#nmj DID NOT KNOW jgy was trying to kill him and the fact that his corpse was trying kill jgy has NOTHING to do with his death! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

3cosmicfrogs · 3 months

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for the ask game: naybe an AU where LXC is not on the stairs at thaf JGY/NMJ confrontatiom but baxia Got Attached so she refuses to be like. Slammed down?? And nieyao js now awkwarsly staring at each other, because whay is happening

hmmmmm you propose an interesting scenario.... i guess this could fit into the More Sentient Baxia AU that Woob and i have fever-dreamed up? in that case, five headcanons of what would happen if baxia got Attached:

baxia does not want to kill the Searching-Wanting-Waiting-Watching Human. she likes him, he gives nice skritches. and he always surrounds himself with a delicious aura of almost-evil that she just itches to sink her teeth into and rip away from him... Plus, her master clearly likes him too, he just needs her to show him!

baxia has seen into her human's heart and decided that he needs to get laid, immediately. She will take the necessary steps to make this happen, because she is a Good Sabre! now that she's saved the Searching-Wanting-Waiting-Watching Human, she only needs to find a way to make her intentions clear to the Floating-Calming-Softly-Quietly Human... her best course of action is clearly to start hovering in his peripheral vision from what she is sure is her most seductive angle.

Misunderstandings! Misunderstandings everywhere! naturally, because they are grown adults, mingjue and meng yao cannot possibly have a conversation about this. they will continue to Agonise separately and entirely unproductively while Xichen looks on and sighs. All the while everyone is being terrorised by baxia. Eventually someone breaks (my bet is on xichen) and demands to know exactly what is going on?! and if you think the resulting argument anything is but a sarcastic word-duel you'd be wrong! again, because nieyao are mature, grown-ass adults about this who can totally handle their feelings.

"are you upset you couldn't follow through, da-ge?" "I swear this has never happened before! I usually perform just fine!" "that's alright, mingjue-xiong, maybe you were just stressed?" "yes, there's no reason to be embarassed, da-ge." "a-yao is right, i'm sure this sort of thing happens all the time...?" "well did it ever happen to either of you?!" "...no." "whatever! let's try again then, i'm sure i'll manage this time!" <- this conversation will be overheard by an outside character of your choosing (nhs perhaps?) to Maximum Comedic Effect.

When the Issues Are Being Resolved, mingjue is faced with the absolutely mortifying ordeal of explaining to his increasingly incredulous sworn brothers that yes, nie sabres do in fact sometimes talk to their masters, of course this is normal what are you talking about, and also his magical bloodthirsty weapon has decided that he really really needs a romantic relationship and picked xichen and meng yao. yes she's been tormenting him. they can try a relationship he supposes, just to satisfy the Magical Bloodthirsty Weapon of course, no feelings will arise surely, and if nothing comes of it she will back off. this is entirely unaided by huaisang, who keeps orchestrating bed shortages and feeding the three of them aphrodisiacs because he is convinced that his brother is suffering from erectile dysfunction.

I'm not very good at making coherent plots or headcanons as you can see, but i thrive in crack treated seriously, and so this is what this will be.

#mail from the beloved mutuals #3zun #sentient baxia #i really need to make some humanoid designs for her istg. i have like. ten billions ideas

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thatswhatsushesaid · 1 year

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did nie mingjue give jin guangyao a 'new life' after his mother's death?

okay i'm not trying to call out one post specifically or anything but this is definitely not the first post on this site to call jin guangyao the cruelest character in MDZS, and that is such a reach, especially when both xue yang and jin guangshan are, you know, right there. but i also want to dig into one of the points raised about jin guangyao and nie mingjue's relationship, and what they owe to each other, because i could not disagree with the principle assertion more.

so, did jin guangyao "[kill] the man who gave him a new life after his mother died"?

I assume we are discussing nie mingjue here and not jin guangshan lmfao.

okay, let's for the sake of argument assume your assertion that jin guangyao owes nie mingjue a life debt is correct. to be clear: I don't think it is. i do not think that meng yao owes nie mingjue a life debt when he comes into his service, nor do I think that he accrues one after receiving his courtesy name and title of lianfang-zun. but let's just pretend anyway.

JGY LIFE DEBTS OWED TO NMJ (STARTING TALLY): 1 - because nie mingjue gave him a job NMJ LIFE DEBTS OWED TO JGY (STARTING TALLY): 0 - how nice for him

I also want to emphasize that nie mingjue's attempt to help creates additional hardship for meng yao that he likely wouldn't have experienced if nie mingjue had stopped to ask him what he wanted before deciding he knew best. recall that he did not offer meng yao a promotion after overhearing his cultivators mocking his low birth: he just gave it to him, without considering how this promotion might (and in fact did) cause the bullying and harassment meng yao received from the nie sect cultivators to escalate. please also remember that meng yao does not ask mingjue for a letter of recommendation to take to jin guangshan to seek his recognition--he does not even want to leave! in fact he is explicitly telling lan xichen in that moment before nie mingjue interrupts their conversation that he feels obligated to remain with nie mingjue! it is nie mingjue who decides to send him off to jin guangshan with a letter of recommendation, and while meng yao expresses his immense gratitude for this gesture in the moment, it is so important to emphasize that he not only did not ask for this, but he was not asked if he wanted it, either. even then, the letter of recommendation that nie mingjue sends along with meng yao when he opts to release him from his service does not open any doors for meng yao at all. in fact, jin guangshan seems to use this as the perfect opportunity to eliminate another inconvenient bastard son during war time, and assigns meng yao--a weak and self-taught cultivator--to the front lines under a captain who not only beats and abuses him, but also forces him to come up with military strategies for the jin sect's successes, which he then takes the credit for when reporting to jin guangshan. if meng yao had not killed this captain, it's likely he would have died on the langye front during the sunshot campaign. meng yao gives himself a new life as jin guangyao and lianfang-zun because he is the one who kills wen ruohan during the battle for nightless city, and he does this entirely on his own (making use of deceit and trickery that nie mingjue finds dishonourable, in fact).

but anyway. after presumably giving meng yao this 'new life' in the form of the impromptu field promotion that meng yao did not ask for, meng yao repays his, um, debt (is that what we owe our employers when we are already providing them our labour?) to nie mingjue in full (??? only in full? he isn't, you know, maybe owed some change?) when he saves nie mingjue's life from wen ruohan at the battle of nightless city. and to save myself a lot of stress and frustration, let's all just collectively agree that, while the life-debt ratio of "giving someone a job" vs "risking your life to save else's" is absolutely not 1:1 in the real world, we're just. assuming it is, for the sake of this argument. the salient point is jin guangyao's ledger is now clear. he's back in the black, as it were.

JGY LIFE DEBTS OWED TO NMJ (UPDATED TALLY): 0 - he saved the life of the guy who gave him a job NMJ LIFE DEBTS OWED TO JGY (UPDATED TALLY): 0 - and the guy who gave jgy the job does not owe him anything in return for having his life saved, since jobs and lives are interchangeable and of equal value apparently

that's it, y'all, they're square.

except nie mingjue then explicitly attempts to murder meng yao/jin guangyao three times before jin guangyao even begins to play the song of spirit turmoil for him. which means we need a new scoreboard for keeping track of the mutual-murder attempts that define the rest of their relationship, beginning immediately post-sunshot campaign. here's where the mutual-murder attempt tally stands:

JGY'S ATTEMPTS TO MURDER NMJ (STARTING TALLY): 0 - he did literally the opposite of attempting to murder nie mingjue NMJ'S ATTEMPTS TO MURDER JGY (STARTING TALLY): 1 - nie mingjue tries to kill meng yao (who is not fighting back!!) with baxia, prior to being stopped by lan xichen (chapter 49)

that's explicit attempt #1! but if we believe that part of lan xichen's intent with all three of them swearing brotherhood to each other was to, in essence, provide jin guangyao and nie mingjue a clean slate upon which to rebuild trust in their relationship, then let's go ahead and reset that scoreboard. even though that is not how reconciliation between human beings actually works, particularly not when mutually-inflicted trauma is at work, but. whatever.

JGY'S ATTEMPTS TO MURDER NMJ (UPDATED TALLY): 0 - by the power vested in zewu-jun as the first jade of lan, apparently NMJ'S ATTEMPTS TO MURDER JGY (UPDATED TALLY): 0 - zewu-jun now pronounces u both even stevens, you may put baxia down. ..put it down, mingjue.

nie mingjue does not put baxia down, figuratively or literally. explicit attempt to murder jin guangyao #2 happens after they have sworn their binding oath of brotherhood to each other, and is the infamous "what else should I expect from the son of a prostitute" confrontation at the top of the jinlintai tower steps. nie mingjue literally kicks jin guangyao down 50 solid stone steps, which could easily have broken his neck or spine (or both). please note that this was an unprovoked act of violence against a much, much weaker cultivator whose only offence[1] against nie mingjue--arguably the strongest cultivator and martial artist of his generation--at this point was… saying words nie mingjue didn't like, and not killing xue yang when nie mingjue told him to. time to update the scoreboard again!

JGY'S ATTEMPTS TO MURDER NMJ (UPDATED TALLY): 0 - no, jin guangyao has not begun playing the song of spirit turmoil for nie mingjue yet! (chapter 104) [2] NMJ'S ATTEMPTS TO MURDER JGY (UPDATED TALLY): 1 - kicks nmj down the jinlintai steps, which, yes, is attempted murder (chapter 49)

which brings us to explicit murder attempt #3, which happens immediately after nie mingjue kicking him down the stairs. while jin guangyao is still recovering and picking himself up off the ground (in other words, not retaliating in any way or provoking further violence) nie mingjue unsheathes baxia to finish the job, and would absolutely have done so if lan xichen had not, yet again, intervened to protect jin guangyao. you know what time it is now.

JGY'S ATTEMPTS TO MURDER NMJ (UPDATED TALLY): 0 - nope, still has not begun playing the song of spirit turmoil between getting punted down the stairs and standing back up again NMJ'S ATTEMPTS TO MURDER JGY (UPDATED TALLY): 2 - yes, this is a second attempt at actual murder, I am not going to argue about this with anyone

all of this happens /gestures @ literally all of that, while jin guangyao is continuously traveling back and forth between jinlintai and qinghe to play the unaltered version of cleansing to help stabilize nie mingjue's qi. we know this because lan xichen explicitly tells us this in chapter 49, and nie mingjue agrees with him. we also know that this unaltered version of cleansing is having a positive impact on nie mingjue's spirit and his relationship with jin guangyao, because wei wuxian remarks on this while experiencing nie mingjue's memories in empathy. to be very clear: before jin guangyao has played the song of spirit turmoil for nie mingjue even one time, nie mingjue has already tried to kill jin guangyao three times. he is actively attempting to murder jin guangyao while jin guangyao is actively working together with lan xichen to repair their relationship and forestall nie mingjue's inevitable death by qi deviation. and we can go around in circles all day about whether jin guangyao ultimately kills nie mingjue solely because he is defending himself against a man who will not stop trying to kill him, or whether he's doing this because daddy said jump, or if it is a bit of both--I fall into the "it is always a bit of both" camp with jin guangyao--but that is actually beside the point.

the point: if we are keeping score about who has attempted to murder whom (and how frequently) by the time nmj ultimately kicks it, the final tally is nie mingjue 3 - jin guangyao 1. if we include his attempt to kill jin guangyao at the point of his qi deviation, the final tally becomes nie mingjue 4 - jin guangyao 1. so, even if i didn't disagree with the principle assertion made here, i would argue that jin guangyao not only squared that debt to nie mingjue years ago by saving him from wen ruohan, nie mingjue in fact now owes a life debt to jin guangyao for all the attempts to kill the guy who literally saved his life.

tl;dr these are the actions of a man who gave his subordinate a lot of trauma and anxiety, but not a new life.

[1] I am shelving any discussion of what meng yao does or doesn't owe nie mingjue within the context of his time spent undercover in wen ruohan's court because I feel there is nuance enough in that situation to justify its own post. meng yao and nie mingjue both deeply, irreparably traumatized each other in that situation and should never have been let within 6 li of each other ever again after the end of the war, much less pressured to swear brotherhood to each other. (grips lan xichen's shoulders, stares deeply into his beautiful eyes: wtf were you thinking, er-ge)

[2] even if I were to agree that he obtained the song of spirit turmoil in advance of the stairs incident and had already begun playing the song for nie mingjue (which I do not), it is clear that mingjue is improving, pre-stairs. this implies that jin guangyao, while he may have prepared a contingency plan, has not been putting any spiritual power into the portion of cleansing that contains the altered bars of the music. we know that he is capable of altering which parts of the song receive spiritual power because both wei wuxian and lan xichen confirm that this is possible in their (emotionally fraught, for poor xichen) conversation inside the cloud recesses library pavilion after the torn page is discovered. this, combined with the two to three month time frame that the altered song requires to trigger mingjue's qi deviation, plus the two month time frame that jin guangyao presents disingenuously to nie mingjue regarding xue yang, are clear textual evidence in support of my position. the music changes after the stairs.

#mdzs #mdzs meta #jin guangyao #meng yao #jin guangyao defence league #he did crimes??? good for him 😌#I've been working on this draft for too long and so here u go #nie meangjue 🤯#nmj critical

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lansplaining · 1 year

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When JGY said he killed his father, brother, wife, son, teacher and friend, who was the teacher and who was the friend? I didn’t really understand who he was talking about.

I (and I think others) have always found the whole statement to be very frustratingly vague!

Father = obvious

Brother = either Jin Zixuan or Nie Mingjue. I found a reddit thread that notes he specifically says "older brother," which doesn't really narrow it down between the two, but might lean it towards NMJ?

Wife = you definitely didn't but okay

Son = again, don't think he did, but fine

Teacher = ??? I've seen an amazing post I now can't find suggesting this might refer to Wen Ruohan. I'd like to find the post, because knowing what word he uses in Chinese would probably be really helpful. It's hard to think of anyone else who quite fits this role, and if that is who he means, it's the first and only time anyone expresses any kind of issue with what all the characters otherwise find to be his defining heroic act. But this is also a moment where JGY is deliberately accepting every accusation and painting himself in the worst possible light, so it makes sense that he'd frame the assassination from the perspective of 'this guy took me in and trained me up and then I stabbed him in the back.'

Friend = ???? The same reddit thread made the very interesting argument that he might have meant Su Minshan, who he was very willing to let die for him and has in fact just died right before this speech. It would fit very well with the kinds of deaths (Qin Su's suicide, Jin Rusong's assassination) that he's taking direct credit for here. The possibly clearer case is that brother is JZX and friend is NMJ, though I'd really want to know what word specifically he uses in that case/if it's one he's ever used from NMJ before.

It's a really jumbled list, and I think that's maybe the point. He isn't trying to lay out a distinct and clear confession, he's trying to impress upon Lan Xichen that he has violated every form of relationship that their culture considers important (except one...), and yet he never tried to hurt Xichen (and never would).

#ask answered

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xiyao-feels · 1 year

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Why do so many people believe JGY framed MXY and that the watchtowers were the same as the Wen Sect’s Yiling supervisory offices?

Ha, okay. So, there's kind of two reasons.

The first is that people really like to hate JGY and will totally make shit up and are way predisposed to accept any explanations that make him look bad. "Wait, just like the mob in MDZS?" Exactly like the mob in MDZS. I've said it before, but if this were a novel where WWX's story was framed like JGY's, fandom would be 100% convinced that he cursed Jin Zixun, and probably most people would think he killed Jin Zixuan on purpose too.

For the framing MXY specifically I should also add that last time I wrote about this people pointed out that people want MXY to be innocent, since not only did he have a shitty home life but also he's the only canonically queer character aside from Wang//xian and if he's harassing someone that's just.... really unfortunate.... And I do think that's true and it's an important motivation for people. But I also think that if the guy he was supposed to have harassed was a character people actually liked, people wouldn't conclude that JGY framed him. Some people would probably think he was actually guilty; a lot of people would try to hold them both as blameless. Instead it's mostly just JGY who gets blamed.

The second reason for these positions on MXY and on the watchtowers is, unfortunately, CQL.

When it comes to MXY, first and most obviously, CQL added JGY to his vengeance spell. This isn't the case in MDZS at all, but I think the logic is fairly obvious: if MXY is looking for revenge against JGY, maybe it's because JGY harmed him, in which case.... I do actually think there's a bit of a problem with an argument that uses the CQL-only fact of JGY being a vengeance target, and combines it with the MDZS-only fact of JGY not QS being the one he'd harassed, but such is life. In any case it's not a watertight argument, you can totally see how MXY would want revenge even if he was 100% absolutely guilty, but I think it does help explain why people think in that direction.

But there's also a specific line from WWX, after he wakes up after the cultivation conference:

Now I know who is Mo's last enemy. As soon as he's dead, the curse will lift naturally. It's Jin Guangyao. Now, in any case, would not believe that Mo Xuanyu was expelled from Jinlintai because he harassed madam Jin. I'm afraid he knew what Jin Guangyao's secret was and wanted to tell Qin Su, but Jin Guangyao took the initiative to kick him off.

(Episode 42)

This is never followed up on, of course. You will also observe that in light of what we know about JGY's actual secrets this doesn't make any sense. MXY wanted to tell Qin Su that....JGY killed NMJ? The only secret it would possibly make sense to go to QS specifically with is the whoops incest secret, and the only way MXY could possibly know that is if NHS arranged for him to find out, and NHS has no reason to do that and a great deal of reason not to; it would be an enormous risk (JGY might trace it back to him!) and it's well before NHS has all his ducks lined up in a row. Frankly I'm not even sure if NHS actually knew yet at that point in the timeline.

As a side note, I love how this theory posits that MXY knew an important and dangerous secret about JGY, which he attempted to reveal, and JGY's response was to frame him and let him back out into the world. Like, yes, back into the bosom of his abusive family, but man, what a risk to take! I am pretty much of the opinion that if MXY were actively opposed to JGY while also knowing a dangerous secret he'd be dead, because JGY would have arranged to have him killed, because duh. He might hold him captive instead if he really liked him, or felt like MXY had helped him or his mother or something, but in no case is just sending him back to his family on the table.

And when it comes to the watchtowers, the comparison to the supervisory offices is made in the conversation WWX overhears on his way to JL's celebration.

"Jin clan has come across a series of happy events. Little Childe Jin is about one month old. All Jin clan are over the moon. I hear His excellency wants to set up lookouts around the land."

"Lookouts? Recently several clans are arguing over this. Is there an agreement?"

"What is to argue over? I think the lookout is a great idea. On one hand, it can monitor situations from place to place. On the other hand, it passes messages immediately. I don’t know what they are arguing about."

"I don’t think so."

"What if…it would become another Wen’s Supervisory Office?"

"Are the two the same? Jin clan is only in charge of building lookouts. They are managed by all clans."

"Be that as it may, managing it jointly will finally turn into managing it alone by Jin clan of Lanling."

"I hear the idea was proposed by Jin Guangyao. Even if Red Blade Master disagree with building lookouts, he is supposed to attend first-month celebration of Jin Zixuan’s son."

(Episode 31)

This, on the other hand, is the conversation WWX overhears in MDZS:

One of them asked, “Chief Cultivator? Seems like the big sects have been arguing over this for the past while. Have they come to a conclusion yet?”

“What is there to argue about? We can’t be a heap of loose sand, a group without a leader forever, can we? To set a cultivator who watches over all of the sects—I don’t see anything wrong with that.”

“It’s not that good, is it? What if another QishanWen Sect…”

“How could that be the same? The Chief Cultivator is elected by all the sects. They’re different, they’re different.”

“Hah, they say it’s an election, but everyone knows in their hearts. No matter what, it’s the same few people who’s competing, isn’t it? Is there any space for others?”

“ChiFeng-Zun is quite against it, isn’t he? He’s tried to stop Jin GuangShan so many times, implied or otherwise. In my opinion, there’s still a long time before they finish mulling over it.”

“And there can be only one person who sits in the position of Chief Cultivator. If it really passed, whom exactly the person should be would take another few years of arguing over, I suppose.”

“It’s the worry of those who sit at the top, anyways. None of our business. It’s not like little shrimps like us could have any control over it even if we wanted to.”

Someone suddenly changed the subject, “Did any of you attend the completion ceremony of the Cloud Recesses’ Library Pavilion? Well, I went. I stood there and looked, and it was the exact same as how it was before. A difficult undertaking indeed.”

“Yeah, very difficult. It was such a huge cultivational residence, an ethereal realm of hundreds of years old—how could it be rebuilt in a short amount of time?”

“Speaking of it, there’s been a lot of joyous occasions these days, hasn’t there?”

And then in both cases they start talking about JL's party.

So you'll observe a few differences here. First and most obvious, the worries about the position of Chief Cultivator—which WRH held in CQL, but which didn't exist before now in MDZS—are transferred to be about the watchtowers instead.

Now these concerns make a lot more sense if they're about the position of Chief Cultivator, and they don't really make sense if they're about the watchtowers—like, one whole thing about the watchtowers is that they're in remote areas, that's the entire point. What are they supposed to be supervising, exactly? The one wandering cultivator who comes by the area every three years of they're lucky? And observing that there will be only one Chief Cultivator, and it's going to be from a limited pool of candidates, makes much more sense to me than worrying that the Jin alone will end up running the towers—I mean, it's not impossible, but it's a longer-term concern and much easier to prevent than "limited pool of candidates", lol.

But yeah: the watchtowers/Wen supervisory offices comparison is one CQL draws directly. It's not one that makes any sense, but unfortunately that's kind of CQL on a lot of the CQL-specific things JGY's supposed to have done. (I tried to work out the timeline at one point for the XY collaboration in CQL and just gave up.)

(I also left in the discussion about the rebuilding of the Lan's library pavilion in the MDZS discussion, because it's not there in the CQL discussion, and this really gets my goat. It's like two lines! That ask a question we don't even know, at this point in the story, there's an actual answer to: how did they rebuild it so fast? But apparently in this particular change they're not even going to leave us that.)

tl;dr: a) people really hate JGY; b) unfortunately, CQL.

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random-mdzs-thoughts-dumpster · 4 months

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I've often thought about why JGY was so bad at defending himself when LXC was asking him those questions in the temple. But what if it was intentional? After JGY took JL hostage WWX thought this:

So, I decided to look at that conversation with this in mind.

LXC wasn't interested in hearing JGY's justifications at first, but JGY kept talking to him and trying to explain himself.

It's also interesting that the only crimes they were talking about before JGY brought the others up himself were burning the brothel and the second siege. Of course, they knew about the others and WWX had even mentioned Bicao and Sisi before, but no one had outright accused JGY of killing QS, JRS, and JZX. Then he said this:

He already knew that denying killing JGS and NMJ would be useless, but, given the fact that QS killed herself in front of everyone, no one even knew for sure that he had told JZX about the ambush and Sect Leader Yao's words being the only "evidence" that JGY killed JRS, I think he said this to rile people up.

But perhaps the most telling detail is this:

Why would he care about the order of it unless he already had a plan in mind? At this point, JGY still thought he could get away, so he saved talking about JGS's death for last. I assume he did it for these reasons:

LXC thought it was the most outrageous one.

He had the most to say about it (like comparing how differently JGS treated him and JZX, retelling the scene which was the last straw for him), and he needed some time to distract people.

He had to cut himself open and take out the guqin string from his abdomen. He knew the pain would most likely show on his face. If he was talking about a painful memory such as JGS insulting his mother and saying he wasn't worth talking about, people would assume the tears were the result of it.

The entire conversation is a mess because JGY contradicts himself multiple times:

At first, he says he had no choice but to kill JZX, then denies sending him to the Qiongqi Path to get him killed, and finally, he says this:

JGY also says he had no choice but to kill JGS but when the time came to talk about it, he acted quite unapologetically.

I think he admitted killing JZX, so LXC would ask him about it, then said it wasn't his intention, then made it seem like he didn't feel guilty about it, all because he wanted JL to get closer. And he joked about JGS's death to make LXC angry.

And finally, this line and the fact that he's lying here too, sums it all up very well.

Everyone knows JGY's clever and good at lying, so the fact that he paints himself in a bad light several times when he's supposed to be seeking pity should be suspicious on its own.

I also find it interesting that he never mentioned saving Sisi. WWX hid it from LXC for a reason, and I think saying it wouldn't have changed anything is missing the point. He also didn't answer LXC's question about JRS.

We can't be sure if everything he said was true or just a way to distract people. He had to say some truths and make himself seem sympathetic too, so that nobody would suspect a thing. So, I think it's impossible to fully separate the truths from lies at this point.

#People using that conversation as evidence has always bothered me #WWX himself says what JGY's motive was #why is it always these kinds of things that people believe without a question when he's apparently lying about everything else?#I get that he had no reason to lie after LXC stabbed him and that's another thing #but he still had one last trick up his sleeve atp #jin guangyao

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stiltonbasket · 2 years

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Ugh, rewatching the untamed is so frustrating. Wei wuxian is the only one out here actually living up to the standards the sects preach about, while the sects themselves hurt innocent people, ignore innocent people being hurt, and then have the audacity to call wei wuxian a villain for doing something about it. The hypocrisy is really infuriating! Even the people in the sects who are considered genuinely kind or good turn away because its too much trouble to even fact check. Im mad!

Worse, they didn’t have to fact check. In the novel, the Jin sect was not wholly responsible for prosecuting/guarding the imprisoned Wens, and it is impossible that the sects colluded during the novel Burial Mounds siege without noticing whom they were killing. This piece of meta explains how unlikely it is that Wei Wuxian and the Wens ended up dead solely because the Jin lied to everyone else.

Nie Mingjue knew that the Wens WWX saved had no blood on their hands and held them responsible for the war because they didn't revolt against Wen Ruohan. The fact that they were non-combatants from a distant, powerless branch of the family did not matter to him.

Similarly, Jiang Cheng visited the Burial Mounds and knew there was a child living there; he also knew (or could make a very educated guess) that Wei Wuxian had not cursed Jin Zixun, and that Jin Zixuan's death could only have been a consequence of Wei Wuxian being ambushed. He attended the conference at the Nightless City anyway and later led the siege in Yiling: there is no indication that he tried to plead for the lives of A-Yuan and the other innocent Wens. Nor is it likely that he remembered A-Yuan and tried to look for him after the siege; Lan Wangji was informed after it was over and still managed to get to A-Yuan first, despite how badly he was wounded.

Lan Xichen is less culpable for the Wens’ fate, but not blameless. He did try to speak up for Wen Qing and Wen Ning and received no support; because at the time, Jiang Cheng did not make it clear that he owed his life to the Wen siblings. He did attend the conference at Nightless City, but it’s unlikely that he was at the siege of the Burial Mounds because he was presumably caring for Lan Wangji at the time: we know Lan Qiren was the one who led the Lans to Yiling. Lan Wangji almost certainly informed him that the Wens were innocent, but the Lan sect still went to Yiling with Lan Xichen’s permission. They definitely weren’t there to kill WWX and spare everyone else.

Furthermore, Lan Xichen is aware of some of JGY’s crimes before he becomes a suspect in NMJ’s murder (in CQL and MDZS). He must know that Jin Guangyao “tore down the sect” Jin Rusong’s supposed killer came from; he tells JGY that he “believed he had his reasons” for various crimes. At minimum, the crimes LXC mentions here include a sect being exterminated; and he still excused Jin Guangyao, though he must have known that the entire sect could not have been responsible for JRS’s death.*

Even in CQL/the Untamed, the Wens could never have been executed without the cultivation world knowing that the Jins were killing civilians: the entire jianghu was gathered in Lanling for Jin Ling’s full-month/hundred day celebration, and the Wens (iirc) walked up to Koi Tower before being hanged. If anyone of importance aside from Lan Wangji objected, those executions would not have taken place.

*Note: this sect was not the Tingshan He sect. He Su and his clan (including children under ten) were imprisoned and murdered because they were inconveniencing Jin Guangshan; they are the clan framed for killing Rusong in TMAAF, but not in canon. Depending the Jianghu’s reaction to the clan’s disappearance, Jin Guangyao may have taken responsibility for the deaths and convinced anyone who asked that he was justified. LXC might have known that they died by JGY’s order, but the reader can’t be sure either way.

#asks #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #mdzs meta #yeah canon is...a can of worms tbh #very very painful

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mxtxfanatic · 1 year

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Thanks for answering my ask.....if you don't mind me asking (again), can I ask your top 5 (or top 3) favorite characters from MDZS? And why do you love them? And your top 5 (or top 3) favorite moments from the novel? Sorry if you've answered this question before....Thanks....

Hello again! Alright, so mdzs list this time!

Favorite Characters:

Wei Wuxian: he’s smart, quick on his feet, a genius in his field, charming, a good person, innocent in love, strong in his morals, willing to fight for what he believes in and what is right even if it makes him enemy to all, has faith in himself, doesn’t shrink away from his emotions, unwilling to delude himself to reality even if it looks bleak, etc etc; he is literally the perfect protagonist in every single way

Lan Wangji: perfect compliment to wwx; they match each other so well in most of the things I listed for wwx but replace the “charming” with “takes no shit” and we got a winner

3, 4, and 5 (in no particular order). Wen Qing, Jiang Yanli, and a-Qing: I know people like to call mxtx misogynistic because “she kills off women!” and “they’re not main characters!” but I would argue that 1) that’s dumb because most of the characters we are introduced to in mdzs are already dead and 2) mxtx writes her female characters as people rather than props. I was enamored with these characters at their every appearance, however short, because they felt so real and expressive. I could get personality and motives, tell what they’d like and what would piss them off, come to enjoy them so much that I felt pain knowing they were already gone. This is the skill of mxtx’s writing.

Favorite Scenes!

Drunken shenanigans #2 where wangxian play the “catch me, kiss me” game, then wwx kisses him on the lips and lwj promptly knocks himself the fuck out lmao

Drunken shenanigans #3/bath tub sex (I feel like this is pretty self-explanatory)

Incense Burner dream #1 where wwx shows lwj his first-life daydreams of retiring to a remote farm together and it’s so innocent, only for lwj’s graphic teenage sex dream to also be revealed; also the actual sex scene

When wwx and lwj put nmj’s body back together sans the head, both of them tell lxc the likely murder of his sword brother is jgy, and lxc says that he is willing to vouch that jgy would never do such a thing… then the chapter immediately ends and the next starts with us seeing that jgy did, in fact, do such a thing and soooooo much worse right in lxc’s face LOL

Second Siege of the Burial Mounds, which between wwx telling the cultivation world that he will NOT bear their resentment as if he’s guilty for having acted against them, the Wen remnants choosing to rescue the people who killed them simply because of their gratefulness to wwx for trying to save them once, the reveal to the CHILDREN how corrupt their parents actually are to have gleefully killed a bunch of defenseless people before desecrating their bodies and lying about it, and how the adults who said they were justified to kill wwx and the wen remnants are the ones shamed by the end? There’s just so many winners in this part

#mdzs asks #dnana 2809 blog #should’ve done this ask yesterday so anon could’ve really been pissed lmao #but yes the sex scenes are really some of my favs in this book #for the sex yes but also other reasons #there’s levels

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songofclarity · 2 years

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This seems to be a super unpopular opinion in the corners of fandom I’m in but…NMJ had a more accurate perception of who JGY was at his core than LXC did.

That's a super unpopular opinion how...? lol

Years after Nie Mingjue's death, and even after all the revelations of Jin Guangyao's crimes, Lan Xichen struggled with the basic idea that Jin Guangyao was capable of cold-blooded murder for his own self-interest, which is a fact Jin Guangyao revealed to Nie Mingjue that day at Langya and later at the Koi Tower steps. Lan Xichen left Guanyin Temple lost and confused over what Jin Guangyao was thinking, over what Jin Guangyao was possibly trying to achieve with all the pain and suffering and death he had caused so many innocent people.

Lan Xichen had formed his own idea of who Jin Guangyao was, and he pitied Jin Guangyao for his struggles, but he did not actually know what was truly at Jin Guangyao's core, what was truly in his heart, because otherwise he would have also perceived or at least anticipated the lengths and depths Jin Guangyao would go to get what he wanted.

Meanwhile Nie Mingjue once told Jin Guangyao to gtfo of the Unclean Realm the day after the boot-to-the-chest incident at the Koi Tower Steps, because I dare say he finally perceived what was at Jin Guangyao's core very well. Nie Mingjue saw Jin Guangyao do things he was never meant to see, and Jin Guangyao confessed things to Nie Mingjue that he would never confess to Lan Xichen. Lan Xichen had shared his own knowledge of Jin Guangyao in Jin Guangyao's defense to Nie Mingjue, so Nie Mingjue definitely had at least a more well-rounded perception of Jin Guangyao than Lan Xichen, who had earlier called an incident that didn't fit his own perception of Jin Guangyao as a misunderstanding despite Nie Mingjue being an eyewitness.

Nie Mingjue definitely saw into Jin Guangyao much better than Lan Xichen. That's part of the reason Jin Guangyao killed him and kept Lan Xichen around, even though he later reveals he couldn't breath with either one of them around. Nie Mingjue not only saw what Jin Guangyao was capable of but understood the danger of him. He had no pity to offer when it was Jin Guangyao's own decisions and actions, his own heart and desires, leading him astray.

Lan Xichen was useful for Jin Guangyao to keep around because he was supportive and trusting and wasn't truly looking at him--not at as his actions and not in his heart.

Which makes the ending dramatically ironic that Jin Guangyao's anger with Lan Xichen finally erupted because Lan Xichen stabbed him without looking. :)

#mdzs thoughts #asked from above #anon #late night rambling hope it makes sense!

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chengxians · 2 years

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A follow-up bc chengxian is always on my mind and these twin prides will never leave me alone:

Honestly I've always been a sucker for loss of innocence arc/immense loyalty to a bad system being broken so I really enjoyed LWJ's personal character arc. And his internal crisis between his sect and teachings vs. what WWX has enlightened him to definitely shows.

But, my issue mainly comes from the thing where when he is WWX (post-reseruction) he kind of just follows WWX's lead in the CQL. Like it's one thing to be content with where your morality lies and the fact that the person it aligns with is now with you.

But like there was no debate for example with the Paperman scene where they find NMJ's head (not sure if it played out the same way in the novel). Like they just try to burst in and catch JGY off guard to confront him which is not very different from what happened at Carp Tower when WWX finds out the truth about the Wen Camps. Like correct idea but bad execution to get the outcome you want.

So, like, what I meant by with the blind following (I always adore devotion tropes) is that he never suggests alternative ways to get the same solution. Or even ask WWX to walk him through his plans so LWJ can see if it can be improved or changed in some way (though I do commend him for trying to atleast do some harm reduction towards WWX's behaviour with the "come to GusuLan" thing -> though this also feels like pre-revival and post-revival WWX seemed like he needed a place to hide out).

That aside, I do thing Wang Y!bo did a wonderful job with LWJ, especially since they probably cut down on some development due to Ch!nese censorship and all. Like his face when he calls back the line WWX gave about bridges(?) like the one at Carp Tower was incredible and conveyed so much.

Maybe it's because borderline unhealthy, feral relationships are my jam that Chengxian really does it for me. Like they yell and fight and it gets ugly but you know its that way due to the fact that they love each other, not in spite of it. And just the whole "love is not always enough" thing. It's one of the reasons I also love Chengqing too (like god tier for the CQL for coming up with that one).

Also just JC's face as WWX plays his flute at the temple. Like he's giving permission to WWX to use demonic cultivation, the thing that killed his sister to protect his sister's son, his nephew and the most important person in his life because JC trusts WWX this much? Priceless (Wang Zhuocheng truly is an icon).

god op i literally adore your brain 😩❤️ i actually think your interpretation of lwj is exquisite, like ur gonna make me rethink any possible ways i had ever considered writing him (this is VERY /pos)

i do agree that lwj definitely should have idk…pushed more? during the paperman/jgy scene. that whole arc kinda felt like mxtx going “god im so fucking tired of writing this part” bc i probably would have done the same LOL

lwj immediately telling his brother he trusted wwx with his life/to always be correct/whatever was a very sexy but stupid moment tbh. like if i had been lxc i probably would have burst into laughter 💀

if jc had been in this scene, he DEFINITELY would have been like 🤨🤨 wwx are you SURE. can we go over this again. the foils btw lwj & jc are genuinely one of my favorite things about the novel (fave is actually xuexi4o’s foil to w4ngxian) and probably why i adore w4ngchengx1an as a throuple. wwx gets the best of both worlds and that is just so important to me.

GOD I AGREE…..wang y1bo did a SPLENDID job. first of all his voice is 😳 i have SUCH a thing for deep voices. being able to see his jaw tighten whenever wwx did some dumb shit was so good. i do generally like idol actors (bc my standards are very low and i like having fun) but even by idol actor standards: he did a phenomal job!

i cant even lie bro: the more fucked up the chengxian is, the more i love it. like YES give me unhealthy dependency. give me verbal abuse-turned-self-hatred. give me the inherent nausea of realizing you’re in love with your brother. YES!!!!!!

i also adore chengqing. literally cql director’s brain was so big. i KNOW wen qing pegs him bro

i havent hit that scene in cql yet but i know. i KNOW i am going to be thinking about “the thing that killed his sister to protect his sister’s son, his nephew and the most important thing in his life because he trusts WWX that much?” the entire time. (the scene happens in every other adaptation so dw i wasnt spoiled!)

anyway. i absolutely adore your perceptions of cql, op. i am shoving this ask in my mouth bc its just so good. idk how much sense my 9am-no-coffee thoughts make LOL

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nie-smh-my-head-huaisang · 2 years

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I’ve been playing Pokemon Legends Arceus, and then gremlin brain came in and was like “hey, combine this with your current special interest” and I did. and then i was also like “oh fuck i’ve been neglecting xisang my boys shit”

Pokemon AU but it has PLA flavor added.

spoilers for the general premise of PLA.

So NHS gets isekai-ed into the past, and lands in Gusu.

So NHS didn’t have much going for him back home, he was an only child which was bullshit because he has such baby brother energy. “that doesn’t sound right OP, I distinctly remember him having a brother” shhhh

Pokemon Professor Lan Qiren sees this kid fall out of the sky and is like “What the fuck?” He’s busy trying to catch his pokemon, he doesn’t have time for this.

Then NHS walks right up to Rowlet and picks him up and buries his face in this bird. LQR takes him in because this boy is going to get killed if he doesn’t step in. Rowlet decides he likes NHS and allows the babying.

Now LWJ is off doing his Hanguang Jun thing in the wild, so LXC is the one who gets to meet NHS and show him around. LXC is in awe of the fact that this boy was able to get Rowlet to love him. Since LXC doesn’t have his own brother around to dote on, he dotes on NHS. And then he starts really doting on NHS.

So NHS is part of the Cloud Recesses Expedition team, which is really just an excuse for NHS to get so many birds.

So they hit up Qinghe, and meet LXC’s homie, NMJ. NMJ takes one look at NHS and is like “is anyone going to be a brotherly and reluctantly fatherly figure in this guy’s life?” and didn’t wait for anyone to answer.

I gave him a Luxray because i couldn’t think that hard about a perfect pokemon for him, but friend mars said Kengaskhan was his spirit pokemon and she was of course right about that and is very tall and handsome.

since he didn’t have a little brother, he didn’t have a second mom, so Kengaskhan.

copy paste some notes from discord:

AU lore, Jin Sect's got the money and they have stuff but they're all a little too shiny and pretty to actually catch pokemon. JZXuan is the only person in the main family that has his own dog that respects him because he caught him. JGY showed up already having a pokemon. MXY, a baby, has a Mudbray. LTF has a mudkip because mudkip is my favorite. Nie Sect values a strong bond with pokemon and training is a big part of Nie Sect life. if you can't wrestle a bear, then by the end of your visit with NMJ, you will. Jiang sect is real big on testing the limits of a pokemon and their partner. water pokemon. JC has like 6 joltiks since he can't have dog shaped pokemon, all from YZY's galvantula. JYL gets a milotic because uhhhh, pretty water pokeyman. WWX, ghost pokemon trainer. Lan Sect wants to know what the fuck is going on with pokemon, how do they work and how do we befriend them? LXC has a pacharisu that hates his guts because i thought it was funny at 4am and it stuck. LWJ is out on his pokemon journey, going where the chaos is. WWX is the chaos, man is so good at pokemon. LQR has a drampa. Wen Sect is the Jin Sect run down but on x-games mode. NHS, local isekai protag, is wondering how hard he can girlboss gatekeep there isn't a third one this place. all bird team.

anyway, from then on, it gets a little less xisang and more “haha, mdzs au” but that’s just cause i’m fleshing out the universe so that xisang make out all over it.

So in the Jin Sect, it’s pretty normal to hire someone else to catch a pokemon for you. JZXuan however was like, “fuck that” and went out on his own and nearly got mauled, but he made it out with a shiny growlith, and their bond is so fucking good.

JZXun however could not catch his own pokemon. he hired someone to get him a shiny poochyena, and like. it follows directions but their bond is not strong.

WWX has a phantump that he caught when he was young. It was his first pokemon and his baby. Unfortunately for the baby, when JFM asked him what he was going to name his baby, WWX was like “eh, whatever” because like his mother before him, he was just going to end up calling him his baby forever anyway. So Subian the phantump is WWX’s closest friend.

Now this is a happy au. No major character death. So Sunshot. no big downers.

So why and how does WC shove WWX into the Burial Mounds? Well.

runs

so WWX is shoved into the burial mounds, and WC takes Subian which acts as a “trade” and Subian evolves into a Trevenant and gets super fucking pissed off, going on a rampage.

It does not calm down until WWX shows back up, alive because a ghost horse found him and didn’t stomp him to death. Horse is Chenqing.

And uh. Subian takes a liking to A-Yuan when he shows up, because he understands that they are both just scared children left behind to face the world. the key difference is that WWX had found him sooner.

And that’s most of what i got so far.

#nie huaisang #lan huan #lan xichen #lan qiren #lan zhan #lan wangji #jin zixuan #jin zixun #wei wuxian #wei ying #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #the grandmaster of demonic cultivation #my art

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labyrynth · 2 years

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i cannot stress this enough:

nie mingjue tried to kill jin guangyao, both before and after he died, but nmj’s reasons for trying to kill jgy never included “jin guangyao killed him.”

nmj never knew that jgy played a part in his death.

he was generally paranoid, but there is no indication that he had any real, concrete information about anything jgy was dealing with. nmj never actually knew anything about what jgy was doing.

he did not know that jgy had done anything to the music, and he had no reason to believe that the progression of his qi instability was anything other than natural. we don’t see any indication that he even acknowledged that it was getting worse.

moreover, nmj tried to kill jgy multiple times BEFORE he died, even before jgy started playing for him. even after jgy was playing for him, what finally set off nmj’s fatal qi deviation was not, in fact, the revelation that jgy was trying to kill him, but overhearing jgy’s private comment to xichen that nmj was treating jgy poorly. that was what sent him into his fatal, paranoid rage.

#mdzs #mdzs talk #nie mingjue #jin guangyao #meta #does this count as a meta? it’s more of a PSA. like. it’s indisputably canon that nmj DID NOT KNOW bc if he DID then jgy would just be dead #like if nmj thought that jgy was actually trying to kill him he would have just straight up killed jgy #if nmj somehow not only knew that jgy was trying to kill him but also that it was specifically the MUSIC??#like what he’s just gonna sit there and be like ‘ah damn he’s trying to poison me again :/‘#‘too bad there’s literally nothing i can do like getting up and leaving or kicking him out’#like???? lmfao????????#anyway fanfic writers i’m looking at you #none of this deus ex “da-ge’s spirit tells us exactly who killed him and how’ bullshit #like even assuming such a thing were possible (which canonically it’s explicitly NOT) they all saw him qi deviate!!#like idk about you but if a dude has heart disease and his family has a history of early death due to complications from heart disease #and like especially if all he’s doing to curb it is like. idk cutting down on sodium. but not taking meds or lowering stress or anything.#if a guy like that has a heart attack and dies like. ur gonna have a hard time claiming that he was murdered #especially if he died literally attempting to murder the guy you claim supposedly murdered him (even though he died of a heart attack)#ngl even the fact that nmj’s body was all chopped up and even JGY HAVING HIS HEAD isn’t really substantial evidence that jgy killed him #bc let’s be real: even if jgy hadn’t done anything nmj probably STILL would have tried to kill him.#if you have the corpse of a dude who fucking hated your guts and tried to kill you multiple times coming after you???#yeah you’d be kind of justified in taking the necessary measures to keep yourself safe #also i feel like one question we don’t ask enough is how tf jgy even got nmj’s body to begin with??#he died in the unclean realm and presumably huaisang oversaw his burial?? was nmj ALREADY going after jgy???#anyway #mxtx talk

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untamedmetablogiguess · 2 years

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ok, i said i had some stuff to say about nie mingjue and meng yao’s fake suicide attempt, so here it goes. it’s time to talk about

~CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND THE ABDICATION OF RESPONSIBILITY~~~~~

by which i mean how repeatedly characters who are praised as the paragon of lawfulness, the Best of Society, abdicate personal responsibility in favor of an abstract “justice” or legal system.

Scenario #1:

Meng Yao has just Done a Murder. Nie Mingjue saw him do it. Nie Mingjue says, you have to go turn yourself in. Meng Yao says they’ll kill me if I do that. that’s death, you are taking me to die if you do this. this is known. the law or justice or whatever will deem this a capital crime, that’s just a fact. But Nie Mingjue is unmoved because he is Lawful above all else.

So Meng Yao fake-kills himself, and Nie Mingjue, horrified, rushes over to try and save him. HE KNOWS HE’S TURNING MENG YAO OVER TO DEATH. but when he sees it happening in front of him (in a way that is not socially sanctioned) he is very upset. Turning someone in for a crime that they will be executed for is totally different from watching that person gut himself in the forest. Right?

Scenario #2:

We have the same thing with Xue Yang. There’s no way he’s not going to be executed. XXC knows this. He has to. Yeah, he’s naive, but there’s no way he doesn’t realize that there are no non-death options for Xue Yang. But he is a Good and Lawful and Upright and Morally Just cultivator, so he will of course bring a criminal in alive and turn him over to the justice system for them to do whatever and it’s not at all the same thing as just fucking cutting his throat while you’ve got him tied up. That would be barbaric and wrong - murdering an unarmed man like that. Much better to give him to the Law and let them cut his throat, because then it’s not Your Fault. You didn’t kill him. Your hands are clean.

Scenario #3:

The show’s version of NMJ and JGY falling out - JGY did his murder to a Nie soldier instead of a Jin one this time. Legal Justice dictates that NMJ should kill him for this, but he can’t bear to do it. Even when acting as the hand of the impartial “Law,” he can’t actually look him in the eye and end his life. So! Banishment! That’s awfully merciful of you, NMJ!

Except it’s a war zone out there. And Meng Yao is a shitty cultivator, and everybody knows it. And he’s recently been stabbed. There is no way Nie Mingjue is not aware that it is very, very likely that he’ll be dead in a matter of days. But he’s not going to kill him. The Wen soldiers will kill him, or the wound will kill him, or Nature will kill him. But he hasn’t been executed and of course, that’s the important thing. It’s not on Nie Mingjue’s head if he dies now, he’s done his One Merciful Act and washed his hands of responsibility and if the end result is “Meng Yao, dead, but a little to the left,” well, that’s not his fault!

Scenario #4:

Basically nobody expected Lan Wangji to actually survive being whipped 33 times. When Wei Wuxian sees his scars, he literally has the thought, why would they whip him that many times and not just kill him outright? LWJ is extraordinary, but let’s not get it twisted - his clan absolutely thought they were killing him. But they couldn’t bring themselves to sentence him to execution, none of them could stomach actually like, cutting off the head of the Second Jade of Lan. So instead they just tortured him to a point where any other person would have died. Totally different from killing him. Definitely not worse and crueler than an execution. That would be wrong.

So in conclusion: if you are the Best in your society, and your society is cruel, it will ask cruel things of you, and you will allow those things to happen by giving up responsibility for hard choices to “society” or the “law” or some other abstract Good. You are part of society, so you can let society do your cruelties for you, and sit back and be content that you, yourself, have not behaved cruelly. That’s definitely how Justice works, for sure.

#lawful vs good #mo dao zu shi #the untamed #meng yao #jin guangyao #nie mingjue #xue yang #xiao xingchen #song lan #lan wangji #i did not realize how salty i was abt this until i read back over this post lmao

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mostlikelytofangirl · 2 years

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How do you think NHS feels about using LXC to kill JGY?

Imo he probably hadn't planned it out from the beginning (far too much chaos in the plot for that to happen, but he does adapt well). I think he just siezed the opportunity when it presented itself. I think he simultaneously thinks Lan Xichen deserved and did not deserve it but I'm unsure in what proportions. I wonder if he feels at all apologetic, but I suppose it's hard to feel apologetic about something if it gave you the satisfactory result you were looking for.

Thoughts?

-Regular Anon

The way I always agree with you, regular anon XD

I definitely think that NHS didn't plan it like that from the very beginning too. In fact, I remember a post a while ago about how ppl call NHS a mastermind (and he is!), but there was a fair amount of luck in the development of his revenge plot; there were just too many elements and too unpredictable pieces for him to fully know how it was all going to play out.

I do believe tho, that he did intend for LXC to be involved somehow. Not so much for revenge on LXC himself, but bc he knew how much the man meant for JGY. NHS wanted JGY to suffer betrayal by the hand of someone he loved, from a person that meant the world to him, just like JGY did to NHS.

In Guanyin temple, he saw his chance and he took it.

Now, regarding how much NHS resents LXC himself and how much he regrets using him like that? I personally think that it's a mix. It would be obvious to him that LXC never harbored any ill will towards da-ge, and NMJ's death affected him as well. But I could see how in NHS' mind, LXC still took part in it all by refusing to listen to NMJ's concerns about JGY and insisting that they could still work things out without actually offering a solution or intervention when he was the only one that could have saved that mess.

I don't think he would feel bad exactly about using him bc I firmly believe the NHS at the end of canon is very much a broken man with only a goal in mind. Once he accomplished that goal, well... here comes the numbness. Which also means that he wouldn't feel happy or satisfied about it either. He would know that LXC didn't deserve it, but his revenge was more important.

Maybe with time, once they have both allowed themselves to heal, there could be a chance for, if not reconciliantion, at least for closure, so they can both turn a new page and try to move on without restarting the cycle of hate.

#replies #mdzs #nie huaisang #lan xichen #I think nhs would also try to at least offer a twinge of honor to nmj's memory by trying to make peace with lxc #nhs had already become everything his brother hated #everything that killed his brother #the least he can do now is try to be civil to the only true friend nmj had to the end #despite lxc's mistakes #and tbh lxc is not the kind of man to take revenge either #he's too pure and good natured #and by the end of canon he came to know all the crimes of jgy #so there's a chance that despite how much he cared anout jgy and how he was ready to die with him #he would also understand why nhs did it #he wouldn't approve of the method but he could see where he was coming from

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lansplaining · 1 year

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One other thing: Guangyao & Mingjue meaning bright jade do parallel the twin jades (Chifeng-Sun & Lianfang-zun sound similar to Hanguang-Jun & Zewu-Jun) & their relationship does parallel NMJ’s & NHS, which highlights the kinship ties afforded by their sworn brotherhood. But nieyao also parallels Meng Shi & JGS. JGY resembles Meng Shi, & her face is mistaken for his. NMJ comes looking for JGY when JGS never came back for Meng Shi, but ends up kicking him down the stairs in the same way he did.

...I didn't share this one initially because I admit I don't have a lot to say. I think you're just wrong.

The point about the Twin Jades wasn't me, first of all, it was this post (not tagging just in case you don't want to be dragged into the discussion haha). I don't hear the aural similarities between the four titles, but I don't speak Chinese so there's probably something I'm missing.

I am so sorry for this but you have unlocked the English teacher-- you've started to make a point, but what actually happens when you try to push it a step farther? Okay, Jin Guangyao looks like his mother, that's something that gets a lot of attention in the story, so it probably does carry some importance. There are two parallel stair kicks, that's definitely interesting, there is probably some shared meaning there as well, a line we're supposed to draw between these two events and the participants in them.

But NMJ looking for JGY is the inverse of Jin Guangshan not looking for Meng Shi? Because they look alike? Even if we accept that for some reason that's a parallel MXTX is trying to draw... why? What does it mean? They are definitely two pole figures in JGY's life, two powerful men who abuse and torment him in different ways, but we don't need nieyao to be paralleled to JGS and Meng Shi to know that. Jin Guangshan is a careless, selfish person who had an affair with a sex worker and then immediately lost interest in her. How does Nie Mingjue occupy a parallel position in JGY's life? Is the implication that NMJ used and abused JGY, but because he... looked for him... and, idk, wouldn't forget about him whereas JGS said "just forget it" about him, that's... the opposite but in a way that's equally damaging for JGY and makes him equally miserable...? I'm honestly struggling to construct even an imaginary argument here. Parallels don't just exist for the sake of existing, and it isn't enough to just point out a similarity between two things in a book. They have meaning when that similarity carries a deeper thematic purpose.

Let's look at the two stair kicks. They are both attempts to remind JGY of his place. JGY has attempted to rise-- first by trying to claim his birthright, then by doing all the things Nie Mingjue is so angry at him for-- and the people to whom he is appealing kick him down the stairs as a form of humiliation and an attempt to hurt or even kill him. Symbolically, it is stairs because his attempts to rise in the world are being rejected. He wants to be at the top, he is forced back down to the bottom by people who believe that he has no right to rise. This means a couple things: it shows that the people society tells JGY he should be able to rely upon, his father and his sworn brother, will never help him. It also indeed draws a parallel between JGS and NMJ by suggesting that their feelings about JGY are, at the bottom, the same: dismissive disgust. The two events are the exact same rejection twice.

We don't need to add a parallel to Meng Shi in for this to be true-- in fact, that just muddies the water. The parallel is about JGY's repeated betrayals by the men who their society says should help and support him, and who others have told him will care for him. It's an image of repeatedly crashing against the same glass ceiling: a self-protecting elite that will always kick outsiders back to where they 'belong.' This connects in turn to one of the novel's larger themes, which explores how an outsider's place in elite society is always contingent and never safe. The most obvious example of this is Wei Wuxian, who is embraced when his talents are useful and are deployed within socially acceptable boundaries as Jiang Cheng's future subordinate, but is immediately turned on when he begins to transgress society's expectations.

Parallels and comparisons don't just sit there. You need to dig into how they actually interact as story elements with the broader story, and also how they branch out to connect to the story's themes and key ideas.

#ask answered #nieyanon #i am SO sorry

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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

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Nie!tiger AU, there was an ask you answered with JGY yelling "Catnip!". Could we get that with NMJ high and trying to groom JGY? And JGY finds himself surprisingly liking it? Finds it weirdly soothing or something? Just, like, love him into submission?

part of Tigers

“You did this to yourself,” Nie Huaisang said, standing at the doorway and idly fanning himself.

“I admit,” Jin Guangyao said with what little dignity he could gather up, “that I may have miscalculated.”

“In what sense?” Nie Huaisang asked, sounding honestly curious. “In the ‘drugging people is bad’ sense or in the ‘drugging da-ge in particular with something that you don’t know the effects of is unwise’ sense?”

Jin Guangyao hunched his shoulders, and Nie Huaisang laughed.

Nie Mingjue grumbled unhappily at all the hubbub and shamelessly licked Jin Guangyao’s cheek again.

“Stop that,” Jin Guangyao told him, and Nie Mingjue looked at him sadly as if he were being personally wronged. He was braiding Jin Guangyao’s hair again, rather than just petting him – catnip apparently made him extremely touchy-feely, and only sometimes incoherent – so Jin Guangyao knew he wasn’t as out of it as he might appear to be. Or, well, he assumed, since he also assumed Nie Mingjue would at some point get off of him, but maybe Nie Mingjue really was totally out of it and just braided people’s hair in his sleep.

Jin Guangyao would believe it at this point.

“Can I move, do you think?” he asked Nie Huaisang, cruelly ignoring Nie Mingjue’s increasingly sad looks that suggested that no one and nothing had ever hurt him as much as Jin Guangyao’s polite request that he stop licking him as an appropriate method of interpersonal grooming, except maybe someone showing up late with his dinner.

It would work better if he actually was a tiger right now. Jin Guangyao had a weakness for felines, but large men with lots of muscle and sad eyes…

Hmm, no, he had a weakness for those, too.

“Have you ever seen a tiger chasing a ball?” Nie Huaisang replied, and – hmm. Point taken.

Best not to risk it.

Jin Guangyao looked down at his legs where an extremely large tiger was currently licking his paw, and the main reason he had no choice but to succumb to Nie Mingjue’s very earnest attempts to groom him. This particular tiger wasn’t quite the size of Great Uncle Lu, although it had a more prominent ruff, and it had strolled over and pinned Jin Guangyao down with a single paw while waiting for Nie Mingjue to get over the initial effect of the catnip and start in with the grooming.

“Would he chase me, like this?” he asked, not really meaning Nie Mingjue. He had his hands nearly wrist-deep in that magnificent ruff, petting, and the tiger was making pleased noises. “Even with the catnip?”

“Oh, yes, catnip can have an energizing effect as well as a calming one. Seems to depend on the cat. Or tiger, as it happens.”

“Aren’t you affected by it? Now that you’re…”

Nie Huaisang had had his own minor qi deviation not long ago, turning him into a very adorable ball of fluff that was also very recognizably a tiger. Apparently he’d had the first one during the middle stages of the war? No one was giving details, except maybe for Wei Wuxian’s oblique and unhelpful comment about eating someone – Jin Guangyao had never been more curious, but no one was talking.

“Alas, no,” Nie Huaisang said with a sigh, and came to sit down next to him. “One in five aren’t affected by catnip at all. I prefer honeysuckle instead.”

“…Huaisang, you always smell of honeysuckle. You use it as perfume.”

“No comment.”

“Huaisang.”

“Fine, fine, it’s a different type of honeysuckle. I’m also very fond of silver vine, but da-ge can take or leave that one. Everyone’s different. I see that you’re joining the family?”

Jin Guangyao blinked, surprised by the impromptu change in subject. “Because of the braids?” he hazarded, mostly because he couldn’t tell which braids Nie Mingjue was putting into his hair from the angle he was at and it seemed like something an extremely high Nie Mingjue might do.

“No,” Nie Huaisang said patiently. “Familial approval. Which I see that you have, given that you’re petting Father.”

Jin Guangyao’s hands froze.

“On his first visit down from the mountain, no less,” Nie Huaisang said. “He needed longer to heal, given what happened with his saber…we were worried that one of the other ancestors would have put him down as rabid. You made a comment about him at one point, didn’t you? Da-ge said.”

“Did he,” Jin Guangyao croaked.

Nie Huaisang burst out giggling. “You also helped kill his murderer, san-ge. Don’t be so worried. Have some honeysuckle; fair’s fair.”

“I’m pretty sure it won’t work on me,” Jin Guangyao said, abruptly relieved. He really had said some fairly awful things, on the basis that he’d never cared about speaking ill of the dead, and somehow it had never occurred to him that the basic fact about qi deviations turning Nie sect into tigers would apply to the immediate previous generation. It really should have occurred to him. “Sorry, Huaisang.”

“No, no, you’re right,” Nie Huaisang said, and produced something else. “Try this instead.”

The next day, Jin Guangyao decided that catnip, honeysuckle, and whatever it was that Nie Huaisnag had used on him were all officially off the table on account of him apparently having no resistance to it. He’d gotten very high and then had the munchies and sharing the munchies with a large tiger, the large tiger’s large human son and the large tiger’s small but no less voracious human son was an experience to be remembered, and not to be repeated.

…well.

Maybe sometimes.

#mdzs #jin guangyao #nie huaisang #nie mingjue #my fic #my fics #tigers #wolveshowlatnight

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