#i cannot get over how good mdzs is

[joys-of-everyday]

On the fifty shades of morally grey

So quick thoughts on how MXTX writes morally grey.

Sorry, I mean, excessively long meta post on how MXTX writes morally grey. Light spoilers for all three books.

A gazillion caveats to begin with. Firstly, I don’t want to argue about whether character x is morally good, bad, grey, pink or whatever. In my books, arguing about whether someone is or is not morally grey is like arguing whether a colour is green, blue, teal, or turquoise – we’re arguing definitions. To add to that, I’m not saying that concepts like ‘this person is overall good’ doesn’t exist, but I would posit that a morally unquestionable person does not exist. Secondly, I also don’t want to pass moral judgements on any of the characters. That’s for a different post. I strictly want to focus on the storytelling techniques that make the reader think ‘hang on a second, are they good or bad?’. Thirdly, this whole post is mainly based on How Arcane Writes MORAL AMBIGUITY (9 Methods, 4 Rules) - YouTube. Great video, great channel (no knowledge of Arcane required). Would recommend if you are interested in story writing techniques!

1) The information gap and the poor narrator

Best example is Shen Jiu from SVSSS. We barely know anything about Shen Jiu. Almost everything we know is from SQQ’s notoriously unreliable perspective, so we’re left to fill in the gaps ourselves. Depending on exactly how those gaps are filled, you can get two completely different people. E.g. Did he have designs of NYY, or was he just ridiculously misunderstood? Who knows! We’re never told. Even if we were told, we should doubt it because it’s SQQ telling us.

2) 4D characterisation

Schnee’s video goes into this in more details, but this is where you build two narratives on top of one another. Best example is Jin Guangyao from MDZS. Is he an underdog who did what he could out of his situation and tried his best to be a better person working for the good of the common people? Or is he a selfish, manipulative, ambitious snake who at every stage pretends to be good in order to win the favour of those around him? The point is that both narratives make sense in the story. There are moments that lean more one way or another, but you can never quite pin him down completely.

3) Moments of weakness

Best example is Xie Lian from TGCF. On the whole, XL is a wonderful human being who you 100% want to root for. Except… there was that one time he made a mistake. He let his hurt and pain overcome him; he became hurtful himself. The point here is to add in just a few ‘moments’ which fundamentally impacts how the rest of the world perceives them from that point forwards. They are forever trying to redeem themselves, forever weighed down by what is a tiny proportion of their life. The underlying question is ‘is a moment of weakness a moral failure?’

Another good example is Qi Rong from TGCF. On the whole, he’s a piece of s***. But then there are moments when he’s a genuinely good father to Guzi, and that’s confusing.

4) Well-intentioned idiot

Trying to do the right thing and absolutely failing. Best example is Wei Wuxian from MDZS. His intentions are always good. There are extremely few moments where he is selfish or overly cruel. He is always fighting for justice, always self-sacrificing, always kind. And yet the outcome of his actions is pretty bad. The underlying question is ‘should you judge a person based on their intent, or on the consequences of their actions?’

(btw the name of the method is from schnee’s video. No shade on WWX. He is very smart… well, unless it comes to LWJ’s feelings.)

5) Excuses

Yes, they’re bad. But we feel sorry for them! Almost everyone fits into this boat, because doesn’t MXTX love trauma dumping? As one example, let’s look at Jiang Cheng from MDZS. JC’s behaviour towards WWX is pretty bad on its own. But given the context of his childhood being compared to him, of having his self-esteem brutally crushed by both parents? Knowing how much he’s done and sacrificed for him, how much he truly cared for him as family? It hits different.

A small point: ‘excuses aren’t enough’ we say a lot (and I agree, to an extent). But compare, for example, Jin Guangshan vs Xue Yang. JGS seems to be a power-hungry asshole for absolutely no reason. On the other hand, put XY in different circumstances and we feel like he might have been a better person. Just as food for thought, there was a Japanese monk Honen (1133-1212) who said: ‘The good person can reach the Pure Land, so of course the evil person can as well’. The point being that the people who struggle with anger and hate because of their circumstances are most in need of salvation.

6) World building and presenting hard questions

What is acceptable sacrifice in war?

Is it okay to make a super dangerous weapon for the sake of deterrence?

How much personal responsibility does someone hold for a lifetime of circumstances pushing them towards a morally questionable path?

What are the responsibilities of a leader – to do what is right, or to do what is best for their people?

The world of MDZS is imperfect. It’s full of horrors and disasters, as well as a mob of outsiders all trying to impart their opinions despite knowing little about the situation. An imperfect world presents unanswerable questions. We see the characters struggle with these questions, come to decisions, and make mistakes, all naturally arising within the complex world that’s been presented. 

TGCF does this most explicitly. We literally have Kemo and Pei Xiu arguing about the ethics of war and XL concluding that it’s a Hard Question. In fact, every backstory of every Heavenly Official presents a new Hard Question. I don’t know if I like this method over the more subtle style of MDZS, but I have Thoughts about the storytelling styles of both (long story short, I love them both for different reasons).

7) Worlds are colliding

A slightly complicated method that takes a huge amount of set up. To summarise, set up two arcs that we the reader both feel invested in. Then set up a point where the ‘good’ outcome of one is the ‘bad’ outcome of another. For MDZS, we have 1) JC and WWX’s brotherhood arc. 2) WWX standing up for justice arc. They’re both merrily developing all the way through the conflict with the Wens… right until the moment WWX has to make a choice: stand up for justice and leave JC behind, or to fulfil his promises to JC and turn a blind eye to the injustices against the Wens. The decision is a lose-lose scenario because of the way these arcs have been set up.

8) Spectrums, Spectrums, we love Spectrums

Gongyi Xiao is a cinnamon roll. As is Wen Ning and Quan Yizhen. Meanwhile, the Old Palace Master? Literally no redeeming qualities. Wen Chao? Absolute scum. Then there’s everyone lying somewhere in between. We like Lan Wangji more than JC (I think that seems to be the case for most people?) but we certainly like JC more than JGS. Having a spectrum of morality is important because it gives us reference points to contrast and compare. It also emphasises the moral greyness of everything, because sure, Mu Qing isn’t a noodle like Shi Qingxuan, but is he worse than White No Face?

9) Spectrums aren’t enough – adding depth

Almost all of WWX’s moral ambiguity comes from the fact he has hard decisions to make. And for each of these decisions, the outcome is murky. He developed a new technique to fight against the Wens, but at what cost later down the line? He defended the Wens and gave them a few years of life, but was it worth it?

Compare with JGY. JGY does a lot of good. He also does a lot of bad. The magnitude of both lists is ridiculous. Sure, you wouldn’t usually find someone who’s killed most of their family members in any way likable, but how often do you come across someone who literally ended a war?

So one way of creating moral ambiguity is to make each decision difficult, but another way to go about it is to just… make them do loads of things. Like loads of things. Good things, bad things, all the in between things. Judging each thing is not that hard, but then trying to judge the overall person based on it is extremely difficult.

10) Pulling from the real world

Often, moral questions in fiction is hard because (surprise, surprise) moral questions are just hard full stop. Idk enough Chinese history and culture to accurately pin down all of MXTX’s references, but things like stupid misunderstands leading to conflict, poverty and inequality, less than ideal family situations, the horrors of war… these are all things that happen irl. No matter how fantastical the setting, grounding moral conflicts in reality makes us feel more emotional and invested.

Anyway, I hope that was an enjoyable rundown! This is an imperfect list, so comments, criticisms, suggestions greatly appreciated!

#i cannot get over how good mdzs is #a moment of appreciation here #mxtx #mxtx meta #svsss #mdzs #tgcf #svsss meta #mdzs meta #tgcf meta

[leatherbookmark]

i fear this is going to, as they say it, Flop, but: kind people, share your blorbo thoughts. even if they are as follows: “a yao somft” or “purble..” or “rotates him in my mind”. any thoughts are welcome. i’ll take them all

#shrimp thoughts #my thoughts: #1. good god but the way literally everyone in mdzs + chengqing in cql physically Cannot achieve their happy endings. they all end up #miserable or dead because of who they are and the world they live in but not in a 'so that's on them' way but rather 'three hours of #sobbing' way #2. on one hand i know that while jgy wanted love and happiness he wouldn't be fulfilled in a simple cottagecore fantasy. he'd die of boredom #and setting a fix-it in a world where jgy lives quietly and values simplicity over Power™ feels a bit. how to put it. 'And This Is How This #Character Can Be Happy! (by changing who they are completely; and coincidentally changing themself the way we think they should have) #but also i don't believe that dying/being close to death/just getting blackmailed had no effect on him and that he'd still go straight for #Power But This Time In Yellow. so i'm trying to figure out what i think would be good for my au and i'm leaning towards #'another third option which is worse' #3. i think a-yao would see a dog and go hello :-) at it. and he'd be happy if the dog wagged hello :-) back

[veliseraptor]

actually though you know what, possibly the thing that drives me most insane about the feelings yakuza lurking about in mdzs fandom, specifically those dedicated to a really, really shallow moral dichotomy, is the way that. okay. how do I say this.

one of the things I found so deeply refreshing about getting into mdzs, and mxtx's other novels, when I did (and also the cnovels I've read in general, tbh), was getting into a text that seemed on first blush tailor-made to work for my general love of morally questionable characters who do bad things who are in awful situations often with no good solutions, and my specific distaste for both (a) morally didactic storytelling and (b) morality-obsessed fandom.

surely, thought I, this fandom, coming from a canon where the protagonist has done absolutely hideous things to people and presumably that's not a deal breaker, can be reasonable about not taking "did this character do bad things: if yes, then bad character must die, if no, then good character perfect angel" as the beginning, middle, and end of the matter. surely! finally, a place where I can lay down my arms and my weary head, cease bearing endless arguments about who's right or who's bad and who you're allowed to like, because, you know, surely it's obvious that's not the point here

and then. and then.

it just feels like, you know, finally feeling like I had a little corner of fandom where I could just roll around in people being terrible and coping badly with their problems and have the conversation not be dominated by circle-jerking about moral correctness, because that's what the text itself seemed to be actively disinterested in doing, and then here come a whole bunch of fucking clowns hellbent on making everything about morality all over again.

and I truly cannot overstate how much I don't care about that as a lens of "analysis" (to give it a generous name), but I also cannot overstate how much it feels like everybody thinks I should care, and how tiring it is to feel like I'm once again just soaking in a downpour of people yelling about how morally upright and correct they are when like. I came here specifically because I, foolishly, thought this wasn't what we were going to be doing.

i'm just extremely fucking tired and it feels like things have been particularly rancid lately. which sure sucks the joy out of doing things like "writing fic" let me tell you

#lise's aggressively bitchy opinions about irrelevant and unimportant matters #important text posts

[fierrochase-falafel]

MDZS, CQL and the passage of time

MDZS novel and CQL spoilers ahead!

There's this thing where despite The Untamed / CQL having Wei Wuxian be dead for 16 years instead of 13, everything is meant to feel so much rawer and closer in time than the novel I feel. For a start, naturally having 30 episodes straight of flashback sequencing before depicting an immediate reconcilation between Wangxian really imprints those flashbacks much closer in your mind than Wei Wuxian's actual ressurrection, which happened in episode 1.

Furthermore, there are also these other flashbacks when Wei Wuxian sees something reminiscent of his past, different instrumentals played initially in the flashbacks coming back again to remind you of the themes those instrumentals represent. One of the most distinct examples I remember is in episode 2, when CQL Wei Wuxian sees a vision of Wen Qing introducing Dafan Mountain as the place where her branch of the Wen clan lives in CQL and then remembers the dancing fairy statue. This never happened in the novel- partially because, in CQL, Wei Wuxian was introduced to characters and locations / concepts WAY before he found out about them in the novel (eg.- YiCheng characters, Meng Yao, Dafan Mountain, demonic cultivation in the form of the Yin Iron). By entrenching these places and characters so far back into Wei Wuxian's past- all the way back to his Gusu days, in fact- they feel much more central in the overall plot and connected to the modern storylines involving rediscovering them. Wei Wuxian isn't being thrown into a new world at all, it's the same world with all the loose ends to be tied up. This does force him to remember the past more to deal with the present, and also links the show together in a way that would engage people who have come to watch a put-together story (this sort of strong cohesion I think is less required in novels than in a series because of the way the story needs to flow from 1 episode to the next to be coherent). In the novel, Wei Wuxian's own past storyline has a much slimmer connection to the current events- the obvious kicker being Jin Guangyao in CQL was the main reason Wei Wuxian was villainised and it all comes together in the end, but novel Jin Guangyao just accelerated the process of Wei Wuxian becoming the scapegoat and made this very clear. He didn't know Wei Wuxian would kill Jin Zixuan, he said; even though Jin Guangyao's not the most trustworthy character, how on earth could he have predicted that Wei Wuxian would lose control if he wasn't there to influence him like in CQL?

However, there are even more flashback scenes like the one in episode 35, where Wei Wuxian flashes back to Nie Huiasang being excited about fans and then compliments modern-day Nie Huiasang's fan. Scenes like these cannot be explained by the changed plot because Nie Huiasang and Wei Wuxian being friends at 15 in the Cloud Recesses is canon in all versions of MDZS. Personally, seeing this scene, the strongest effect I can garner from it is nostalgia for simpler times, for people he used to be close with. Memories are flooding CQL Wei Wuxian the minute he's alive again. Contrast this exact scene with MDZS, where Wei Wuxian zones out for a good while after Nie Huiasang leaves- no words of companionship or nostalgia or anything.

Novel Wei Wuxian rarely remembers any of his past life in detail unless he fully means to, actively giving himself reminiscing time, or in a life-or-death situation. The 3 flashback sequences in the novel begin:

when Wei Wuxian decides very specifically to muse over his past with Lan Wangji,

when Wei Wuxian gets stabbed and has to be taken away from Golden Carp Tower,

when everyone turns on him in the Burial Mounds with the same words and having the same intent they did at Nightless City (to harm him, to besiege him).

I think novel Wei Wuxian has spent 13 years in the afterlife getting used to wallowing over his memories, and then consequently repressing and ignoring memories from his past life because they were all associated with pain and bitterness and so much guilt (traumatic, even, but I can't say much from a perspective of trauma because I neither have trauma nor am qualified to know enough about it). Nobody cared for him anymore in his eyes, and he DID lose control, fully feeling himself lose control and accidentally cause the deaths of people he genuinely cared about. The worst-case scenario that he had to contend with actually happening and being, to some degree, his fault. With 13 years to exist as a ghost, I think he had so much time in which he would've had to contend with his choices and death that he fully removed himself from his old life as much as possible, leading to his modern-day gap in memories. You feel the effect of his years dealing with his emotions about this whole mess.

In contrast, CQL Wei Wuxian feels like he is experiencing everything raw when he comes back into the world, like he hasn't been practicing repression to the point of memory loss. Maybe he wasn't conscious during his years as dead? He's introduced with Mo Xuanyu calling to him in his brain during the sacrificial ritual, I think, and is getting told he IS Mo Xuanyu and he is...a tad confused. And then disappointed, but I mean given what Yiling Laozu Wei Wuxian had come to expect after the fiascos that ended his life, he probably wouldn't be too surprised or confused anyways. My theory is that CQL Wei Wuxian likely was unconscious when he was dead whereas MDZS Wei Wuxian was not.

This doesn't seem...important. However it does change who Wei Wuxian is and why he does the things that he does upon reincarnation. Novel Wei Wuxian taking every opportunity to drape himself over Lan Wangji with the purpose of pushing him away makes a lot of sense for a guy who's convinced the worst thing he could do to someone is get too close to/with them; he goes ahead with making a ruckus and trying to make Lan Wangji uncomfortable- without shame (because that's gotta erode away after being dead and reviled for 13 years) and without considering the possibility that Lan Wangji might want to help. Why would he consider that? He doesn't see himself worthy of help or believe anyone would help him, and he's internalised that for years on years.

CQL Wei Wuxian though, he faints on Dafan Mountain due to the weight of his memories- he's confronted with so much of the past so fast and his response is to faint. Barely any ruckus at all. When Lan Wangji finds out who he is, they have a calm conversation about it, where novel Wei Wuxian is like "oh frick he called me Wei Ying" and pretends nothing happened. CQL Wei Wuxian is a lot more open, and I think part of that is because he woke up from his death and was given the support he needed in his previous life within a couple of days. He didn't feel the years go by, have to deal with the consequences of the things he did alone (and in CQL 60% of them weren't even his own actions), so he didn't build himself the same kind of emotional fortress novel Wei Wuxian did.

CQL Wei Wuxian is jaded, true, but not the kind of jaded that comes with floating around in the afterlife for over a decade. It's easier for him to get back into this world and solve a little murder mystery together with Lan Wangji- they fall into step with each other perfectly- while novel Wei Wuxian is still getting his footing. Thus, CQL Wangxian's relationship doesn't evolve the way book Wangxian's do in Wei Wuxian's new life, and Wei Wuxian's reason to be back in this new life is far more about getting back that which he lost (Lan Wangji, a claim to justice) as opposed to gaining something else, something new and all the more important for it (a newfound relationship with Lan Wangji). Novel Wei Wuxian being so out of sync with the new world around him, in both memories and relationships, means that he has so much more room to grow in his present life as he can stop being haunted by the past. I'm not saying this is better than CQL, that's really up to what you like in your media, but this puts Wei Wuxian in a very different position in MDZS than in CQL, and also fundamentally changes their purposes and outlook on their new lives. Whether the focus of his character development takes place in the past or in the present. Whether it's about tying up the loose ends of the past, or chucking out the tapestry of the past to weave a new future.

#mdzs meta #mdzs #wei wuxian #cql meta #cql #the untamed #lan wangji #wangxian #nie huiasang #jin guangyao #analysis time by me so I can track them in my tags #time #mdzs headcanon #posts originating from my brain

[stormblessed95]

can we not talk about yoonmin on here as a ship romantic or not? like this is mainly a jikook space not to gush about yoonmin.

Hi, I'm so sorry. You MUST be new here because anyone whose been around longer than a few months would know better. Lol but let me help clear up any misconceptions you (or anyone else who is new here) might have.

This isn't just mainly a jikook space (it IS but its not just that), this is full stop 100% MY blog. Which means I get to talk about whatever I want whenever I want here. Period. No exceptions. I just recently created a secondary blog to do my other fandom reblogs and posts that WILL still sometimes get cross-posted here (my kaladin playlist being one of them just yesterday) but I did that to organize my posts over there too and yet still have a masterlist subsection for them here too. I don't do that for BTS though. Anything BTS related I feel like talking about or reblogging WILL be done here. So if I want to spent the entire day talking about yoonmin or even if I want to spent an entire day talking about nothing but wangxian/mdzs here. I'm going to. I could just spent the next hour gushing about all the sweet taekookness that dropped recently for us. And that's fully up to me and no one else

(CUTEEEE 🥺🥺🥺)

And the ONLY thing my dearest anon you get to do about it, the only thing you have agency over here, is if you choose to be here/participate in said posts. You can choose if you want to talk about it with me. You can choose if you want to follow me or unfollow me. That's it. You cannot dictate to me what/who I post about. I don't get to dictate to you about if you have to follow me. I don't want to. I lowkey love that my side blog is still so small. Lol that's what I THOUGHT this blog was going to be, blogging into the void and no one being the wiser or caring about my opinions. That's still how I treat this space though. It's never been about the numbers for me. So I hope you enjoy your time here with me if you decide to stay. Otherwise there are TONS of jikook blogs that are fully about nothing but jikook, you might be happier following some of them instead. 🥰 Have a good day!

#messages to storm

[tavina-writes]

Sorry may I ask you a question? Your meta is so interesting! In mdzs "debts" is a recurring theme and can you please explain it? I've read meta about how in Chinese culture jc's owed the wen siblings a debt and he should have saved them, but I've also read meta about how he owed a hugger debt to his own sect. I've read how jgy killed whr and nmj, people who he owned his educations (debts). I thought that mdzs was more about "Who is wrong? Who is right?" so that everyone is a bit wrong and a bit right but this kind of meta make me doubt myself and think that maybe in mdzs someone is really morally right (wwx and lwj) and everyone else is wrong. I am going a little crazy, that's why I asked you. Anyway, thanks in advance and have a good day!

Hi Nonny!

There's no need to apologize for sending an ask! I love asks!

Regarding your question about debts and what is "owed" in relationships, I think it's important to clarify that like, presumably if someone saved your life you'd also owe them a debt of gratitude, a life debt, or however and whichever other 'debt' terminology you'd care to use there. So this concept of "debt" because you owe someone for doing something for you is not in and of itself a 'unique to Chinese culture' problem, and I think looking at "oh this person "owes" this other person a thing" is not entirely a great? way to analyze how character relationships "should" or should not go. There are lots of ways we as people in a society owe other people in our society and the characters in this book, much like us, are trapped in a confluence of factors that pull them in different directions regarding what they should or should not do.

The book itself (at least from my own opinion) is meant to read as "everyone is both right and wrong at various points in this text because this is a book with complex characters and not a morality lesson" because lest we forget, WWX made a woman eat a chair leg at one point, which. We cannot say this was correct in really anything except the most reductive main character centric interpretation.

Regarding debts themselves that say, WangXian might owe their families in accordance to their society that sound just about the same as the examples mentioned above, we can say things like "since Wei Wuxian was raised by the Jiang, he should've been helping Jiang Cheng rebuilding Lotus Pier instead of sitting around drinking or running off with the Wen!" or "how dare Lan Wangji injure thirty-three of his family elders, doesn't he know he should've been filial to them and owed his education and position in society to the Lan Sect?" and "why is it that WangXian got to go fuck in a bush at the end of the story when other people who arguably did fewer crimes end up dead? Does this mean they owed less to society or made all the right choices compared to say, the other people who are still in fact super dead and don't get to fuck their beloved in a bush?"

Does this start to look like this concept of "debts" doesn't,,, actually explain anything about the moral complexities of the character's situations? That's because it isn't a good indicator of if character x made a moral choice or not.

But again, this whole concept of "debts" to explain why a character does a thing and why they're morally good or evil and reprehensible for not doing this other thing is entirely a thing fandom does in meta to make their fave look good or character they're an anti about look extremely bad under a case of "well ACKSHUALLY morality says they SHOULD HAVE done this!" None of these characters exist either as Perfectly Moral Beings or Perfectly Evil Immoral Beings inside a decision making vacuum.

It...also doesn't really matter if your fave is right or wrong either :D just for context. They're all fictional blorbos upon a page and or screen. No real person was harmed in over the course of the story. No woman deep throated a chair leg, no child was tossed down the stairs, no groups of people were massacred, no brothers were abandoned, no one was poisoned with rage disease until they died, nobody committed incest... etc etc and honestly debating about if fictional characters were right or wrong fascinates me a lot less than "what does the story tell us about what drove them and made them tick?" and "what adaptational and translational choices did other people before me make about this story and do I agree with them on their adaptational choices."

:( sorry this came out so messy anon! I just don't think the "did this character repay their debts -> is this character a good person -> a morally good character therefore doesn't owe anyone anything anymore and if they do owe someone something that doesn't count/no they don't." pipeline is particularly useful from an analyzing the story standpoint.

#don't actually come debate in my notes or my inbox on if wangxian owe their families anything #or if this one debt a character has outweighs the other things that also act on their lives #like actually i am begging y'all to not #the debts debate means almost nothing! there are a lot of things everyone owes everyone else! #mo dao zu shi #the untamed #my meta #meta #asks and answers

[admirableadmiranda]

Since they seem to be a hot topic, what is your opinion of Lan Xichen, Lan Qiren, and Jiang Yanli?

Like personally they rub me a wrong way to varying degrees. Not because they are bad people but mostly little things. I will admit that I have to reread the book, so fics and meta might be coloring my view. Anyway, what are your thoughts on them?

Hi! Thank you for waiting for me to answer this, since they are often such hot topics I had to wait for a day in which I was prepared for dissent in my notes to answer.

This got quite a bit longer than intended, so cutting for length.

In order of your listing of them:

Lan Xichen:

I think that he is a great character, I quite enjoy his personality type, his virtues and his flaws. He is a man who wants to do well in the world and does his best to treat those he knows with equal respect without being blinded by what others say about them. Unfortunately this creates a double edged sword as he will only accept his own opinion and that of those he trusts implicitly on matters, and he is not the best judge of character in the world, thus leaving him open to manipulation in a way that can cause a lot of harm given his position.

I do think he's a much better person than many of his generation and almost everyone of the previous generation. He has his flaws and blindspots, but he does not resist changing in the same way they do. Of every clan leader we see in the narrative, he is the only one who makes the effort to choose differently in the present over the past. His flaws do not doom him to death in the same way that it does so many others and in the end, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji do not give up on him, both of them considering him and worrying about him in their own way.

Lan Xichen makes a point of calling Wei Wuxian Wei-gongzi at all times, even when others around them refer to him with much worse and rude terms. He treats Jin Guangyao with genuine respect and tries to use his own attitude and treatment of Jin Guangyao to shame others into treating him better when they do shun him simply for being of lower rank and who his mother is, and he maintains this even when they aren't around. Considering the amount of people who cannot do this to their faces, that says something about how he wants to treat people in general. It is simply that his blind spot of wanting to trust those he knows to be good as well causes a lot of incidental harm, which he knows and will have to live with. I think he's an excellent character and does not deserve the treatment he sometimes gets from fandom. I can understand more passive trusting characters who want to care for those around them not always vibing well with someone, but it really irks me to see such traits praised in one character and bashed in another, such as those who bash Jiang Yanli for them while praising Lan Xichen and vice versa.

Lan Qiren

In all honestly, Lan Qiren is a character who how sympathetic I am to him really depends on the work and the timeline. In MDZS proper, he's kind of a toad, he very much is the negative side of conservatism, who holds grudges against the children of people that he disliked when he met them and allows his rigidity and stubbornness to color every interaction he has. He very much does cause unnecessary problems and he deserves whatever Wei Wuxian wants to throw his way in the end for refusing to let go of old bitterness and move forward.

However, there are a few areas in which even in MDZS proper I can feel sympathetic to him. His older brother was the pride and joy of the Lan Clan, their heir who would be the next leader after their father stepped down/passed away depending on which came first, but due to the snarled mess with Madam Lan and the decisions that they kept secret to just the two of them to the end of their days, he is pushed into a position that simultaneously never should have been his and is not truly his to have. He is saddled with the responsibility of leading and running their clan while his brother is in seclusion, yet he is only acting clan leader, lacking the true power of the title and ability to act as he needs while his brother remains in seclusion and as clan leader at the same time. That couldn't have been an easy bridge to walk and I do sympathize with him for that. He probably would have been a happier man in a world where he could have gone and lived the life he enjoyed without having to step up where others faltered for decades.

However, that is not an excuse to take it out on children, and my sympathies end there.

Jiang Yanli:

Jiang Yanli is a sweetie who has done the best she can in a world that leaves her little room to impact anything. She's a gentle soul, someone who prefers to lead a quiet life with the people she cares about, raised in an abusive household that she was born into. Such a thing always marks people's souls when they have to survive from the first things they can remember. She is in an engagement where her betrothed treats her terribly, where her mother transparently does not care about her outside of using her to hurt the people she loves and there is not much she can do about it beyond what she does, shielding Wei Wuxian, caring for Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng and speaking up in their defense to outsiders who would hurt them.

She isn't perfect, no one in this novel is, but she really does want to do well by the people she cares about and she goes so far to try and help Wei Wuxian when Jiang Cheng won't, even facing down Jin Zixun and everyone around him to demand apologies and respect when they insist on demeaning him, up to the point where she chooses to save Wei Wuxian's life even after he killed Jin Zixuan and she doesn't know why. She doesn't have to know why to know that she still wants him to live. There is a reason why her positive influence is so important and it's that which leads Wei Wuxian to start helping and caring for her son who has been raised so poorly, knowing that she would want better for Jin Ling and resolving to step up for him in her absence.

In a world which frequently demeans kindness, she chooses it over violence and hatred as her mother and brother would not. She deserves better than what she got, and in a good world, Wei Wuxian would get to keep the girl who chose him as her brother even when the rest of the world refused to respect that. I really like her.

In short, I guess I like all of them for being the characters they are and can see them as well rounded characters with their own weaknesses and flaws. Lan Qiren I care about far less than the other two, but I actually really like Jiang Yanli and Lan Xichen and would rate them up quite highly together (and ship them for a much happier pairing for Jiang Yanli). Jiang Yanli and Lan Xichen are very similar in character in many ways, and I think to demean one for traits the other has is to not respect either of them.

But that's just me, of course. I know that I can write as many words as I want and still people will disagree with me. As long as they give me the right to keep my opinions as well instead of trying to convince me out of them, we can still get along just fine.

Thanks for the ask! And thanks again for your patience too.

#mdzs #jiang yanli #lan xichen #lan qiren #asks #long post #lots of feelings today

[irrealisms]

Game Over. Try Again? liner notes

fic here if you haven't read it!

first thing i want to say is: this fic is heavily inspired by Samsara / 輪迴 by ForgivenMemes. if you're an mdzs fan and can handle the content warnings, go check it out.

some Actual Time Loop (rather than time travel) concepts that didn't get written: zam's last week of the server, from bedrock box to the wormhole. vitalasy on two birds/deliverance day.

however i did a lot of thinking about, like, who or what is causing the time loop? why? how can they break out? and eventually came to an answer: they're the ones causing the time loop, because they just keep trying and trying to make this work, long after it has become obvious that it can't work, because they love each other. so i wrote this instead. i could have given it a happier ending where vitalasy eventually breaks the time loop by Letting Go and Moving On to Season Five but this is thematically speaking ... the story we already got in s4? in canon, at the finale, vitalasy is able to let go of zam and move on to s5. so i wanted to make him a bit worse. also im obsessed with [cycles you cannot break and are trapped in forever].

it had to be vitalasy or zam because subz, after like two loops, would Simply Not Invite Zam. tbh. and out of vitalasy and zam, one of them already has Miscellaneous Glitch Powers, so.

relatedly: you don't get to see much of this in the fic but spoke (a) does not know what, exactly, vitalasy is doing to the server (b) does know that he's doing something. spoke would NOT be happy about the time travel. he worked so hard on the apocalypse!!!! it's the END of season four not the "okay now time to go back a few months". come on vitalasy where's the narrative catharsis

another fun fact from planning: if it had been a time loop proper and not time travel as controlled by vitalasy, they would've suspected spoke as behind it, but it absolutely would not have been spoke. spoke does not care enough about eclipse poly drama to put you in a time loop about it sorry guys

vitalasy paces a lot in this fic. that's a pretty common stressed/trapped animal thing. you see foxes do it a lot, in fur farms or pseudo-sanctuaries or generally abusive living conditions.

he also spins! that's just a vitalasy trait. watch any vod with vitalasy in it from a non-vitalasy pov and note how much he spins. it's a good trait. i wish i had included more of him spinning but i couldn't find a ton of good spots for it so he only spins once.

you know the thing life series fans say. "[character] never left [location]." none of eclipse federation ever left eclipse federation. now you may say, zam did very much leave eclipse federation, it was kind of a big deal that zam left eclipse federation? which is true! however. in the life series sense, none of them left eclipse federation, in that none of them are at all over it.

i think a lot about post-betrayal s4 eclipse federation. they're still hanging onto it. they hang onto it after and despite zam's betrayal, long after it's clear that it can't exist again like it did before. they keep trying and trying and trying even as it only becomes more and more apparent that the trying doesn't help. because they love each other. and that's what this fic is about.

sparrow called this out in the comments but. the multiple meanings of 'zam made their bed'. zam made their bed (physically, he placed it and designed it.) zam made their bed (physically, he made the covers nicer.) zam made their bed (he made this relationship what it was, you can't get rid of him without getting rid of that.) zam made their bed (now lie in it.)

i like the note of vitalasy putting his hearts in a chest for them at the end. he doesn't even know if subz and zam will keep existing in this timeline! and he didn't label it 'for subz'. zam is planning on betraying him that day and he still left the hearts for him, too. man!

also it's in glowing dyed ink to be a little reminiscent of All The Sign Rooms. my beta kelardry added that detail :3

here's a secret: i can, actually, imagine possibilities that went differently and ended up happier for eclipse. (most of them are "vitalasy replays subz's suicide enough that he successfully finds a way to get subz to agree to stay alive".) however, at that point, the fic would become canon divergence rather than time loop, so instead i made subz's suicide more of a fixed point. sorry vitalasy!

#my writing #therapists dni #any british ants in the chat?

[fincalinde]

tennis AU fiend back again - i was wondering whether you had any thoughts about what the scores are for the matches jgy has against nmj and wrh when he wins the FO

That's it, I've officially made a tag for this AU.

I do indeed have thoughts on the scoreline! Make way, make way for more tennis rambles. This is how JGY lifts the Coupe des Mousquetaires.

Jin Guangyao d. Nie Mingjue - semifinal

No one can deny that Nie Mingjue comes into this match in bad shape. He's carrying a couple of injuries and dropped sets to players he'd usually beat in straights. But this is a grudge match for him—the tournament where his father's career ended with a humiliating defeat to WRH. NMJ's father never won RG. NMJ has also never won RG—yet.

JGY, meanwhile, is in the form of his life thanks to his affiliation with the Wen agency juggernaut. It doesn't matter. No one thinks he has a chance even against a NMJ who's below his best, and at first it looks like they're right.

Set 1 - 7-6 (7-5)

JGY manages to hang onto his serve by the narrowest of margins. He doesn't get a single break point on NMJ's serve until the tiebreak when he snaffles the crucial mini-break by forcing an error off NMJ's backhand. He takes his first set point with an absolute classic of a disguised dropshot that NMJ can't get to in time. The crowd are excited mostly because they're surprised this match might be remotely competitive.

NMJ smashes his racket. He doesn't get a warning for racket abuse.

Analogous to NMJ's assault on the Wen in the latter stages of the war culminating in the moment when JGY reveals himself as being in WRH's employ.

Set 2 - 7-6 (7-5) 6-2

JGY sends NMJ running back and forth, using his insider knowledge of NMJ's chronic injuries to his advantage and giving NMJ very little opportunity to unleash his forehand. NMJ just can't slide well on the clay—that level of flexibility has never been his strong point, and all the quick turns and being dragged crosscourt are taking a toll. The crowd are confused but there's not really a sense of doubt that NMJ will break back and take this set to restore order. Some people are starting to get behind JGY because regardless of MDZS canon it is a science fact that tennis fans enjoy a good upset and NMJ is more respected than beloved.

NMJ takes a medical time out during the change of ends at 2-5 just after being broken for the second time, and JGY serves out to love, taking his first set point with a rare ace.

Analogous to JGY's taunting of NMJ including handling Baxia and referring to his father's death.

Set 3 - 7-6 (7-5) 6-2 0-6

Normal service is resumed. NMJ is absolutely furious about being two sets to love down against Meng Yao of all people and he takes a bathroom break that's a couple of minutes over the maximum time allowed. The umpire doesn't penalise this and the crowd don't express disapproval either.

NMJ finds his forehand and blows JGY off the court as one would expect. The third set is over in twenty-six minutes. A lot of NMJ's shots are body shots, intentionally hit directly at JGY so he has to dodge at the same time as attempting to return. Several make contact. Set point is a forehand down the line JGY has no hope of getting near.

Analogous to NMJ attacking JGY and striking him.

Set 4 - 7-6 (7-5) 6-4 0-6 6-0

JGY has remained composed and smiling throughout the match, even applauding NMJ's good play at times. Now he's dropped the smile that disguises the intensity of his focus and after an epic battle with multiple deuces he breaks NMJ's serve.

Then he does it again. The crowd cannot believe this is happening. In contrast to the lighting-fast bagel of the third, this is the longest and most precarious and difficult bagel in the history of the sport. It lasts longer than most sets that go to 7-5. Nevertheless, NMJ does not win a game, and when JGY takes his seventh match point with a favourable netcord he looks over to the debentures where WRH is watching and applauding.

Analogous to JGY kicking NMJ and continuing to assault and berate him until WRH takes over.

Jin Guangyao d. Wen Ruohan - final

This one doesn't need much of a set by set breakdown because it's in straights and it's over sooner than anyone can imagine, 6-4, 6-2, 6-1. JGY plays absolutely out of his skin and he's almost as surprised as everyone else not just that he wins but that he does it swiftly and in some style. We are talking 2019 Wimbledon final Halep level of play here. Absolutely eviscerating a legend of the sport.

First set - JGY breaks WRH at 4-4 then serves out. Second set - at 2-2, JGY wins the next four games. Third set - JGY wins four games on the trot to make it eight games in a row, drops one game on WRH's serve then closes out by holding and breaking WRH again. Championship point is the Murray-worthy lob that leaves WRH totally wrong-footed.

The crowd are shell-shocked but also going absolutely wild. JGY has gone from being that upstart who ruined the NMJ-WRH showdown everyone wanted, the one whose presence in the final has turned it into a procession for WRH, to immediate superstar.

Analogous to the suddenness of JGY killing WRH who is most definitely not expecting it, then revealing he's a spy and a war hero.

Bonus LXC

Naturally LXC attends both matches, the former ostensibly to support NMJ, though when JGY wins he goes to find him after the on court interview so he can congratulate him. After congratulating JGY and showing his support, he goes to commiserate with NMJ and spends an inordinate amount of time patiently rebutting NMJ's accusations of poor sportsmanship and corruption etc.

During the final he's in JGY's box and seems to be the only person on the planet who isn't surprised when JGY wins. He and JGY are confirmed to be entering the doubles at Wimbledon.

#ask #testblog-54 #roquen's xiyao tennis au #i said at the beginning you don't know how deep this goes #no tags can encompass this monstrosity #the most niche of all the niche stuff i do

[jiangwanyinscatmom]

What are your opinions on The Untamed? I got into MDZS by stumbling upon the donghua whilst the first season was premiering and devoured fan translations of the novel and kept up religiously with the manhua. I found out I think a year and a half ago that a live action existed and tbh, I'm not that interested. I think it's because of all the changes I've heard were made to the story and the themes and tbh, I'm not very into the graphics 😅 But my primary gripe is it supposedly not being a faithful adaption and instead a very loose one. Since on Ao3 it's somehow impossible to escape the grasp of The Untamed and I've seen so many silly fanons floating around accepted as canon due to the influence of CQL, my feelings towards it are even less generous. So many fans take CQL as the canon story instead of the novel, and its like we've read two different stories, because in many ways, we have. Still, Wang Yibo and Xiao Zhan look gorgeous, and so do the rest of the cast so I'm a bit torn.

I LOVE the Untamed! (I say as I write up essays on why it's dumb and ruined themes and STUPID)

I only recommend it as a VERY loose retelling of what Mo Dao Zu Shi is. The Disney Ariel to the Hans Christen Anderson unrequited gay love letter to the world. So to speak. My one glowing compliment to it is that thankfully after fan pushback, the director, Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo were able to give us the scenes that stood out finally. And probably why we get the whole "Uncut" version of it that is solely focused on their scenes alone.

I don't recommend it as the first foray into the MDZS universe as it changes about all points of importance for a sanitized story. Themes and arcs are vastly lacking in the Live Action that the novel closes very neatly. Don't get me started how pairing Jiang Cheng with Wen Qing makes him EVEN MORE of an asshole regarding the entire Wen massacre and him letting her be burned to death. And somehow despite being an equal love story to the canon on screen Jiang Yanli/Jin Zixuan and the implied Wangxian, that just gets dropped from relevance??? BAD WRITING YANG XIA.

A lot of people of course came to fandom from the Untamed as of 2019, the book was very niche since it originally finished in 2016 and was issued physically and officially by Pinsin in 2018. A year before the Untamed aired. It was culturally a HUGE DEAL... due to it being danmei and so known as being such for it to be such a cashcow. But not for the West. For the West it was one of the biggest things since probably Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon for the genre of Xianxia and Wuxia to be renewed as an interest, or spotlighted once more. But a lot of its initial spark was because it was such an inversion of the usual standard xianxia and wuxia tropes. It places emphasis on the human of the genre over the fantasy.

CQL, tried to make it more in line with typical xianxia and wuxia out there. Doesn't quiet work as well when you have the original source turning all of these tropes and character arc expectations around and the Live Action drops those essentially for on air compliance.

The good the bad, can't be taken as the same between either because the intentions were different. Thematics cannot be scrubbed out from the original and the adaptation claimed to be the true source. The book is what the original intention was for, and worked. Sometimes adaptations lose out the canonical intention of the original but it is not the be end of it when it was reproducing what is already there.

#mdzs #mo dao zu shi #cql #cql negativity #I guess #it's bad and pales in comparison to the book #but damn if Wang Yibo isn't pretty #he's so pretty i want to cry

[murfeelee]

CQL/MDZS INSP - Gusu Arc Pt6a: 33 Elders

Jin Sect: Wei Wuxian's Ghost General murdered our Sect Heir...! All Sects: Wei Wuxian! Wei Wuxian! Wei Wuxian! Wei Wuxian! Lan Wangji: Has Wei Ying come back yet? Wen Remnants: Hanguang-Jun, what happened? Lan Wangji: Disciples of the Lan Sect followed Jin Zixun from Jin Lanling. Where did they go? Wen Remnants: Hanguang-Jun, Jin Zixun headed to Qiongqi Path, but didn't get very far. Jin Zixuan had rushed there too. Presumably... All Sects: Terrible! Terrible! The Ghost General! Clan Heir Jin Zixuan was killed by Wei Wuxian's Ghost General! Wen Remnants: The Lan Sect and Jin Sect are here! They've stormed the Burial Mounds! We are under attack! Lan Elders: We've been waiting for this day for too long! Lan Qiren: Stand aside, Wangji! Wei Wuxian, you cannot control your evil power! Wei Wuxian: Lan Zhan, just leave! Lan Xichen: Brother, please--! Wei Wuxian: Get lost, Lan Zhan! Lan Elders: Wei Wuxian! Wei Wuxian! Wei Wuxian! Wei Wuxian! Lan Wangji: *attacks!*

-- The Untamed, Episode 31 | Mo Dao Zu Shi, Chapter 99

MY THOUGHTS & CC CREDITS

MY THOUGHTS

Lan Xichen eventually telling WWX what happened to LWJ the day WWX died is a MASSIVE reveal in the book (Chapter 99). IMO it's so much better in the novel, because The Untamed changed how WWX died entirely, and the donghua went a bit light on it too (perhaps cuz of censorship). But in the book you learn that the reincarnated WWX had lost a good chunk of his memories, and didn't even remember that LWJ helped him escape the Sect armies and defended him, and WWX died thinking/forgetting that LWJ defied everyone to be there for him until the bitter end.

The big issue with the book translations is whether Wei Wuxian yelled at Lan Wangji to "get lost" or to just "leave" him behind. I think either one works. If WWX yelled "get lost," he was mentally effed up before he died, and did not have much faith that LWJ would side with him over his entire clan or not. But if he yelled "leave [me behind]," then it was to ensure that he didn't drag LWJ down with him when the sects attacked the Burial Mounds. So in the end, I went with both.

CC CREDITS

- All poses by @bmit04

- The hot spring is by @jazzysimlife, I'm just using decor "bubbling" water (still in beta).

#sims 3 the untamed #the untamed #sims 3 mdzs #mo dao zu shi #sims 3 asian #sims 3 anime #sims 3 gameplay

[meichenxi]

ATTENTION: MXTX BOOKS ACQUIRED!!!!!

!!!! yes!!!!! you heard that correctly!!!!!  I now have copies of TGCF and MDZS in traditional chinese, vertically laid out, plus a whole bunch of other books!!

(I have just returned from taiwan; it was by far not my only purpose in going, but I also decided to stay four days extra at the end after my friend had left just so I could go a-hunting.)

I am. so unbelievably excited. and especially because, with never having a) looked at these books in chinese, b) never having read anything beyond a few lines in traditional, and c) never having read vertical formatting, they are....readable? not with a dictionary on kindle or pleco like I’ve done before to make sense of things, but readable cover-to-cover without a dictionary at all. 

that is a HUGE step for me. reading has always been a bit of a mental block and with the traditional especially and the formatting I was very much expecting it to be a strugglebus situation and don’t get me wrong, it requires a good fucking deal of mental concentration and yes, I do occasionally run my finger down the page to not lose my place like an old person, but...I’m reading them

in the last four? three? days, I’ve read, as of right now, 68 pages of tgcf volume one consecutively (as in, just from the beginning) and over 90 pages in total (+ the pages I read for the scenes I like and skipped to). and it’s so FUNNY!!! I had honestly forgotten. I’m laughing out loud at points!! I read extremely quickly in english, and also have a terrible memory, which combines into flying through books and never having any idea what happened in them - reading more slowly I feel like I can enjoy what is going on more, and appreciate just honestly how funny the writing is. it’s hilarious. xie lian is such a moron (affectionate). ‘next time, if you have to throw something, throw me and not the food, ok?’ what a loser!!!! what a guy!!!!! 

so, 68 pages in, now for an honest appraisal of where I’m at.

first, formatting. 

 the vertical layout - look, going to be honest, I kind of hate it. I’m not used to looking up and down and feel like I’m bobbing my head, and it makes scanning a line more time-consuming. on the other hand, I can feel a massive increase in speed and comfort from even when I started three or four days ago, so I think it’s a matter of practice. I noticed also that when I went to the bookstore I still have the completely hilarious and useless habit of tilting my head to look at the books. the titles of which are written vertically. 

second, traditional. 

I am reading a lot slower than I do in simplified and horizontal laid-out texts, which is not surprising. the traditional is the biggest stumbling block definitely - but it’s not as big actually as I would have thought. I’ve been picking up frequent very different characters with two or three repetitions; not enough to internalise them and read them as seamlessly as in simplified chinese, but enough to look at them, even when it’s a little jarring, and go ‘oh, that means this’ in my head. I have found that I tend to subvocalise more with a) the increase in very different traditional characters, and b) the difficulty of the text. when there are simple conversations or directions I don’t subvocalise at all, which I consider generally speaking to be a good thing as it improves your speed of reading. when there’s a lot of mid-frequency fairly different characters (i.e. ones that I have picked up in these few days but aren’t common enough to be every two lines, and that I still very much have to think about), I subvocalise a LOT. when the characters are ones that I think I probably don’t know in either traditional or simplified, or there are a lot of very confusing descriptions, I don’t subvocalise at all, even if I could by phonetic components. I just - vibe. which brings me onto the next part. 

reading traditional - the brain feeling. 

I CANNOT describe how strange it is to read traditional and how wonderful an organ the brain is. it honestly feels like magic. if you’re still reading at this point and I’m not just shouting into the void, you probably know that I can’t handwrite in chinese to save my life - what that means practically for character recognition is that you could ask me to name the components of a character I see 100000 times a day and I couldn’t do it. it’s all subconscious. I have NO memory or understanding of what radicals are used where at the best of times in simplified chinese, and it’s all done via The Vibe. 

this is EVEN stronger in traditional chinese. I have not really ever deliberately learnt or consumed any media in traditional apart from a few characters you commonly see written or appeared when I have done a little bit of Classical chinese, like 馬，為，無 etc. I also got up to about halfway through the hsk1 course on skritter for a while on one of my endless attempts to learn how to write - so that gave me characters like 歡，對，甚麼 and so forth. in total that’s....still not that much. the VIBES I get when reading, though - incredible!!!!! I see these characters (not just ones with components that are predictable in traditional forms, but fairly or very different ones) that I have no memory of ever seeing before in my life and go, oh, that feels vaguely like this one. and then I look it up and I’m right. 

some of these are things of course are not objectively difficult - if you know the two components, you can go, oh, those are the two traditional versions of the components and so stuck together is the traditional character. but since I don’t consciously know the component parts off the top of my head of more than about 12 simplified characters (rip), this feels like utter magic. I have also been guessing quite a lot based on context and radicals.

I also know I probably HAVE seen some of these characters before at some point, I just don’t remember. nevertheless. it feels amazing, especially with the ones that are not predictable and are totally different. it’s a very bizarre experience. the coolest part though is the ability to remember new characters without looking them up or ‘learning’ them - a large majority of the traditional characters I can know recognise have genuinely been learnt over the last three days. if I see them for a second or third time - they’re mine now. and that is very cool and comes with practice and NOT anything innate blah blah because when I first started, I remember looking at characters over 20 times and still not being able to remember if I had even SEEN them before, let alone what they mean. so that ability has improved a huge amount, and I think reading and learning new words within the context of that book is mostly to thank for that. 

(not really relevant to any of the above, but reading in a foreign language is so interesting, because you really notice the vocabulary the author uses again and again and again more than in your native language. for instance, mxtx is constantly saying 这下. also 莞尔 as a word for smile - xie lian is CONSTANTly 莞尔一笑 . those are the two I’ve noticed a lot so far.)

overall then:

there are plenty of individual words I don’t know, but it’s usually clear what they mean in context, and when I know I’m reading a description of someone’s elegant fingers that's all you really need to know. none of it has affected my reading experience enough to make me physically put down the book and open pleco. 

I haven’t needed the dictionary for anything so far that I can’t get from context or memory of what happens. this means that I am Reading It Reading It, as opposed to Pleco Reading It or Kindle Reading It. which feels like a huuuuuuuuge milestone and difference and you know,,,honestly tearing up a little bit!!!!! because it’s so cool and I never thought I’d get here!!!!!! 

----

with all of that in mind, my plan for reading these is just...go from cover to cover with the first volume of tgcf, but let myself - since I know the story - jump around to read and re-read the bits I like reading. I want to get at least through the first two books of tgcf before I try to tackle any of the other books that I have bought. I’m not stopping to learn vocab really without the dictionary as most of it hasn’t been necessary so far and would interrupt the reading flow, but sometimes if there is a word I have seen 238290 times I will. I have only done this a few times, however, so I think for pulling vocab from this book I will have to do it separately - i.e. choose a passage I like and write down all the vaguely useful / fun words I don’t know. 

I have also got mdzs. now. the thing here is that...I love tgcf, but I’m not as precious about it as I am about mdzs. I have also NEVER read mdzs in translation because I have hated all of them so much, so I want the first time I read it to be as smooth as I possibly can, and to get as much impact and beauty and *shakes fist* as I possibly can. so...I might put it off for a while, maybe another 6 months or so whilst I improve my reading and traditional recognition skills. we’ll see. I don’t want to dip into it in the same way, and I feel like I want to use tgcf as training wheels first. we will see!

updates soon!!! big excite!!!!!!

#meichenxi manages #chinese #tgcf #mdzs #mxtx #lmao I did not get svsss. it's fine and I liked it a lot!! #but I don't like it well enough to struggle head-first through in the same way as these two #honestly I am kind of afraid to even look at mdzs #I feel like...I will either look at it and decide I need to read it immediately #or be emotionally thrown a curveball and just run away #it feels like...hmm. how do I put this. #reading mdzs in chinese feels like such a turning point to me in a way that nothing else does #which is weird because tgcf is longer!!! and not an easy read either!!!! and I'm reading that perfectly well!!!! #but mdzs....would feel like coming full-circle. it would feel like Success. #since it was the untamed that got me into learning chinese properly in the first place #also because I have never read it in English and have deliberately waited until my Chinese was good enough #but now I feel like....it could be good enough....and I want to wait until it's better ahsfkjsa #so that I can properly smoothly read it. not going to say 'effortlessly' but...better than now #I want to be shocked and moved and saddened and given hope by it in the way cql did #and I feel like....I don't know. I don't want the chinese to impede in any way my reading experience of it #which is so stupid!!! because it obviously willl!!! It will ALWAYS be so much more difficult than english #even if I keep learning until I'm 100 #but part of me thinks. look. three years ago you couldn't read a hsk1 sentence in chinese. #if I wait for another year or two years....how much easier and how much more would I get out of it then? #anyway the whole thing is stupid. I'm reading tgcf slowly but like...we're reading every sentence here. not missing anything. #I think I'm just afraid to Finally read mdzs. it feels like the Last Thing. because then what next in that fandom? #I've given it this almost mythical status and that's my own fault but like....argggggh #if I define 'success' as 'reading mdzs' I know for a fact I COULD read it now. but I don't feel like I have achieved success? there's still #SO very much to go? #so I think the problem is that one of my goalposts has shifted. and the other one has stayed in the same place.

[jin-zixun]

MDZS Reread - Chapter 4 (Part One) - The Elegant Flirt (Refinement 11-18)

Manhua Chapters 26-Who Knows Not Me

I'm going to be super real again like. This chapter is very long. Like so long. Like it's eight chapters? What? I'm sure this will be a part one of probably more than two tbh

Oh boy

"Once he was dragged in, it’d be difficult to get back out. Back when he’d attended school here, the visiting student disciples had each been given a jade travel token. Only with the token could one come and go freely— otherwise, the protective barrier surrounding the Cloud Recesses could not be crossed. Over a decade had passed since then, so security could have only grown tighter, not laxer."

I think I've always kind of skimmed over the fact that WWX actually *cannot* leave here. But I guess he really can't leave. That's... A little horrifying Kind of messed up you need the travel token to *leave* the Cloud Recesses. I guess it makes sense for keeping your lover imprisoned there, but uh, that kind of makes it worse. Like way worse.

Manhua has the happiest Er-Ge! Look at that Er-Ge. Magnificent.

Hope nothing bad happens to him that would like destroy his happiness forever or something that'd be pretty fucked up.

"The Lan Clan of Gusu had always been renowned as a family who consistently produced handsome men, and the Twin Jades born of the head household of this generation were especially striking. While these two brothers had not been born twins, their looks were very similar, and it was difficult to discern who was the superior in appearance. However, they were one color, two shades. Lan Xichen was warm and elegant, sincerely gentle. Lan Wangji was overly aloof and stern, completely unsociable, and kept others at arm’s length. This was why, in the rankings for the looks and character of the clans’ young masters, the former was ranked first and the latter second."

Wei Wuxian: "Now I know what you're all wanting to know about Lan Xichen! Is he hot? Is he as hot as Lan Zhan? How hot is he? Well actually he's the number one hottest guy that there is! He's incredibly hot! He's probably about the same as Lan Zhan but he's got a better personality, I guess. idk."

Thanks Wei Wuxian I'm glad you came through for us. So that we all know that Lan Xichen is definitely topping the hotness scale...

...And probably also Lianfang-zun

"Jin Guangyao was also the elder half-brother, born of another different mother, to Wei Wuxian’s current identity, Mo Xuanyu. They were both illegitimate sons, yet the difference between them was night and day. Mo Xuanyu slept on the ground and ate leftovers at the Mo Manor while Jin Guangyao sat upon the highest seat of the cultivation world, with all those below at his beck and call."

I feel I don't need to remind everyone how Jin Guangyao started on the other side of this scenario? We're all on the same page? And also Jin Guangshan preferred Mo Xuanyu. And also Jin Guangyao sent Mo Xuanyu home to his mother, as we previously established. And also Mo Xuanyu was uh... Not very brotherly towards Jin Guangyao. I mean we're all on the same page right? Wei Wuxian is fucking wilding here, right?

"Wei Wuxian’s ears perked up at the mention of the Mo Estate, but then he felt his lips part. Lan Xichen had removed the silencing spell and turned to Lan Wangji. “It is rare for you to bring anyone back home and also to appear so happy. Treat your guest well; do not be like this.”"

Lan Xichen is really held back by propriety and all that shit. He could get rid of the use of that spell, but he doesn't! He uses it himself later on and, uh, it's not good. He's the Sect Leader, does he not have any will to make changes? Well, other than adding more rules apparently? Why is he still running the Cloud Recesses like this? Does he honestly think it's the best way? Does he not think about or care about the messed up implications? Is he just a figurehead for the Lan Elders? He's just so... Mild. He should be more radical. People would accept it. He's the hottest guy ever apparently.

This is terrible analysis. Also almost certainly untrue. The Lan Elders would like eviscerate him even if he's super hot.

"After watching Lan Xichen leave, Lan Wangji instructed, “Drag him inside.”"

Haha, oh yeah man, that's uh. That's fucked up.

I mean I'm sure a lot had been said about how much Wei Wuxian wants to leave and how it's messed up that he can't, because that's like a central conflict to the characters and their relationship? I'll probably hold any comments of my own for now, because it has been awhile and I only vaguely remember how things progress in this regard.

"However, Wei Wuxian was most definitely not someone unable to avert his gaze when stunned by a bathing beauty in the first place. And it wasn’t as if he were actually into men, no matter how beautiful this man was."

Uh are you sure about that buddy? Are you really sure? Might want to take a second pass at that one, Wei Wuxian.

Then we've got the discipline whip scars... Guys I think the Gusu Lan Sect... Might be a bit uh... Messed up? Just a little?

Anyway...

This is still pretty funny. The situation is what it is, but uh, Wei Wuxian is sure making the best of it (trying to escape).

nOiSe iS pRoHiBiTeD oh my god Wei Ying

"He was used to seeing Lan-er-gongzi with his hair and forehead ribbon fastened, orderly, and methodical, not a single piece out of place. The sight of him now—slightly loose black hair, thinly robed—was something he had never witnessed before, so Wei Wuxian couldn’t help but take a look or two."

Yeah this is a guy with no interest in banging Lan Wangji. 100%.

"There was no way Lan Wangji could have recognized him solely based on the bit he’d played on that crappy flute, could he?"

Yeah dude no way. A bit of obliviousness is cute in a--

"Wei Wuxian didn’t think he’d shared any sort of deeply consequential friendship with Lan Wangji in his past life."

Oh, ok, no now that's a bit much. A bit too oblivious. Dial it back just a little, will you?

I'm begging you to take a second pass at this one at least, please Wei Ying...

Anyway I feel I should stop here because hey, the flashback to the Cloud Recesses study arc starts here! That's a natural break point for such a long chapter, right? Even if the chapter's only 1/4 of the way done...

Well, see you in ~the past~

#mdzs #mdzs reread #mdzs spoilers #i don't know why this posted tbh but here it is

[monsieurboyardee]

I tweeted this when there was discourse about lwj playing inquiry for 13 years a la cql vs lwj moving on with his life a la mdzs/fan interpretation so here u go:

Hear me out hear me out, what if "hanguang-jun spent those thirteen years moving on from wwx and raising A-yuan" and "lwj spent 13 years playing inquiry on the guqin every night" are two ideas that can coexist?

Bc death is weird and hard especially when there's things you should've said or done that still weigh in you even years later, and it takes time to mourn and to grieve even when you've got other, more important things to be taking care of. Maybe after coming out of his three years of seclusion lwj did try to move on, to raise this kid and be a good father, to be a good brother and nephew, to be the second Jade of Gusu Lan. He went where the chaos was, he helped people, he lived his life. Even when wwx was alive they weren't attached at the hip. And slowly but steadily, he begins to move on because he is more than just his grief and his pain.

But at night, it's just him. The world is asleep, or getting ready for sleep, and he's checked everything off his to do list for the day. There's nothing but the silence in the Jingshi and the soft sounds of nightfall outside. And when wwx's death was still too recent, too fresh of a wound, lwj would sit and play Inquiry until his fingers bled over the strings, just in case his spirit was still out there, just in case he still has one more chance to say he's sorry. But an answer never came, and at this point he isn't expecting it to.

And he's been trying to move on, he really is, but sometimes it's the way Shizui smiles so so brightly and beautifully, sometimes it's when he's in caiyi town and he sees a bottle of emperor's smile, sometimes it's just when the night stretches on and all lwj can think about is wwx's hands on him, of his forehead ribbon in wwx's hands, of how he's so so fucking lonely despite everything because he's still kind of caught up in the idea of what might have been, what could have happened if lwj had just said what he'd wanted to say when he'd wanted to say it.

So he stores bottles of Emperor's Smile in his floorboards, and he sits up at night and plays Inquiry. As the years pass on he only plays it once or twice, but sometimes when the ache is too strong to sleep but not strong enough to put into words, he plays a few more. And eventually it stops being a way to call out to wwx and just one of those Things That He Does, as all people have--he holds his hand behind his back when he walks, he cannot handle his alcohol past one sip, and he plays Inquiry at least once a night every night before he goes to sleep. Because it's become a tradition of sorts for him, a way to rationalize and express his grief while still being able to go about the day and live out his own life. And so even when it stops being his crutch and just starts being his routine he continues, because it feels wrong to stop now and because he is Allowed to express every thing he cannot say in that short period, and he can quietly, secretly, say everything to wwx that he couldn't say before: I'm here, I'm here for you now, even though I wasn't there for you back then. And as the years pass and his routine continues, lwj learns to cope.

Until one day, thirteen years later, lwj hears an unmistakable melody floating through air and looks into Mo Xuanyu's eyes. And for the first time in what seems like forever, something slots back into place inside of him, a feeling that he had accepted and grown used to over the years rewritten over so quickly it would be astounding if he wasn't currently quite so distracted. And for the first time in thirteen years, lwj forgets to play Inquiry before he goes to sleep. Because for the first time in thirteen years, Lan Wangji can make things right.

#basically death is hard when ur a lan and u pick ur soulmate and that’s IT #death is weird ok and there’s no one set way to grieve #and i think lwj should be allowed that #bc that grief is a part of him #even after wwx comes back #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #wangxian #lan wangji #lan zhan #lwj pov #grief #cql #the untamed #wei ying #copy pasted this from my twit #ace’s archives

[txxfiles]

give me all the fics where the boys kiss

Hi! It looks like I'm week 3!

I honestly have no idea idea what im doing really but i guess you'll just have to listen to me ramble about something i enjoy. Seems to fit the theme we've accidentally settled on and well! if theres one thing im good at rambling about its bl fanfiction. i read ALOT of fanfiction. like 13million words worth of it in 2023 alone (an estimate but i did the ugly math for jan and feb last year and id already read 2.7 million words so i dont think its too high an estimate).

ive read fics from too many fandoms to count and also have way more hyperfixations then any one person has a right too but the one that has owned my ass consistently for the last 4 years is The Untamed otherwise know as Mo Dao Zu Shi (MDZS).

The lovely Eucalyptus from week 2 was watching the untamed during covid (and holy shit what a wild ride that was) and the next thing I know im neck deep drowning in fan art and tiktok edits of beautiful chinese men that have no business being as talented as they are (Im looking at u Wang Yibo) This. shit. fucked. up. my. life.

then i turned to my good friend AO3 (love of my life i could not exist without you) and 4 years later ive read my tags dry. if its complete, ive read it. im getting desperate and ive started reading works in progress, yikes. its so risky i honestly cannot tell you how much anxiety it gives me. ive been burnt too many times.

HOWEVER

this does mean if you need a fic recommendation then your girl has got you covered, so i figured i would share with you my TOP SIX fic recommendations. im sorry i tried to make it 5 but i just couldnt do it.

I will be chasing a starlight by feyburner & sundiscus 

Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji - 71,479 words - Complete

Omg. Wangxian Startrek AU. The pining, the miscommunication. I felt every range of emotion on this roller-coaster. I literally printed this out so that I could keep it forever. I wish I could read it for the first time all over again. This Fic hit AO3 like a comet. It even has it’s own Tumblr thread! Also comes with stunning fanart.

Paint smears on sunny days by SnowshadowAO3 

Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji - 53,808 words - Complete

Modern Day AU, Musician/Single dad Lan Wangji falls in love with his son’s Art Teacher Wei Wuxian. I swear it's one of the cutest stories ever written, makes me feel all the good things. A-yuan is adorable and wangxian are hot and charming. The Ultimate wangxian comfort fic. 

Rotten Work by ShanaStoryteller 

Jin Rulan & Wei Wuxian - 63,907 words - Complete

Jin Ling fishes his Da-Ju out of the gutter post canon (Literally dying alone in a dirty inn, Wei Wuxian it's been 5 minutes pls) and decides if no one else is gonna keep him then he damn well will. 

It is perfect.  

Junior Quartet goodness, Yunmeng bro reconciliation and Jin Ling being a boss bitch little shit that has no time for anyone's bullshit. I cried as much as Jin Ling did in this story – which is alot. (Also another story ive made myself a solid copy of that i can love forever)

Joy In The Mindst of These Things by Glitterbombshell 

Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji - 52,901 words - 5 Works

TEACHER WEI WUXIAN! I love this trope with my whole soul. Lots of adorable baby Lans, I would kill for them. Beautifully written. Lan Qiren gets a much needed wakeup call. Last story is incomplete but can be read without the 5th installment. SO WORTH IT, ive read it like 10 times

The One-Body Problem by mitisket 

Lan Jingyi & Wei Wuxian - 28,689 words - Complete

Well shit. How many times have a reread this story? I honestly couldn't tell you. Jingyi gets possessed by Wei Wuxian’s very tired soul pre canon and it changes nothing and yet everything. Their friendship gives me life and Jingyi fixes a lot of problems for his new bestie/mentor/uncle with his big mouth. Mom I love him 

The Edge of Night by Hobbsy3 

Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji - 277,225 words - Complete

The best Zombie Apocalypse au on the MDZS tag honestly. There are so many good zombie film references in this one, i see you Train to Busan. Baby junior quartet, a perfect Wei Wuxian modern day depiction and so much love, angst and stress. It's delicious and I've never recovered.  

All of these fics are actually part of a mother document i made last week of all my favourite fics organised by tag because apparently thats what i do with my free time. hit me up if you need a rec!

Now that ive gotten that off my chest i'll let you be lol. maybe I'll do a rec for a different fandom next time. I definitely have enough to choose from!

Lots of Love,

Iris

#blog post #fic rec #mdzs #rant post #2024 #Iris

[lordhelpme0-0]

Crossover - MDZS + Twisted Wonderland

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Backstory: the MDZS cast was transported to the twisted wonderland world by a talisman or from a gathering nighthunag or with an ancient artifact. Though, when they get back it’s where they started so it’s a pause on their world. This will be taken place after all the overblots actually. ENJOY!~~

Twisted Wonderland Part 5:

Scarabia Dorm:

Kalim:

This ball of sunshine is happy

New people? HOORAY! They’re cultivators and fight monsters? SO COOL! Basically have flying swords and are war veterans? AMAZING! One of them is the grandmaster of demonic cultivation? HOLY SEVENS!

He is happy

Basically become best friends with Jingyi in 0.1 seconds

Befriending the unlaniest of all lans has its perks~!

He is amazed by zidian and the former owner of it

Jiang Cheng is a bit taken back when Kalim asked so many questions about zidian and asked where he got it

Jiang Cheng is crestfallen

And Kalim apologizes which Wei Wuxian answers the Violet spiders

This soon turn to story time about a fierce woman name Yu Ziyuan the Violet Spider where the boys gather around

Leona surprisingly who drinks his respect women juice like a champ

Then it turns to the topic of Jiang Yanli

The fudging queen of all

Jin Ling took this to ask more questions about his mother so the two who have started to learn to be close ( Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng) then tells them about their sister

Kalim was happy but a bit guilty for talking about these two woman who has somewhat of an impact on them

He apologizes with a huge a$$ feast

Jin Ling, your not the only rich boy here~

The mdzs cast was basically fine since being in a feast is the daily etiquette of meeting another sect or hosting another sect of importance or for negotiations

Kalim is happy and willing to try Wei Wuxian spicy food

He passed

I swear, I believe Kalim ate so many spicy food at home, he can at least withstand Wei wuxian cooking a lot longer then the rest

Basically got adopted completely

Kalim enjoys the bunnies and being called little radish

He and Wei Wuxian are always having fun with Lan Wangji being the one to look over

Thank goodness Jamil can rest

Kalim is basically the same with everyone else and somewhat got Wen Ning to appear more on campus

Thankfully there is no alcohol cause lans cannot handle alcohol quite well

Literally, go to an audio drama or any info and it shows the weirdest ways lans can be when drunk

Kalim enjoys them all no matter what

Jamil:

He was cautious of these new beings, thinking they be harm

Wei Wuxian notice how Jamil acts and can immediately see himself in him

Wei Wuxian quickly dumps Jamil into bunnies and in the garden

Jamil actually low key look at Wei Wuxian as a father figure since they know what’s it’s like to be servants and putting their life first

Jiang Cheng is still guilty btw

Jiang Cheng will give Kalim a talk about treating Jamil and how much he owes Jamil like how Jiang Cheng owes Wei Wuxian

Not like he gonna say it~

This makes Kalim appreciates and helps out more to Jamil

Jamil is grateful but afraid that his father and Kalim father will reprimanded him

Yeah no. Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng gotchu child

He will be sus of Nie Huasiang who will be shady while looking innocent

Though Nie Huasiang isn’t gonna be much of trouble since he fulfilled and just gonna relax

Jamil can see the first years in the Junior quartet and amused how Jin Ling is always teased by Jingyi

He isn’t comfortable about Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji huge couple display

He isn’t

Like they’re so shameless Jamil is almost red as his dorm outfits

Maybe rivals riddle hair and red face lmao~!

He also loves Wei Wuxian spicy cooking like Kalim!

All in all, he chill and grateful for the advices the adult cultivators give him

Pomefiore Dorm:

Vil:

You know how Lans are very beautiful and Lan Xichen is number 1 handsome bachelor? Yeah…

Vil is not happy to see beautiful more beautiful than HIM

Ha HA! Leona is basically enjoying this

Vil does not want to admit it, but these new men are very handsome and beautiful

Lan Xichen meeting with Vil the first time was a walk around the middle of the college

Vil was aghast and though he appreciates beauty

He always want to be number 1

After a few encounters with the arrivals

He learn to accept them

He even one time asked Lan Xichen his skincare routine

Man was confused but merely relied with a gentle tone

Wei Wuxian just straight up called Vil Peacock the 2nd in honor of Jin Zixuan. The original peacock

LMAOOO!!

Vil almost used his spell on Wei Wuxian who is cackling like the bloody gremlin he is

Lan Wangji stopped it with his own spells and spiritual power

He even used the silencing spell on Vil

Poor Vil

After another many encounters

He loosen up and started to get used to the couple who is shameless

Stop making people feel single—

Vil even confide to Lan Xichen and forced Jiang Cheng along with Lan Xichen to model

Jiang Cheng being in purple gives extra bonus

Might be persuaded by Vil to be in pomefiore

Yeah…but he has a huge sect to take care of

Lmao Wei Wuxian be laughing hard at the poses Jiang Cheng has to do

Jin Ling will be concerned and not happy being called potato

Epel: first time?

Jin Ling: *flips him off*

Epel: >:3

Vil gonna style the boys since they’re boomer and in pretty robes

Let me keep them robes!—

They do catch on real quick with the technologies

When Vil meets Nie Huasiang— sparks fly

Artistic meets artistic?

They love each other aesthetic

Ouyang Zizhen might write poems for Vil cause he a passionate person

Sounds familiar to a certain hunter—

Basically he bonds in certain levels and needs to get used to it

He fine! Also is now in the Lan Xichen train and in Jiang Cheng train of followers

He low key about it

Basically got tossed into bunnies and not in the garden but is surrounded by buried dorm leaders LMAO!

Yeah. Wei Wuxian accepted him when he saw how he treated Jiang Cheng

They bonded in a weird way

At least this peacock works unlike the other

RIP Jin Zixuan

Rook:

Haha…

Ha…

Yeah….good luck. Just good luck.

Very similar to Jade approach but more…dramatic

May have taken Zizhen under his tutelage

And very curious about the war veterans

He will most likely stalk Wen Ning while Wen Ning quietly watches the first years/Junior quartet

He will approach the lans

Giving Lan Qiren heart attack

3rd troublemaker to make Lan Qiren vomit blood

He leaves Nie Huasiang alone until he heard what Nie Huasiang did in a story Wei Wuxian was telling

Giddy Duddy Wangji gonna be protective of his spouse

Rook will have to back off

Willingly be tossed in bunnies and in the garden

Wei Wuxian just sees him as another Jade or Nie Huasiang so he don’t care

Lan Xichen and Jiang Cheng is more cautious but due to Vil favor

Rook is gonna back off a bit. Just a bit.

His wall of holy grails (disturbing photos-) will have their picture

Thing is. Ramshackle has spells and talisman to protect from intruder and with the dormitory renovated to have three windows covered

Yeah good luck Rook.

These are very powerful arrays.

He is chill and very intrigue

Though he learns to back off from them if he wanna keep his fingers, voice, legs, and body intact

Epel:

He. Is. HAPPY!!!!

He finally meet strong lans that can do handstand while writing stuff down?!

Jingyi.

He is gonna bond with the Junior quartet.

In 0.000001 he be besties with Jin Ling and Jingyi

Definitely idolize Wei Wuxian for doing the impossible

Reveres Jiang Cheng as a god like Deuce

Definitely respects Lan Wangji for being firm and willing to beat anyone up

And will most like converse with Wen Ning

Cause there is a fierce corpse that can actually think and is know as THE. Ghost general!!

How cool is that?!

Well the others will think Epel is sweet but Wei Wuxian knows better.

Along with Jingyi.

Bro. The surprise Lan Qiren had and Jiang Cheng

Jiang Cheng recovered quicker.

Lan Qiren face PALED. He ranted to Trein about lmao!

Epel also willingly be dump into bunnies and in the ground as a little strong apple tree

Calls Wei Wuxian his god with no care in the WORLD!

Wei Wuxian gonna lead the first year gang and the Junior Quartet on adventure and lessons.

Epel will ask questions and always wanted to show off his skills

May or may not asked Jingyi how he keeps being beautiful while strong underneath

Jingyi and Epel gonna excercise real early while Sizhui watches over them

Epel and Jin Ling gonna bond over how their name or looks are feminine when they wanna be masculine

The chaos that Epel sees. He will do anything to piss of Vil.

Basically helps Wangji to fend off any dog or canine like people off from Wei Wuxian

Beside Jack

Cause Wei Wuxian grown used to Jack anyway so…..!

He is a happy boi. Not to mention laughs how red Ace face is from the spice while Kalim is just munching on with no care.

—————————————————

Phew! This is quite the long one huh. Anyway Scarabia and Pomefiore is done so Ignihyde and maybe Diasomnia is next. Until the next post! Also feel free to draw any of the scenarios of the headcanon. Make sure to tag me so I can see. BYEEE!!!!!

#twisted wonderland #mdzs #mdzs crossover #twisted wonderland crossover #mdzsxtwistwonderland #twst first years #mdzs juniors #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #jin ling #lan jingyi #lan sizhui #lan wangji #lan xichen #lan qiren #nie huaisang #ouyang zizhen #mention of jiang yanli #mention of Yu ziyuan #twst epel #twst rook #twst vil #twst kalim #twst jamil #more adoptions~!!! #chaos #hcs #mdzs headcanons #twisted wonderland hcs