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canary3d-obsessed · 3 years

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Restless Rewatch: The Untamed, Episode 26 part one

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Stuff)

Warning! Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

I’m Coming Up So You Better Get This Party Started

The Lans arrive just in time to see Cousin Jin Zixun hassling Su She, and they wonder how he has the fucking nerve to come to a party that they are also invited to.

Su she was invited by his new best friend Jin Guangyao, who deploys a full-on charm attack, wrapping Su She permanently around his little finger.

Smoother than the Lanling weather that’s how he holds himself together Watch out, he’ll charm you

Jin Guangyao grew up with women who earned their living by being charming, pleasant, and hiding their true thoughts from their clients, and he appears to have mastered this useful skill set. With Su She, he exudes confidence and authority, allowing the lesser man to bask in his attention.

With Zewu Jun he deploys helplessness and embarrassment, effectively controlling a man with much greater power than his own.

Lan Xichen confronts him about Su She's presence, and Jin Guangyao pretends he didn't know that Su She was ex-Lan. This seems super unlikely, given that JGY is good at collecting information that he can use to fuck with people, and also that he sheltered Lan Xichen from the Wens directly after Su She betrayed him.

Lan Xichen seems like he doesn't believe what JGY is telling him but then he decides to drop it, passive-aggressively saying that since JGY is uninformed, he's not guilty. Lan Xichen is actually assuming a lot here about his right to tell Jin Guangyao who to invite and who to shun, but JGY doesn't push back. Lying is so much simpler.

(more behind the cut!)

Su She wins for most unintentionally sarcastic-seeming toasting expression.

Jiang Cheng, Party Animal

Jiang Cheng arrives at the party, bringing his Jiang retinue and his bad temper. He super obviously casts around to try to find Wei Wuxian, who already told him he probably wasn't coming to the party.

Jiang Cheng is that guy who only comes to a party because the girl he likes said she was thinking about going, and then he spends the whole party saying "hey have you seen Mei Lin? She said she was going to be here but I don't see her."

Jin Guangyao formally congratulates Jiang Cheng on the Jiang clan's success in the hunt, and Jin Guangshan toasts him. As always, Jiang Cheng reacts to praise from authority figures like it's rain in the desert, smiling from ear to ear. He says that the Jiang Clan will donate the prey from the hunt to the other gentry clans. ...what?

Are we seriously saying that when these dudes go night hunting it's not just to remove dangerous bad stuff, it's for profit?

Like, do they eat monsters? Wear their fur? Make leather from their skin? Carve jewelry from their claws? Is Jiang Cheng wearing a purple monster's skin right now? (There will be an art prompt at the end of this post)

Meanwhile, check out the way Nie Huaisang is looking at Jiang Cheng, wow.

Forecast: Hazing

Having gotten the single pleasant part of the banquet over with, it's time for the Jins to pick on the Lans. Cousin Jin Zixun goads Lan Xichen into taking a drink with him, knowing that this is (mostly) against Lan rules. Jin Guangyao tries to stop him by saying, hilariously, that it's bad to drink and fly on a sword, but CJZX waves this away and keeps pushing, saying that if Lan Xichen won't drink, it's an insult to him.

A random cultivator who is definitely on the Jin payroll backs him up, saying that teetotaling is for losers, and Captain Blowhard boisterously agrees. Loudly agreeing with powerful people is the Yao clan's signature martial arts skill.

Jin Guangyao looks embarrassed and helpless, which is, as mentioned before, his own signature skill. But he's just playing his own part in this piece of theater; everything happening at this party (so far) is happening for the benefit of the Jin Clan. Cousin Jin Zixun is an ass, but he's not actually a loose cannon, and Jin Guangshan is clearly enjoying the Lans' discomfort.

Why? This entire party, the hunt, everything he's done since the end of the Sunshot campaign, has been designed to increase and consolidate his power. His main goal is to get the Yin Tiger seal, but reducing the status of the Lans is also a good move for him. The Lans have been the strongest opponents to the use of resentful energy, and worked the hardest to conceal and contain the Yin iron in the past. If he wants to use resentful energy as part of his own cultivation, he needs them to chill.

So this is a bit of a test; will they comply with the will of the larger group in order to avoid conflict, or will they refuse, which will allow him to label them as iconoclastic weirdos?.

Lan Xichen takes a long look at his brother, who is expressing all sorts of emotions while keeping his face very very still.

At a guess, he is thinking that this entire party is bullshit, that his brother's willingness to play along with these assholes is bullshit, that being viciously beaten for having a single drink in his life was bullshit, that Wei Wuxian not being here right now is bullshit.

Lan Xichen picks the "go along, get along" path, having his drink and using his magic skill of anti-intoxication to neutralize it, as he'd done previously when drinking with Wei Wuxian.

Cousin Jin Zixun picks on Lan Wangji next, and since he cannot magically or even non-magically tolerate alcohol, there is a real risk to his reputation if he drinks. But Lan Wangji breaks rules when he feels like it, not when people tell him to. He pointedly ignores the offered drink while Lan Xichen looks worried.

The rest of the party guests have a wide variety of reactions, none of them helpful, to these shenanigans. Jin Guanshan's son and heir watches with calm interest as the power dynamics play out.

All of this is actually not great strategy for the Jins. The Lans don't play little social games to gain power, because all that time they spend not drinking, not gossiping, and not doing other stuff? Is spent cultivating and practicing sword and musical battle forms. The Lan Bros are overwhelmingly powerful as individuals, and embarrassing them won't change that.

It's moot, ultimately, because Wei Wuxian chooses this moment to arrive.

Darkness Visible

Wei Wuxian actually made a big impressive stair-climbing entrance to Jinlintai a few minutes ago, with camera work echoing Lan Wangji's stair climb at the Wen Indoctrination Bureau from several episodes back.

But nobody was around to see that, other than us, and when he appears at the party it's in stealth mode; he steps into the frame from out of nowhere, and drinks Lan Wangji's unwanted drink.

Lan Wangji responds by looking at him like this for the next several minutes.

Wei Wuxian doesn't have time for their usual sport of Extreme Gazing, though; he came for a reason, which is to find and rescue Wen Ning. He gets right to it, asking Cousin Jin Zixun where he's keeping him.

Jiang Cheng, who is the king of worrying about the wrong fucking thing, jumps up to try to stop Wei Wuxian from talking. Like, seriously, he's ok with the Jins trying to take his clan's special extreme weapon, but he's not ok with his head disciple being rude in order to fulfill a whopper of a life debt--Jiang Cheng's life debt, in particular--or being rude in order to preserve the clan's independence.

Jin Guangshan decides this is a good moment to bring up the Yin tiger amulet. Wei Wuxian pushes back, hard, pointing out exactly what Jin Guangshan is doing. He says he's setting himself up to be a new Wen Ruohan.

Lan Wangji pays close attention to Wei Wuxian's reasoning here, and so does Nie Mingjue, unless he’s just trying to mask his confusion.

Jiang Cheng is too busy being horrified to listen, apparently. Or he just doesn’t agree, preferring to be reduced to a secondary authority, rather than defy a primary authority.

Wei Wuxian is, of course, all about independence; he was literally born to be a rogue cultivator, despite being dubbed “patriarch” himself, not long after this.

Let’s Go Crazy Let’s Get Nuts

Wei Wuxian gets tired of the scene and decides to lose his temper. He makes a show of being enraged, and he genuinely is angry, but I don't think he's out of control, this time.

He acts like he's out of control in order to scare everyone, but he makes his points very clearly, reminding everyone that he has power they don't have, that he's good at killing, that he's not patient, and that his teeth are nicer than everybody else’s.

Everybody in the room freaks out to one degree or another--except Jin Guangshan, who is apparently too pissed off to be scared.

It's hilarious that Jin Guangshan thought he was going to get Wei Wuxian to hand the Yin Tiger amulet over by creating a complex system of social pressure against him. Wei Wuxian's favorite way of responding to social pressure is to escalate it into violence, regardless of the consequences; he's been doing that at least since Gusu Summer School and probably a lot longer. Jin Guangshan should know this, given how many beatings his son has taken from Wei Wuxian over the years.

Wei Wuxian does a fantastically sexy scary, theatrical countdown, and Cousin Jin Zixun caves in and gives him the information he wants. It's worth noticing that even under threat of death, CJZX doesn't comply until he visually checks in with his clan leader. He’s genuinely a bad person, yes, but he’s a loyal soldier, which is what most of these clans value most.

As soon as he gets what he wants, Wei Wuxian is perfectly, smugly, in control of himself again. Everyone in the room is still stunned and afraid, so Jin Guangshan has achieved that much, at least; nobody likes Wei Wuxian having the Yin tiger seal now, including Jiang Cheng.

As he leaves, Wei Wuxian has one of those conversations with Lan Wangji in which everything is said in glances in the course of a couple of seconds.

WWX: I love you, I have to leave you; I've got some shit to take care of and I won't be coming back to all of this.

LWJ: I love you; I'm probably going to have to fight you; your funeral is going to be so upsetting

Wei Wuxian turns away from everyone, and you can see the weight settling on his shoulders, as he contemplates the choices he just made and the choices that are still ahead of him.

Jin Guangshan, for the first and only time, loses his temper in front of everybody, literally flipping a table because he's so mad about what just happened.

Art prompt: Jiang Cheng wearing an outfit made of a Chinese mythical creature. Bonus points if it’s a qilin. Bonus bonus points if Zhang Qiling (from DMBJ/Lost Tomb franchise) is standing next to him looking grumpy while Jiang Cheng wears an outfit made from a qilin.

Soundtrack: Get This Party Started by Pink, Charm Attack by Leona Naess, Let’s Go Crazy by Prince.

#the untamed #the untamed gifs #wangxian #restless rewatch the untamed #canary3d-original #my gifs #learn to count the yiling way #1900 words

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thatbangtanbloom · 7 years

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her || knj

Kim NAMJOON | | her

angst, traces of fluff | namjoon x you

college!au

&&- Drabble

– “Can you come over so I don’t feel so lonely anymore?”

Every fraction of Namjoon trembles whilst he lays on his couch. He had done it again – he had gotten the best marks in his class; mustered up the courage to finally talk to the girl his friends always bothered him about; he even managed to pull off being valedictorian and got the news in the middle of his Philosophy class. Namjoon, the brain, the human computer, he had done it again. He made himself feel logistically whole – again, but why did it continue to feel so belittling of him?

He couldn’t talk to any of his friends about it. They would never understand. They would give him the usual treatment; Jungkook congratulating his hyung with a cheeky smile on his lips. Then, Taehyung would strategically (sometimes Namjoon could not even begin to fathom how that boy’s brain works) convince him into going into a long rant about what it means to truly live. Yoongi would sit, slouched in Namjoon’s favorite chair with his phone on his thigh – eager to write down another composition that would fall into his mind. After noticing Namjoon would not be fully engaged in the gathering, Jimin and Hoseok would convince him that if he’s feeling like he’s lacking because of his dance skills (which he mostly didn’t care for – but he still would defend himself, telling him that he was in fact nicknamed Rap Monster, not Dance Monster), it’s okay because Seokjin was not exceptional at dance either. This, in turn, would have Seokjin, as usual, would commend Namjoon on his high marks, but then tell him that they were incomparable to his natural good looks – this always earned a harmonious from the chorus of the six remaining boys and Seokjin will chastise them with his infamous ‘Yah!’.

The feeling that Namjoon was feeling was not that he did not full whole – the honest to god truth was that he was. He felt so whole of everything. He felt whole because of his friends, his family, hell, he even felt whole with his future laid out in front of him.

Though, the one question that had been posed to him in Philosophy class dawned on him – what good is being whole when a fraction of him felt lonely?

The idea of being saturated in loneliness plunged Namjoon into an icy lake of self-deprivation. To him, he was the furthest thing from lonely. He was content with piling thousands upon thousands of knowledge from white pages in black ink. He was content with the six friends that he spent nearly every moment with. He was content with the loving smile of his mother and father; the warmth that his sister gave him whenever he came from university.

So why had it felt like he had yet to get over the pinnacle of loneliness?

This question burdened Namjoon; not because of the question itself, but the answer. Her.

She was not the cliché girl that ‘good’ boys like him fawned over. She was mediocrely good. He had not been enthralled in her perfect grades because they were not. No part of him longed for her carelessness because she had none. She, to the naked eye, was no more than an average girl with average grades and an average personality. Her, in herself, she was thought to be no more than average.

Except to him.

Namjoon could remember how warm she felt as the two sat beside one another in the library. He could never ignore the thumping of his heart or how timidly she squeezed his hand in hers – no doubt making the first move. He, now, more than ever, longed for her small post-it notes of encouragement; the late-night conversations they shared over Google Docs and Slides while working on their projects together. Every fiber of his being longed for her now. Too much time had passed since he had last seen her – heard her voice.

He had to act.

Namjoon hastily scrambled to grab his phone. His hands trembled as he dialed her number. With clammy hands and his lungs that burned incessantly, he didn’t care to notice the phone ringing on the other line. He had to get it off his chest.

“Jaeun-ah,” He chokes out her name, eyes closing deeply. “I miss you so much… why can’t you come back to me? I wish you still loved me.” Namjoon hated how his voice nearly cracked between syllables, but he did not care. It’s not like she would pick up for him anyway. “I was such an idiot to let you push me away like that… I should have seen what everything was doing to you.” He closes his eyes deeply. “I-I should have been better for you.” He stammers over his words, finding it hard to speak when his lungs had felt as though they were on the outset of a thousand flames.

“Everyone tells me how nice it is to be whole and full. I guess that’s why I only took and took from you – I never cared much to do more than just the cordial actions that were expected of me. I love you so much and I feel so empty without you in my arms…. Or full without you in my arms… I really don’t know right now.” He runs his fingers through his hair in pure uncertainty. “I miss us running in the rain. Aish, it felt so dumb back then but I would give anything in my possession just to do that with you again... I miss our dumb talks about life and how we would never get married but god, we both know that we would marry each other.” He licks his lips, wetting them as though he could not speak without that nervous mechanism being performed. “Do you remember the first time I saw you? I do... I remember your beautiful laugh... the shaking of your shoulders when you did so... we held hands by accident....” His mind runs a mile for a minute, unsure of what begins and ends as he proceeds. “I’ve almost forgotten your face…” He swallows before he can go on, “I just…” He pauses, garnering courage to try to go on. “Can you come over so I don’t feel so lonely anymore?”

His heart thuds in his ears as he hears your voice spill into the receiver, “Excuse me, but who is this?” Your brows knit together in confusion at his voice. You had been receiving calls from this same caller for days. “Hello…are you still there?”

“Who is this?” Namjoon is stunned as he hears your voice on the other line. He forgets to breathe immediately. His sudden rush of nerves takes the words out of his mouth as well. “You answered… Jaeun’s phone.”

You blink, brows knitting together as you close the binder to your English Composition homework. “I’m sorry… but I’m not Jaeun. My name is Y/N….” You rub your neck, a sense of pity wallowing through you at the person on the other line’s words. “Who is this?”

“Oh… my name is Namjoon.” He forces himself to do his best to stifle his sniffle; he fails. How awkward could this be for him?

Your heart softens at his tone, “Hello Namjoon…” you say awkwardly, not exactly sure on what to do in the situation. The name sounds undeniably familiar. Had he been in any one of your classes before?

“I’m sorry to bother you… It’s just that, my ex-girlfriend used to have this number before she died.” Namjoon states bluntly. His bottled-up emotions make him lose his inhibitions he has in telling you about Jaeun. “For the last few months, this phone number hasn’t been active and I usually call it to sort of talk to her.” He admits sheepishly. “Wait, was that too much? I feel like- “

You’re quick to cut him off, “-no, it’s fine.” You say, rubbing your arm to coax yourself into relaxing more. “I know how it feels to lose someone you love… If you ever need to, you can call me and I’ll talk to you…” You can hardly believe the words that come out of your mouth. Was this even appropriate? “-since you said you felt lonely… you know... but if Jaeun was still here, I know she would love you irrevocably.” You add, sheepishly; all contents in your English binder now forgotten.

And for the fire time in months, Namjoon truly smiles. It’s a bit strained and lopsided – but nevertheless, he smiles. He looks up from his potato-chip crumb filled lap before glancing up at his ceiling as he settles into the couch more.

“Thank you… Y/N-ah,” He says, the name sounding foreign on his lips.

You say, chewing on your lip. “And Namjoon...?”

Namjoon allows a small humming noise to emit from him as a response of ‘yes?’.

“It’s okay to not be whole or full all the time... You don't need someone to make you feel less lonely.... You can be alone but not be lonely.” You say, your words immediately striking a chord within Namjoon immediately. “Not everyone is meant to be like that every second, minute, hour, or whatever. If you get lonely… or the pressure is too much,” You bite your lip. “You can always call me. Goodnight.” You whisper before you hang up.

It is safe to say that Namjoon goes to bed feeling a little less lonely that night.

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