool,” Wolfwood said, improvising instead of saying well for one thing it’d be really fucking weird for you specifically to call me that. If baby Knives got to calling him Nico that’d be it. (The Second Coming)

7. “Pain makes you snide,” Gabriel said. “But I would rather you not strain yourself anyways, my dear.” There was a towel over his arm and he carried a bowl and a pitcher of water. “Are you hungry?” 

Lymond’s eyes tracked his every movement, a falcon observing an eagle. “That depends. What price sustenance?” 

“No price,” Gabriel said. “And I shall take that for answer.” He shook his golden head. “I wish you would not insist on thinking so poorly of me when I simply seek to care for you in your time of need.” 

“Simply that,” Lymond said. “I see. And should I decline your gracious offer?” 

“I fear I cannot oblige,” Gabriel said. “How could I permit your self-destruction when I can prevent it?” 

“Quite easily, I should think,” Lymond said. (et ipsi sunt jacula)

8. “A month,” Xue Yang said. “You’ve got a month to impress me. I’ll leave your baby brother alone and you get to see him, once, before that time’s up. And you tell me everything. If I think you’re holding anything back I’ll have a fierce corpse tear you apart. Maybe it’ll even be your a-Ning.” His grin was full of teeth. “And if it works out then maybe we can keep it going. How’s that, Wen-daifu?”

“I don’t imagine I’m going to get anything better,” she said flatly.

“You won’t.” Xue Yang cracked his neck to one side and stretched his arms overhead. “All right, then. So what d’you have for me?”

Wen Qing kept herself from exhaling in relief. A terrible relief: it was a poisoned bargain, a pathetic shield, and right now all she had. Maybe by then…maybe by then things would be different. Jin Guangyao had said…

She couldn’t trust anyone’s word. Not here. 

Except, funnily enough, she thought she could trust Xue Yang’s. Whatever else he was, there was a strange kind of honesty in him. She didn’t doubt he could kill her without blinking and never think twice about it. But she thought he’d keep his promises. (fall apart, destroy, release)

9. Liu Mingyan was a problem. 

If she had to be fair (though Sha Hualing was not generally interested in being fair), she was less annoying than her brother, but that was setting a remarkably high bar, and she was more annoying to Sha Hualing specifically. As far as Sha Hualing could tell, Mingyan-guniang had made it her business to interfere with Sha Hualing’s business at every possible opportunity. Sometimes it seemed like she couldn’t turn around in the Human Realm without running into her, even when Sha Hualing wasn’t doing anything wrong. Or hadn’t done anything yet, anyway. 

Or at least hadn’t done anything Liu Mingyan could possibly know about. (under pressure)

10. “Don’t suppose you’d take these off now,” Xue Yang said, holding out his arms. “Seeing as we’ve got a common enemy.”

“No,” Song Lan said flatly. Xue Yang turned his eyes hopefully on Xiao Xingchen, who seemed like he might be a softer touch, but he seemed to be busy cleaning out the shallow wound that’d sliced open Song Lan’s left arm. Xue Yang suppressed his prickle of annoyance and held onto his smile.

“Really? I’m not your biggest problem anymore, Song-daozhang.”

“You’re still a problem,” Song Lan said. Xiao Xingchen raised his eyes briefly from Song Lan’s arm to his face, and then glanced toward Xue Yang. Xue Yang held in the urge to show his teeth, but Xiao Xingchen just turned his eyes back to the wound he was tending anyway. “Freeing you would make you a worse one. Turning the wolf loose when there’s a tiger hunting doesn’t give the hare a better chance.”

“Does that make you two rabbits?” Xue Yang said. (strangers once united)

11. “Why won’t it work, you mean?” Xue Yang said, and laughed. “I can’t tell you all my secrets, Zichen.” 

Don’t call me that, Song Lan almost wrote, but he stopped himself. There was almost certainly no better way to ensure that Xue Yang called him nothing else. Instead he wrote, I would expect you to want to brag.

“Ha,” Xue Yang said. “What would be the point? It’s not like you’d be impressed. And you already know how good I am. Was.” His smile fell away a little, momentarily, and for a split second Song Lan saw him as he’d truly been when he died, hollowed out and exhausted, bloody and beaten even before Song Lan slid Fuxue between his ribs. “You are how good I was. My greatest creation. Even more than the Yin Tiger Seal. I just remade that, after all, but you were all mine.” 

Song Lan couldn’t actually vomit but the nausea was still overpowering. He gritted his teeth, controlling himself through the waves of hatred and disgust that rolled through him. (the poison in your bones)

12. “What is it?” Anders asked. “You’re upset.” 

Fenris bit his tongue on his first response and instead said, “I think you can agree that it hasn’t been a particularly good day.”

“Oh,” Anders said. “Yeah. I guess that’s true.” He paused. “Wait. Where’d all the Templars go?”

“To the Maker’s embrace, I suppose,” Fenris said. 

“They’re dead?” Pause, then, sounding a little disconcerted, “did I kill them?” 

“No, mage,” Fenris said, his patience running even shorter. “I killed them. Now shut up.”  If Anders were just a little shorter he would throw him over his shoulder. If he wanted to risk a brain injury that would incapacitate him even longer Fenris would knock him unconscious. Unfortunately, neither option was viable. 

“Oh,” Anders said. But thankfully, for once, he listened.

Or, as it turned out when Fenris turned his head to look at him, he’d just passed out again. (the best all lack conviction)

#fic excerpt #150 words meme #confessions of a frustrated writer

[thebiscuiteternal]

Ahahaha, after telling Nonnie I was gonna post this, I completely forgot to actually post this and just left it sitting in drafts. Whoopsie. So! More little snippets and such from my twitter.

- Everybody mocks the sect descended from butchers until a boar demon the size of a city grain warehouse goes down and nobody else can deal with the carcass because it’s just too fucking big. By the time the thing has been taken apart and properly dispersed, the entire jianghu has had an Awakening to the fact that Some People (even the small cute one) are at their hottest when mostly covered in demon blood.

- Bitty!Huaisang tags along with his brother on some sect business to Yueyang and while he and his minder are eating lunch in the markets, he notices a street kid staring at the food like a starving wolf. Without thinking, he puts a plate of duck buns in easy reach and watches it and the kid vanish. By the end of the day, he’s practically forgotten about the whole thing, distracted by other stuff. But even more bitty!Xue Yang has just found himself a mark.

- Thinking about Nie Bros and how Huaisang decided early on that annoyance and exasperation were better than condescending pity and started playing up his lazy behavior to cover for his body’s failure to keep up and how Mingjue knows this, but has to make himself believe that Huaisang could do better if he actually tried, because otherwise he would constantly be swamped with guilt over the fact that he will inevitably be leaving his sickly brother to handle the sect.

- AND ON THAT NOTE, thinking about the fact that for all Huaisang is considered a pathetic cultivator, literally none of the adaptations have him “showing his age” more than cultivators who are supposed to be leagues more powerful than him, and even the novel just describes him as being pretty. Therefore, thinking of the possibility that all his desperate efforts to find Da-ge’s missing body pieces and/or soul wound up strengthening his golden core considerably (and he was Not Happy when he realized this) but no one noticed because he was that effective at keeping up the hapless idiot act.

- Rule 63!Huaisang where literally none of the Nie family dynamics have changed and everyone else is very ????? about it. Some Rando: “Shouldn’t your brother be getting you married instead of throwing a saber at you?” Huaisang: “Have you met my sect?”

- Nie-er-furen and Lan-furen were both yao, but Mama Nie was a cat and Mama Lan was a rabbit. Therefore, when the older brothers tried to introduce Nie Huaisang and Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan’s new instincts went “Predator!” and that is why Nie Huaisang has bite scars.

- Mo Xuanyu escaping Koi Tower and going to live with the (extremely grudgingly acknowledged) Yiling Wei sect, featuring Wei Wuxian being an absolute gremlin about his disciple’s crush on Nie Huaisang while still oblivious/in denial to Lan Wangji’s crush on him. WWX: “Follow your dreams and get your man!” MXY: “...Okay. So when are you gonna take your own advice and let Hanguang-jun court you?” WWX: “Haha, what? That’d never happen, Lan Zhan likes girls.” MXY (to NHS later): “So my sect leader might actually be an idiot.”

- Wei Wuxian in a Number Five situation. Fucks up an experimental talisman and winds up chucked  into an apocalyptic future (maybe even one demonic cultivation caused?) and is trapped there for decades before being slung back into his "just started raising corpses" age. Bonus points if it is a zombie apocalypse, but he doesn’t realize it because what evidence he was able to find pointed to the Sunshot Campaign having lost, so when he gets back to his present time, he starts working even harder at building up enough of an army to fight the Wens...

- So my personal headacanon is already that all of Jin Guangshan’s kids look more like their mothers than him because he doesn’t deserve anything good. But. Imagine the emotional/social fuckery if every single one of his bastards had at least some of his features, while Jin Zixuan is a male carbon copy of Jin-furen.

- The assumption that the original soul would be obliterated during the body sacrifice ritual was just that: an assumption. Wei Wuxian doesn't realize this until the first sect conference after Guanyin Temple when he sees his own reflection glare at him and then wrap the exhausted-looking reflection of Nie Huaisang into a reassuring embrace as the man discusses something or other with a minor sect leader.

aaaand everything else I was thinking about pulling over would be long enough for their own “Things I will probably never write” posts, so that’s all for this go round!

#mdzs #nie huaisang #nie mingjue #wei wuxian #mo xuanyu #lan wangji #ideas

[ibijau]

Writing prompt: Role reversal AU where Nie Huaisang is the one who discovers demonic cultivation. Wei Wuxian becomes his first and closest disciple, but Xue Yang isn't really making things easy for either of their reputations. And when Nie Minjue dies... well, desperate times call for desperate measures. After all, if Wen Ning could be brought back to life, then why not Nie Minjue?

What could possibly go wrong?

Oh, only absolutely everything.

“I’m just saying the option is there,” Wei Wuxian said while tinkering on… something.

For his own sanity, Nie Huaisang had learned not to be too curious.

“We’re not bringing my brother back as a fierce corpse, Wei Ying,” Nie Huaisang slowly replied, pinching the bridge of his nose. He felt as if he might start crying again. He’d been crying all week, and he’d had a massive headache for most of that time.

Then again, headaches were just a normal part of his day lately, due to the company he kept.

“I think it’d be fun to try!” said Xue Yang, the second and biggest cause of his headaches. Then, catching Wei Wuxian’s eye, Xue Yang backpedalled a bit. “I mean I think it would be… scientific to try?”

“You can’t always replace ‘fun’ with ‘scientific’ to make yourself sound less creepy,” Wei Wuxian said, as if Xue Yang hadn’t picked the habit from him. “Though I think it would be pretty scientific. And also our Huaisang has been missing his da-ge. And with a really strong fierce corpse at our side, we’ll finally be safe! No offence, Wen Ning.”

“None taken,” Wen Ning mumbled, who was currently helping Wei Wuxian with his tinkering.

Nie Huaisang couldn’t resist a glimpse, saw a lot of moving viscera and talismans, and quickly looked away. He didn’t mind corpses, he could deal with blood, chunks of flesh, or bones scattered around, but for some reason Nie Huaisang remained squeamish about the sight of most organs. Those were meant to stay inside.

“If I had family,” Xue Yang said, “and if they died, I’d want to raise them back to life.”

“If you had a family and it died,” Nie Huaisang snapped, “it would be because you killed them.”

“Yeah, but I’d still want them back.”

“I’d want that too,” Wei Wuxian claimed. “Remember when shijie got wounded? I’d have done it if needed.”

Nie Huaisang’s headache increased. He needed water. Or wine. Wine was more tempting, because while it would give him a worse headache later, with enough of it he might pass out now.

“You would not have brought your sister back as a fierce corpse,” Nie Huaisang said, “because Jiang Cheng would have fucking murdered all of us for that, including A-Yuan, which is bad, and me, which is worse. And I am not bringing my brother back, because we would not be able to control him. I mean, Wen Ning was already a crazed monster that tried to kill us all… no offence, Wen Ning.”

“None taken.”

“And that was with him being a very weak and inexperienced cultivator when he was alive. Still no offence.”

“It’s fine.”

“If we bring back my brother, how are we going to control him? We’ve never dealt with a person that powerful!”

“Well, if Wen Ning helps us tie him up…”

“Da-ge would tear him apart limb by limb in the blink of an eye. He could have done it even when he was alive. No offence, Wen Ning.”

“You know what, I think I’m starting to be a little offended now.”

“My point is,” Nie Huaisang said, raising his hand to order silence, “that we are not bringing my brother back. Unlike you people, I have a sane and healthy attitude towards death. Just because I use corpses and ghosts doesn’t mean I can’t accept the fact that my loved one will someday be lost to me. I have that emotional maturity. I know how to let go.”

“If you brought him back,” Xue Yang pointed out, “maybe you’d get a hug. Don’t you miss that?”

“Fuck you,” Nie Huaisang informed him, before breaking into tears and storming out of the cave.

-

It still pissed off Nie Huaisang that he’d agreed to this, but the perspective of another hug from his brother after years of separation had gotten to him. So they’d made their way to Nie Mingjue’s grave, keeping out of view, avoiding every system in place to alert Qinghe Nie of intruders. Nie Huaisang, of course, had cried at the sight of his brother’s name engraved on a tombstone, but the other three hardly said anything.

Well, Xue Yang tried to mock him for it, until Wen Ning grabbed him and placed a hand on his mouth to silence him.

Bless Wen Ning, Nie Huaisang thought. That boy needed a raise. Or maybe he needed to be paid at all.

Eventually, Nie Huaisang got a grip of himself, and set to work. It wasn’t his first grave-robbing, far from it, and his friends had just as much experience. But none of them were used to doing it without just destroying everything that stood between them and the corpse of their dream, so that took a while.

The grave, when they opened it, was empty.

“Oh,” Nie Huaisang said. “Ok now I really want to bring him back.”

#nie huaisang #wei wuxian #xue yang #wen ning #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #jau writes #oops it's a short one

[pumpkinpaix]

Pleeeeeeease get into the class one at some point because I very much want to understand the class dynamics happening in the story but I have yet to find a meta that dives into it

god anon you want me dead don’t you alsjdfljks

referring to this post

okay, so -- my specific salt about class interpretations in mdzs are very targeted. I can’t pretend to have a deep understanding of how class works in mdzs generally because uhhhhh yeah i don’t think i have that. i’m just not familiar enough with the genre and/or the particulars of chinese class systems. but! i can talk in general terms as to why I feel a certain way about the class dynamics that I do think I understand and how I think they relate to the themes of the novel! i’m gonna talk about wei wuxian, the daozhangs, xue yang, and 3zun with, I’m sure, a bunch of digressions along the way.

the usual disclaimers: i do not think you are a bad person if you hold opinions contrary to my own. i may disagree with you very strongly, but like. this isn’t a moral judgment, fandom is transformative and interpretive etc. etc. and i may change my mind. who knows what the future will bring!

OKAY so let’s begin!

here’s the thing about wei wuxian: he’s not poor. I think because characters use “son of a servant” kind of often when they’re trying to insult him, a lot of people latch onto that and think that it’s a much stronger indication of his societal status than it actually is. iirc, most of the insults that fall along the “son of a servant” line come after wei wuxian starts breaking severely from tradition. it’s a convenient thing to attack him for, but doesn’t actually indicate anything about his wealth. (exception: yu ziyuan, but that’s a personal familial issue) this is in direct contrast to jin guangyao who is constantly mocked for his family line, publicly and privately, no matter what he does.

so this, coupled with all the jokes about wwx never having any money (wei wuqian, sizhui’s “i’ve long since known you had no money” etc.), plus his like, rough years on the street as a child ends up producing this interpretation of wei wuxian, especially in modern aus, as someone who is very class conscious and “eat the rich”. but the fact of the matter is, wei wuxian IS rich. aside from the years in his childhood and the last two years of his life in yiling, like -- wei wuxian had money and status. he is gentry. he is respected as gentry. he is treated as a son by the sect leader of yunmeng jiang -- he does not have the jiang name, but it is so very clear that jiang fengmian favors him. wei wuxian is ranked fourth of all the eligible young masters in the cultivation world -- that is not a ranking he could have attained without being accepted into the upper class.

wei wuxian’s poverty does not affect him in the way that it affects jin guangyao or xue yang. he is of low-ish birth (still the son of jiang fengmian’s right hand man though! ok sure, “son of a servant” but like. >_> whatever anyways), but for most of his life he had money. he, jiang cheng, and their sect brothers go into town and steal lotus pods with the understanding that “jiang-shushu will pay for it”. this is a regular thing! that’s fucking rich kid behavior!!! wei wuxian is careless with money because he doesn’t have to worry about it. he still has almost all the benefits of being upper class: education, food security, respect, recognition etc. I think there may also be a misconception that wei wuxian was always on the verge of being kicked out by yu ziyuan, or that he was constantly walking on eggshells around her for fear of being disowned, but that is just textually untrue. i could provide receipts, but I admittedly don’t really feel like digging them up just now ;;

even in his last years in yiling, he was not the one who was dealing with the acute knowledge of poverty: wen qing is the one managing the money, and as far as we know, wei wuxian did little to no management of daily life during the burial mounds days -- mostly, he’s described as hiding in his cave for days on end, working on his inventions, running around like a force of chaos, frivolously making a mess of things -- it’s very very cute that he buries a’yuan in the dirt, but in classic wei wuxian fashion, he did Not think about the practical consequences of it -- that A’Yuan has no other clean clothes, and now he’s gotten this set dirty and has no intention of washing them. is this a personality thing? yeah, but I think it’s also indicative of his lack of concern over the logistics of everyday survival, re: wealth.

furthermore, i think it is important to remember that wei wuxian, when he is protecting the wen remnants, is not protecting common folk: he is still protecting gentry. fallen gentry, yes! but gentry nonetheless. wen qing was favored by wen ruohan, and wen ning himself says that he has a retinue of people under his command (the remnants, essentially). their branch of the family do not have the experience of living and growing in poverty -- they are impoverished and persecuted in their last years, but that’s a very different thing from being impoverished your whole life. (sidenote: I do not believe wei wuxian’s primary motivation for defending the wen remnants was justice -- i believe he did it because he felt he owed wen ning and wen qing a life debt, and once he was there, he wasn’t going to stand around and let the work camps go on. yes, he is concerned about justice and doing the right thing, but that’s not why he went in the first place. anyways, that’s another meta)

after wei wuxian returns, he then marries back into gentry, and very wealthy gentry at that. lwj provides him all the money he could ever want, he is never worried about going homeless, starving, being denied opportunities based on his class and accompanying disadvantages. who would dare? and neither wei wuxian nor lan wangji seem to have much interest in shaking up the order of things, except in little things like the way they teach the juniors. they live in gusu, under the auspices of the lan, and they live a happy, domestic life.

were his years on the street traumatizing? yes, of course they were, there’s so much delicious character exploration to be done re: wei wuxian’s relationship to food, his relationship to his own needs, and his relationship to the people he loves. it’s all important and good! but I feel very strongly that that experience, while it was formative for him, did not impart any true understanding of poverty and the common person’s everyday struggles, nor do I think he ever really gains that understanding. he is observant and canny and aware of class and blood, certainly, but not in a way that makes it his primary hill to die on (badum-tss).

this is in very stark contrast to characters like jin guangyao and xue yang, and to some extent, xiao xingchen and song lan. I’ll start with the daozhangs, because I think they’re the simplest (??).

I think both xiao xingchen and song lan have class consciousness, but in a very simplified, broad-strokes kind of way (at least, given the information we know about them). we know that the two of them share similar values and want to one day form their own sect that gives no weight to the nobility of your lineage and has no concern with your wealth. we also know that they both disdain intersect politics and are more concerned with ideals and principles rather than status. but, I think because of that, this actually somewhat limits their perception and understanding of how status is used to oppress. as far as we know, neither of them participated on any side in sunshot and they demonstrate much more interest in relating to the commoners. honestly, i hc that they were flitting around trying to help decimated towns, protecting defenseless villages etc. I ALSO think this has a lot of interesting potential in terms of xiao xingchen and wei wuxian’s relationship, if xiao xingchen is ever revived. regardless of whether you’re in CQL or novel verse, xiao xingchen really doesn’t know wei wuxian at all, other than knowing that he’s his shijie’s son. he knows that cangse-sanren met with a tragic end, like yanling-daoren before her, and that he wants to be different. but here is cangse-sanren’s son, laying waste to entire cities, desecrating the dead. I would very much like to get into xiao xingchen’s head during that period of time (and i think, if i do it right, i can write some of it into the songxiao fixit), but that’s neither here nor there, because i’ve wandered off from my point again.

i would posit that song lan is used to an ascetic lifestyle, and xiao xingchen probably is too -- but that’s different from poverty because there’s an element of choice to it. I also think that neither of them is particularly worldly, xiao xingchen especially. he lived on an isolated mountain until he was like, seventeen, and he came down full of ideals and naivete about how the world worked. I think that both of them see inequality, that they are angered by it, and that they want to do something about it -- but their solution is neither to topple the sects, nor is it to reform the system. rather, it seems to be more about withdrawing and creating their own removed world. I think that the daozhangs embody a kind of utopianism that isn’t present in the minds of any of the other characters, not even wangxian. honestly, baoshan-sanren’s mountain is a utopian ideal, but one that is not described. it exists outside of and beyond the world. i have a lot of jumbled, vague thoughts about utopianism generally, mostly informed by china miéville and ursula k. le guin, and I don’t think i have the ability to articulate them here, but i wanted to. hm. say something? there is something about the inherent dystopianism contained within every utopia, that utopias are necessary, but also reflections of the existence of terrible things in their conception. idk. there’s something in there, I know it!! but i suppose what I want to say is -- i do not think the daozhangs understand class and social hierarchy very deeply because they don’t see a need to examine it deeply. for their goals, the details aren’t the point. they’re not looking to reform within the system, they’re looking to build something outside of it. I think they spend a lot of time concerned with alleviating the symptoms of social oppression, and their values reflect the injustices they witness there.

regardless, even if their story ends in tragedy and there is a certain amount of critique re: the utopian approach, i think the text still emphasizes that xiao xingchen left a utopia and that he thought that people mattered enough for him to try, and that was an incredibly honorable, kind, and human thing to do.

YEAH SURE THE DAOZHANGS ARE THE SIMPLEST ok ok RETURNING to class and moving forward: xue yang.

i also don’t think xue yang has class consciousness lol, or not in any way that really matters, but I do think poverty impacted him in a much stronger way than it impacted wei wuxian. wei wuxian spent some years on the street as a child. xue yang grew up on the streets. chang ci’an’s horrific treatment of him was directly due to his class and social standing: chang ci’an is a nobleman and xue yang is not even worth the dirt beneath the wheels of his cart. what I think is the seminal point though, is that this does not make xue yang think particularly deeply about systemic injustice, because xue yang is so self-centered, self-driven, and individualistic. he is not even slightly concerned about how poverty and class might affect other people -- they’re other people. what he takes away from his experience is not an anger at being wrongfully cheated by a system, but an anger at being wrongfully cheated by a specific man.

xue yang is not particularly concerned with the politics of the aristocracy -- he has no obvious ambitions other than, “i want to eat sweets whenever i please”, “i want to hurt anyone who wrongs me”, and “i want to be so strong that no one can hurt me”. like, he just doesn’t care -- it’s not the kind of power he wants. he sneers at people for like, personal reasons, not class reasons -- “you think you’re better than me” re: xiao xingchen and song lan. to him, all people -- poor, wealthy, noble, common -- are essentially equal, and they are all beneath him. after all, what does he care what family someone comes from, how much money they have? everyone bleeds when you cut them. some of them might be harder to get to than others, but xue yang does not fear that sort of thing. it’s just another obstacle he needs to vault on his way to getting revenge and/or a pastry.

ANYWAYS onto jin guangyao (wow this is hm. getting rather long ahaha oh dear): I would argue that the two characters with the most acute understanding of class/societal politics and the injustice of them are jin guangyao and lan xichen. i’ll start with jin guangyao for obvious reasons.

where xue yang took the damaging effects of poverty as personal slights, I think jin guangyao is painfully aware that there is nothing personal about them, which is, in some ways, much worse. why are two sons, born on the same day to the same father, treated so differently? just because.

he watched his mother struggle and starve and work herself to the bone in a profession where she was constantly disrespected and abused for almost nothing in return, while his father could have lifted her out of poverty with the wave of a finger. why didn’t he? because he didn’t like her? no -- because he didn’t care, and the structures of the society they live in protect that kind of blase treatment of the lower class.

“so my mother couldn’t choose her own fate, is that her fault?” jin guangyao demands. he knows that he is unbelievably talented, that he has ambition, that he has potential, and that all of it is beyond his grasp just because his father didn’t want to bother with it. his mother���s life was destroyed, and his own opportunities were crippled with that negligence. it isn’t personal. that’s just the way things are. your individual identity is meaningless, your humanity does not exist. when he’s kicked down the steps of jinlin tai, it’s just more confirmation that no matter how talented or hardworking he is, no one will give him the time of day unless he finds a way to take it himself and become someone who “matters”.

jin guangyao’s cultivation is weak because he had a poor foundation, and he had a poor foundation because he was denied access to a good one. he copies others because that’s all he can do at this point, and he copies so well that he can hold his own against some of the strongest cultivators of his generation. he’s disparaged for copying and “stealing” techniques, but -- he never would have had to if only he had been born/accepted into the upper class. the fact is that i really do think jin guangyao was the most promising cultivator of his generation that we meet, including the twin jades and wei wuxian: he had natural talent, ambition, creativity, determination and cunning in spades. in some ways, I think that’s one of the overlooked tragedies of jin guangyao: the loss of not just the good man he could have been, but the powerful one too. imagine what he could have done.

jin guangyao spends his entire time in the world of the aristocracy feeling unsteady and terrified because he knows exactly how precarious his position is. he knows how easy it is to lose power, especially for someone like him. he’s working against so many disadvantages, and every scrap of honor he gets is a vicious battle. jin guangyao fears, and I think that’s something that’s lacking in xue yang, wei wuxian and the daozhangs’ experiences/understandings of poverty. i think it’s precisely that fear that emphasizes jin guangyao’s understanding of class and blood. jin guangyao exhibits an anxiety that neither wei wuxian nor xue yang do, and it’s because he truly knows how little he is worth in the eyes of society and how little there is he can do to change that. to me, it very much feels related to the anxiety of not knowing if tomorrow you’ll have something to eat, if tomorrow you’ll still have a home, if tomorrow someone will destroy you and never have to answer for it. it’s the anxiety of knowing helplessness intimately.

moreover, jin guangyao is the only person shown to use the wealth and power at his disposal to take concrete steps to actually help the common people typically ignored by the powerful -- the watchtowers. they’re described in chapter 42. it’s a system that is designed to cover remote areas that most cultivators are reluctant to go due to their inconvenience and the lack of means of the people who live there. the watchtowers assign cultivators to different posts, give aid to those previously forgotten, and if the people are too poor to pay what the cultivators demand, the lanling jin sect pays for it. jin guangyao worked on this for five years and burned a lot of bridges over it. people were strongly opposed to it, thinking that it was some kind of ploy for lanling jin’s personal benefit. but the thing is -- it worked. they were effective. people were helped.

i believe CQL frames the watchtowers as an allegory for a surveillance state/centralized control (i think?? it’s been a minute -- that’s the hazy impression i remember, something like a parallel to the wen supervisory offices?), but I personally don’t think that was the intent in the novel. the watchtowers are a public good. lanling jin doesn’t staff them with their own sect members -- they get nearby sects to staff them. it’s a warning network that they fund that’s supposed to benefit everyone, even those that everyone had considered expendable.

(did jin guangyao do terrible things to achieve this goal? yeah lol. it’s not confirmed, but his son sure did die... suspiciously...... at the hands of an outspoken critic of the watchtowers........ whom he then executed....... so like, maybe just a convenient coincidence for jin guangyao, two birds one stone, but. it seems. Unlikely.)

lan xichen is the only member of the gentry that ever shows serious compassion for and nuanced understanding of jin guangyao’s circumstances. lan xichen treats him as his equal regardless of jin guangyao’s current status -- even when he was meng yao, lan xichen treated him as a human being worthy of respect, as someone with great merits, as someone he would choose as a friend, but he did so knowing full well the delicate position meng yao occupied. this is in direct contrast to nie mingjue, who also believed that meng yao was worthy of respect as a human being, but was completely unable to comprehend the complexities of his circumstances and unwilling to grant him any grace. you know, the difference between “i acknowledge that your birth and status have had effects upon you, but I don’t think less of you for it” and “i don’t consider your birth and status at all when i interact with you because i think it is irrelevant” (“i don’t see color” anyone?)

to illustrate, from chapter 48:

大抵是觉得娼妓之子身上说不定也带着什么不干净的东西，这几名修士接过他双手奉上来的茶盏后，并不饮下，而是放到一边，还取出雪白的手巾，很难受似的，有意无意反复擦拭刚才碰过茶盏的手指。聂明玦并非细致之人，未曾注意到这种细节，魏无羡却用眼角余光扫到了这些。孟瑶视若未见，笑容不坠半分，继续奉茶。蓝曦臣接过茶盏之时，抬眸看他一眼，微笑道：“多谢。”

旋即低头饮了一口，这才继续与聂明玦交谈。旁的修士见了，有些不自在起来。

rough tl:

Probably because they believed that the son of a prostitute might also carry some unclean things upon his person, after these few cultivators took the teacups offered from [Meng Yao’s] two hands, they did not drink, but instead put them to one side, and furthermore brought out snow white handkerchiefs. Quite uncomfortably, and whether they were aware of it or not, they repeatedly wiped the fingers they had just used to touch the teacups. Nie Mingjue was not a detail-oriented person and never took note of such particulars, but Wei Wuxian caught these in the corner of his eye. Meng Yao appeared as if he had not seen, his smile unwavering in the slightest, and continued to serve tea. When Lan Xichen took the teacup, he glanced up at him and, smiling, said, “Thank you.”

He immediately dipped his head to take a sip, and only then continued to converse with Nie Mingjue. Seeing this, the nearby cultivators began to feel somewhat uneasy.

all right, since we’re in full cyan-rampaging-through-the-weeds mode at this point, i’m going to talk about how this is one of my favorite 3zun moments in the entire novel for characterization purposes because it really highlights how they all relate to one another, and to what degree each of them is aware of their own position in relation to the others and society as a whole.

1. nie mingjue, who is a forthright and blunt person, sets meng yao to serving tea and is done with it. he notices nothing wrong or inappropriate about the reactions of the people in the room because it’s not the sort of thing he considers important.

2. meng yao, knowing that his only avenue is to take it lying down with a smile, masks perfectly.

3. lan xichen, noticing all this, uses his own reputation to achieve two things at once: pointedly shame the other cultivators in attendance, and show meng yao that regardless of others’ opinions, he considers him an equal and does not endorse such behavior--and he does it while taking care that no fallout will come down on meng yao’s head.

is this yet another installment of cyan’s endless lxc defense thesis? why yes it is! no one is surprised! but this is my whole point: both meng yao and lan xichen understand the respective hierarchy and power dynamics within the room, while nie mingjue very much does not. this is not because nie mingjue is a bad person or because nie mingjue is stupid--it’s a combination of personality and upbringing. nie mingjue is straightforward and has no patience for such games. but then again, he can afford not to play because he was born into such a high position: that’s a privilege.

to break it down: meng yao knows that he is the lowest-ranked person in the room, sees the way people are subtly disrespecting him in full view of his general who is doing nothing about it. in some ways, this is good -- nie mingjue’s style of dealing with conflict is very direct and not at all suited to delicate political maneuvering. after all, the way he promoted meng yao was actually quite dangerous to meng yao: he essentially guaranteed that his men would bear meng yao a grudge and that their disrespect for him would only be compounded by their bitterness at being punished on his behalf. (it’s like, why often getting parents or teachers to intervene ineffectively in bullying can just be an incitement to more bullying -- same concept) meng yao’s reaction during that scene shows that he’s pretty painfully aware of this and is trying to defuse the situation to no avail. nie mingjue gives him a bootstrap speech (rip nie mingjue i love u so much but. sir) and then promotes him, which is pretty much the only saving grace of that entire exchange, for meng yao at least.

lan xichen, on the other hand, understands both that meng yao is the lowest-ranked person in the room and that any direct attempt to chastise the other cultivators in the room will only serve to hurt meng yao in the long run. he knows that if this were brought to nie mingjue’s attention, he would be outraged and not shy about it -- also bad for meng yao. so he uses what he has: his immaculate reputation. by acting contrary to the other cultivators’ behavior, he demonstrates that he finds their actions unacceptable but with the plausible deniability that it wasn’t directed at them, that this is just zewu-jun being his usual generous self. this means that the other cultivators have no one to blame but themselves, nothing to do but question their own actions. there is nowhere to cast off their discomfort. meng yao didn’t do anything. lan xichen didn’t do anything -- he just thanked meng yao and drank his tea, isn’t that what it’s there for? he doesn’t disrupt the peace, he doesn’t attack anyone and put them on the defensive, but he does make his position very clear.

i know this is a really small thing and i’m probably beating it to death, but I really think this shows just how cognizant lan xichen is of politics and emotional cause and effect in such situations. certainly, out of context I think the scene reads kind of cliche, but within the greater narrative of the story and within the arc of these characters specifically, I think it was a really smart scene to include. it also showcases lan xichen’s style of action: that he moves around and with a problematic situation as opposed to moving straight through.

not to be salty on main again, but this is why it’s very frustrating to me when I see people call lan xichen passive when he is anything but. his actions just don’t look like traditional “actions”, especially to an american audience. it’s easy to understand lan wangji and wei wuxian’s style of problem-solving: taking a stand, moving through, staying strong. lan xichen is juggling an inconceivable number of factors in any given situation, weighing his responsibilities in one role against those in another, and then trying to find the path through the thicket that will cause the least harm, both to himself and the thicket. lan wangji and wei wuxian are not particularly good at considering the far-reaching consequences of their actions -- again, not because they are bad people, but because of a combination of personality and upbringing. they’d just hack through the thicket, not thinking about the creatures that live in it. that is not a terrible thing! it isn’t. it’s a different way of approaching a problem, and it has different priorities. that’s okay. there are advantages and disadvantages on both sides, and where you come down is going to depend on your personal values.

okay we’ve spiraled far and away from my original point, but let’s circle back: i was talking about class.

I think it’s undeniable that class, birthright, fate etc. are some of the driving forces of thematic conflict in mdzs, and the way each character interacts with those forces reveals a lot about themselves and also about the larger themes of fate, chance, and what it means to be righteous and good and how that is and isn’t rewarded. a lot of the tragedy of mdzs (the tragedy that isn’t caused by direct aggression on the part of one group or another) stems from the injustices and slights that people suffered due to their lot in life. it isn’t fair. none of it is fair! we sympathize with jin guangyao because we recognize that what he suffered was unconscionable, even if we don’t excuse him. i sympathize A Lot with xue yang as well for similar reasons, though I understand that’s a harder sell. this is a story focused on the mistakes of an entrenched, aging gentry and the effects that those mistakes had on their children, and a lot of it has to do with prejudice based in class and birth status. whether the prejudice was the true reason or whether it was just a convenient excuse, the fact remains that the systems in place rewarded and protected the people in power who used it to cling to that power. mdzs is also a story of how the circumstances of one’s life can offer you impossible choices that you cannot abstain from, and it asks us to be compassionate to the people who made terrible choices in terrible times. it’s about the inherent complexity in all things! that sometimes, there are no good choices, and i don’t know, i’d like to think that people would show me compassion if I had to make the choices some of these characters did. not just wei wuxian, mind you, every single one of them. except jin guangshan because I Do Hate Him sorry. and i guess wen ruohan. i think that’s it.

good. GOD this is clocking in at //checks notes -- just over 5k. 8′D *stuffs some weeds into my mouth like the clown i am*

(ko-fi? :’D *lies down*)

#OH BOY OH BOY #mdzs #the untamed #mdzs meta #the untamed meta #?? #mymeta #meta #cql #cql meta #mine #cyan gets too deep in the weeds #im literally falling asleep as i'm typing right now so i'm SURE i've made mistakes and forgotten stuff but i am just. #*yeets this out into the void* #please read this i worked hard on it ;A; #class #class conflict #class consciousness #Anonymous #asks and replies #ok bedtime byebye

[no--envies]

In my opinion, one of the reasons JC went crazy after WWX’s death and started venting his own anger and hatred on every demonic cultivator he met, regardless if they were guilty or innocent, is that he couldn’t stand the fact that he hadn’t managed to deal the killing blow to WWX. After all his effort in leading the siege and using the information he had on the Burial Mounds to plan the action and convince everyone else to follow him, he wasn’t even the one who actually killed WWX. WWX died because one of his cultivation techniques backfired and he was torn to pieces by his own ghost army.

I think JC couldn’t accept this. After everything he had done - and thinking he was justified in hating WWX for all the perceived wrongdoings he believed he was a victim of - WWX had managed to surpass him once again. Nobody was able to kill him, not even him.

We know JC’s reaction in the aftermath of the siege because JGY and XY directly comment on it in the extra focused on them:

Xue Yang, “What about his flute? Can you get me Chenqing?”

Jin GuangYao shrugged, “Not Chenqing. Jiang WanYin took it.”

Xue Yang, “Doesn’t he hate Wei WuXian the most? Why would he need Chenqing? Didn’t you also get that sword of Wei WuXian’s? Give him the sword in exchange for the flute. It’s long since Wei WuXian stopped using his sword, while Suibian sealed itself and nobody can pull it out. What’s the use of keeping a fucking piece of decoration?”

Jin GuangYao, “You really ask me to do the impossible, Young Master Xue. Do you think I haven’t tried? How could anything be that simple. That Jiang WanYin has already gone mad. He still thinks Wei WuXian hasn’t died. If Wei WuXian returned, he might not search for his sword, but he’d definitely come for Chenqing. And so, he would definitely not give up Chenqing. A few more words of mine, and he might blow up.”

Xue Yang sniggered, “A mad dog.”

(Chapter 118, ExR translation)

Whatever JC had tried to achieve by leading the siege, he wasn’t able to achieve it. If the only thing he had wanted was to punish WWX for his deeds, he would have been satisfied with his own role in WWX’s death. I don’t think killing WWX was the only thing he wanted, though. He was probably trying to prove something, to himself and everyone else. He wanted to prove that he could surpass WWX for once, and that WWX had been wrong all along in choosing to put himself at risk to help others instead of listening to him. He wanted WWX to admit it was all his fault.

After a while of silence, Jiang Cheng asked, “You’ll stay like this from now on? Got any plans?”

Wei WuXian, “Not at the moment. None of the group dares go down the mountain. People don’t dare do anything anything to me when I go down the mountain either. It’ll be fine as long as I don’t stir up trouble on my own.”

“On your own?” Jiang Cheng sneered, “Wei WuXian, do you believe that even if you don’t stir up trouble on your own, trouble won’t come and find you? It’s often impossible to save someone, but there are more than thousands of ways to harm someone.”

Wei WuXian replied as he ate, “A man with strength can defeat ten with skill. I don’t care if they have thousands of ways. I’ll kill whoever comes.”

Jiang Cheng spoke in a cool voice, “You never listen to any of my opinions. One day, you’ll come to understand that I’m the one who’s right.”

(Chapter 75, ExR translation)

JC had always tried to convince WWX to abandon his path. Since he couldn’t outshine WWX in any way, he wanted to at least prove he was right in the path he had chosen, that choosing to help others at the expense of oneself ultimately wasn’t worth it. But WWX wasn’t swayed in the least. He kept walking resolutely on his single-plank bridge in the dark, regardless of what anyone else thought.

WWX was aware of JC’s mentality: he knew JC wouldn’t willingly put his own reputation at risk to help him protect Wens if he could avoid it. This was one of the main things that divided them since they were teenagers: their values and outlooks were simply too different, it was only a matter of time before their choices made them take completely diverging paths. WWX was fine anyway, he could take care of himself - this mindset could be seen as too overconfident, but he wasn’t completely wrong. He knew he could protect the Wen remnants even without relying on anyone else, since he managed to do it for two years before everything crumbled at Qiongqi Path.

In the end, Jin Zixun ambushed WWX accusing him of something he hadn’t done, and everything spiraled down so quickly he couldn’t do anything to prevent it, until he lost control of his demonic cultivation and killed Jin Zixuan. The sects’ suspicion towards him turned into open hostility and everyone was immediately ready to consider him an actual threat to them all. After the bloodbath of Nightless City, WWX was labeled as the scourge of the cultivation world, an enemy that should be eliminated to guarantee everyone’s peace and safety.

At first glance, one could think JC was right and WWX was wrong. But if this was really what the novel is trying to tell us, why was JC unable to move on for thirteen years, while WWX was immediately ready to start a new life and leave everything in the past after he was brought back? Even when JC managed to capture WWX and confronted him, WWX didn’t have anything to say to him.

The cup was steaming. Before he had taken a single sip, Jiang Cheng suddenly hurled it at the floor. He lifted the corner of his lip slightly and spoke. “You—you don’t have anything to say to me?”

[...]

“I don’t know what to say to you,” Wei Wuxian replied sincerely.

“So you refuse to repent,” Jiang Cheng said in a low voice.

In their past conversations, they had frequently tried to sarcastically undermine each other. Wei Wuxian thus replied without thinking, “Similarly, you haven’t improved a single ounce either.”

Jiang Cheng’s answering smile was brimming with fury. “Fine. Then let’s see which of us truly hasn’t shown an ounce of improvement.”

(Chapter 24, Fanyiyi translation)

I think this exchange is very interesting: WWX and JC are no longer bickering or teasing each other as they so frequently did in the past. What had once been a complicated relationship with genuine affection beneath it all, now retained only the semblance of it. There’s no more warmth, no more anything worth trying to repair. While JC is still adamant about using WWX as a scapegoat to avoid reflecting on his own mistakes, WWX has long since moved on. He doesn’t even feel resentment towards JC, he just wants to live his new life freely.

JC is an interesting foil for WWX, their interactions show how fundamentally incompatible they are and both of their character arcs highlight one of the main themes of the novel: the importance of letting go of all the grudges and negative feelings and remembering the good things, since only then one can truly be free. This is something WWX knows perfectly well:

Wei WuXian propped his arm on Lil’ Apple’s head, spinning Chenqing in his hand, “My mom said you have to remember the things others do for you, not the things you do for others. Only when people don’t hold so much in their hearts would they finally feel free.”

This was one of the only things he remembered about his parents.

(Chapter 113, ExR translation)

#mdzs #mdzs meta #jiang cheng #wei wuxian

[jiangwanyinscatmom]

Jin Guangyao isn't cruel because he is nice sometimes! No... no... just no. He pretends to be a nice, sweet person to get what he wants, it is exactly why he got away with the killings and plannings for the Yin Hu Fu, YEARS AFTER JIN GUANGSHAN IS OUT OF THE PICTURE. He's the only legitimate Jin left old enough to take over the Sect, who the hell was gonna argue that when all relevant Jins were dead and Nie Mingjue was killed by the happy smiling pretty boy?

First example, he was actively friends with Xue Yang, there is no saying he was coerced into that one since he recommended him as a guest disciple and made creepy little jokes with him.

Jin GuangYao sighed, “I only turned around for a second and you stirred up so much trouble for me. I only had to pay for a bowl of dumplings in the beginning, and now I have to pay for his table, chairs, pots and pans, and even bowls.”

Xue Yang, “You’ll miss the couple of coins?”

Jin GuangYao, “No.”

Xue Yang, “Then why are you sighing?”

Jin GuangYao, “I don’t think you’ll miss the couple of coins either. Why can’t you try being a normal customer once in a while?”

Xue Yang, “Back in Kuizhou I never paid for anything I wanted. Just like this.” As he spoke, he casually plucked off a stick of sugared haws off a vendor’s pole. It might be the first time the vendor saw such a shameless person. As he stared open-mouthed, Xue Yang took a bite, “Besides, you can deal with the trouble of me wrecking a tiny stall, can’t you?”

Jin GuangYao smiled, “You little delinquent. Wreck stalls however you want. I wouldn’t even care if you burned down the entire street. Just one thing—don’t wear the Stars Amidst Snow robes and cover up your face. Don’t let anyone know who did it, or it’d be trouble for me.”

He tossed the money to the vendor

A.K.A: haha you're funny and I don't care who you fuck over but be sly and

Next example:

And so, Jin GuangShan sought after all those who imitated Wei WuXian in cultivating the ghostly path and gathered them under his rule. He spent a great amount of money and resources on these people, ordering them to study and analyze the structure of the Tiger Seal in secrecy so that they could replicate and restore it. Among them, not many achieved anything, while the one who walked the furthest was the youngest Xue Yang, recommended by Jin GuangYao alone.

Jin GuangYao was overjoyed. He accepted him as a guest cultivator and gave him high rights and freedom. The corpse training ground was an area of land Jin GuangYao specially requested for Xue Yang for him to research in secrecy, which meant for him to fool around however he wanted to.

He gave a whole torture playground for Xue Yang to use, he specifically asked for this from his own mouth, for Xue Yang to use and he would check in on progress. As for his morals:

Jin GuangYao’s tone was somewhat reproachful, “He Su gongzi is a respected cultivator, after all. How could you refer to him in such a disrespectful way?”

The cultivator laughed coldly, “I’ve already fallen in your hands. What are you keeping up the pretense for?”

Jin GuangYao responded with a kind expression, “You don’t have to look at me like that. I also had no choice. To elect a chief cultivator is an irresistible trend. What was the use of stirring up trouble and seeking arguments everywhere? I’ve already warned you again and again, yet you were determined not to listen to me. Under these circumstances, things are already beyond redemption. From the bottom of my heart, I, too, feel utmost pain and regret.”

He Su, “What was the irresistible trend? What was stirring up trouble? Jin GuangShan wanted to establish the position of chief cultivator only to imitate the QishanWen Sect in being the only one at the top. Do you think all the world is ignorant? You frame me like this only because I spoke the truth!”

Jin GuangYao smiled, saying nothing. He Su continued, “When you really succeed, all of the world of cultivation would see the true face of the LanlingJin Sect. Do you think killing me alone would put you eternally at ease? How wrong you are! We, the TingshanHe Sect, teem with talent. From now on, we’ll unite and never surrender to you Wen-dogs of another skin!”

Hearing this, Jin GuangYao squinted slightly, the corners of his lips curving up. It was the usual kind, gentle expression. Seeing this, He Su felt his heart skip a beat. At the same time, commotion sounded outside the corpse training ground, among it the cries of women and children.

He Su spun around, only to see a group of LanlingJin Sect cultivators drag inside sixty or seventy people all wearing the same uniform. There were men and women, old and young. Every one of them was a cross between shock and fear, while some were already crying. Both tied up, a girl and a boy kneeled on the ground as they wailed at He Su, “Ge!”

He Su was shocked speechless, his face instantly as white as paper, “Jin GuangYao! What are you doing?! It’s enough if you kill me—why drag my entire sect along?!”

Jin GuangYao looked down and fixed his sleeves, still grinning, “Weren’t you yourself the one who reminded me just now? Even if I killed you, I wouldn’t be put eternally at ease. The TingshanHe Sect teems with talent, and from now on, you’d unite and never surrender—I was quite frightened. After much thought, this was the only thing I could come up with.”

Among the group are children. That he did see and stare at gleefully as he lets Xue Yang decide to use all of them for corpse experiments. What does that mean??? Maybe that Jin Guangyao is also not in fact best uncle as he similarly was willing to kill Jin Ling who he "loved" as bait to try running away and is more than willing to use his "friends" for his own rise to power or to run away.

Examples of him enjoying emotionally torturing others as much as Xue Yang as a tactic:

Example 1:

“That’s not the way to go about things, is it? The TingshanHe Sect rebelled and schemed to assassinate Sect Leader Jin with all its forces before it was caught red-handed. How could that be called without a reason?”

The ones overhead cried, “Ge! He’s lying! We didn’t, we didn’t!”

He Su, “Utter nonsense! Open your eyes and fucking look! There are nine-year-old children here! Old men who can’t even walk! How could they rebel against anything?! Why would they assassinate your dad out of nowhere?!”

Jin GuangYao, “Because you made a mistake and committed murder, Young Master He Su, while they refused to accept Koi Tower’s conviction of you, of course.”

He Su finally remembered the accusation for which he was transferred to such a creepy place, “It’s all made up! I never killed a cultivator of the LanlingJin Sect! I’ve never even seen the person who died! I don’t even know if he was really a cultivator from your sect! I… I…”

He stammered for a while before eventually caving in, “I… I don’t even know what happened, I don’t even know!”

Yet, at such a place, nobody would listen to his protests.

Example 2:

Just as he was about to move, Jin GuangYao smiled, “HanGuang-Jun, it’s best if you take five steps back.”

Wei WuXian suddenly felt a small, sharp sting come from his neck. Lan XiChen lowered his voice, “Be careful. Do not move!”

Lan WangJi’s gaze landed on Wei WuXian’s neck. His face paled slightly.

An almost invisible guqin string, light and golden, was tied around Wei WuXian’s neck.

The guqin string was extremely thin. It was covered in special paint as well, making it almost invisible to the eye. Along with how disoriented Wei WuXian was, unable to pay attention to anything else, he didn’t notice it when it wrapped around his throat.

“Lan Zhan, don’t! Don’t back away!”

But Lan WangJi immediately walked five steps back without any hesitation.

Jin GuangYao, “Wonderful. Now, please sheathe Bichen.”

With a clank, Lan WangJi obeyed again. Wei WuXian raged, “Don’t ask for too much!”

Jin GuangYao quipped, “This is already asking for too much? Next, I’m even going to ask HanGuang-Jun to seal away his spiritual powers. What would that be called?”

Wei WuXian seethed, “You…”

Before he could finish, the sharp pain of flesh being lacerated came from his throat. Something dripped down his neck. Lan WangJi’s face was pale. Jin GuangYao said, “How could he not listen to me? Just think about it, Wei gongzi, his life is in my hands.”

Lan WangJi spoke one word at a time, “Do. Not. Touch. Him.”

“Then you know what to do, HanGuang-Jun.”

A moment later, Lan WangJi responded, “Yes.”

Lan XiChen sighed. Lan WangJi raised his hands. With two strong taps, he locked his own spiritual powers.

Jin GuangYao smiled, his voice soft, “This really is…”

Lan WangJi’s eyes were locked on them, “Let him go.”

Example 3:

Wei WuXian wouldn’t have had to be responsible for a life as heavy as Jin ZiXuan’s, and the things that happened later wouldn’t have had to happen.

Yet now, he finally realized even the reason behind culprit’s curse wasn’t to frame him. Even the cause didn’t have anything to do with him!

Such a fact was truly difficult to accept.

As he laughed, Wei WuXian’s eyes reddened. He mocked, whether at himself or otherwise, “I can’t believe it’s because of someone like you… because of such a ridiculous reason!”

But Jin GuangYao seemed like he knew what he thought, “Wei gongzi, you really shouldn’t think like this.”

Wei WuXian, “Oh? You know what I think?”

Jin GuangYao, “Of course. It’s quite easy. You’re definitely thinking about how unfortunate you are. In reality, you’re not. Even if Su She didn’t curse Jin ZiXun, Mr. Wei, you’d receive a siege sooner or later, because of some other reason.” He smiled, “Because that’s what kind of a person you are. At best, you’re the untamed hero; at worst, you offend people wherever you go. Unless all those whom you’ve offended lived their lives safely, as soon as something happened to them or someone did something to them, the first person they suspect would be you and the first person they seek revenge on would also you. And this is something you have no control over.”

Somehow, Wei WuXian smiled, “What should I do? For some reason, I think you make a lot of sense.”

Jin GuangYao, “And even if you didn’t lose control at the Qiongqi Path, could you guarantee you didn’t lose control sometime in the rest of your life? Thus, someone like you is destined to have a short life. You see? Doesn’t it feel a lot better if you think about it this way?”

He takes little time in using others hurt or their protective instincts against them, and is just as gleeful to see others in powerless situations in comparison to him as it still gives him a form of control to worm his way out of everything that has caught up to him.

Jin GuangYao, “Ge, every word of what I say is true.”

His tone was more than earnest. Ever since he captured Lan XiChen, he’d indeed been treating him with respect. At this point, Lan XiChen wasn’t able to turn against him yet. He could only sigh, “Sect Leader Jin, I have already said, when you went your own way to scheme such havoc at Burial Mound, that there was no longer any need to call me ‘Brother.’”

Jin GuangYao, “What happened at Burial Mound was an accident, a mistake. But, I can’t go back anymore.”

Lan XiChen, “What do you mean you cannot go back?”

Lan WangJi frowned slightly, his voice cold, “Xiongzhang, do not engage in excessive conversation with him.”

Wei WuXian reminded him as well, “Sect Leader Lan, do you remember what you said to Sect Leader Jiang? Don’t spend too long talking to him.”

Jin GuangYao, “Ge, listen to me. I don’t deny that I did those things…”

Lan XiChen, “How could you deny them? There are both witnesses and proof!”

Jin GuangYao, “And so I said I don’t deny them! But to have killed my father, my wife, my son, ge—if not because I had no other choice, why would I have done those things? Could it be that I’m really so out of my mind in your eyes?!”

"Your… wife…” As though he couldn’t say it, he immediately changed his phrasing, "Your sister, Qin Su, did you really marry her while knowing what blood relationship you had with her?”

Jin GuangYao stared blankly at him. Suddenly, tears rolled down his eyes. He answered with pain, “… Yes.” Lan XiChen took in a deep breath. His face was almost ashen. Jin GuangYao whispered, "But I really had no choice.”

With a sigh, Lan XiChen continued, “Third, do not try to avoid it and answer me—did you plan the death of Jin ZiXuan on purpose?!”

Hearing his father’s name, Jin Ling, who’d been holding Jiang Cheng, widened his eyes.

Lan WangJi raised his voice somewhat, “Xiongzhang, you believe him?”

Lan XiChen’s expression was complicated, “Of course I do not believe that Jin ZiXuan ran into the attack at Qiongqi Path by accident, but… let him speak first.”

Jin GuangYao knew he wouldn’t be believed if he denied it no matter what. He clenched his teeth, “… I indeed didn’t run into Jin ZiXuan by accident.”

Jin Ling immediately clenched his fists.

Jin GuangYao continued, “But I’ve never thought of planning everything that happened afterward either. You don’t have to think of me as so clever and faultless. Many things can’t be controlled at all. How could I have known that he’d definitely die by Wei WuXian’s hands together with Jin ZiXun? How could I have predicted that Wei WuXian would definitely lose control and the Ghost General would definitely run a riot?”

Wei WuXian’s voice was harsh, “And you said you didn’t run into him by accident? Isn’t that self-contradiction?!”

Jin GuangYao, “I don’t deny that I told him about the attack at Qiongqi Path on purpose, but I only thought that he’d encounter some difficulties if he ran into you when you were being troubled by his cousin since he’d never been on good terms with you. How could I have known that you would simply kill everyone present, Wei gongzi?”

“Why was a sect leader who spent money like water unwilling to do the smallest favor and buy my mother’s freedom? Simple—it was too much trouble. My mother waited for so many years, weaving together so many difficult circumstances when she talked to me, imagining for his sake so many hardships. And the real reason was only a single word: trouble.

“This is what he said, ‘It’s especially women who’ve read some books who think they’re a level higher than other women. They’re the most troublesome, with so many demands and unrealistic thoughts. If I bought her freedom and took her back to Lanling, who knows how much fuss she’d make. It was best that I let her stay where she was just like that. With her conditions, she’d probably be popular for a few more years. She wouldn’t have to worry about her spendings for the rest of her life.’

“‘Son? Oh, forget it.’”

Jin GuangYao’s memory was extraordinary. With such a word-by-word repetition, one could even imagine that drunk expression of Jin GuangShan’s when he said these words, “Ge, look, those three words were all that I was worth to my father, ‘Oh, forget it.’ Hahahaha…”

Pain flashed before Lan XiChen’s face, “Even if your father… you…” He still couldn’t find an appropriate comment and gave up, sighing instead, “What is the use of saying all this now?”

Jin GuangYao shrugged as he smiled, “I can’t help it. To seek pity even after doing all these terrible things—that’s the kind of person I am.”

At the word ‘pity’, he suddenly flipped his wrist. A red guqin string wrapped around Jin Ling’s neck.

Tears still hung at the corners of Jin GuangYao’s eyes as he spoke, voice low, “Don’t move!”

"I had no choice", "I couldn't predict anyone would be killed" "He mocked and forgot my mother and I". He uses all of this as a try to convince a kind Lan Xichen to let him go. However,he contradicts his own defenses as he had said Wei Wuxian was always fated to die for his actions and lack of being to keep things under control. This empathy is faked on his end while he makes excuses all while he never extended the same courtesy to those he killed, innocent or not, and underhandedly still tries to get those sympathetic under his manipulations. When they are not working he resorts again to threatening lives. He uses his mother also as a reason for revenge, however his grab for power alone after Jin Guangshan and Nie Mingjue are killed was solely based on his own obsession of status at that point. His mother was no longer a goal to accomplish anything and his continued lies dragged in more than one innocent party to get what he wanted.

He never saw Jin Ling, Lan Xichen, Lan Wangji, or Wei Wuxian as anything but pawns despite his soft words to them that are really just a mockery within Guanyin Temple at that point. He has placed none of them before himself in terms of what he cares for and never had.

TL:DR: Jin Guangyao's "kindness" was always a mask and Nie Mingjue was right that he was irredeemable, genuinely unkind and cruel as a person.

(Edit: Jin Guangyao stans don't even try, I will block you if you dare to reply to this)

#mdzs #mdzs mo dao zu shi #Jin Guangyao #I'm a little tired of him being painted as something he is not too #he would never have been kind to Wei Wuxian in turn as he used his infamy for his own benefit #he said he was fated to die anyways #that's not friend material #nor would Wei Wuxian ever willingly work with him #lol good friend and shushu Jin Guangyao #please this take is just as annoying as any of Jiang Cheng's excuses