#lan xichen hunk rights!!!!!

[yutaan]

Holiday sale!

Hey there, my lovelies! Once again, the end of the year is fast approaching, which means we’re all hunting around for gifts for our loved ones (or to keep for ourselves - after all, you deserve gifts too, my lovelies). And what’s a wonderful present for a fandom-savvy giftee? That’s right, it’s ART!

My INPRNT shop is back open, and all items there are 10% off for the entire month of December with the code "FZE4NF"! And below, we have a wide array of beautiful papercraft originals, pre-made, packaged, and ready to be shipped to YOU! Happy holidays, my lovelies!

(Please note that due to tumblr’s image resizing, the artworks are not necessarily displayed at an accurate size in comparison to each other.)

~

BUSTS (approx. 4″ tall)

Harrowhark (The Locked Tomb) - $70 each [BOTH SOLD]

Lady Amalthea (The Last Unicorn) - $65 [SOLD]

Edgeworth (Ace Attorney) - $65 [SOLD]

Jasmine (Aladdin) - $50

Mirabel (Encanto) - $60 [SOLD]

Meg (Hercules) - $50

Hiei (Yu Yu Hakusho) - $55 [SOLD]

Liu Qingge (SVSSS) - $70 [SOLD]

Katara (Avatar: the Last Airbender) - $70 [SOLD]

Ed (Fullmetal Alchemist) - $75 [SOLD]

Yugi & Yami Yugi (Yugioh) - 8" wide - $210

Jiang Cheng & Jin Ling (MDZS/The Untamed) - 6" tall - $200 [SOLD]

~

FULLBODIES (approx. 6″ tall)

Aerith (FFVII) - $85

Kagome (Inuyasha) - $75

Sakura (Cardcaptor Sakura) - $85 [SOLD]

Yor (Spy x Family) - $85 [SOLD]

Reigen (Mob Psycho 100) - $80 [SOLD]

L (Death Note) - $75

Vash (Trigun Stampede) - $95 [SOLD]

Howl + Calcifer (Howl's Moving Castle) - $95 each [BOTH SOLD]

Haku (Spirited Away) - $90 [SOLD]

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MINIS (approx. 3-3.5″ tall) - $30 each, three for $80, five for $125

Jin Ling, Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji, Lan Xichen, Jiang Cheng (The Untamed/MDZS) [ALL SOLD]

Batman (DC), Anya (Spy x Family) [ALL SOLD]

2B (Nier: Automata), Chat Blanc (Miraculous Ladybug), Hunk (Voltron)

Sailor Moon, Dark Lady (Sailor Moon), Pikachu (Pokemon) [ALL SOLD]

Bakugo (BNHA)

Nezuko (Demon Slayer) [ALL SOLD]

MINI SETS - $60 each

WangXian (MDZS/The Untamed) [ALL SOLD]

Yunmeng Shuangjie (MDZS/The Untamed) [ALL SOLD]

Jin Ling & Jiujiu (MDZS/The Untamed) [ALL SOLD]

HuaLian (TGCF) [ALL SOLD]

BingQiu (SVSSS) [ALL SOLD]

Crowley & Aziraphale (Good Omens) [ALL SOLD]

~

SIMPLE PAPERCRAFT (approx. 5" tall) - $20 each

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ZINES (5x7")

TALL ♥ small - 20 pages, handmade, personal illustrations, all-ages - $10 [SOLD OUT]

Battle Damage - 28 pages, pro-printed, multiple artists, teen and up - $15

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

If you are interested in purchasing any of these artworks, please email me at [email protected] with the subject line “Holiday Sale.” In the body of the email, please include:

Which piece(s) you wish to purchase

Shipping address (please note that shipping outside the US may cost extra)

Preferred email address for Paypal invoice

If you have a tumblr username and would like to include it so I can recognize you, you can also do that! :D But it’s not a requirement.

~ 

Pieces are first-come, first-served, so be quick! (Likewise, please note that I cannot reserve a piece for you indefinitely unless you are able to pay for it or place a down payment on it at the time you contact me. Thank you for your understanding!) This post will be updated throughout the month to show which pieces have been sold.

Happy gifting, lovelies!

#holiday sale 2023 #holiday sale #papercraft #paper art #traditional art #papercutting #zines #my art

[dulharpa]

#mdzs #cql #lan xichen #ouyang zizhen #nie mingjue #lan jingyi #lan xichen hunk rights!!!!! #also ouyang zizhen actually existing rights LOL #i think. himbo nie mingjue is good #also !! jingyi is ABSOLUTELY BUFF!! #mine #original content?? from me??

[tangledinmdzs]

Can I request LXC ,LWJ and WWX headcanons where their wife who is suffering from temporary amnesia (got injured in a night hunt) and is shocked to know that such a handsome man is her husband.

Thanks! 🙂

aha cute

i'm going to make this a little light hearted fluff vibes

hope you enjoy~

✧༺♥༻∞　　∞༺♥༻✧

Lan Xichen

there’s a lot of bustling noise around you

“move back, give y/n-guniang some space,”

someone helps you sit up as your hand comes up to your head

there’s a dull ache there that feels heavier than a normal concussion 

“y/n, let me check your injury,”

and you naturally turn to the deep voice, so nice and soothing

and blink your eyes fully open to see who’s helping you

the sight surprises you so much you jump back a bit in your seat,

and it causes the beautiful man in front of you to startle slightly as well,

“y/n, does it hurt?” the man asks, so deeply concerned that you have to calm your shaking heart 

just to shake your head at him

the man in front of you still stares at you worriedly

and you know he won’t make a move until you let him know that you’re okay,

honestly you don’t know what’s come over you

but you grab the man’s splayed hand on his lap, and move it to your head, where you feel a slight thrum under your skin there

when his warm palm is placed at the injury

it doesn’t feel as painful anymore,

the man takes a deep breath before you, moves his hand slightly to check up on your head 

“thank god the bleeding has stopped,” the man breathes and you’re a bit winded by his concern for you

“well, thank you for your help,” you say, a bit formally, a lot more formally than words usually are exchanged between you two

the man looks at you

and you’re surprised at the way his eyes are staring at you, 

“...umm..” you stutter out in the silence that ensues,

“i’m your husband, of course it’s my duty to help you, protect you,” the man says

and it feels like a bomb dropped on you

“husband?” you want to shriek but you can only whisper it out

seems too good to be true that someone as BEAUTIFUL as that man was your husband,

at your disbelief, the man even has the audacity to move close to you

you move back as he moves in, 

your back hitting a tree trunk 

“yes, my laopo (wife),” his breath tickles your nose 

and you can’t help but stare, wide eyed at the man before you 

Lan Xichen takes in your face, hopes that this amnesia passes soon

he misses the recognition in your eyes

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

Lan Wangji

“y/n...”

someone’s calling your name as you wake up 

and you blink your eyes open, blurry vision meeting golden amber orbs as everything clears

and woah, you weren’t expecting a whole hunk to be at your beside when you wake up, 

“am i in heaven?” you can’t help but breathe out

because people that pretty aren’t supposed to be earthly,

“luckily you are not, laopo (wife)” the man answers and you nearly head ram him with how fast you sit up on the bed,

“laopo??” you stutter, squeak out

and watch as the man in front of you shakes his head slightly,

“the physician said that you’d have some temporary amnesia from the head trauma...” the man sounds overly guilty 

and something in you stirs enough that you lean in and grab his hand

the man is surprised, you’re surprised too,

but...

“it’s not your fault,” you reassure, even though you don’t know exactly what’s happened and you were kinda missing a entire chunk of memory that had to do with the man in front of you,

“i’m okay, right as rain,” you reassure when the man tries to speak up again, 

“y/n...” 

you meet the man’s eyes, his amber glowing orbs, so firey but so beautiful

you blink at his stare, then manage a small smile, 

“i promise i’m feeling pretty good...besides you said this forgetfulness is temporary right?” 

even as you’ve lost your memory, Lan Wangji is still amazed at how well you can read him, know just the right words to comfort him, 

“just remind me of your name for now, i promise i won’t forget it,” you tell, smlie that smile of yours again

Lan Wangji manages a small lift at the end of his lips, 

moves in to press a kiss on your forehead

and whisper his name there too

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾　　☽༓･*˚⁺‧͙

Wei Wuxian

you blink up at the hand that soothes your head, 

it’s warm

as your eyes open, 

you’re greeted with one of the most handsomest faces that you have ever seen,

“oh- holy shit,” you breathe out, blinking wildly as this man’s hand comes to rest on your shoulder,

“y/n, you’re finally awake,” his voice sounds relieved

and the smile that he has on his face after he says that

good gracious your heart can’t take it

“your smile’s my medicine,” you end up saying your thoughts out loud

and to your mortification it gets the cutest laugh out of this beautiful man before you 

“i would hope that it is, considering i’m your lao gong (husband),” the man says 

and your eyes want to bugle out of your head 

“lao gong?” you squeak out,

before you can really catch the concerned look in the other man’s eyes you can’t help but sit up and jump straight into the man’s arm,

he catches you with a small ‘oof’, wrapping his arms around you as you smile happily at this amazing predicament

“wow, i have such a handsome husband,” you comment 

and the man can only laugh at you, his chuckle soothing where your head is against his chest

Wei Wuxian, holds you close in his arms

the physician had said that there might be some mild amnesia from your injury, 

luckily it was said to be only temporary 

but, like he thinks your amnesia is pretty bad, if you had forgot how KILLER his looks are

though as you’re slowly getting comfortable in his arms, 

smiling in that shy way that you used to do when you both had just been courting

Wei Wuxian, finds  that he doesn’t mind that you forgot,

but 

just for a little while though

#mdzs #mdzs character headcanons #mdzs request #mdzs reaction request #mdzs scenario request #mdzs imagine request #mdzs lan xichen x reader #mdzs lan wangji x reader #mdzs wei wuxian x reader #mdzs anon requests #mdzs au #mdzs canon divergence #mdzs x reader #mdzs x y/n #mdzs reader insert #tangledwriting

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 07 part one

(Masterpost)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Clan Sanren

Lanny Granny gets a second wind and continues her Yin Iron Webinar.

Wei Wuxian explains that although he was adopted by the Jiang Clan, Baoshan Sanren is his grandmaster, via his mom. Lan Yi claims to think that this is pretty great.

Lan Yi: Wow, amazing, my ex girlfriend who I dumped has settled down and started her own family Clan now, that’s so great. I’m so happy for her. So happy. So great. I mean, when I left I didn’t really picture her finding happiness first, you know? I kind of expected to have settled down myself by now but it’s hard to date when you’re trapped in an ice cave putting headbands on rabbits for 100 years. But it’s fine! I love my life and I’m sure eventually I’ll find that special rabbit person.  Anyway I’m just...SUPER happy for Baoshan. Really. Really happy. For Baoshan. 

Lan Wangji also appears to have thoughts about it, because he reacts pretty intently.

 Lan+Sanren 4EvR. 

Wang Yibo is looking extra fine in this cave sequence, with no headband to distract from his fierce eyebrows.  

Lan Wangji asks Lan Yi if she’s the one who pulled them into the cave, and she says nope, and then nobody ever explains how they ended up in the cave. “Perhaps it’s destiny” does not count as an explanation. 

Lan Gran explains that her battery is running down. The Lan bunnies are not energizer bunnies, apparently. She also tells them that it’s impossible to destroy the Yin Iron and that the only solution is to put it back in the cave and try to suppress it again. 

(more after the cut)

However by Episode 23 it inexplicably becomes super easy to destroy the Yin Iron...

...meaning Lan Yi spent 100 years in a cave for nothing, other than writing the Definitive Guide to Rabbit Headbands. 

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji get back into Hardy Boys cultivator mode, but this time with an extremely long held gaze, which I think is their first time doing this.

I mean...even if these boys are 100% neurotypical (and hello, they are not), this is a LOT of eye contact. I can't gaze that long at anything except my phone screen. 

We Will Achieve The Thing Together

Narrator: they will not achieve the thing

The reason I got into c-drama in the first place is, after decades of western storytelling tropes, it’s so refreshing to watch a story and have literally no idea what’s going to happen. Even when the story sets things up to happen a certain way according to my learned experience of stories, it just doesn’t play out that way. For example, if you’re watching The Lost Tomb Reboot and you expected the jade-mining sequence to end with a slave uprising, you were as surprised as I was. 

Here Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian promise to do their best to find and suppress the Yin iron. Lan Wangji is going to fail at this, allowing this here piece to fall into the hands of the Wens, because unlike his uncle he's not willing to let his clan die to protect it.  

Wei Wuxian is going to take his not-doing-the-thing several steps further, finding and refining his very own piece of extra-badass Yin iron. Yes, he has reasons for this and a lot of stuff happens along the way, but in terms of your typical quest storyline, it would be as if Frodo figured out how to use the one ring to kick Sauron’s ass, rather than (with help) destroying it. Again: this is why I LIKE c-drama. 

Lan Wangji tries to shut Wei Wuxian out of his quest and Wei Wuxian makes a short but utterly character-defining speech. 

You can’t stop me

I know what’s right. 

And then he says that his Grandmaster Baoshan Sanren was isolated because of the Yin Iron, and he has a responsibility to her. Lan Yi agrees. So...he just kinda quit the Jiang Clan right there, didn’t he? In favor of eventually becoming a wandering cultivator like his Grandmaster and clan uncle (Xiao Xichen), and like his mother. 

He is also going to follow in his father’s footsteps by upsetting his Clan Leader when he falls in love. Gosh, he also, like his parents, will die and leave an orphan to fend for himself. So -- the apple doesn't fall far from the tree I guess.

He doesn't realize the pickle he’s getting himself into, of course. Being Wei Wuxian, he thinks he can balance all of his increasing obligations, but being human, he won’t be able to. 

Pardon Our Entwinement

Lan Yi leaves to catch the spiritual plane, the Yin iron drops, the ward breaks, and Wen Ning appears to download a new software update. The kind that breaks your video driver and photoshops your eyeballs.  

Wen Qing comes nosing around the cave wall, and Jiang Cheng stops by to ask what she’s up to. 

He hopes she’s trying to find his brother, just like he will fail to do for her & her brother one day.  

The boys fall out of the wall together, in a nice example of the “oops I’m accidentally humping you” c-drama romance trope. To keep it censor-friendly, Wei Wuxian is actually on the ground next to Lan Wangji’s right knee but the shot is framed so that at a glance he appears to be in a much cozier position. 

Lan Wangji goes on an expression journey don’t say facial through several “oh shit we’re caught” faces, while Wei Wuxian shows Lan Wangji a few iterations of his oh-face. 

Jiang Cheng wants to know what the fuck they have been getting up to for a day and a night. 

The movie wasn't so hot, it didn't have much of a plot, we fell asleep our goose is cooked our reputation is shot

Wen Qing detects that they were somewhere cold and decides it’s her turn to ask nosy questions. Lan Wangji does the guilty startle thing. 

Fortunately Wei Wuxian doesn’t have that problem.

He turns his answer into a prolonged whine about how cold it was, how lost they were, etc. This annoys Jiang Cheng into dropping it and saying they should head back. 

I’m awesome right? so awesome right?

Wei Wuxian gives Lan Wangji a significant look to show that he’s deploying a rhetorical strategy on purpose to distract his questioner. Lan Wangji super does not know how to do that. 

Flute + Yin Iron = Profit

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji get to watch as Lan Qiren and Lan Xichen tame the hunk of iron and stick it in the bag of holding. Wei Wuxian pays verrrryyy careful attention to this whole “use a flute to control the Yin iron” lesson. 

Lan Xichen really should reconsider his music-lessons side hustle. Arguably this one doesn’t turn out as badly for him personally as teaching guqin to Jin Guangyao does, but it doesn’t turn out great, either. 

知己啊  - zhi-ji-ah

This mostly-tedious Yin Iron conversation with the elders includes a super-important WangXian moment.

Wei Wuxian calls Lan Wangji his zhiji. This is the same word he will use later in the “what am I to you?” conversation during the Jin night hunt, and the word Lan Xichen will use when saying why Lan Wangji wouldn’t repudiate him during his forced isolation. As always, for the full meaning of this word, @hunxi-guilai​ is brills.

A Wen spy bird shows up, and Lan Wangji really wants to chase it, but Lan Xichen says no. 

This happens a lot, actually. Lan Wangji is not a cool-headed person, despite appearances.  Likewise the boys want to go searching for the Yin Iron and the adults want them to slow their roll. 

Being a teenager is frustrating, particularly with a classic “I didn’t actually listen to you before making a decision” adult like Lan Qiren in charge. 

Lying is my First Class Spiritual Tool

Nie Huasang shows up and has his usual hilariously varied reaction to Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji - an enthusiastic “Wei-Xiong!” followed by a nervous & meek “Lan Er Gongzi” and a bow to Lan Wangji.  

He wants to know what happened and Wei Wuxian once again shows his powers of rhetoric. 

I like to call it my “devil snake.” 

He puts off all of Nie Huaisang’s potential questions by really knowing his questioner well and completely distracting him.  

This time Lan Wangji seems impressed. 

Jelly Jiang Cheng

Young Master Cockblock shows up and lets loose with a display of total naked jealousy. That carving on Wei Wuxian’s bed back in Lotus Pier...is that him and Jiang Cheng? Because damn, this boi is jealous. 

...and so is Lan Wangji, apparently, or at least he’s disappointed to have Wei Wuxian taken away from him like that.  

Yearn Mode Enabled

Club Ruohan’s Foyer

Wen Chao and Xue Yang stand awkwardly in Wen Ruohan’s vestibule talking to the boss through a giant door, because sure, why not. 

This doesn’t bother Xue Yang, who as usual has no fucks to give. Except that today, Wen Ruohan tells him that the budget for his project finally got approved, which lifts his spirits quite a bit. 

His project to single-handedly slaughter an entire clan, and he is super excited about the kickoff meeting. 

Wen Chao is mopey because his brother gets all the good murder assignments and his dad doesn’t appreciate him. Boo fucking hoo. 

Periodic reminder that He Peng looks like this when he’s not playing Wen Chao.

Part 2 coming soon!

Soundtrack: Wake Up, Little Susie by the Everly Brothers

Bonus

#fytheuntamed #the untamed #the untamed meta #wangxian #the untamed gifs #restless rewatch the untamed #canary3d-original #wei wuxian #lan wangji #the untamed spoilers

[inessencedevided]

Oh yeah, titles are totes valid. I like yiling patriarch cos when you think about it it doesn't make sense. He didn't create the town of yiling, and he technically doesn't even live there. He sould be called burial mounds patriarch or smth.

Anyway, enough about titles (also if I have made a mistake due to translation error or misunderstanding, whoops). Which OG sect leader do you think was the worst, and which one was the best? And which next gen sect leader is best and worst?

I dislike jgs most, cos yikes. Wrh might have been a tirant and war criminal, but at least he wasn't as big of a dick as jgs. Can't really decide who the best is, cos they all had issues, you know?

Worst next gen would have to be jgy, not cos I dislike him as a person but because he definitely commited war crime and genocide. Idk best here either cos once again, *slaps top of cgl* these cultivators can fit so much trauma and issues. I do like imagining how the now sect is run. One twink mastermind and his hunk retinue? Love that for them

-the axe cultivator

Argh, 🪓-cultivator (there's an emoji! :D). I'm so sorry! I'm terribly behind again in answering you. I promise, I like your asks but I want to give them proper attention and the holidays were surprisingly busy this year.

That question is very creative! And hard ^^ I had to think about all my answers, even the seemingly easy "worst sect leader of the OG". Because while jin Guangshan is definitely a pompous ass and overall shitty person who is more concerned with sleeping with every woman in Lanling than his duties and who didn't step up during the sunshot campaign and then decided to use the power vacuum afterwards to his advantage, he at least, you know, did some sect leading. Which is not something that can be said about one Qingheng-Jun. That guy just left his brother and eventually and increasingly his teenage son in charge. Now what is worse? Bad sect leading or no sect leading at all? I don't know if I can decide ^^

Ah yeah and Wen Ruohan ... 🤷‍♀️ obviously he wasn't great, but he's also the least three-dimensional "villain" so I never really bother with him ^^

The best og sect leader? Does lan qiren as an acting sect leader count? ^^ obviously he too has issues, as you said. I believe lan qiren, as a leader, as an uncle and as an educator was deeply influenced by the things that happened with his brother. I can only imagine how deeply it must have hurt him to see his brother abandon both his people, him, his brother and his own children for the sake of one woman. Whatever your opinion on qingheng-jun, I believe we can all agree that his actions must have deeply hurt and disappointed lan qiren. We don't know what he was like before those events, so we don't know just how mich of his extreme rigidity is due to those events, but I do believe that they hardened him and made him more inflexible. Maybe he was much more of a free spirit before. Maybe he was a lot like Lan Wangji, but instead of loosening and expanding his understanding of the relationship between morality and rules, the events that shaped him let him to harden them. We don't know. But we do know that he picked up the pieces his brother left him. My point is, you can think about his style of leadership and teaching what you want but you cannot deny that he is devoted to the people in his care and that's not something you can say about a lot of the leaders of his generation.

Now, to the next gen leaders:

This is, in a way, even harder to decide ...

I wouldn't call jiggy the worst sect leader so easily. His record, imo, is very much mixed. The watchtowers, if I recall the novel correctly (it's been 6 months since I last read it ^^), were a pretty good way to get help to people who usually fall under the radar of the cultivation sects. So while he definitely sacrificed a lot in his rise to the top, he seems to have tried to help the common people (something that cannot be said about his two predecessors).

But ... who then? I thought a lot about it and I think I'm inclined to say Nie Huaisang. Don't get me wrong, I love him as much as anyone, but I also remember the part in the novel where, when wangxian investigate the "man eating bunker" (i wonder how accurate that translation is) a town's person sais that they don't expect help from the nie sect because ever since Nie Huaisang took over nothing gets done and they neglect to help the people within their territory. Now, we know that Nie huaisang cultivated a reputation of general incompetence so people wouldn't suspect him to scheme against jin guangyao, but in doing so, he obviously neglected his duty to the people under his care. Which is, imo, pretty consistent with his character. Nie Huaisang us ruthless when sufficiently angered and has no qualms to cause casual damage to achieve his goal (see Mo Xuanyu's suicide to bring wei wuxian back). His revenge was his first priority and so he placed being a good brother over being a good sect leader.

Best? Is also dificult. I honestly can't decide between Lan Xichen and Jiang Cheng? There are so many factors to consider here! (There were already woth the ones above, really): what actions count towards the assessment of their leadership? What makes good leadership at all? (Which is funny because I'm doing my masters in political science rn and that's one of the biggest questions in political theory. But I only really know "Western" political theory. Chinese philosophy i have only ever graced the surface of) which is to say ... I can't really decide.

Jiang cheng put his sect above all else. While there's a lot of debate about whether that was morally right, it's certainly what helped him rebuild his sect as quickly as he did. He is brash and sometimes cruel, but his deciples clearly trust him and admire him.

Lan Xichen is an incredible diplomat. He is calm, fair (i.e. when he decides to listen to wangxians accusations against the sworn brother he loved and investigated them himself) and proactive when he needs to be. (I know, he is often accused of being too passive within the fandom, but I don't think that is necessarily the case. In a world where most leaders seem to base their judgement on rumor and hearsay more often than not, he withholds judgement until he listened to all sides. That is not a flaw in leadership) Now, in the end, he seemingly follows his father's footsteps by going into seclusion. I would argue, that still doesn't place them on the same step leadership wise. A. The situation with Jin Guangyao and madam lan, imo, aren't equivalent. It's hard to judge madam lan because we don't know what let her to kill the lan teacher, but I think it's unlikely she deceived qingheng-jun in the process. Jin Guangyao actively deceived kan xichen for years. When lan xichen learned this, he decided to investigate and was badly hurt in the process. The outcome, seclusion, may be the same, but the reasons are different. Also, the novel heavily implies that lan xichen will eventually emerge and take up his duties again.

All of this is to say... I can't decide ^^

I'll answer the other putstabding ask tomorrow. It's past midnight now and I should really sleep. Thank you for being so patient 💙

Btw, happy holidays, if you celebrate 🥰

#the untamed #mdzs #ask #mdzsnetcc #jin guangshan #jin guangyao #lan xichen #jiang cheng #nie huaisang #please don't mind all the typos #i didn't read over what i wrote again #all my past german teachers would be so disappointed

[wandering-bitch]

Annotations on Falling in Love with Love (Again) pt 1

Falling in Love is my 3zun Cinderella/Qin Su Solidarity Fixit fic. It’s got some dumb angst, but i promise every ch with Angst (tm) has at least some soft gentle fluff with it. 

It’s structured like cinderella (servant gets surprised with the clothes + disguise for the ball, falls in love, runs away but leaves behind a trinket, gets found out later and happily ever after), but really it’s About recognizing the growth you’ve gone through, and uh. falling in love again. It’s also, to a lesser degree, about how important Qin Su is.

Notes on writing the first third of this below the cut

Every chapter title is a riff on a song lyric from Rogers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella (which you might remember as the Brandy and Whitney Houston movie from 1997). Title is “falling in love with love,” the BITCHIN ballad from the stepmother

i keep stumbling on cinderella aus from parts of 3zun and i never like them bc im picky so i started thinking about this and now im HERE, writing thousands of words and thinking about social shit

in this house we love qin su, by the way

Don’t Believe in Sensible Rules

this chapter was called “Enter the Fairy Godmother” in my outline

writing this fic made me like jin zixuan pfffff

look im not saying that qin su is fucking vital BUT

having qin su know that she’s meng yao’s sister means that he has someone who can empathize with wanting but hating jin guangshan’s attention, and so someone who can remind him that jin guangshan’s respect isn’t worth the effort

aka qin su being actively meng yao’s sister fucking stops him from making terrible choices aka this is my fixit.

originally i just was hand-waving away “it’s a good au bc i said so” but as i built the timeline more, i realized that it all comes down to qin su

which is valid!! because yeah, the middle and end of the fic are about qin su

anyway back to this first chapter

i know in canon qin su is probably younger than meng yao but counterpoint i wanted her to have more respect built into her role

what’s up with meng yao’s makeup? it’s a combination of opera + tang dynasty makeup!! 

you know that promo image of zzj playing an opera performer for a movie next year???  this one??? it’s basically this but on crack

if you’re not thinking about that promo image twice a week then i highly recommend u do it bc it certainly brings me joy and serotonin 

oh hmmm meng yao is wearing a fancy emotionally important accessory??? i wonder what might happen

You’ll Never Know a Finer Night

”a lovely night, a lovely night/ a finer night you know you’ll never see”

qin su + meng yao rights!!!

qin su + meng yao rights!!!

the mengyin han sect is something my spouse came up with for their Nie Parents fic that they’re never gonna write.

you should bug @isimplydonotvibewithjgy to write it. why???

it’s about happy healthy nie parent polyamory!!! 

nie huaisang is named in part after nie mingjue’s mother’s sword

meng yao is only a little bit kidding about stealing a baby for qin su. qin su, in turn, is only a little bit kidding about stealing a baby for meng yao

meng yao fucking with wangxian is very important to me, a bitch

Back In the Past, lan xichen wasn’t so much Jealous as he was frustrated with himself for not saying anything for so long (so long was barely a few months)

“second daughter of a third rate sect” is the type of dumb meng yao shit i love

qin!!!! su!!!! rights!!!!!!!

Most Entrancing Sight Of All

from “the greatest love,” the first song from the brandy version

i actually hate this song whoops

i lov every time i get to write meng yao being clever

it is very convenient for me that im writing the entire fic from his perspective

it’s sword content!!!! hooray!!!!

i looked up so much sword dancing for this it made me so happy

swords!!! good!!!

i do wish i had been better at figuring out ways meng yao could eat li bolin alive, but i wrote it, it’s done, im never editing it again

sword! content!!

The Sweet Invention of a Lover’s Dream

AWWW YEAH my favorite chapter because the xiyao troll showed up and said “oh so meng yao’s a selfish little slut now then” and i think about that every fucking day

the title is from “do i love you” 

the breakup was hard to write bc like. neither’s in the Wrong, sometimes u just don’t fit, and that sucks

like it wasn’t Hard emotionally, but it was hard to balance properly

“Eat Wen Xu Alive” -- meng yao

in my early draft, meng yao + qin su had an agreement to check on each other every hour. i scrapped that but u can see 

“time to meddle”

i had fun learning about azaleas + azalea poisoning

i spent SO LONG trying to decide who meng yao would pin the poisoning on but settled on the li sect being complicit in wen imperialism

nie mingjue is here because nie huaisang whined about it. lan xichen is here because he wants to date someone to move on from meng yao

what’s that? he’s dating nie mingjue? that’s not enough to move on? no, actually, it isn’t

sorry lan xichen the way to move on is just time, not dating

to be clear it’s not that lan xichen is greedy or nie mingjue Isn’t Enough, it’s just that there’s an ache still in lxc’s heart

(there’s an ache still in nmj’s heart)

we’ll actually go over all of this in an auxiliary chapter where nmj + lxc snuggle in the middle of the night

healthy polyamory rights

in case it’s somehow not Obvious, the song lxc is distracted by reminds him of meng yao. 

lxc is one hundred percent that friend who doesn’t let u say anything slightly mean about urself

my one ex specifically wouldn’t let me say i wasn’t smart enough to talk about a sociological issue/socialism thing. it was so sweet honestly

like she would let me not have an opinion but i couldn’t say i wasn’t smart enough

lxc is so proud of himself for that “tell me what this song is about” line and he SHOULD be. it WAS sexy it WAS polite it WAS a good line!!!

im not tooting my own horn im just talking about lxc being a polite, sexy hunk

never forget: so meng yao is just a selfish little slut then lol ok

come back next time for ch 5-8 where we see boys being cute and together and also where qin su gets many more rights

#mo dao zu shi #lan xichen #jin guangyao #nie mingjue #mdzs #3zun #behind the scenes #falling in love with love

[sarah-yyy]

Xiyao+ the fire alarm went of at 3 am and now that cute guy from next door is standing next to be in his underwear

Meng Yao likes him so much, is the thing. 

He knows most of his interactions with Lan Xichen has been just limited to them bumping into each other in the hallways and exchanging pleasantries then, but Meng Yao had thought that there was a connection there! Surely Lan Xichen wouldn’t have smiled at him like that, or said Meng Yao’s name so gently, or looked at Meng Yao so softly if he wasn’t at least a little interested, right?

Wrong. 

Three in the morning, out in the cold, with the building’s fire alarm blaring and armed with the newly acquired knowledge of what Lan Xichen looks like in his underwear is also the worst time to find out. 

Lan Xichen has a boyfriend. a tall, broad-shouldered hunk of a boyfriend, who is plastered against Lan Xichen’s back, arms wrapped tightly, possessively around Lan Xichen. 

Lan Xichen doesn’t even look in Meng Yao’s direction.

Once they’ve been cleared to go back into the building, Meng Yao is going to get raging drunk, try to drown himself in his bathtub with just the amount of tears he’s going to shed, and then move the fuck out of the country.

(send me a ship + au/story premise and i will Make It Sad)

#the untamed #mdzs #xiyao #this honestly doesn't even count as a sad #it's probably just the beginning of a 3zun fic that i've also accidentally made myself want to write now #DAMMIT it is one of those nights huh #Anonymous #asks #meme things

[hamliet]

The Soul Eater: Dafan Mountain’s Dancing Goddess

Ah, the Dafan Mountain arc--or, a crash course in MDZS’s themes. 

In the anime, Dafan Mountain is a scene that lasts one episode; in the novel, it’s several chapters and our first significant look at many of the characters. Besides changing Wen Chao’s death, Dafan Mountain was probably the scene most changed in adapting the novel into the donghua. In the donghua, the ghost hand was behind the stone goddess's possession, and L’il Apple the donkey is the creature caught in the nets; in the novel, both of these are changed: the goddess is something else entirely, and the nets accidentally catch people. 

In my opinion (as with the Wen Chao change), it’s a good adaptation decision for the donghua to have made--the arc in the novel serves as a sounding point to symbolically summarize the whole story, but it doesn't work very well in a truncated visual medium which anime/donghua, by its nature, is. The donghua’s beginning was already disorienting (deliberately so, because we mimic Wei WuXian's experience being disoriented after being reborn in a new body, but perhaps a bit too much so), so having the previously established mysterious ghost hand play a role in the Dafan Mountain scene makes the story more succinct and easy to follow for viewers, as does having us fear for L’Il Apple whom we’re already attached to, as opposed to characters we don’t have time to get to know. 

That being said, you do lose some of the beautiful symbolism of those chapters that is present in the novel. As a warning, what follows will have spoilers from the novel as translated by exiledrebelscans. 

Dafan Mountain was an arc I appreciated more when I reread the novel, because I like missed a lot the first time around. It basically foreshadows the novel's major twists and turns, and also introduces the story’s major themes--society creating monsters, the sins of the fathers passing on to the children, and the butterfly effect/unintended consequences--quite explicitly. 

Let’s begin by looking at the worldbuilding background and setting in which the goddess goes on her rampage. The story brings up classism pretty much right away, noting that the there is a small cultivation clan that plans to night-hunt on Dafan Mountain, and that:

Society asks people to earn respect, but sets them up to fail by providing incredibly difficult/near impossible stakes for them to be able to earn the kind of respect the more “highbrow, affluent” clans (yes, it uses those words) enjoy. The idea of society setting impossible standards is something this arc and the story as a whole deconstructs. Because what happens next is that Jiang Cheng, the leader of the YunmengJiang Sect (one of those highbrow affluent sects) refuses to allow the smaller sect to night-hunt. The people complain, noting that it’s not really fair, but at the same time, they have no power by which to oppose him. 

In addition to keeping the smaller sects from interfering with Jiang Cheng’s plan to have his nephew, Jin Ling, earn glory in Dafan Mountain, he buys him hundreds of deity-binding nets that are noted to be extremely expensive--and the nets also catch some of the people in the smaller sects by mistake. It’s significant symbolically that nets that are noted to be an extreme show of wealth are what catch poorer people up, and trap them. Society traps them. 

Not only does society trap them, it gives those with power all the power to free them, or not. It’s not really on the poorer sects to try and earn approval; they almost certainly can’t earn approval. It’s up to the larger sects to decide to give them respect or not, and they don’t. Jin Ling doesn’t treat them as though they matter--he doesn’t even set them free. He views them as an inconvenience because society offers him no reason to respect them (and he’s a bratty teenager) 

Aaaand enter Jiang Cheng, Jin Ling’s uncle who set all of the nets up. He teaches Jin Ling this attitude, of people having to earn respect but not giving them much actual chance to do so, on a far more personal level, thereby showing that society’s rot is far more insidious and also nuanced than just “wealthy people suck.”

Also of note: the story will later show us that Jiang Cheng is literally reenacting his greatest pain onto his beloved nephew. He was never able to earn his father’s approval, nor his mother’s, and noted as much to his favored adopted brother Wei WuXian that his father “just doesn’t like me. He doesn’t like my mother, so he doesn’t like me.” Still, Jiang Cheng repeatedly drives himself to extremes trying to earn his father’s approval--and he never gets it. By ordering Jin Ling to succeed and earn his respect or else (even if it’s a more empty threat than not) he’s passing down the sin his father passed onto him. 

Jiang Cheng is also not considering the consequences of his own words. He loves his nephew and just rescued him, so the audience likely knows this is an empty threat--but words still have consequences. Every action, and speaking is an action, has an effect and sometimes we can’t control what the effect is. Jin Ling will later almost lose his soul in the battle with the goddess, purely because he wants to prove himself and chooses to fight the goddess on his own instead of sending up a signal to ask for help. And Jin Ling even directly tells (a frantic) Jiang Cheng that this was his fault: 

Next, let’s look at the goddess herself and her symbolism. The goddess was originally just a hunk of rock that happened to look like a dancing woman. And yet years and years of worship turned the slab of rock into an actual monster. 

The story isn’t condemning of the people, though--it’s not surprising nor wrong for people to want to find meaning and beauty around them. The problem is that things get out of hand, and people lose control of what they’ve created, and lose what the truth is as stories spread and spread. What society teaches is unreliable, in other words, and rumors and truth aren’t easily distinguished. It’s also worth noting that the dancing goddess’s myth is passed on through several generations, so again, it’s the stories of the parents passing onto their children (and later harming them). Once you start something, you can’t control it--it has unintended effects. The goddess is a symbol for society itself: people decide it has value and by doing so they create a monster that eventually consumes the desperate people praying to it. The rich trap the poor, the ‘righteous’ thing it do changes depending on who society has determined the villain is, and either way it consumes innocent victims (lots of innocent people will die in the wars in MDZS--whether it’s the Sunshot Campaign, the aftermath, the Nightless City Massacre, the Siege of the Burial Mounds, or the corpses that attack a cave). 

If you’ve finished the novel (or most of it) you’ve probably realized where this is going symbolically.

To return to the concept of empathy for the people in the mountain, who could not have known what would happen, it’s also worth noting that the soul-consuming begins with the goddess consuming the soul of a scared man seeking refuge from a storm, a man who desperately wants to matter:

The entirety of MDZS rests on two men who were scared and desperately wanted to matter: Wei WuXian, and Jin GuangYao. The people on Dafan Mountain who lose their souls to the goddess symbolize both of them (since they are foils) in that they didn’t consider the consequences of their actions and wound up losing themselves. Wei WuXian goes half-mad at the Nightless City and is later literally torn apart by his own creations....

... which for what it’s worth are noted at the beginning of the Dafan Mountain arc to still be in use, yet they are not working against the goddess, because for all Wei WuXian’s inventions, he could not control everything, and in the end lost control of himself as well. But of course Wei WuXian had a helping hand in that, because Jin GuangYao is the only character who throughout the story knows exactly what society is--a monster--and manipulates it to steal away what he needs it to steal away in order to maintain power. By the end of the story, his own crimes--the dead body of the sworn brother he killed--is what kills him. He thought he could control it, but he couldn’t. Yet Jin GuangYao is a victim too, and the story repeatedly emphasizes this (and does a fantastic job at it--he’s very hard to hate). 

The parallels and foreshadowing for both Wei WuXian and Jin GuangYao’s stories continue with a description of how the other people lost their souls: 

As we later find out, a marriage that is not what it seems later is a major twist in the story. Jin GuangYao found himself trapped in a wedding to a wife he found out just before his wedding was his sister--and whom he’d already gotten pregnant. The father who had scorned and hated him was tolerant of him and approved the match, his bride’s mother told him it was a rape and she didn’t want her husband to know his daughter wasn’t his daughter, and honestly, he was too scared to rock the boat and it’s hard to fault him. As a result he winds up losing himself even more, killing his son and later his wife. This description is symbolic of Jin GuangYao trapping himself in a wedding that would really just lead to ruin and death, not what he meant at all. And it winds up hurting the people who genuinely cared for him--his innocent son, his wife/sister, Nie MingJue, Lan XiChen. 

Wei WuXian, too, in his desire to help Jiang Cheng get revenge on the Wens, will later wind up hurting and almost destroying the Jiang Sect despite that never being his intention, when he loses control. And there’s direct foreshadowing of that here as well: 

The father's sacrifice parallels Wei WuXian’s sacrifice of his golden core for Jiang Cheng, and also Xiao XingChen’s sacrifice of his eyes for Song Lan (but Yi City will be its own meta). All of these sacrifices are noted to have drastically unintended consequences that actually wind up harming the relationships they attempted to maintain, though none of the sacrifices could be called anything but beautiful love. Xiao XingChen’s blindness is exactly what enables him to be tricked into killing his best friend, and Wei WuXian’s inability to tell Jiang Cheng for fear of offending him only leads Jiang Cheng to believe he is motivated to cultivate demonically because of arrogance. As a result Jiang Cheng starts to lose himself to pettiness and revenge, and Wei WuXian to his worser instincts as well--isolation (he’s always felt lonely) and to his martyr complex. Greed and the need to keep getting stronger are things that destroy Wei WuXian in the end (before he gets a second chance), but also are still destroying Jiang Cheng. 

And with that, let’s transition to the resolution and aftermath of the battle with the demon goddess. 

The goddess is provoked into attacking by Jin Ling, and it’s fairly karmic as well. Jin Ling expresses how hurt he was by Wei WuXian (who did not know who he was) taunting him for not having a mother, how hurt he was by a careless, ignorant word. And it’s Jin Ling’s careless, ignorant words that lead to one of his fellow disciples losing their soul. 

Society repeats its mistakes and does not learn (the fact that society is still using Wei WuXian’s creations is certainly a sign of this--though like everything it’s nuanced). And Jin Ling himself almost loses his soul as a result of trying to prove himself, but Jin Ling and the other disciples are repeatedly examples of hope in the story, hope that the novel’s conclusion will emphasize in its message that while society repeats itself, there is progress, and we are able to see Jin Ling and the others moving on from the hatred and prejudices that consumed the older generations. (We also see Wei WuXian, Jiang Cheng, Lan WangJi, etc. moving on, but the younger generation is even less encumbered by society’s poison). Society might not learn, but Jin Ling does. 

But who saves Jin Ling in the novel from losing his soul and in the donghua from losing his life is also massively important thematically, and for foreshadowing: the Ghost General, Wen Ning.

Wen Ning uses the chains he has been kept in for thirteen years to tear apart the goddess/society. The chains we will later learn were put on him by Jin GuangYao, a person turned monstrous thanks to the cruelty of society, who kept him imprisoned for years and years. Wen Ning is loathed by society his entire life: firstly, when the Wen Sect is in power, for being weak and a stutterer, then for being a Wen even though he helped the opposite side (which directly foils him with Jin GuangYao as well, since both were more or less moles), then as a monstrous fierce corpse who was used to kill people. 

But he saves Jin Ling--and all of them--by destroying the goddess. And Wen Ning will later save Jin Ling again in the novel’s climactic scene, at a temple to another goddess.

And, of course, there’s Lan WangJi, who plays an important role in unraveling the hell of Dafan Mountain, because his later canon romance with Wei WuXian is incredibly thematic in how it provokes characters to change their perceptions of society, and its his love for Wei WuXian that encourages both of them to grow to a place where they’re able to dismantle society’s presumptions. 

From the very beginning of the Dafan Mountain scene, we find out it’s Lan WangJi who destroys the deity-binding nets and sets the trapped people free.

When Wei WuXian uses his signature flute-playing to summon Wen Ning and save them all, Lan WangJi sees him for who he is. He doesn’t recognize Wei WuXian because of his technique, though--as Wei WuXian notes, hundreds use his techniques--but because of the song he plays, a song Lan WangJi wrote and--unbeknownst to Wei WuXian--only ever shared with Wei WuXian. It’s through seeing a moment of his own vulnerability, through love, that he recognizes the person he loves has come back to life. The song is aptly named “WangXian” in canon, because their relationship is key to the story’s themes. Lan WangJi, so stringent and too by-the-rules, is encouraged to break from society repeatedly for Wei WuXian, and Wei WuXian is encouraged to think more about consequences through his relationship with Lan WangJi. 

It’s also interesting that Jiang Cheng similarly recognizes Wei WuXian, but because of his technique and tries to force him to reveal himself via whipping his soul out with Zidian--but it doesn’t work, so he can’t confirm it until later. And what gets Jiang Cheng to release Wei WuXian to Lan WangJi is a topic the story does address head-on: the fact that the relationship between them is gay. 

Homophobia is something bystanders brings up when Jiang Cheng is certain Mo XuanYu’s body is inhabited, as it is, by Wei WuXian, and it’s something Wei WuXian seeks to use to get both Jiang Cheng and Lan WangJi (whom he hasn’t realized recognizes him) to release him by teasing him that he’s not attracted to Jiang Cheng but is attracted to Lan WangJi. Wei WuXian would rather depart from society all together, but that’s not what the story aims for even as it does take down society. Connection is important, connection keeps us going, and isolating himself has always been a flaw of Wei WuXian’s. 

Of course, Lan WangJi is in love with Wei WuXian, though no one but his family knows this--but it’s when Lan WangJi slowly stops caring what people think about that aspect of him that he and Wei WuXian are able to get together, and so begins the first aspect of Lan WangJi breaking with societal expectations for the person he loves. He also offers some words of wisdom fitting for the events that have just happened: mark your words. Watch what you say. It actually does matter. And for MDZS, that a significant factor of what helps topple some of society’s rules and encourages people to grow towards empathy is WangXian--a gay couple who marry each other--really does matter. 

#mdzs #mdzs meta #mao dao zu shi #wangxian #mo dao zu shi #lan wangji #jin ling #jiang cheng #wei wuxian #dafan mountain #homophobia tw

[beidouwanning]

Hi what are your favorite ships in mdzs? Please elaborate (:

okay so here goes (feel free to rant to me about your favorite ships as well pls!):

wangxian (lan wangji/wei wuxian): obviously. they’re everything. they’re soulmates. their love defied everything and they overcame any obstacle. they fought so hard for each other and they actually won in the end. they did it. they would die for each other. they would live for each other. they adore each other. their love is just beautiful ❤️

xiyao (lan xichen/jin guangyao) & nielan (nie mingjue/lan xichen): i'm gonna count them as one because just like how lan xichen himself can’t decide which of these two he likes better neither can i really dsfdghfds. lan xichen looks between jgy and nmj and his brain is like “twink? or hunk?? twink with dimples? or hunk that could bend me in half?” and honestly, that’s valid. when i look at xiyao i'm like “i can have a little problematic ship.....as a treat.” lxc had so much genuine respect for jgy and they clearly cared about each other a lot which is why lxc was so devastated by jgy's betrayal. and when i see nielan i just think “the trust they had in each other. the mutual respect. the love.” nie mingjue was so into lxc and believed him so much that he swore a sacred oath of brotherhood with a man he not only despised but also did not trust. just. i like them both a lot for very different reasons but i do also like them as a very chaotic ot3 😏

yanxuan (jiang yanli/jin zixuan): dumbass hets can have a little rights. as a treat.

sangcheng (nie huaisang/jiang cheng): okay you know how i love both jiang cheng and nie huaisang, i ranted about them already. but i also really liked their dynamic when they were both students at cloud recesses. i know they were always a trio and nhs also seemed closer with wwx than jc most of the time but i firmly adore nhs & wwx's friendship and also! wwx spent a lot of time with lwj when they were still students so my hc is that jc and nhs hang out without wwx a lot and fall in love maybe?? i also headcanon jc as asexual just so you know! and i always found it sad that we don’t get to see nhs and jc interact at all after the timeskip even though they were at the very least friends by association through wwx. but i imagine that they both had to grow up too fast, both becoming clan leaders at very young ages and we know how important it was for jc to appear as a strong professional leader while i believe that nhs was very busy plotting revenge for his brother's death so i guess it makes sense. it's still sad though

xuexiao (xiao xingchen/xue yang): “i can have a little problematic ship. as a treat.” taken to its most extreme. just. the romanticism of ruining the life of the guy you're crushing on and then being confused when he decides he cannot live with what he's done. terrific.

#asks #anonymous #<33 #there you go anonnie! #the untamed #mdzs