#I had to edit a bit Wei Wuxian because he looked too different from the others

[aires89]

#The Untamed #Wei Wuxian #Lan Zhan #Lan Xichen #jiang cheng #Xiao Zhan #Wang Yibo #liu haikuan #wang zhuocheng #Watercolors #My Stuff #They look good together #I had to edit a bit Wei Wuxian because he looked too different from the others #I like it better now #anyway #i'm not obsessed #liar

[grewlikefancyflowers]

MDZS original draft differences, chapters 26-30.

Chapter 19

Chapters 20-25

Chapter 26

This line - ‘No wonder the QingheNie sect never criticized or condemned Wei WuXian’s ways. Although they participated in the siege against him at Luanzang Mound, it was only for a single act of revenge. Turns out that the cultivation practices of each successive generation of the Nie family were quite worthy of discussion.’ was removed.

I can’t say I remember NMJ or NHS condemning WWX’s cultivation specifically in the current draft of MDZS…? If they do, then I’d say this line was simply removed for continuity. If they don’t, then I’d say this line was possibly removed so as to not give the impression that the Nies attended the siege purely for personal revenge. Or maybe MXTX just wanted to leave some room for ambiguity in how the Nies felt about WWX’s cultivation.

This line — ‘Looking at Nie HuaiSang, Wei Wuxian thought that he too had suffered many hardships over these years.’’ was removed.

Chapter 27

When LWJ carves WWX’s bamboo flute more precisely for him, it is specified that he uses Bichen to do so - ‘He was holding Bichen in one hand and using it like a dagger, his fingers 3 cun* away from the tip of the blade [...] the “dagger” in his right hand and the flute in his left hand’

I always wondered what exactly LWJ used to carve this ahah, I just assumed he carried around some sort of pocket knife. I guess MXTX changed it because the image of Hanguang Jun holding this big ass sword like a pencil was just a bit too silly? Also, confirmation that LWJ is right handed I guess?

Minor continuity error resolved at the end - In the current version, Wangxian take the body parts they just found to the inn the test if they are from the same corpse, in the original, it reads as if they did this in the sabre hall, which had been mentioned was unsafe to do.

Chapter 28

There’s a slight reshuffling at the beginning of this chapter, but nothing drastic. A description of the ‘crazy’ things WWX got up to as ‘MXY’ was added, and this line ‘He never brought up the past few days, so Lan WangJi never mentioned it either. It was as if they’d gone back to earlier times, where they shared a tacit mutual understanding.’ was removed. Honestly I’m not sure what this ‘tacit mutual understanding’ is referring to lol.

Specifying that LWJ was paying for all WWX’s alcohol was added during the edits. 💖

Chapter 29

The waiter telling WWX not to be impatient was added during edits (lol)

Minor change to this line ‘The assistant replied with conviction, “Yes, that’s right! Last name Wei, I think they called him Wei WuQian. Just mentioning his name makes your voice tremble with fear!”’ (qn)

‘“People sound both hateful and scared when they mention him.”’ (exr) (every other recent translation specifies people being both hateful and scared too)

A slightly different backstory of the Wen Clan and its rise to power was given ‘At that time, the Xing family, headed by Wen Mao, had been experiencing a decline in their sect. They used blood relationships to link themselves with other cultivating families, which led to their sudden rise to prominence and the subsequent revival of their sect.’

Also in the original draft, BSSR is referred to with gender neutral pronouns. I dunno if this comes from the translator’s choice or the original text…?

Chapter 30

This

‘A cultivation family had experienced a terrible tragedy, which caused a real stir in the cultivation world.’

Was changed to this

‘In most cases, only few people knew about the tragedies that happened in smaller clans, but the circumstances back then were different. The Sunshot Campaign finished long ago, while the siege at Luanzang Hill only just ended. On the surface, the situation seemed rather stable. With the sudden disclosure of this event, the entire cultivation world was bubbling with discussion, some even exaggerating that it was the revenge of the revived YiLing Patriarch, Wei WuXian.’ (exr)

I guess this change was made to 1. Emphasise that the wider cultivation world cares little for the fate of a small clan and 2. To give further explanation as to why WWX was blamed for the massacre.

In the original draft, it is said about the yin hufu that ‘He’d originally planned to use it to supplement his own powers – who could have known that its power would completely surpass that of its creator?’ (qn)

The edited version says, ‘He originally wanted to use it to assist him, but its powers were almost exceeding him, its creator’ (exr)

This line :0 was removed. ‘It was his fault that such a powerful magical artifact had been smelted into existence. It was his fault that he hadn’t destroyed the other half before his death. It was his fault that the LanlingJin sect had wanted to restore the Yin Tiger Tally.’

I read this as satirical?? sarcastic? (is that the right word? lol) as it is in the midst of a scene wherein WWX notes multiple times how he is wrongly blamed for everything. I suppose you could also interpret it as if WWX was actually blaming himself… uh I guess. I can think of a few reasons why MXTX might have wanted to remove this one.

In the original draft, the Jin clan never said it’d execute Xue Yang then went back on its word, instead life imprisonment was agreed to begin with.

This

‘Lan WangJi remained silent, sheathing Bichen as if his sword could topple mountains and overturn seas. The gravedigger stepped back, as if he knew that he wasn’t evenly matched with Lan WangJi and that fighting hand-to-hand would only result in his capture. He suddenly produced a dark blue talisman seal from his waist.’

Was changed to this

‘Lan WangJi said nothing. Bichen’s attacks were deeper and deeper, attacking with tremendous force. The gravedigger fell back a few times. As if he knew that, with a dead person on his back, he wouldn’t be able to win against Lan WangJi and, if they continued to fight, he’d be captured alive, he suddenly fished out a dark-blue talisman from his waist.’ (exr)

When Su She recognised his sword style, LWJ went for hand-to-hand combat instead in the original… Maybe MXTX changed it because there was no reason for LWJ to stop using Bichen, even if Su She recognised his sword moves, he was still no match for LWJ.

This next part is pretty interesting, once the fight in the graveyard is over, we have this.

‘“This matter just got a lot more complicated,” he [WWX] evaluated.

Although, in the end, this matter never had anything to do with Wei WuXian to begin with. Up until now, he and Lan WangJi had only been gathering the parts of this corpse. Although, admittedly, the reason they were doing so was to get rid of the Malignant Mark, and also to protect Lan WangJi’s loved ones back at the Cloud Recesses while they were at it.

He paused for a bit, then said, “Even if this matter is so complicated, you don’t have to be so heavy-hearted, Hanguang-jun.’ (A bit more dialogue follows on from this, it was moved to the very end of ch.32 in the edits).

I guess I find it curious that MXTX originally gave WX personal reasons for tracking down NMJ’s corpse, even commenting that it didn’t really have anything to do with WWX, but in the end she decided to remove this part entirely. Also I think WWX comforting LWJ is cute. (In case anyone doesn’t remember, he was not at all pleased to find that the gravedigger had some connection with the Lan sect)

In the current version, after LWJ is drunk, WWX fishes his money out of his robes and gets two rooms for them at the inn. In the original, WWX takes out keys for two rooms they’d already booked. (I find this interesting because in the edited version, the only time WX have two rooms rather than one is when WWX books them.)

WWX has far more of a reaction to his realisation as to why the Jin sect had kept WN around in the original draft

‘Wei WuXian just then realized that it had all been a lie. He suddenly felt dizzy, and he let out a bitter laugh. He couldn’t tell if he was feeling sadness or regret. Regret from having not realized earlier that it had all been a trap. Sadness from knowing that the outcome would not have changed even if he had recognized it.

After the wave of dizziness passed, Wei WuXian stood to the side of Wen Ning and tried to think of a plan as he slowly ran his fingers through Wen Ning’s hair.’

All that was replaced with

‘With a bitter laugh, he stood by Wen Ning’s side.’ (exr)

#mdzs #mdzs original draft #doing these is so time consuming lol #there was quite a few interesting things in this one though actually

[plan-d-to-i]

Wait, there are people who think NHS has it out for the entire Jin clan? Even though it's made pretty clear that he only targeted JGY specifically because he wanted to avenge his brother? NHS was manipulative, sure, and whether or not he deserves to be Chief is up for debate, but he'd still be the last person to target an entire sect just because it ended up producing a few bad eggs.

Personally I love NHS. People don't get NHS was always observant- he immediately notices Lan Wangji's odd behavior around Wei Wuxian, that LQR has some weird beef with him. He always had an inquisitive mind- in the cloud recesses he's the one who was fascinated by WWX's theorizing on resentful energy. He always had the capacity to scheme and plot, to hunt patiently- as he does with his brids, but he didn't weaponize any of that until his brother was cruelly murdered. He just focused on his art and hobbies and didn't try to usurp his brother's position, or get envious & resentful that he was constantly underestimated in comparison. AND Nie Mingjue was not only murdered in this grizly painful way, NMJ's soul was broken into pieces along with his body parts!

As the arm raged, blue veins bulged from all its tendons and muscle, and the atmosphere grew even more oppressive. If it had been anyone else guarding the array’s west position, they could not have escaped Lan Qiren’s blood filled fate and would have fallen long ago. Wei Wuxian was secretly apprehensive. It should’ve been impossible for their “Soul Evocation” duet to fail to summon the deceased’s spirit…unless…unless it had been severed into pieces with his corpse!

It looked like his dear brother here had died a slightly worse death than him. Though Wei Wuxian’s body had been ripped into smaller pieces, at least his soul had remained intact and whole. (Chapter 19)

To say nothing of how NHS must have felt realizing who the perpetrator had been- someone he considered a friend, someone his brother had trusted, someone whose evil intentions he himself had missed. Meanwhile, Jin Guangyao was the most powerful person in the cultivation world. How could NHS accuse him, who else could NHS go to for justice? jc was an idiot who was obsessed with re-killing WWX, Lan Xichen believed JGY to be a good man, and Nie Mingjue was gone. NHS was not a physically strong man, all he had was his mind, which thankfully was more than strong enough. It's clear the bullseye of NHS hate and quest for revenge is JGY.

Wei WuXian asked, “What do you think the person would do after they dug out the corpse of Jin GuangYao’s mother?”

Nie HuaiSang, “Wei-xiong, why do you keep on asking me? No matter how much you ask, I don’t know anything.” With a pause, he continued, “But…” Slowly, Nie HuaiSang brushed together his storm-drenched hair, “I think that if this person hates Jin GuangYao so much, they’d probably be entirely merciless towards something he cherishes more than his life.”

Wei WuXian, “Like cutting apart his corpse and keeping his limbs at different places, like what happened to ChiFeng-Zun?”

Nie HuaiSang jumped, stumbling backwards, “Th-Th-That’s… That’s a bit too much, isn’t it…”

Edit :

NHS may have brought back Wei Wuxian to help him in unraveling the whole mess with JGY but the result was the same: For better or for worse NHS made WangXian possible again. Thank you NHS. <3

#mdzs #answers #Nie Huaisang #Nie Mingjue #Wei Wuxian #WangXian #I went all over the place w this bc I just think NHS deserves some damn credit!

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed, Episode 25, part one

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Stuff)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Holy crap, Episode 25! We’re halfway through! *Cue Bon Jovi*

Hunt Invitation

After taking a nice long break to watch Word of Honor pick lotus pods, Wei Wuxian and Jiang Yanli return to stressing over the shitshow that is the post-Sunshot cultivation world. Jin Zixuan has come to invite them to the Phoenix Mountain Hunt, with a special invitation from his mother to Jiang Yanli. Jiang Cheng reacts to this in a mature and reasonable manner, while Wei Wuxian...doesn't.

On the surface, Jiang Cheng has matured in recent months; much more than Wei Wuxian, with his secret burdens, has. But it's only on the surface, as we'll see later in the episode, when Jiang Cheng's insecurity will take the reins.

Jin Zixuan is adorably pleased by Jiang Yanli's acceptance of the invitation. Wei Wuxian is less pleased, but sort of tries to suck it up. 

Jin Zixuan kind of undercuts the romance of his errand by asking Wei Wuxian for the Yin tiger amulet as soon as Jiang Yanli is out of earshot. 

As always, Jin Zixuan makes an impression by being the best Jin currently in existence, but the Jins are terrible. JZX is working to advance his dad's ambitions, and as such he is currently Wei Wuxian's enemy.  

(more after the cut)

Opening Ceremonies

There's a bunch of cultivators arranged for the opening ceremony. Later someone will say that this is more than 5 thousand people. Ok, sure.

As I've said before, it's best to think of it like a theatre production and assume the other 4,900 people are offstage or, you know, painted on the backdrop.  

The young lead cultivators from the four main clans are standing together. Nie Huaisang is trying out some new body armor.

The clan leaders are seated up on the stage, along with Jin Furen and Jiang Yanli. Unfortunately Jin Furen doesn't seem to have a personal name that I can discover. Her title Fūrén ( 夫人)  means she's the primary wife of the head of the family, according to this excellent meta. 

So “Madame Jin” is a decent translation...if you're French?  I feel like instead of English subtitles including borrowed words from French (”Marquis” in NIH), Greek (”Water of Lethe” in WOH), and other European languages, we could try borrowing Chinese words instead. Jin Zixuan's mom is titled, not named, Jin Furen. Since we don’t know her actual name, I'll call her that and abbreviate it JFR.

Wei Wuxian's childishness continues at the opening of the hunt, as does Jiang Yanli's encouragement of his childishness. I know she's had a rough couple of years, and it's understandable to want to baby her little brother out of a sense of nostalgia. But it's not good for him, and she shouldn't do it; she should encourage him to be more mature, just as she does with Jiang Cheng.

War Crimes Contest

Jin Guangyao says they're going to have an archery competition, and they're going to liven it up by endangering some prisoners. These prisoners are Wens in Wen cultivator uniforms, meaning they're not the noncombatants that were being hunted down earlier. But they’re still helpless people in chains. 

There are three different reactions when the Wen prisoners are brought out.  All the Jins are pleased, or neutral. All of the Jiangs, including Wei Wuxian, are upset.

The Nies and the Lans, what we see of them, are a little shocked, but not obviously upset. Based on those reactions, it seems like this is a maneuver that in-world is considered shocking and cruel, but not necessarily unethical or immoral.  Shocking, cruel displays of power are pretty normal in this world; remember when Wen Chao lit a Lan cultivator on fire just to say hello, and nobody complained? 

This whole scenario, of course, has been designed to provoke Wei Wuxian. One major goal of this event, and the whole reason for wanting Wei Wuxian to come,  is to get the Yin Tiger amulet.  Making him lose his shit in front of 100 5000 cultivators is a good step toward compelling him to hand the amulet over.  

We see Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli both signaling Wei Wuxian to keep it together, and he takes a step back and tries to chill.  

Meanwhile, Jin Zixuan seems annoyed by all this, and goes to take a shot at it, making it clear from his demeanor that this is easy and JGY is making a show of nothing. 

He hovers in the air and makes a perfect shot, pleasing most of the crowd and impressing Jiang Yanli. 

Then his cousin Jin Zixun taunts the crowd, challenging anyone to do better.  This presents a bit of a problem for Wei Wuxian. For the sake of the Wen prisoners, Wei Wuxian should just take this taunting and let the contest end, if no-one else is willing to take a shot. But for the sake of the Jiang Clan’s status, and his continued control of the Yin Tiger amulet, he needs to put the Jins in their place.  

Every Day is Blindfold Day

This moral dilemma is resolved with an abrupt tonal shift, where the humanitarian concerns of all parties seem to vanish. Wei Wuxian flirts embarrassingly with Lan Wangji and then goes as far over the top in besting Jin Zixuan as it's possible to go.

The flirting hits differently, incidentally, when you edit Jiang Cheng's annoyed reaction out of it: 

Lan Wangji doesn't seem embarrassed by Wei Wuxian's request, despite it happening in front of 100 5000 of their fellow cultivators. He looks Wei Wuxian straight in the eye for longer than necessary before turning away; it’s not exactly stern disapproval. We’ll get very used to this look, in Wei Wuxian’s second life. 

Fortunately, Wei Wuxian carries a blindfold with him wherever he goes, (gifset here), and he is such a good cultivator he can hit 5 parallel targets simultaneously without even holding his bow straight or tightening the string.

(OP fixed the angle of the bow for this gif, which is why everyone is standing on a hill in the background).

Everyone is pleased by this shot except Jins Guangyao and Zixun; even the Jin cultivators are clapping, and Madame Jin is presumably this happy any time Jin Guangyao’s plans go wrong.

With that they start the hunt. Jin Zixun challenges Wei Wuxian to do the whole hunt blindfolded. Wei Wuxian agrees, but the censorship committee said no, apparently, so we don’t get to see that.

Flute Hunting

We do get to see Wei Wuxian luring monsters into his nets by being too sexy for his robe, too sexy for his robe, and playing the flute.  

We also get to see Jiang cultivators looking puzzled while random monster roars happen in the woods around them. We do not get to see any monsters, which is probably just as well.

Jiang Cheng is annoyed and concerned, muttering "I told you not to overdo it" which means he didn't, you know, tell Wei Wuxian NOT to do this, just not to do it quite so well. Jiang Cheng knows what Wei Wuxian’s abilities are and he is making use of him, as he should, but he doesn’t have the courage of his convictions. 

Tree Confession

Wei Wuxian sees Lan Wangji and starts to say hi, but then he has a desaturated flashback to Lan Xichen telling him to back off, so he stops himself.  But then Lan Wangji comes over to talk to him.

Lan Wangji starts off talking to him about his latest anti-resentment musical discoveries, and Wei Wuxian pushes back, even calling him Lan Wangji, but gently.  Wei Wuxian asks "who am I to you?" and Lan Wangji turns the question right back at him, then waits a looooooong time, eyes downcast, while Wei Wuxian thinks of a serious answer.

Wei Wuxian says "I used to treat you as my zhījǐ" --which, as we’ve discussed before, is variously translated soulmate, confidant, intimate friend--with a strong meaning of "the person who truly knows me." Lan Wangji says "I still am." Coming from Lan Wangji, who NEVER says how he feels about Wei Wuxian or about anything, really, this sounds a lot like a confession of love. 

It definitely takes the form, visually, of a love confession, as Lan Wangji speaks, then gazes at Wei Wuxian while he waits for a reply.  Wei Wuxian's reply is this:

I don't think Wei Wuxian is oblivious (I'm speaking strictly of CQL, not MZDS, as always with these posts; they are different works). I think he loves Lan Wangji back, and knows it. But Chenqing and everything it represents are between them.

Lan Wangji is quite literally NOT his zhījǐ any more, because he doesn't truly know Wei Wuxian right now. He loves him desperately, but he doesn't know about his core, and hasn't accepted his cultivation method.  So Wei Wuxian answers his confession by showing him Chenqing, effectively declining to accept his still-conditional love.

Snake Measuring

Next we get terrible hetero courtship in the form of Jin Zixuan finding snake discharge on the ground and talking to Jiang Yanli about comparative snake measuring. Seriously: that is the actual conversation that they are having.

Jin Zixuan boasts for a bit, and then awkwardly tries to ask Jiang Yanli on a date. When she turns him down he gets mad, because he's a typical heterosexual dude even though he's secretly a delightful person...very, very secretly. Jiang Yanli, for her part, can't string a fucking sentence together to save her life whenever he's around, so she's not helping their mutual understanding. 

Lan Wangji attempts to hold Wei Wuxian back from beating Jin Zixuan’s ass yet again, but eventually JYL wants to leave, JZX tells her to wait, and WWX intervenes. Why doesn't Jiang Yanli have a maid or Jiang cultivator with her while she's on a date, incidentally? These kids are confused about whether they're doing feudal patriarchy or whether they're doing modern social life.

Jin vs. Jiang

Wei Wuxian jumps in between Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan, which JZX objects to. Jin Zixuan has no fucking business objecting and Wei Wuxian is 100% right, at this point. As soon as WWX shows up JZX should hand her off to her Shidi, bow, and leave her the fuck alone. Instead, he draws his sword on Wei Wuxian, and kind of on Jiang Yanli since she's right behind Wei Wuxian.  Fortunately, Lan Wangji blocks him. 

This instantly blows up into a Jiang-Jin Clan conflict, with Jiang Cheng unfortunately absent since he let his unmarried sister go off in the woods alone with the son of the Cultivaton world's most famous lecher. It looks like it’s a personal conflict, but since Jin Zixuan already told Wei Wuxian directly that Jin Guangshan wants his amulet, any arguments between them are part of a larger power struggle. 

Cousin Jin Zixun comes running up to start shit. Wei Wuxian pretends--I am SURE he's pretending--not to know who he is. The dude hassles Wei Wuxian every time he sees him; Wei Wuxian is a troll, and right now CJXZ is butting in to something that doesn't concern him. Rather than argue, Wei Wuxian insults him by telling him he’s not memorable.

Jin Furen shows up with several maids and cultivator dudes in tow, which is the proper way for a highborn woman to wander around in the woods. She also brings Clan Leader Yao, because if it's Wei Wuxian Blaming Hours, Yao is going to be there.  

I initially found the deep friendship between superhot Yi Zuyuan and dumpy Jin Furen implausible, but then I remembered that my lifelong bestie is a smokin' hot redhead with impeccable fashion sense, while I am a roly-poly nerd.  Friends don’t always match. Also, Jin Furen's actress, Hu Xiaoting, looks like this: 

...so she is actually hot in real life. Not as hot as Zhang Jingtong (who plays Yu Ziyuan) but literally nobody is as hot as Zhang Jingtong. Don't @ me, you know I'm right.

This is a heck of a long scene, so we’ll pick it up in part two! 

Soundtrack: Livin’ on a Prayer by Bon Jovi

Writing prompt: Newly-divorced, cold-hearted CEO Yu Ziyuan buys an apartment next door to newly-divorced, warm-hearted pastry chef ...uhh let's call her Jin Dàngāo (蛋糕), sure. She can name her business after herself. 

They discover their daughter & son are in the same college class, and so they meet up over coffee....several times...trying to matchmake their hopeless, hapless kids, while bonding over their own terrible (former) taste in husbands. Who will Cupid strike first, the kids or the moms?

#the untamed #the untamed gifs #wangxian #restless rewatch the untamed #canary3d-original #my gifs

[scarletjedi]

untitled Untamed time travel au, but make it Mingcheng

@piyo-13

Part 1: The set up

EDIT: Part 2A is up! Link at the bottom!

Okay, so, like I said. Mingcheng. Time travel. Fix-it.

(this is mostly a daydream and less a fic idea in and of itself, so I keep picturing it as a sequel to either Bilateral or shamelesscooper’s stuff - which I think this’ll be. a Spiritual successor)

So. Established Mingcheng as an ongoing, romantic relationship where they both understand that they’re building a relationship, not just a fling. We get A JC who, “canonically” can give NMJ a run for his money while sparring, and will *wear him out* in the bedroom. Like, I write smut, I think this is a *key element* in a top-tier Mingcheng fic (if they aren’t being written as asexual, naturally) and I think this dynamic just ADDS to JC’s budding reputation as a *stone cold badass.*

So, either way, you’ve read it. You know where they are.

To add a bit of angst for spice... Events play out as in canon, up through NMJ’s death. (I don’t think this is where established Mingcheng should go, btw - I think them being together changes events for the better and a lot of that shit is avoided). Broken hearted AGAIN (because lbr, NMJ was there for JC when his world fell apart. Probably even fought a bit - I needed your support! etc...) JC is visited by NHS.

He’s... different than JC remembered. Colder. Distant, but what was ditzy before is now aloof. Like he’s looking into you rather than through you. Nie Huaisang says.

“Jiang-xiong...did you love my brother?”

JC is incensed. How could NHS doubt his love? *JC* is not the one who leaves.

“Jin Guangyao killed him.” It’s the only time NHS says it out loud. “He sent Jin Zixuan to his death at Qiongqi path. He had his accomplice tamper with Wei Wuxian’s music, leading to—”

“Enough,” JC cuts him off. “So you want me to kill him for you?”

“No,” NHS said. “I want him unmade.”

Which - TIME TRAVEL MAGIC BA BOW

NHS sends JC back, but....I think I need something to go wrong. For reasons they use Baxia in the ritual, and NHS is adopting a ritual to send the self back to send JC back, but....

He gets it wrong and sends JC back IN ADDITION to himself

Baxia sends back NMJ

JC’s core sends back WWX

....handwavy some reason I want LWJ to be sent back as well

...and Wen Ning because he’s also tied to WWX and he’s alive but he keeps his ghost powers, I’ll explain later but it’s cool

...to the night before they start at Cloud Recesses

JC is like “alright! It worked! I have NHS’s plan. I rebuilt a sect before so I can totally do this!” ....but then WWX falls out of bed, freaking out and clutching his lower dantain, sobbing and freaking out- (because he’s a: suddenly very alive when he was dead and b: in possession of his golden core. It’s a bit disorienting) and JC is staring at him like: ...wtf? It wouldn’t be the first time WWX had nightmares, but they were about dogs- not whatever this is.

Anyway, then WWX sees JC, and JC can *see* the moment of fear (and that hurts because this WWX should not be afraid of him) and the mask fall and—

Look, JC isn’t stupid. He just time traveled. That look is what he had seen *after sunshot* so—

“What’s the last thing you remember?” JC asks, and the blank look on WWX’s face is *terrible*

“Ahaha...Jiang Cheng, what—“

“It’s nightless city, isn’t it?” (Going with untamed canon).

WWX‘a eyes get big, “Shijie!” And he twists like he’s going to up ans run to her—

“She’s asleep!” JC snapps. “You’ll see her in the morning.”

WWX blinks at him “will I still be here in the morning?”

“Unless NHS really fucked up, we both will be.”

“... What does Huaisang have to do with this?”

“He’s the one that sent me back,” JC said, and cocked his head. “I have no idea why you’re here too.”

And look - WWX isn’t going crazy from resentful energy, but he’s also a traumatized man. He’s thinking clearly but everything is closer to the surface- he flinches. JC knows that flinch- that guilty flinch that says WWX knows but doesn’t want to say.

“Wei Wuxian!”

And now he flinches, but when JC doesn’t lunge for him, WWX looks at him assessingly. “Why aren’t you trying to kill me again?”

“I wasn’t trying to kill you then! I never thought you’d—“ not survive that fall. “Do you know the last thing I remember? What made me agree to come back? Everyone was dead, JGS was insisting on JL spending more time at Koi Tower, and my lover was murdered- murdered by the same man who sent JZX to his death and set you up for his murder, and made you lose control at Nightless city, and a-jie--”

“You had a lover?!”

“Not the point!”

“Who was it? Do I know her?”

“I’m not telling you!”

“Tell me and I’ll tell you why I think I came back too”

“Fine. On three.”

“Fine.”

“One. Two. Three: Nie Mingjue”

“I gave you my core. What do you mean Nie Mingjue?!”

“GAVE ME YOUR WHAT?!”

"Well it's not like you still have it!"

there’s more shouting (with both of them thinking their grievance is more important), and WWX explains and JC rages and lets slip that “what’s the point of distracting the guards if you just throw it away?!” “...what guards? Jiang Cheng you better not mean what I think you mean!” “Or fucking what?!” Eventually, both of them crying, they hug it out. WWX offers to let JC disown him and JC is like “that’s what got us into this mess to begin with. You’re my brother. You’re stuck with me.” And is honestly surprised when WWX is ecstatic.

The next morning Yanli is like “are you okay? There was shouting?”

But they’re like “we’re cool”

Next time: Cloud Recesses and the one braincell trio plan a war

#mingcheng #the untamed #note!fic

[tanoraqui]

Inspired by @robininthelabyrinth’s “Helping Yourself”. I couldn’t stop thinking about how the initial reveal would go.

A young man walked out of the Burial Mounds. He seemed to be alone, but of course he wasn’t: the dead accompanied him. The dead always accompanied him.

The first living people he met were some peasants on the road. They were’t particularly notable, so he waved hello and passed them by.

The next were a small group of in white and red - cultivators, he thought vaguely. He hated them. He hated them. Gorge rose in his throat with the desire to tear them to bloody shreds, not in a single instant only so they could plead as they watched each other die. 

But that sort of hate wasn’t particularly natural to him, even if it was true, so he waved a greeting, same as with the peasants.

“Hey, isn’t that the.....bastard brat?” one of them said, with a mumble in the middle. The others cried agreement, and drew their swords.

It really did feel good to tear them apart. Mostly he didn’t do it himself - the ghosts and ghouls had even stronger yearning for the tangible feeling of muscle and bone breaking apart, warm blood bursting forth, agonized screams shaking to pieces in deflating lungs. But he watched as he played his music, smiled, and afterward when one of the corpses offered him a hand covered in its own blood, he licked it off. Sharing was only polite. It was warm.

It was a few weeks before he met anyone who made him feel anything but indifference or murderous hatred. He was killing more of the red-and-white cultivators at the time - well, one in red and white, and his looming shadow in black. If he’d thought he hated the general assortment of these cultivators, it was nothing on how he hated these two. He sat on a table and whistled as two strong corpses held the shadow back and let him watch a pretty ghost woman flay the whiny one. But the shadow broke free and lunged for him - 

And came up short with a whip of lightning around his throat, wielded by a furious-looking man in purple robes. He was accompanied a pristinely beautiful man in white.

“Wei Wuxian!” bellowed the man in purple, as he yanked the shadow to the ground and bound him further in lightning. “Where have you been!”

Oh yeah, Wei Wuxian was him. It was easy to forget, sometimes. 

“Oh, here and there.” He waved a hand vaguely, then pointed at the lightning-bound shadow now choking on the floor. “I was killing that, but do you want to help?”

Normally he’d never consider sharing, but for the first time, his chest was filling with warm relief rather than burning rage. He’d missed both these men achingly, had been going quietly mad not knowing if they were alive and well, and hadn’t realized it until now. He wanted very much to jump down and hug the one in purple, check him over for hurt, and maybe hug him again (if no hurt evidenced itself, in which case he’d also have to go kill whoever’d inflicted it.)

(The dead had started to hiss a little, like restless snakes, but that idea quieted them.)

So he did. The man scowled and didn’t hug him back, but he did let it happen. For a moment, he even laid his head on Wei Wuxian’s shoulder with something like a sigh.

While Wei Wuxian was holding his shoulders and looking him up and down for injuries, the man pulled a sword from his belt - sheathed, the whole shebang - and shoved it at his chest.

“Here, we got this for you,” he said.

Obligingly, Wei Wuxian looked the gift over, and even drew it an inch. It was very nice. Shiny. The hilt fit perfectly in his hand, though nothing else leapt out to him as particularly curious.

Much more interestingly, he turned to the man in white with a wide grin.

“‘We’?” he teased, and pressed the sheathed sword against his chest with one hand (with the other, he still held his flute. On the floor, the ghost continued peeling the brat in now much more red than white, though she’d put a hand over his mouth so he’d stay quiet.) “Why, beautiful sir, is this gift from you as well?”

He wanted to fling himself at this man, too, but in a very different way. He didn’t, because the emotions about this one were more complicated, colored with wariness. And instead of scowling like the man in purple, which was more for show than anything, the beautiful man in white looked concerned. 

“Wei Ying,” he said. “What is wrong?”

Wei Ying was...also Wei Wuxian? A cold breeze brushed by with the displeasure of the dead, but, yes, that sounded right.

“Nothing?” Okay, maybe he’d fling himself just a little bit. Saunter closer, at least, and look up at him through lowered lashes. “Am I misbehaving?”

The man’s ears turned pink and he stepped hurriedly back - and tripped over man in red and very little white. Wei Wuxian looked down at him as well, and whistled for the ghost to stop playing with her food for now. He didn’t want this one to die without feeling it beneath his own hands.

The bloody sight seemed to renew the beautiful man’s confidence, even as it sparked a deeper, darker concern in his eyes. 

“You are acting unusual,” he said. “Do you not recognize.....”

Wei Wuxian cocked his head curiously as he trailed off into an indistinguishable murmur. Or maybe it was just obscured by the suddenly restless whispers of the dead: don’t need that anymore, no no, only us.

The man in purple snapped something in address, and, “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course he does. It’s just...been a lot.”

He didn’t sound convinced, himself. The man in white kept his gaze fixed on Wei Wuxian and asked, “Wei Ying, do you know me?”

Wei Wuxian could’ve said something joking about of course, we’ve been speaking for several minutes, or even, you make my heart beat twice as fast and I feel like I’m standing on solid ground and a daring precipice both at once. But the man looked so distressed, behind a feeble mask of calm, that instead he frowned and tried to focus.

The scent of sandalwood...a strain of music in darkness...something with an L...

No! the dead shrieked in chorus, and he clapped his hands to his ears. It didn’t help. You promised, Wei Wuxian, you promised! Us and us alone!

Yes, yes, he shouted back. Calm down! And he pushed them away, and smiled easily at the man in white again.

“I’m sorry, beautiful sir. But I’m sure I’ll remember you forever, with such an immortal face!”

The reassurance didn’t work. His face didn’t actually move very much, but it was plainly shattered. The man in purple sounded just shy of that heartbreak as he grabbed Wei Wuxian’s arm and demanded, “What about me? Do you remember me?”

Wei Wuxian didn’t want to watch that shattering again. He enfolded the man in his arms again and stroked his hair, and searched for something comforting to say.

“Don’t worry, I’m here,” he managed. “I won’t lose you again. Hey, we’re going to kill these bastards, right?”

That was good, right? As Wei Wuxian’s ghost still pinned the whiny one, so the purple man hadn’t once dropped slack the lightning whip that held the man in black trapped and half-choking. This was a shared vengeance, he knew in the same heart that burned with hatred and affection, respectively.

The man in purple yanked away much faster, this time. 

“You know.....and.....?” he demanded, with traces of both hope and disgust.

“Sure.” Wei Wuxian shrugged. “I mean, I know I want to watch them both die in agony.”

Satisfied agreement flashed across the man’s features, but he kept pressing. “Why? Do you remember what they did?”

Wei Wuxian shrugged.

“To whom?”

Another shrug. He was starting to get annoyed. Maybe the dead were right - he didn’t need these people. They were only getting in the way. Maybe it would feel good to pull their beating hearts out of their chests and feel the warmth fade in his hands...

He waved the gathering resentful energy away with his flute, and sternly hushed the whispering dead. They didn’t need to kill everyone. Even if it was tempting. He liked these ones.

“Do you remember where you’re from at all?” the man in purple asked. He was trying to keep scowling, but his voice cracked.

Fortunately, that was an easy one. Wei Wuxian relaxed, ire disappearing without effort. 

“The Burial Mounds! I’ve been walking for weeks, you know.” He cast a sly glance over at the man in white. “If only someone would give me a ride on their sword...”

[edit: continued here!]

#mdzs #the untamed #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #lan wangji #my fic #ficlet #to be continued??

[cloudylotus]

#ShowYourProcess

From planning to posting, share your process for making creative content!

To continue supporting content makers, this tag game is meant to show the entire process of making creative content: this can be for any creation.

RULES — When your work is tagged, show the process of its creation from planning to posting, then tag 5 people with a specific link to one of their creative works you’d like to see the process of. Use the tag #showyourprocess so we can find yours!

Thank you for the tag Mimi @yiling-recesses​ ~ it was so fascinating to see how you plan and organise everything and then the editing process as well! ♥

I was tagged to show my process for my Episode 17 Post which somehow got relatively popular, in comparison to the rest at least, so I’m glad to share the behind the scenes of that post in particular. This is going to be a long ride so buckle up friends.  ∑(O_O;)

1. Planning

First of all I have to rewatch the whole entire episode before I can even start on anything. So I usually sit down with pen and paper in hand and ready to pause at any given moment that sparks interest. In case there is a quote that sounds fancy enough to represent the episode I write it down, or when I see a scene or just a certain shot that catches my eyes I screenrecord that certain scene and save it in a folder for that specific episode. Over time I accumulate scenes here and there so I already form a rough idea in my head which scenes would look good together or would make sense together. Sadly this also sometimes leads me to have very few scenes because nothing really inspired me, or I end up with only one quote that I wasn’t even too sure about, but I just make the best out of it. So I basically let the episode itself be the whole drive and inspiration for my edit but I also try to not give away too much in terms of spoilers. So if you were to see it with the knowledge of what’s going on it’s supposed to be hitting a nerve, evoke a memory, or at least make sense, especially given in combination with the quote, but if you were to see this set without the knowledge of what’s happening I’d still like it to be interesting enough without giving away too much of the story. Do I even make sense, mayhaps.

This is usually what I end up with in my folder, sometimes I have about 20 scenes, sometimes 3, so for episode 17 this was a decent amount to work with! [Also please don’t ask why I name the clips like that, they made sense to me in that moment and it works somehow. And yes Wen Qing is the queen and there is nothing to stop her   (ﾒ` ﾛ ´)  ] Now it’s time to look through the scenes again that I clipped out and begin with the actual gif making. I use Avisynth to rezise all the gifs to either the smaller squares, the “full” square or sometimes the longer rectangle - honestly I usually do these very much based on what I think would look good in my head and just decide based on that, so sometimes I end up making the same gif again just in a different size because I felt it was lacking impact or ended up looking better in another set. Sometimes I end up not using gifs I made at all  ┐( ˘_˘ )┌

2. Creating

Now that I have this huge mess of endless gifs and pretty scenes that would work as a background loaded in my Photoshop I start to assemble. Given the fact that I always use the same 540x540 format at least the step of building a base is uncomplicated.  The first part of the set I made was the lotus lake scene. The moments that were catching my eyes the most were mainly the close ups of the actual plant. Detailed close ups make my heart go boom boom. So I figured they would pair well with a scene where all three of the siblings were in screen to convey this mood of like ‘happy yunmeng trio being silly in lotus pier yay’, especially given the fact that it’s a fond memory of Wei Wuxian in this oh so painful episode.

So I have the base grid I always work with, the gif of our three beloved plus the two lotus close ups. From here on it’s just very trial and error where the still pictures fit best over the gif and I just tweak around for so long until it looks good. Once I am done with the positioning of everything I slap my watermark on it and my default colouring for these sets. Of course the default coloring action I made never works the way I want it to so I end up messing around with it for half an eternity to make all the different colours work together and look coherent which sometimes leads me to colour one single part individually and adding more filters to the background and what not. This is how it looked like in this particular edit ~

For the other two edits I basically repeated the same process just slightly adjusted to whichever format I use [this is already way longer than needed]. When I make the edits with four gifs in the middle I always have to shorten the gifs beforehand so they have the same amount of frames in order to make the whole thing work to begin with. Usually gifs with the same colour palette or same theme work well together so in this case the food and hands stood out to me [hands always do, always]. So I found the perfect set of gifs to work with that and just added a scene of Wei Wuxian in the background as he fell asleep studying the scripts and Wen Qing came to bring him food, since this is a big part of the episode.

Of course we slap on all the fancy stuff on top afterward and tadaa - it’s a gifset. At last I had the scene of Wen Qing turning her head slightly and I knew from the beginning that I needed to have that scene as a “full” gif as I was just struck with love. I had so many different things I put on top like frames and flowers or tried to put the gif in a certain shape - whatever, it just looked kinda bad - until I found this dragon png and finally had an epiphany. I must confess i didn’t mask out the dragon perfectly to fit behind her but I reached a point of desperation as my creativity of the day left me behind struggling.

3. Posting

Once I am done with all three edits, sometimes only two depending on the amount of clips I saved, I arrange them in Tumblr and check how they look best. This thing alone can take me forever unless I have a set that has a coherent background throughout all of the individual edits so I don’t need to worry about in what order to arrange them. But once I finally decided on that I go back to my notes of quotes and try to decide which one works best in regard to the criteria I mentioned above. In this set the angsty Jiang Cheng had the honor. For finishing touches I add the link to my other episode sets and all the tags to keep things organized and usually ramble a bit about the process or my feelings. That’s what tags are for, right? 

Oof so yeah, that’s it. This turned out way longer than anticipated and I already edited this down...whoops.

I would like to tag:

@huigusu​ - for this painful beauty

@leonzhng​ - with this incredible masterpiece

@mylastbraincql​ - because this post makes me feel things

@fengqing​ - words can’t even describe

@lan-xichens​ - this set made me cry

No pressure at all to do this if you do not want to or have already done one before! ♥

#showyourprocess #so-- here we go #cql #the untamed #tag games #🌱

[franniebanana]

CQL Rewatch - Episode 3

I just love their outfits here, and since I didn’t comment on that in the last episode, I wanted to say it here. I love the whole color palette they used for Lotus Pier. The donghua goes heavy on the purple and black, but I really love how they incorporate lavender and teal and other blues. It’s just very pretty and soft and relaxing. Such a nice place. I keep having a debate with myself about where I’d rather live. I think I’d be more comfortable in the Cloud Recesses, but I’d never be able to deal with all those rules!

Ah, yes, everyone’s favorite peacock. He played this part so perfectly: just this pillar of grace and poise, except when he’s around Jiang Yanli, and he just becomes butter hahaha. I like his son a lot better than him, but he and Wei Wuxian have some great scenes together, and it’s fun to see him grow alongside everyone else. He’s not just a mindless clan member who does everything he’s supposed to. He’ll stand up and fight for justice too.

It’s easy to forget (myself included in this) that Jiang Yanli is the oldest of the three of them, especially in this show. She’s so much smaller, so soft-spoken; she isn’t going to be the next leader, because that’s Jiang Cheng, being the male heir. But this is one of those scenes where she really is the big sister. Wei Wuxian is fighting with her fiancé’s retinue, Jiang Cheng is just trying to stay out of it and be polite, so she has to step in and put an end to it. I love when Jiang Yanli gets some screen time and lines, and isn’t serving soup. Don’t get me wrong—I like seeing her take care of them, but it’s more mothering than being a big sister. I think the moments when she’s standing up for her brothers and for herself are really special. You can’t blame Jiang Cheng or Wei Wuxian for loving their shijie so much.

Gotta love Wei Wuxian taking every opportunity to throw some shade at Jin Zixuan. I love all of it, and I eat it up—I am the target audience for snarky Wei Wuxian. And at this point, Jin Zixuan just ignores him—good on him. He keeps that up for all of a few days.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO

YOU FORGOT THE INVITATION!

Sorry, but the first time I watched this, I wondered why there was this big close-up of something with “Lan Clan of Gusu” written on it. I’m a dummy, okay?

Omg they translated ge-ge as “buddy.”

Okay, but here we go! Shut out of the Cloud Recesses. Also, where did they change? I kept thinking they changed at the tavern, but when they left, they were wearing their same Jiang Clan clothes. So, somewhere along the way, they put on their pretty white robes. I’ve got nothing else to say here, because we’re about to see another great entrance from Lan Wangji.

I love how his entrance is accompanied by the guqin. His presence is so ethereal, so otherworldly, yet he’s so grounded as a character. He turns everyone’s heads, including Wei Wuxian’s. I love that Wang Yibo is in reality shorter than Xiao Zhan, so they gave him platform boots to make them more even. But the height and stature gives the relationship a whole different dynamic.

Anyone who knows me knows I love my yaoi/BL. I could go on and on about my favorites, but I won’t do that here. There’s one thing I don’t like about it, and it’s that you can always tell who the top and bottom is just by how they look (sometimes artists subvert this, which I love!). The donghua for MDZS does this (I haven’t read the manhua, but I have seen some screenshots, and I think it also does)—Lan Wangji is so much bigger than Wei Wuxian. And while it’s aesthetically pleasing, it just bugs me, okay? I like the idea of Wangxian being roughly the same size and height—I don’t really know why, I just do. Also I definitely headcanon them both as switches at this point.

I don’t think Lan Wangji would have given Wei Wuxian the time of day if he hadn’t heard this. He’s already impressed that Wei Wuxian picked up on the weird stuff/wicked sorcery going on—he’s made a mental note of him. I’m sure he’s a little disappointed that Wei Wuxian immediately gets on his nerves, but he still pauses before leaving.

Lan Wangji is never going to be a fast friend—he’s not going to be anyone’s best friend right away. You need to gain his trust and that does not happen overnight. Though the setting is anything but realistic, their relationship and the steps it goes through are incredibly realistic. They grow together—they grow on each other (it’s not as if Wei Wuxian really cares about Lan Wangji at first either—think of how many times he calls him a fuddy-duddy. I think his main goal for quite some time is to get on Lan Wangji’s nerves and tease him. Wei Wuxian is used to charming his way in and out of things, but he can’t do that with Lan Wangji).

Yibo’s piercings! That’s it. That’s why I took this screenshot. But, weirdly, I always look at stuff like that.

He has such a swagger here, going up the steps, but I think it’s really just Xiao Zhan trying to climb the stairs without tripping on his costume. XD

It’s funny how surprised Wei Wuxian is to have the silencing spell used on him, even though he had been put under it earlier that day. Frankly, I don’t blame Lan Wangji. Wei Wuxian hit him with a bit of a sucker punch there, implying that the girls only liked him for how he looks and that they’d be disappointed by his demeanor.

It’s such a popular trope (enemies to lovers), but I don’t think that makes it inherently bad or less effective as a storytelling device. On the contrary, when done well, it can make or break a story. As I said earlier, their relationship is very realistic, yet has enough fiction to make it fun. I watch these early scenes with a big old grin on my face, and I’ve seen this one probably around four times now, maybe more (I keep watching the Special Edition for all that wangxian goodness).

Okay, let’s watch as Wei Wuxian digs his hole deeper and deeper. The look on Lan Qiren’s face this entire time is priceless. Like, who is this miscreant who just barged in here, telling me how he is breaking all the rules and expecting me to feel bad for him? Meanwhile, Lan Xichen, with a smile: I won’t blame you for breaking the rules, but let my brother who hates you decided your punishment, okay? Thanks!

Peak comedy before it gets all serious again.

She’s so gorgeous!

But I’ll be frank with you all, I don’t like that they expanded Wen Qing’s role in this way. She was one of my favorites in the book, but shoehorning her and Wen Ning into the Cloud Recesses kind of drives me nuts. And then the stuff with Jiang Cheng, while kind of cute, just doesn’t really hit right with me, and I don’t think it was executed well at all after a certain point—but I’ll babble about that when the time comes. So, while I appreciate expanding female roles, I didn’t really care for this bit in the Cloud Recesses. I would have been fine with them adding scenes of what she was up to with the Wen Clan—that would have been really cool, actually, because we don’t get to see much of anything other than the Nightless City. And maybe I’m biased because I quite enjoyed the archery contest stuff in the book that they kind of piecemealed in the show.

It sounds like I’m just whining about this show, but I actually really enjoy it.

I like this moment between the twin jades. We don’t get a ton of these and this one is particularly quiet and peaceful. The contrast between them and Jiang Cheng/Wei Wuxian is so stark—the twin jades are so formal and a little stiff, while the twin prides are off the wall, hitting and teasing each other—but this doesn’t make either one less caring than the other. What’s obvious from this scene is how much both of them care about each other: Lan Wangji wants to do what he can to help, because he knows how much pressure is on Xichen, and Xichen is just worried about his younger brother. Even though you don’t find this out until later, you can tell that the two boys had to grow up very fast. Neither one had much of a childhood, and I think Lan Xichen does take on a bit of a father role to Lan Wangji as well.

Other episodes: 1 | 2 |

#cql rewatch #lan wangji #wei wuxian #wangxian #lan xichen #jiang cheng #jiang yanli #jin zixuan #wen qing #cql #the untamed #mdzs #mo dao zu shi

[pumpkinpaix]

HI! I'm new to the MDZS fandom and I fell in love with Suibian, but you don't see it that much. I seen somewhere that it would burn out a weaker core and I cried cause I wanted to see that, and as far as I know it doesn't happen anywhere. I'm wondering if you could tell me anything and everything you know about Suibian. I'm starving for anything about it

hi anon! ahahah, it’s always a dangerous thing to ask me about “anything and everything” on a topic because I usually have too many thoughts, most of which are unorganized. but! if you’re interested in that, then here we go!

First, re: your comment about Suibian burning out a weaker core: I am not aware of this theory (or is it something from an interview?? if someone knows, please say so!), but if it brings you joy, then it’s certainly an interesting one to consider! Unfortunately, I don’t have much more to say on it because I’m unfamiliar with it, but I do have quite a lot to say on some other Suibian concepts!

ask and ye shall receive (a very jumbled heap of thoughts as i spiral further and further out of control):

[all rough translations are mine, and thus all mistakes are mine. I am using the version of the novel that is available on luoxia because I can’t be bothered to go flipping through my print edition ahaha.]

the questions about Suibian that interest me the most are why it sealed, when it sealed, when Wei Wuxian began to wield it again, and what that might all mean. I’m going to be talking about novel, CQL, and audio drama canon all together, because I think looking at each canon alone and in combination can raise a lot of very different points!! (I have not watched the donghua or read the manhua yet, so forgive me, I have nothing to say about them. /o\)

So! the one piece of information that we’re given consistently throughout all three of the canons is that Suibian was sealed after Wei Wuxian’s death and that no one but Wei Wuxian himself (and Jiang Cheng, by proxy) could draw it from its sheathe. Thus, Wei Wuxian’s identity is revealed and the golden core swap comes to light. Wei Wuxian is surprised by this, and asks Lan Wangji, “Did it really seal itself?” (novel, chapter 63; CQL, ep 42; audio drama, S2E15).

The novel and audio drama both include a line from Wei Wuxian that emphasizes Wei Wuxian’s surprise, implying that sword-sealing is very uncommon:

万中无一的大好事竟然让我给撞上了

Something incredible that happens less than once per ten thousand times, and I actually encountered it.

the irony, of course, is that this incredible thing is what ended up blowing his cover. rip Wei Wuxian.

but what I think gets really interesting is comparing different points at which Suibian sealed itself and what that might imply in conjunction with other information. Jin Guangyao says “shortly after” his death, but CQL includes a scene in episode 19 that implies that Suibian actually sealed itself much earlier.

[ID: Gif from episode 19 of the untamed drama. Lan Wangji attempts to draw Suibian after he and Jiang Cheng storm the Nightless City and retrieve their swords. He cannot pull it from the sheathe. /end ID]

(in case anyone is curious, it’s about 30 minutes in. I spent the effort to make the gif, so I might as well give you the timestamp lol)

this scene takes place during the period of time when Wei Wuxian is in the Mass Graves (aka the Burial Mounds) after Wen Chao cast him down and left him for dead, right near the beginning of Sunshot. I’m fairly certain it’s not mentioned in either the novel or the audio drama, so this is a CQL-only detail. (please correct me if I’m wrong; I get my canons muddled all the time //hides face)

CQL basically does nothing narratively with this scene other than giving us some sad shots of Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng (honestly, valid ;A;) but!! if we decide to accept this scene as our jumping off point, we can get to some interpretations about Wei Wuxian using information from the other canons!

take this exchange from chapter 57 of the novel (immediately prior to the massacre at lotus cove):

江澄道：“还不是又为咱们的剑的事去温家了。一想到我的三毒现在说不定被哪只温狗握在手里，真是……”

他面露嫌恶之色，魏无羡道：“可惜咱们的剑还不够灵，要是能自动封剑，那就谁也别想用了。”

江澄道：“你再修炼个八十年，说不定可以。”

Jiang Cheng said, “He’s gone to the Wen sect regarding our swords again, hasn’t he. Whenever I think that my Sandu might even now be in some Wen-dog’s hands, ugh…”

His face filled with loathing, Wei Wuxian said, “What a pity our swords don’t have enough spirit. If they could seal themselves, then no one could even think about using them.”

Jiang Cheng said, “If you kept cultivating for another eighty years, maybe.”

from the novel, it seems clear that sword-sealing is something that only happens when a person’s cultivation level is exceptionally high. if this is true, and we go with the CQL timeline of Suibian sealing itself long before Wei Wuxian’s death, it means that Wei Wuxian’s cultivation level wasn’t just high, it was leagues above pretty much anyone else when he was still a teenager. (In fact, Suibian had most likely already sealed by the time this conversation takes place.)

If we don’t go with CQL’s timeline, however, I think we could make a very different argument. It’s a bit of a reach, but I think it’s a lot of fun, if you’re willing to come with me on this journey!

Jin Guangyao says Suibian sealed itself “shortly after” Wei Wuxian’s death, but we don’t really have external confirmation of that. For all we know, someone only bothered to test it sometime after his death, and Suibian had been sealed for some indefinite amount of time. All we can say for sure is that by some point shortly after Wei Wuxian’s death, Suibian was already sealed and resisted being drawn by anyone who tried it.

We’re told over and over that one can only wield a spiritual sword effectively if you have a golden core/the spiritual energy to match it. Wei Wuxian stops carrying/using Suibian because he knows that in his hands, it will act as nothing more than an ordinary sword. His method of cultivation is no longer suitable for the sword. Suibian is tied to both Wei Wuxian’s soul and his golden core.

If sword-sealing only happens when the cultivator’s level is unbelievably high, then I think we can make the argument here that by the time of his death, Wei Wuxian’s core was likewise unbelievably strong – but Wei Wuxian is no longer the one developing his core. Jiang Cheng is.

I know it’s a ridiculous reach. To be clear, I don’t think the text actually intends this or supports this in any meaningful way, but I do think that it gives us some very tasty potential!! If Suibian sealed itself sometime after the core transfer (which, honestly, we wouldn’t know – after all, who’s been trying to draw Wei Wuxian’s sword?), but just if, I think we can plausibly make the argument that Jiang Cheng’s cultivation is truly extraordinary.

:DDDDDDDD

It’s fun right?? It’s a fun concept!!! Even if it’s nonsense, even if it’s not that deep, even if this was an unintentional coincidence, I think it would be interesting to look at this as being some kind of measure of Jiang Cheng’s accomplishments. On the flip side, I also think it’s very important thematically that Jiang Cheng’s value as a person has nothing to do with his cultivation, that he is, in fact, always second-best, but that doesn’t make him any less worthwhile or deserving of love. Maybe I’m just projecting lmao. Of course, being extraordinary doesn’t preclude him from still lagging behind Wei Wuxian–Wei Wuxian might have just been more extraordinary ahahah. We can have both!!

Now for a totally different thing! Interestingly, this conversation about cultivation levels and sword-sealing (the one with Jiang Cheng) also happens in the audio drama, S2E12 (about 15 minutes in, since I just checked), but Wei Wuxian adds an additional comment:

(don’t have the transcription of the original chinese, I’m just going to translate it as I hear it)

“But maybe you don’t need to cultivate to a certain level to have your sword seal itself. What if there were some other way?”

these two versions of the conversation actually imply pretty different things, I think! this addition opens the possibility to the audience that sword-sealing is possible even without an extraordinary level of cultivation, and I think lends credence to the idea that Suibian is just an unusually loyal sword, regardless of Wei Wuxian’s cultivation level. Whether that’s something inherent to Suibian’s “personality”, or whether this says something about how Wei Wuxian inspires loyalty wherever he goes, or whether it just speaks to the strength of their bond remains to be seen.

(obviously, this could imply any number of other things as well, but I find this to be the interpretation that makes me happiest.)

If we go with “Suibian seals itself after Wei Wuxian’s death” in this canon, I think this emphasizes the loyalty aspect with a touch of grief.

If we combine this with CQL and have “Suibian has been loyal since he was a teenager”, that also emphasizes the loyalty aspect – just in a different way.

Of course, doing meta combining unique details from different canons is largely pointless in terms of crafting any real “analysis”, so I’m mostly saying all of this because I enjoy the process of building the supercanon in my head that brings me the most joy! To summarize the varied interpretations I’ve brought up in this post:

CQL-only: Suibian sealed itself when Wei Wuxian was a teenager, at latest, by the time he was thrown into the Mass Graves.

Novel-only: Sword-sealing is very rare and achievable only through extraordinarily high cultivation. Shortly after Wei Wuxian’s death, Suibian is discovered to have sealed itself, so Wei Wuxian’s core, by the time of his death, was extraordinarily powerful.

Audio drama-only: Sword-sealing is considered very rare and achievable only through extraordinarily high cultivation, but might also be accomplished by other methods. Shortly after Wei Wuxian’s death, Suibian is discovered to have sealed itself. If Wei Wuxian’s core is not wildly and improbably powerful, this implies that Suibian has become an exceptionally loyal sword by the time of his death.

CQL/novel: Wei Wuxian was already incredibly powerful by the time he was a teenager.

CQL/audio drama: Suibian has been exceptionally loyal to Wei Wuxian since at least his teenage years.

Novel and audio drama-only have a much wider range of when Suibian could have sealed itself, as mentioned, so there are further variances within those interpretations.

there’s a lot of potential here!! with my personal feelings regarding the story, I like novel-only with Suibian sealing post-core transfer, audio drama-only with Suibian sealing post-Wei Wuxian’s death, or CQL/audio drama with Suibian sealing as a teenager pretty much all equally. I think the CQL/novel interpretation gets too close to casting Wei Wuxian as a hyper-special and innately noble individual in a way that undercuts the strength of his character arc, but that’s my opinion. (As an aside, this is actually one of my major complaints about CQL in general, independent from what I’m talking about here. But that is a topic for another day ahahaha. To be clear, I still love CQL very much, despite my many frustrations!)

As for what I think is the most “likely” to be the “right” interpretation (whatever that’s worth), I would probably say the one that emphasizes Suibian’s loyalty with Suibian sealing post-death, because I think it’s the most thematically cohesive and has the textual support to back it. (I think it’s a valid interpretation even using novel-only text; it’s just slightly less explicit without the additional comment from Wei Wuxian.)

A final detail:

We don’t get anything from either CQL or the novel that explicitly addresses when/if Wei Wuxian is able to wield Suibian again, but the audio drama’s rendition of the “Yunmeng” extra very subtly indicates that by the time that extra takes place, Wei Wuxian has cultivated a golden core and is carrying his sword once more. You only get it at a couple of moments, but Suibian sometimes clinks when Wei Wuxian moves or when he bumps into something. The two instances I can remember specifically are when Lan Wangji tosses the ring onto him (the ring hits Suibian), and when he’s rowing the little boat onto the lotus pond and the motion makes a sound. It’s!!! Extremely good!!! It makes my heart very full!!!!!

ANYWAYS, if all of my scattered rambling didn’t fill the Suibian-shaped hole in your heart, I would also like to recommend @zeldacw‘s wonderful WangQingSuiChen series of comics, featuring anthropomorphized versions of Wangji guqin, Chenqing, Suibian, and Bichen. I believe the most recent comic is here, and there are links to the rest of the comics in the post. If you just want her general tag for the AU (which is more than just the comics), it’s here!

If you have interest in listening to the audio drama yourself, you can purchase it through the MissEvan app (Mao’er FM). There are buying instructions linked in this post! If you need English subtitles, @suibiansubs is the group that does them. :)

I really can’t recommend the audio drama enough, tbh, it’s really really dear to my heart, and the team clearly worked so hard and cared so deeply for the story they were trying to tell. Consider this my regularly scheduled plug for the audio drama ahaha.

As always, my meta is my meta and if you don’t vibe with it, that’s chill! I change my opinions constantly (I think I changed them like three times in the course of writing this ahahaha), and I know some of my older meta has been making the rounds and every time I see it I think about all the ways my views have shifted since I wrote it rip. For this post moreso than usual, I want to emphasize that pretty much all of the meta included in this is meant to explore intriguing what-if possibilities, not for serious literary analysis purposes. I am aware that a lot of this is reaching/overinterpreting into implications that probably aren’t there. I just think they’re fun to consider!

so this was a mess, but I hope you or someone out there enjoyed it anon!!

(ko-fi, if you’re so moved)

#mdzs #the untamed #the untamed meta #mdzs meta #suibian #mo dao zu shi #mine #mymeta #asks and replies #Anonymous #oh dear GOD i did it again #past me: why this will be easy! I already know what i'll talk about! probably this will take an hour #present me: *stares into the camera like i'm on the office* #this post is a MESS #running my mouth at 100mph with zero coherent structure? more likely than you think #cyan gets too deep in the weeds #:/ #meta #lmao idk if that matters #a window into my 24/7 stream of consciousness #filtered by tag: suibian #cries in a corner #im so tired whatever im punting this into the void #the structure in this is nonexistent and the language is weak please forgive me

[grewlikefancyflowers]

MDZS chapter 19 - original vs current version

Little note before we begin, I’m going to mainly be comparing this to ExR’s translation, since that is the one people are generally most familiar with, however I myself am using FYY’s and Tamingwangxian’s translations too, and may bring them in for comparison as well if I feel there’s a need to. I’m going to note down all of the differences I notice, but I’ll only be making my own comments if necessary, in some cases there’s nothing to comment on, and in others the differences speak for themselves. I’ll be bolding the ones I think are significant, a lot of them aren’t.

The og translation will be referred to as ‘qn’ for qinghe-nie.

Also quick recap in case anyone’s forgotten which part of the story this is, it’s straight after the CR flashback ends, and WWX has just woken up in the Jingshi.

A difference straight away, in the original draft, WWX laid awake for the whole night, in the edited version, he falls asleep at some point, when he wakes up in the morning, ‘his arms [are] placed on the sides of his body in a position that made him seem well-behaved.’ (exr)

Followers of mine who know how I like wangxian will know why I liked that added detail:P

Also FYY translated this as ‘a position that suggested he knew his place.’ (✿◕‿◕)

The line in the original goes like this - ‘Wei Wuxian was lying on top of the mat, his hands laying by his side and his body curled up underneath a quilt.’ (qn)

This was probably edited because there's an inconsistency with WWX supposedly not sleeping for the whole night, but also opening his eyes in the morning to find LWJ gone.

There’s a difference in WWX’s response when LJY and LSZ wake him up in the morning - ‘“It’s true! He bedded me the whole night! I’m not leaving, I’m too embarrassed to see anyone. Why don’t you two come inside instead?”’ (qn) vs “Really! He did me for the whole night! I can’t go out. I don’t have the face to see anyone.” (exr)

When WWX opens the Mingshi after the summoning ritual on the arm went wrong - ‘Mingshi’s front doors jiggled for a while, but suddenly opened’ (qn) vs ‘The mingshi’s door opened abruptly, as if it was laughing wildly with a gaping mouth.’ (exr)

And just after that, ‘Lan JingYi threw himself at the door, frightened and furious, blurting out, “Just what kind of person is this lunatic?!”’ (qn) vs ‘A guest disciple rushed at the door, shock and anger on his face, and blurted out, “Who on Earth was that person?!”’ (exr)

This line was changed - ‘Generally, the soul that belonged to the corpse would follow the music, perhaps because they loved music during their life.’ (qn) I think NMJ probably has some complicated feelings about music. In the edits, this line was changed to simply explain that the song, along with an object with a connection to the deceased, can be used to summon the spirit. I think this was probably originally meant to be foreshadowing for NMJ’s death, since it is immediately followed by the arm’s resentment getting stronger. I suppose it was changed because the idea of summoning spirits because they liked music is kinda flimsy logic.

In the original, WWX’s purposefully bad flute playing doesn’t wake LQR from his coma, instead we just have this line - ‘If Lan QiRen had been awake, he would surely be insulting Wei WuXian right now, telling him not to play if he couldn’t play, and not to tarnish Lan WangJi’s sound.’ We also have this line in the original - ‘But even if he played badly, the power of the song was in the intent, not the ability.’ I guess this was changed for plot reasons.

In the edited version, once the hand is suppressed, LWJ instantly gets up and tends to LQR, in the original, he instructs other disciples to do so.

This line ‘That night at the Mo family estate, he determined that his hand’s grievance was due to being dismembered. Since he knew a helping would be arriving, Wei WuXian didn’t examine the matter further’ (qn) was removed during the edits, along with this. ‘Figuring out the identity of this arm’s body won’t be easy. In all likelihood, they’re also a cultivator. Moreover, it’s very likely that it’s an honorable, powerful cultivator with great hatred of the cultivating world. But, there’s been no word of any famous cultivator from the big sects being dismembered, or any whose bodies have disappeared posthumously.’ (qn). I think wwx’s thought processes here are present in the current version in the Mo Manor arc, so this is probably a case of these lines being moved rather than removed.

In the current version, WWX has a conversation with LSZ, the purpose of which is to reveal that NMJ’s arm was intentionally placed at Mo Manor, and also some cute WWX/LSZ bonding, including this line that I think is important - ‘“The one responsible shouldn’t be you guys, but the person who sent out the ghost hand. In this world, there are some things impossible for one to control.”’ (exr). In the original, it’s just WWX’s deductions, he doesn’t speak to Sizhui at all, his thoughts on guilt & responsibility aren’t there either.

There’s a few dialogue changes to the very end of the chapter, it’s a bit messy to paste it all in here succinctly, and it's nothing interesting anyway, so I won't bother. However, in the original, I do get the impression that WWX was testing LWJ to see if he’d figured out that the arm was pointing them in the direction they needed to go.

‘Lan JingYi, unconvinced, said, “Pointed it out? Who? Where?”

Laughing, Wei WuXian said, “Ask your Hanguang-jun where.”

Lan WangJi looked at him for a second. “Southwest.”’ (qn)

(LWJ’s initial ‘trace it’s source’ line was also not present in the original)

Lastly, WWX’s ‘“Yes, yes, yes, we can finally get off this mountain and elope together!”’ (exr) was not present in the original, which comes across more like LWJ made him go instead of following WWX’s lead, as I’d say he is in the current version.

All in all, there aren't any significant changes to this chapter, the most important things IMO are WWX's statement on not feeling guilty about things that aren't your own responsibility, and the inclusion of it being WWX's idea to leave with LWJ (even if it was obscured by the whole eloping thing). Maybe my own bias is showing, but I also thought the LWJ putting WWX in a proper sleeping position detail was very... wangxian, especially as it is immediately followed by WWX throwing the blankets of then messing with the juniors.

#mdzs #mdzs original draft #mdzs meta #also i'm starting at chapter 19 bc that's where the translation starts ! i didn't choose it randomly

[paradife-loft]

Tagged by @leatherbookmark​ like a week ago, look I’m trying, thank you! :D

Top 3 Ships: The Untamed-edition bc I am currently 1 thought / head empty full of dimples, and it’s been about eighty billion years since I last interacted with other media in a remotely ship-centric way.

Lan Xichen/Jin Guangyao -- Free space??? free space in the middle of the bingo card anyone? But really, where do I even begin here. The contrast between violence and ruthlessness, degradation, being trapped, being every bad thing you could possibly be capable of; and on the other hand, the one person who has never thought poorly of you, who is kind and good and gracious and smart and powerful and of the most lofty status - and who loves you unreservedly, as his equal. Finding someone astoundingly clever and capable and charming where you’d barely expected it, who makes you smile and laugh and has seen you at your most vulnerable and still deeply cares for you, the whole person with weaknesses and well-disguised rough edges, not just the sect leader and superlative title. Generic social ritual metamorphosed into a dialogue of mutual affection! The interposition of politics and status and calculated language with blistering UST!!! And of course - the final scene. One last test, of a despised, shattered man, scared that the one person he esteemed above every other has finally turned on him too - who is answered, no, despite it all I still love you - and so makes his last act in life to save that person, yet again. God. Kill me ;A;

Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji -- Like, really, why would we be here otherwise? But. Most particularly with these two, I am all about the “showing in myriad tiny (and less tiny) ways over the course of months/years that you, damaged and sad and always trying to hide it, are going to be loved and cared for with the utmost devotion because your utter lack of belief in your self-worth and deservingness of love is wrong” dynamic. Look. I am what I am. (Other Top Faves: WWX gradually becoming oh so loving and fond toward all the Peak LWJ Traits that he scoffed at and made fun of as a dumbass teenager. The way they learn to accommodate and adjust for each other’s preferred interaction styles. The scorching flirting and teasing. The fact that these are, ultimately, adults who put in work and effort to become who they are to each other, and the comforting wonderful ease of their interactions toward the end of the show didn’t ~just happen~ and isn’t immune to future road bumps and potholes, but they both care enough to work it out.)

Wei Wuxian?Wen Ning -- The ? is my new explicit “fuck the sexualromantic/platonic binary, it’s MY single-plank bridge and I WILL be a nuisance to your tagging system” ship-dynamic-indicating symbol. Because yeah -- I am, like, Very Happy with this ship regardless of whether they’re ever fucking or not in a given iteration of the fic/headcanon possibilities multiverse (although, uhhh, I am Biased toward a certain amount of erotic longing for a couple of Peak Weird Gremlin reasons). ANYWAY. It’s about the “doing whatever you can to save someone, even if it transforms them in ways that are kind of horrifying and that eventually you regret and hate yourself for actually; but meanwhile they do not hold anything against you for it whatsoever (and you feel even more guilty because of it)!” crunchiness! It’s about the “you were the first person outside my immediate family to make a point of dramatically respecting and caring about me and I will now have HEART EYES FOREVER” dynamic (which is apparently a recurring theme for me lmao). The fact that Wen Ning consistently goes out of his way to help Wei Wuxian even without/before being asked, because this is perhaps one of the only relationships he’s had where he gets the opportunity to be the one doing things for someone else instead of just being the object who’s taken care of - almost like a way of asserting his personhood, by setting them/himself into the social roles of reciprocal favors and patronage, that I don’t think he otherwise has access to. God, they are just. So Good.

(And, ofc, postscript for Important Personal Context bc being perceived is a terrifying minefield: in my own interpretation and story-making universe, all of these relationships are aro-inflected rather than romantic. All of them. Because in the drama at least, everything is delightfully unnamed via modern relationship terms and stands on the basis of the portrayed interaction alone, and that’s honestly a fair good bit of why I like those portrayals so much. I’m aro, I like to identify with media, and I do what I want ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

Last Song: “Mother” by IDLES

Last Movie: lol, a good question. I really really don’t watch that many movies. possibly Parasite? was it that long ago? *stares off into the distance*

...oh lmao what am I even talking about, it was Fatal Journey! I clearly am defining “movie” differently in my internal categorisation system than objective reality does. thanks a lot, brain.

Currently Reading: ......way too much fanfiction and not much else. as I believe I mentioned at one point to someone recently, actually acquiring the books I’d been intending to read at the beginning of this year would involve far too much interaction with the real world and general passage of time for my current delicately-balanced emotional fragility to handle. I’m... not really happy about this state of affairs :<

Food I’m Craving: my ability to crave food to return from the war, tbh :/

(aaaand obligatory disclaimer of “I’m bad at tags but pls steal and fill out if you want to! aha :’D)

#meme responses #about me #rambling #no good things for the poor sad cultivators #leatherbookmark

[fanyiyimdzs]

Mo Dao Zu Shi: Chapter 5

Masterpost

Previous chapter

Only a few days passed before Wei Wuxian realized that he may have made a mistake.

The donkey he had stolen was way too hard to please.

It was only a donkey, but it refused to eat anything other than fresh, tender grass with dewdrops hanging from the leaves, and shunned any blades which showed the slightest hint of yellow. When they passed by a farmhouse, Wei Wuxian stole a few stalks of wheat to feed it, but it only chewed a couple of times before—“pfeih!”—it launched them back out, its spit louder and more resonant than any human’s. Not only would it barely eat, it also refused to move, and if Wei Wuxian tried to make it, it would throw a fit, jumping and kicking at him with its hind legs. His life suffered several close calls. What’s more, its braying was agony to the ear.

It had no redeeming qualities as either a mount or a pet!

Wei Wuxian couldn’t help but think fondly of his sword. It was most likely hanging on the wall of some grand clan now, exhibited by the chief as a trophy of war. 

Dragging the donkey with him come life or death, he ran a few lengths of road toward a large field belonging to some nearby village. The glaring sun beat down from above, and he sought shelter under a big scholar tree on the embankment between the rice paddies. The thick shade beneath the verdant leaves was dark and cool, and there was an old well where the villagers had placed a bucket and a ladle so that passers-by could quench their thirst. Once the donkey had run here, it absolutely refused to budge. Thus, Wei Wuxian  jumped off, slapped its venerable hindquarters and said, “You sure must be a magnificent, prosperous being. You’re even fussier than me.”

The donkey sneezed at him.

While Wei Wuxian passed the time a hundred different ways, a group of people trekked in his direction along the crisscrossing paths in the distance.

They wore bamboo baskets on their backs, linen shirts, and straw shoes; they had the rustic, earthy appearance of rural villagers from head to toe . Among them was an almost delicate and pretty young woman with a round face, who had perhaps walked under the harsh sun for too long and wanted to sit in the shade and drink some water. But when she saw the donkey tied to the tree, braying and stomping discontently, and the wild-haired lunatic with red and white pigment smeared all over his face sitting next to it, she became frightened and wouldn’t approach.

Wei Wuxian had always considered himself protective and caring of women, so seeing her state, he moved to create space for her and went to bother the donkey. Only once the travellers saw he was harmless did they relax and come near. Each and every one of their faces were bright red and drenched in sweat, some fanning themselves and some fetching themselves water. The young woman sat by the well, and, seemingly knowing Wei Wuxian had intentionally made room for her, gave him a tiny smile.

Among the group was a man holding a compass, who gazed out into the distance. He then looked back down, bewildered. “We’re almost at the foot of Dafan Mountain. Why isn’t the needle moving?”

The compass he was using was no ordinary compass; its markings were different, and its needle didn’t point north. It wasn’t a compass of the cardinal directions, but an “evil wind compass”, used to locate fierce, malignant spirits. Wei Wuxian knew then the people he had met were a family of poor, unaffiliated cultivators. Outside of the illustrious, moneyed houses of cultivation, who spent their spare time contemplating the poetry of white snows and sunny spring days, there were also quite a few of these kinds of small, unrefined, closed-off, and self-taught families. Perhaps they had rushed from the village to beg for shelter from a big house that they had some relation to.  Or perhaps they were out on a night-hunt.

The middle aged leader waved everyone toward the well for water and simultaneously said, “Your compass is probably broken, once we get back I’ll get you a new one. We’re less than five kilometers from Dafan Mountain, so we can’t rest for long. We’ve suffered the winds and the dust the whole journey—if we relax here, the people behind will pass us, and all our effort’ll be wasted.”

Indeed, they had come to night-hunt. Many cultivators, fond of literary pursuits, called roaming the four corners of the land, exorcising evil spirits “roving hunts,” and since their prey typically came out at night, the hunts also became known as “night-hunts.” Though there were many houses of cultivation, only a few became truly famous. If their ancestors had not accumulated prestige and prosperity, ordinary houses could only earn respect and reputation through their own achievements, and climb the hierarchy of the cultivation world by their own sweat. Only by seizing a brutal monster or calamity-bringing spirit would their names start to have weight.

Seizing evil things was what Wei Wuxian was best at, but the few days he’d been running around on the road breaking into graves, he had found only minor ghosts. He still lacked a ghost that could help him trample his opponents, so he decided he would also go to Dafan Mountain1 and try his luck. If he found a useful one, he would catch and deploy it.

The cultivators had now rested enough and were preparing to take off. Before they left, the round-faced young woman took a half-green, half-red apple from the basket on her back and passed it to Wei Wuxian. “This is for you.”

Wei Wuxian reached out to receive it with a big smile on his face, but the donkey raised its head, bared its teeth, and bit at the pro-offered fruit. He hastily grabbed hold of it. But when good fortune came, so did clever ideas; seeing the donkey endlessly salivating over the little apple, Wei Wuxian picked up a tree branch and a fishing line, tied the apple to the branch, and hung the apple in front of the donkey’s head. The donkey smelled the fragrant scent of the apple, and lusting after its sweet flesh, chased the fruit that was always just a little out of reach. Head raised and charging ahead, the animal ran faster than any colt Wei Wuxian had ever seen, leaving clouds of dust trailing behind it.

The donkey didn’t stop running, and thus they made it to Dafan Mountain before nightfall. Wei Wuxian only figured out how to write the mountain’s name when he reached its base. From far away, it looked exactly like a venerable, open-hearted, squat Buddha—thus it was Dafan Mountain, and the small village at the foot of the mountain was therefore called Fojiao Village.2

The number of cultivators who had gathered far exceeded Wei Wuxian’s expectations. It was a mixed crowd, like a lake where both dragons and schools of tiny fish swam. The cultivators wore a dizzying, blinding array of colours and resembled a parade of restless flowers as they walked up and down the street. But for some unknown reason, everyone had a nervous expression on their face. They couldn’t even spare the attention to laugh at Wei Wuxian’s ridiculous face.

In the center of the main road, a crowd of cultivators gathered, speaking solemnly. They seemed to be arguing and spoke loudly enough for Wei Wuxian to hear them from a distance. At first the discussion was calm, but it grew more and more agitated as it progressed:

“I don’t think this place ever had any soul-eating beasts or ghasts in the first place. That’s obviously why no one’s compass needle has moved.”

“But if there really is nothing, how could seven of those villagers have lost their souls? They couldn’t have all come down with the same bizarre disease, could they? I’ve never heard of such a disease!”

“Just because the compasses aren’t pointing to anything, does that necessarily mean nothing’s here? They can only point in a general direction. They’re not that accurate, so they can’t be completely trusted. It’s possible there’s something around here that can interfere with the needle.”

“Don’t you remember who invented these compasses? I’ve never heard of anything disturbing the direction the needle points.”

“What exactly do you mean by that? Why are you asking such weird questions? Of course I remember evil wind compasses were invented by Wei Ying, but just because he invented something, doesn’t mean it’s gorgeous and perfect. Aren’t people allowed to question him?”

“I didn’t say you weren’t allowed to question him, or that his things were gorgeous and perfect. There’s no need to spew mud everywhere, your highness!”

They began to argue in a different direction, and Wei Wuxian rode his donkey past them, laughing merrily. Even though so many years had passed, his ability to whip cultivators into verbal duels and tongue clashes had not diminished. “Once you hear the name ‘Wei,’ you’re forced to fight”—so the saying went. If there was a vote on who possessed the most extensive and long-lived fame among all cultivators, who could win against him?

In all fairness, the cultivator who had questioned him wasn’t wrong. The evil wind compasses in use were only the first edition, and indeed left something to be desired when it came to accuracy. Originally, Wei Wuxian had worked to improve them, but who told people to destroy his home before he was done? So he had no option but to inconvenience everyone and continue to force the inaccurate, first edition compass on them.

In any case, most things that eat flesh and chew bone were low level, such as walking corpses. Only refined, elegant, high level beasts and vicious ghosts could eat and digest souls. To consume seven in one go—no wonder there were so many houses gathered here. This prey was no small matter—it was only natural that the compasses made a few errors.

Holding the reins tightly, Wei Wuxian leapt from the donkey’s back, grabbed the apple, and held it in front of the donkey. “One bite, just one bite. Hey! You almost bit off my hand.”

He took two bites of the other side of the apple and shoved it back into the donkey’s mouth. While he reflected on how he had been reduced to sharing an apple with a donkey, someone collided with him from behind. He turned and saw a young woman who, even though she had walked straight into him, seemed to find him beneath her notice. Her eyes were dull and lifeless, her lips were molded into a slight smile, and she refused to tear her gaze away from a certain direction.

Wei Wuxian followed her line of sight into the distance, where a solemn black mountain top lay—Dafan Mountain.

Suddenly without warning, the young woman began dancing.

The dance was wild and violent, as though channeling a beast baring its fangs and brandishing its claws. Wei Wuxian watched the young woman with bright interest, but another woman lifted her skirt and ran towards them, threw her arms around the dancing girl and cried, “Ah-yan, let’s go home! Let’s go home!”

With all her strength, Ah-yen threw the woman off and continued, smile still plastered on her face, as though animated by some kind of hair-raising obsession. The older woman had no option but to chase the girl all over the street, wailing, tears dripping down her face. To the side, a street peddler said, “Hell’s bells, Blacksmith Zheng’s Ah-yan’s run out again.”

“I feel sorry for her mother. Ah-yan, Ah-yan’s husband, and her own husband, not a single one’s in good shape...”

Wei Wuxian strolled around the village, eavesdropping, collecting bits and pieces of idle chatter from the people he walked by, and pieced together the strange sequence of events that had unfolded.

On Dafan Mountain, there was an old graveyard housing the people of Fojiao Village’s ancestral graves, where the villagers would also bury and raise grave markers for unnamed corpses on occasion. One evening several months ago, when thunder rolled and the sky flashed with lightning, the wind and the rain pounded down upon the area, scouring the mountain the entire night. A patch of earth atop Dafan Mountain collapsed, triggering a landslide—this patch of earth happened to be the exact patch on which the graveyard was located. Thus many old graves were destroyed and others were exposed to the elements. Lightning struck, blasting and blackening both the coffins and the bodies inside.

After this episode, the people of Fojiao Village became extremely uneasy, prayed for blessings, and then rebuilt the old burial mound, believing that this would settle the matter. But who knew from that point onwards, Fojiao Village would suffer so many cases of lost souls?

The first victim was a lazy bum who was poor as a rat and spent most of his days loafing about. Because he enjoyed going up the mountain and catching birds to pass time, he just so happened to be stuck on Dafan Mountain the night of the landslide. Though scared half to death, he was blessed with good fortune—nothing happened to him, at least on that night. But strange things began to occur only a few days after he returned. He suddenly found a wife and was married with much fanfare, sparing no waving banners or beating drums, claiming he would live a life of merit and virtue and pass his days with this promise in mind.

The night of the wedding, he drank himself blind, fell into bed, and didn’t get up. When his new wife called his name, he didn’t react, and only when she pushed him over did she discover that her groom’s eyes were blank and lifeless and his body was as cold as ice. Aside from the fact that he was still breathing, there was little that distinguished him from a corpse. He ate nothing, drank nothing, and continued on in this state for many days before finally being peacefully buried. The poor bride became a widow despite barely having been married.

The second was Ah-yan from the family of Blacksmith Zheng. The young woman had just been betrothed, but only a day after, her fiancé was bitten to death by wolves while hunting on the mountain. After she found out, the same fate befell her as befell the lazy bum. Happily, however, her disease somehow cured itself after a period of time. Yet from that point onward, she began to suffer from lunacy. She went outside every day to dance for people, smiling the entire time. 

The third was Ah-yan’s father, Blacksmith Zheng. To date, there had been seven victims in total. 

Wei Wuxian mulled over the matter and determined it was most likely the work of a soul eating ghast, rather than a soul eating beast.

Though the difference between their names was only one word, they were entirely disparate beings. Ghasts were a type of ghost, but soul eating beasts were a type of fae. According to Wei Wuxian, the sequence of events was most likely this: the landslide demolished old graves and lightning split open coffins, releasing a long dormant ghast from among the bodies. If this was the case, the state of the coffins and presence of any seal traces upon them should suffice for confirmation. But the Fojiao Villagers must have already long re-buried the burnt coffins elsewhere, and reinterred the bodies—there would be very few vestiges of the ghast's resting place.

In order to climb the mountain, Wei Wuxian took the sloping road from the village. He hopped on his donkey and slowly ascended. After traveling a while, he encountered some people wearing dark expressions climbing down.

These people had cuts and scrapes on their faces, and seemed to be talking to each other all at once. The sky was dusky, and they all jumped in fright as they ran face-to-face into someone made-up like a hanged ghost riding atop a donkey. They shouted angry words at him, circled around, and continued down the slope at rapid clip. Looking back on them, Wei Wuxian wondered whether they had been defeated by their intended prey and were now returning from their night-hunt empty-handed. He pondered a little more, slapped his donkey’s hindquarters, and the two clambered up briskly.

He had left at the perfectly wrong time and missed the group’s grumbling. 

“I’ve never met anyone so unreasonable!”

“He’s the head of such a big house, why does he have to come here and compete with us for a single soul eating ghast? He must have killed plenty when he was young!”

“But what can we do? We can hardly do anything about him being a Clan Chief. Whichever house you offend, you must not offend House Jiang. Whoever you offend, you must not offend Jiang Cheng. There’s nothing to do except pack our bags, accept our fate, and go!”

________________

Translation notes:

1 Wei Wuxian, having only heard the name of the mountain, mistakes 大梵山 (lit. “Big Buddha Mountain”) for the homophonous 大饭山 (lit. “Big Meal Mountain” or “Big Rice Mountain”).

2 Fojiao means “Buddha foot.”

Next chapter

Masterpost

#MDZS #mdzs translation #wei wuxian #wwx

[wuxian-vs-wangji]

I was just wondering how you chose the couples for your edit! I'm curious about the reasoning behind where you put Guangyao/Xichen especially! And Xue Yang and Xingchen! And Jiang Cheng and Wen Qing! And all of them hahahahaha

lol, ok, I’ll go line by line!

But for mercy sake, I will put it below a “keep reading”, if you are on mobile it’s a 50/50 chance you don’t get the option and just have to scroll.

—There are those who seek me a lifetime but never we meet,

Jiang Cheng & Wen Qing

I decided to put them here because I thought the line about always seeking love fits JC really well. Wen Qing was his Almost, and he lives as a sort of widow after her death. He has kind of given up on his entire life in pursuit of hatred and wrath.  

This line feels very tragic, and it works for them. I won’t get into the context of the riddle within the story because it’d make my answer too long, but there is an element of the context and the fact that this is the opening line of the riddle kind of feeling like a dark parallel.

—and those I kiss but who  trample me beneath ungrateful feet.

Lan Xichen and Jin Guangyao

How different would things have gone if Meng Yao- at any point, even after helping Xue Yang escape The Unclean Realm- just… stopped. Stopped with the power grabbing and swallowed his ambition? Xichen loved him- that finger stroke in Cloud Recess was enough to prove that to me. And I do think that, unlike Xue Yang, Meng Yao was capable of love once upon a time.

I knew, looking at the rest of the riddle and what I planned for each thing, I needed a full ship in this blank, but really it’s wholly directed at Meng Yao. His are the ‘ungrateful feet’. He was given a gift and chose a dark fate instead.

— At times I seem to favor the clever and the fair,

Mian-Mian and her family

If at any point I didn’t use the ship I used in any of these lines, the only other ones I could think of would be Meng Yao and Qin Su, Guangshan and his wife, or Wen Chao and his ho. None of those are anyone I particularly want to hold up in a positive light.

Mian-Mian was fair to Wuxian at every step, and she was fairly clever in how she managed Zixuan and kept his ego in check for him (without ever getting territorial over him, she was a bro to Yanli and I love her for it). Mian-Mian was a good bean, and didn’t really fit anywhere else.

— but I bless all those who are brave enough to dare.

Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli

This is one of only 2 that I went into this knowing exactly what line they belonged to. Zixuan was always kind of afraid of Yanli. She was consistent in her dealings with him, but for him to actually man-up and realize he loved her took some bravery.

Plus he did it when Wuxian was- as far as the other Cultivators are concerned- in Feral Kitten Mode. So to court/marry/father a child on Wuxian’s sister took a hell of a lot of daring.

— By large my ministrations are soft-handed and sweet,

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji

OK, so originally I was going to do this whole thing as a WangXian edit, then I realized the above line had to be Yanli and Zixuan and the below had to be Xue Yang and Xingchen, THEN I realized I’d have to add other couples so there is not a random Yanli and Zixuan/Xue Yang and Xingchen in the middle of a WangXian edit, and bit by bit they were whittled down to just one section.

In the original plan this would be Wuxian playing his non-Chenqing flute on the back of the donkey while Wangji led it, but I wanted a more powerful and peaceful scene. To me that is them watching the snowfall, which I also took as a sign of time passing.

IDK if there is anywhere in canon that really gets into it, but mentally I figured the “Present” arc covers about a year, including a winter spent in Cloud Recess. Just a soft and sweet break from the world on fire.

— but scorned, I become a difficult beast to defeat.

Xue Yang and Xingchen

This was the other one I knew had to be exactly where it ended up, which changed directions on the others.

Xue Yang and Xingchen are absolutely fascinating to me. Just– I could probably write an essay but I am containing it. What they had was in no way love from Xingchen’s perspective. Not just because he didn’t know it was Xue Yang- even if their history were erased, Xingchen always treated him as a friend.

Xue Yang the Rabid Cat though~~~ sociopaths cannot feel love, but they can get this sort of entitled possessiveness over something that looks like a sick, toxic, twisted kind of “love”. That “beast” just fits the line too well. Also the context of who is giving the riddle in the source text. Think Xue Yang but an all-powerful immortal queen who has enslaved a continent out of SPITE.

— For though each of my strokes lands a powerful blow

Jiang Fengmian and Madam Yu

My initial thought for this one was Guangyao and Xichen but I loathe GIFsets that are too literal (except my “I love you, I said and then I stabbed him” one with these two, I made the GIF for that one because it takes the quote less seriously and I giggled).

Honestly these are the winners of “I really don’t want Guangyao/Qin Su, Guangshan/Whats-her-face, or Wen Chao/Ho”. I had no one else coming to mind couple-wise and of the few passages I hadn’t chosen people for yet, this one… was left.

Originally in the idea of doing the entire riddle as WangXian, this was going to be the Umbrella Scene. Specifically Wangji stepping aside and Wuxian racing past.

— When I kill, I do it slow.

The Yunmeng Trio

The context of the original riddle really was focused on romantic love as something this villain was fixated on. The original plan (and indeed it is still in my notes so it literally changed halfway through me making that GIF) was to do Wuxian and Wangji here. A cross-cut of them young and happy and the cliff scene.

I really didn’t want 2 WangXian if the rest were mixed though. There were no more romantic couplings, so I tried to think of the same idea of a cross-cut between early days and late times. I was giving up and had a fade half-made that was Wuxian laughing (taking off the mask he tried to scare Wangji with when they were young) and Wuxian’s cry-laugh on the roof of the Nightless City. I accidentally clicked too far over in the episode timeline and saw him screaming because of Yanli and was like “Hum….”

There was a decent enough wide shot of the Yunmeng trio, in Episode 2 there is the fun jostling shot, and I figured if you had to summarize what led from Caiyi Town to the Nightless City in terms of their dynamics, no matter what way you look the answer is “love” (which was my mentality for the two Wuxian’s faded together- what love turned him into).

 Yanli’s love of her family, Wuxian losing everything in his life he loved, and Jiang Cheng raw and raging because of the loss of the woman he loved and the impending loss of the sister he loves.

And then I got some DM’s after the riddle was posted asking about the answer, so I chose to make the WangXian GIF and attach it as the answer :)

#ask #Anonymous

[butterflydm]

The Untamed Rewatch (ep 9)

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NHS is really cute in this episode, you guys. It’s also a really good episode for the building of the partnership between Wangxian.

I like the tense vibe that we pick up with, having the shadow-bird fly across the moon and only very briefly showing the puppet-people. That's a good editing choice.

Nie Huaisang does come across as relatively sheltered in these scenes with LWJ and WWX. Even though they're all roughly the same age, he comes across as younger. Or more in need of protection, anyway, which is a vibe that he uses to his benefit much later. He's not a fighter. He never becomes one — even when he's at his most desperate, we don't really see him directly using violence against others, instead tricking other people to use violence on his behalf. I don't think it's a moral issue one way or the other; I don't think indirect violence is more morally wrong because it's sneaky or whatnot. It's just an interesting character note. I also think it's interesting that when NHS is panicked, he calls out both WWX and LWJ using the more intimate nickname form — he says Wei-xiong and Lan-xiong. He doesn't usually use that with LWJ, I think? But he does in this scene.

I like the little fire & ice vibe we get with the… are they called 'spells' in cultivation? LWJ pushes them back and it looks cold, then WWX pens them in and the form he makes looks more like fire. LWJ and WWX are all for charging out and poor NHS is just so panicked over the idea. Oh, honey.

So, this next bit is a really big thing that CQL changed from the novel! Wen Qing uses a flute to control the puppets and make them leave (or, wait, since she's blowing in the end, is it a xiao? But it's so much smaller than the one we saw LXC use, so maybe it's another woodwind of some kind? help, I don’t know musical instruments). As I understand it, in the novel, WWX literally invented all of this stuff, while in the drama, he doesn't invent it but does refine it beyond what it has been before. I'll probably have more feelings about that, one way or the other, once I've read the novel. When I was watching through the series the first time, all this felt like it flowed pretty naturally from the plotline that the drama had set up with the Yin Metal. It is one of the things, though, that makes CQL kind of an alternate universe version of MDZS rather than a straight (ha!) adaptation. None of the other practitioners of demonic cultivation in the drama, though, show the same kind of… ah, elemental mastery that we see WWX show. He becomes almost a force of nature in himself, feels almost like an avatar of death, when he's embracing the power. And we don't get that vibe with any of the other characters we see who try to master demonic cultivation. Other people may have dabbled with demonic cultivation in the past, was the vibe the drama gave me, but only WWX mastered it in the end.

The girl doing windmills with her hands while holding the basket kinda cracks me up. Maybe it's partly because her clothes are so bright?

Jiang Cheng comes in to add some levity to the atmosphere. He's actually quite sweet, almost but not quite confessing how worried he was about his brother. He does have a very hard time being emotionally vulnerable, though that's a trial for a lot of characters in the story, but Jiang Cheng covers it up with anger rather than a smile like WWX does. Different coping methods for different personalities. Jiang Cheng gets very indignant when WWX immediately moves to deflect any blame away from LWJ and onto WWX instead.

I really like the scene with WWX, LWJ, Jiang Cheng, NHS, and Wen Qing, because there are several different agendas and levels of knowledge at play, all butting up against each other. WWX and LWJ work very well as a team here, supporting each other's moves while they try to figure out the best plan of action. We know from the previous episode that WWX is already considering himself and LWJ as partners on this trip, and they really do get to act like it here. They're the only two people who are on the same page; everyone else has their individual agendas but WWX and LWJ are working together and with the same knowledge set.

I don't have too much to say about this next bit, but I do love it. I think it looks quite nice, they look very pretty in the fog, and I love seeing WWX and LWJ back to back and there's a bit of cute banter. And both WWX and LWJ get to contribute to the goal.

Oh, is that A-Yuan? The timeline is pretty short in the drama, then!

NHS continues to find WWX's brashness charming while poor Jiang Cheng is just so over it all. Even in the midst of the silliness of the three bros, WWX is thinking of his mission and partnership with LWJ, as he does pretty clearly take advantage of the chicken hunt to give LWJ and himself a chance to question Wen Qing.

Partners! Partnership is one of my favorite ship dynamics — Fraser/RayK (due South), Clois (Superman) — complicated, dynamic partnerships with affection and bantering is one of my great weaknesses in fictional relationships (and for a man who talks as little as LWJ does, he holds his own against WWX). And they have a moment of silent communication at the end of the scene, because they've come to know each other that well already.

The question of how much loyalty you owe to the people who adopted you gets brought up here with Wen Qing and Wen Rouhan, and of course the question always applies to Wei Wuxian in these cases as well. Like WWX, Wen Qing possesses great talents that mean Wen Rouhan give her more latitude than perhaps he would otherwise (in her case, she's an extremely talented doctor) and that the younger of the blood siblings shows jealousy of because of that latitude. Both Wen Qing and WWX act impulsively to do the right thing, even when it goes against the interests of their own adopted family. 

They part ways with Wen Qing (and possibly NHS, though we don't see a goodbye scene with him. Maybe he's still chasing that chicken), with another of the layering of the bittersweet almost-romance between Wen Qing and Jiang Cheng.

And it's been a bit of travel, because WWX has changed clothes between scenes. LWJ and Jiang Cheng still look the same, but WWX was definitely in dark blue in the previous scene and now is definitely in black. There's some interesting non-verbal interplay here between LWJ and WWX that poor Jiang Cheng must helplessly watch — WWX drinks some wine, but immediately stops when LWJ walks away from him, grabs LWJ's shoulder ribbon, drops it when LWJ looks at him, then grabs his arm, and then drops that when LWJ looks at him again. Just major push-pull vibes.

Oh, there's Nie Huiasang! He's meeting up with Meng Yao here! We don't get any Meng Yao in this episode but I really do kinda miss him and his dimples.

I love WWX's technique here so much: "Hey, any weird deaths happen around here recently? We are such big fans of strange death!" I mean, it works, so more power to him, tbh.

The scene here with Lan Zhan feeling the effects of the Yin Metal (and, hey, they told Jiang Cheng about it! He's not surprised! So that's nice) and Wei Ying trying to calm him through it is a neat reversal of the dynamic we'll see more often in the future, with Lan Zhan trying to get through to Wei Ying. I like that; parallels and reversals are fun.

The scene of the three of them walking into the Chang home is very eerie and has a good, strong tragic vibe. So, we're getting Xue Yang in this next bit, and Xue Yang dresses in black. It makes me wonder if that's part of the reason they had WWX change clothes — in the previous episode, they wanted us to associate him with the Jiangs, and Jiang Fengmian in particular, but now they want us to be thinking of Xue Yang, maybe?

Hmm.

Next episode: Xue Yang! Xiao Xingchen! Song Lan!

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#mdzs meta #cql rewatch #wangxian #the untamed #the untamed | chen qing ling #mdzs #mo dao zu shi

[enbyleighlines]

For your modern au prompts, how about Wei Wuxian and Nie Huaisang best friends going on a shopping trip?

Oooh, sounds good to me!! I hope you don’t mind that I took liberties with what constitutes as a shopping trip! This idea popped into my head, and I wanted to explore it~

—

The bell on the front door gives a twinkling little jingle as they enter. Immediately, the familiar aroma of Wei Wuxian’s favorite arts and craft store rubs against his nostrils like an affectionate cat.

Beside him, Nie Huaisang walks with a spring in their step. In the crook of their elbow, they carry a small but finely crafted handbag, as though they’re a rich socialite on a shopping spree in the big city. “Here we are,” Nie Huaisang says, excitement giving their voice a fun lyrical quality, “Where shall we start, Wuxian-xiong?”

Wei Wuxian can’t help the wide grin that breaks across his face. He scoops up one of the shopping baskets by the entrance. “We should start from the ground up,” he decides, logically, “Let’s go see how sturdy their poster board is.”

“We can always glue a layer or two of cardboard to the base,” Nie Huaisang points out.

“True, true.”

The two friends make their way towards the poster aisle. They’re on a mission, but that doesn’t mean they can’t have fun.

They’re making a diorama as their final project for freshman biology. Thankfully, they were allowed to pick their own partners, and since they’ve become quick friends over the course of the year, it was a no brainer.

Their plan is to create a miniature factory, with its walls, machines, and workers, but then label everything as though they’re the parts of a human cell. Wei Wuxian is certain that it will appeal to their teacher’s quirky sense of humor, and earn them a grade worth bragging about. Nie Huaisang is less convinced, but they’re just happy for the opportunity to show off their talent for arts and crafts.

They sift through their manyu options, poster boards of all different sizes, material, colors, and even textures.

Nie Huaisang pulls out out of the rack and gasps delicately, as though they’re holding a precious treasure. “Wuxian-xiong,” they say, “Feel this one. Isn’t it just like the gritty texture of cement?”

Wei Wuxian runs the tips of his fingers over the rough surface. “Oh wow, you’re right! But won’t that make it difficult to glue things to it?”

“Ah, I hadn’t considered that!” Nie Huaisang gives the poster board another longing-filled stroke. “Perhaps we can use little metal stands for the figurines, and stick the metal through the poster?”

Seeing that his friend’s heart is set on the poster board, Wei Wuxian nods. “Yeah, that could work! We’ll definitely need to add some cardboard to the base, though. We get a bunch of cardboard boxes at the restaurant from shipments and stuff. I’m sure Jiang-shushu won’t mind if we take one.”

Nie Huaisang eagerly takes the paper board and rolls it up. It’s still too long to fit in the basket, but at least they could carry it one-handed. “What next, Wuxian-xiong?”

“Metal wire for the stands, probably,” Wei Wuxian answers, “And maybe some of those things they use in gardens, with the names of plants on them? We can use those to label stuff. Would they have those here? If not, we can probably make our own...”

“There’s a gardening store around the corner,” Nie Huaisang says helpfully.

Wei Wuxian nods sagely. “That’ll do. Oh, and we should probably be keeping track of how much everything costs. How much did Nie Mingjue give you to spend?”

Nie Huaisang gives Wei Wuxian an incredibly self-satisfied smirk. They dig into the handbag and fish out a stack of folded bills. “Oh, we don’t need to worry about money,” they assure Wei Wuxian smugly, “My Gege gave me more than enough.”

Wei Wuxian whistles.

Nie Mingjue, Huaisang’s half-brother, took over management of the family business recently. He’s also been the one looking after Huaisang ever since their parents retired to travel the world. Mingjue likes to pretend that he’s a strict disciplinarian, yet he spends money on Huaisang like it’s going out of style.

To hear Nie Huaisang tell it, they’ve always been a spoiled child. But it seems as though it’s gotten even worse ever since Nie Mingjue became Huaisang’s primary guardian.

Nie Huaisang giggles behind their wad of cash. “So, yeah,” they say, “Money is not an issue.”

Wei Wuxian might be jealous if he was the type of person to get jealous. Instead, he only laughs in delight. “That’s good to know! Let’s take proper advantage of your Da-gege’s generosity, then!”

—

They quickly fill up the basket and have to upgrade to a cart. They take their time choosing the plastic figurines. There aren’t any factory workers, but there are some crossing guards, and a man in an astronaut suit, and they figure they can just pain over them. Nie Huaisang already has a decent collection of paints, but they also grab some new brushes, along with a fine point pen.

Then it’s off to the gardening store for some plastic plant markers, with tips sharp enough to pierce through paper and cardboard. While they’re there, they also grab some short two-inch fences and some mesh to use in constructing the cell walls.

They bring their haul back to the Jiang residence, because it’s closer.

The Jiang house is unusually quiet. Jiang Cheng is at soccer practice, and Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan are both at work at the restaurant. Jiang Yanli is home, though. She greets them at the door, and then immediately moves to prepare tea and snacks for them.

“Your supply run went well, I see,” she says, as she putters around the kitchen.

Wei Wuxian makes sure to plant a big, loud kiss to her cheek before he starts unloading things onto the dining room table. “It went great, actually,” he says, “Jiejie, you have to see all these awesome things we found!”

Nie Huaisang hovers a tad awkwardly in between the kitchen and dining room. It’s not the first time they’ve been to Wei Wuxian’s house, but it’s not a routine experience, either.

Glancing over her shoulder, Jiang Yanli examines the enormity of their haul with a worried expression. The cause of her concern becomes clear when she says, “I hope you didn’t have to use up all of your allowance on this school project, A-Xian.”

“Nope!” Wei Wuxian beams at her. “I didn’t spend a penny. Huaisang-xiong’s rich Gege footed the bill.”

“That... was probably not the best way to phrase that,” Nie Huaisang murmurs to Wei Wuxian, “Please let your Jiejie know you meant my actual Gege, and not an older guy who spends money on me like I’m his sugar baby.”

Wei Wuxian blinks. And then he starts snickering loudly. “She’s not going to assume that,” he assures them.

“What will I not assume?” Jiang Yanli places a plate of rice crackers on the kitchen’s island, and raises one of her brows at them.

Nie Huaisang grabs Wei Wuxian’s arm to stop him, but it’s too late.

“Huaisang-xiong doesn’t want you thinking they have a sugar daddy,” Wei Wuxian confesses, “So they want me to emphasize that, in this case, I used the term ‘their Gege’ to refer to Nie Mingjue.”

Nie Huaisang looks like they want to melt into the floor.

But Jiang Yanli only giggles, demurely, behind the cover of her hand. “Well, I’m glad you clarified that,” she teases both of them, “Both of you are too young to have sugar daddies, anyway. Come, and have some rice crackers while the tea steeps.”

The two freshmen each hop up onto one of the stools obediently. Wei Wuxian stuffs his mouth without thought, while Nie Huaisang carefully nibbles at their cracker like a timid mouse.

There’s a bit of companionable silence. Jiang Yanli pours them each a cup of green tea, and then moves the sugar bowl within their reach.

Then she sits on one of the stools opposite them, and asks, “How are your other final projects coming along?”

Wei Wuxian heaves a dramatic sigh. “Bo-oring,” he singsongs, “It’s all essays and making flashcards for the exams. The same old generic stuff we did in middle school.”

“I get to make a poster for home ec.,” Nie Huaisang offers.

“Ooh, about what?”

“We have to try to design the food pyramid,” Nie Huaisang answers, “Other kids are just making collages out of newspaper clippings, but I want to try my hand at painting the food. I’ve never had a reason to paint food before, except for maybe an apple, back when we were learning how use shading.”

Jiang Yanli smiles. “That sounds fun,” she says, “Just don’t get so caught up in your fun projects that you don’t leave any time for the boring ones.”

“Right,” Nie Huaisang answers automatically.

Wei Wuxian is more lax. “I’ll be fine,” he assures his Jiejie, “Besides, I get my best work done at the last minute.”

Jiang Yanli gives her Didi a look. “That’s not how that works.”

“It is how it works! That spike of adrenaline really helps me get things done,” Wei Wuxian insists, and taps the edge of his nose with a cheeky little smirk.

“But it doesn’t leave you much time to go back and edit, does it?”

Wei Wuxian shrugs. “I make less mistakes on my first drafts than everyone else does on their final copies! If I start turning in perfect papers, then people might think I’m just showing off.”

“You ARE showing off,” Nie Huaisang snips.

That makes Jiang Yanli giggle again. She shakes her head at Wei Wuxian, but in a fond sort of way. Neither try to continue the argument.

“What about you, Jiejie?” Wei Wuxian asks suddenly, “Any fun final projects?”

“Just exams,” Jiang Yanli answers. She’s a high school junior, two years ahead of them. “Though, my math teacher said that anyone who already has an A in the class doesn’t have to take the final exam.”

“Let me guess,” Wei Wuxian says with no little hint of pride, “You have an A.”

Jiang Yanli hides her mouth behind the rim of her teacup. “I do,” she confirms, and her smile is audible in her tone. “So that’s one less thing for me to worry about.”

“That’s my Jiejie! Smartest girl in the whole world!”

“I’m glad you think so.”

“Think so? I know so!”

Nie Huaisang smiles at that. Though the dynamic between Jiang Yanli and Wei Wuxian is completely different from their relationship with Mingjue, there’s still something vaguely familiar about it.

Just like Wei Wuxian and Nie Huaisang, really. They’ve got completely different temperaments. Wei Wuxian is a natural leader, charismatic, bold, and optimistic. Nie Huaisang tends to follow the herd, being as indiscisive and anxious as they are. Yet the two of them are often on the same wavelength.

That’s probably why, even though they only met for the first time that year, it already feels like they’ve been friends for a long time.

#asks #anon #anonymous #mo dao zu shi #mdzs modern au #drabbles #leigh’s writing

[skywalkersapprentice]

mdzs novel review

Now that we’re in quarantine and I have an infinite amount of time on my hands, why not read a novel that’s 500k, right?

(Spoilers ahead.)

I totally fucked up my sleeping schedule by staying up for three nights in a row and sleeping four hours in the afternoon while reading it. worth it, though. Despite a few flaws that tripped me up close to the end, Mo Dao Zu Shi (The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation) was a gorgeous story. Kudos to the translators for giving it to us in English.

I’ll start off by saying that this story is not for the faint of heart. The main character has very grey morals. There is self-cannibalism, gore, period-typical homophobia, corpses come to life, mentions of rape, incest, sexual content, straight up dubcon and disturbing themes all the way through. If I’d seen this tagged as such on Ao3, I definitely would have left it alone. Despite all this, there’s also some truly wonderful characters, a plot unlike anything I’ve ever read before, subtle pining, fantastic worldbuilding, magical music, found families, and!! canonly lgbt characters that get to experience all of this things in the one hundred goddamn chapters it takes for them to get together.

The Good:

Wei Wuxian. One of the most interesting characters I’ve ever encountered. How can one be so good, so happy, so giving, yet so incredibly fucking annoying? He’s so clever, but also a moron. He’s selfless, but only in regards to things and people he cares about. He has an absolutely terrible memory (god me too) and knows how to get under everyone’s skin and has killed literal thousands of people and also. He is my son. If I knew him in real life I think he wouldn’t have survived long enough to become the Yiling Patriarch but in fiction he is wonderful.

The plot: Look. This novel is longer than the first four Harry Potter books combined. You can almost think of it as two books- one set in the past, one set sixteen years later. But although it’s the longest book I’ve ever read, it never really felt boring. It was definitely confusing at times (I’ve never had to take notes on a novel before to keep everything straight in my head) but I wasn’t bored. Things just keep happening- Wei Wuxian is back from the dead!! Now there’s a creepy hand!! Now there’s a statue that can move!! Now we’re in the past!! Now we’re back in the present and there’s a castle that eats people!! Now we’re in a ghost city and there’s some freaky stuff going down!! Time for the saddest flashback of all time, and now we’re starting to put the puzzle of this dismembered person together!! All of this is interspersed with worldbuilding and character dynamics and creating a full picture of the past and- whew. It was so hard to tear myself away to sleep or eat because I just wanted to know- what’s going to happen next? 

The love story: Hello, slowest of burns in the entire fucking world. I live for the enemies-to-friends-to-enemies-to-friends-to-what-are-we-to-lovers love story that this book gave me. Lan Wangji, you poor emotionally repressed disaster gay. Wei Wuxian, you blind oblivious moronic disaster bi. Somehow, they’re perfect for each other. I was really, really hesitant to read this book because I know it has roots in that specific straight-girl-writes-gay-men type of culture that is often terrible and fetishistic. There were definitely things that I disagreed with that that I’ll talk about later, but largely, stereotypes were avoided and I have to give the author credit for this relationship that managed to be so many things. I relate heavily to the type of person Lan Wangji is, and I adored watching him fall for Wei Wuxian, through Wei Wuxian’s eyes, without either of them really even realizing it. They’re the definition of what I like to call a “Red and Blue couple”- the opposites, the fire and ice, the calm and the wild, the dark and the light, the red and the blue, who complement one another so well despite being so different. They balanced each other out wonderfully. Don’t talk to me about the WangXian song or the fact that they have a child or I will start crying.

Lan Wangji: Though I love Wei Wuxian, annoying traits and all, Lan Wangji is who I heavily resonated with. He kind of reminds me of Else from Frozen?? Anyone else?? Like, his whole thing is basically “conceal don’t feel”, except what he’s concealing is the fact that he feels things so deeply. He just wants to help people, to be essentially perfect at what he does (scooby doo villian voice: and he would have gotten away with it too if it weren’t for wei wuxian) His character development from the past to present was lovely. I silently cheered for him whenever he broke the rules, or let the strict facade down for a bit. 

The side characters: Literally how are there so many characters in this book who are so fleshed out that they feel like real people? Xiao XingChen, Lan SiZhui, Wen Ning, Jin Ling, Jiang Cheng and Jiang LanYi all especially stood out to me, but even beyond them, everyone had a fully explained reason and motivation for like, everything they did. Even if I hated the villains, they weren’t needlessly evil. We love a grey story.

But there were some things I didn’t like.

The Bad

The R rated stuff: Well. This is probably the weirdest critique I’ve ever had to make about a book, and maybe some of it was partly due to translation, but... the sex was out of character. I thought the general dynamic made no sense for the two of them as people and it just.... wasn’t super well written? Thankfully I was warned beforehand that the Incense Burner chapters contained content I wasn’t prepared to read, but yikes, I felt like I was reading about two different characters the second clothes started coming off. I haven’t finished the bonus chapters for this reason. The second I read the word “rape”, I had to stop. Consent is a pretty hard line for me, and I can’t do a dubcon kink. Obviously the author can do whatever the hell she wants with her characters, but I felt like she threw away their personalities for the sake of trying to write something hot (which- it wasn’t.) This is why straight people have no rights and also why I will be pretending those scenes don’t exist. 

The Hatred Chapters: I do feel like all of the tension and action was sort of- let down at what was supposed to be the climactic showdown in the temple. It dragged on for so many chapters that I didn’t feel on the edge of my seat waiting to see what would happen next.That could also be due to translation. I’m not sure. Maybe I need to read the Hatred chapters again. But I did feel sort of let down in the final 20 chapters of this novel. It wasn’t enough to seriously impact how much I love the general concept, but it was disappointing.

Semi related but after 100 chapter build up, that confession could have been better. Again- maybe a translation thing.

The Nie MingJue backstory flashback: just- honestly wasn’t interesting to me. It was the only part of the novel that I really had to slog through. 

Lastly - this isn’t the novel’s fault, and I am certainly grateful to the translators for all of their work translating this gigantic novel, but there were some consistent grammatical issues surrounding the dialogue tags that bugged me. I’m not sure how it is in Chinese, but in English, writing “Wei WuXian, “Nothing.””  just- isn’t correct. At the very least, you need a verb like “said”. I usually read fast enough that my brain tends to insert the word even if it’s not there, but when reading slowly, this did frequently jar me out of the story. I’d be willing to edit the entire novel just to fix these errors. But it says a lot about how good this novel is that I continued reading despite errors like this because something like that in a fic would have me closing the tab immediately.

Alright, that’s all. 

Overall:

There are so many small things, little moments and lines that I loved about this story, it would take me days to list them all. The dialogue patterns from character to character were distinct. Things like the forehead ribbon were endlessly entertaining. Side plots like the A-Qing one had me in tears and I was laughing a few chapters late from drunk LWJ. The novel was just fun to read. There were errors, yes, there were disappointments, sure. But it made me feel so much. I’ve been through the entire range of human emotion while reading it, and it’s so rare to find a book that just yanks you into the universe like this one did to me. I really needed an escape this week, and this was absolutely a welcome one. If I go read it again, I’m sure I’ll find a hundred more things I like about it. Heed the warnings I’ve given, if you read it, but I absolutely adored most of this book and I’ll be thinking about it for a long time.

9/10.

#mdzs #mdzs novel #Right okay time to finish the donghua