#yu ziyuan being an asshole | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

noswordinourlake · 3 months

Text

@tavina-writes asked for arranged marriage fic recs, which turned into...this. Sorry Tav some of these are just very politically plotty but I figured those also fell into your mandate! I was going for a vibe. ANYWAY.

All fics MZDS/the Untamed!

Also under a read more because this got. Long.

CANON DIVERGENCES

marry for love by tuesday (3k, T, complete)

"Nie Huaisang snapped open his fan and covered his face. "Be careful. I'll take advantage.""

50-50 cute and intrigue!

from the other side of sorrow (series) by Sour_Idealist (128k, E, complete)

"Yu Ziyuan cuts off Wei Wuxian's hand. The cultivation world changes."

I couldn't tell you the split on emotional devastation and intrigue on this one because it's all happening all the time.

CANON? I DON'T KNOW HER

The Other Mountain by nirejseki (287k, T, complete)

"Lan Qiren still couldn’t quite bring himself to believe it.

He was married.

He had a wife.

That wife was Wen Ruohan."

I feel like anyone who likes politically plotty fics is already following nirejseki but I also feel like this list would be incomplete if I left off THE arranged marriage fic of all time so.

""You want Wen Ruohan dead," the Patriarch continued idly. "You want his corpse puppets eliminated. You want his halls burned to the ground and his soldiers disemboweled and begging for mercy. Have I about covered it?"

love, in fire and blood by cicer (360k, E, complete)

He gave another knife-edged smile.

"But what will you give me in return?"

"We would be willing to offer quite a bit in return for Wen Ruohan's defeat," Lan Xichen admitted. "But I'm afraid we don't know what an immortal such as yourself desires. Please advise us."

The Patriarch waved at hand at the front of the tent. "I want Second Young Master Lan.""

¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ ͡⁠°⁠ ͜⁠ʖ⁠ ͡⁠°⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

not too strong by fluffysocks (89k, E, complete)

"He sinks back, closes his eyes again so he doesn’t have to look at all that red silk for a moment. He takes a deep breath.

It’s done. Jiang Cheng is married.

Now he just has to live with it."

Yes this is a Jiang Cheng/Lan Qiren arranged marriage AU. Trust me. Trust me. It's GOOD STUFF.

Restoration by ritualist (85k, M, complete)

"They say he was thrown into Luanzang Gang by the man who killed his parents; they say that he is an immortal cultivator who had been in a deep trance until the Wen sect disturbed his rest and incurred his wrath; they say that he is the fierce corpse of a cultivator who had somehow regained his mind and his spiritual powers. When Lan Wangji sees him for the first time, he understands why people talk.

Meng Yao wants safety. Xue Yang wants vengeance. The Sunshot Campaign wants victory. Yiling Laozu provides, for a price."

I'm a sucker for a nonlinear narrative! I don't want to know what is happening and no spoilers you won't for most of this fic. In a good way.

Give Me A Chance To Fall by brooklinegirl (38k, E, complete)

"Jiang Cheng just blows his breath out and rolls his eyes right back at Wei Wuxian. "Stop being an asshole," he says. "You're lucky this is being set up for you. Do you know how many people would die--literally die--to get the chance to be betrothed to Lan Wangji?"

"Betrothed." Wei Wuxian rolls the word around in his mouth. "It even sounds stupid.""

The classique arranged marriage AU.

JOKES JOKES JOKES

I Started From The Bottom/ And Now I'm Rich by x_los (58k, E, complete)

"Wen Qing traps Wei Wuxian in the Demon Slaughtering Cave, but Wei Wuxian isn’t interested in being the beneficiary of the Wen Remnants’ noble sacrifice. His efforts to free himself accidentally send him back to the beginning of the Sunshot Campaign. Coreless but armed with demonic cultivation, knowledge of the future and his wits, Wei Wuxian takes advantage of this opportunity to come out on top of both the war and its aftermath—before either has a chance to happen—by marrying and swiftly burying the cultivation world’s worst men.

Lan Wangji is confused, hurt, and uncomfortably aroused by Wei Wuxian’s improbably elaborate series of Sect-themed bridal negligees."

I hesitated to include this fic in this section because it does get pretty dark and psychologically heavy but it is also. Hilarious. So!

Best Friends Forever by varnes (17k, T, complete)

"It happened like this: Jin Ling was a sect leader now, which was, and Jingyi really meant this, fucking hilarious. There were few things funnier, in his honest opinion.

Because he was young, and inexperienced, and also — it had to be said — a real shithead, there was apparently some belief amongst his advisors that the best way forward, to promote the picture of a stable, mature sect leader who absolutely did not cry at the drop of a hat, was for Jin Ling to get married.

OR: Jin Ling and Jingyi get engaged.

Things spiral from there."

Jingyi POV from varnes is a gift. Jingyi POV trying to figure out the post-canon political landscape is a treasure.

#the untamed #mzds #mzds fic recs #fic recs #this ended up being way longer than i expected OOPS #oh well Tav i hope there are at least a couple here that are new to you!#also looking at my bookmarks it occurred to me the Queen's Thief series would probably be very much your speed if you haven't read it yet

16 notes · View notes

mdzs-owns-my-ass-i-guess · 2 years

Text

Funny things I've done as MDZS characters, part 2

Part 1 here

Jin Zixuan: i had a massive crush on a 12th grade/senior guy in high school (i was 10th grade/sophomore) and i didn't know how to approach him (he was always the one starting conversations... in which i was awkward as hell), and we stopped talking at some point because i guess he got tired of always be the one to initiate and show interest. Then he graduated. He had a little sister the same age as me in the same school (but we were in different classes) so he came to my graduation ceremony 2 years later for her and tried talking to me but i was too anxious not to forget the valedictorian speech that i brushed him off and ignored him again. He's still single.

Jiang Yanli: almost every night, i cut up fruit in cute shapes for my family to snack on while watching tv. I always add colorful toothpicks and cocktail umbrellas to make them smile.

Yu Ziyuan: when my old cat was still a kitten, she knocked off a decoration in my room i really liked, didn't break it, but i still yelled at her for 30 minutes straight. She fell asleep midway through.

Wen Ruohan: i made a blacklist of the names of people i have but would not ever be doing uni projects with again (after being screwed over like 5 times) and openly consulted it on my phone when these very same people asked to work with me once more.

Baoshan Sanren: whenever i am home alone, i draw all my blinds and lock all my doors so that nobody knows i am home and comes to bother me. It is very effective.

Xiao Xingchen: in middle school, despite being bullied myself, i stood up for a classmate who was being made fun of because of his learning disability, and he wordlessly gave me a piece of candy during lunch every single day for the rest of the school year (he transferred the next).

Xue Yang: got into a 2 hour debate on the most "interesting" methods to torture and kill people while i was supposed to study for an exam about ethics and human rights. I aced it.

Song Lan: i sanitized all my carpets after a guest "forgot" to take her shoes off before entering (pre-pandemic).

A-Qing: i cussed someone out for picking fruit off my trees without asking... on my way back from having picked fruit from a neighbor's tree without asking. But that neighbor was an animal-abusing asshole and he deserved it.

Jin Guangshan: my current cat got her heat 2 weeks before her spaying appointment and managed to sneak out of the house one day... came back the next morning with two boyfriends. Didn't get pregnant. They hiss at her whenever they see her now.

Lan Wangji pt. 2: for the 8th grade "prom", the headteacher paired everyone up because we were equal numbers of boys and girls and she thought it would be cute (there is no 'asking someone to go to prom' where i'm from). I ended up paired with a guy i'd been crushing on for a while, he picked me up from my house with flowers, we took a lot of pictures and had a lot of fun together. A slow dance song came on at some point and he invited me to dance, so i tried to be subtle and look at him and his lips to hint i wanted to kiss him, i put my head on his chest etc... he didn't get it. At the end of the song he told me he "had a lot of fun with a great friend". I was so pissed off, i called a cab to go home by myself... but he looked so dejected about it that i took him with and dropped him to his house on my way to mine.

Wei Wuxian pt. 2: i had this friend who moved in a different city and, after her boyfriend broke up with her like a dick while she had a million other problems on her plate, i decided to visit her to cheer her up (because she didn't have many friends there yet). I asked her for the best places to eat and paid for everything, we went visiting local attractions and took a long walk together in a beautiful park at sunset. When we arrived at her apartment, i was dead tired, so i took a quick shower and settled in to watch a movie to sleep. I paid no mind to the fact that she decided to sleep in lingerie and that she was very cuddly and touchy - because i too am cuddly and touchy with people. At some point, she started telling me about how she was unlucky in love and how she wished someone "like me" would treat her right, and she reached for her phone at some point and accidentally fell on top of me... but i was so sleepy i could only say something like "you'll find the right man someday" and fell asleep like the dead. She was so pissed the next morning and i never understood why... until 3 years later when a mutual friend told me that girl had been trying to get me in bed for months, at which point that girl and i were no longer on speaking terms (and i never saw her that way regardless) Anyway she just came out as bi.

#mdzs #mo dao zu shi #original thots

36 notes · View notes

lansplaining · 2 years

Note

(Mixture of me shitalking for the meme and some genuine frustration that probably isn't MTXT's fault). MDZS is just... difficult when it comes to arranged marriages? Like yes, Zixuan is a total asshole (varying in intensity in adaptations) and his growth and later love for Yanli is very sweet but... I just feel annoyed that a partner is deeply annoyed at being in an arranged marriage and is just this total douche who later learns the errors of his ways. Now it wouldn't annoy so much if the other marriages we see arranged were: Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan, who were complete wrecks, with the latter being like, weirdly shitty about her arranged husband possibly not loving her only for it to be the case they actually both were in two love but had bAd cOMuNicAtIon rather than, y'know just dysfunctional due to being two people who just don't like one another married together or something. And we've also got the Jin parents, in which Madame Jin is somehow still in love with her prick of a husband despite him being Satan. Could we not have just had a couple that didn't want to be in an arranged marriage but just made do with it? A partner who didn't reciprocate their spouse's feelings but wasn't a bad person?

huh, you know, I'd never noticed that pattern! tbh I think this actually is less about arranged marriage and more about the lack of particularly rich female character in MDZS-- a couple who are just doing their best and making do with an arranged marriage would indeed be super interesting, but both characters would need a lot of depth to pull it off and there genuinely aren't any heterosexual couples where MXTX cares enough about both partners to bother

#ask answered

5 notes · View notes

zhancheng-ao3feed · 2 months

Text

#zhancheng #fan fic ao3

0 notes

ultfreakme · 9 months

Text

MDZS baits you into consuming it with the pretty boys red-black/blue-white romantic couple and their flowing epic clothes and swords and zombies, but locks you in for life with the RAMPANT and DEEP sibling relationships. Like yes, WangXian is epic I love them they're both ridiculous and cute. But they're, imo, like only part of the awesomeness of MDZS because a lot of the conflicts in MDZS is defined by sibling relationships and how far familial and platonic love can drive you, how those complicated ties make you do unimaginable things.

As an only child I don't think I can fully verbalize it, but, the comfort in the flashbacks before everything went wrong of knowing your siblings are there. It's like; you were there in my first memories I don't know a life without you, I don't know where your life and my life separate because I cannot imagine myself without you by my side. But love isn't enough and I'm thrust into a world where you, who's as assured as my limbs to my body, is gone, and won't return. And suddenly the place by my side is empty, and my life has unfurled to leave you behind.

They took each other's presence in their life for granted because ofc they would. Like ofc Jiang Cheng is a spoilt asshole who thinks Wei Wuxian will literally never leave him, or that Jiang Yanli will forever be in his life, and Jiang Cheng would abandon everything he's raised to be and give up his duty, his responsibilities, his everything, to make sure Wei Wuxian makes it even if he is jealous because the love is deeper than any surface-hate forced upon them. Of course Wei Wuxian would do anything, even break himself to protect Jiang Cheng, because duty, because he owes him and the Jiangs, but also because despite EVERYTHING pitting them against each other, despite the venom from Yu Ziyuan and the sneaking, quiet divide from Jiang Fengmian and even Jiang Cheng's barbs, he loves him. And Jiang Yanli who's trying so hard to fix things when she has no power to do so, when she knows it's an impossible task to fix things and get peace in this broken home, trying until the very last second and flinging herself into danger because she's going to fucking make this work somehow even if it seems hopeless because she loves her brothers.

Nie Huaisang being so reluctant to be sect leader and working so long to get Nie Mingjue justice. His love for him transforming him into something he never had to be, struggling to move in a world, in a position where his brother should've been. Love so deep it twists into something awful.

I forgot a lot of the details but like, MDZS, is ultimately about love in all its forms, how it transforms someone. Be it for the better or for the worse.

0 notes

heavymetalchemist · 2 years

Text

Okay actually I'm still thinking about Yu Ziyuan and here's the thing, okay?

She IS a villain, depending on what story you're telling, but she's not the ONLY villain.

If we're telling a story about toxic family dynamics, she's making things worse! She's being awful! But she's also trying to defend her children in a world that highly values reputation and her husband is just sitting there exhibiting such clear favoritism that it's a subject of gossip in other sects! Her husband is out there breaking off engagements without asking her or her daughter how they feel about it! This is not to say the engagement shouldn't have been broken - ultimately I think that worked in xuanli's favor and was good for them - but it's telling that Madam Jin and Madam Yu are close as sworn sisters and set the engagement, but it's their husbands who break it off. And the comments about how Jiang Fengmian wouldn't have come to Cloud Recesses if it were Jiang Cheng that was in trouble... like... so you're only here to break up this engagement if Wei Wuxian doesn't approve? That's a yikes. Also JFM is a shit dad and this is just another example.

But anyway! The thing is that she hits this specific antagonistic role that is very real and very personal. This isn't some poor nameless villager getting a faceful of corpse powder, this is "oh my god is she actually going to cut off WWX's hand?!?!" It matters that she does things specifically TO the protagonist, and not some nameless side character or some named but ultimately not integral character. We don't get a scene where Jin Rusong has a playdate with Jin Ling, by the time we meet the Yi City crew the tragedy has already happened and is in the past, we hear about Xue Yang's finger but not about some poor terrified Chang child hiding under their bed as their whole clan is murdered, y'know?

I mean even empathy with Nie Mingjue happens after the fact! There's this framing that happens where it's already *done* that, weirdly, doesn't resonate the same when WWX is flashing back to his own life experiences. There is an immediacy in "YZY whipping WWX" that is not present in "JGY is poisoning NMJ with the songs of turmoil."

But there is this immediacy with YZY that somehow makes her worse, even though there are actual villains in the story who do so much more obviously terrible, murderous things than her. And we really can't discount the misogyny in giving JFM a pass that she doesn't get. Who brought WWX into the Jiang household? Who immediately was like "hey son say goodbye to your dogs (the only gift I have ever given you)"? Who refused to deny allegations of affairs, who refused to be on his children's side for marriage alliances, who didn't pick up his own son hardly ever?

There's this part of the book/show where WWX says that JFM has to be more strict with JC because he's the heir, but JFM *isn't* strict, YZY is! YZY fills the strict overbearing parent role! She is the one constantly expecting more/better from her son! (to an unreasonable extent that makes him feel like a failure? YUP! But at least it's there!)

JFM isn't strict, he just doesn't care. I feel like when I look at the motivations of characters, I can see why YZY behaves that way. I get why people make her the villain of stories - because if you're looking at bad family dynamics, she is the aggressor. But the thing is, JFM is right there flying under the radar, undermining all these relationships, introducing all sorts of doubt, not doing any emotional labor at all. Like what kind of asshole says to his small child "say goodbye to your dogs here's your new brother! ok sleep tight in your new shared room I'm off to bed byeeeeee."

#Yu Ziyuan #Jiang Fengmian #mdzs meta #I guess my point is just that when it comes to family dynamics #passive villains are still villains #again this is NOT saying YZY did nothing wrong #she did a lot of shit wrong!#it's about how other characters get more meta and humanization and the why of that #like... fic can really be healing/cathartic #and if you see your own abuser in YZY and want to demonize her then yeah! go for it!#but we are in a canon where many other people have done actually MUCH worse than her and the broader lack of empathy #it feels real unfair #it feels misogynistic #it feels like putting all jiang family problems on her when JFM is the cause of a lot of them #like think about the narrative of the wife supposed to just submit to her husband and be cool with whatever he wants to do #kinda bullshit right?#because it's not just the husband wanting to adopt his friend's son #it's also the husband ignoring his own children #shit's complicated bro!

148 notes · View notes

wangxianficrecs · 11 months

Text

A Touch To Calm This Aching Heart by Multifacetedinterests

A Touch To Calm This Aching Heart

by Multifacetedinterests

E, 12k, Wangxian

Summary: Wei Wuxian dropped her hand to her side as Madam Yu and the dragons drew closer, refocusing before her mind wandered too far away. She needed to be demure and un-fox-like if she wanted to die a moderately less painful death. They couldn’t know what she was. “I hope this offering can lay the foundations for more amiable relations,” Madam Yu stated. ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ Huli jings needed touch. It didn’t matter if it was sexual or platonic, but it was a biological necessity. Without touch, a huli jing would slowly wither and die. (In which huli jing Wei Wuxian becomes dragon Lan Wangji’s war prize, and biology brings them closer together.)

Kay's comments: Ah, the sweet torture this story was! In which Huli Jing Wei Wuxian is sent to the Lan dragons as a war prize and given to Lan Wangji. Despite growing to like Lan Wangji quickly, there's one big problem: Huli Jings need touch or else they die, but Wei Wuxian also needs to keep her identity as a huliy jing a secret, so she's in trouble. I love the entire premise of it and the flavour of Wei Wuxian needing touch or else she dies and also, lesbian Wangxian, very nice! And there's also this huge misunderstanding that Wei Wuxian has been brought to the Cloud Recesses to be Lan Xichen's plaything, which I really enjoyed, because of how it affected Wangxian's relationship and how Wei Wuxian allowed herself to grow closer to Lan Wangji while her brother was away.

Excerpt: A few hours was preferable to missing days, and Lan Zhan seemed willing to answer her questions. Wei Wuxian tentatively probed further, “When will Zewu-jun return to Cloud Recesses?” “A few weeks,” Lan Zhan said with narrowed eyes. The topic of Zewu-jun was off-limits then, which was fine. She could work with that information for now and ask again in the future. There was one other thing though; Wei Wuxian fiddled with the edges of her robes as she worked up the nerve to ask. “So, I’m staying here? You really don’t mind?” She liked Lan Zhan, and as much as she enjoyed challenging her and getting her to react, she did not want to make her uncomfortable in her own home. “Mn. I want Wei Ying here.” Lan Zhan said with too much certainty. “Do not worry.” What would she think when she invariably discovered she was cohabiting with a huli jing?

pov wei wuxian, canon divergence, female wei wuxian, female lan wangji, fox wei wuxian, huli jing, dragon lan wangji, war prize wei wuxian, shapeshifters, yu ziyuan being an asshole, dead jiang fengmian, emotional manipulation, lies, touch-starved, secret identity, enemies to lovers, miscommunication, misunderstandings, compulsory heterosexuality, dom/sub undertones, collars, bathing/washing, vaginal fingering, orgasm delay/denial, exhibitionism, cunnilingus, mildly dubious consent, sect leader jiang yanli, living together, fighting, @multifacetedinterests

~*~

(Please REBLOG as a signal boost for this hard-working author if you like – or think others might like – this story.)

63 notes · View notes

veliseraptor · 3 years

Text

CQL Characters Rated by Their Stress Levels

On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being “Lan Wangji smiling at Wei Wuxian” and 10 being “Lan Xichen at Guanyin Temple.”

Lan Wangji: Varies wildly over the course of the series; see @howpeacefulislwj for detailed rundown. The roundup post averages his peacefulness at 4.2/10. Generally speaking, stress levels middling, between 3/10 and 5/10 with some extreme highs, pretty much all Wei Wuxian related.

Wei Wuxian: One of those people where you’re like “god I hate him, everything’s so easy for him and he can do everything better than me, it’s the worst, how the fuck does he do it” and then years later you find out that he had an epic burnout and dropped off the face of the earth for sixteen years because actually it wasn’t that easy he just made it look that way.

I mean, he starts the series at about a 5/10 general state (he’s managing a lot but handling it okay) and basically escalates to a relatively consistent 9 or 10/10 for most of the stretch from the Burial Mounds through to his dying. Someone should make a @howpeacefuliswwx chart, I’d be curious to see his average.

Jiang Cheng: Has been existing in a constant low-level state of stress since late childhood and only grows over time. The calmest I think we ever see him is when he’s holding a bunny and other than that it’s mostly downhill. I worry about him getting ulcers sometimes. 8/10.

Jiang Yanli: Jiang Yanli is so used to being stressed that she barely even registers it any more. What do you mean, most people don’t raise two other children when they are also a child? What do you mean, most people take breaks from supporting others to help themselves? Weird. If she was thinking about it she’d be at a 8 or 9/10 but since she’s so accustomed to this way of life that it just feels totally normal she’s more like a 4 or a 5.

Jiang Fengmian: Avoids being more stressed by generally avoiding his problems, which is one way to deal with it but doesn’t really end up working out most of the time. 3/10.

Yu Ziyuan: Resides somewhere in the vicinity of 5/10 stress levels, 11/10 rage levels, and when the stress levels get above 5 then everyone else’s stress levels better be hitting the roof.

Lan Xichen: Lan Xichen would probably be relatively unstressed if life didn’t consistently come crashing through his relatively chill vibes. Lan Xichen on a good day is, like, 3/10, handling pretty well, but when things start going wrong around him then he pretty quickly hits critical stress levels and will do drastic things to resolve that, such as convincing Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao to set aside their near-murder differences and swear brotherhood, which will definitely work out absolutely fine. Ends up averaging closer to 8/10 because things keep going wrong around him.

Lan Qiren: He’d be fine if his entire family didn’t insist on causing him problems, constantly. Handling it surprisingly well, all things considered. Still 6/10 though.

Nie Mingjue: I mean, does spend a large chunk of time steadily inching toward a qi deviation? That on its own is pretty stressful and also he just seems like generally a high blood pressure sort of person. But the qi deviation inducing saber is definitely not, like, helping. Putting him at a roughly 6 or 7/10 with a median level that just keeps inching slowly upward.

Nie Huaisang: Actually less stressed than you’d expect given how flighty he seems to be! Even when plotting revenge is less “stressed” than “determined.” Pretty good at keeping himself calm most of the time. Generally sits at a stress level of 4/10 or so with a few significant exceptions.

Jin Guangyao: Very stressed all of the time. He has a lot to be stressed about! Between the various complexes and the tendency toward paranoia, Jin Guangyao is definitely among the most stressed in a room at any given time, while doing his best to convey otherwise. But seriously, look at this smile. Does that look like the smile of a serene man to you? 10/10.

Jin Zixuan: You know those high-strung racehorses that sometimes get spooked by, like, a shadow on the ground? That’s Jin Zixuan. Mostly manages to mask his constant low-level “AHHHHH” with a layer of arrogance and/or social awkwardness that looks like arrogance, but it’s there, in the background. 7/10.

Jin Zixun: Shielded from the general Jin neuroses by being an asshole. It’s not fair, but there you are. 3/10 because he does seem to have some inferiority complex issues going on, but that’s not the same thing as stress.

Jin Guangshan: Deserves to be a lot more stressed than he is. Alas, is confident enough to not be terribly stressed. 2/10.

Mianmian: So you know how cheetahs are very panicky animals and so they often in zoos get paired with dogs who will help them figure out that this situation is safe and they don’t need to panic? I feel like Mianmian is Jin Zixuan’s stress meter in their friendship. She will let him know when to be stressed! Because she is not going to spook at her own shadow. Has a sense of reasonable responses to stressors and knows how to remove herself from a bad situation when necessary. Generally a 5/10 because the inherent stress of existing in the Jin Sect is a real thing.

Wen Qing: It’s hard to be the most competent person in the room most of the time who spends most of her time in very politically precarious positions and with her or her brother’s life at least sort of in danger! Pretty up there for “most stressed” candidates. She’s really having a time of it. Generally hovers around an 8/10.

Wen Ning: Generally not stressed, at least not in the traditional way. Is distressed a lot, but not so much stressed. Ends up at roughly 4/10.

Wen Chao: Like Jin Zixun, gets somewhat shielded from stress by being an unrepentant asshole, though his end of life 11/10 stress via Wei Wuxian kind of makes up for the rest. Averages more of a 2/10 most of the time, though? I don’t think we can let that relatively brief period skew the scale too much.

Wen Ruohan: Does “magic induced losing your mind” count as stress? I mean, he has a pretty stressful job even before that, but he doesn’t project “stress” so much as “incipient madness” during the period where we actually see him doing things. Not sure what rating to give here. It seems like he’s kind of on a different scale.

Wang Lingjao: For the most part seems to manage to get by relatively stress-free, up until things start going completely to shit and she gets haunted to death. Generally closer to a 2 or 3/10, because life as a servant ascended to mistress in a strictly hierarchical society is inherently a wee bit stressful.

Wen Zhuliu: Too sick of this shit and not getting paid enough to really stress out about it. 1/10.

Lan Sizhui: One of those people who manages to appear serene and calm all the time but mostly has just gotten used to functioning at a higher level of stress and therefore can pass for calm even when he is having an Experience of it, which makes his stress levels kind of hard to gauge. But I’d put him at a relatively consistent 6/10.

Lan Jingyi: Wouldn’t call him stressed exactly but he’s definitely very high energy. Kind of gives off the vibes of a very energetic dog who would be stressed if you didn’t keep him busy, but mostly (because I feel like Gusu Lan Sect is pretty good at keeping him busy) hovers around a 2 or 3/10.

Jin Ling: I feel like Jin Ling isn’t stressed most of the time up until the actual events of CQL itself, where he is both very stressed and very confused almost constantly from the time he first runs into Wei Xuanyu, and it only goes downhill from there. So covering the events of the show I’m going to put him at a 7/10, because he does manage to deal with some wild things with some equanamity and makes it all the way to episode forty-five without breaking down sobbing.

Ouyang Zizhen: Seems like a sensitive soul but doesn’t give off the impression of carrying around a lot of stress, at least not from what we see of him. Probably the chillest of the junior quartet, tbh. Gonna give him a 2/10.

Xiao Xingchen: For most of his life Xiao Xingchen manages his stress very well! He’s actually surprisingly chill. Gets significantly more stressed, understandably, after Xue Yang engineers his no good very bad breakup (the first one) with Song Lan. But in general not that stressed! It is actually part of why he doesn’t handle the stress when it comes very well. He’s not used to it and he only had one pair of eyes to sacrifice. In general a 3/10.

Song Lan: Makes up for Xiao Xingchen’s relatively low stress levels by picking up on the stress for both of them. Still chiller than a lot of people on this list, though, but there’s a lot of very stressed people in this show, so. 5/10.

Xue Yang: Manages his stress by making everyone else very stressed, on purpose. If he’s having a bad day he’ll go and make someone else have a worse day and it helps. At least until there’s a dead Xiao Xingchen and then nothing helps! But as a rule exists at a general 2/10 and honestly he deserves it.

A-Qing: Her life is inherently stressful because she is a street kid trying to make it in a world that is not very friendly to people with no structure supporting them, but she manages to bear it pretty well on the whole. Still, it’s hard being a-Qing. She just makes it look easy. Probably a 4 or 5/10.

Sect Leader Yao: He’s not stressed, but he’s very good at making everyone around him stressed every time he opens his mouth. His presence is a +2 to stress for everyone in his vicinity with the exception of Sect Leader Ouyang, who is for some reason immune. 0/10.

#the untamed #cql #i'm not going to tag every character on this list that is TOO MUCH WORK #lise does meta #(um. ish)#i should just have an 'untamed shitposts' tag at this point #the sad queer cultivators show

509 notes · View notes

somesillypig · 3 years

Text

I really enjoy Jiang Cheng character discussions. I like to read what people think of his actions, his motivations, the way he acts and considers things around him. Anything that makes me step back and go, “Hmm! I like this, I enjoy this!” And most discussions do.

But, there’s one thing I will never agree with, and it’s saying Jiang Cheng is like his mother and mean it fully as a negative descriptor, rather than a feeling of sadness, wistfulness, of how he and she got that way.

I don’t like flat descriptions Yu Ziyuan as being aggressive, loud, angry, etc because I feel those are often used to describe women acting in a manner that people think not appropriate for women, whether one realizes or not. If I were to say Yu Ziyuan was forthright, upfront, unwilling to not have her opinions not be heard, that would be fine unless you didn’t want to hear her opinion.

And no one seems to be willing to listen to her opinions without going, Ah, angry overreacting woman.

Some people think she's pretty brutal in her parenting tactics, but I have to say it seems pretty normal to me. And maybe there’s some cultural difference kicking in there. Boy, she’s not NEARLY as harsh as some of my aunts. My mother was a bit like her, my popo .... not. But Popo is a totally different kind of person, and that is passive-aggressive and manipulative.

And that, THAT is what I don’t like. Passive-aggressive.

Yu Ziyuan has no interest in acting polite, demure, etc. She is confident in her status and her abilities, and it’s warranted. She knows her skills, her standing, and is confident in what she can do and in what she thinks she should do. I envy it. Envy it.

When I was younger, there was a term used to describe women like this: Dragon lady.

Some people meant it as a compliment, and some people meant it as an insult.

A lot of people meant it as an insult. Specifically to Asian women that they thought were acting in a manner they shouldn’t. Asian Americans used it too, as an insult.

My husband pointed out that Dragon Lady was a descriptor for evil women characters in 1930s movies, and the descriptor carried forward. I maintain that the term was used a lot more indiscriminately to refer to Asian women who didn’t act demure enough for people, because that’s what I observed.

I don’t like it if you mean it as an insult. I think it should be a compliment. But anyways. Let me put a personal spin on this.

When I was kid until university, I was quiet. Didn’t express my opinions (didn’t have many, thought I shouldn’t), took people’s shit, unwarranted or warranted. But the minute I decided that I should be able to express my opinions, to not take shit from my family, my family told me I was too aggressive.

Too aggressive. Because I told people to their faces that they were being assholes, being rude, and/or their opinions were uninformed and unwarranted.

So I get Yu Ziyuan. She was likely pushed to the side, her husband doesn’t think her opinions are worthwhile, and she’s angry and doesn’t see the point in pretending to be agreeable. She’s been insulted and suspicious of language that dodges the point, and so she’s forthright. And yeah, she’s a jerk about it.

And, I think that can be what also happened to Jiang Cheng. He’s been through a lot of hurt, a lot of lack of information, and lies. And insults. He’s not willing to play polite anymore, to trust people to give him full information anymore. But he will tell other what he thinks, and follow through.

Not excusing all his anger and actions. It is a lot. I’m thinking, his life experiences led him to this, just like his mom.

And I feel sad for them and anyone who’s had to become so hard, because they probably went through a lot that forced them to be this way.

#jiang cheng #yu ziyuan #the untamed #I'm not a hard boiled egg #i'm a soft boiled egg

62 notes · View notes

plan-d-to-i · 3 years

Note

Jiang Cheng Stans have shit for brain istg: "Poor baby JC T-T He was already getting over the loss of the dogs and softening towards Wwx... It's JFM's overt favoritism from the very start that made JC jealous and upset. And what child wouldn't be?? Poor thing. JFM you suck."

What child would not be?! one who is not total asshole. Are this people so insecure they think this is normal behavior?

anon you're telling me this is not satire? "Overt favoritism"? bc he picked him up and prioritized an insurmountable phobia over a whim? JFM didn't just give away jc's dogs and tell him to suck it up , rub some mud in it & fuck off. He "comforted him gently". jc was allowed to break shit and throw an absolute shit fit of a tantrum.

When Jiang Fengmian discovered that Wei Wuxian was terrified of dogs, he quietly told Jiang Cheng to send his puppies away. Extremely unhappy with this, Jiang Cheng threw a tantrum. The boy bawled and hurled things everywhere, his face contorted in misery. Only after he had made a huge scene did he finally send his dogs away.

btw you know who gets to throw tantrums & breaks shit? ppl who have the means to replace it. Poor kids- you break your shit you get to live without it. Also let's totally ignore who the real person who fanned these flames of envy and resentment was :

“when Jiang FengMian began to rejoice, he took Wei WuXian up and let him sit on his arm. Watching the scene unfold, Jiang Cheng was shocked speechless. Immediately, Madam Yu let out a bitter laugh and went out the room. It was only because the couple had important matters to attend to and left in a hurry that they didn’t start another argument.”

SHOCKER it's Yu Ziyuan. Ofc if she had acted like this was a fucking normal decent thing of anyone to do maybe jc would've had second thoughts about being that self involved. He's nine here. I'm not saying 9 year olds are beacons of selflessness or self awareness but they're not all jc either. WWX didn't even want to ask for a bun although he was starving on the streets. & I'm supposed to feel bad for jc & hate on JFM?! AAAAAAaaaaaaaa

#mdzs #jiang cheng #Wei Wuxian #anti jiang cheng stan ig

39 notes · View notes

chalkrevelations · 3 years

Text

Back, finally, with Word of Honor, Episode 11, which involved a lot of waving my hands around over precious button Zhang Chengling and his concern about whatever ridiculous argument between his Murder Dads left his shifu in a snit and must be solved right this minute. I really think if he could’ve just pushed their heads together like two Ken dolls to make them kiss and make up, he would have. Didi, I could eat you up with a spoon, although not in the creepy way that Du Pusa threatens. I promise.

First, though, due diligence: Spoilers, possibly likely for the entire show, not just this ep, so scroll away and come back later if you are still, at this point in the game, trying to watch the whole 36.5 eps unspoiled. Also, this is hella long. Strap in. Hashtag long post (remorseful).

First thing I actually want to do is point out a couple of scenes that I found particularly striking for various reasons. The first one is not quite the opening scene - which is super-brief and involves Yueyang’s prep for the Heroes Conference, Gao Shan (AKA Chengling’s bully-in-chief) being smug about Yueyang’s upcoming ascendance (oh boy, are you in for a surprise, you little schmuck), and Gao Chong’s extreme weariness at the idea of Yueyang’s upcoming ascendance. Gao Chong is very tired, y’all. It’s been a long 20 years. There’s also a ginormous sword on display, like Yueyang is now having a dick-measuring contest with who they think is the disciple of the Changming Sword Immortal (and oh boy, are you guys in for another surprise. I’m not sure what part of “immortal” y’all don’t understand). But I digress - as I said, this is a very brief scene, and then we cut back to Luo Mansion, where we left Ghost Valley and Lunatic Wen at the end of the last ep. Everyone is gone except for Wen Kexing, who’s still plotting, Beauty Ghost, who’s trying to stay tf out of this current shitshow as much as possible (good luck with that), and Tragicomic Ghost, who is totally and completely Done With This Shit. She berates WKX for acting crazy, he gets snappy back – I feel like their relationship is maybe a little bit fraught at this point – and Beauty Ghost attempts to soothe the waters, leading to an eyeroll from Tragicomic Ghost with a directive to stand the hell up and stop being scared of this idiot child throwing his weight around. WKX dismisses Tragicomic Ghost so he can plan a Very Secret Mission for Beauty Ghost in secret. WKX is … he is super-tired at this point. Painfully, achingly tired. I would almost say weary. We can see it in Gong Jun’s face. It’s a nice subtle bit of acting, and it definitely says something about WKX’s relationship with these women that he’s willing and able to show it in front of them, even as he’s still throwing his weight around.

Anyway, Liu Qianqiao proves her smarts by showing her hand just enough for WKX and us to see that she’s seen through the Lunatic Wen act to the utility of chokin’ out a dude as a warning, to try keeping Changing Ghost in line (good luck with that), but she also assures all of us that she only wants to serve the Ghost Valley Master and has no agenda of her own. WKX assures her that he has everything under control (Uh … huh. OK, my dude) and tells her he has a task for her, before detouring into a quiz about her disguise technique (learned from Qin Huaizhang, Zhou Zishu’s shifu at Siji Manor, and this is probably a tipoff that the Very Secret Mission will involve disguising herself), about Siji Manor, and about why she never visited there. We get some interesting vague hints about her past, including the fact that she met Qin Huaizhang when she was “little” and he took pity on her “disfigurement,” according to both the Youku and Netflix English subs. @coralcoloratura pulled out 童年时 (tóngnián shí) from the Chinese subs for me, which does mean “childhood.” Given that the going story is Yu Qiufeng’s wife threw acid in LQQ’s face over their affair, this opens up some questions about how old LQQ actually was when all that happened. Viki subs, per @janedrewfinally, add that she says she treated Qin Huaizhang to a meal, so she couldn’t have been too young. But Qin Huaizhang dies when ZZS is just 16, and LQQ can’t be any older than ZZS, and is likely younger (good lord, I just checked actor ages, and Ke Naiyu is 7 years younger than ZZH, so that’s probably not a good age gap to port over to the show, because just. No.). All this leads me to place LQQ at somewhere between Zhang Chengling’s age and Gu Xiang’s age (at most) when this whole tragic backstory happened, which is still pretty freakin’ young, and I can see why she would consider herself a child, at least metaphorically, in terms of naïvete, if not literally. I don’t know how much exploration has been done about this, on the fannish side of things, but it seems like an area rich for exploration. Also, I CANNOT TELL YOU how much I now want to read the AU of WKX and LQQ both actually being brought to Siji Manor at various times by Qin Huaizhang and staying there. I suspect that with those two shidi backing him, ZZS might never have had to go to Prince Jin in the first place. (Clearly this makes some things problematic, including A-Xiang, but I keep thinking about ZZS, WKX and LQQ growing up together … And anyway, I’m ALSO willing to read the AU(s) where WKX’s storyline stays the same, but LQQ does come to Siji Manor – both the AU where she and ZZS together manage to save the sect, and the AU where she goes with them to Jin, and the kind of weapon she could be for ZZS there, as he runs Tian Chuang. Who’s writing all this? Anyone? Anyone?) Anyway, when WKX asks why she didn’t visit Siji Manor, LQQ tells WKX that she’s a ghost now and doesn’t want to think about the living world anymore, which is probably a way of saying she wishes she had gone there and doesn’t want to talk about her many and varied bad decisions back in the day; it also acts as an unknowing reinforcement of that bright line WKX is desperately trying to maintain for himself between the world of ghosts and the world of humans. Plus it gives him the chance to speak the very portentous line that “Yes, we’re ghosts, and ghosts disappear in the light,” pulling the theme of light back in, again and giving us all kinds of foreshadowing. Cut away as he leans in to whisper her mission to her.

The other really striking scene, for me, happens near the end of the ep, when Gao Chong visits the shrine room, with the memorial tablets of his various brothers and friends. This hit me not just because of Hei Zi’s acting (which is great, don’t get me wrong) but also because this is a scene that reflects both backward and forward in the show - back to ZZS in Ep 1 and forward to the two scenes that Zhao Jing will have in this same room – as well as giving us all sorts of subtle clues about relationships throughout the show. So first of all, we see, in a shot that will mean more the deeper we get into the show, tablets for Zhen Ruyu and Gu Miaomiao (or, “his wife,” as the Youku subs call her, and this is me, rolling my eyes), who were apparently close enough to Gao Chong that he keeps memorial tablets for them on his home altar - which helps explain why WKX is so incensed that none of these Five Lakes Alliance assholes helped his parents when they were turned out of the Healer’s Valley, although that’s not something we would have known yet on a first watch through the show. Gao Chong lights some incense and apologizes to the tablet of Zhang Yusen for letting Zhang Chengling get kidnapped. He talks about waiting 20 years to learn the truth – which is kind of cryptic, but probably means the truth about who poisoned his sword before the spar with Rong Xuan, which we hear about in a later scene this ep – and gets a little bit salty about the fact that it doesn’t matter if everyone else doesn’t believe him, but why didn’t Zhang Yusen believe him? Again, I’m assuming this is about Gao Chong’s protestations that he’s not the one who put poison on his sword. We also learn in this same ep – from Chengling – that Zhang Yusen’s break with the Five Lakes Alliance seems to have at least started that far back, and that Yusen would have been at Mount Qingya to stand with Rong Xuan against his other Alliance brothers, if Yusen’s shifu hadn’t broken his legs so that he couldn’t travel there. (Yusen clearly had some strong feelings about this, if that’s what it took to get him to sit still for it. Also, it makes me wonder how Ye Baiyi’s feelings about Chengling might change if he ever learned that Chengling’s father intended to defend and stand with a guy who Ye Baiyi considered his own child, as well as his disciple.)

Gao Chong then proceeds to have a little crisis of faith – he’s very tired, y’all, it’s been a long 20 years – and talks about how no one understands him, and he’s old, and everyone’s dead. He also yells at Rong Xuan’s tablet, calling Rong Xuan da-ge but also saying he’s sorry he ever met him, but then there’s this brief little moment after, when he seems a little bit shocked at himself for saying it out loud, which reminds me, honestly, of the moment in CQL (we’ve all seen The Untamed, right, I don’t have to put spoiler warnings for it, right?) when Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are in the Yunmeng Jiang memorial hall and Wei Wuxian talks about Yu Ziyuan’s punishments back in the day, then pats his own mouth and says “My fault, my fault, my fault” before bowing to her tablet. Like, yes, their relationship was multiple levels of fucked-up, and his reaction is not out of place given some of his continuing neuroses, but also, this is just not a thing you do, speaking ill of the dead to their faces. I’m sure Gao Chong does regret ever meeting Rong Xuan, and the way that led to the building of the Armory and the Five Lakes Alliance to guard it, and the position that ultimately put Gao Chong in - not to mention that if he never met Rong Xuan he never would have accidentally killed him. But you can’t say things like that OUT LOUD to the MEMORIAL TABLET. Then contrast this to Zhao Jing, who literally takes a piss on the tablet in one of the later episodes. Because he’s the worst. And THEN, Gao Chong kneels and talks to the tablets of Zhang Yusen and Lu Taichong, his dead Five Lakes Alliance brothers, saying they must have met again in the netherworld, and that they’re probably swearing about him right now, and this is the point when I sit straight up and exclaim, out loud, “Fuck. Me. This is Zhou Zishu’s breakdown at the mirror in Episode 1.” When he talks to Jiuxiao about how Jiuxiao and Jing’An must have met again in the afterlife by now and are probably discussing what an awful shixiong ZZS is, right? And then Gao Chong even laughs bitterly like ZZS, and cries like ZZS, and I just. OK. FINE, show. I’ll try to go a little easier on Gao Chong, because you’re clearly linking him to ZZS, here, and I’m willing to forgive ZZS for anything. I suppose I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t try to extend just a little bit of the same grace to Gao Chong.

So, that’s a lot of verbiage, and I haven’t even gotten to Wenzhou yet, but trust me, I have some things to say about them. While WKX has been terrorizing the troops, ZZS left Han Ying’s place and immediately started drinking again, because that continues to be the best way – in combo with his Nails – he knows to kill himself by increments, but so sad, he’s run out of wine as he wanders the marketplace, alone and zhiji-less. Inside Yueyang, Chengling finds a note purporting to be from “Xu,” instructing him to meet at the North Gate that night, and like the little idiot they keep calling him (he really is too pure for this world), he takes it at face value. On his way that night, he runs into Gao Shan, who inadvertently almost saves him by interrupting his sneaking around to try to bully him back to his room. Something something food as bonding, because the lie Zhang Chengling comes up with is that he’s hungry (he’s not eating Yueyang’s food, and it’s not nourishing him), and he’s on his way to find something to eat (because he and his Murder Dads are in a mutually nourishing relationship, and that’s who he wants to be with). Also, no, he would prefer going to find something to eat for himself and not eating whatever Gao Shan will bring back to Chengling’s room. (A little bit, I’m sad there’s never any place to fit in some canon-complicit long-form enemies to failboats to lovers fic for these two. I have to admit, I would read it. Someone should do something with the tension between them, although I don’t really want it to be anything that will make Best Boy permanently sad.) Anyway, A-Xiang shows up just as Gao Shan is about to frog-march Chengling back to his room, and Gao Shan never sees her coming before he’s knocked out on the ground. A-Xiang is confused about the note but nevertheless helps Chengling get to where he’s supposed to meet “Xu,” whereupon she gets beat up and gets her didi took by the Scorpions. (There’s an interesting moment here where Pretty Arhat is fighting with A-Xiang and asks what her relationship is to Beauty Ghost, which whaaaaaat? THERE’S some backstory I need more on. I’m assuming this is based on A-Xiang’s hand-to-hand fighting style, which I think is the only thing Pretty Arhat has seen at this point, and exactly WHEN has she gotten so familiar with Beauty Ghost’s fighting style? Also, I like the apparent nod to Beauty Ghost’s influence in raising A-Xiang (and we’ll see more of this).) Meanwhile, ZZS has been inexorably drawn to the place he left his child disciple child and is moping right outside of Yueyang, so he sees Pretty Arhat fly away with Chengling. Murder Dad 1 springs into action.

Yueyang disciples run around like ants whose hill has been kicked over, looking for Chengling in town, and two of them encounter Wen Kexing, out for a midnight stroll in a fetching pastel blue and green combo. They ask him about seeing a guy. With a pipa. Or maybe without a pipa. So maybe just a guy. Wen Kexing correctly deduces they’re asking about Phantom Musician Qin Song, who covered Pretty Arhat’s getaway by incapacitating everyone with his magic music. YY disciples are excited and tell WKX yes, this dude was involved in kidnapping Zhang Chengling! Y’all. WKX’s face when he hears that. He is not happy. Almost immediately, he spots Qin Song on a rooftop. Murder Dad 2 springs into action.

So, WKX the Ghost Valley Master finds Qin Song, asks him where Chengling is, crushes his playing hand, threatens to break every single bone in his body one at a time (meanwhile dropping the tidbit that he learned the number of bones in the human body from his dad), and tells him a little story about a time when – apparently – he asked another guy the same question (about WHO? has A-Xiang been kidnapped in the past, because that’s about the only other person I can imagine him being like this about?) and only had to break 80 bones before he got an answer. Meanwhile, ZZS actually finds Chengling, in the Scorpion lair where Du Pusa and Pretty Arhat have variously been molesting him (srsly, I feel like I should probably say something to a trusted adult Murder Dad), torturing him with unpleasant magic pixie dust, smacking him around (he loses a tooth, y’all), and waterboarding him. During all this, Pretty Arhat says she’s yet to meet a man who can stand up to waterboarding, and I’m kind of reminded of WKX’s scene threatening Qin Song, and I don’t know if that’s on purpose or not. Chengling literally spits in her face and proclaims that he’s the son of Zhang Yusen, none of whose sons are cowards, and about then, ZZS busts down the door like he’s WKX (by throwing Monster Jiang through it), tells the Scorpions he’s their daddy, and gets into a big fucking fight with all three of them. He flags a little bit somewhere in here as he starts having some Nail pangs (which, yeah, it must be getting about midnight, which is when that’s supposed to happen) and spits some blood, but he reassures Chengling and then tells the Scorpions no one can stop him from killing who he wants and getting what he wants (OK, Wei Wuxian …). Then he shoots some projectiles from some little contraption up his sleeve that we get a quick look at that I did not remember AT ALL from my first watch of the show but is literally like the gun hanging over the mantel in the first act. Huh. Anyway, he kills Monster Jiang, and Du Pusa (who didn’t give a shit about Monster Jiang OR Qin Song earlier), wants to capture him alive, supposedly so she can get revenge for them by teaching him how it feels “to want to die more than live.” Joke’s on you, lady – too late! That’s literally his constant state of being!

About this time, Qin Song comes flying through the doors – or what’s left of them – gasping his last breath as WKX makes his dramatic entrance. Chengling not only calls him “Wen-shu” but also has already figured out exactly how to manipulate Murder Dad 2 and tells him that in addition to kidnapping him, they also hurt ZZS. WKX is predictably murderous, and Du Pusa and Pretty Arhat run away and hide behind the skirts of Xie Wang’s robes as the Zombie Drug Man Army approaches. WKX tells ZZS to take Chengling and leave, ZZS refuses, and Xie Wang LITERALLY SAYS “IN LIFE AND DEATH YOU WILL NEVER PART. WHAT A TOUCHING MOMENT.” and I am DYING. Also, this will not be the last time ZZS/WKX will exhibit what Xie’er wants from his Awful Yifu. Anyway, Xie’er calls ZZS “Leader Zhou,” then tells WKX that he’ll tell them who he (Xie Wang) is if WKX tells them all who he is first. ZZS is Very Done with all of this and smoke bombs the Scorpions to escape. Xie’er shows he actually does know who both of them are – even though each of them doesn’t know everything about the other’s identity yet, and won’t for a while – by telling Du Pusa and Pretty Arhat that they’re the leader of Tian Chuang and the leader of the Ghost Valley and wondering “How did these two devils end up together?” Like calls to like, I guess.

OK, this is getting super-long, so I’m going to attempt to wrap up with the actual Wenzhou material. We cut to Murder Dads and Chengling sitting in the forest, around a campfire, and Chengling is in heaven, back with his family. He’s super-emotional, and ZZS is all, come on, be a man, don’t cry (OK, crybaby). WKX gives some campfire-cooked rabbit? maybe? to ZZS, who starts a precedent by passing it to Chengling. Please, A-Xu. WKX wants to feed his laopo, will you eat something, ffs? Chengling, still emotional, tells them that he knows they’re the only ones who are sincerely kind to him, that Five Lakes Alliance has all kinds of agendas and none of them care about him, and nobody has asked him what he wants. (I know, bb, they were awful.) ZZS asks what he wants, and Chengling says he wants to learn martial arts, to get revenge, and to not be a useless child anymore. Oh god, the cut to WKX here. His face, y’all. He is not cool with the fact that Chengling thinks he can’t be a child anymore, and probably with whatever role he (WKX) had in it. He is so sad. It’s killing me. However, it’s not as if WKX has lost his edge, and he also pounces, asking Chengling if something happened that made him suspicious of the Alliance. Chengling spills that his dad already didn’t trust them and also told him not to trust anyone ever, but he trusts his Murder Dads! This kid, I tell you. He tells them that his dad hid the Mirror Lake Glazed Armor in his stomach and starts getting ready to cut it out for them before ZZS stops him. He tells them Yusen gave him a letter for the Changming Sword Immortal detailing Rong Xuan’s injury (and we get our first iteration of the story of the battle between the Five Lakes Alliance brothers and Rong Xuan, the poison on the sword, and how that turned Rong Xuan evil). Per Chengling, the original argument was about the Combined Six Cultivation Method. Also per Chengling, the Alliance bothers should have been responsible for Rong Xuan after that, but no one stood up for him – I mean, Zhang Yusen would have, but his legs were broken. We learn that the poisoned sword that injured Rong Xuan belonged to Gao Chong. ZZS looks taken aback, but this all just CONFIRMS WKX’s SUSPICIONS.

Cut away for another scene. Cut back. ZZS has suddenly remembered that he’s pissed off and that someone (else, not him) is sleeping on the couch tonight. Earlier, they were sat in order of Chengling, ZZS, WKX. Now Chengling has been put between them. WKX asks for wine, A-Xu is being passive-aggressive and ignoring him before finally handing the wine gourd to Chengling to pass to WKX. He won’t even look at WKX. It is hilarious, particularly as he only remembered he was mad after they’d all eaten dinner, which WKX cooked, and the pair of them made sure their child was OK. Chengling wants to know if they fought and tells them there’s nothing confidants can’t resolve. He’s in full puppy mode. He tells WKX to hurry up and comfort ZZS, because you know he looks tough on the surface but he’s got the softest heart! Didn’t you teach me that tough women can’t resist clingy men? ZZS’s indignant little face at this is a picture. Chengling offers to apologize for WKX. WKX’s face is all fondness for Chengling, except for the eyebrows, which are doing the Tragic Sadness Eyebrows at ZZS. ZZS is all, OK, fine, although he immediately changes the subject and starts talking about the kidnapping attempt. He tells Chengling that the world is dangerous right now, and the safest place for him is Yueyang Sect. ARE YOU KIDDING ME WITH THIS? Chengling sadly nods. My little dude, c’mon. ZZS’s Nails are bothering him and WKX takes the chance to feed him qi, which ZZS accepts – might I note - without complaint. WKX waxes rhapsodic about A-Xu’s shoulder blades, and says he once saw a dead body with beautiful shoulder blades. Smashcut to a flashback of two people who we don’t yet know are Zhen Ruyu and Gu Miaomiao dead on the ground. Although this takes place immediately after the scene of Gao Chong at the altar, when the first tablets we see are Zhen Ruyu’s and Gu Maiomiao’s, we also don’t know yet to connect those names to these bodies. Tricksy, show. We see Zhen Yan place his hand on Gu Miaomiao’s back, and WKX’s voiceover talks about how he could tell she was a beauty despite the blood everywhere. ZZS interrupts this morbid tale to say they should let the past stay in the past, and then tells WKX, “My condolences,” even though WKX hasn’t actually mentioned anywhere in the story about this dead body that it was even anyone he knew, let alone someone he was related to. Because A-Xu isn’t stupid. Immediately after this - after saying they should leave the past in the past - ZZS asks WKX who he is. WKX goes into his Philanthropist Wen evasion spiel. ZZS shakes his head, visibly steels himself, and apparently comes to the decision to model the behavior he’s trying to encourage by coming clean about his real name, his relationship to Siji Manor, all of his bad decisions, his choking guilt over the deaths of all the Siji Manor disciples, and his reign of state-sanctioned terror as founder and leader of Tian Chuang. Notably, the very first word Chengling speaks to ZZS after hearing this rundown of supposed and actual crimes is to call him “Shifu” again to get his attention before asking for more info about the Scorpions. THIS CHILD. MY HEART.

ZZS tells them both, “I spent half my life alone, doing things I didn’t want to do and killing people I didn’t want to kill,” and I literally want to reach into the screen and shake WKX, because OMG LAO WEN. You are reflections of each other, and he’s baring his soul, and you’re going to continue to be so afraid that he’s not going to accept every part of you that it’s going to be episodes and episodes before you open up, and even then, only after he figures it out on his own. :hands: To make things even more OBVIOUS, ZZS then asks Chengling if he still wants ZZS to be his shifu after learning all of this, and Chengling doesn’t even hesitate, he says “Of course,” and ZZS and I are both about to cry. UGH. Zhang Zhehan, your face. It’s killing me. This is a man seeing the hope of resurrection for the sect he was convinced he had ground into dust. ZZS and Chengling are both so busy being emotional at each other that WKX has to take matters into his own hands, encouraging Chengling to bow, and we get a real bow to shifu this time, in a scene that once again mirrors the later scene when Zhen Yan makes his bow to Qin Huaizhang to become a Siji Manor disciple.

ZZS tells Chengling, all right, then. You are the first disciple of the sixth generation. (SHIXIONG. NO PRESSURE.)

End ep.

#zhou zishu #wen kexing #zhang chengling #beauty ghost #liu qianqiao #gao chong #gao shan #du pusa #pretty arhat #qin song #gu xiang #xie wang #tragicomic ghost #luo fumeng #qin huaizhang #word of honor #word of honor episode reax

22 notes · View notes

taizi · 3 years

Text

the ship sways but the heart is steady

chapter one: the ship sways

the untamed pairing: jiang cheng & wei ying, lan zhan/wei ying word count: 2549 summary: Wei Ying’s friends are at rock-bottom, and Wei Ying puts his life on hold to help them put theirs back together. To absolutely no one’s surprise except Wei Ying’s, his family goes with him. read on ao3

During family dinner, Wei Ying’s phone rings, cutting mother off mid-sentence.

Jiang Cheng cringes inwardly and his brother’s face goes two shades paler. They have guests over, so mother doesn’t do more than glare hatefully in Wei Ying’s direction.

She won’t make a scene in front of Yanli’s husband, or even Wei Ying’s fiancé—Jin Zixuan is everything Yu Ziyuan wants in a match for her daughter, and Lan Zhan’s family is one of the richest on the East Coast.

Lan Zhan is also willing to give as good as he gets. His eyes are already narrowing in mother’s direction, the tentative ceasefire of family dinner wobbling precariously beneath their feet as he perceives the great and unforgivable offense of insult to Wei Ying. A-Li resolutely tries to pick the conversation back up from where it lulled, with all the steely resolve of someone throwing herself into the path of a rampaging bull. Jin Zixuan has graduated from grimacing into his wineglass to gazing hopefully at the clock every three minutes.

Always willing to fall on the grenade, Wei Ying ducks his head meekly.

“Sorry, I thought I silenced it,” he says, the shape of a laugh in his voice even if he can’t manage to drag it all the way out. He’s rummaging his cellphone out of his pocket, presumably to turn it off as a gesture of good faith. “I’ll just…”

But his eyes catch on the screen, and something happens to his expression that Jiang Cheng has never seen before.

Wei Ying stands up, so abruptly his chair sails back with an awful screech, and excuses himself. Lan Zhan follows him out of the dining room without a single word or a backwards glance. That’s all it takes for mother to pick up a scathing tirade against Jiang Cheng’s good-for-nothing, ungrateful, waste-of-space brother.

He joins Jin Zixuan in watching the clock. Worry swims in the back of his mind like a school of startled fish.

Wei Ying’s apartment is really actually Lan Zhan’s apartment, but the two of them have been inseparable since they were fourteen, and it naturally followed that where one of them would live, so would the other. The place is ridiculous, modern and minimalist, and it would look like something out of a magazine if not for Wei Ying’s inevitable clutter. But even the stacks of books and magazines, and haphazard easels, and little jars of paints and loose brushes everywhere manage to make the place seem charming and lived-in instead of the horrible disaster tornado it rightly should be.

Jiang Cheng asked him once what the monthly rent was but Wei Ying looked so haunted by the question that Jiang Cheng decided he didn’t actually want to know.

They’re all crammed into the conversation pit, recovering from family dinner in the usual fashion. Jin Zixuan is much more likable when his tie is loose and he’s nursing a lukewarm beer.

A-Li is clinging to Jiang Cheng’s hand so hard he’s beginning to lose circulation but he’d sooner agree to amputate than he would shake her off.

“You’re on speaker, A-Qing,” Wei Ying says with mock-severity. “Keep it PG for the children in the room, please.”

“So Jiang Cheng and Jin Zixuan are there?” Wen Qing asks rhetorically.

Jin Zixuan sighs but doesn’t rise to it. Jiang Cheng snaps, “Listen, assholes,” partly out of half-hearted irritation, and partly to hear Wen Qing sigh the way she does when she doesn’t want to reward someone with a real laugh.

“Yanli and Lan Zhan are here, too,” Wei Ying says cheerfully. His tone doesn’t match how worried his eyes are. “This is a family-only meeting. So tell us what those texts were about.”

Jiang Cheng realizes right away why Wei Ying bailed on dinner.

There was an apartment fire. The Wens lost everything. Wen Ning is in the hospital with smoke inhalation and second-degree burns because he ran in to make sure their neighbors got out safely. All of their savings are wrapped up in putting Wen Qing through medical school. She’s adrift now in a way that Jiang Cheng has never been.

“There’s... we have an old house, somewhere out in the country. It was sold to my grandparents cheap, but they never got around to renovating it. It’s not even livable, just bare bones.”

A-Li starts crying the second Wen Qing does.

“It’s too much,” Wen Qing forces out. “I can’t do this on my own.”

Wei Ying, to his credit, actually does hesitate. A whole five seconds. And then he says, “I thought you were supposed to be my smart friend. Who said you were doing this on your own?”

He says it as easily as if it was an absolute given that he would turn his whole life around and upside down for her. All she had to do was call.

There is a minor disagreement between Jiang Cheng’s siblings.

“A-Li,” Wei Ying says, holding both of her hands in both of his own and looking deeply, imploringly, into her eyes. “You’re way too pregnant to fly.”

Her face crinkles alarmingly, eyes already red and puffy from recent tears. Jiang Cheng, Jin Zixuan and Lan Zhan tense in exactly the same way, at the same time.

“I won’t have you going all the way to California by yourself,” Yanli says in her most eldest-sibling tone of voice. “I won’t have it, A-Ying.”

“I am a grown-up,” Wei Ying points out gently, with all the wisdom of his twenty-four years. “I pay bills and have a job I hate and everything. And I won’t be by myself, I’ll have A-Qing and A-Ning.”

“And me, obviously,” Jiang Cheng grumbles. Wei Ying whips around to stare at him.

“Oh,” Yanli says, a blanket of relief rolling across her face. “Oh, of course.”

“You can’t,” Wei Ying hisses at him, looking more panicked now than he has all night. “Your mother—”

“Okay, first of all, don’t tell me what I can and can’t do,” Jiang Cheng bites back, prickly with worry for the Wens and worry for his idiot brother. “Secondly, you, going by yourself, is not an option. It’s off the table. It was never on the table. Stupid,” he adds, on principle.

Lan Zhan doesn’t contribute much to the conversation at this point but Jiang Cheng learned a long time ago that that doesn’t mean shit. Lan Zhan has more opinions than any three people combined, whether or not he chooses to voice them. There is no fucking way he doesn’t have thoughts about his fiance picking up and moving nearly three thousand miles away.

Maybe there’s some strange alternate timeline out there where he would be content to stay behind and let Wei Ying go off without him, but Jiang Cheng would bet his entire trust fund that that’s simply not happening here.

If ever there was a world where Wei Ying would be backed into a corner and forced to help the Wens alone, this world isn’t it.

There’s a minor disagreement between his siblings, and there’s a whole fucking nuclear fallout at home.

“I forbid it,” mother snaps. She’s livid, but she’s livid so much of the time that it started losing its edge a few years ago. “Absolutely not. I refuse to allow this family to lose face because you want to gallivant across the country for some charity case.”

Jiang Cheng sees it when Wei Ying’s posture changes. The dreamy raincloud gray of Wei Ying’s eyes hardens into heavy steel, and his spine stiffens, and his shoulders go back; the absolute opposite of his downcast self at dinner earlier. He’s willing to fight any impossible battle as long as it’s for someone else.

Jiang Cheng grew up looking up to him. He spent all of his formative years as Wei Ying’s little brother. That’s why he’s willing, too.

“The Wens aren’t a charity case,” he says. Not very loud, but he says it. It’s a lot more than he could have done when he was a kid.

“You don’t even know them! They’re just some random people on the Internet. They’re probably scamming you, and you’re both idiot enough to fall for it!”

That’s so untrue and unfair that Jiang Cheng doesn’t know how to argue for a moment. They’ve never met the Wens in person, but Wei Ying has been friends with them since he was ten. They mail each other presents for Christmas and birthdays. Jiang Cheng distinctly remembers calling Wen Qing for help with biochem homework, multiple times. Wen Ning always Skyped with Yanli when he was stuck on a recipe, the two of them cooking together from three time zones apart. They’re all tangled up in each other’s lives, comfortably, irrevocably.

Of course we know them, Jiang Cheng thinks, bewildered.

Out loud, he says, “They’re not scamming us. And we already told them we’re coming.”

Mother screeches and storms around the house and throws things, but she hasn’t actually hit either of them since they grew taller than her. She hasn’t been a source of real fear since Jiang Cheng started looking down at her instead of looking up. It’s mostly just miserable to be around her now.

He remembers that fear, though. It sticks to his body like a half-healed scar. It reminds him to flinch.

It’s early enough in the morning that it might as well still be nighttime when Jiang Cheng and his suitcases finally show up at Wei Ying’s building. He leaves his luggage in the lobby under the watchful gaze of the concierge and takes the private elevator up, keying in the code to his brother’s apartment.

The doors roll open to the living room. Lan Zhan is holding a tiny animal carrier in his hands, gazing at Wei Ying in an extremely gross and smitten way while Wei Ying discusses the upcoming trip with their pets. Pidan and Bao are not being particularly attentive, snuffling at his chin and chewing on a piece of his hair respectively.

“Diedie has decided to be stubborn and not listen to good sense,” Wei Ying is telling the rabbits seriously, “so you’re coming with me and ruining your life instead of being safe and comfortable here at home.”

“Baba is being dramatic,” Lan Zhan informs them in turn. “And also foolish, if he doesn’t realize that our home is wherever he goes.”

“This is the weirdest domestic scene I’ve ever walked into,” Jiang Cheng says loudly, since apparently the telltale ding of the elevator wasn’t enough to announce his presence. He has to interrupt before they do something horrible, like make out in front of him. It’s a constant fucking risk with these two. “Are we leaving or what?”

So the rabbits go into their crate with a frankly absurd amount of fanfare and Jiang Cheng helps wrestle the luggage downstairs. By then, the shuttle that Lan Zhan ordered is waiting for them at the curb.

He knows it isn’t going to be a vacation. Wei Ying’s friends are at rock-bottom, and Wei Ying has essentially put his life on hold to help them put theirs back together. It’s going to be hard work. It’s probably going to be painful, and a little bit scary.

Jiang Cheng is only involved because he chose to be, but it never occurs to him to choose anything else.

If this is where his brother is going, it’s probably the right place to go. And if it’s not, if the whole thing turns out to be a horrible mistake and he regrets all of it, then at least he’ll be in good company.

Wen Ning is out of the hospital by the time their plane lands, and he’s waiting with Wen Qing at the airport. Wei Ying, who by all accounts should feel as foggy and queasy as Jiang Cheng definitely does, drops his bags and sprints across the terminal towards them.

Jiang Cheng and Lan Zhan follow at a more reasonable human pace, possibly in part to give the friends a few moments together. The busy airport traffic moves around them like a river flowing around a rock.

Wen Ning is sobbing, almost a full head taller than Wei Ying but buried against him like the little brother he is. Wen Qing is leaning quietly against the two of them with her eyes closed, as if filling her reserves and shoring up her strength.

She’s the type of person who would be able to cow his mother with a single glance, Jiang Cheng thinks admiringly, and more efficiently than Lan Zhan ever could. She must have a spine built out of steel to be able to stand there without crumbling under the weight of what she’s lost.

And Wei Ying stands there holding them up, tireless and steady. He’s talking too quietly for Jiang Cheng to hear, saying something that makes Wen Ning nod against his shoulder. He’ll hold them up until the ground falls out from under his feet if he has to. Thankfully it’s more like three minutes.

Introductions aren’t necessary. They all just trade exhausted looks and move as a cohesive unit towards the doors.

Wen Ning starts to help with the bags, bandaged hands and all. Wen Qing and Jiang Cheng both snap at him before he can so much as touch a suitcase, and then he just waffles in place anxiously, like he doesn’t know how to person if he isn’t actively being helpful.

“Hold the kids,” Wei Ying says in the spirit of compromise, taking the pet crate from Lan Zhan and holding it out to Wen Ning instead.

Somehow, they shuffle everything out of the airport and into a rental car. Lan Zhan’s phone starts to blow up as soon as he turns airplane mode off, so he turns airplane mode back on and returns the phone to his pocket.

“My uncle has checked the credit card statement,” Lan Zhan says calmly. “My brother is handling it.”

“Poor Lan Huan,” Wei Ying murmurs.

“We have to call A-Li,” Jiang Cheng remembers with a jolt. He digs his own phone out. “She wanted us to call as soon as we landed.”

Everyone clusters in close for the FaceTime call with Yanli, who is tearful and hormonal and indignant about being left behind. Jiang Cheng begs her not to get into a fight with their mother over this. Yanli raises her chin and says, “We’ll see.”

It’s a very long drive to the estate. Wei Ying’s head sinks against Lan Zhan’s shoulder in an inevitable, unstoppable act of gravity. He falls asleep within minutes.

“You have to help me thank him,” Wen Qing says quietly, tapping anxious fingers against the steering wheel. “Help me figure out how to thank him.”

Jiang Cheng snorts, not unkindly. “What makes you think I know how?”

An entire childhood spent raising each other, protecting each other, annoying the shit out of each other, and there are still some things Jiang Cheng has no idea how to say to his brother in a way that he’ll understand. Like I’m sorry, and thank you.

Lan Zhan turns his head to the side, so that his cheek is pillowed against Wei Ying’s hair. Outside, the sprawling California countryside sprints past the windows, wild and golden under a relentless summer sun.

#mo dao zu shi #the untamed #mdzs #wangxian #yunmeng shuangjie #jiang cheng #wei ying #lan zhan #wen ning #wen qing #jiang yanli #my writing #mdzs fic #it was only a matter of time fellas #the ship sways

96 notes · View notes

bloody-bee-tea · 3 years

Text

JC Love Month 2020 Day 10

Knowledge

Day 10 of JC Love Month brings more Mingcheng, where JC at first rejects NMJ but then comes to the conclusion that if his parents will never be happy with what he does, then he can at least make the decision that will make him happy.

Nie Mingjue sees what Jiang Cheng’s answer to his confession will be on his face long before he even opens his mouth.

He has known this would be the answer, but the knowledge still doesn’t make it any easier to bear, if he’s being honest.

“I can’t,” Jiang Cheng says and he puts his arms around him as if he needs to protect himself from Nie Mingjue.

That hurts more than the rejection, actually.

“It’s okay,” Nie Mingjue tells him, even though it doesn’t feel like it’s okay, at least not at that moment.

“I just—I mean—I love you, too,” Jiang Cheng says, and that actually comes out as a surprise to Nie Mingjue.

“What?” he asks, completely stunned by this turn of events and Jiang Cheng gives him something that should probably be a smile, but comes out more as a grimace.

“I love you, of course I do, I have for a while,” Jiang Cheng tells him and Nie Mingjue hates how his voice shakes as he says it. “But my parents, they would never accept this,” Jiang Cheng says with a little shake of his head and then covers his face with his hand. “So I can’t.”

Nie Mingjue knows that Jiang Cheng’s family life is not the easiest—understatement of the year, really—but he didn’t think it was that bad.

“I don’t want to put you into a tight spot with them,” Nie Mingjue awkwardly says and Jiang Cheng lets out a shuddering breath.

“I know that,” he gives back but he still seems unhappy.

It makes sense, if he truly does feel the same for Nie Mingjue.

“Wanyin, nothing has to change,” Nie Mingjue softly says because they have been friends for so long that Nie Mingjue finds it ridiculous that this should change everything. “I’m still your friend, you know that, right?”

“Yeah,” Jiang Cheng whispers, and he sounds anything but certain about that.

“I mean, I’m not going to lie, I need a few days after this,” Nie Mingjue says, as carefully as he can, but Jiang Cheng still flinches, “but after that, we’re going back to how it was, okay?”

“Okay,” Jiang Cheng mutters, clearly not believing Nie Mingjue’s words and it only makes Nie Mingjue more determined to show Jiang Cheng that he truly meant it when he said that.

“Thank you for not suggesting that we do this in secret,” Nie Mingjue says suddenly and Jiang Cheng levels him with a look.

Nie Mingjue prefers to see his temper like this because it’s the Jiang Cheng he knows.

“Never. I’m not one to keep my relationship secret, I would never do that to a partner,” he says with vehemence and Nie Mingjue gives him a small smile.

“How very good of you,” he tells him and then has to look away when Jiang Cheng flushes slightly.

Nie Mingjue ponders briefly if he would have preferred to never know that Jiang Cheng felt the same for him, especially now that it’s clear that they are apparently not meant to be, but then he slightly shakes his head.

No, he would always want to know that Jiang Cheng loves him as well.

“I’ll get going then, alright?” Nie Mingjue asks and Jiang Cheng can’t look at him when he nods.

It seems like they are both going to need a few days to come to terms with this.

When he’s back home, Nie Mingjue wonders if he should have asked why Jiang Cheng’s parents wouldn’t approve of their relationship, to see if there was something he could argue against, but he berates himself for even having that thought.

He’s not going to argue Jiang Cheng into a relationship when he doesn’t want it, that’s not who Nie Mingjue is.

He doesn’t even know if Jiang Cheng is out to his parents or not. Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan are not known to be very accepting people and it’s probably not far off to guess that they wouldn’t approve of Jiang Cheng coming out to them.

Nie Mingjue never personally had to go through the same since his parents died so early, so he can only imagine how horrible it must be to know that your own parents would never accept you as you are and he just hopes that he never made Nie Huaisang feel like that.

“Da-ge, I’m home,” Nie Huaisang yells as if on cue, and Nie Mingjue calls him over to the living-room.

“Oh, you have your thinking face on. Why do you have your thinking face on?” Nie Huaisang wants to know and Nie Mingjue glares him but he can’t keep up the charade for long.

“Huaisang, come here,” he says and pats the couch next to him.

Nie Huaisang does as he says, but he’s slow to follow and clearly nervous.

“It’s nothing bad,” Nie Mingjue reassures him and ruffles Nie Huaisang’s hair, simply because he knows it annoys him.

“You’re still making me nervous,” Nie Huaisang says and smacks Nie Mingjue with his fan. “Just spit it out.”

“Did I ever make you feel like I wouldn’t accept you? Before or after you came out to me?” Nie Mingjue asks, because he needs to know right now if he failed his brother in that.

“No?” Nie Huaisang says, confusion written all over his face and Nie Mingjue scrubs a hand over his face.

“Why is that a question?”

“Because I don’t know what’s going on,” Nie Huaisang says. “Of course you never made me feel like that. I knew you were gay for as long as I can remember, so I never had to worry about you accepting me as I am, did I?” Nie Huaisang asks and Nie Mingjue nods.

“Of course not,” he says and Nie Huaisang gives him a thoughtful look.

“What brought this on?” he wants to know and Nie Mingjue sighs.

“I confessed to Jiang Cheng,” Nie Mingjue says and then shrugs. “It didn’t go so well.”

“But he loves you,” Nie Huaisang gives back, a frown on his face and Nie Mingjue gives him a sad smile.

“And sometimes that’s not enough,” he tells him. “I don’t think he’s out to his parents, and I think he doubts they would accept him as he is, and they are not going to approve of our relationship. He said he can’t do it.”

“Oh,” Nie Huaisang whispers as he understands where Nie Mingjue’s question came from. “That really fucking sucks,” Nie Huaisang then sums up and startles a laugh out of Nie Mingjue.

“Yeah. Yeah, it does,” he agrees, because what else is there to say, and then he tugs Nie Huaisang into his side, who lets out a token protest, but follows easily.

It’s good to spend a time of heartbreak with his family.

~*~*~

Nie Huaisang just left after dinner when someone knocks at Nie Mingjue’s door. He frowns, quickly scanning the room to see if he can find anything Nie Huaisang might have forgotten, but nothing springs into his eyes.

Nie Mingjue mentally shrugs and then makes his way to the door where the person impatiently knocks again.

“Yes, what?” Nie Mingjue asks, more than annoyed as he yanks open the door, only to come face to face with Jiang Cheng.

“I know you don’t want to see me for a few days,” Jiang Cheng starts, clearly not even taken aback by Nie Mingjue’s greeting and when he shuffles his feet and worries the hem of his shirt, Nie Mingjue realizes it’s because he’s so nervous that he’s just powering through whatever he wants to say.

“But I have been thinking,” Jiang Cheng goes on, and before he can say anything else, Nie Mingjue holds up his hand.

“Do you really want to do this in the doorway?” he asks and when Jiang Cheng simply blinks at him, Nie Mingjue steps to the side to let him in.

Jiang Cheng follows his invitation, clearly anxious to get back to whatever it was he wanted to say, and Nie Mingjue wonders what it can be.

He really didn’t want to see Jiang Cheng for a few days, and for him to show up here like this must mean it’s serious. Serious enough that of course Nie Mingjue will hear him out, if it’s so urgent he can’t even wait a few days.

“So tell me,” Nie Mingjue says once Jiang Cheng is in his living-room and Jiang Cheng startles as if he forgot what he originally came here for.

“I did some thinking,” Jiang Cheng says again and Nie Mingjue nods.

“So you said,” he says, mostly to break the tension and he thinks it worked when Jiang Cheng sends him a glare instead of the nervous look from before.

“I don’t give a shit what my parents think,” Jiang Cheng says and Nie Mingjue blinks at him.

That is quite the bomb to drop, especially after what he said to him earlier.

“What?” Nie Mingjue asks and Jiang Cheng shrugs.

“I don’t care what they think,” he repeats and Nie Mingjue shakes his head.

“That’s not right,” he says, because Jiang Cheng cares so much—it’s the whole reason he’s always so stressed—so this cannot be right at all.

“No, Mingjue, listen,” Jiang Cheng says and Nie Mingjue shuts his mouth. “It doesn’t matter what I do, they will never be proud of me or approve of me. Okay, yes, I care what they think about me, I care so goddamn much that it’s hurting me every day, but that’s just the thing. It will never change. I could be picture perfect and they would still find a flaw with me.”

Nie Mingjue is inclined to agree with him there, because Jiang Cheng’s parents are just that kinds of assholes, but he keeps silent for now.

“I’m out to them, and me being gay was never actually fine, it was just something we didn’t talk about. And then Wei Wuxian came out as bi and suddenly me being gay was a problem, because Wei Wuxian did it ‘better’. He still had the option to fall in love with a woman and why couldn’t I be like that. It was a whole thing,” Jiang Cheng says with a wave of his hand as if that wasn’t actually the worst thing Nie Mingjue has ever heard and then he goes right on.

“And no matter who I’m going to end up with, it’s never going to be good enough. My mother had this perfectly planned already; she would bring a nice young lady home that she picked, I would marry her and pretend to be happy, and we’d have lots of kids to secure the Jiang line. Everything that deviates from that is going to make her unhappy, so I never stood a chance because I deviate as early as ‘brings home a nice young lady’,” Jiang Cheng says and Nie Mingjue can only nod at that, because it does make sense what he’s saying.

“So it doesn’t matter if I am with you or not, at least not to them. They are already unhappy with me. I cannot make them approve of my relationship as long as I don’t bring home a girl.”

“What does that mean for us?” Nie Mingjue dares to ask, though he can guess where this is going.

He just needs Jiang Cheng to say it.

Jiang Cheng gives him a small smile before he goes on and Nie Mingjue wants to go over and kiss him immediately.

“If they don’t approve of me and my relationship either way, why would I make the choice that leaves me unhappy as well?”

“You shouldn’t,” Nie Mingjue agrees. “You really shouldn’t. You should be happy all the time.”

“And I would be happiest with you,” Jiang Cheng says and steps closer to Nie Mingjue. “I know you said you needed a few days, but I figured that was only when I rejected you and I’m not, not anymore. So, is this okay?” he asks, and he seems unsure all of a sudden, as if Nie Mingjue hadn’t declared his love for him earlier that afternoon and Nie Mingjue cannot let that stand.

“It’s more than okay,” he reassures Jiang Cheng and pulls him close with a hand on his hip. “You really want this?” Nie Mingjue asks again, because he needs to be sure, needs Jiang Cheng to be sure about this.

“I do,” Jiang Cheng says and smiles at him. “I love you. Of course I want to be with you,” he whispers and leans up to press a kiss to the corner of Nie Mingjue’s mouth. “If you still want me, after how tremendously stupid I was today.”

“You weren’t stupid,” Nie Mingjue corrects him. “You were concerned, and quite reasonably,” he adds. “But I will always want you. I love you, too,” he says, smiling at Jiang Cheng as well and when they kiss this time, it’s no longer just to the corner of a mouth.

Nie Mingjue suspects that there will be many fights for Jiang Cheng in the future, but he vows to be by his side all the time.

He’s not going to let him face this alone.

Link to my ko-fi on the sidebar!

#bt writes #jclovemonth2020 #the untamed #mdzs #mingcheng #modern au #fluff #bad parenting #temporary rejection #family feels #hurt/comfort #getting together #love confession #first kiss

209 notes · View notes

canary3d-obsessed · 3 years

Text

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 15

(Masterpost)(Other Canary Content)

Warning: Spoilers for all 50 episodes!

This rewatch is going to fit into a single post, because a third of the episode is just crying and yelling on a very slow boat. If you want to learn the Chinese words for “Mother” and “Father” this is your episode.

Captain Blowhard

Clan Leader Yao shows up, having barely survived the massacre of his clan, along with two disciples who aren't too excited about their unwilling promotion to top targets. Jiang Cheng tells his dad that the Wens are systematically exterminating the smaller clans, and have said anyone who helps the survivors is going to be punished.

Jiang Fengmian tells Yao that the Jiang Clan will protect him. Which is why Wei Wuxian is responsible for the massacre of the Jiang Clan.

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian both think that taking Yao to the Jin clan is the best way to keep him safe. Wei Wuxian was wrong to help the heirs of the powerfullest richest clans, but sure, let's save this asshole.

Road Tripping

The boys go down to the dock to send Jiang Yanli and Jiang Fengmian off, saying a formal goodbye with a bunch of disciples and showing off how extremely good they look in these close-fitted, simply cut robes with cool belts.

Yu Ziyuan comes down to say goodbye to Yanli and give her some medicine, covering by saying it's for Jiang Fengmian, because being sick is bad for marriage prospects, probably.

Later the boys will mention their hope that YZY will be mollified by the time JFM returns, which means this possibly isn't the usual state of their relationship. The dislike and jealousy seem to be constant, but perhaps being openly at war with each other is not.

(more after the cut!)

Club Ruohan

At Club Ruohan, Wen Ruohan is tired of sitting on his big uncomfortable throne so he's sitting on the floor next to it, instead. He's suffering the embarrassing problem of black smoke leakage, and needs Wen Qing to give him acupuncture to fix it, but she's not around. Wen Ruohan has an awful lot of trouble containing resentful energy, possibly because he is controlling a bunch of zombies 24x7 instead of letting them take a break. Wei Wuxian is mostly able to control it--except when he, you know, totally isn't--without ever needing an attractive acupuncturist to give him a poke.

WRH learns from Wen Chao that Wei Wuxian 1. killed a boss-level monster on nightmare level difficulty without his sword 2. took whatever thing had been suppressing the nightmare monster for the previous really long time. WRH wants whatever it is.

Boys in Charge

When the boys get back to Lotus Pier, Jiang Cheng doesn't understand why they couldn't all go to the Lins together, and Wei Wuxian explains it to him. Wei Wuxian is the one seeing the big picture, and he wants to plan how to handle the Wen forces when they, inevitably, arrive.

Jiang Cheng would rather talk big than actually plan, showing how--at this age--his anger management problem is an issue on a strategic level, not just a personal one. As a clan leader he will eventually master this aspect, for the most part, and learn to keep a cool head in regard to martial matters, while continuing to feed his interpersonal rage problem.

The brothers supervise the archery practice of the Jiang disciples, having their last nice time together, and still without a plan. Wei Wuxian is bored and calls practice early so he can go be bored on the porch or in his room, since he isn't allowed out. In fact he's so bored by lockdown that he starts an irreverent niche blog.

(he’s kidding! keep your mask on, don’t go to wine houses)

Knowing that the Wen Clan is gunning for enemy cultivators, Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng send the whole group of disciples, including children, outside the compound walls to retrieve their kites. This is what happens when you don't have a plan.

Wen the Levee Breaks

Wen Chao’s girlfriend Wang Lingjiao finds a kite with a hole in it and uses it as a pretext to snatch up the youngest disciple.

The other disciples come running back and tell WWX and JC what happened. Wei Wuxian calmly gets all of the information from them and starts figuring out what to do, while Jiang Cheng freaks out.

Jiang Cheng is a good fighter, and matures into an excellent one after a core upgrade and war experience. But Wei Wuxian is a born battle leader, developing strategies on the fly and staying cool under pressure.

Madame Yu is as brave as a barrel full of bears and Yinzhu and Jinzhu chase lions down the stairs

Yu Ziyuan and the murder twins show up and all of the disciples line up behind them, relieved to have someone scary in charge.. Yu Ziyuan is also a natural leader and an awesome fighter, but her judgement is terrible, as we're about to discover.

Bitchfest

Wang Lingjiao strolls in to the main hall and has the nerve to comment on the interior decorating, because it doesn't have enough rough-hewn black rock and lava pits, apparently.

She shows them all the kite and says that because it looks (kind of) like the sun, using it for target practice is an attack on the Wen Clan. Bitch, everything your clan wears and uses has fire on it and is red. The sun is not your emblem, no matter what the text says. This kite situation is presumably where the anti-Wen campaign gets its name of "Sunshot," however, which sounds pretty cool.

Wang Lingjiao moves along to her main point, which is that Wei Wuxian needs his ass kicked, and she'd like Yu Ziyuan to do the kicking. To goad her, she starts talking about the rumors about Wei Wuxian's parentage.

Let it Whip

So let it whip (let's whip it, baby) Get a grip (let's whip it baby) Well, what's your trip? (Oh no)

Yu Ziyuan takes the bait, and proceeds to whip the shit out of her strongest battle asset, in a sequence that's either horrifying or completely fucking awesome, depending on how you feel about whump.

There are a lot of bad effects in this show and a lot of questionable fighting, but any time Zidian flies, I am HERE for it. I gave this beatdown its own gifset over here.

Jiang Cheng is devastated and tries again and again to protect Wei Wuxian, but his mother and her lieutenants keep moving him out of the way so the beating can continue.

Yu Ziyuan hits Wei Wuxian at least 5 times, until he is totally unable to get up off the floor. Wang Lingjiao has succeeded in eliminating him as a threat for the moment.

Gotta Hand It To You

Wang Lingjiao isn't satisfied with the brutal whipping, however; she wants his right hand as a trophy, and for him to be unable to recover. Yu Ziyuan tells Jinzhu and Yinzhu to close the doors because some blood is going to fly.

I'd like to think this is when Yu Ziyuan decides to kill the Wens, rather than maiming WWX, but I'm not certain. Because she doesn't start attacking until after Wang Lingjiao says the Wens are taking Lotus Pier, and tells her to discipline Jiang Cheng. So maybe she is okay with taking WWX’s hand, but draws the line at giving up her house.

Through all of this, Wei Wuxian doesn't once protest, even when he thinks they're getting ready to take his hand off. He'll do whatever it takes to make peace. THIS is the core of his heroism; he will sacrifice anything to do what he thinks is right. He's not "playing the hero;" not doing this for fame or kudos, but for a clear conscience.

It’s a Murder Party

Wang Lingjiao explains the new Wen World order, and Yu Ziyuan smacks her to the floor and then takes out all 8 of the Wen soldiers in one elegant move.

Can we talk about how incredibly effective a fighter Yu Ziyuan is, without a sword? With her first-class spiritual tool as her only weapon? Nobody is telling her she needs to carry a sword. She shows she can use one, after she gives Zidian to Jiang Cheng, but she's absolutely devastating without one.

Having defied Wang Lingjiao, Yu Ziyuan...doesn't kill her. She chokes her, slaps her and yells at her. Then she insults her clan and sticks her FOOT on her FACE.

She sics the murder twins on the guards in the room, and they shank all of them at super speed while the boys watch with alarm.

Then she has them sloooowly advance on Wang Lingjiao, giving her plenty of time to holler for Wen Zhuliu before they can kill her.

Het Heat

Wen Zhuliu comes flying in, literally, kicking both murder twins across the room at the same time. This is followed by Core-Melting Hand x Violet Spider suddenly becoming the most shippable M/F couple in this thing, because wow, they have some serious chemistry.

I never saw a pretty girl look so tough

Actor Feng Mingjing continues to do an awful lot with almost no lines, in his portrayal of Wen Zhuliu. WZL politely apologizes to Yu Ziyuan. Is he offering to withdraw, or is he just being polite before getting down to the killy bit? Either way, Yu Ziyuan is ready to rumble, and doesn't even consider de-escalating.

You know who was able to rein in his temper, after fighting with this same extremely dangerous dude, and therefore lived to fight another day? Fucking Nie Mingjue, that's who, who has a generational CURSE making him angry. While Yu Ziyuan, is like, "fuck the safety of my clan, this is Wei Wuxian's fault anyway" and throws down.

Wen Zhuliu and Yu Ziyuan proceed to have an epic, sexy fight, where he catches her whip and she dodges his attempt to feel up her core.

He's a magic man, mama, he's got the magic hands.

Wei Wuxian, still incapacitated, tells Jiang Cheng to stop Wang Lingjiao from calling for help, but JC gets distracted by the threat to his mom, and goes to engage with Wen Zhuliu.

Jiang Cheng takes a horrifying smack in the chest, which injures him and takes him out, while Wang Lingjiao sends the signal that seals the fate of Lotus Pier.

It’s All Over Except for the Crying

Yu Ziyuan immediately sees that she's lost the battle, and has the murder twins divert Wen Zhuliu while she brings the two boys to the pier.

She verifies that Jiang Cheng's core is still intact, showing the viewers, for future reference, that it's possible to tell by touch if someone's core is missing, although a casual touch won't do it.

Then she re-codes the Zidian so that it recognizes Jiang Cheng and puts it on his wrist. She follows this with a display of maternal affection for Jiang Cheng unlike anything we've seen so far, which super fails to reassure him.

She follows this up with screaming at Wei Wuxian and telling him how much she hates him, and blaming him for the multiple shitty choices she just made..

With a heart full of rage, she reminds him that his worth lies in what he can do for more important people.

She binds the boys with Zidian and then sends the boat on its way....

...with a frickin' TALISMAN, holeee shit. As toxic as she is for Wei Wuxian, there is a direct line from her cultivation skills to his.

Dad To The Rescue...sort of

The last third of the episode is basically yelling and crying punctuated by a couple of interactions out on the water. The extreme emotions go on for long enough that I eventually stop feeling bad for the characters and start feeling bad for the actors, who had to maintain this level of feeling for probably days of shooting.

The boys eventually meet up with Jiang Fengmian and Jiang Yanli. JFM discovers that Zidian responds to his control, which tells him something is very, very wrong, since it probably knows how his wife feels about him.

This thing isn’t biting me; your mom is in serious trouble.

Here Jiang Fengmian decides to do the heroic, totally futile thing, which is exactly his style. He tosses Jiang Yanli in with the boys and takes his leave so he can go die with his wife while the children survive.

He has to know that Yu Ziyuan is the stronger fighter of the two of them, and that he's not going back to rescue her. He's just going to stand with her and die together, which is the most romantic thing you can do in a C-drama, after all.

How Much Do You Owe the Jiang Clan?

Jiang Fengmian tells his two children not to cry, making them and the viewer cry extra hard. (specially ouchy gifset here).

Then he turns to Wei Wuxian and, with a heart full of tenderness, reminds him that his worth lies in what he can do for more important people.

Next episode: Is going to be even more horrible!

Soundtrack: 1. When The Levee Breaks, Led Zeppelin 2. The Tale of Custard the Dragon (poem) by Ogden Nash 3. Let it Whip by the Dazz Band 4. U Got the Look by Prince & Sheena Easton 5. Magic Man by Heart

#fytheuntamed #the untamed #the untamed gifs #the untamed meta #yi ziyuan #restless rewatch the untamed #canary3d-original #my gifs #the untamed spoilers #tw: crying #omg this episode

229 notes · View notes