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wangxianficfinder · 1 year

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Fic Finder

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1. For the Next Fic Finder:

Looking for a time travel fic in which older WWX travels back to past Lotus Pier, the Jiang family then decides it would be better to have older xian be introduced as younger xians older brother. Older!WWX also comes with them at CR in which he befriended LXC and later NMJ and change both of their opinions regarding resentful energy.

P.S I think there was also a chapter where he went "missing" but he was just with the Dafan Wens and just really missed them in his depressed state.

FOUND! MingYu by Fino_Al_Cielo (T, 87k, WWX & LWJ, YL WWX, yunmeng siblings, Fix-It of Sorts, Time Travel, Canon Divergence, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, PTSD, References to Depression, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Suicidal Thoughts, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, Trauma)

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2. Hello! Looking for two specific modern AU fics

A) Posted on twitter where Wei Ying kept bothering LWJ on the length of her skirt (it was a genderbend fic)

B) Posted on instagram. LWJ and WWX were both models, WWX were kidnapped and tortured at one point because of jealous Jin Zixun

Thank you in advance for the help! @hid9884

2A)

FOUND? this thread by @/3neetee

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3. Hi can you help me find a fanfic?? um wei wuxian works at a sex shop and lan wangji comes in to close it down bc his parents own it but end up falling in love where as jiang cheng works at a bar where lan xichen fall inlove w/ him and wei wuxian crazy ex (jenny I think) tries to kill him??

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4. hiii ! i’m looking for a fic where it’s set in post canon, i think, and it’s about wei changze confronting jiang cheng about everything wei wuxian went through. There was a scene where he talks about experiencing being whipped by zidian through wwx bc at his desperate times, wwx unknowingly calls for his parents and wcz was able to connect with him somehow and that’s how he saw the things that happened in wwx’s life. tysm!!! @makkachiin

FOUND! Chapter 24 of Short Prompts by Vrishchika

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5. I'm looking for a shapeshifting fic. LWJ was a rabbit and WWX a fox. LWJ ended up transforming out of stress, and bumped into WWX who took him home on his fox back and later kept visiting him. WWX was also staying in the woods and keeping things at NHS's house. I've searched through my history but I can't find it so I'm scared it's been deleted. @flaxenhairedsamurai

I don't remember what 5 is called but someone else was looking for it semi recently

FOUND! This Twitter fic by @/Zizzani

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6. I'm looking for a modern AU where the characters work in various emergency services. I remember that the first chapters focused a lot on WWX, and I *think* that later chapters switched to a focus on Meng Yao/JGY. I specifically remember a scene where WWX climbs up a stuck rollercoaster or Ferris wheel, and someone he tries to save falls and dies. He was maybe a firefighter? And LWJ was maybe an EMT?

FOUND! 🧡 Like a House on Fire by KouriArashi (T, 82k, WangXian, Modern au, Paramedics, Firefighters, Light angst, Mutual pining, Kid fic, Past drug use, Past child abuse, Families of choice, Domestic fluff)

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7. I want to find a Wangxian A/B/O fanfic It was very long and angsty about Wei Wuxian being an Omega Cultivator where they are expected to be locked up inside. It had a one-sided Jin Zixuan x Wei Wuxian and a really bad scene with Wen Chao. Its no longer in ao3 but i cant remember the author reposted it

FOUND? and the calm is deep where the quiet waters flow (Prologue – Index) (E, 303k, off-screen rape, oppression, violence, sexual assault, grief/mourning, unwanted pregnancy., A/B/O)

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8. looking for a modern au fic, cant remember the title but the description on ao3 had something about a taxi driver noticing a bruise on wei ying and mentioning that the person will hurt him again. there was a suicide attempt i think, due to the jiang family abuse, and lan zhan was his neighbour!

FOUND? like a fox in tall grass by notinamillionyears, starcrushedjewels (notinamillionyears) (E, 93k, WIP, WangXian, Suicide Attempt, Drug Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Strangers to Lovers, Neighbors, College/University, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Depression, Anxiety Attacks, Pianist LWJ, Smoking, Trauma, Explicit Sexual Content, Slow Burn, Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Caretaking, Identity Issues, Age Difference, Power Dynamics, Dom/sub Undertones, Eating Disorders, Mutual Pining, Consensual Non-Consent, Sleeping Together, Suicidal Ideation, Bipolar Disorder, implied manic depression)

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9. hello im looking for a fic where jzx asks wangxian for help and there's a cursed building? and mxy is in it or in the center of it and they rescue him. that's about all i remember sorry. appreciate any help tho ♥️

hello im the last ff anon #9. sorry but the suggestion isn't it. i distinctly remember it being a cursed building, or maybe a watch tower maybe? and mxy was inside it. wangxian are already married iirc also a bunch of jins died in that building i think? bc of the resentful energy?

hello ff anon #9 again. to answer anon's question, mxy isn't a spirit. he's alive in the fic and i think he follows wangxian after he was rescued? i appreciate all the help that's coming y'all are so cool

NOT FOUND! 9 sounds like it might be Aftermath by KouriArashi (T, 57k, JYL/JZX, wangxian, LXC/JGY, canon divergence, fix-it, everyone lives au, romance, developing relationship, family, sibling bonding, light angst, politics, attempted sexual assault, some murder, people talking about their feelings, trauma processing) although the rescue is in a mine not a building

for #9, is MXY a ghost/spirit that needed liberating/sending off?

FOUND? quiet, blooming hours by Sanguis (T, 13k, WangXian, Modern with Magic, Modern AU, Magical Realism, Established Relationship, Married Couple, Family Feels, Background Relationships, Resurrection, Adoption) Idk if #9 could be ...the house is somewhat cursed and the jins are involved but not the way anon describes. Wangxian is established though

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10. Hi, I hope you can find me find this wonderful fic where WWX used an array to make everyone forget about him. He succeeded with his plan but the people who initially knew him (JC, JFM, JYL, even Madam Yu, basically everyone) always subconsiously thinks of him like something or someone is missing in their lives. Eventually, JC, LWJ, and LXC realized that someone must've erased their memory of that person so they tried their best to undo the curse or the array.

FOUND? Remember by Amona (T, 57k, JC & WWX, wangxian, Canon Divergence, self-sacrifice, erasing oneself from history, colored souls, sword spirits, major angst w happy ending, implied/referenced rape/non-con, minor character death, WIP)

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11. Hi, I'm searching for a modern au fic where WWX was gonna have an abortion, and LWJ offered to drive him to his appointment. He said that he'd help him because his mother had no choice or something like that. It's a one shot, I think, not much happens, appart from that.

FOUND! baby let's take the long way home by plonk (Not rated, 10k, wangxian, modern w/ magic, abortion, mpreg, with a twist, enemies to lovers)

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12. Does anyone remember that fic where lwj is a goth DJ at a bar? And wwx keeps trying to meet him or hang out with him? Lwj is ruder than usual I think. I might be mixing up two different fics but in the one I’m thinking of lwj gives wwx a ride home late at night… it’s driving me crazy- I thought I had saved it!

FOUND! The Quiet Room by trickybonmot (M, 39k, wangxian, modern, 1990s, goth LWJ, cellist LWJ, college student WWX, house hunting, dating, clubbing, implied/referenced past child abuse, mental health issues, academic disaster aftermath, getting together, homelessness)

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13. First of all, thank you for all your work, you're awesome!! Second, I'd like to ask for your help to find a fic. it's ABO where omegas are like really rare and sacred in the cultivation world, wwx is an omega but for some reason he hides it until it all comes out about the time he's in the burial mounds with the Wen, and that's when the sects finally believe him and take his side bc omegas always stand for what's right and true or smt. Thanks!!

FOUND! Woven fates by apathyinreverie (T, 10k, wangxian, ABO, alpha LWJ, omega WWX, fix-it, fluff, family, romance, mates) it has the "omegas always stand for what’s right and true," but wwx wasn't hiding it, he just didn't present until he felt safe and then ran into lwj again / WWX wasn't actively hiding being an omega though, but only presented while in the burial mounds.

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14. Hello i'm looking for a fic where wei ying enters a mating run on a dare(or bet) and if you survive the run you get $50,000 if lan Wanji chooses you, you get $1 million. There is also some orginized crime aspects to the fic

FOUND? Five Fifteen by 3neetee (M, 11k, wangxian, rape/non-con, ABO, modern, alpha LWJ, alpha WWX, mating runs, graphic descriptions of violence, dom/sub undertones, light bondage, implied mpreg, dark LWJ, betrayal, smut, dark lans, unreliable narrator WWX) locked

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15. Hello for the next fic finder can you please help me find a fic where Wei Wuxian loses his memories after an accident. I remember WWX and LWJ were engaged and they were going to marry and LQR hired a private investigator and the accuses WWX of cheating and everyone believes him. But it was actually WWX meeting Wen Qing to discuss adopting A-Yuan. WWX keeps it a secret because he wanted to surprise LWJ when they get married with the adoption papers. Anyways after they accuse him of cheating WWX runs out and gets hits by a vehicle and loses his memories. It was a modern AU.

Thank you for all the help you do for us. @mybestfriendisacinnamonroll

FOUND? (Un)forgettable by Edens_Cat & VividestList (E, 67k, wangxian, LWJ & LSZ & WWX, WWX & WQ, modern, misunderstandings, angst w/ happy ending, kid fic, teacher WWX, single parent WWX, amnesia, protective WQ, protective LSZ, smut)

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16. Hi! I am not sure if this has been asked before but I'm looking for this fic where Lan Yuan grew up as the Jiang sect heir because Jiang Cheng got to him before Lan Zhan. I could remember there are several kids in the Burial Mounds and one of them was adopted into the Lan sect as a healer. And the rest (there were three of them ig???) were basically hiding in the Jiang sect unbeknownst to Jiang Cheng. I really really loved that fic but I can't remember much from it and I want to read it again. Thaaaaanks!!

FOUND? Until The End by abCEE (M, 365k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, war changes people, resulting to OOC, no pinning, Established Relationship, Mpreg, Good Uncle LQR, a little grey LWJ, a bit of JC bashing from LWJ, BAMF JYL, 16 years of yearning, mainly CQL verse but has scenes from the novel as well, LSZ is WangXian's Child, WWX Has a New Golden Core, Canon Rewrite, Happy Ending, Fix-It of Sorts) sounds like this one, but a-yuan is still with the Lan. The kids at the Jiang sect and the healer at the Lan sect match though

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17. I think it was very Nie Huaisang centric and short, but I can’t remember anything other than a few lines near the end where NHS was remembering that JGY hadn’t taken into account that LXC had known him since he was a kid and would trust and defend him.

The line I remember is something like “NHS remembers being passed back and forth between LXC and NMJ like a particularly beloved parcel” referring to LXC practically adopting him as a second little brother.

Thank you!

FOUND! Chapter 32 of Twelve Moons and a Fortnight by stiltonbasket (M, 290k, WangXian, Humor, Slow Burn, Post-Canon Fix-It, Long-Distance Relationship, Epistolary, Love Letters, Family Feels, a-qing lives, teenage romance, Adoption, Romantic Comedy, Happy Ending, Weddings, Case Fic, Parenthood, Politics) you're looking for chapter 32 of twelve moons and a fortnight by stilton basket.

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18. Hello, can you help find this fic? The back story in this fic is yzy is cheating with wcz and wwx is yzy'son with wcz. After wwx born he was cast aside and yzy pregnant with soon after with jfm as the fathet. Wcz become a rogue cultivator while raising wwx and he meet csr. In the first chapter i think wwx is kinda kicked out by bssr to make him meet with his sibling in cloud recesses and make a peace with them. I think he introduce himself as a-xian (or it is a-ying? But i think it was a-xian). I think that's all i can remember. Thank you!

FOUND! The Undesirable Son by FragranceLotion97 (G, 34k, WangXian, CQL but WWX is Madam Yu's Bastard Son, It goes differently from the beginning, WWX becomes sworn brother with lxc then becomes his in law, LWJ is still whipped, There is Yin Iron, Heavily CQL with a little mix from the novel, Adding donghua into the fandom because i decide to use a lot of things from there)

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19. For the next fic finder: can you help me find a fic where wwx falls in the lake when they’re fighting the abyss, and everyone believes he dies. Weeks (or maybe months) pass, and then he washes up on the shore of the lake, somehow still alive. I think it might have been Lan Xichen pov, and he was blaming himself for losing wwx since he was in charge of the hunt.

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20. Looking for a fic where WWX was Baoshan Sanren’s disciple (I think) and they were doing demonstrations. WWX went through all major sects’. The one I remember clearly is that the Lan style was war

FOUND! Become Tomorrow by ShanaStoryteller (Not rated, 39k, wangxian, cloud recesses study arc, BSSR's disciple WWX)

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#wangxian #mdzs #wangxian fic finder #wangxian fic search #the untamed #wangxianficfinder #long post

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incarnadinedreams · 1 year

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Do you have any particular thoughts about the jiang siblings trio and their dynamics?

Oh my goodness do I EVER. Well, when you say 'particular thoughts' I hope you weren't expecting anything resembling like… well-organized, properly structured thoughts, because my brain is mostly mush and there's not much of that around here. But boy do I ever have a LOT of very strong feelings about them that I am bad at articulating but I'm going to let them splorch out in an incoherent jumble now!!!

What I love about these three is how much they love each other… and how much that not only doesn't prevent their tragedy, it fuels it. Love is the kindling and the kerosene on that fire. It's intense, as destructive as it is beautiful in equal measure. Too close and too far at the same time, a double-edged sword that shreds them all to bits again and again, hurting themselves and each other, and all three of them end up doing something like dying for it at some point.

All of their lives would've been so much easier if they didn't care so damn much. But they hold on anyway.

Their relationships end up as the background that casts their strengths and flaws in stark relief in a way that's just so deliciously compelling to me!

From the beginning, there's always this constant undercurrent of something fraught and ambiguous between them. They're always scrambling to pull each other close while they're being pulled farther and farther apart. First by gossip and rumors and the terrible relationship between Madam Yu and Jiang Fengmian, then later by their own priorities and duties and obligations.

Their relationships are so difficult to define because it's equally important the ways they aren't siblings as the way they are. The distance is as painfully palpable at points as the bonds they share. That's what makes it so interesting and heartbreaking for me. It's easier to cast Jiang Yanli as the older sister who unquestioningly views Wei Wuxian as her little brother. But I think when it comes to Jiang Cheng it's a lot more complicated.

Between the two of them there's always this lingering question of What am I to you? A friend, a loyal right-hand man, a brother, a half of the twin prides, a hated enemy? Feral devotion or bitter resentment? Something more, something less? Everything or nothing at all?

With the way things play out, with all the things each of them doesn't know, they're both left feeling like the other abandoned them first. From Wei Wuxian believing that Jiang Cheng left him to go back to Lotus Pier alone to retrieve his parent's bodies, to Jiang Cheng's desperate and furious "if you insist on protecting them, I won't be able to protect you!".

But even through all that, there's an unquestioning faith in Wei Wuxian - too much, sometimes. When Wei Wuxian tells him they'll be the Twin Prides of Yunmeng, he believes him. When Wei Wuxian tells him to go up that mountain blindfolded, he does it. When Wei Wuxian tells him that he can control the ghost path, that everything will be fine, he believes him. Right up until he can't. Right up until the moment that faith shatters, when he's got his injured sister bleeding in his arms and Wei Wuxian finally admits he can't control it.

And yet, despite it all - perhaps in spite of himself - Jiang Cheng just can't stop loving him, and he hates it. At the Second Siege, he's prepared to do something that looks an awful lot like sacrificing himself for him again (even if it doesn't actually end up happening), and again at Guanyin Temple he didn't hesitate to take a sword through the chest for him (and ugh, Lan Wangji), even if wasn't actually necessary and therefore mostly embarrassing. But hey, it's the thought that counts, right?

Anyway I might add more thoughts later because truly there is just SO MUCH and I didn't even scratch the surface with Yanli even a little bit, and I got through that whole thing without even really digging into the golden core situation either, or the way the situation with the Jiang parents affected them all… and so really this isn't even the preamble of how many feelings I have about these three! (Thanks for the ask btw!)

#thinking too much about jiang cheng yet again #and jiang yanli and wei wuxian too #it ended up being mostly about jiang cheng's feelings though haha shocker

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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

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I'm absolutely delighted your prompts are open! Your writing is amazing and always makes me smile, it's the best way to start the day along with a cup of coffee!

Lan Zhan and Wei Ying are given another chance at raising a child after a family is killed leaving only a young child behind. Lan Sizhui is delighted to have a baby sibling. Though everyone is more or less nervous about it (mostly be Wei Ying is a gremlin) but also there isn't any other options.

ao3

“It’ll be fine,” Jiang Cheng said, rolling his eyes. “Hanguang-jun raised Lan Sizhui, didn’t he? And he turned out fine.”

“I did,” Lan Sizhui said agreeably, then frowned. “I think I did, anyway.”

“Not to be a spoilsport, but, realistically speaking, how much raising did Hanguang-jun actually do with you?” Jin Ling asked, and held up his hands when Lan Sizhui and Lan Jingyi both glared at him. “I don’t mean any offense or anything! I’m serious. We know he was in seclusion those first few years, right? Who raised you then?”

Lan Sizhui thought about it. “Back in the beginning? Well…that was mostly Teacher Lan, I guess.”

“Teacher Lan’s the best,” Lan Jingyi said loyally, then added, “Well, other than that fondness he has for surprise quizzes. But that’s not applicable to parenting, is it?”

Lan Sizhui made a face that suggested that maybe it was, in some weird way, shape, or form.

“Teacher Lan, really?” Jiang Cheng asked, clearly getting drawn in despite his best intentions – as was often the case. There was a reason their little group swung by the Lotus Pier nearly as often as they did the Cloud Recesses and Jinlin Tower, despite Jin Ling not living there part of the year any longer. “Wasn’t he mostly in recovery for those injuries he got during the war? I would’ve figured Zewu-jun would’ve been more involved, wouldn’t he?”

“He was around sometimes, but no, it was mostly Teacher Lan,” Lan Sizhui said. “Zewu-jun was often busy – he was rebuilding the Lan sect –”

“I was rebuilding the Jiang sect! So what? I still raised Jin Ling, and he wasn’t even supposed to be here – I had to fight the Jin sect for months just to get the opportunity – ”

“Yes, jiujiu, we know!” Jin Ling said hastily. “You don’t have to tell that story again! You didn’t have to tell everyone that story in the first place!”

Jiang Cheng huffed. He was probably going to tell the story again whether they liked it or not.

“I think I see what you’re saying, Jin Ling,” Ouyang Zizhen put in, always a good fellow for throwing himself on a conversational sacrificial sword. “If Lan Sizhui was already a few years old when he was adopted, and then Teacher Lan raised him for the next three years, then he would’ve been old enough to be entered into the Cloud Recesses’ official junior classes by the time Hanguang-jun took charge of his education, right?”

“Yes, that’s what I meant, that’s it exactly!”

“What does it matter?” Lan Sizhui asked.

“Yeah! Hanguang-jun still raised him the rest of the way,” Lan Jingyi put in, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring. “Gave him lessons and tips and all that!”

“Isn’t that something he does as a sect senior anyway?”

“Well, yes, but it’s different for Sizhui, okay?”

“I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with that. After all, the person who teaches the most is the same as the parent, and being the person raising them is what matters no matter when they’re adopted,” Jin Ling said, with an eye on Jiang Cheng, who looked begrudgingly pleased. He looked begrudging all the time, though, so it was probably just pleased. “But my point is – once you were part of the lessons, even if he was raising you the rest of the time, you still already mostly had your personality down by then, right? We’ve never seen what someone raised entirely by Hanguang-jun from birth would be like.”

They all stopped to consider that.

“More than that,” Jin Ling continued. “This kid’ll be raised not just by Hanguang-jun, but by Hanguang-jun as he is now – after he and Senior Wei got together. You know?”

They did know.

“And of course, that’s all putting aside that the kid will be raised by Senior Wei himself, too…”

“Maybe we should start investing in defense talismans,” Jiang Cheng mused. “Because everything is going to explode. Everything.”

“Everything will not explode,” Lan Wangji said calmly.

“Are you sure?” Wei Wuxian asked. “Because I’m not sure, and I’m more likely to be involved in these hypothetical explosions than you are.”

“Mm. I’m certain.”

“But…”

“Wei Ying will be an excellent father,” Lan Wangji said, and his voice left no room for doubt.

“It’s easy for you to say,” Wei Wuxian whined, though he was smiling now. “You already have the experience of it! They say that it’s easier the second time, when you know what to expect…”

“Do not tell lies,” Lan Qiren said mildly. He was looking over some of Wei Wuxian’s notes – he’d insisted on any new inventions passing through a sanctioned approval process before they were put into practice and had volunteered himself to review them, a matter that had caused Wei Wuxian no end of stress until he realized that Lan Qiren really did intend to approve anything that met his standards and, moreover, understood musical cultivation enough to understand what he was driving at with most of them, even the esoteric ones, at which point Wei Wuxian gotten extremely enthusiastic about the whole thing.

This didn’t mean that they were friends or anything, but they’d at least formed some sort of tentative truce.

Most of the time, anyway.

Wei Wuxian squinted at his old teacher suspiciously. “What’s that supposed to mean? Are you saying that it’s not easier the second time?”

“I am only saying that I have experience in raising a child not my own,” Lan Qiren pointed out, and Wei Wuxian nodded, slightly abashed; he knew that the old man had basically raised Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen, of course, although sometimes he forgot. “The first child I raised was Xichen and his personality as a child was much as it was as an adult: gentle, amiable, friendly, obedient.”

That made sense. Wei Wuxian nodded.

“The second child I raised was Wangji,” Lan Qiren said. “He bit people.”

Wei Wuxian burst out laughing.

Lan Wangj virtuously ignored them both, continuing to write a letter without the slightest hint of embarrassment – even his ears hadn’t turned red. What a shame!

“I can testify to that myself,” Wei Wuxian giggled, leering at his husband in the hopes of getting a rise out of him. “He’s still a biter – for certain lucky people.”

“He was a lot less discriminating when he was younger,” Lan Qiren said, and Wei Wuxian winced, abruptly remembering that Lan Wangji’s uncle was, in fact, still in the room. Luckily it was pretty easy to flirt around Lan Qiren, who didn’t seem to notice most of the time, but it was still a bit awkward. “And I once succumbed to temptation and gave him mixed messages, which I believe made it worse.”

That sounded like a story.

“He gave me a candy after I bit Sect Leader Jin,” Lan Wangji clarified, which made Wei Wuxian start laughing again. “He did not expect me to remember. I remembered. Nor did I allow him to forget about it.”

“It is easy to make mistakes while raising a child,” Lan Qiren said, ignoring Wei Wuxian’s cackling. “But if one means well, and tries hard to do the right thing, children are very forgiving – usually.”

Despite his best efforts to remain neutral, Lan Wangji’s eyes curved slightly in a smile. Wei Wuxian felt his heart go all warm and melty all over again.

“This is true regardless of whether it is the first or second child,” Lan Qiren added. “I have confidence that you will both do fine.”

“We will,” Wei Wuxian proclaimed. “With parents like me and Lan Zhan, how could the kid go wrong? And we’ll even try to avoid too many explosions!”

“Please do. One Lan Jingyi is enough for the Cloud Recesses.”

“You know, I was wondering – how did you end up with him being quite so…hmm…”

“Oh?” Lan Qiren said, and Wei Wuxian noted to his amusement that Lan Wangji straightened in back in sudden alarm despite Lan Qiren’s extremely nonchalant tone. “Have you not met Lan Yueheng yet? I must introduce you when he returns –”

“Perhaps not,” Lan Wangji said, sounding a little worried.

Worried, in this case, meant fun.

“No, I think I definitely need to meet this person – Lan Zhan, stop batting at me! I know exactly what I’m doing…”

Wen Ning looked down at the baby with which he had been entrusted.

“I don’t have any idea what I’m doing,” he confessed.

The baby gurgled.

“I think Wei-gongzi may have been thinking more about ‘babysitter that doesn’t need to sleep and has inexhaustible energy’ and less about ‘is this person qualified to take care of a baby’.”

More gurgling.

“I just wanted to apologize in advance.”

The baby yawned.

“…right then.” Wen Ning straightened up. Someone was going to have to raise this child, and based on how distractable Wei Wuxian was when he was around Lan Wangji and visa versa, it looked like it was going to have to be him. “Let’s do this.”

#mdzs #lan wangji #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #jin ling #lan sizhui #lan jingyi #ouyang zizhen #lan qiren #wen ning #my fic #my fics

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whetstonefires · 2 years

Note

I also love reading your rambles. More Juamg Yanli analysis please?

See I meant to give you the meta you asked for but my attempt to focus on Yanli -> drop the WIPs I'd been making progress on finally, drop the cake, must urgently type up 5k of the Terrible Don't Do That Jiang Cheng Idea from the previous spate of Yanli meta from that ask last night.

I blame your cursed Naruto ask for sticking me in the 'make AU make sense' zone.

So here you go, hope this will do for now!

Cake has been accomplished btw but it came out of the oven at midnight a;lfdj;klfsd.

Jiang Yanli finished peeling the lotus roots, took up the knife, and began to cut.

Strong, broad hands made even slices. Unfamiliar to her, at least like this, they were yet familiar with the task. A-Cheng had known this recipe, had made a habit sometimes of cooking for himself and for his tiny family, even in her absence. He’d always worked so hard, and had had so much patience for the things he felt really mattered.

Yanli had adored both her little brothers to death and beyond, and shamefully part of the reason had been their unflagging conviction, condescending as it had grown with age, that she was one of the things that truly mattered, always. They had loved each other so much, all of them. They had loved her.

How could something so good become so bad?

How could it have come to this.

The kitchen staff clearly knew better than to bother their Sect Leader who was cutting lotus root with a thunderous expression. Yanli was grateful for this. Like everything she was grateful to A-Cheng for in this moment, it was full of bitter poison, but less than most, and so she let herself taste it, a little.

You were always stronger than me, A-Jie, his letter had said. As though her dedication to looking after her brothers had been some great feat of heroism, and not just the thing she needed to do, the thing that made her feel worthwhile. As though a truly heroic older sister wouldn’t have been one who stood up to her mother instead of steering around her like a boat through shoals, and patching up the wounds she left in hopes they wouldn’t scar, even though they obviously had.

In spite of everything else, she’d still flashed cold enough to half expect herself to faint, when she found out how quickly Wei Wuxian had followed her into death, how little time she'd bought him. Jiang Yanli had never been any use to anybody, and A-Cheng thought she was the one to steer them through this?

She wished he was here. She wished she had her husband or her son. She would even take her parents.

Yunmeng Jiang and Lanling Jin were on the brink of war. A-Ling’s visits to Yunmeng had been suspended even before—all this, that had in an indirect way been the cause of everything that followed, but now…

Cao Yufeng made me promise not to throw away the lives of our disciples, Jiang Cheng had written, speaking of the Head Disciple who had died getting him out of Jinlintai that final time. And—she lost her daughter, the last time I took us to war. Because I chose to send us against the man who’d torn himself apart into a weapon for me, gone insane.

I can’t say things would be alright, but more of us would still be here if I hadn’t done it. If I’d listened to you. If I hadn’t put my opinions about vengeance and politics over yours about mercy and family.

We can’t beat the Jin on the field. We’re outnumbered and outsupplied. If I tried to get A-Ling out by force we’d. This sentence ended in a great, deliberate blot of brushstrokes, characters obliterated. The rest of the letter had been very neatly written, even where A-Cheng’s hand had clearly begun to shake, with nerves or weeping; Yanli was fairly sure this had been a third or fourth draft. He must have given up on getting it perfect.

In slightly oversized characters, the next line began, I don’t know what else to do.

Jiang Yanli stirred the soup with her brother’s hands, paying close attention to how the fat in the pork was melting. If you cooked the meat too long, it was no good, all the flavor went out into the broth, and you might as well give the ribs to cats.

I can’t think what to do. I can’t make any more decisions. I can’t trust myself with them. I don’t deserve to lead the Sect, after all of this. Even if I could get A-Ling back, I know I’ve never deserved to have him. You deserved so much better, A-Jie. Let me give you what I can.

Let me get it right, this time.

As if he’d given her any choice in the matter.

Carefully, grateful for the rigid habits of Jiang Cheng’s face, Yanli moved the pot off the heat and carefully dished up three bowls, which she set on a small lacquered tray. The kitchen had had to be partially rebuilt after the fire the Wen had set, all those years ago now, but Yanli had been heavily involved in that process and everything was still kept where she had put it then, mostly the same organizational system they’d had since she was a girl but with a few modifications for convenience or efficiency.

She’d taken a small comfort in being able to get some use out of having to rebuild. Life from ashes, she had told herself a thousand times, in those two years after the war but before she married.

Ignoring the staff as she wouldn’t have, once, when she’d been herself and they’d all been people whose names she knew, Jiang Yanli took her three bowls of soup and carried them out of the kitchen and back to the Sect Leader’s private rooms. A-Cheng had barely changed those since they rebuilt them almost ten years ago, either.

She put the soup down on the table and distributed a bowl each to the boys waiting there for her, then took one for herself.

The taste of the first bite made Yanli’s heart clench so hard she wondered if it was A-Cheng’s grief she was feeling, not her own. A-Cheng who had made this recipe who knew how many times, always knowing he would never taste her soup again.

Wen Ning’s spoon stirred anxiously through his soup bowl, which he had leaned over to smell, but he didn’t take a bite. “Ah, thank you very much, Madam Jiang,” he said, using the bittersweet title they had agreed on for private conversation, because she could not bear to hear Jiang-zongzhu constantly when she had to answer to it so often outside these rooms, knowing they meant someone who was not here. “But I can’t eat.”

Jiang Yanli blinked at him. Somehow this felt like something she should not have taken nearly two days to learn. “What did you do with that soup I gave you that time, then?” she asked. Her words, honest and reasonable, seemed to be coming from a slight distance, as they so frequently were now. Yanli wondered a little if this was a consequence of death, or something about how A-Cheng’s body worked, but it had gone away just enough times and was familiar enough that she knew it was shock.

Wen Ning dropped his eyes further like he was hoping they would fall into his soup and free him from the burden of deciding where to look, although A-Xian had preserved his body far too perfectly for that, even if apparently not as well as she’d thought. “I gave it to my baby cousin.” A shy glance up. Wen Ning had died at nineteen; Jiang Yanli wondered if he was capable of growing up in any sense, like this. “He loved it.”

“Of course he did,” said the actual teenager in the room, already more than halfway through his bowl. “In Wei Wuxian’s notes he kept making little asides about how exciting it was to eat anything that wasn’t radishes, that kid would have been over the moon about anything with a bit of meat in it even if it wasn’t the best soup in the world.

“It kind of is though,” he added to Jiang Yanli, in a manner that made it very hard to tell whether he was paying her a calculated compliment or unleashing a burst of wild sincerity.

She could trace his resemblance to her A-Xuan in the outside corners of his eyes, the bow of his upper lip, the way his nose joined his face, but he resembled his other brother in the jaw and inside eyes, as they joined the bridge of the nose, and he’d inherited something from Jin Guangshan neither of them had, around the eyebrows. He even reminded her a little of A-Xian, which must come from his mother.

Yanli wondered who A-Ling resembled. He was seven now, he’d have grown into enough of his face to be able to begin to say.

“Wei-gongzi always said so,” Wen Ning told Mo Xuanyu, and to Jiang Yanli, “It smells wonderful.”

How amazing, she thought, taking another bite, that he could smell things. But after all, she too was long dead, and here she was tasting golden broth and simmered lotus.

Out of habit, she’d put extra meat in the other two bowls.

Wen Ning seemed to have noticed this, too, and lifted one tender rib with his spoon. “Would you like—”

“No, thank you.” Yanli was working her way methodically through her portion, but she hadn’t made this soup because she especially wanted to eat it.

“I’ll take it,” volunteered Mo Xuanyu, tipping back his own bowl to hastily finish off the broth now that he had a prospect of seconds. Wen Ning silently pushed his own serving over.

It was almost heart-warming, to see the way the boy tucked in. You could see he hadn’t always eaten enough, even though he’d been in Koi Tower and the last thing any member of the Jin should have to worry about was running short of food. Had his brother, or his father before that, kept him on short commons to keep him in line? It was the kind of thing Jin Guangshan had done.

Never to A-Xuan, but Yanli had had a year to get the lay of the place. Mostly her father-in-law hadn’t interfered in Madam Jin’s more sane domestic arrangements, but when he had it had been unpleasant, and in the back of her mind Yanli had made some preliminary plans for if Jin Guangshan outlived his wife.

She had intended in that case to begin on what she’d intended to be a strong alliance with her brother-in-law, who was excessively eager to please his father but also had a much better understanding of the realities of household management than any of the other men in the family. Jiang Yanli couldn’t say she’d liked him, but she hadn’t disliked him either.

She’d thought she had better than even odds of enlisting his help, considering that he’d seemed clever enough to understand that having Jin Guangshan’s favor at the expense of a functioning Jin Sect and his brother’s good opinion wouldn’t be a good trade, not if he could have both. She’d thought a lot of things.

A-Xian had always eaten like that, even when he wasn’t half-starved. Yanli had fed him this soup while his bones showed too-sharp like that three times, even though the first time she’d sworn he would never have to go hungry again. The third time, she’d gone away and left him afterward, knowing he was going hungry.

There hadn’t been a real alternative. Wei Wuxian had made his choices and Jiang Yanli had respected them. But she should have tried harder, should have worked to establish herself more in Jinlintai and known about the ambush or—a hundred things she could have done differently, if she had known how the first and only year of her marriage would end. Choosing to live happily and lay careful foundations had seemed like the right choice at the time.

So many things seemed like the right choice, when you did them.

“How could you let him?” she asked abruptly. It came out—menacing. Her own voice hadn’t been capable of conveying anger like that. If she’d tried very hard to rage, it would still have sounded shrill and unimpressive, and if she’d spoken the way she’d tried to just now, it might have chilled the right room but it would still have sounded gentle.

A-Cheng’s voice had no softness in it, and both boys went very still.

Mo Xuanyu put his spoon down into his second bowl of soup. “Well, I could hardly stop him,” he said. “It was Sect Leader Jiang, Sandu Shenshou, and I was technically his prisoner.” He said this even though he’d affirmed the impression given in the letter that when Jiang Cheng had removed him from Jinlintai they’d both regarded it as a rescue, even if the Jin did not agree. “And he had the notes. All I could have done was refuse to help him, and then he’d have done it alone, and what if he messed up and died and didn’t even get you back?” He shook his head.

Jiang Yanli looked at Wen Ning, who flinched for a second, and then raised his head and she thought she saw a flash of this Ghost General people talked about, the person or the weapon that had killed her husband. “He pointed out I helped do something similar once before,” he said. “He asked if I thought you were worth less than him. He asked what I thought Wei-gongzi would have wanted.”

“Not this,” slipped out of Yanli’s mouth, A-Cheng’s mouth.

“No,” Wen Ning admitted. “But I was there in Yiling, after—” After his family murdered hers. When A-Cheng had just…lain there. “Wei-gongzi and Jiang Wanyin did agree between them that your life was worth more than theirs.”

Of course they had. And of course it wasn’t.

“I’m the eldest,” Yanli said. And only a woman. “It was my place. Never theirs.” And she’d always known they’d never agree to that.

Wen Ning looked down at the table. “I would give anything if I could make A-Jie take her choice back,” he said.

Because, of course, the two of them had given themselves over to the Jin—her second family, the one she’d married into—and Wen Qing had died and it had saved nobody. That murder was what A-Xian had come to the Nightless City to avenge, ruining everything even though Yanli couldn’t pretend it had not been already ruined, or that he had been any more in the wrong than anyone else making decisions at the time. Especially with what Jiang Cheng had uncovered about the circumstances of Jin Zixuan’s death.

“That was a tragic and unjust waste,” Jiang Yanli told Wen Ning, as though that did not describe almost everything that had happened between their families all these years, or perhaps because it did.

“Also,” he said to the table, “Jiang Wanyin attacked me with Zidian and covered me with paralyzing talismans when he thought I might interfere, and I couldn’t do anything until Mo-gongzi let me out.”

Something unlocked in her chest even though it shouldn’t. “But you meant to?”

Wen Ning’s stiff face did a strange thing. “Your brother took the choice out of my hands.”

So he wasn’t sure. Well. At least Jiang Yanli could consider forgiving him for A-Cheng, just as she’d partly forgiven him for A-Xuan. Both of her loved ones had, after all, made their own choices, even if her husband’s had been a sort of reckless trust and her brother’s deliberate self-destruction.

Both her brothers. And how angry did she get to be with them for choosing that, when she’d done it too? Not first, because apparently A-Cheng had gone first, throwing himself out as bait, and A-Xian next, carving himself open. She’d taught them that, somehow. She’d never wanted to. They were such good boys. They had always been so good.

If she’d been allowed to raise her A-Ling, would she have brought him up to do the same?

She sighed. “For now,” she said, “I have to take responsibility. Mo-gongzi, I will welcome your guidance in the coming days as I try to undo my brothers’ work, but in the meantime I have a Sect and a son to consider. Can I ask you both for your support?”

“Anything,” said Wen Ning, and she saw that he blamed himself more than she ever could.

Mo Xuanyu nodded, more judiciously. “I’m not a demonic cultivation expert, or anything,” he said. “But—I’m seeing that betraying people is a habit Yao-ge has, so it wasn’t my fault, and I’m. Really mad.”

“Thank you,” Yanli said, regretting that she had to rely on a child. But then he was only a little younger than her brothers had been in the war. Which had been far too young, and wasn’t that perhaps a root of how she found herself in this position? “Do finish your soup. There’s more in the kitchen.”

Mo Xuanyu applied himself to his bowl, and Wen Ning asked, “What can I do? What are you planning, Madam Jiang?”

Jiang Yanli chewed the meat off a pork rib with careful deliberation, making herself pay attention to the flavor, to the sensation of the fat on her brother’s lips and tongue. She set the bone down again.

“I am going,” she said, “to start with something I know A-Cheng could not have done.” If he wanted her to be the one making decisions now, if he felt that his solutions could not serve and wanted hers instead, well.

For the first time, the world demanded that Jiang Yanli act.

It had spent so long demanding she refrain from acting. As her mother’s daughter, she knew what it took for a woman to carve out the right to make her own decisions in the way men were expected to, and she knew what the costs were, and she had never been willing to pay them. But now her little brother had paid everything to ensure that the girl who had bandaged his scrapes and talked him through his childhood despairs would be in charge of a Sect on the brink of war.

“I am going to speak to Lan Wangji.”

Under only slightly different circumstances, the best thing would have been to send a letter inviting Hanguang-jun to Yunmeng. It would be polite, save effort, and put the conversation on her own ground and her own terms.

Hanguang-jun, however, apparently hated Jiang Wanyin and would not have come in reply to one letter, and Yanli did not have the time for the kind of letter-writing campaign that would persuade him. And she badly needed to go off alone, anyway, and could hardly assign herself a solo night-hunt. Anything fit for a Sect Leader in such a tense time would almost certainly be beyond her capabilities, but having taken it on she would have to complete it somehow.

Yanli went to the Ancestral Hall and knelt. Honored her parents, in all their flaws that somehow she found more utterly forgivable than ever, and more terrible, because their children should not have come to this and it could not be all Yanli’s fault, surely. Even if it was all her doing that her brothers had made these choices, shouldn’t Yu Ziyuan have been there, setting a better maternal example, then?

“I’m sorry I let this happen,” she said, bowing, and letting the resentment go. It was no use now.

She looked at the tablet bearing her own name and imagined it was for each of her brothers in turn. A-Xian, how could you make something like this, she thought, knowing he must have meant it for his own use, if he’d meant it to be used at all and not as an intellectual exercise. In the end he had not used it. Was that because he knew better, or because by the end there had been too many dead for him to choose only one, or because he hadn’t wanted to burden her or Wen Qing with having to live in the body of the Yiling Patriarch?

Or maybe it really was meant for demons and he had never considered using it to trap the dead.

A-Cheng, how could you do this. Yanli pushed the question toward him, into the world. She refused to believe he was really gone. That he’d torn himself apart, obliterated, lingering nowhere and never to live again.

It was supposed to be a bargain, wasn’t it? And he’d left her with nothing to fulfill, made a gift of it. Surely that was a weak point, something she could use to unravel the whole thing somehow. Surely he was still out there. Surely.

“I will make it right,” she promised, and rose, and went to dress for the road.

A-Cheng had taken Suibian from Jinlintai, along with so many of A-Xian’s other things, and Wen Ning and Mo Xuanyu. Deliberately, Jiang Yanli hung it from her belt beside Sandu. Then she opened the chest from under her brother’s bed that she’d gone through the night before and took out her own sword, Yinglian, which she had never been any use with at all and would never have received if she had been some outer disciple with the same abilities.

This, she strapped across her back, where she had worn it the few times she had bothered, before it was tacitly agreed by everyone that her cultivation had stagnated enough she would never fly the sword or be much use in a night hunt, and she was allowed to put it away. It lay much smaller across Jiang Cheng’s shoulders than it had across her own. They had never managed closeness, she and Yinglian. It had always felt like an even worse arranged match than the one between her and Zixuan—even if he had not liked her, she had always known she could be basically competent in the office of wife. As a cultivator, she had always been useless, body and spirit equally unfit.

There was no way to know which if any of the three would best suit her, now.

She walked out carrying all three swords, and there was nobody in the whole compound who dared to comment.

“We can’t stand alone against an outright assault from the Jin,” she said, to the crowd of mostly young disciples who followed her to the quay. Jiang Cheng had, helpfully, explained as much as he felt they needed to know of the situation to the Sect before leaving her here; they knew about a large number of crimes including Jin Guangyao having sent Jin Zixuan to his death in a strategic multi-layered assassination, experiments in demonic cultivation, the murder of his father, and what she and her brother were both treating as the kidnapping of Jin Ling. “And it was Cao Yufeng’s dying wish that we not act recklessly in the name of honor.”

Faces around her showed signs of recognizing the reference to the Jiang disciples that had died fighting Wei Wuxian, who would never have been a threat to anyone who didn’t go after him and his first. Though probably almost no one here recalled that, remembered what he’d been like.

Cao Yufeng had been twelve years older than Yanli, not one of the shijie she’d relied on or gotten on well with particularly, but one of the only people left after the war who’d known the three of them growing up.

“I am going to Gusu to ask for their intervention.”

Yang Sugong, who had been fourteen when Yanli had last seen him and not yet using a courtesy name since he hadn’t been born into the gentry, made a grimace and said, delicately but with a conviction that showed Jiang Cheng had come to rely on him: “Ah, Sect Leader, you realize the Jin will have been there first.”

Of course. Jin Guangyao would have been in correspondence with his sworn brother instantly after Jiang Cheng had fought his way out of Jinlintai with the Ghost General at his back, and he’d probably visited in person by now. Jiang Cheng had given him four days to work, and Yanli another two. It was past time to defend.

“Yes,” she said, in what would be a cool voice for her but came out contemptuous from her brother’s mouth. She was still learning. “But I trust the Lan will not attack or imprison a Sect Leader on a diplomatic visit just because Zewu-jun is intimate with Meng Yao.”

Even if this really had been a diplomatic visit, she’d have been best served by going to the Lan first and getting the Jiang side of the story on record, before any further proceedings between Lanling and Yunmeng. If Chifeng-zun were still alive the Nie could be looked to as an ally, because sworn brother or not he hated double dealing of this kind, but Jiang Yanli didn’t understand enough about how young Huaisang was operating as Sect Leader yet to approach him.

Some of her disciples made faces that suggested they’d read something scandalous into her flat wording and weren’t sure if it was an intentional joke. Interesting, in that she’d heard such rumors spitefully shared in Jinlintai seven years ago but not in Yunmeng.

“Lan Xichen is always careful to be fair, but if he only hears one side of the story of course he’ll be biased. At the very least I don’t want them dragged in to punish us for harboring Wen Qionglin or kidnapping Mo Xuanyu.

"Remember that Mo-gongzi is a guest that sought sanctuary here, and is free to leave. Don’t let him remove any of Wei Wuxian’s effects.” She couldn’t make Mo Xuanyu help her undo this, but she wasn’t having him take her information about how. She and Wen Ning were the only people left with any right to A-Xian’s things, anyway.

“If the Jin attack, send a message to me and focus on securing Lotus Pier. Let the Ghost General fight as much as he likes but keep a perimeter around him. We don’t want a repeat of what happened to Jin Zixuan.”

One of the girl disciples whose name she hadn't caught fretted a handkerchief. “Are you sure none of us can come with you?”

Yanli felt bad for leaving them. They’d just lost their Head Disciple, war loured on the horizon when they weren’t truly done rebuilding from the last one, and now their Sect Leader was going to be gone.

But the truth was, their Sect Leader had already left them. And Jiang Yanli was doing what needed to be done.

She didn’t smile, because A-Cheng wouldn’t. “I can move faster and less noticeably alone. You’re all more use here. Do you not believe in the strength of Yunmeng Jiang?”

“Of course!” said the disciple who’d asked and several others.

She inclined her head. “So do I. Make me proud.”

And she stepped off the dock and set off in her one-person boat, which would carry her a good part of the way almost as fast as a sword and far more easily.

Yanli had rarely gone out alone, in life, both because it was not her way to seek solitude and because her body had been weak enough that no one would have been comfortable with it if she had, nor would it have been a sensible decision. But though they were all easier now the tasks of sailing were old and familiar, and they comforted her until she reached the pier where her path diverged from the water.

She left the boat in the care of an associate of the clan, a man who had been in this role since she was eleven years old and was beginning to look weathered, and walked on out of sight, carrying the three swords which no one had dared to remark on.

The Sect Leader of Yunmeng Jiang stood in a forest clearing, well out of sight, and ran through the forms of the Jiang style.

She did them better than she ever had in life—Jiang Cheng’s muscles knew these movements, had spent nearly as many years practicing them as Yanli had lived. Yinglian was no good to her, though. It responded, but sluggishly, unhappy with the amount of energy she was trying to feed it when it had been designed for light, precision work, a sewing needle of a jian.

It recognized her, too, and remembered her rejection, which had been if not quite personal, certainly not an act of affection.

Also, it was physically too light in her brother’s broad hand.

Sandu was little better. It joined her in missing A-Cheng, and in that spirit they could work together—she would, she thought, be able to fly on Sandu if anyone was watching—but their bond had been close. Jiang Cheng had taken his title from this weapon. There was only so far it could bring itself to help her, and Jiang Yanli needed all the help she could get.

It was Suibian that was willing to give that. Suibian that leapt in her hand, reinforced every stroke to be stronger, faster, more precise and less tiring. It recognized her, at least as someone A-Xian had wanted to see succeed, and she could feel in her hand that it did not resent him as Yinglian did her. Suibian understood that it had been left behind not out of a lack of love.

And Suibian recognized the core burning in her belly.

It was Suibian she would fight with, if it came to real battle. If she needed to seriously defend herself and her Sect, if she needed to learn to kill. No other partner would carry her through that well enough. She would wrap the hilt and paper over the name and find another sheath, if necessary, or she would live with the whispers. Sandu Shengshou has reclaimed the Yiling Patriarch’s sword that he cast aside. The Jiang Sect Leader has forgiven the traitor to his sect whom he killed himself. Jiang Cheng is possessed by the ghost of Wei Wuxian.

Jiang Yanli put a hand to her chest, between heart and core, and smiled faintly, sadly, a smile that she knew would sit oddly on this face if anyone could see but which felt familiar. “Not quite.”

Zidian responded to her beautifully. She was, after all, her mother’s daughter. Now more than ever before.

A-Cheng had already done the hard work of teaching his arms and qi to twist and snap the whip into its many forms, but Yanli stayed there practicing her precision and control until the sun was sinking.

And then she walked on, ring on her hand and three swords with her. Jiang Yanli, with Jiang Wanyin’s hands and Wei Wuxian’s golden core.

We three, she had said once upon a time, are the closest on earth.

We'll never be apart.

#jiang yanli #writing #ask #ramblebrambleamble #hoc est meum #straight from brain to keyboard to tumblr #would yanli be cooking soup on a brick oven or over an open fire? idk! this isn't my region! i went vague!#yinglian is 英蓮 tho #uninspired name i feel like it yanli was good at and fond of naming things jin ling would be in a different situation #angst #jiang cheng on reflection this is not out of character BUT REALLY DO NOT #my writing #fanfiction #mdzs #the untamed #i've been a comics fan too long don't ask me not to cross the streams

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grewlikefancyflowers · 3 years

Text

JC’s deeply rooted resentment of WWX, JFM’s parenting, and the inevitability of the falling out of the ‘Yunmeng bros’.

In discussion of the breakdown of JC and WWX’s relationship, their falling out is often regarded as a mutual failing on both sides to properly communicate and maintain their relationship. I’m making the case here that their falling out was a foregone conclusion from the start, and in no part due to the actions of Wei Wuxian.

This is because YZY has instilled in JC the idea that JFM dislikes him, something he believes before WWX arrives in Lotus Pier, JC already feels inferior, thus as soon as potential competition for JFM’s attention comes along in the form of WWX, JC resents him, believes JFM prefers him, and looks for reasons to justify this.

Summarising their very first interactions - from chapter 71 - WWX arrives at LP, sees JC with his puppies and is so terrified that he refuses to come down from JFM’s arms the entire day. The second day, JFM gives JC’s puppies away.

Now, I would like to think that no one seriously believes that this is an act of favouritism, but I have seen this case being made so I just want to make clear that WWX is obviously traumatised by his previous interactions with dogs. After trying for a whole day to comfort WWX, with no success, JFM does not exactly have any other choice than to give the puppies away, WWX cannot be expected to live in constant terror in the place that is supposed to be his home.

Consequently, ‘This angered Jiang Cheng so much that he threw a big tantrum. No matter how much Jiang FengMian comforted him gently, telling him that they should ‘be good friends’, he refused to talk to Wei WuXian.’

JC’s reaction is fairly understandable for an 8 year old. JFM comforts JC, and does not treat him callously or dismiss him, however it takes several days until JC will even talk to WWX.

When JC does start to warm up to him, JFM thinks it’d be a good idea for them to have a sleepover, JC is on the ‘verge of agreeing’ to this, which JFM is overjoyed by - so much so that he picks WWX up.

This is not an example of favouritism, JFM doesn't repeatedly give affection to WWX and not JC, he holds him twice - the first instance being purely because WWX was too terrified to leave his arms, the second being this one. These are the only two times where JFM is described as being affectionate towards WWX, JC is still in the lead on this count. But JC interprets this as JFM preferring WWX.

This results in the JC shutting WWX out at night.

At that time, Wei WuXian didn’t know what Jiang Cheng was mad about at all. After a pause, he replied, “I didn’t steal anything. It’s Uncle Jiang who told me to sleep with you.”

Hearing that he was still bringing up his father, almost as if he was purposely showing off, Jiang Cheng’s eyes reddened as he yelled, “Go away! If I see you again, I’ll call a bunch of dogs to bite you!”

This is the important part - JC sees WWX in the worst possible light, and rarely thinks of WWX as a person outside of how he directly impacts JC - he concludes that WWX is purposefully antagonising him, this is a trend that continues well into adulthood.

Then, when WWX flees LP after JC threatens him with dogs, JYL tells JC to find people to help search for him. However,

‘If any other disciple or servant learned about this and told Jiang FengMian, after Jiang FengMian knew how he threw Wei WuXian’s sheets out and made him hurt his leg, Jiang FengMian would definitely dislike him even more. This was also why he only dared chase after them alone and didn’t get anyone else.’

JC has obviously behaved wrongly here, and JFM would be right to scold him for it, but JC interprets this as JFM disliking him. We haven’t seen anything to suggest that JFM actually dislikes JC, he always treats him quite gently, actually. But JC is already at the conclusion that JFM dislikes him, and twists events to suit this - if his dad scolds him for misbehaving, it’s because he dislikes him. This pattern repeats after the Xuanwu Cave arc too.

This is because Madam Yu has ingrained into him the idea that JFM dislikes him, because he’s her son. This has nothing to do with WWX - because both her and JC already believe that JFM dislikes JC prior to WWX’s arrival - she only sees him as additional fuel to use.

The only other person who mentions JFM supposedly treating WWX better than JC is JZX. I’m sure it's a coincidence that he’s the son of YZY’s best friend.

‘“Doesn’t he treat you better than treating his own child or something?”’

Note the ‘or something’, - JZX doesn’t seem to know this with certainty - he’s repeating what others have said, despite having visited Lotus Pier several times (as stated in ch.69), JZX hasn’t seen evidence for himself that JFM prefers WWX.

‘“Maybe I should’ve let you hit him, while I stand aside and watch. This way, Uncle Jiang might not need to come. Oh well, I really couldn’t hold back!”’

We know that WWX doesn’t see JFM as favouring him - so what does he mean by this? Well, LQR has had it out for WWX from the moment they met, and has already sent a letter to JFM complaining of his behaviour - at this point WWX doesn’t know that this results in them breaking the JZX/JYL engagement either, so he’s probably purely thinking that LQR summoned JFM to CR to discuss WWX’s repeated offenses. JC hasn’t done anything to invoke LQR’s ire (or rather, he’s gotten away with everything he has done), so WWX thinks that if JC fought JZX, it would not have been treated so seriously, compared to WWX, who has repeatedly misbehaved.

Contrary to fanon interpretation, WWX is not oblivious to other people’s feelings, he’s very empathetic, and additionally understands JC very well. He doesn’t see how JC is feeling here, because JC’s feelings are just so illogical...

‘Although it was only Wei WuXian’s casual words, he held mixed feelings, because he knew that this wasn’t a lie.

Jiang FengMian had never hurried to another sect in one day for anything related to him, no matter if the issue was good or bad, large or small.

Never.’

Once again, JC’s at the conclusion that JFM dislikes him, he twists events to support this. He’s looking at this scenario very strangely - JFM didn’t rush to CR because he likes WWX, he was called there by LQR, to discuss JYL’s engagement with JZX. Secondly, we’re never given any examples of scenarios where JC does anything to warrant JFM rushing over. As far as we know, they never even stay with other sects. Knowing JC’s personality, his dislike of doing anything to rock the boat, it’s extremely unlikely that he’s ever done anything to warrant JFM rushing over like this. Moreover, it’s a bizarre thing to be jealous of, WWX is in trouble, he’s not on the receiving end of positive attention from JFM.

JC’s flawed reasoning is once again illustrated after the Xuanwu Cave arc...

‘Jiang Cheng’s expression was complicated after he had finished listening.’

This is Jiang Cheng’s reaction after WWX credits LWJ with killing the tortoise of slaughter - this is before JFM congratulates him. Before JFM says anything, JC is purely resentful about WWX having done something heroic, more so, resentful that WWX is willingly to let LWJ take most of the credit - he’s annoyed about this, most likely feeling that WWX is rubbing in his face that he doesn’t need the recognition that JC so desperately craves.

‘Jiang FengMian nodded and said, “You did well.”

Killing a giant 400-year-old beast at only 17 was way beyond what one would call ‘doing well.’’

JFM knows about JC’s… issues, he knows how he’ll react to WWX’s receiving recognition, he likely purposefully downplays his praise to avoid upsetting him. (Who’s really being favouritised? Lol)

But, even to this, JC reacts badly, he lashes out at WWX, once more interpreting him in the worst possible way.

‘Jiang Cheng hissed, “Too fucking bad, then. You shouldn’t have been so damn stubborn and you shouldn’t have cared so damn much about such a trivial thing. If you’d never moved in the first place –”’

JC’s response is to basically tell him the entire incident was his fault. Which is objectively not true - WWX only gets involved in the conflict after it has already started, and then he acts deliberately to try to end it, rather than impulsively fighting. He also starts to say that WWX should have left their allies - LWJ and JZX - to die. This is where JFM cuts him off, and tells him it’s not appropriate to say such things - he’s not scolding him harshly, JC is not being unfairly treated here, he’s done wrong, and JFM is trying to teach him why, you know, parenting. But JC, and YZY, take this to mean JFM dislikes JC.

JFM tries to teach JC about the Jiang sect’s motto once more - this is of course, not just about the motto, but about the values that JFM wants to instill in him, as a parent.

This is where Madam Yu arrives.

“Yes, he doesn’t understand, but what does it matter, as long as Wei Ying understands?!”

Of course, what she says is nonsensical, it does matter to JFM that JC understands the motto, that’s why he’s trying to teach him. If he did not care, he would have given in already.

This is further supported...

‘Jiang Cheng’s appearance and temperament all resembled his mother’s. Jiang FengMian guided him from childhood, but no matter how much he tried, he still couldn’t change his son’s nature. As such, it always seemed like he disliked his son.’

JFM has never been dismissive of JC just because he’s YZY’s son, he’s always tried to teach him, but JC always had his mother’s nature - YZY’s nature being harsh, standoffish, foul tempered, with no care for others - Note that is says it ‘seems’ like he dislikes his son, solely because he’s trying to teach him to be a better person. He has good reason for doing so - as a kid, JC never had friends, he doesn’t seem to as an adult either, he only has Jin Ling, whom he pushes away with his foul temper. JFM was just trying to raise JC to being an even-tempered person, capable of functioning in society, which is kind of what parents are supposed to do. But once more, this is taken as dislike.

Note that during JC’s outburst, every single thing JC claims about what JFM thinks of him, he’s parroting what YZY has said, none of these points have any actual evidence.

The next point to consider is how JC blames WWX for the fall of LP, despite it objectively not being his fault - JC knows this too.

‘In his heart, Jiang Cheng knew clearly that back in the cave of the Xuanwu of Slaughter at Dusk-Creek Mountain, even if Wei WuXian hadn’t saved Lan WangJi, the Wen Sect would have found some reason to come over sooner or later’

Even if WWX’s actions did prompt the Wens to act sooner than they otherwise might have - coming sooner or later would have made no difference at all because YZY outright stated she had no intention of preparing for an attack, even after WWX suggests they should, and JFM was still going to the Wens asking for their swords back - they were still uselessly trying to suck up to the Wens, thinking it would save them.

Despite knowing deep down that WWX was not to blame - he still uses it to fuel his resentment of WWX, because the resentment was there from the beginning, the only uncertainty is the means he uses to justify it.

During the ancestral hall confrontation - he uses this excuse again.

‘Jiang Cheng responded contemptuously, “You really are forgetful. What’s called a shameful person? Let me remind you. Just because you decided to be a hero and save this Second Young Master Lan, the entire Lotus Pier including my father and mother was buried. If this wasn’t enough, after the first time, you still want a second time, even wanting to save Wen-dogs and implicating my sister and her husband, how noble of you. Even nobler, you are so magnanimous to bring these two to Lotus Pier. Allowing the Wen-dog to stand at the front of my gates and letting Second Young Master Lan offer joss sticks, purely trying to antagonize me.’

Obviously, WWX did none of these things to antagonise JC, in fact he was going through a complex emotional journey of realising that he has feelings for LWJ, and that LWJ probably has feelings for him too, he doesn’t go to the ancestral shrine to mess around - he’s ‘introducing’ LWJ to JFM, YZY, and JYL, because he’s thinking about marrying him.

The problem is, JC never really sees WWX as a person, WWX has always been more of a concept - someone to compare himself to, the reason his father doesn’t like him, the reason his mother uses to berate him. It doesn’t occur to JC that WWX is a person outside of what he is to JC, and he is therefore incapable of empathising with what WWX might be feeling right now, instead the only possible conclusion is that he’s antagonising JC.

He follows the same line of thinking when WWX defects with the Wens. JC knows what he and WWX owe them, in fact JC owes them, far, far more than what WWX does - it was his parents whose bodies Wen Ning retrieved, and it was him who WN had to rescue from LP. But JC thinks, he can get away with not paying this debt, so why should he? JC is selfish, he doesn’t understand why WWX would want to help others when he doesn’t have to, so JC concludes, this is WWX showing off, ‘playing the hero’.

Because from the moment they met, JC has never tried to know WWX for who he is, whatever WWX does, JC interprets in a negative light - when WWX tries to get LWJ’s attention, (despite it being painstakingly obvious that WWX has a crush on him) JC concludes that WWX is messing around foolishly, without reason (parroting the untrue things YZY says about WWX always seeking trouble). When WWX wants to help people, he’s playing the hero, one upping JC. JC only ever thinks of WWX in relation to himself - when WWX disappears for three months, JC’s immediate complaint is that WWX kept him waiting, that he’s put JC out by making him search for him. You could argue that JC was just worried about WWX, and not able to express it - and on some level that’s true. But there’s a very intentional contrast between how LWJ and JC react to WWX’s return - LWJ is worried about WWX, about how his cultivation method is affecting him, moreover, WWX is very clearly not himself. JC, however, does not care for that - he only sees WWX, and modao, as a tool for killing Wens.

It takes almost nothing for JGS to manipulate JC into turning against WWX in ch.73 - he readily believes every negative thing JGS says about WWX, despite being called out directly for lying by LWJ. JGS talks as if he is a servant who has forgotten his place, unlike JYL, JC does not defend him. He refuses to speak up for him - he claims that no one will - yet LWJ and MianMian did. JC didn’t turn on WWX because it was impossible for him to speak up - he was living proof that WQ and WN did not support the Wen sect in the war, he drops him the moment he can because he’s resented him from the beginning.

Another interesting tidbit about JC just fundamentally not understanding who WWX is as a person, is that he only blames LWJ for the Xuanwu Cave incident - not JZX, despite him behaving no differently to how LWJ does. This is probably because he realises WWX’s fixation on LWJ, and supposes that this is the reason that WWX got involved in the conflict. But of course, WWX would have done something whether it was solely JZX, or just a random person.

Taking all this into account, it seems almost inevitable that WWX and JC would fall out eventually, because JC was, from the start, looking for reasons to dislike WWX, he turns against him at the first opportunity he got. For the ‘Yunmeng bros’ to have a healthy relationship, JC would simply have to fix his entire personality.

JC is unable to see WWX as a person, right up until the very end of the novel - when he recalls how he impulsively put himself at risk in order to save WWX. Finally, for the first time, JC is able to understand why WWX stood up for others in Xuanwu Cave, why he helped the Wens, because JC did the same thing, put himself on the line for WWX, probably the only time JC has ever acted so selflessly. And this is why he lets him go, he lets go of the things he blamed WWX for. For the first time, he is able to empathise with WWX, he understands that WWX was never ‘playing the hero’, seeking praise or recognition, he understands that WWX helps people purely because he feels in the moment that it’s the right thing to do. This is what enables him to finally let go of WWX.

I’m always a bit baffled when people claim mxtx never gave JC a happy ending, because this is his happy ending - him being able to realise that WWX never wronged him - when he finally lets go of this, he can live freely.

#mdzs #jc wank #mdzs meta #jiang cheng

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difeisheng · 3 years

Note

Pls tell us ur thoughts on chengyao

Fair warning: I’m not sure how well this is structured. I apologize in advance.

All right, the thing about Chengyao is that it is wonderful as a premise but a trainwreck as soon as you approach anywhere near execution. Jiang Cheng and Jin Guangyao are two rich uncles in joint custody of Jin Ling. They both have the background of being a son who tried to live up to their shitty father's expectations, but were in the end ignored for someone else. They're also under a lot of stress. With all this, in theory there should be a chance for something to happen between them, right? Right? No! Because neither of them trust anyone, Jiang Cheng doesn't like Jin Guangyao because he hides too much and Jin Guangyao doesn't like Jiang Cheng because he's so pathetically open about his emotions in public it's almost embarrassing.

Every interaction is full of awkwardness and forced smiles and politeness, and the only thing that can smooth it over is if Jin Ling is around. He's really the only thing these two will agree on. Which is highly unfortunate, because Jin Ling is an important thing in both their lives, and for sixteen years of co-parenting both sides of Chengyao have to cope with knowing the other person in this whole deal they find infuriating is also pretty much the only other person who cares about A-Ling as much as they do. They would really, really rather not meet with each other often, but for Jin Ling's sake they can suck it up and work out a schedule for each of them to see their nephew.

Regular visits with Jin Ling involved make it more amusing for us and worse for Chengyao. There's already a very, very begrudging respect between them because they're involved in Jin Ling's well-being, and as it turns out, people you don't like can still be good-looking. Yes, Jiang Cheng is a walking ball of insecurity and parental issues Jin Guangyao does not want to risk getting entangled in, at all, but that does not detract from how you could cut yourself on Jiang Cheng's cheekbones. And yes, Jin Guangyao gets on every one of Jiang Cheng's nerves, but he is tragically also very pretty and no one is immune to Lianfang-zun's dimples. Jin Guangyao watches Jiang Cheng teach Jin Ling how to swim and very pointedly does not think about the water dripping down Jiang Cheng's bare torso. Jiang Cheng sees Jin Guangyao sitting on the floor of Jinlintai, playing with Fairy and A-Ling, and struggles not to call the sight cute.

This 'goddammit, I guess I'm stuck with you' dynamic thanks to Jin Ling combined with some low-level repressed horniness culminates in what we get in canon, which is two men who have never once gotten close to fucking each other having Divorced Couple Energy through the goddamn roof. Neither of them are happy about this. They do their best to ignore it. To no avail, which is why even at Guanyin Temple you wind up with moments like this.

All of this aside, though, if Chengyao did manage to get together, around their dislike for each other and their individual relationship issues (which in Jiang Cheng's case is fearing a marriage like his parents' and with Jin Guangyao it's a whole complex surrounding extra-marital sex), it would be very fun, because Jin Guangyao would prefer to be in control of a situation and Jiang Cheng, regardless of whether he knows it or not, would prefer someone to tell him what to do. There would be many regrets involved and some mortified eye contact during social events after that, but at least the sex was good.

That's all I've got. Thanks for the ask!

#sorry if this wasn't what you were looking for anon #im not in a very serious mood right now lmao #but i am grateful for the opportunity to ramble about my useless ship opinions. thank you #mdzs #cql #chengyao #jin guangyao #jiang cheng #ashton answers #anon

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bloody-bee-tea · 3 years

Note

“Is that my shirt?” “You mean our shirt?”

Any pairing you so desire.

Right order

The only pairing I desire is Mingcheng so here we go XD

When Jiang Cheng gets to the Nie house he realizes that no one seems to be home. Well, that’s not going to stop him, because Nie Huaisang gave him a key for a reason and Jiang Cheng is long past being afraid to use it.

He lets himself in and then promptly goes into the guest room, that has turned more into his room over time by now. Jiang Cheng flees his own home often enough to call this something of a secondary home, and he still feels warm when he remembers how Nie Mingjue promised him he’d always have a place here.

Jiang Cheng quickly changes out of his clothes—always needing to clean himself after a fight with his parents—and it’s only when he’s under the shower that he realizes that he didn’t bring any spare clothes in his haste.

Well, it’s not like anyone is at home right now, so Jiang Cheng has no qualms to walk around with his towel wrapped around his hips, and he’s halfway to Nie Huaisang’s room—who gave him free reign over it whenever he needs something and no one is home—when he comes past the laundry room.

It seems like the dryer has finished during Nie Mingjue’s and Nie Huaisang’s absence and Jiang Cheng walks towards it instead of going to Nie Huaisang’s room.

He finds sweatpants and a shirt in it, though he still has to steal some underwear from Nie Huaisang, and Jiang Cheng vows—not for the first time—to bring a spare set of clothes with him one of these days.

For emergencies like this.

It’s really not the first time he thinks about this, but somehow he never does and always ends up wearing Nie Huaisang’s clothes for a day, until his own clothes are washed.

When Jiang Cheng is dressed he looks down on himself and realizes that these clothes must belong to Nie Mingjue because they are slightly too big on him where Nie Huaisang’s clothes would usually be just a smidge too small.

Jiang Cheng goes hot all over at that realization and he has half a mind taking them off again but in the end they are too comfortable to simply abandon them.

And since Jiang Cheng is alone right now, he can even admit that it feels really nice to be wearing Nie Mingjue’s clothes.

Now if only this could have happened after a night of—Jiang Cheng cuts himself off there, because it’s a dangerous path to go down and he shakes his head to clear it.

He goes back to his room and gets his laptop, because he still has some work to do for his classes and it’s not like Jiang Cheng has anything better to do right now. He settles down in the living-room, his laptop balanced on his knees as he types out the report that’s due soon enough and he startles badly when he hears a key in the door.

A quick glance at the clock reveals that he’s been working for longer than he thought and his stomach grumbles in protest.

Jiang Cheng frowns at that, but when Nie Mingjue comes into the living-room, he smiles at him.

“Hey,” Jiang Cheng says and Nie Mingjue nods.

“Hi,” he gives back. “Bad day?” he asks and Jiang Cheng sighs.

“The usual,” he tells Nie Mingjue because by now both he and Nie Huaisang know enough about Jiang Cheng’s fights with his parents to not have to listen to it over and over again. “I’m not good enough, or smart enough, or trying hard enough. What can you do, right,” Jiang Cheng sums it up, trying for a light tone and he mostly manages it, too.

Sometime during the last year he grew up enough to realize that his parent’s expectations do not actually have anything to do with him and that no matter what he does, he’s not going to meet them anyway.

He guesses Nie Mingjue’s and Nie Huaisang’s unwavering support played a huge role in this, but that’s something he’s not ready to say.

Jiang Cheng focuses back on Nie Mingjue just in time to see him open his mouth and closing it again without saying anything.

“What?” Jiang Cheng asks and Nie Mingjue visibly swallows.

“Is that—is that my shirt?” he asks and even though Jiang Cheng damn well knows it is, he looks down at himself and acts surprised.

“Oh? Don’t you mean our shirt? I seem to remember that you once said everything that’s yours is also mine,” he then says and gives Nie Mingjue a shit-eating grin when he seems to struggle for words.

“I found it in the dryer, I hope you don’t mind,” Jiang Cheng tacks on when Nie Mingjue stays silent for a beat too long.

“Of course I don’t,” Nie Mingjue gets out, but somehow Jiang Cheng gets the feeling that he maybe does mind.

Or maybe, a small part of his brain says, he just likes seeing Jiang Cheng in his own clothes. Jiang Cheng tries to not give that thought too much room, but his heart starts to beat faster.

“Hey, you want to eat? I could cook,” Jiang Cheng tries to distract himself and it’s already late enough that dinner seems like a good idea anyway.

“And what are you gonna cook with?” Nie Mingjue asks, seemingly having found his footage again. “My food?”

Jiang Cheng narrows his eyes at him as he closes his laptop.

“Mh, strange, I thought that was also ours,” he says and this time he thinks he doesn’t imagine the hitch in Nie Mingjue’s breath.

“You’re a menace,” Nie Mingjue grumbles, but when he walks past Jiang Cheng to his own room—no doubt for a change himself—he puts his hand to Jiang Cheng’s shoulder and squeezes. “I’m glad you’re here,” he says, his cheeks a little pink and it makes butterflies erupt in Jiang Cheng’s stomach.

Maybe today is the day he’s gonna take a risk for a change.

“Same,” Jiang Cheng mutters, and once Nie Mingjue is gone he gets up to go into the kitchen.

He’s nervous all of a sudden, even though there’s no reason for him to act if he doesn’t feel like it, but when Nie Mingjue comes back, freshly showered and changed into more comfortable clothes Jiang Cheng thinks that he wants to take that risk.

It’s not even that much of a risk, not when it’s Nie Mingjue, because no matter what his answer will be, he’ll still be Jiang Cheng’s friend afterwards, that much Jiang Cheng is sure of.

Jiang Cheng busies himself with preparing dinner for now, thinking over how exactly he wants to go about this, and before he even knows it, dinner is ready.

“Uh, you want to take this to the living-room?” Jiang Cheng asks and nods at their plates.

“You mean our living-room?” Nie Mingjue asks, stepping close to Jiang Cheng and Jiang Cheng’s brain short-circuits.

“What?” he breathes out. “Did you just—did you just ask me to move in?” he asks, absolutely lost as to what just happened, but Nie Mingjue only shrugs.

“Of course I did,” Nie Mingjue says and carefully puts his hand on Jiang Cheng’s hip.

He seems ready to pull away at any given moment should Jiang Cheng indicate his displeasure, but Jiang Cheng leans into the contact.

“Is that the right order of things?” he asks, his voice low as he looks up at Nie Mingjue.

“I guess a kiss should come first,” Nie Mingjue agrees, a little bit breathless and Jiang Cheng can absolutely not wait for him to finally move, so he leans up, his hands on Nie Mingjue’s shoulders as he brings their lips together.

One kiss turns into two, turns into many, and by the time they remember that dinner is waiting for them it’s almost cold.

Jiang Cheng doesn’t mind it at all, but he still grins sheepishly at Nie Mingjue.

“Guess we should eat now,” he says but before he can put Nie Mingjue’s plate into his hands, he is being pulled into another kiss.

“I guess so,” Nie Mingjue says when they part and Jiang Cheng laughs.

“I mean actual food, you fool,” he complaints and Nie Mingjue grins.

“But that’s so boring.” He nips at Jiang Cheng’s bottom lip again. “I’ve waited so long for this, now the food can wait.”

Jiang Cheng has half a mind to agree with Nie Mingjue but then his stomach grumbles audibly and Nie Mingjue freezes.

“Or I guess not,” he says with a sigh and now it’s Jiang Cheng’s turn to laugh.

“Food first. The rest can come later,” he promises and threads their fingers together before he drags Nie Mingjue off to the living-room.

Both of them maybe eat a little bit faster than is advisable, and by the time Nie Huaisang comes home, they have long vanished into Nie Mingjue’s room.

Or maybe it’s their room now.

Link to my ko-fi on the sidebar!

#bt writes #mingcheng #the untamed #mdzs #mdzsbingo #modern au #getting together #first kiss #fluff #just mindless fluff

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rhysiana · 3 years

Text

Untamed Romcom AU Chain

Over on Twitter the other week, @iamwestiec wrote me a tiny little fic about modern AU Jiang Cheng finally taking a vacation, and it reminded me of a Sangcheng idea I’d had a while ago based on the premise of a cute Jackie Lau romcom novel. (Her books are great mind candy full of diverse characters, many of Chinese heritage, and heavily feature the Toronto food scene, so do not read while hungry.) This then turned into ideas for a chained set of hypothetical modern AU Untamed fics. (There are three; I’m going to post the next two as additions.)

First “book”:

Premise: An overworked CEO is put on mandatory vacation by his family and doesn't know what to do, so he hires a person he noticed really savoring things at the coffee shop to teach him how to enjoy life.

And I just think: Sangcheng. NHS is definitely the kind of person who would jump at the chance to get paid to not go to work and hang out with a very rich guy in his swanky apartment, teaching him about the local food scene beyond what his PA orders for lunch meetings.

They are going to do tasting menus! Go to museums and weird little art galleries and art installations along the river that may or may not be officially sanctioned! A whole day at the bird sanctuary! (The only day NHS allows them to leave the house early.)

It's all fun and games for NHS, he's doing *so well* not developing a crush on this overly serious but very hot man, until his family comes for an unannounced visit to make sure he's not sneaking work during his vacation and he witnesses JC with a-Ling. NHS doesn't even want kids! But the way that child has JC wrapped around his finger with a single "jiujiu" is too much!

He'd call Dage to complain about it but he can already hear the lecture about his lack of self-preservation skills when NMJ learns he's living with a stranger for 2 weeks.

Jiang Cheng, meanwhile, is experiencing... emotions... about watching NHS enjoy stuff. Which is exactly what he wanted! But it also seems like a lot! Surely most people don't, like, *feel* so much in the normal course of the day? (Feelings that aren't annoyance???)

Eventually there's a serious conversation on the couch late at night where NHS talks about how aimless he's always felt, and how hard that is with an older brother so full of purpose and drive ("a lot like you, really"), so he taught himself to really enjoy small things. JC, in turn, admits he never really felt like he had a choice about his job/future, he just had to fulfill family expectations. He's good at it, sure, but he's never figured out how to enjoy things, so he just works all the time and hopes it will someday be enough.

Outings after that feel a lot more like dates, but they're both aware of the end of their time together, and JC doesn't want to say anything because he's sure he'll revert to spending 12+ hrs/day at the office, so what would be the point?

I think the resolution would have to be something like: Idyllic bubble time comes to an end, but JC finds himself constantly distracted thinking about NHS. He holds himself back because surely NHS is back to enjoying his great life without some grumpy uptight jerk in it.

WWX tells him he's being an idiot, which he promptly ignores, but then JYL follows it up with a sweetly reasonable reminder that making himself miserable isn't actually a requirement. The company is doing well, their parents are more than comfortably retired, he can do this.

NHS, meanwhile, is pining and miserable on Dage's couch and NMJ doesn't know what to do about it. Something something JC turns up with flowers at NMJ's door and asks NHS out for real. He learns to balance his time, they go on many dates (& vacations!) and live happily ever after.

(I very cleverly and totally intentionally set this up for NHS to live a wonderful trophy spouse/supported artist life. Good job, me. We will now assume this is what's happening in the background of the loosely chained sequel romance following Nielan's get-together, probably.)

[Part 2: Nielan]

[Part 3: Wangxian]

#romcom AU #sangcheng #the untamed #chained romcom thread #rhys's stuff

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taizi · 3 years

Text

out past the shallow breakers

the untamed pairing: jiang cheng & wei ying, jiang cheng & lan sizhui word count: 3148 read on ao3

“He died!”

The words ring loud, sharp—in the pavilion where they’re taking their evening meal, surrounded on all sides by untroubled water, the words seem to carry for miles.

It’s unlike Lan Sizhui to raise his voice at all, much less to raise it toward a senior. His hands, resting politely on his knees under the table, have curled into fists.

“Everyone goes on and on as though baba has so much to atone for,” Lan Sizhui says, each word lurching from his throat like a line of fierce corpses shambling through brush. “What more is there for him to give? What more do you want? He died.”

Jin Ling is staring at his friend as though he’s never seen him fully before. On Lan Sizhui’s other side, Wei Wuxian’s expression is shifting rapidly from alarm to comprehension. His gray eyes are full of a painful understanding.

“Sizhui ah,” Wei Wuxian says, touching the boy’s shoulder. “Come take a walk with me.”

Jerking his head in a nod, Lan Sizhui pushes to his feet and then pauses there. His Gusu Lan whites, those extra lines and layers that denote him a member of the main family, ghost elegantly around him when he lowers himself in a bow that is every inch deep that it needs to be and not one inch deeper.

“Sect Leader Jiang, this disciple apologizes,” he says. The cheerful ‘shushu’ of earlier that morning might as well be a memory of another life. “My behavior was unworthy.”

He doesn’t grit it out, the way Jin Ling would probably have had to. It doesn’t even seem to cost him any pride.

For one, single, impossible moment, it’s as though Jiang Yanli is standing there, making her apologies to their mother for her brothers’ sake, to spare them any pain she could. It didn’t matter that the blame wasn’t hers. It didn’t cost her any pride, either.

But Jiang Yanli didn’t have a chance to be a part of her nephew’s life, as much as she would have wanted to be. This likeness isn’t hers, not truly. Wei Wuxian was always more like his sister than he or Jiang Cheng were ready to admit.

“Forget it,” Jiang Cheng says. His voice is hoarse, but in the stillness of the water and the silence of the pavilion, it carries, too. “Go on.”

Wei Wuxian shepherds his son from the table. He glances back at Jiang Cheng once, a grimace of apology on his face, but then Lan Sizhui’s hand finds the trailing black hem of Wei Wuxian’s sleeve and clutches to it, and that steals all of Wei Wuxian’s attention as easily as a slap or a shout might have.

The moment they’re gone, Jin Ling lets out a breath he must have been holding, and rounds on his other uncle with wide eyes.

“What did you say?” Jin Ling blurts. “I wasn’t really paying attention, but it didn’t sound like—I mean, it sounded normal.”

Jiang Cheng is still staring at the place Lan Sizhui had stood.

The last living remnant of a persecuted clan, so much an amalgamation of his two fathers that it didn’t make sense that one of them had been dead for most of his young life—holding a grudge and bowing his head at the same time. Lan Wangji, in Jiang Cheng’s experience, has never once let something go that he could nurse icy resentment for instead. Wei Wuxian has always choked down hurt like it was second nature, no matter that it must feel like swallowing nails every time.

It was a normal conversation, but perhaps that’s exactly why Lan Sizhui couldn’t bear another second of it.

“He died,” Lan Sizhui had said, as raw as a fresh wound, or one that kept getting torn open again before it could heal. “What more do you want?”

“Ah, Jiang Cheng,” Wei Wuxian says the next morning, meeting him in the courtyard. “Did you sleep well?”

He’s smiling with a certain nervous energy that Jiang Cheng can only pick out because he spent the formative years of his life raising and being raised by his siblings. To an outsider, there probably wouldn’t be a single visible chink in that cheerful armor.

Jiang Cheng, for all his failings, isn’t an outsider. Not quite. The door between them is closed—has been closed for years, almost decades—but Wei Wuxian isn’t the one who closed it. There almost certainly isn’t a lock or talisman keeping Jiang Cheng from forcing it open again.

It won’t come open again easily. There is so much stacked in the way. Hurt and betrayal and grief throw their weight into keeping it shut, weighing it down on either side.

But—

“What more do you want?” Lan Sizhui had asked.

“Fine,” Jiang Cheng forces out. Wei Wuxian blinks, as if he didn’t expect a forthright answer, or any answer at all. Something about his open surprise at the barest scrap of civility makes Jiang Cheng add, “If you’re awake this early, you didn’t sleep at all.”

His brother takes the opening for what it is, and bends into character. “Oh! You know me so well!”

Mo Xuanyu’s body is smaller, slighter, than the body that Wei Wuxian was born into, and his face is not quite the same, but Wei Wuxian’s mannerisms shine through so clearly that it’s easy to look past everything else. Even the way he stands still is entirely his own, his whole body vibrating with the necessary focus it takes to keep from bursting into movement again.

He is so familiar. The most familiar thing in Jiang Cheng’s entire, almost-empty life.

“I’m sorry about last night,” Wei Wuxian says. The words spill from his mouth like river pebbles, scattering around their feet. There’s that echo of their jiejie again, smiling around I’m sorry. “Don’t hold it against him, please. He’s so young, and he’s struggling to make sense of some things. He was happy that you invited him to Lotus Pier.”

The past-tense makes Jiang Cheng want to flinch, but he doesn’t. He just stands there in the peach pink morning and absorbs the beginning of a goodbye.

“So you’re leaving, then?” he mutters.

“I think we’ve definitely worn out our welcome this time,” Wei Wuxian says, easily shouldering the blame for everyone else’s bad behavior. They might as well be twelve years old again, kneeling here in the courtyard under Madam Yu’s furious eyes. “But it’s alright! Wen Ning sent word that he’s waiting for us outside of Yunmeng and Sizhui is eager to see him. We’ll go find some trouble to get into before we head back home.”

He won’t say a word about this change of plans to his husband, but Lan Wangji will still find out—whether Lan Sizhui tells him, or Wen Ning, or he just picks up something from Wei Wuxian through osmosis—and the next cultivator conference will be excruciating. And if the Jiang clan gets anything out of it, it won’t be anything good. And Jiang Cheng will feel slighted and angry for months, until the next time Wei Wuxian swings by for a visit. And having his brother nearby will soothe an ache in the pit of Jiang Cheng’s chest that he’s able to ignore all the rest of the time. And then, inevitably, Wei Wuxian will look wistfully at the water, or linger for too long by the flowers their sister liked best, or bring some other manner of ghost to the dinner table, and Jiang Cheng will lash out because it’s the only way he knows how to handle hurt. And then Wei Wuxian will extract himself and go home to Cloud Recesses early, and Lan Wangji will rightly guess why. And it just never fucking ends, does it?

The grief he carries around with him—he’s not wrong to carry it. It’s his. He was hurt, time and again, by a person he used to count on not to hurt him. He’s two times an orphan; once when his parents died, and again when his siblings did. He had to rebuild his home from the ground up, by himself, with his own two hands. Everything he has is what he was able to dig out of the dirt and ashes.

It isn’t Wei Wuxian’s fault that Lotus Pier fell. It isn’t his fault that the Wens were persecuted, that they had nowhere else to turn for protection. And it isn’t—

This one hurts; this one comes away bleeding. Jiang Cheng forces himself through it anyway.

It isn’t Wei Wuxian’s fault that Yanli died.

She died for him, but he didn’t ask her to.

Jiang Cheng feels his brother’s golden core thrumming inside his chest, hyper-aware of it now in a way he rarely was before—how it feels the way the sun looks in the morning, warm and brilliant and spilling color across the dull gray of dawn.

He didn’t ask Wei Wuxian to cut himself open for Jiang Cheng’s sake. He can’t be blamed for his brother’s choices. And if that’s true (and it has to be true or Jiang Cheng will go insane) then Wei Wuxian can’t be blamed for their sister’s choice, either. Yanli died for Wei Wuxian because she loved him, and Wei Wuxian gave Jiang Cheng his golden core because he loved him, and Jiang Cheng never moved on and never let go because he loved them, too.

They weren’t raised to love softly or quietly. Love between the three of them was always fierce, like a wild animal baring its teeth. Clinging to each other in a world that wanted to rip them apart. Even Yanli, who smiled and spoke with such sweetness, went to war because her brothers were there.

“What more do you want?” Lan Sizhui had asked.

Jiang Cheng lifts his head. Wei Wuxian is already looking at him, poised, as ever, to leave the moment Jiang Cheng gives him any indication that he should, like a bird ready to fling itself into flight. His brother, dead for thirteen years and back again, and only sometimes-welcome in the place he used to call home. Only sometimes-wanted by the person who used to be his family.

In a world full of people missing people they’ll never see again, Wei Wuxian is a miracle that Jiang Cheng is entirely unworthy of.

He’s right to carry his grief, because it’s his. But he wouldn’t be wrong—it wouldn’t be a betrayal—if he chose to set it down.

“You find trouble as easy as breathing,” he says, speaking through his heart, where it’s lodged in his throat, “so that shouldn’t be too hard.”

“Maligned!” Wei Wuxian cries with an air of great sorrow. “Blatantly maligned, by my own flesh and blood!”

Jiang Cheng can’t say what he wants to say. He can’t find the words. There’s only so much of himself he can dig up and expose like raw nerves before the pain of it becomes overwhelming, and he reacts to the hurt the way he always does, and shoves Wei Wuxian away.

“Don’t forget to say goodbye to Jin Ling, or he’ll never forgive you,” Jiang Cheng settles for. “And I’ll be the one stuck hearing about it.”

“I would never forget my favorite nephew,” Wei Wuxian says easily.

“And if you fuck up, and get yourself into a stupid mess,” Jiang Cheng adds, before he loses his nerve, “don’t let me hear about it from someone else.”

For a moment, Wei Wuxian doesn’t seem to know what to say.

“What if it’s very stupid?” he finally asks, his voice at once both faint and painfully fond.

“What else is new?” Jiang Cheng snaps. “Just send for me, and I’ll come.”

Above them, the pink and orange of fresh dawn make way for vivid blue. As Jiang Cheng stands in his childhood home with his only brother, while the market comes to life outside the walls and the breeze sweeps the smell of lotus flowers and scallion pancakes through the courtyard, the years seem to fall away. For a brief, uninterrupted moment, they’re both back where they belong.

“Aiyah, shidi,” Wei Wuxian says. “Of course you will.”

The next time Jiang Cheng sees Lan Sizhui is at the cultivation conference in Gusu, two months later.

The boy smiles politely but greets him as ‘Sect Leader Jiang’ again, and next to him, Jiang Cheng can feel Jin Ling wince. Lan Sizhui’s counterpart, the wildly opinionated and deeply un-Lan-like Lan Jingyi is giving him a frank, up-and-down appraisal.

“I mean, I’ll give it to you,” he says baldly. “You’re brave. Like, if Hanguang-jun hated me as much as he hated you, I just wouldn’t show up. You couldn’t pay me to show up.”

“Jingyi,” Lan Sizhui says at length.

“No, I know. I’m just saying. Young Mistress,” he adds, sweeping into a deep, performative bow in front of Jin Ling, “if you’ll come with me, your presence is earnestly awaited by Young Master Ouyang in the library pavilion.”

“Shut up, Jingyi, I swear,” Jin Ling snaps, but he lets himself be herded away with only a single worried glance back at his uncle.

Lan Sizhui is gazing up at Jiang Cheng with a complicated expression. Even though the explosive anger of that disastrous dinner doesn’t seem likely to make a reappearance, there is still something troubled in his eyes.

“I wanted to apologize, shushu,” the boy says slowly. “Properly, that is. For the way I spoke to you last time.”

Ah. So the stiffness isn’t born of lingering irritation, but worry. These Lans, Jiang Cheng thinks, with significantly less venom than he’s used to thinking of the Lan sect with.

He has a well of patience for his nephews that has never run dry. Jin Ling has stretched it nearly to the limit, more than once, but it will take Lan Sizhui more than one emotional outburst to come even close. Given that they’ve only been family (for given value of the word) for a short while, it makes sense that Lan Sizhui wouldn’t know that.

“It wasn’t you that I was angry with, not really,” Lan Sizhui says, explaining when Jiang Cheng has already largely guessed. “I know that you care about baba in your own way, even if a-die doesn’t think so. But—there are—”

His young face folds in frustration, less remarkably than Jin Ling’s does when he’s having a snit, but just a creased forehead speaks volumes in this repressed sect.

“There are other people. Who say similar things. And they don’t mean it the way you mean it.”

Jiang Cheng knows that. He attended those meetings, too.

“And let me guess,” he says, “my idiot brother doesn’t want you speaking up for him.”

Lan Sizhui’s mouth twists. “He says that he did horrible things, and those people are well within their rights to feel about him however they want to feel about him. But—he did good, too. He protected my clan, even though he had to do it alone. I don’t remember very much,” he goes on, slightly quieter, “but I know that he made the Burial Mounds a warm and safe place for me. I know that I never felt scared or cold or hungry when I was there with him. And I don’t think most people could have done that.”

Jiang Cheng boxes up the involuntary pain that swells into place at the poking of this half-healed wound, and gives himself a moment to organize a reply. Talking to the mind-healer his chief physician recommended to him has helped a lot, not that he’ll give that smug witch the satisfaction of admitting it.

“Wei Wuxian hurt a lot of people, but so did everyone else,” he says when he’s certain he can say it without losing his composure. “We were at war. None of us are blameless. He was just the most convenient scapegoat. He still is.”

Lan Sizhui’s eyes are bright with vindication. He was born a Wen and raised a Lan, but there’s a streak of Jiang in there, too, Jiang Cheng thinks with pride. It’s that love that Jiang Cheng recognizes, the same kind of love that he and jiejie and Wei Wuxian had cultivated between them since they were children—the vicious, untamed kind of love that marches to war and claws its way up from hell and clings too hard to things it rightly should let go of.

“It isn’t fair,” Lan Sizhui says.

“No,” Jiang Cheng allows. “It isn’t.”

Wei Wuxian waves animatedly at Jiang Cheng from across the room, even though it makes Lan Qiren scowl at him. It’s reminiscent of every single stuffy banquet they had to sit through as kids, making faces at one another when Madam Yu’s eyes were turned away.

Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes in return, and Wei Wuxian lights up like he’s been handed a pile of gold. Lan Wangji gazes at him with a tenderness that would be absolutely absurd if Wei Wuxian didn’t actually deserve every scant inch of it that got sent his way, and even though the entire cultivation world is waiting, he spares a moment to tuck a stray piece of hair behind Wei Wuxian’s ear.

Sect Leader Yao scoffs, a bit too loudly. “Shameless upstart.”

Lan Wangji’s eyes turn so sharp so fast that it promises violence.

Before he can say anything that starts another war, Jiang Cheng turns fully around in his seat.

“Problem?” he asks shortly.

Baffled, Sect Leader Yao’s gaze skates around the room for a moment before landing back on Jiang Cheng.

“If you have something to say about my brother,” Jiang Cheng says, his voice a snarl, zidian sparking on his arm, “say it so that I can hear you.”

“Ah, this meeting is off to such a lively start,” Wei Wuxian says into the ominous stillness of the room. “Shidi, you’re so energetic, why don’t you kick things off?”

It would be the first time in his career that he’s the first to speak at a conference. Openly disbelieving, Jiang Cheng looks from his brother to Lan Wangji. Lan Wangji’s eyes are narrowed, but not as though he’s sizing Jiang Cheng up for a coffin, which is how he usually sizes him up. All he does is tip his head incrementally, conceding the floor to him.

Gods. It’s that simple.

“You are really not a difficult person, are you?” Jiang Cheng says aloud.

“No,” Lan Wangji agrees, this force of nature who turned the world upside down and challenged every single person in it, who would do so again and again and again, just to be able to sit there and hold Wei Wuxian’s hand.

And then, in the closest the two of them have ever come to an understanding, Lan Wangji adds, “Neither are you.”

#mo dao zu shi #the untamed #yunmeng shuangjie #jiang cheng #wei ying #lan sizhui #mdzs #wangxian #my writing #mdzs fic

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jaimebluesq · 2 years

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WIP Wednesday (belated)

Had this plot bunny pop into my head an hour ago and this is what I wrote so far - thought I'd share for fun! (In other words this is a VERY rough draft, first writing)

Sangcheng, Fake Dating Modern AU (Setting - Ottawa, Ontario, Canada - I used to live there and still love the city so much!)

~~~~

Tonight was the night, and Jiang Cheng was nervous as hell.

He paced outside the entrance of The Yangtze restaurant, his footsteps making a groove in the light snow collecting on the ground. His hands were stuffed in the pockets of his winter jacket and his impatient breaths were creating steam in the cold, January air. His eyes scanned the crowd around him for familiar faces, but he had yet to see any.

It was his mother's choice of venue – if it were up to him and his sister, they'd be eating over at So Good where the food was much better and authentic, but of course Yu Ziyuan insisted on a 'finer dining experience'. In the end, it hadn't been worth the fight – all that mattered was that the family was going to have a nice meal together – with Jiang Cheng's new boyfriend.

Who was late.

He'd already texted him five times but hadn't received a response yet. Shawn Lorne, while one of the more gorgeous men he'd ever met, had a tendency to forget his phone places, or forget to turn it back on after it had run out of juice and been recharged. It drove Jiang Cheng nuts, but he'd decided it was something he could live with, a compromise he could make for someone who made him happy.

Most of the time.

When he wasn't running late.

He pulled his hands from his pockets to cup them in front of his lips, blowing warm air into them before rubbing them together. Was the snow coming down more, or did it just feel like it? The forecast had said it would just be simple flurries, but they were wrong more often than he'd like. He stomped his feet and ignored the hollers from a small group of girls in Ottawa Senators jerseys, on their way to a nearby bar to watch the night's game. A part of him wished he could at least go somewhere warmer, but he had to wait because the alternative was going inside the Yangtze to face his mother's scornful face upon seeing him alone.

He heard familiar laughter behind him and his shoulders relaxed. Finally! He smiled and turned around... and froze. There was Shawn all right, but he wasn't alone. He had his arms wrapped around another man, hands sliding into the guy's back pockets as he leaned in to kiss his neck...

“What the fuck?!”

Shawn's head popped up and looked around in panic, freezing once he spotted Jiang Cheng nearby. “Fuck, that was tonight,” he muttered, extricating himself from the other guy's embrace. “I can explain...”

“Um, what's going on here?” the other guy mumbled with a furrowed brow as he took a step back.

“Explain what? Why you're necking with some asshole while I'm freezing my ass off waiting for you to meet my parents?!”

“Meet his parents?!” Now the other guy's eyes were wide and growing angry. “You're serious enough with someone to meet their parents? You told me you were free!”

Jiang Cheng immediately reevaluated his judgement of the other guy – not an asshole, at least, and it looked like he was just as wronged in this matter.

“Cheng, Huaisang, just let me explain... you really can't expect me to just date one person can you?”

“I can,” Jiang Cheng replied, crossing his arms.

“I'm okay with poly,” the other guy, Huaisang, said with raised hands, “but it's gotta be discussed, not sprung up on people in the middle of Chinatown!”

“Is this why you're always 'forgetting' your phone?” Jiang Cheng accused. “Because you're hiding the fact that you're fucking someone else?”

Shawn was noticeably silent, then turned to Huaisang. “Baby, you get it, right?”

“Don't 'baby' me,” the shorter man scoffed, tilting up his chin and stuffing his hands into his pockets. “You've fucked up. At least have the decency to stop bullshitting us.”

The moment between the three was broken by a soft, feminine voice coming from the entrance to the restaurant. “Um, A-Cheng? Is everything all right?”

Jiang Cheng panicked at the sight of his sister, who was eyeing the scene of the three men arguing in the middle of the sidewalk. “Um, Jiejie, I...”

“It's all right to be nervous. Is one of these gentlemen the one we're meeting tonight?”

After a glare to Shawn, as if he could send him away by will alone, Jiang Cheng sighed. He'd have to come up with some excuse for now and cry on Jiang Yanli's shoulder later. He opened his mouth...

“Yeah, that's me!” The other guy, Huaisang, stepped forward with a big smile upon his face and held out his hand. “Sorry for being so late. My... ex here's been trying to tell me something and just wouldn't take no for an answer, and I didn't want to bring any drama into the restaurant.”

“Well, I'm certain he's said all he needs to say by now,” she replied, taking his hand but shooting a look of her own at Shawn. That was what finally made the man walk away – Jiang Cheng was relieved about that at least, but how could this stranger introduce himself as his boyfriend like that?! “It's cold out here, why don't you come inside? We're all waiting on you two.”

“We'll be right in,” the other guy replied. “You go on ahead, I just need to talk with A-Cheng first.”

“All right, but don't be long.” She gave them one last smile before heading into the restaurant.

“What the hell was that?” Jiang Cheng asked the moment she was out of sight.

“I'm sorry about Shawn, I swear I didn't know he was seeing anyone else, at least nothing serious.”

“I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about you talking to my sister like that.”

“I just thought I'd do you a favour!” Jiang Cheng lifted a skeptical brow. “Honest! You had that look on your face, the 'I haven't introduced someone to my family in ages and now I have to figure out how to tell them I'm single again' face. I've seen it before, it's not pretty.”

“So your answer is to pretend to be my boyfriend?!”

The guy shrugged. “I promise, I've got good parent. And it's just for one night. What could it hurt?”

He looked at his options, and sadly, this seemed to be the best one so far. “All right, just for tonight.”

“It's a deal!” The guy stuck his hand out. “The name's Nie Huaisang, by the way.”

“Jiang Cheng.” He shook the guy's hand – he had a firm handshake at least, and soft skin. “Please don't call me A-Cheng again.” Huaisang nodded.

He sighed.

“All right, Nie Huaisang. Let's go meet my family.”

#wip wednesday #sangcheng #fake dating #jiang cheng #nie huaisang

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wangxianficrecs · 3 years

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Follower Recs

There are nearly FORTY THOUSAND AO3 stories in the MDZS universe, and I am just a single person with limited time, so.... Here’s a bit of y’all doing my work for me!

~*~

Mojo, I know it'd probably be recced before, but I have to recommend stiltonbasket's Twelve Moons and a Fortnight. It has made me squee of cuteness, hold my breath with suspense, marvel over the worldbuilding and character interactions, and just awed me at how well every original piece of lore and HC ties back to canon. I cried over it, only to cry laughing the next chapter. it kept me going through an entire year of lockdown and is finally coming to an end, and the resolution was magnificent.

*[I’m subscribed to this and keep waiting for Part One to be completed, but instead later parts keep getting posted: is it completed but not marked? I am confused. And eager to read!]*

Twelve Moons and a Fortnight

by stiltonbasket (G, 267k, wangxian, WIP)

Summary: "Let me get this straight. You really want me to stand in for you while you help Jin Ling settle in at Koi Tower?"

"Who else do I have?" Jiang Cheng snaps, ears turning scarlet as Jin Ling tries to pretend he isn't listening. "Father trained you to serve as my deputy, didn't he? And don't say you don't remember, or I'll break your legs."

"Well, yes," Wei Wuxian manages. "Uh. I'll just let Lan Zhan know I'll be at Lotus Pier until you're back at home, then."

Or, the one where Wei Wuxian spends the year before his wedding as Yunmeng Jiang's acting sect leader, and the cultivation world's greatest love story finds its happy ending with the help of three juniors, a teenage romance, and one very involved (and exasperated) younger brother.

~*~

May I recommend fielty by milkpunch a sort of AU where lwj in order to save his sect from being destroyed by nine after wen rouhans assasination goes to work as a guard to Jin zixuan where he meets wwx the right hand of Jin guanguao... ~ @pastashouldbeeatenwithafork

Fealty

by milkpunch (E, 84k, wangxian)

Summary: Before, there had been two reigning kingdoms. Both claimed to be blessed by the sun, but with vastly differing views. One, under the name of Wen, was washed red with blood and violence, its soldiers fierce and stoked with a fiery blaze. The other, under the name of Jin, was bathed in golden light and glory, its soldiers proud and heavy with coin and prestige. The two kingdoms went to war for the true honour of having the sun’s blessing, fighting for many long years with many lives lost.

Jin Guangshan, emperor of the Golden Sun Palace, found that the sun favoured him more.

To prevent his kingdom from being crushed, Lan Zhan, second heir to the Lan kingdom, exchanges his freedom for that of servitude to the Jin kingdom. He is appointed as Jin Zixuan's personal guard, but there's more on his plate than just keeping the Jin heir safe. The Golden Sun Palace is not all that it seems, and the dazzling lives of the royals are less perfect than they appear.

~*~

Hey, I was wondering if I could rec a fic to you. My bestie wrote it for the Lunar New Year Wangxian gift exchange and it definitely did not receive the attention it deserves. It's a really fun mermaid/arranged marriage au! ~ @leahlisabeth

More Than This Provincial Wife

by ApprenticedMagician (T, 6k, wangxian)

Summary: The negotiations surrounding the Lan & Jiang alliance through marriage encountered a few snags in the beginning.

~*~

I love your blog! I saw a recent post where you listed some rec's from other people? [Thank you! And yes, I always appreciate and am happy to share your recs!] I just read the WIP A Corpse Called By Name jaemyun and LOVED it! It's a zombie apocolypse AU, where Wei Ying gets bitten by a zombie.... and I don't want to spoil anything from there, but it is amazing! No pressure to put it in your blog, but wanted to send a note just in case. Thanks for all you do!

A Corpse Called By Name

by jaemyun (not rated, 37k, wangxian, WIP)

Summary: A continuation of zombie drabble!

She loses her brother in a hoard of the undead.

She finds a corpse wearing his face in a convenience store.

The corpse calls her name.

~*~

Hi! I was wondering if I could rec this short fic that I recently found and really liked! The narrative is an inner monologue and I think it captures lwj really well :)

binding me in spells (till my heart's devoured)

by gaysgaysgays (G, <1k, wangxian)

Summary: His scars are a reminder of his hurt, a reminder that he had healed.

(or a study of lan zhan's scars)

~*~

I found a fic I had recently asked you about, so I thought I'd share it with you: Seasons of Falling Flowers by merakily (http://archiveofourown.org/works/28522326). I rediscovered it completely by accident after listening to spinifex's excellent podfic adaptation. This is the fic where Lan Qiren despises Wei Wuxian until Wei Wuxian catches a cold and Lan Qiren find out about his golden core. That part is about 3/4 of the way through. The fic is wonderful and shows a rigid but surprisingly introspective Lan Qiren. ~ @clmoryel [Oh! I just read this one yesterday! Here’s my bookmark.]

Seasons of Falling Flowers

by merakily (G, 40k, wangxian, lan qiren & wei wuxian, podfic)

Summary: Like a parasite, Wei Wuxian has this way of growing on people when you least expect it.

Over the seasons, Lan Qiren slowly pieces back together his relationship with Wangji and learns to like Wei Wuxian in the process.

(“Will you rejoin your sect?” As soon as the words leave his mouth, Lan Qiren regrets his wording.

He is not surprised when Wangji’s eyes narrow, flashing with offence. “There is no need to rejoin what one has never left. I did not turn my back on my sect. My sect turned their backs on me.”)

~*~

Hi! Can I rec a fic? "bring you home" by Alasse_Irena on AO3 is a modern AU and is one of the most beautiful and atmospheric fics I have read. Thanks for you work running this blog! I have new Wangxian fics to read <3

bring you home

by Alasse_Irena (T, 28k, wangxian)

Summary: Wei Ying rents a run-down cottage in a small town by the sea, looking for a quiet place to hide after the war.

Lan Zhan has always dreamed of the ocean. He returns to the town where he was born, and where his parents died, to find out why.

Instead, they find each other.

~*~

Good morning lady mojo, I hope you’re having a good day! I wanted to rec a fic, Breathing Firestorm by ladyshadowdrake. It’s 111k and great but barely has any love, which is unfair. You mentioned it in the last ‘in a mood for’ post but I think it should have more of a shoutout because it’s a lot of fun and I liked it a lot. Have a great day ♥️ [Oh! I was subscribed to this one and saw it had been recently finished. It’s def. on my list!]

Breathing Firestorm

by ladyshadowdrake (M, 111k, wangxian)

Summary: After years of a mad quest, Wen Ruohan is finally given proof of a powerful creature living among mortals. He is delighted to find that it truly believes itself to be only a boy named “Wei Wuxian.”

While Wen Ruohan tries to unlock Wei Wuxian’s secret, the sects unite against him. If he can achieve his goal before they arrive, even the combined might of the cultivation world would not be enough to humble him. Meanwhile, Lan Wangji dreams of Wei Wuxian in the Cold Pond Cave, and works tirelessly to rescue him from Wen Ruohan’s clutches. No one is prepared for what awaits the allied sects in Nightless City at the conclusion of the war, and it very well might mean the end of the world as they know it.

~*~

Hi Mojo, firstly thank you for all the hard work you put into running this blog, I’ve found so many fics that I probably would have never come across if it wasn’t for your fic finders posts and your personal review posts. [Aw, thank you!]

I don’t know if you’ve read this fic before or if it’s been mentioned before on your blog (I’ve done a quick search of your blog and couldn’t see it, so if I’ve missed it I apologise!) but if you’ve got a fic rec post coming up, I would suggest “The shapes a bright container can contain” by litbynosun.

It’s a case fic about 16k words long and set after canon. Whilst it’s not the main focus of the story it does delve slightly into chronic illness of wwx (the ailments of mxy’s body) and lwj (his continuous treatment of his scars) which might cover a few requests in the IITMF posts in future.

Thanks again for all the hard work you do! ~ @dulachodladh

the shapes a bright container can contain

by litbynosun

M, 17k, wangxian

Summary: "Lan Zhan, look at this," Wei Wuxian calls. "They don't have organs, but they're all… fuzzy."

He gently strokes the corpse's arm -- it's covered in soft, pigmentless downy hair, like a rabbit. Lan Wangji crouches next to him and nods. "Lanugo," he says. Wei Wuxian raises one eyebrow. "They were malnourished for quite a while before death," Lan Wangji elaborates. Wei Wuxian scans the bodies again. Indeed, they both have sunken cheeks, and their abdomens are empty of both organs and fat padding. “That’s a question,” he says. “Did they starve to death, and have their bodies desecrated after they were already deceased? Or were they murdered, and simply starving at the same time?” "We should stay," Lan Wangji tells him. This is not an answer to his question. It is an offer to search for answers.

Or: Wei Wuxian and his family solve a ghost haunting. Wei Wuxain's old enemy, societal injustice, rears its head again.

#follower rec #wangxian fic rec #I HAVEN'T READ THESE YET #wangxian #mdzs

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sincerelystranger · 3 years

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not enough 5

Wei Wuxian proves himself to be good.

Good and kind and diligent.

And like his father, his goodness breaks Jiang Fengmian’s heart.

“They saved me, uncle,” he says, his eyes dark and wide and desperate. “The only mark against them is that they are Wens. They’ve never killed or hurt anyone. I can’t – What the Jin’s are doing is not justice.”

Jiang Fengmian can’t do anything but look back at him.

They’re in the cursed Burial Mounds, a group of Wen’s shiver behind Wei Wuxian. All of them, hiding behind this young boy as if he can save them.

Jiang Fengmian wants to hate them, but he sees too much of himself in them. He’s no better than them, after all. He’s been looking for salvation in Wei Wuxian for years.

“This will make you an enemy out of the entire cultivation world,” Jiang Cheng snarls angrily, stepping forward to grab Wei Wuxian’s arm and shake it. “They already talk ill of your cultivation. You protecting the Wen’s… Wei Wuxian… Our sect cannot afford to protect them.”

“That’s why I will protect them,” Wei Wuxian replies seriously, “Tell everyone that my actions are mine alone – that the Yunmeng Jiang do not approve.”

Jiang Cheng turns to him. “Father – tell him!” he says desperately, “Tell him he cannot do this!”

Wei Wuxian turns his head to look at him as well.

“Wen Ning is the only reason I was able to get you and Yu-Furan out that night, uncle,” he says softly, “If for that reason alone, I cannot abandon them.”

This is the first time Wei Wuxian has really stood up against Jiang Fengmian, and it breaks Jiang Fengmian’s heart that it is to defend his honor.

If only they weren’t Wens.

If they were from any other family, Jiang Fengmian would happily protect them for the rest of their lives.

But his son is right.

And his wife is right.

And Wei Wuxian is right.

“We can’t protect you, A-Xian,” Jiang Fengmian says softly, and his voice comes out surprisingly even, even as his heart crumbles in his chest. “Is this really what you choose?”

Wei Wuxian stares at him for a long while before he nods solemnly. A stray tear falls down his face and Jiang Fengmian turns before he sees any more fall.

“Father,” Jiang Cheng calls out desperately, “You can’t let him – father!”

“With this decision, you are no longer part of the Yunmeng Jiang Sect,” Jiang Fengmian says calmly. “You are no longer under our protection and we will no longer claim you.”

He doesn’t know if Wei Wuxian replies or not, because walks away.

Jiang Cheng catches up to him when he’s already more than halfway down the mountain. “Father,” he says desperately, and Jiang Fengmian can already tell by the sound of his voice that his son is crying. “A-Xian – Wei Wuxian, he’s just – he’s just—“

“Hush,” Jiang Fengmian says not slowing down at all. If he stops now. If he stumbles even just one step. He knows that he will run back there and drag Wei Wuxian back to Lotus Pier. He knows this. So he can’t stop.

“Please father,” Jiang Cheng sobs, “You can’t throw A-Xian away like this. Look around you – a person cannot survive here. You’re sentencing him to death. Please—“

“This is Wei Wuxian’s decision!” Jiang Fengmian shouts, his eyes looking forward, his back straight and his steps steady.

“But he’ll die,” Jiang Cheng sobs, “Why won’t you save him? Don’t you care?”

I do love him, Jiang Fengmian thinks numbly. It’s because I love him that I cannot save him.

That boy. That poor boy. He never had a choice anyway.

From the moment Jiang Fengmian found him on the street, Wei Wuxian was destined to ruin himself for him.

He was just like his father after all.

---

His wife is surprisingly furious with him.

“You should have dragged him back here by his hair if you had to,” she seethes, Zidian crackling on her fist.

“He would not leave without the remaining Wens,” Jiang Fengmian explains calmly, “I did as much as I could.”

“Then you should have brought the Wens along as well,” she snaps back.

Her reply shocks him.

“You know as well as I do that bringing them back is not an option,” he says.

She scoffs at his answer. “Why? Are you so afraid of those arrogant old men and their gossip?”

“It’s more than gossip,” he says, “Protecting the Wens would mark us as traitors.”

“Protecting old women and children would mark us traitors?” his wife asks sarcastically. “How cowardly you are.”

“Do you not care of how our sect is spoken about?” he asks, his voice rising with his temper. He had expected this from Jiang Cheng but from his wife? He had secretly thought she would be delighted to finally be rid of Wei Wuxian.

“If I cared how we were spoken about, I would not have let that orphan live with us for so many years,” she yells back.

Her answer silences him. It makes him sit back on his seat and just look at her.

She’s strange, his wife. And just when he thinks he knows her… she…

But then again, Jiang Fengmian has always been a fool.

His problem is that he always thinks he knows.

He sighs deeply and lowers his head in defeat. “I cannot bring him back now,” he says tiredly, “His separation from our sect is already common knowledge.”

“You’re an old fool,” she says, her mouth turning down in disgust. “Without a sect, everyone in the world will be after that talisman of his. With your cowardice, you’ve sentenced all of them to a miserable end.”

“If you’re right, then I’ve just saved our sect from certain annihilation,” he says, rubbing his eyes tiredly.

He’s not sure anymore what the right thing to do was.

He had been sure when he was on Burial Mounds, but now…

“I do not understand you,” she says coldly. “Once you were prepared to jeopardize all of us to save him. Now, you send him off like a sheep for slaughter. Has your sentimental love for his mother finally come to an end?”

Jiang Fengmian stands and walks out of the room, unable to stand his wife’s words any longer.

I just wanted to free him, Jiang Fengmian thinks desperately.

But maybe he’s lying to himself.

Maybe.

Maybe Jiang Fengmian had just wanted to free himself.

---

They call him the Yiling Patriarch.

Wei Wuxian becomes the topic of many fearsome tales. They claim that he is half man and half demon. They say that he can kill a thousand men with one note from his flute. They say he performs dark magic with the Wens on the cursed Burial Mounds.

People speak endlessly about him and Jiang Fengmian finds that he just… misses him.

Not even just his face or the way he reminds him of the man he lost.

Jiang Fengmian finds that he just misses Wei Wuxian.

Time passes and things seemingly start to settle down and Jiang Fengmian begins to think that perhaps his decision to let Wei Wuxian part from his sect wasn’t the death sentence his wife and Jiang Cheng made it up to be.

Maybe… Maybe for once, Jiang Fengmian has made the right choice.

He finds solace in the thought.

He knows Jiang Cheng goes up to the Burial Mounds every so often. He thinks he’s being sneaky about it, but Jiang Cheng is just as subtle as his mother – which is to say not at all.

Jiang Fengmian turns a blind eye to it and comforts himself with the knowledge that if Wei Wuxian were really in trouble, Jiang Cheng would say something to him.

It’s an odd feeling, but he feels that Jiang Cheng has outgrown him somehow.

At one point, he had believed Jiang Cheng to be too much like him. Unable to love correctly and always hurting the person who least deserved it.

Now…

Now Jiang Cheng doesn’t seem to be like him at all.

“He’ll be a much better sect leader than me,” Jiang Fengmian says to his wife.

His wife turns her head to watch Jiang Cheng. He’s training disciples in the main courtyard. “At the very least, he will be more decisive than you,” she says.

Jiang Fengmian watches her watch her son. It’s hard to remember why he always thought her so indifferent. So cold.

He knows now that there is an inferno that she keeps tightly trapped inside.

She loves so fiercely that it scares her to let it out.

He’s sorry that it took him twenty years to realize it.

“I’m glad he is so much like you,” he says softly, and the truth of it weighs heavily on his chest.

She doesn’t react to his words, but she lowers her eyes and he can tell she’s touched.

“Old age has made you soft,” she says after some time.

Maybe before, Jiang Fengmian would hear the coldness in her words, but now all he can hear is the affection.

It’s strange how things change.

---

His daughter gets married.

She’s stunning in her wedding attire and her smile is bright enough to light up all of Lanling.

Jiang Fengmian had been uncertain about her marriage at first – the last thing he wanted to do was curse her to an unhappy marriage – but looking at how Jin Zixuan dotes on her, he feels safe enough to send her to Lanling…

…And after Jiang Cheng’s long ‘talk’ with Jin Zixuan, Jiang Fengmian feels rather confident that Jin Zixuan will not be like his father.

His wife has a rare smile on her lips during the wedding celebrations.

“If you hadn’t stupidly broken up their betrothal, they would have gotten married much sooner and we might be grandparents by now,” she says, but her tone is too happy for her words to have any real sting.

“I think this may have worked out better,” Jiang Fengmian replies easily with a smile of his own. “A little hardship is good fuel for a man’s love.”

His wife rolls her eyes and huffs a laugh. “Perhaps that is where I went wrong,” she says, “I was too easy.”

Her words are a sharp jab at Jiang Fengmian’s heart.

He knows that their marriage has been a cold one. A meeting of two people unwilling to understand one another.

He often thinks that if they had met under different circumstances, they may… well it might have never been love, but they would not have hurt each other as they did.

Because… he understands now that he hurt her too.

He reaches over and puts his hand over hers.

She doesn’t look at him, but he can tell that she’s surprised by the way she freezes.

“The best a parent can hope for is a better life for their children,” he says softly. “You’ve raised her well, and for that she will have a better marriage than ours.”

His wife blinks rapidly and turns her head slowly to look at him. Her eyes are wide and deep and they look surprisingly vulnerable on her stoic face.

He gives her a soft smile. “But I don’t think our marriage is too bad, either,” he says, and he squeezes her hand in his.

She turns her face away quickly and does not reply.

She’s quiet for the rest of the banquet.

But she doesn’t remove her hand from his.

#mdzs #the untamed #jiang fengmian #yu ziyuan #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #sincerely: not enough

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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

Note

Prompt: JZX is more politically aware, but mostly lonely. When he learns that JGY is his younger brother he's determined to be a good dage. His only examples however, are LXC, who hes not sure is human, WWX who- just- NO, and NMJ, who despite being his sworn brother seems to HATE JGY? So hes on his own. It can't be that hard right? Getting his mom to stop beating JGY is a good start, maybe helping catch up in training? (JGY is about to get so much awkward affection, it mightsave everything.)

ao3

When Jin Zixuan heard for the first time that his father was acknowledging one of his (many) bastards, bringing him home to be recognized as the Jin-er-gongzi, his first reaction was not, as his mother expected, overwhelming rage and disappointment, the way it was for her.

In fact, it was mostly delight – delight, and fear.

He’d known from a young age that he was never going to get any siblings from his mother, and while he’d known in a vague sort of way that his father as a notorious philanderer with bastards aplenty, it hadn’t ever been relevant to his life on account of the fact that none of them were ever acknowledged. He’d assumed that it would always be that way, and for the first twenty years of his life, it was.

Until now.

He was going to have a brother – no, worse. He was going to bea brother, a big brother; that was a position that came with responsibilities. He had to be a good role model, a teacher of all things good and righteous and proper, but also needed to care for them and take care of them – it was, to be perfectly honest, a brand new experience. Through some trick of fate, Jin Zixuan was among the youngest of his cousins and cohorts of his peers; there was something of an age gap between him and the next set of shidi in his sect, and anyway he’d never been expected to care for his shidi in a parental sort of manner – the Jin sect was too concerned with class to allow such closeness without a blood tie to excuse it.

So he was starting, essentially, from scratch.

It might’ve been smoother and more straightforward if he’d met his brother immediately, fresh from the battlefield where all such divisions were blurred and vague; they could have been shield-brothers, that way, and Jin Zixuan might not know much about brothers, but he had fought in a war and knew that much. But his father had whisked Jin Guangyao (and why was it ‘Guangyao’ instead of ‘Ziyao’?) away immediately, insisting that he needed his help with setting up the Phoenix Mountain hunt, so they hadn’t had a chance to meet at that stage. Jin Zixuan realized, of course, that organizing the Phoenix Mountain hunt was a big deal and, probably, a way for his father to show that he trusted his newest son, so he stepped back and kept to himself…well, mostly.

There was that incident with Jiang Yanli.

Either way, though, he didn’t have a chance to get to know Jin Guangyao until they were both back at Jinlin Tower, where the strict rules of etiquette and formality reigned supreme, and when they did Jin Guangyao was perfectly polite and gracious and incredibly fake. It was then that Jin Zixuan realized that he really, truly had no idea how to connect with another person if they weren’t making just about all the effort, and furthermore started to worry that he was being a bad big brother.

Naturally, this called for research.

“Yes, dear,” A-Li said, hiccupping with laughter. She’d agreed to walk in the gardens with him again, and since they were engaged now they could even be left alone – in fact, they were left alone a bit more often than they probably ought to be, which was likely his mother’s hint that children would be better obtained sooner rather than later and little things like marriage dates oughtn’t get in the way of that. “That makes perfect sense. Lots of research. Studious, serious research. What else could you possibly do?”

“You’re laughing at me,” Jin Zixuan said suspiciously. “Definitely at and not with. Have I done something wrong?”

“Not at all! I think it’s quite charming that you think this is the most straightforward way to bond with someone, instead of, say, just going and talking to the person directly – really charming. Delightful. Really! Don’t mind me one bit.” She wiped her eyes. “Now, tell me, who are you planning on talking with first for your ‘research’? Chifeng-zun?”

“No, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Jin Zixuan said. “I mean, I also thought about him first, since his younger brother is a half-brother as well, but they’ve known each other for ages and ages, haven’t they? Chifeng-zun all but raised his younger brother – he’s more of a parent than a brother! And, well, you know, A-Yao and him…”

“They don’t really get along,” Jiang Yanli agreed. “You’re right, he’s probably not the best person to ask. Who else, then? Zewu-jun?”

“I don’t think I could live up to his example even if he sat down and advised me on how to do it,” Jin Zixuan said sincerely. “I mean, he’s just – you know? He’s perfect.”

“Too perfect,” Jiang Yanli agreed, and that was why he loved her quite so desperately. “Almost like a painting – nice to admire from afar, but a little lifeless up close…anyway, you wouldn’t want Jin-er-gongzi to end up like Hanguang-jun, would you?”

Jin Zixuan most certainly did not want an overly rule-abiding, stiff-faced disciplinarian as a younger brother. No thanks!

“So he’s out,” Jiang Yanli mused. “Who else is left?”

Jin Zixuan coughed. “Meaning no offense,” he said. “But, uh…I don’t think it’d be appropriate…”

“Oh, no, definitely don’t use A-Xian as a role model!” Jiang Yanli appeared mildly alarmed at the thought. “He and A-Cheng love each other, but things were always a little complicated – no, definitely don’t do that.”

Jin Zixuan exhaled in relief: crisis averted.

“Is there anyone else you might ask? I don’t think I know any others of your peers that are older siblings.”

“Not in the Great Sects, no. But anyway, I was thinking…well, I don’t know if it’s a good idea or not –” He wasn’t exactly a strategic genius. “But I was thinking of approaching it from the other direction.”

“Oh?”

“A good older brother is judged primarily by the younger brother, right? If you’re a good older brother on paper but your younger brother hates you, there’s no point. So I was going to ask the younger brothers and see what it was about their older brothers that they liked.”

“An interesting strategy,” Jiang Yanli said.

Jin Zixuan frowned. ‘Interesting’ might be the word most often used when he proposed plans, but it usually didn’t actually mean that the other side agreed with the plan. Certainly Chifeng-zun had said several times that several of his proposed battle tactics were ‘interesting’ and he’d never even once used a single one of them. “What’s wrong with the idea?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing…it’s only…”

“Only what?”

“Think about who you’d be asking,” Jiang Yanli said. “What would Nie-gongzi be likely to say?”

“…probably that a good older brother is one that indulges all his whims, never makes him do anything, and buys him stuff.” Jin Zixuan grimaced. “A-Yao is far too talented for such treatment; he’d think I was being condescending and treating him like a child.”

“Mm, likely yes, I’m afraid. And A-Cheng would probably clam up immediately, refuse to answer, and then, if you did manage to get it out of him, say that a good older brother would be one that was there all the time doing his job.”

“But A-Yao already does his job! If anything, he’s overlyconscientious about it!”

“Exactly.”

“And the only other one to ask is Lan Wangji,” Jin Zixuan realized. “And he won’t say anything at all, because he’s a lump of rock that doesn’t speak!”

Jiang Yanli snorted. It sounded involuntary, distinctly resembled the sound of a pig, and she looked momentarily shocked that the sound had come from her, so he pretended not to notice.

“I’m doomed,” he moaned. “I don’t know how I’m going to do this…A-Li, you must have some other suggestion!”

“Well, I might have one,” she said, and he looked eagerly at her. “It involves you actually having a conversation with A-Yao, though.”

“Oh, well, that’s sure to fail,” Jin Zixuan said, and now she was laughing again. “I mean it!”

“We’ll think of something, I’m sure,” she said, giggling. “Don’t worry. With both of us on the task, I’m sure we’ll get things in proper shape!”

#mdzs #jin zixuan #jiang yanli #my fic #my fics

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aiyexayen · 3 years

Text

The ChengXian/WangXian parallel gifsets about the sad boat rides with Wen Ning made me think, once again, about how Wei Ying was worried about being the Jiang Cheng in his relationship with Lan Zhan.

Wei Ying just had so few models of relationship, and only two real models of a serious relationship involving himself--Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli. He saw himself as a caretaker in each of them.

Even Jiang Yanli, ultimately, though there was certainly more give and take there. He only accepted a very specific kind of caretaking from her, though, and we see how fraught that was in the way Yu-furen shamed Jiang Yanli for it.

But Jiang Cheng was the most complicated. He and Wei Ying were the Yunmeng Shuangjie. Twin Heroes. Both of them strong male cultivators. Their relationship was such a carefully orchestrated imbalance. Wei Ying had to take care of Jiang Cheng even to the point of making sure Jiang Cheng didn’t feel taken care of. He was stronger, but he had to make sure Jiang Cheng didn’t feel weaker.

And at the same time, he had to be able to have his best friend and brother and navigate the lines of teasing and boasting that came with those dynamics and also with his natural brash and outgoing and free-spirited personality. It’s not something that weighed particularly heavy on him until later on, of course; it’s just How Things Were.

But Lan Zhan being Wei Ying's true equal was a heady taste of something new, something he was desperate for.

Someone he didn’t have to take care of in all those tricky, sticky ways. Someone who could understand him from the outside. That equality between them--of swords and strength and wit--formed so much of their early relationship. The ways Wei Ying and Lan Zhan excelled differently weren’t seen as anything but surface-level differences, cultivation styles. They could choose to take care of each other on their own (like in the Xuanwu cave) but there were no expectations except that which they set for themselves.

The best cohesive example I can think of is the situation at Dafan Mountain. Jiang Cheng has taken off after Wei Ying, to come and find his troublemaking brother and bring him home, ostensibly being the one to wrangle and care for his brother and best friend and someday-second. But as soon as he finds them, Wei Ying is clearly the one in charge. Jiang Cheng gets locked into a shield barrier, given a verbal half-teasing pat on the head, and left behind. Wei Ying goes off with Lan Zhan to find the source of the problems and their new level of partnership is beautifully put on display through their fight (other things happen in that fight, too, but that’s another post).

Jiang Cheng was never allowed to truly take care of Wei Ying. His parents never let him. Wei Ying never let him. He tried, all the time, most of all when he gave himself up to the Wen soldiers. But even that was immediately undone, turned back around on him.

Wei Ying never figured out how to attain any semblance of true equilibrium in his relationship with Jiang Cheng, even after everything at Lotus Pier, especially after everything at Lotus Pier, either before or after the core transfer. Maybe if he had, things would have been different. Maybe if he had, he wouldn’t have sacrificed his core to begin with.

It’s debatable how much Wei Ying expected to keep living after his core was gone. It’s even more debatable how much he really thought about anything past his own desperation in the moment, about all the promises broken with that single act, about how that would affect his relationship with anyone else. That doesn’t seem like a very Wei Ying thing to sit and think about.

Regardless, once the core was gone, he and Lan Zhan weren't equals. It messed up his relationship with Jiang Cheng, too, of course. The resentful energy was its own kind of strength but it couldn’t make up the difference in any way that counted. It just complicated everything by a thousand times and added in all kinds of new problems.

Even though Jiang Cheng had his core and Wei Ying had nothing but the tortured screams of the lost and vengeful echoing in his head, Wei Ying was still the caretaker there.

Don’t let Jiang Cheng find out the secret. Don’t let Lan Zhan become embroiled in it or expose the secret. Make sure Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli and Lotus Pier are okay. Lift Jiang Cheng up as a leader. Win the war. Apparently still be alive welp didn’t see that coming. Protect them all. Even if it means leaving.

But as much as he scrambled for strengths and leaned on his demonic cultivation he was still weak. Able to wipe out entire outposts of Wen agents yet repeatedly brought to a point where Lan Zhan could kill him easily and we know that the only way he could hope to match him would be to use this dangerous thing that's eating his soul, so shit could really get out of hand. Which wasn't really winning in the end. Demonic cultivation for him in general wasn’t strength so much as carefully-applied weakness.

Not to mention his reputation. They got so far off-balance where reputation and social standing was concerned.

Wei Ying’s merits had been contentious throughout his life--on the one hand, they're all he had to elevate himself beyond the need for the Jiangs' charity, or anyone's charity, as his status as family was so fraught and inconsistent. Being the best made all of that a moot point as much as it could be. And it also made him able to take care of said family, fulfilling all manner of "repay debt" vibes and "I'm obsessed with justice and protection" vibes.

On the other hand, they were definitely part of what made things so difficult with Jiang Cheng. Wei Ying’s reputation outclassing Jiang Cheng’s as a prodigy, a swordsman, a hero, even as he balanced it out by getting a simultaneous reputation for goofing off and being irresponsible. He did his best to make them complementary even though they were never really allowed to be.

But Jiang Cheng said it himself when he visited Wei Ying at the Burial Mounds--as soon as he started walking a different path, all of his merits and his skills and his reputation were turned upside down and used to make him a more effective villain.

So suddenly he didn’t even have any good social standing. He was mistrusted and then hated and reviled. On a number of levels, he could handle that, because it was more important to him that everyone who wasn’t him was okay. But it put him at complete odds with the great Hanguang-Jun, which was definitely something he made a point of noting more than once so we know it really, really mattered to him.

And that knowledge crept further and further in, between the war ending, things going back to some semblance of normal when he...couldn’t, and eventually him ending up in the Burial Mounds.

It was inevitable. He was the weaker one between himself and Lan Zhan, in every possible way. He knew of only one way that could go down.

It's a fear that got tangled up along with the rest of his paranoias, insecurities, traumas, resolutions, and twisted certainties pre-timeskip. On top of that, he lost a central piece of his identity and had no idea how to replace it.

If he isn't himself, who else can he be? Who else might he turn into? Someone who needs to be taken care of? Someone who might have his agency circumvented by a stronger person who thinks he knows better?

He sure did that to Jiang Cheng, and he never really had to own up to that piece of it. He never really regretted it either but he also sure didn't want to be on the other end of it.

Aside from that, Wei Ying just didn't know how to not be the strongest person. Being equal is the closest he’d ever come. He's never been allowed to be weak and taken care of unless he's play-acting and isn't that fucking heartbreaking? Fuck.

So who is he without that?

He still fought with the strengths he had and pretended to have the rest of them. And in one last great act of being the protector and caretaker, ran off to the Burial Mounds.

We do get to see Wei Ying and Lan Zhan working in tandem to bring back Wen Ning, and even though Wei Ying stumbles at the end (for the first time ever, I think, into Lan Zhan’s arms?), he does it successfully. They’re still able to work together, in spite of everything that’s happened, especially when Wei Ying is leaning into his actual talents. Even if Wei Ying’s weakness is still looming over his shoulder, as we see later.

Being with the Wens, living a simple life, leaning into his strengths, being part of a community and family, taking time to work on his scholarly/inventor hobbies, all this served to calm a lot of those fears and also conveniently take Wei Ying out of the scenarios and away from the relationships that caused them. It offered him tentative new pieces of identity to grab.

But then, of course, he lost that, too.

Post-timeskip, Wei Ying is thrust right back into a world where he has to finally face those issues. Whether you take it as he still has no core, or he has Mo Xuanyu’s really weak core, he’s not doing so great where that’s concerned.

He still has strengths. We’re not actually shown any indications that this man is weak at any point, not truly. He has a better grasp on the situation at Mo Manor than all of those precious Lan babies put together.

But we are shown that he uses a bunch of hands-on crafty tricks, talismans and spells and such. And, interestingly, in counterpoint we’re shown Lan Zhan descending from the heavens with his qin. Wei Ying doesn’t use a dizi here yet (let alone sword), and Lan Zhan doesn’t use Bichen. I do think that’s lovely.

However, Lan Zhan is still incredibly strong, in more ways than just physically: his reputation is strong, his presence is strong, his confidence is high, his mastery of the qin is unparalleled, he’s had sixteen more years to grow up and develop his golden core.

From the framing, and Wei Ying’s reactions, and the Lan juniors’ reactions, it’s pretty clear that’s the impression Wei Ying has. There’s an imbalance between them (along with alllll the other reasons he might have to want to stay away from/keep Lan Zhan out of things). He doesn’t see them as complementary, just as not-the-same.

He meets Jiang Cheng next and, hey, Jiang Cheng is actually really strong now, too (also he always was but meh). Again, Wei Ying uses his tricks to outwit and outmaneuver the situation at hand. Again, he’s struck by the impressive image of someone entering the scene like a badass.

And what a deliciously awful carousel of conflicting feelings. Pride? Despair? Longing? Love? Annoyance? Delight? Relief? Pain? Fear?

But as far as strength goes, clearly Jiang Cheng has it in buckets, now. Which means even if they still had a relationship, Jiang Cheng surely wouldn't even be the Jiang Cheng in it anymore. What a horrible realisation.

It can’t be helped much by the fact that Wei Ying almost lets himself get run through and Lan Zhan enters the scene to fucking save him. Even if it’s from the kid we know he just bested.

And that’s the back and forth we see at first. Wei Ying proving his strength and his character but the framing and his reactions proving that he’s still caught in the idea that Lan Zhan is stronger and better than him.

Lan Zhan is beloved. Lan Zhan is strong. Lan Zhan would never accidentally murder people he loved more than life itself. (OKay I won’t get into that but tell me he didn’t think that at any point I dare you)

He accepts it and plays it off as not a big deal, but it clearly is. In his rare serious moments, we see that.

So post-timeskip, Wei Ying has to figure out who he is and then how he can be said person. A significant part of the character and relationship development post-timeskip is about that.

He once again finds himself exploring uncharted territory of building relationship dynamics he’s never experienced with Lan Zhan. It started because he realised they were equals. It can’t develop further until he acknowledges that they still are.

He figures out how to be weak with Lan Zhan first, that it's safe and allowed and okay. There’s nothing wrong with being taken care of. It doesn’t have to define him and it doesn’t have to be about agency or about all the twisty psychological junk that was all wrapped up in his familial relationships at all.

Then he figures out that he still has the capacity to take care of someone like Lan Zhan back, that he’s still able to be needed, and not just someone to follow around and protect.

Wei Ying has strengths, strengths that were always there and always part of him as well as new ways he's grown and changed. He’s an inventor, he’s a genius, he’s a prodigy, he has his talismans and his music and his people skills and his teaching ability and his empathy and his heart.

All this definitely comes to a head on the steps of Jinlintai, by which point it feels like one of the only remaining imbalances that Wei Ying feels so keenly is their status, which of course Lan Zhan snuffs out utterly romantically.

It’s even more poignant that that moment comes right after Wei Ying gets Suibian back. And he's not nearly as good with it--Lan Zhan has to protect him multiple times in that fight and then of course he gets stabbed. But the point is still made, that he was still able to fight, and even his failures with the sword just drive home that this isn't who he is now. And that's okay.

By the time they're at the Burial Mounds again, Wei Ying has accepted the way they work as a team and that they can be complementary. And they fight flawlessly.

I love that growth for him.

He absolutely ends up being the Jiang Cheng, in a number of ways. He runs after Lan Zhan when he’s drunk to keep him out of trouble. He ends up left behind to take care of defenseless people while Lan Zhan runs off and has an epic sword fight in an evil fog bank.

He has to be taken from Lotus Pier, unconscious, in a boat, and is held so preciously in Lan Zhan’s arms.

But. Turns out it’s not so bad when the person you’re being Jiang Cheng for isn’t Wei Ying.

I swear this is not throwing shade at Wei Ying.

But he figures out, slowly, how to actually have a relationship built on even ground, as equals, in spite of being unequal in all the ways he used to think mattered. And he only manages it with someone once he’s on the weaker side of it.

I just think that’s super interesting.

And I think it sets a precedent for Wei Ying to understand the flaws in his old dynamic with Jiang Cheng. Especially once there aren’t secrets between them.

Everything has to change, anyway. Everything has already changed, almost two decades ago, and it isn’t going back. It can’t ever go back. Everything they were to each other was bound up in Jiang Yanli’s presence, in promises long broken, in dreams long dead, in a future that has already proved to not be real. In the old Lotus Pier, a lot of it, since they never really moved on from that, either, even back then.

Jiang Cheng has grown up. He’s raised a kid. He’s raised and trained disciples. He’s been a sect leader for over a decade and a half. He’s been to other people what he never could be to Wei Ying.

He’s also proven that he still wants his brother to fix things, still expects him to be able to. Still wants to fight, still knows how to cry. Still acknowledges fragmented pieces of their lost dynamic. Probably more of the healthy ones than Wei Ying ever has, too.

Jiang Cheng still, even in the wake of learning about the golden core, even after everything he’s built and has become, acknowledges Wei Ying as a strong person. As someone as strong as he is, if not stronger in many ways. As having the capacity of an older brother.

But then, Jiang Cheng was always able to conceptualise a world where he and Wei Ying were equals, complementary if not evenly matched, just as much as Lan Zhan was.

It wasn’t a fantasy that Wei Ying indulged him in. It was a reality that Wei Ying himself didn’t know how to accept and kept at a distance, carefully juggling too many separate parts of a whole he couldn’t allow to come together until they all crashed down.

But he’s been on the other side of it now and maybe it’s enough. Maybe he can take what he’s learned in building/rebuilding his relationship with Lan Zhan and apply it to other people. Especially Jiang Cheng.

And maybe Jiang Cheng has been a sect leader and an uncle long enough to not let Wei Ying get away with shit.

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