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#jin ling's goddamn uncles
sugarbunbie · 1 year
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Ten First Lines Game
Saw this among my followed tags and was soo intrigued! Feel free to also play with this if you see it.
Rules: post the first sentence of your last ten fics. If you haven’t written ten fics, share as many first-sentences as you have.
Jin Ling, westernized name Kevin, had many, many uncles. the curse of the kevins, MDZS/CQL, gen
Lan Wangji walks sedately towards the Jingshi, a tray laden with food in his arms. softer eyes on a softer world, MDZS/CQL, Wangxian
Wei Ying is, objectively, having a good time at college. Am I Gay? Questions to Ask Yourself, MDZS/CQL, Wangxian
In the summer, Xichen leaves for university in Beijing. wildflowers in autumn, MDZS/CQL, Wangxian
The phone rings, tinny and persistent by his bedside table. midnight love, MDZS/CQL, Sangxian (WWX/NHS)
In the years after Wei Wuxian’s death, the ghost of him follows Jiang Cheng around. for years and years, MDZS/CQL, vaguely Chengxian
Pete doesn’t remember how the brawl started. i'll promise you impossible things, Kinnporsche, Vegaspete
There is something about mornings that is quiet and peaceful and fuzzy around the edges. like the edge of a blade, Kinnporsche, Vegaspete
Sleep has never come easily to Eddy. in the ribs of the singer, Twoset Violin RPF, Breddy
It was five in the morning, and Eddy was awake for no goddamned reason. Prelude to Love, Twoset Violin RPF, Breddy
Well, that was a fun activity lol. Most of my fics seem to start with either a setting + mood, or a character doing something. The thing is though, in "wildflowers in autumn" Xichen isn't even there for most of it, which I find absolutely hilarious because Xichen both starts and ends the fic in a borderline hero's journey that you only hear about through his absence in the fic :D
Just goes to show there isn't any one way to start a fic I guess! Super grateful to have the chance to show off some of my more recent babies, which I think deserve more love 🥺 surprise of surprises, I don't singularly write for wangxian even though it feels like it sometimes :D
Let me know which lines were your favourite/were most intriguing for you! Happy reading <3
Oh right almost forgot to tag! @elliekayy @marsdiogenes @nattyontherun @sparkly-butthole-on-ao3
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llycaons · 5 months
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ep50 (1/4): endings, partings and reunions
ough we made it. okay first of all it is my professional (ha) opinion that this series has better impact if watched within a span of ~2 months and not 7-8 months. really allows the emotional payoff to be that much fresher in the mind. next time I rewatch, I'm going to have to set aside solid chunks of time and then really commit to not liveblogging. last time I only liveblogged text reactions, which did cut down on time. but it might be impossible to refrain. it's just more fun this way!
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oh man the look of utter betrayal here. jgy always, always trusted lxc. he's in disbelief - how did this happen?
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oh I love this little monologue. so juicy
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another parallel!!! see: wwx saying 'lan wangji, oh lan wangji' on the steps of carp tower. there is was wwx ruefully accepting lwj's support, here it's jgy bitterly commiserating what's left of his relationship with lxc in the wake of a shock of betrayal
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I actually believe that he means that. it's not true, because he harmed lxc's close friend using the techniques lxc himself taught him, but I think he believes it nonetheless. he never would have physically attacked lxc
...or maybe he's lying again! this guy is just so hard to read
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bro you murdered his friend...
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well jgy drags them both back to release nmj's spirit so what was that, jgy?
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wwx stopping lwj from doing dangerous shit is actually a pretty solid part of their dynamic now. wish more authors incorporated it into their characterizations
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okay so I think it's a test. will lxc actually strike the killing blow?
and...he doesn't. he can't. he's unable to strike jgy down and free himself. and jgy sees this, and I think that last gesture of humanity, of love even, is what he wanted.
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so off he sends lxc, to live without him
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god he is so fucking dramatic.
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actually based on that look...maybe he was a little in love with him after all. maybe this was the last and kindest thing he did for him
very true to form that it consisted of 'put his life in danger, demand proof that he loves you, then send him to safety. from danger you put him in' this guy is such a piece of work
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jc here looks GUTTED bc of jl's pain. goddamn
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ohhh look how they're crammed into the corner with the rest of the shot all desolate
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zhijis, baby. but it took wwx and lwj years to get there NOT counting the years wwx was dead which would be unfair because they couldn't work on their relationship!!!
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oh god this shot too. he looks so alone
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lqr is so funny. 'no running!' I saw you hustling up here old man. you love your nephews you hypocrite
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ah, of course everyone gets flocked by loved ones. jc by his disciples, lwj by his uncle, wwx by...is that fucking. oyzz? he's a sweet kid but that's a little random
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ohhh boy tense brotherly staring
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I love jin ling so much I really do. I think the reason he's so much more compelling to me than lsz is that he has really bad habits, and he can't control his emotional reactions. he screams, he runs away, he cries really loudly, he threatens. but despite his anger and his fear, despite going through a horribly traumatic night, he sends his dog away because wwx is afraid of her. he puts someone else's need before his own, and he acts against his own impulses because he cares about someone else and wants them to be okay. and I appreciate the effort that takes, and the love that shines through even a prickly and touchy exterior
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ohhh wwx watching jc leave. very weighted look. this is the last time he sees jc in canon. he smiles a bit, but doesn't talk. what's there to say? I can only hope the temple events sink in after a while and they awkwardly resume at least talking
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well, there's always lwj to stare soulfully at
I've noticed this episode that wwx breaks out the 🥺 a lot more with lwj than I'd expect, compared to the smiles. I like that - wwx enjoys fun, but with lwj he also gets gravitas and sincerity, which i think he needs in his life bouncing around and pretending like things just shake off him
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aw man, meng shi!! she was cast perfectly with this young meng yao. she deserved better than the destruction of her burial site, as it's implied nhs does in the novel
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AWW YEAH BLOOD ON THE HANDS. and UNSCRIPTED BABY
I feel like this is going to be the cql version of 'aragorn broke three toes when kicking the orc's helmet'
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and this dead-eyed look when walking away...well if you dedicate a decade to revenge and then you do it, now what?
I never particularly cared about the answer. there's nothing preventing nhs from living in luxury and power for the rest of his life, making new friends and indulging every one of his interests. sure, it's sad his only family is dead, but I really think he'll be okay. nhs's emotional fulfillment rank a little lower on my priority list than 'wen ning being able to live in a community' or 'lxc being able to e=leave seclusion' or 'lsz rediscovering his heritage' or 'xxc and a-qing's souls' or I'll say it even 'wwx and lwj's freedom to have mindblowing gay sex'
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drwcn · 3 years
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Idk how to phrase this question but. We make jokes about jin ling and his bazillion uncles but! would jin ling think of it as of having bazillion uncles, given how in chinese he has different words for each kind of uncle?
What ppl don't understand is that as an Asian kid, we ALL have a bijillion uncles, especially if your dad has like a lot of close guy friends. Because that's just how we refer to older men. Not Mr. So and So. It's Uncle so and so. But we only see our actual uncles as uncles (unless there are special circumstances), as in those that are blood related to us, or in CQL's case, if Jin Zixuan had sworn brothers (which he doesn't).
So no, Jin Ling having a gazillion uncles is purely fanon. There's no canon evidence to support that people like Nie Huaisang or Lan Xichen even had anything remotely close to a familial relationship with Jin Ling.
Prior to WWX's ressurrection, Jin Ling had 3 biological uncles: Jin Guangyao, Mo Xuanyu and Jiang Cheng. And he only saw only two of them as his actual uncles. He calls Mo Xuanyu "that crazy guy". His attitude towards MXY also lacks the fundamental respect a kid would show to someone he considers family and his senior. Yes he's mouthy to Jiang Cheng but that's bc kids can be bratty to their parental figure. Jin Ling wasn't being bratty to MXY, he straight up doesn't really respect him. Note that he calls Jin Guangyao "xiao-shushu", meaning little uncle. This technically implies that there's no other younger paternal uncles after Jin Guangyao, at least in Jin Ling's mind. So even while MXY is literally Jin Ling's uncle, he doesn't see him as such.
Who your uncles are is determined by your mother's brothers and your father's brothers. That's why WWX would be considered Jin Ling's uncle. He sees himself as Jin Ling's uncle and Jin Ling as his nephew. This is hinged on his relation with Jin Ling's mother, Jiang Yanli, and not hinged on WWX's relationship with Jin Ling's uncle Jiang Cheng. Because WWX and JYL see each other as siblings, that makes WWX Jin Ling's uncle. LWJ is ONLY Jin Ling's uncle after he marries WWX and really even then, only in the technical sense of the word. I doubt Jin Ling sees him as an Uncle figure.
If Jin Zixuan had sworn brothers of his own, they would also be uncles of Jin Ling.
This uncle relationship does not extend to Nie Mingue, Lan Xichen, and Nie Huaisang. The logic "my uncle's brothers are my uncles" only works when your uncle's brothers are also your father's brothers. The bottom line SHOULD BE my father's (or mother's) brothers are my uncles. Jin Zixuan did not see LXC, NMJ or NHS as his brothers so no, they would not be Jin Ling's uncle. Unless they had a huge hand in raising him and he formed personal attachments to them, which never happened as far as I could tell, it would be odd for Jin Ling to think of them as any kind of real uncle. (Maaaayyybe LXC would potentially be an Uncle if he was around Jinlintai a lot, or if JGY treats LXC like a spouse and therefore would be Jin Ling's uncle by marriage like LWJ would be, but again, this is fanon.)
It's fun but it's... that's all that is. Fun.
The craziest is when ppl consider Wen Ning Jin Ling uncle. Like.... How?
Jin Ling's actual 5 uncles: Jin Guangyao, Mo Xuanyu, Jiang Cheng, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji (by marriage.)
5 uncles is not a lot.
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carry-a-world · 4 years
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Kites Adrift
Sidestepping a stray arrow, Jiang Cheng wonders how Jiang FengMian ever managed to teach him and Wei WuXian how to shoot a bow.
In his memories they demanded instruction—nagging and whining until the only way to shut them up was to take them down to the hill. They were young then, perhaps even younger than Jin Ling is now.
Looking at Jin Ling, that doesn’t even seem possible. His tiny arms can barely draw the bow back, and they shake like leaves with the effort.
“Jiujiu, I can’t,” he sniffs, and Jiang Cheng knows that he’s got at best a minute before Jin Ling starts crying. The ground is already littered with spent arrows and Jin Ling’s increasing frustration.
“Shhhh, A-Ling. I will help you,” Jiang Cheng soothes, because for all of his tough love, he still hates to see his nephew cry.
The kite string is safely anchored to a rock, so Jiang Cheng kneels beside Jin Ling. With one hand he holds Jin Ling’s extended wrist steady, and with the other he helps him draw the bow back.
It bends under his strength—it’s a child’s bow after all—lacking the weight of the bow Jiang Cheng normally shoots. Jin Ling immediately stops sniffling.
“Now aim,” Jiang Cheng says, gently correcting the angle as Jin Ling determinedly keeps his eyes on the kite. “On the count of three we let go. One… two… three!”
Even Jiang Cheng is surprised that it hits, barely snagging the bottom-most corner of the kite.
“Jiujiu!” Jin Ling shrieks in delight, practically deafening Jiang Cheng. “Jiujiu I did it!”
He’s all pomp and confidence now, boasts falling easily off his lips. If Jiang Cheng closed his eyes right—let himself slip into the past—Jin Ling’s words could easily be Wei WuXian’s.
Jiang Cheng doesn’t remember what Wei WuXian’s voice sounds like anymore—it’s lost alongside his parents’ and Jiang YanLi’s voices. He should be able to remember, and he hates himself for letting them slip away.
“Jiujiu? Why are you crying?” Jin Ling asks, leaning close to peer at Jiang Cheng’s face.
He’s not crying, barely a drop of moisture has collected in either eye. It feels like he’s crying, though. It’s felt like that for years. Were he prone to metaphors and high-minded thinking, he might say that he’s a kite himself—and Jin Ling is holding the string.
“Let’s shoot another,” he says instead of answering.
Jin Ling puffs his cheeks up and throws himself into Jiang Cheng’s steady arms. “Jiujiu doesn’t like shooting kites.”
“I do like shooting kites,” Jiang Cheng retorts, wrangling the squirmy child.
Jin Ling makes a disbelieving noise, his perpetually sticky fingers leaving marks on Jiang Cheng’s robe. It’s frankly ridiculous that Jiang Cheng has to argue with a pipsqueak.
He growls in Jin Ling’s ear, “I’m going to shoot kites, and you’re going to see that I like it.”
“Are you going to hit them? I can hit them,” Jin Ling says smugly.
Jiang Cheng reminds himself that he loves his nephew very much and that hanging him upside down by his ankle would probably be frowned upon. “Go get the kite we shot, A-Ling.”
Jin Ling trots off gleefully, and Jiang Cheng thinks that maybe if he makes enough new memories, the old ones might cease to haunt him. Lotus Pier is, as always, too familiar and too strange.
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heavymetalchemist · 3 years
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I think it’s easy to forget that Wei Wuxian is strongly villain-coded. We see the story from his perspective, we know his reasons and justifications, if you’re watching CQL and paying attention you can figure out the core transfer before the reveal. We know that Wen Qing and Wen Ning are good guys. We know that the Burial Mounds gang is a bunch of tired uncle/aunts trying to grow some stupid radishes, a four year old, and the Disaster Bi Gang (none of whom have swords, even!) We know that Wei Wuxian has his heart in the right place, that he feels an incredibly strong debt to the Wen Siblings and by extension their remaining family, that he has no golden core and has no choice but to forsake the sword and cultivate the demonic path, that he defects from the Jiang sect in a fake fight with his brother so that the Jiang sect won’t suffer the consequences of his actions, even though they have Secret Soup later.
But if you’re not us, the audience? If you’re, for example, Sect Leader Yao?
Hey did you all hear about how Wei Wuxian got kicked out of the Cloud Recesses for violently lashing out at the Jin sect heir?
Hey did you all see how he doesn’t carry his sword any more and claims it’s because he’s so badass that he doesn’t need it? And he has that Stygian tiger seal, so maybe it’s not bullshit? Can you even fight against that with a sword?
What kind of power does this guy even have? He’s a teenager! He drinks all the time and he’s moody and surly and holy shit did you hear what he did at that Wen outpost? He tortured all of them to death! Ugly stuff, man. Gruesome way to go. Maybe even worse than what Wen Ruohan did, at least a hot poker doesn’t make you claw your own eyes out.
Oh shit, he just stormed into this banquet and just SAID “if I want to kill someone who can stop me” and he still has that tiger seal I think we should be worried???
He just busted a bunch of Wen cultivators out of prison! And then he ran off to the Burial Mounds??? And his sect leader didn’t even know anything about it? Is he going rogue? Is he starting an uprising? This demonic cultivation stuff really seems to be corrupting him!
Oh man he got kicked out of the Jiang sect? You mean even the man he grew up with, who he was raised with practically as a brother, can’t control him any more? Did you hear about his fierce corpse? They call him the Ghost General! He’s unstoppable! What are we going to do if he comes for us?
He could be building a whole army in there, Sect Leader Jin said so! Who knows what kind of sick, twisted stuff he’s getting up to! Don’t forget all that horrible shit in the Sunshot Campaign, remember when he was raising the Wens’ own dead to turn against them? He could do that to us! He’s working with the Wens now, even! He’s gone totally crazy!
We can’t let some outlaw have all this power. It’s putting the safety of all of us at risk. What if it’s just another Wen Ruohan waiting to happen? (especially applicable if you’re thinking he’s using Yin iron as in CQL!) If we let him consolidate his power too much, then he’ll be unstoppable!
HOLY SHIT he murdered the Jin sect heir and his cousin with his fierce corpse! That’s the man his former shijie married! The one he punched in the Cloud Recesses, remember when the Lans kicked him out because he was so unruly and disrespectful? Yeah! It was probably revenge! Have we done anything to him? Oh gods what if we’re next???
A major point of MDZS/CQL is how important reputation is, and how that affects everything. Wei Wuxian’s reputation is straight-up villainous. We, the audience, know that he’s trying his best, that he’s a traumatized teenager with a shitload of emotional baggage trying to do the right thing and repay a colossal debt, that he’s made choices that he now has to try and live with, etc. But to the rest of the world this guy has fucking lost it, he’s gone off the deep end and he has an incredibly powerful weapon and a mode of cultivation that seems to corrupt you and turn you into a monster, and frankly, they’re not wrong! It does affect his temperament and he does end up killing a lot of people and he is out of control!
MDZS/CQL is interesting precisely because we’re getting an entire Villain Apology Story. A long time ago I read a post by someone on here saying they find Jiang Cheng challenging to write about because he’s the protagonist of a different story, and he really is. He’s the guy whose former shixiong turns into a villain in pursuit of power, the Obi-Wan to WWX’s Anakin, the one who sees how incredible power corrupts and is obligated to fight against it. Having to fight against a former ally who was seduced by “the dark side” (in this case, demonic cultivation) is a story that gets told over and over, but always condemning the one who went to the dark side. He’s the blackened protagonist, the aren’t you tired of being nice, don’t you want to go ape shit power fantasy, where we as the audience can justify his actions because we know he did it to save his brother, his sister, the Wen remnants he owes a debt to. He isolates himself from the people who love him to protect them, he refuses Lan Wangji’s help because he’s convinced he just wants to lock him up and stop him from using demonic cultivation because he’s a righteous upstanding Lan (totally unaware of LWJ’s intense crush, obviously). He jokes about it but he knows he’s being painted as the villain, and he’s in denial about how much that will affect him, because after all… he’s the Yiling Laozu, and he knows his power. But so does everyone else, and they’re rightfully terrified!
And yet? When he comes back, LWJ still wants him, still cares for him, will move heaven and earth to protect him. JC cares about him so much he’s having a Constant Crisis about it. And WWX has not forgotten his shijie or shidi, immediately cares about Jin Ling, and still is the man who really just wanted to be free and grow some goddamn radishes. He accepts that he paid for what he’s done with his death, and just wants to start over.
It just drives me nuts when people pretend like WWX was an angel who did nothing wrong because the whole POINT is that he was a villain-coded gay (well, bi) and the man you had to really watch out for was the polite, thoughtful, soft-spoken one that worked his way up from a tragic backstory. It’s a whole subversion and it’s awesome!
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difeisheng · 3 years
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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!
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winepresswrath · 2 years
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okay but what jiang cheng is attempting the impossible by trying to get some goddamned peace and quiet for once in his life. and everybody calls it “seclusion” because they’re too embarrassed to say they can’t actually run anything without him. and jin ling finally admits that he got thirty-seven letters from his uncle. uh. this week. thirty-seven this week. look. all I’m saying is we are fandom. we can make even the most bizarre narrative choices do our bidding.
I definitely think we can make it work if we want to, and I'm sure I'll really enjoy a lot of fan works that engage with the premise, but I also think we can just ignore it? I'm sure there are donghua mains who have stronger feelings about it, but for me it's an adaptation of the thing that inspired the story I'm actually most fanish about, so what I really want is still fic about Jiang Cheng regularly and canonically getting loud in the cloud recesses.
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darkandstormyart · 3 years
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Xicheng fic recs
(figured i might make a list of my own)
(to be expanded as i dig out more treasure/remember stuff)
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in no particular order:
Deep as the Yearning Night by FreckledStarKnight
“At first, it was pure chance. The second time was accidental. And the third time? Well, they say the third time’s the charm, after all. Lan Xichen discovers that Jiang Wanyin sings beautifully and is immediately enamored by it. His pursuit of Jiang Wanyin’s secret talent leads to a discovery and a series of events that he did not anticipate at all. Not that he’s complaining, of course. He got what he came for and more. Or, how two sect leaders get together through the song called love. CQL-verse.“
post-seclusion lxc
trying to get jc to sing
bonus lxc & jin ling feels i hadn’t considered before
cute
Always use protection by hesselives
“In which Lan Wangji attempts to hire a new bodyguard for his older brother, a well-known traveling exorcist. Jiang Wanyin doesn’t even make his carefully considered list of Top Ten Candidates, and yet here he is.
Lots of wandering in the countryside, distant yelling, and mildly inconvenient spirits.”
bodyguard au
honestly just really intersting worldbuilding
Rewrite the stars by Arashii
“Five great kingdoms have been fighting for years and when the kingdom of Yunmeng is destroyed, the Crown Prince Jiang Cheng vanishes.In Gusu, Lan Xichen makes an offer impossible for Jiang Cheng to refuse. His life or revenge? There’s only one option and Jiang Cheng swears loyalty to the man he hated the most his whole life, the Crown Prince of Gusu, Lan Xichen himself.Written for XiChengFest2020 - Day 4“
ROYALTY AU ROYALTY AU
enemies to lovers!
flashbacks! i love flashbacks so much ohmygod
No paths are bound by Arashii
“In seclusion, Lan Huan has the support of a ghost no one has seen since the massacre of Yunmeng Jiang. His feelings start changing with the often visits and conversations they share. Before Lan Huan can confess though, he ascends, leaving everything and everyone behind him.
Two hundred years later, back to the Human Realm and without powers, the Martial God Zewu-Jun has a mission to uphold. His Heavenly Calamity started. The clues are little and the support comes in the most unexpected form, the current Ghost King: Sandu Shengshou. Now they need to stick together to contain a menace that is slowly growing.“
TGCF AU TGCF AU
ghost king jiang cheng come on
doesn’t follow tgcf plot, just the setup so no spoilers
jiang cheng gets the dogs and the xichen he deserves
once upon a dream by cafedeolla
“Xicheng soulmate AU
An au where your dreams are small snippets of your soulmate’s day. They’d show small things like buying coffee, reading a book, or hanging out with people from their perspective.
The problem was that people always have expectations and Jiang Cheng knows he always falls short of them. Time and time again.“
soulmate au, but being soulmates is more a problem than a solution
misunderstandingssss all over the place
now with a squel (in progress?)
Lan Furen series by jagaimocchi
“Jiang Cheng leaves Lotus Pier before the Wen Internment Camp and before the destruction of his home. When he meets Lan Xichen on the run from the Wens after the burning of Cloud Recesses, his plan to live a peaceful life away from cultivation sects is quickly derailed. Now, free to make his own choices, he cannot find it in himself to leave the other man's side.
With love, patience and time, Jiang Cheng finds his own happiness and peace with his past.“
have you ever wanted a fic where jiang cheng peaces out from home in search for a better life, bc he’s Had Enough??? jags got you covered
adorable xicheng
good uncle-dad-figure Lan Qiren
ongoing <3
Just around the riverbend by JungleJelly
“One day.
Jiang Cheng just wanted one day of peace and quiet, away from home, away from his responsibilities, away from his idiot brother and his nutcases of a mother and father. Just a few hours alone — him and a boat and nothing else.
Clearly, that was too much to ask for.”
now with a new story in the series which is adorable too!!!
mermaid!lxc need i say more?
Bad ideas (where they lead) by JungleJelly
“Jiang Cheng is a busy man. Fortunately, he is also a huge pushover when it comes to his sister, so when she recommends that he start doing yoga, he agrees pretty easily.Featuring Lan Xichen in yoga pants, Jiang Cheng’s inability to handle a crush, and, perhaps most importantly, a big fluffy dog.“
done for 2020 MXTX MiniBang
yoga instructor Lan Xichen
Jiang Cheng is: struggling with a crush on the yoga guy from youtube & very angry about that
If there’s a price for rotten judgement by TheWanderingHeart
“All Jiang Cheng wants to do is, well... his job, really. Other than that? Keep the city safe, keep his nephew alive, keep his sanity intact (if possible).
So when his brother calls with unexpected news, he knows all of that is about to fly out of the window.
***
[Every instinct is telling him don’t ask, you don’t want to know. By this point, Nie HuaiSang has scooted closer to listen. Jiang Cheng takes a steadying breath and pulls out his antacids. “What did you do?”]”
superhero au, come on
jc just trying to do his job in peace
(he can’t)
i love it so much oh my god *sobs*
The Form of Boneless Ice by TheWanderingHeart
“Mythical beasts have long ago been driven to extinction by the gentry — hunted for sport, but more importantly for their magical cores. Since then, there remains only one creature that has never been caught. The Jiang’s retreated a long time ago. Abandoning land altogether, they sought safety where the humans could not reach.It all comes to a head though, purely by chance. (Or is it by fate that a spontaneous decision allows for them to meet? If fate were a rock!) Jiang Cheng suddenly finds his whole life balanced on the head of a pin — on the flimsy promise of a human boy. In his opinion, things cannot possibly get worse!(But then they do when the Wens decide it’s finally time to search for the elusive merpeople, and suddenly nowhere is safe.)“
there she goes again, with another beautiful xicheng story full of awwww and mythology
actually one of the first xicheng fics i read
i chose it because there were mermaids
painfully accurate takes on Jiang family dynamics
kids! lots of kids!
Let me Slytherin to Your Heart by TheWanderingHeart
“Jiang Cheng never thought he'd return to Hogwarts, but in hindsight, he probably should have known that someday he would.With his nephew about to start school, he reluctantly takes his good friend's bad parenting? career? advice and ends up tumbling head-first back into the madness that he hoped he'd left behind... and rediscovering some feelings he thought he'd left behind too.“
Harry Potter au!
just really fecking cute
lots of snakes
[I am not going to link all of Jo’s fics, though I probably could, just my 3 favourites. UOSB is there by default]
Talent Hunt Crew Finds Angry Guy Shouting On College Campus, Recruits Him For Vocal Projection Abilities by oh_fudgecakes
“Jiang Cheng, resident Angry Guy and heir to a conglomerate empire, has never been the apple of his father’s eye. Quashed under the shadow of his brilliant brother, the music prodigy Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng sees his chance to turn things around when he is recruited by the All-Stars Lan Talent Hunt. One problem: he can’t sing to save his goddamn life.As he struggles to develop his nascent singing abilities, Jiang Cheng finds himself sucked into the whirlwind drama of reality TV, helped along by his adoring siblings, his irritable vocal coach Wen Qing, and strangely enough, the unfairly attractive host of the All-Stars Lan Talent Hunt, Lan Xichen. Somewhere in the glare of the stage lights and an unexpected first love, Jiang Cheng stumbles upon the thing he was searching for all along: the courage to dream — and to attempt the impossible.“
done for 2019 MXTX Big Bang
uuuuuuuuuuh i might have cried maybe
heartwarming? painful at times? lots of family love?
slowburn xicheng being lovely
The Provenence of Hope series by velithya
“A chance meeting on a night hunt sets a course of events into motion that will change everything. Featuring Xicheng getting together, recovery for Lan Xichen, healing for Jiang Cheng, and always, always, hope.“
got everything. feels. hope. love. ~~healing~~
A Small Measure of Peace by Sandstone112
“With his brother in seclusion, Lan Xichen finds himself in temporary custody of his nephew with little to no expertise in the child-raising department. Uncertain and alone, Zewu-Jun is willing to do everything to be the person Yuan needs—even if it means inviting Sandu Shengshou to a playdate.“
a loooot of adorable family times with jc and lxc taking care of their nephews
good grandpa lqr!
canon but fixed and less painful
🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋if you wish to avoid scurvy:🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋
Some day I’m gonna make you mine series by locketofyourhair
xicheng getting together through the years
friends with benefits but the real benefits are the friends we made along the way
Take me over (take me tonight) by velithya
jiang cheng has a tattoo and lan xichen doesn’t stand a chance
i'd be the sweet feeling of release (mankind now dreams of) by piyo13
two bros, chilling in a cave, no feet apart because they don’t want to lose their cultivation powers what are you gonna do
haven’t read yet and shame on me, but AM GONNA:
Upon Our Silver Bridge by TheWanderingHeart obviously
““When the path ignites a soul, there's no remaining in place. The foot touches ground, but not for long.” ― Hakim Sanai
**
Lan Xichen's sorrows have caught the attention of something. Unlike the adventures and foes they have faced before, there is no obvious enemy here to defeat. If this is the same thing they thought had taken Nie Mingjue's life, then he believes it is fated for him to die as well. Nothing can stop the black fire when it wants to burn.Jiang Cheng is sure his part in this is over. Wei Wuxian is back, his grand adventure concluded, and he'd never been at the centre of it anyway. So what does it matter what happens to him in the end? Slowly, he will come to realise that there will always be a battle to fight, a story to tell, a choice to make, and there is no such thing as an end to anything.“
it was difficult to do things in 2020 and few i regret not doing more than not reading uosb yet :’(
i will tho
Emergency Help Wanted by piyo13
“EMERGENCY HELP WANTED I lied when I got my job. I told them I had a kid so I could leave early from work to pick him up from daycare, take him to doctor's appointments, and occasionally miss a day when he's sick. Long story short, I'm in too deep. I didn't think it through. Looking to rent a kid for bring your child to work day. Must be a boy ages four to six, longish dark hair, likes soccer. Must also be artistic as the macaroni noodle paintings I made seem a little advanced for his age. Also, I will pay extra for someone willing to play the role of husband when dropping him off. He's a prosecuting attorney who often brings his work home. Message me for further details. Serious inquiries only.“
Running Our Hands Through Embers by MarvelousMar
“If asked, Jiang Cheng would compare falling in love with Lan Xichen to a moth inevitably drawn to a flame.It burned.***In which Jiang Cheng discovers that even death can't help him escape from his trauma, so he embarks on a quest to save the people he loves, fix what he can, make the love of his life fall for him, and maybe, somewhere along the way, do a little bit of healing.”
The Beginner’s Guide to Moving On by InvincibleMel
gone from ao3, but i think there’s a link with a pdf going around
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sincerelystranger · 3 years
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authors note: jin ling and his uncles get drunk and find out why JC was blacklisted by all female cultivators
---
It doesn’t happen every month, and it’s not like planned or anything, but every couple of months, with no rhyme or reason, both of Jin Ling’s uncles will come to Koi Tower at the same time.
Jiang Cheng comes armed with Yunmeng wine and weak excuses as to why he’s suddenly shown up and Wei Wuxian will come with a crate of Emperor’s Smile and no excuse at all – just a huge smile and a hug and stupid words like: “I missed you!”
Jin Ling doesn’t really say anything when they suddenly show up like this. He just orders the kitchen to bring out two bottles of Lanling wine and to prepare uncle Jiang’s favorite assortment of nuts and uncle Wei’s preferred dried and spiced sliced brisket
When all of his orders are prepared and Jin Ling and his uncles are sat around the table in Jin Ling’s room, they place all the bottles of alcohol on the table and proceed to get rip roaring drunk.
It shouldn’t be a good time – it really shouldn’t. Jiang Cheng is ornery on the best of days, and alcohol does not mellow him out, like, at all, and drunk Wei Wuxian only gets (if possible) more annoying, and Jin Ling usually spends more than half the night just mediating between his two uncles, but…
But Jin Ling looks forward to these nights more than he’d ever care to admit.
Because even though most nights, Jin Ling ends up having to act as a physical barrier between his two uncles so they don’t kill each other (or more so that Jiang Cheng doesn’t kill Wei Wuxian), there are some nights like these…
Nights where they’re all laid out on the floor, staring dizzily up at the ceiling, just…
Just enjoying each other’s company.
It’s… nice.
“This is nice,” Jin Ling says, feeling warm and dizzy and a little fuzzy around the edges.
“Mm, yeah,” Wei Wuxian sighs above him, or maybe next to him – Jin Ling can’t really tell.
“What’s so nice about laying on the floor?” Jiang Cheng scoffs – but he’s laid out on the floor too so Jin Ling doesn’t really understand what he means.
“Understanding the niceness of laying on the floor is one of the things you’ll have to learn if you ever want to reach nirvana, Jiang Cheng,” Wei Wuxian says sagely.
“As if you even know what nirvana means,” Jiang Cheng grumbles.
Jin Ling doesn’t know what nirvana means, but he understands the niceness of laying on the floor. The floor is solid and real underneath him. Grounding him when the world around him is jiggling like acorn jelly.
“I know what nirvana means,” Wei Wuxian answers haughtily, “I know a lot of things.”
“Shut up – you know jack shit,” Jiang Cheng says, but there’s no real venom in his voice so Jin Ling doesn’t move. Jiang Cheng probably won’t attack Wei Wuxian tonight.
Probably.
“I know a whole lot,” Wei Wuxian mumbles petulantly.
Jin Ling can hear him move then, the hurried rustle of his robes sounding louder with his ear to the floor.
“I know a whole lot, but there is something I don’t know,” Wei Wuxian says, his voice playful.
Uh oh.
A playful Wei Wuxian does not mean good news.
“Tell me Jiang Cheng… Why have you been blacklisted by all female cultivators?”
Suddenly the room is quiet.
Still.
Jin Ling doesn’t think he’s even breathing.
He waits for Jiang Cheng’s inevitable anger. He waits for the shouting, the screaming, the crackle of Zidian…
He waits.
And he waits…
But…
“I don’t know,” Jiang Cheng finally answers, “I went to meetings with three different cultivators and after that I was suddenly blacklisted.”
“You don’t know?” Wei Wuxian asks incredulously, “You really don’t know? How did the meetings go? Did they go well?”
Jiang Cheng snorts. “No, they didn’t go well!” he answers, “But I don’t think it was my fault – the ladies were strange!”
“Strange?” Wei Wuxian asks, “Strange how?”
“Well the first lady didn’t stop eating the entire duration of our meeting. It was obvious that she hadn’t been taught correct meeting manners so I corrected her – but maybe that embarrassed her because she left in a huff.”
“What did you tell her?” Wei Wuxian asks, and he’s definitely stifling a laugh.
“I just told her that no man would want to marry her after seeing the size of her appetite – I mean, imagine the cost!”
Oh gods…
“And the second lady?” Wei Wuxian squeaks out.
“She talked the entire meeting! Barely stopped to take a breath!”
“Oh, so you didn’t get to say anything to her, then?”
“Of course not! Barely got to say hello,” Jiang Cheng pauses then, “Well, I did ask her if she was related to Wen Chao, because he’s the only other person I’ve ever met who could talk about themselves for so long.”
Jin Ling can feel the floor shake with Wei Wuxian’s stifled laughter.
He’s still caught somewhere between humor and horror. How can his uncle be so clueless?
“I guess she took offense to that,” Jiang Cheng continues, “because she dumped her cup of tea on me as she left. Very rude lady.”
“And the third?” Wei Wuxian asks, and his voice comes out in a pained squeal.
“Oh, she was the worst,” Jiang Cheng says, “I didn’t even want to meet her – she begged the match maker to set up a meeting with me! But when I finally meet her, her face is caked with powder and her lips are so red they look like the center of an archery board!”
Don’t laugh, Jin Ling tells himself, Jiang Cheng will be upset if you laugh.
Don’t laugh.
“So I tell her to be careful because our disciples might get confused and try to shoot her – I was just looking out for her, right? Well, for some reason, that made her cry and run straight out of Lotus Pier. And after that, I was banned.”
Don’t.
Laugh.
“Jiang Cheng!” Wei Wuxian exclaims and he’s laughing so hard he can barely talk. He’s laughing so hard that his laugh comes out in these long wheezes. “Jiang ---- Cheng!!”
Jiang Cheng is still besides Jin Ling, and Jin Ling is trying his damned best to keep his laughter in, but it’s so fucking hard.
An archery board.
A goddamn archery board.
“An archery board?” Wei Wuxian asks with a wheeze, “Fucking Wen Chao?”
“Shut up,” Jiang Cheng says but his voice shakes and Jin Ling can literally feel him vibrating with held in laughter beside him.
Jiang Cheng is trying not to laugh.
His fucking uncle is trying not to laugh.
And somehow that’s what pulls Jin Ling over the edge and he has to curl into himself because his laugh is too big and powerful.
“Don’t laugh,” Jiang Cheng hisses, smacking Jin Ling on his back, but Jiang Cheng’s laughing too and Jiang Cheng telling Jin Ling not to laugh is only making him laugh harder and --
“Uncle, you’re the worst!” Jin Ling crows, actual tears of mirth streaming down his face, “The worst!”
Jin Ling can’t breathe because he’s laughing so hard and Wei Wuxian is laughing just as hard somewhere near Jin Ling’s head and Jiang Cheng is laughing too and…
And it’s so nice.
“And you don’t know why you’re blacklisted, Jiang Cheng?” Wei Wuxian asks, his voice coming out in something that sounds like sobbing, “You really don’t know?” And he falls into another fit of giggles.
“What did Uncle Jiang do wrong?” Jin Ling asks, just to be a little shit and because he just can’t. Stop. Laughing.
“Shut up,” Jiang Cheng growls, but it’s tempered by the fact that Jin Ling can literally feel him shake with laughter, “Shut up, shut up, shut up!”
Maybe Jin Ling will never reach nirvana, but he knows the niceness of laying on floors and he thinks that must be close enough.
“Stop fucking laughing!” 
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Jin Ling: If I have to do this for one more minute I'm gonna fucking kill myself
Ouyang Zizhen: brother ling!!!!
Jin Ling: what---
Lan Sizhui: there's no need for that 🥺 let us help you---
Jin Ling: that's not what i---
Lan Jingyi: baby NO
Jin Ling:
The Lan Juniors:
The Rabbits of Cloud Recesses:
The Goddamn Moon:
Jin Ling: ....what did you just call me....
Lan Jingyi: ....uh.....
Lan Sizhui, Ouyang Zizhen, the library attendant:
Tumblr media
Jin Ling: ...explain yourself.....
Lan Jingyi: ...I meant it in a mean way....
Jin Ling: ...you look like you ate my uncle's congee...
What Lan Jingyi Thinks: GOD don't ruin it, okay, i s2g i meant it in the meanest way okay we are not ready to face the sexual tension i am like 2 yrs old mentally and you are a sect leader and probably younger than me or some shit okay, i really planned to just like, harass you for a good 5 more years please i need this so---
What Lan Jingyi Says: shut up and take it you fucking fetus, you goddamn mother fucking zygote
Jin Ling:
Lan Jingyi:
Jin Ling: ...fuck, okay, calm down...
Ouyang Zizhen: Damn i am so glad we cleared that one up. Whoooooo boy. That's been uh. A long time coming, huh! Do you feel better? I feel better.
Lan Jingyi: zizhen I will put rocks in your cereal
Ouyang Zizhen: uhhhh yup moving on!
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belennui · 3 years
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we joke a lot abt Jin Ling's Uncles™️ and how goddamn many the poor kid has but please consider: Sizhui has as many, if not more uncles (at least six more on the Wen side as far as we know) and also: Jin Ling and Sizhui's uncles overlap. a shared pool of uncles. i would make a chart but i don’t quite have the attention span for it
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tanoraqui · 4 years
Text
okay so yet another MDZS/Untamed fic idea: post-canon “accidental de-aging leads to some rebuilding of the Yunmeng Bros’ relationship” fic, but instead of WWX (like I’ve seen several times) it’s Jiang Cheng who becomes Smol
it should be Wei Wuxian. It would have been Wei Wuxian, if Jiang Cheng hadn’t happened to arrive a day early for a cultivation conference at Gusu and come say hello by kicking open the door to the classroom in which Wei Wuxian was testing an experimental new array, and as he kicked open the door, Jiang Cheng saw that it was about to backfire dramatically - possibly bc he startled WWX? - and, of course, the angry shout of his brother’s name turns into a panicked one and he bodily tackles him out of the way
the magical backlash hits Jiang Cheng instead and boom. smol scowly boy. grumpy baby. actually, mostly just bewildered, and about 8 years old - old enough to be very definitely Wei Wuxian’s brother, but still Baby, u know?
no memories of later events, except maybe dreamlike slivers of moments, more memories of emotion than anything
despite some half-remembered reflexive resentment/fury/hatred he doesn’t understand, he latches himself onto Wei Wuxian like an imperious, grumpy limpet...once WWX convinces him that he in, in fact, Wei Wuxian, bc you know. Wrong body.
so the next several days are just Wei Wuxian desperately trying to fix this while bb!Jiang Cheng tags along after him. FEATURING:
bb!JC can accept that, like, if everyone his age is adults, he’s clan leader and his parents have passed away. That’s fine
but he assumes Wei Wuxian is his First Disciple, and it’s right at the beginning when he’s really freaked out so Wei Wuxian doesn’t have the heart to correct him
(also u know. fraternal yearning. maybe he can pretend just for a while...)
Lan Qiren is rude to Wei Wuxian and bb!JC just fucking lays into him
bb!JC is extremely skeptical of Lan Wangji, but willing to trust a little bit bc his brother is happy with this guy so it much be okay. Ish.
by instant unspoken universal agreement, Everyone Lies Desperately About Jiang Yanli
Jin Ling arrives for the conference and has to cope with this “baby uncle” situation somehow
Jin Ling absolutely fails to cope with this
bb!Jiang Cheng somehow slides into exactly the same relationship with Jin Ling that they have when he’s an adult
someone lets slip or bb!JC just figured out that Wei Wuxian seems to spend his life alternately at the Cloud Recesses or wandering the land. He is both confused and consternated, because why isn’t he at Lotus Pier?!? Wei Wuxian hastily lies that he spends half his time at Lotus Pier, obviously, being First Disciple yes
Jiang Cheng has only has Wei Wuxian as a brother for a couple years but it’s long enough to know that Wei Wuxian can never do anything normally, and frankly this sounds about like how he’d be happiest. begrudgingly, he’ll accept it
bb!Jiang Cheng keeps getting screaming nightmares about things that happened when he’s older, ends up crawling into bed with Wei Wuxian pretty much nightly
needless to say but Wei Wuxian being the most doting and protective shixiong to bb!JC throughout
bb!Jiang Cheng scowling while covered in rabbits
Jiang Cheng does eventually figure out that Wei Wuxian is lying about the whole First Disciple thing, and he doesn’t get the whole story but he’s FURIOUS and BETRAYED and HEARTBROKEN and probably runs away or some nonsense
dunno how he calms down from that - bunny therapy or Jin Ling or both, probably - but it’s right before they finally figure out how to re-age him. So he ends up standing in the new array (basically inverse of the first one) and glaring at Wei Wuxian and saying that even if everything did go wrong, and everyone they love is dead and it’s mostly Wei Wuxian’s fault and he’s a demonic cultivator now, married to Lan Wangji, he should still - [jutted chin, fierce 8yo scowl] - come home, because they’re brothers and that’s what brothers do.
WWX: [wuxian.exe has stopped working due a sudden influx affection and yearning for what he believes lost]
then they turn him back of course, and Wei Wuxian is hesitantly, like, “...what do you remember?” and Jiang Cheng says shortly, “Most of it” (the week of being a child again was like a dream, the sense of his own stubborn affection for Wei Wuxian is still painfully strong and as usual he wants it to go away, and even more than usual he couldn’t bear to give it up/just wishes it’d be reciprocated again.) And there’s a couple more snappy comments, the last of which Jiang Cheng says bitterly as he sweeps out, but - 
- but the combination of whatever vague bitter thing Jiang Cheng just said plus bb!Jiang Cheng’s descriptions of his nightmare-memories PLUS the memory of Jiang Cheng thoughtlessly tackling him out of the way of a magical effect of unknown-but-likely-dangerous origin, taking the hit himself...leads Wei Wuxian to suddenly be Pretty Goddamn Sure why exactly Jiang Cheng got caught by Wens and lost his core in the first place
and hand-in-hand with that, of course, the realization (supported by the past week of evidence) that Jiang Cheng...well. still loves him. didn’t stop when the Wens took Lotus Pier, didn’t stop when Jiang Yanli died, certainly didn’t stop when Wei Wuxian came back. He just shoves it under an awful lot of anger...just like he always did. The anger is more real, now, but that doesn’t mean the love isn’t/ He just still can’t ask for it
so Wei Wuxian, who’s never needed to be asked in his entire goddamn life (which is part of the problem, see: Golden Core, but in this moment a solution) shouts after him, dashes forward, slings an arm around his brother’s shoulder and clings like a particularly loud, obnoxious limpet
Jiang Cheng doesn’t shove him off particularly hard
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crithir · 2 years
Text
I’ve been thinking about the second guqin string moment from the Guanyin Temple scene since I mentioned recently being disappointed that it (both moments really) was excluded from the donghua. There are a variety of reasons why I love it so much despite how awful it is. One reason is that goddamn, JGY hiding a last resort weapon in his own flesh?? The fucking desperation of that. The sheer willpower it must have taken to do such a painful thing to himself, and the emphasis it puts on his guqin string razor sharp survival instincts. The grisly grit of it all!
The other thing I love about that moment is precisely that it’s just so awful. JGY is willing to threaten his own nephew who he does love in order to escape. It’s fucked up! It’s terrible! But it’s JGY, and I imagine that with his ability to rationalize the hell outta things he would actually have a pretty reasonable way of justifying this one to himself. I think he would be the first to admit that his main reason for doing it was for his own survival of course. He was cornered and saw an opportunity and took it, simple. But if he’d survived longer and maybe had to deal with the fallout of this particular action, had to explain (perhaps to Jin Ling) how he could do such a thing to someone he claimed to love, I imagine it would go something like this:
It was the lesser of two evils. Of course it was terrible and he was very sorry he had to do that, but imagine for a moment the alternative. Imagine that he did nothing, let himself be taken prisoner and put on trial. Who was going to speak up for him? Perhaps Jin Ling would, and in doing so would jeopardize his entire future by seeming to side with a heinous criminal, even if he never said anything that could be reasonably construed as condoning his uncle’s actions (and the jianghu at large is neither reasonable nor charitable). And even if he did speak up, what would it accomplish? Nothing. Nobody would care what he might have to say on the matter. It wouldn’t affect the inevitable outcome. Perhaps Jin Ling would stay silent, and would be forced to then bear witness to everything that was going to happen regardless, but with the added weight of having not spoken up for his beloved xiao shushu on his shoulders. Perhaps he wouldn’t even be present for the trial and subsequent execution, but wouldn’t that look like weakness in the young heir of the Jin sect? Conflicted loyalties? A mark against his character and his commitment to seeing justice served? His own morals being brought into question? That’s not good for a young heir in such a vulnerable position. Supposing he is present then. He has to watch the proceedings from start to finish, no matter how horrible. He’s forced to watch xiao shushu be executed. He’ll have to live with a gruesome memory and the grief of it for the rest of his life. Perhaps some would even go so far as to demand that the young Jin-zongzhu participate in some way or even carry out the execution himself, to prove he holds no loyalty to a criminal and is committed to upholding justice and righteousness. He’s a Jin, after all, and shouldn’t carrying out justice then be the young Jin-zongzhu’s responsibility? Imagine that. Isn’t it better then, to avoid all of that entirely? To let Jin Guangyao be the villain who would threaten his own nephew’s life in order to escape? To let Jin Ling hate him for it and free him of any guilt and grief? To let Jin Ling simply be a victim and ensure that no one could question his honor or his loyalties, to make sure he’s never put in a position where he might have to choose the security of his future over his love for his uncle? Holding a guqin string to the boy’s throat was a terrible thing, yes, but the lesser of two evils for Jin Ling’s sake.
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bloody-bee-tea · 3 years
Text
After everything is said and done
This is dedicated to that one Nie Huaisang hater out there, who takes precious time out of their day to read about a character they hate and then also leave a (sometimes detailed and insightful) comment, not only increasing hits and comments, but also showing every Sangcheng writer out there, that their writing is good enough to even keep someone interested who hates one of the characters!
I'm sure you inspired a lot of Sangcheng fics out there by now and I would like to thank you for that. I hope you enjoy this too!
Jiang Cheng thinks that he should probably stop with the pacing now.
It’s been several weeks—almost months, by now—since the events at the Temple and with every passing day it gets more unlikely that Nie Huaisang will drop by to rekindle their friendship.
Jiang Cheng doesn’t even dare to hope for anything more than friendship—and that seems wildly unlikely already—but it still stings that Nie Huaisang had called off whatever they had all those years ago without an explanation or even a face-to-face conversation.
He had just let it dwindle to nothing, no matter how hard Jiang Cheng tried to keep him, and in retrospect Jiang Cheng understands, but still.
It really goddamn hurts.
“You need to stop this,” Jin Ling suddenly says from behind Jiang Cheng and Jiang Cheng is less surprised than he probably should be that Jin Ling is here.
He’s busy taking over his own Sect, salvaging whatever reputation is left after the crimes of Jin Guangyao were revealed, but Jin Ling is almost more often at Lotus Pier than he was before.
Jiang Cheng suspects it’s to keep an eye on him and Wei Wuxian, to make sure that they actually rekindle their relationship and don’t kill themselves, but Jiang Cheng is not going to complain.
He always thought he wouldn’t get to see Jin Ling at all once he became Sect Leader and it’s great that he’s still around. That he still cares enough about Jiang Cheng to regularly come by.
“Stop what?” Jiang Cheng says, and picks right back up where he left off, mainly wearing a path into the pier right behind his sleeping quarters.
“That,” Jin Ling says with a nod to Jiang Cheng’s movement. “He’s not going to come by, you know,” Jin Ling tacks on more quietly and Jiang Cheng frowns.
“Who?”
“You damn well know who,” Jin Ling snaps out.
“Language,” Jiang Cheng says out of reflex and Jin Ling only rolls his eyes at him. “What would you know about that?” Jiang Cheng asks belatedly and Jin Ling stares out over the water.
“He’s not talking to anyone,” Jin Ling finally tells him with a whisper and it only makes the frown on Jiang Cheng’s face more pronounced. “He’s answering letters about Sect business, but he foregoes any personal matters, and he doesn’t answer letters that contain no business at all.”
“You’ve been writing him,” Jiang Cheng summarizes from that and Jin Ling nods.
He doesn’t seem too happy about it, but there’s a stubborn twist to his mouth.
“And what of it?” he dares Jiang Cheng who gives him a sad smile.
“Nothing,” Jiang Cheng reassures him. “He was almost like an honorary uncle to you. It’s understandable that you’d want to stay in contact if you can forgive him.”
“There’s nothing to forgive,” Jin Ling rushes out and then works his jaw. “He exposed Jin Guangyao’s crimes. That’s a good thing. There’s nothing he did wrong.”
Jiang Cheng doesn’t quite think the same, but he has to agree with the overall sentiment. It’s a good thing that Nie Huaisang took actions against Jin Guangyao when everyone else was too busy happily following his lead, even though Jiang Cheng doesn’t agree with all of Nie Huaisang’s actions.
Mostly the ones that put Jin Ling into danger, if Jiang Cheng is being honest, but he also knows Nie Huaisang well enough to know that he most likely did the best he could to protect him.
And since Nie Huaisang isn’t coming by and apparently not talking to anyone else either, that has to be enough.
“I think you have to make the first step,” Jiang Cheng says to Jin Ling, who clearly seems unhappy with the whole situation but it only earns a scoff from Jin Ling.
“Like you’re making the first step?” he asks and Jiang Cheng narrows his eyes at him.
“Careful, brat,” he advises but Jin Ling doesn’t seem impressed at all.
And maybe he’s right about that, too; Jiang Cheng isn’t one to make the first step when it’s important to him. He relied on Wei Wuxian to take that first step towards a reconciliation, and Wei Wuxian thankfully did so that their relationship is slowly mending.
It’s possible that Jiang Cheng used up all his luck with that though, and that it’s on him to take a first step towards Nie Huaisang now.
“But?” Jin Ling asks and Jiang Cheng sighs.
“Maybe you’re right,” he then admits and rolls his eyes when Jin Ling beams at him. “But after I’m done, it’s your turn,” he then warns him but Jin Ling is clearly too happy to listen to him at all.
“I love you, jiu-jiu,” Jin Ling says and darts in for a hug, before he skips away.
Clearly Jiang Cheng’s mood the past several weeks grated on him as well, and Jiang Cheng knows his nephew well enough to know that he wants to wait for the outcome of Jiang Cheng’s reconciliation attempt before Jin Ling tries it himself.
Jiang Cheng can’t even be mad at him; he would do the same if he had the chance, after all.
~*~*~
Jiang Cheng tries his very best to not feel like an intruder when he walks up to Qinghe but it’s a lost cause.
People are staring at him left and right and Jiang Cheng’s skin crawls with it because he can’t quite decipher if they are hostile looks or friendly ones.
He’s hoping for the last of course, but you never know with the Nie’s.
Jiang Cheng tenses when someone approaches him, but he returns the bow he receives.
“Sect Leader Jiang,” the Nie soldier says and Jiang Cheng raises an eyebrow. “Please, let me introduce myself, my name is Nie Yahui, I’m Sect Leader Nie’s personal assistant. Please tell me you’re here to see him,” he adds in a rush and Jiang Cheng relaxes.
So they were friendly looks, then. It seems like Nie Huaisang’s disciples are just as worried about Nie Huaisang as Jiang Cheng himself is.
“I am,” Jiang Cheng reassures him and Nie Yahui let’s out a visible breath.
“Then please follow me,” he says and briskly starts to walk away.
Jiang Cheng follows him, wondering what state Nie Huaisang will be in when he finally sees him and he can’t deny that his heart is beating faster.
He knows it’s stupid to hope for anything, but these past few years Jiang Cheng only hurt when he thought about Nie Huaisang, thinking he stopped whatever they had or were on the brink of because he didn’t feel the same.
Now there’s hope that Nie Huaisang pulled away because of his plan and not because of a lack of feelings.
“He’s in there,” Nie Yahui tells Jiang Cheng when they reached what looks like private quarters so Jiang Cheng gives Nie Yahui a questioning look.
“It doesn’t matter. He’s not going to hold an audience for you—or anyone, for that matter—and if we have to ambush him here like this, then so be it,” he decides and Jiang Cheng has to admit he likes him.
“Thank you,” he tells Nie Yahui and then simply throws the door open.
He sees Nie Huaisang startle, but Jiang Cheng is by no means done, so he slams the door behind him and turns towards Nie Huaisang with a glare.
“You asshole,” he hisses and simply seats himself at the table, not waiting for Nie Huaisang’s permission. “I want alcohol,” Jiang Cheng decides when he thinks it takes Nie Huaisang too long to react and that, finally, startles Nie Huaisang into movement.
He gets out the alcohol on reflex it seems, before everything seems to catch up on him, and before he puts the jar on the table he stops and frowns.
“What are you doing here?” he then asks and he looks painfully unsure of himself.
Jiang Cheng can’t deny that he built up this image in his head over the last few weeks, of a cunning and vicious Nie Huaisang, but this more than anything reminds Jiang Cheng of the fact that this is still just Nie Huaisang.
Nothing much changed after all.
“Alcohol first,” Jiang Cheng decides and simply plucks the jar out of Nie Huaisang’s hands. “Talking about feelings later.”
Nie Huaisang huffs out a laugh at that, and he seats himself opposite of Jiang Cheng, who is already pouring them both a cup.
They drink in silence, until Jiang Cheng thinks that both of them had enough time to gather their wits, and then he very decidedly puts the cup down.
Nie Huaisang startles and his hand flexes as if he wants to reach for his fan, but Jiang Cheng is glad that it’s out of reach for now. He doesn’t like to hold this conversation with Nie Huaisang while he has a chance to hide himself away.
“You didn’t write,” Jiang Cheng starts with. “And you didn’t visit. And here I thought now that everything is said and done, we could be friends again.”
It doesn’t come easy to him to say that, but he wants this to work and he learned from Wei Wuxian that sometimes reconciliations are painful as hell.
Jiang Cheng thinks it might be a good thing.
“I didn’t think you’d want to,” Nie Huaisang admits and Jiang Cheng scoffs.
“Yeah, but you also didn’t ask, asshole,” he shoots back and then sighs. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” Nie Huaisang is quick to reassure him. “I promise, I’m not doing anything!”
Jiang Cheng frowns at that.
“Did someone insist you want more power?” he asks and Nie Huaisang flinches.
“Wei-xiong might have indicated something like this,” he then admits and Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes.
“Because he’s afraid that you’ll go after his precious husband. It has nothing to do with you directly. His brain just stops working when it comes to Lan Wangji.”
That startles a laugh out of Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng feels very accomplished.
If he still knows Nie Huaisang like this, maybe not all is lost yet.
“You haven’t been talking to anyone?” Jiang Cheng asks next, Jin Ling’s words still in his ears and Nie Huaisang shrugs.
“I didn’t expect anyone to still want to talk to me,” he easily says, but Jiang Cheng can see the tension in his body. “I mean san-ge is dead, and rightfully so, but er-ge won’t ever look at me again and Lan-xiong won’t simply because I hurt his brother. Wei-xiong is more concerned about his husband than any kind of reconciliation we could have and Jin Ling has every reason to hate me. And you—” he trails off and Jiang Cheng groans.
“Well, first of all, Lan Xichen is not looking at anyone, since he went into seclusion, so stop throwing yourself a pity-party over that, because you’re not special. Second, Lan Wangji is not too happy with you—as is Wei Wuxian—because they didn’t expect you to be behind it all. You fooled them quite thoroughly and it will take them a while to get over that. And Jin Ling would love to talk to you, but he says you’re blocking off all attempts.”
“Because I wouldn’t put it past him to only pretend to be nice and then murder me in my sleep,” Nie Huaisang says, his eyes wide and his look innocent and Jiang Cheng narrows his eyes at him.
“Drop the act,” he whispers and Nie Huaisang sags.
“You know, not everything I do is an act,” he bitterly says, and Jiang Cheng’s heart constricts at the pain in his voice.
“I know that,” he tries to reassure him. “But you also know Jin Ling. So tell me the real reason.”
Nie Huaisang looks at him for long moments, before he sighs.
“I fear he’s going to regret it in the end. That he’ll feel guilty over trying to forgive me later.”
“He’s not trying to forgive you because he thinks there’s nothing to forgive,” Jiang Cheng quietly tells him, his last conversation with Jin Ling still present in his mind. “He knows Jin Guangyao deserved it, and it probably helps that he was there to see him in the end,” Jiang Cheng adds, even though he would have loved to see Jin Ling far, far away from that.
“I didn’t mean for him to get hurt.”
“I know,” Jiang Cheng says and stares down at the table.
“What about you?” Nie Huaisang finally asks and he sounds just as apprehensive as Jiang Cheng feels.
“I thought you would write once everything was over and you didn’t have to pretend to not feel anything for me anymore,” Jiang Cheng says before he can think better of it, but the silence that follows is deafening.
So maybe he did read everything wrong. Maybe there wasn’t a deeper reason to Nie Huaisang pulling away; maybe he simply got tired of Jiang Cheng after all.
“Never mind that, then,” Jiang Cheng forces himself to say and he empties his cup. “I’ll take my leave then.”
“I didn’t think you’d forgive me,” Nie Huaisang confesses and Jiang Cheng freezes in his movement. “We were about to become something and then I simply dropped you. It not easily forgiven, and especially not with your history.”
“Fuck you,” Jiang Cheng spits out and he throws a murderous glare at Nie Huaisang. “Yes, it hurt like hell when it happened, and it hurt like hell the years after. But now there’s a reason for it, and it doesn’t make it okay, but it makes it understandable.”
“But is that enough?” Nie Huaisang whispers.
“That depends,” Jiang Cheng says. “Did you have reasons?”
“Of course I did!” Nie Huaisang immediately says. “I would have told you, but you can’t pretend long-term, you’re just not the type for that, and you would have told him, if only so that he didn’t take Jin Ling away from you completely. So not telling you was the better option.”
Jiang Cheng mulls that over for a moment, because he figured as much, but he’s still lacking an important piece of information.
“Did you regret it? Did it hurt you?” he wants to know and he knows himself well enough to know that Nie Huaisang’s answer to this will determine if they can go forward with this.
Even if it is just as friends. Jiang Cheng would still like that; he misses having friends.
“I don’t regret it, because it was necessary to avenge da-ge,” Nie Huaisang whispers and he can’t meet Jiang Cheng’s eyes. “But it does hurt. I loved you and I would have liked for us to be more than what we were.”
Ah, and there it is. It’s all past, apparently, and only Jiang Cheng’s stupid heart keeps clinging to something that is no longer possible.
“I see,” he whispers and tries his best to drown his breaking heart in more alcohol.
He knew it was stupid to hope for anything when he went into this, but he still wasn’t prepared for how much it actually hurts to hear that Nie Huaisang doesn’t love him anymore.
It’s not a surprise, if Jiang Cheng is being honest; it’s been years and they are both changed people, and yet Jiang Cheng can’t stop hoping that at least their friendship is salvageable if the other thing so clearly isn’t.
“And what now?” Jiang Cheng forces himself to ask, but he realizes his mistake when Nie Huaisang answers.
“We don’t really know each other anymore,” Nie Huaisang reluctantly says and Jiang Cheng curses himself, because he didn’t mean that.
But before he can correct himself, Nie Huaisang goes on.
“But I would like to get to know you again, if you’d be open to that.”
It makes Jiang Cheng freeze.
“As—friends?” he asks, furiously not daring to hope for more, but his heart beats faster when Nie Huaisang blushes.
“Or the other thing,” he says, clearly nervous about it and Jiang Cheng can’t help but to smile at that.
Nie Huaisang doesn’t see, because he’s very adamantly keeping his eyes on the table in front of them, and so Jiang Cheng simply pours himself another cup.
Nie Huaisang let him wait for years, a few moments won’t kill him now.
“We don’t have to, of course,” Nie Huaisang finally blurts out when it clearly becomes too much for him and Jiang Cheng takes a sip before he carefully puts the cup down again.
“I expect dates,” he then decisively says and Nie Huaisang’s head snaps up as fast as his fans usually do.
“What?” he breathes out.
“You will take me on dates, because you fucked this up to begin with and you’re going to make it up to me,” Jiang Cheng tells him and his heart stumbles a little bit when a smile overtakes Nie Huaisang’s face.
“Done,” he eagerly agrees and he seems as happy as Jiang Cheng has ever seen him.
“And don’t just quit on me again,” Jiang Cheng adds more quietly. “We were friends, first, weren’t we?”
“You’re right,” Nie Huaisang says and he scoots around the table until he sits directly next to Jiang Cheng. “We were friends—still are—and it was shitty what I did. I’m sorry for how I just left you,” he says, and it’s more than Jiang Cheng expected, because he knows Nie Huaisang doesn’t actually feel sorry about how he brought Jin Guangyao down.
“Just see to it that you don’t do it again,” Jiang Cheng decides and leans a little to the side, just enough to press their shoulders together.
They sit like this for a while, just basking in the presence of the other, knowing that nothing is completely broken between them, before Nie Huaisang speaks again.
“Does this already count as a date?” he asks and Jiang Cheng laughs, he’s so surprised.
“Absolutely not,” he decides. “I came to you. You have to do way better than this. I want to see initiative.”
“You want to be courted,” Nie Huaisang nods, clearly coming up with a plan already, and while it’s not completely what Jiang Cheng meant, he will take it.
Being courted by Nie Huaisang doesn’t sound bad at all, after all.
Link to my ko-fi on the sidebar!
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canary3d-obsessed · 4 years
Text
Restless Rewatch: The Untamed - Episode 02
Warning: Spoilers for all 50 episodes!
(Masterpost ) (Previous Episode) (Next Episode)
Donkey Riding
way ho and away we go, donkey riding donkey riding way ho and away we go, riding on a donkey
Wei Wuxian and Apple are doing their best for the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. 
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Xiao Zhan had trouble riding the donkey sitting side-saddle, so the Department of Questionable Practical Effects made him a fake leg to wear while riding regular style. 
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Can you spot it? It’s very hard to spot. It is very convincing.
Simple Pleasures
Wei Wuxian takes his time wandering up the nearest mountain, and half of the cultivators in the land also wander up this mountain because...Night Hunting! The cultivators are hot and thirsty from walking because they forgot that they all know how to fly. 
Wei Wuxian relaxes by a well and listens to people stanning him. 
Also
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I’m going to say it: Wei Wuxian never met a drinking vessel he couldn’t blow.
Everything is Beautiful at the Ballet
The actress who plays A-Yan is named Zhang Linran. She probably has studied dance since she was 4 and now she gets her big break which turns out to be feeding an apple to a donkey. So let’s pause for a second to look at how beautifully she moves.  
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Reunions are Awkward, Part 1
Wei Wuxian meets up with one of his family members and it goes super well. 
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I...like Jin Ling? He’s much less of a douchebag than his dad, his uncles Jin, Jiang, and Mo (the three stooges), and every damn one of his Jin cousins. He’s genuinely brave (his Dad’s primary good quality) and his hair is on fleek. He’s still a whiny diaper baby, but I like him. 
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(much more after the cut!)
Then Jiang Cheng shows up, looking fine as hell and radiating peak arrogant-prick energy.
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When he discovers that ‘Mo Xuanyu” stuck a piece of paper to Jin Ling, he tells the child to literally murder him. Excellent uncleing! A+++++ would recommend.  
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“In fact, literally murder anyone who uses Yiling Laozu’s tools, like talismans, lure flags, or spirit compasses - basically murder everyone in the Lan Clan plus those other fanboys we saw coming up the hill. Then get out there and make some friends, goddamn it!”
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These nets full of cultivators on this daytime night hunt are the only time we ever see anything in a net during a night hunt.  In fact dudes constantly go night hunting and the only prey we ever see is rock lady, murder turtle, and a couple of rag mops in the lake. 
You Are Not Qualified to Speak to Me
Also radiating arrogant-prick energy on this occasion is Lan Wangji. He has been using pettiness as a weapon since long before he met this Jiang Cheng turkey, and he *brings it* when Jiang Cheng tries to have a conversation with him.
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Letting your eyes wander everywhere except to his punchable face while you ignore his passive-aggressive questions? Quality work. 
Dropping a silence spell on his child and then letting your own child explain it to him? Golden. 
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Lan Wangji is never ever going to forgive Jiang Cheng for what he did on cliff day, and his silence here is as pointed as an ice pick. I suspect the last words Lan Wangji actually spoke to him were “Jiang Wanyin, stop it,” sixteen years ago. 
Jiang Cheng is actually the bigger person in this particular interaction, visibly mastering his temper and telling Jin Ling to take his medicine. 
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Reflecting
Wei Wuxian hangs out by a beautiful river and hallucinates for a while. River Jiang Yanli is nurturing and River Jiang Cheng is pissed off, so there are no surprises there.  River Jiang Cheng thinks that Wei Wuxian is a promise-breaking douchebag. He’s not exactly wrong. 
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Courtesy of convenient gossiping cultivators, Wei Wuxian discovers that the 16 year old arrogant kid from the Jin clan who his brother from the Jiang clan has custody of is actually and quite obviously Jin Rulan.
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Well fuck I guess now I care about something, that’s inconvenient. 
Needing to help parent the child of the sister who parented him is what draws Wei Wuxian fully into his new life. 
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As soon as he has this realization, Apple comes back from roaming around, and never gives him any trouble after this for the rest of the story. Which...probably doesn’t mean anything. 
Wen Gravesite
Does Wen Ning hang out here because it’s where he and his (dead) people came from? Oh great, now I am sad. 
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Judging by all the leaves on this grave thingy I’m going to say that this grave tender dude is, ah, not very good at his job. 
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Get him, Jingyi!
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I feel like maybe we all focus too much on how Lan Jingyi is so hilarious and sardonic and not enough on how he is a such a biscuit. 
Soul Grass
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As mentioned in the previous post, Chinese spiritual concepts don’t always translate well into English. Soul grass? Sure, why not. 
This is where Wei Wuxian’s Sherlock Holmes brain starts to work, although he still doesn’t remember really basic stuff about Dafan Mountain. Dying and changing bodies is rough on the old neurochemistry. This creates more opportunities for flashbacks, however, and if there’s one thing The Untamed deffo needs more of, it’s kissing flashbacks.
Temple Statue
Presumably grave-tender dude is also in charge of clearing away spiderwebs at the temple, because it’s not getting done. 
Jin Ling walks into the temple blaspheming at full volume. 
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Since this isn’t a Greek story, he isn’t immediately struck blind for this. Then when he wishes for the statue to come alive, it obligingly does.  Everything’s coming up Rulan!
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Wei Wuxian shows up to rescue all the kids by throwing talismans at the monster which does not tip anyone off to who he is. 
Baby Cultivator Babysitting
Lan Wangji chills out in the cultivators’ pavilion with Jiang Cheng and their mutual hate boners.
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Meanwhile, Wei Wuxian forgets all about his nephew and turns into cool professor guy, explaining the basics of soul-eating to the baby cultivators and gleefully encouraging their fear of Hanguang-Jun’s punishments. 
Because the Lan babies are good filial children they are super respectful and engaged with this random adult who is lecturing them. They also - like their own Hanguang-Jun at their age - see and admire Wei Wuxian’s intellect. It’s easy to forget how extremely smart Wei Wuxian is, because of how extremely dumb Wei Wuxian is.
Lan Jingyi suddenly figures out Wei Wuxian is not crazy. 
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Bis. Kit. 
Then Rock Lady shows up and Jin Ling sticks 6 arrows into her while Lans Jingyi and Sizhui stand around not bothering to draw their swords.
I see a lot of comments about the bad effects in the statue sequences but I think Rock Lady is all right. The figure animation is decent and the lighting is no worse on her than on everything else in the scene. Her hair is nice, for a rock person.
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Admittedly I just finished watching Guardian which has CGI monsters so bad they may have injured my retinas and possibly also my DNA, so the bar, for me, is pretty low. Rock lady clears it with room to spare.   
Note: Wei Wuxian’s flute playing does zippity towards controlling the statue. Not sure what his plan was here.
Wen Ning Kicks Ass
Now we get to meet Wen Ning, who appears to be a stone-cold badass. Later we will discover how hilariously inaccurate that assessment is. 
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While all versions of Wen Ning are delightful, this version of Wen Ning is also...strangely attractive? He’s got a Patti-Smith-Horses-Era vibe here, instead of his more usual lost-baby-dork vibe. And his dreamy “I have nails in my head” expression is intriguing. 
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I mean, he’s not a total snack like zombie Song Lan or pre-zombie Song Lan or blind Song Lan or post-zombie Song Lan, but this look is a good one for Wen Ning, is what I’m saying.
Reunions are Awkward, Part 2
Lan Wangji, who has 99% already recognized Wei Wuxian because of the haunted sword and the fierce jawline and beautiful neck and tiny tiny waist, is summoned by his flute playing as inexorably as the Ghost General was. 
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Jiang Cheng also recognizes Wei Wuxian and goes into full beatdown mode, thwarted (silently) by Lan Wangji. Wei Wuxian attempts to preserve his incognito by sassing Jiang Cheng in as sibling-like a manner as possible. 
Hanguang-Jun’s Pro-Ghost Agenda Has Been Clear for Some Time
This Jiang/Lan fight is hilarious when you consider the implications.
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Macroexpression vs. Microexpression
Mo Xuanyu brought Wei Wuxian back using sacrifice summons, a dark ritual invented by Wei Wuxian that he, most likely, did NOT show to Lan Wangji back in the day. So it’s a pretty safe bet that Lan Wangji doesn’t know that Wei Wuxian was gifted a body, rather than stealing one.
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when your brother turns around, you must whip him you will never live it down unless you whip him
When Jiang Cheng lets loose with Zidian, it’s not just because he’s angry. He’s using purple power to force Wei Wuxian’s ghost out of the body he’s apparently possessed. And Lan Wangji instantly STOPS him from doing that.
Clan Leader Jiang: this person has been possessed, against their will, by an evil ghost
Future Chief Cultivator Lan: Counterpoint: I am banging the ghost
Flashback Time
Welcome to your 30-episode flashback!
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Once I used to join in Every boy and girl was my friend Now there's revolution, but they don't know What they're fighting
Let us close our eyes Outside their lives go on much faster Oh, we won't give in We'll keep living in the past
Road Tripping to Summer School
Gosh I’m looking forward to younger, kinder, more relatable Jiang Cheng.
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...prick. 
Incidentally, until now this episode didn’t know that Jiang Cheng has smile muscles, and neither did the person who glued his wig on for him.
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I Like Rabbits
Here we have our first rabbit in a large collection of rabbit iconography that appears in The Untamed. 
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Instead of sending everyone to the Wikipedia page for Tu'er Shen I’m going to take this opportunity to rec the short film Kiss of the Rabbit God by Andrew Thomas Huang (tw: blood, tw:body-mod cutting) which you can read about and watch over at  Nowness.com 
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Particularly if you are a queer person of Chinese heritage, check it out. 
So. What the fuck are these? Are they food? 
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Are they made from wax? Or corn starch? or pig intestines? 
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Wei Wuxian runs off to get laid drunk and Jiang Cheng grumps about it. Jiang Yanli reminds him that being free is a Jiang Clan Rule, so really Wei Wuxian is following the rules by not following the rules. Does that mean he’s not free? My head hurts. 
Jiang Cheng: yes but grump grump grump
Jiang Yanli: Nothing bad will ever happen because of A-Xian’s choices, trust me
Outro
Wei Wuxian faint tally: one  Caught by: the cold hard ground
Soundtrack: 1. Donkey Riding by Great Big Sea 2. Living in the Past by Jethro Tull 3. Whip It by Devo
Fic prompt:  Lan Wangji’s internal monologue while he sits in the pavilion with Jiang Cheng 
If you write a fic from this prompt and want to share, please post a link in comments!
Bonus: Wang Zuocheng, macro-expression king
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Episode 03 Restless Rewatch coming soon!
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cannibalgremlin · 2 years
Text
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I posted 3,296 times in 2021
39 posts created (1%)
3257 posts reblogged (99%)
For every post I created, I reblogged 83.5 posts.
I added 49 tags in 2021
#jiang cheng - 11 posts
#mo dao zu shi - 11 posts
#mdzs - 8 posts
#canon jiang cheng - 7 posts
#maulani - 2 posts
#poor jin ling - 2 posts
#like i do like jiang cheng - 2 posts
#wei wuixan - 2 posts
#zagreus - 2 posts
#hellenic paganism - 2 posts
Longest Tag: 101 characters
#only reason i had mention the original post was cause i’ve sen people using it to excuse jc’s actions
My Top Posts in 2021
#5
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Im reading mo Dao Zu Shi and got to this chapter, and this??? Really lets me know she hated Wei Wuxian his entire life like goddamn
110 notes • Posted 2021-05-08 10:38:40 GMT
#4
Friendly reminder Jiang Cheng was the one who lead the Siege that killed Wen Ning’s and Lan Sizhui’s family who were elderly, weak and starving. Wen Ning has all the rights to be “mean” to Jiang Cheng.
Also like… Jiang Cheng going into seclusion isn’t a bad thing. He needs to self reflect he’s been childish and disrespectful to so many people in the novel 🤷🏻‍♀️ he killed “demonic cultivators” for 13 years who could have possibly been innocent an only used Wei Wuxian’s name for protective.
132 notes • Posted 2021-10-18 07:17:50 GMT
#3
So why is discussing things that happened in canon make me a “Jiang Cheng Anti” ? Like im genuinely curious on how that makes me an anti and i would love for someone to explain it
Like im sorry Jiang Cheng isnt this loving uncle that was conjured up in the fandom, an it seems like Fanon has a large toll on this fandom to the point some people forget Jiang Cheng was fully prepared to kill a child
But please someone explain how me an friends discussing the canon of jiang cheng makes us antis.
159 notes • Posted 2021-10-09 21:59:49 GMT
#2
*taps mic*
Medusa is not a feminist icon if you’re ignoring the whole mythos and demonizing Danaë and Perseus who were victims as well
- Perseus was a child and if you look at the actual context it directly points out he’s 15-20
- Ppl reclaim Medusa and then shit on Danaë and her trauma
- Perseus was forced to kill Medusa by a literal patriarch (the king) because the king wanted to r-pe Danaë and make her a slave
- the king did this to get rid of Perseus
- Medusa in pop culture becomes sexier and sexier but everyone ignores Danaë, the literal woman in the myth
- the enemy is the king not the kid. You’re not feminist for shitting Perseus
Also not really feminist if you’re making Medusa sexier an sexier despite her being a monster, and ignoring that she, Danae and Perseus were victims of an actual Patriarch ✌🏻reclaim all three of them or none of them.
199 notes • Posted 2021-02-19 05:13:14 GMT
#1
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I spent to damn long on this
251 notes • Posted 2021-09-07 03:25:12 GMT
Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →
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