#mostly jgy-focused discussion of differences between mdzs and cql under the cut

[xiyao-feels]

new tu and xiyao fan from earlier. i searched ao3 as per your suggestion and there's only 500 or so fics for them. :( however, i do have a legit question - what are the differences between mdzs and tu (i've never read the latter). and if you want expand on nieyao (or xiyao) please feel free! i love reading meta! one of the few reasons i miss old school fandom spaces lol. thank you!! :D

Hmmm, I see about eight hundred if I limit to English? But I take your point! But that was just as a way to start; once you do find an author you like, you can look at their bookmarks, for example. (Also I'm not sure if you're familiar with the AO3, but if not, sorting by kudos when doing a general search is a way to get stuff that at least lots of people thought was good. I'm not saying it's perfect, but when you're starting in a fandom it can be better than the default by-date-updated.)

Also I'll take the opportunity to plug my absolute favourite xiyao author, roquen. I didn't mention them last time because they haven't I believe written a post-canon fixit, and you should know that they're mostly sticking to MDZS instead of CQL canon, although with some sprinkling of CQL elements and characterization. Some particular favourites of mine include their AtLA AU and their Sunshot/on the run fics (both series with a couple of short fics), their what you might call a mid-temple hopeful fix-it (divergence where LWJ strikes to kill and LXC takes the blow), the baby LXC fic ("Lan Xichen reverts to being a fifteen-year-old junior, and immediately gets an epic crush on Lianfang-zun"; disclaimer that I was fairly involved with the creation of this one but it's GREAT) and, of course, above all, their gigantic canon fix-it verse, it's worth it every time. It's SO GOOD and the characterization is fantastic and the prose is excellent and UGH. It's so good!!!!! Disclaimer that the second fic in the series, which is the main work, is still WIP, but roquen updates regularly and there are only a couple of chapters left; if you're still wary of WIPs, I'd at least recommend the first fic, which stands alone and is brilliant in its own right.

As to the differences between MDZS and CQL…ho boy. There are quite a few, both major and minor, and I'm by no means familar with all of them—especially the ones that don't involve 3zun, lol. I tried to google around but unfortunately the ones I found tended to be either short or, if more in-depth, contain inaccuracies about JGY/LXC—I think people tend to be more interested in the Wangxian, and then this stuff goes by the wayside. The wiki can be a good source for differences for specific incidents, and although I think it's not always accurate it /does/ usually cite chapter or episode, which can be pretty helpful. 

This, by hualiann, looks like a good overview, though I'd add that JYL, WQ and WN didn't study at Cloud Recesses in the novel and that more generally MDZS has a lot of actual undead.

In general my advice is to take things people say about the novel with a large grain of salt, myself included. And about CQL, too! I have no idea if this is you but when I joined the fandom, if people asserted stuff about CQL I tended to just kind of take it as fact—oh, I thought, I must have misremembered! My memory is pretty terrible, and honestly there was absolutely stuff I did misremember. But also sometimes other people misremember, or fanon gets taken as canon, and then there's stuff like—I mean, I'm certainly not going to blame people for not realizing that "JGY conspired with XY at the Unclean Realm" is a lot more uncertain than you might guess at first, especially if they're more Wangxian focused which most people in the fandom are, but I'm still not going to present it as straight-up fact. (veliseraptor has a recent post examining this here which I would very much recommend).

Honestly I think I'd recommend reading the MDZS NMJ Empathy flashback—chapters 48, 49, and the beginning of 50. That gets you a lot of the JGY, LXC and NMJ backstory, and then you can compare for yourself! I'm also going to recommend Mercy's thread, here, listing common fanons about MDZS (I will add to the list, since it's a bugbear of mine, the idea that LXC recognized NMJ's fierce corpse by his abs).

Okay with all that out of the way, and in no particular order, Sun's extremely idiosyncratic and particularly- aka mostly JGY-focused differences list:

-In MDZS, LXC doesn't become Sect Leader until the burning of Cloud Recesses by the Wen, when his father is injured and then succumbs to his wounds. In CQL, he's Sect Leader from the beginning of the show, his father having apparently died not too long before the show started.

-In MDZS, MY wasn't working for the Nie at all before the beginning of Sunshot; he joined the Nie forces just after Sunshot began. NMJ didn't instantly promote him to be his deputy when he's telling at the Nie men for bad-mouthing him; it takes a few more encounters and/or battles with the Wen (after which MY clears the battlefield and helps the commoners).

-In MDZS, xiyao's first meeting happens when LXC is on the run with the Lan books after the burning of Cloud Recesses. We don't see it happen on the page, and we don't know any details of that time beyond, like, MY helped LXC.

-NMJ willingly sends MY away from the Nie, with a letter of recommendation for JGS, after, uh, an extended overhearing of a conversation between MY and LXC wherein MY's desire to be recognized by his father and gain a proper place in the Jin, the opportunity offered for that by JGS recruiting talent at Langya, and the possible difficulty of obtaining permission from NMJ are all established. 

-NMJ sees MY stabbing a /Jin/ captain, at Langya, after he goes looking for MY. Rather than taking a blow for NMJ, MY stabs himself, faking suicide, then immobilizes NMJ (who's trying to save his life) and flees. This is because NMJ wants MY to go turn himself in for killing the captain; MY thinks they'll kill him, while NMJ says that if the captain has actually been mistreating MY as MY said, MY won't be killed. Personally I think that all the evidence suggests that MY is right, and NMJ is blind to the effects of his position to the extent it's a not insignificant moral failure.

-Okay, so, you know how in CQL MY stabs WRH while he's distracted with WWX, outside on the steps with the Sunshot alliance right outside? In /MDZS/, they're in the Sun Palace, WWX isn't anywhere near the place, he does it to save NMJ's life, and then he starts lugging NMJ's unconscious body out of the palace. And then NMJ comes to consciousness amd demands his sabre and tries to kill him. He likely only survives because of NMJ's wounds, and if LXC hadn't shown up (responding to a message MY sent for aid for NMJ) NMJ might easily have killed him. If you want a more in-depth analysis, I take a close look here in my response to someone's, er, imaginative interpretation of NMJ and JGY's relationship in MDZS.

-In CQL, NMJ's qi deviation happens at the stairs incident. In MDZS, it happens later, when he overhears JGY being upset to LXC about how NMJ treated him at the stairs, and, overcome with rage that JGY would dare (arguably in combination with being polite and pleasant to NMJ's face, although the last time he was confrontational to NMJ's face NMJ kicked him down the stairs and tried to kill him so), he kicks open the door and tries to kill him. He also kills several people as he's qi deviating (seeing them as JGY—while in CQL he also sees several JGYs they seem to be just illusions), and injures NHS.

-In MDZS, NMJ sets fire to all of NHS' nice things. I don't think we're told either way in CQL, although it's worth noting that in MDZS this happens after the stairs (and before JGY starts playing for him again). (I think they do something in FJ?? But I don't take FJ as canon for CQL; see confusion-and-more's post here).

-In CQL, JGY suggests to NMJ that he's always played the corrupted Clarity for him (though granted this is in Empathy, so it's hard to say for sure if this is what he actually said, but in any case it's the only version we're given). In MDZS, it's strongly indicated that JGY only started playing Turmoil for NMJ /after/ the stairs—there's a variety of evidence, but I think the most objective is that WWX, who in MDZS Empathy can literally feel NMJ's anger, actually observes it working beforehand:

Since [JGY started playing for NMJ], Jin GuangYao would travel from Lanling to Qinghe every few days, playing Sound of Lucidity to help quell Nie MingJue rage. He tried his hardest, without speaking even a single word of complaint. Sound of Lucidity was indeed effective. Wei WuXian could clearly feel that the hostile energy within Nie MingJue was being suppressed.

(Exiled Rebels translation, ch. 49)

And then the next scene is the stairs incident, so.

-In general, the degree to which JGY's position is completely awful is played down in CQL. confusion-and-more talks about it a bit here; I'd also note that some of JGY's dialogue defending himself is removed ( “Some trivial achievements?” He spoke in a shaking voice, “…What do you mean, some trivial achievements? ChiFeng-Zun, do you know how much work I put into such trivial achievements? How much I suffered? Glory? Without the handful of glory I have nothing!”, for example), we don't hear about his mother at the guqin scene, the temple flashback where his mother is dragged naked outside by a client and he's kicked down the brothel stairs is eliminated, etc etc.

-There is absolutely no second flutist in MDZS; also JGY tells us in the temple that QS was already pregnant before he found out about the incest. I think even in CQL it's questionable whether he actually intended to kill Zixuan (see this whole conversation), and significant unveiling or no CQL never actually says QS wasn't pregnant before their marriage so I tend to go with that too, but certainly it's easy to walk away with the impression that he definitely did both deliberately, especially if you aren't familiar with the novel.

-(In general, I think CQL JGY is a lot more sympathetic than most people think once you look closely, but he's also very much set up to look upon a more casual watching as Villain, so.)

-In CQL it's All A-Yao All The Time but in MDZS we see LXC calling him san-di after the sworn brotherhood, and then it's back to A-Yao in the present day (see my last addition on this chain here).

-In MDZS, JGY doesn't shove JL out of the way of the incoming attack.

-The LXC lifting JGY out of his bow thing is from CQL

-The watchtowers! Oh /man/ the watchtowers. God the watchtowers are so much. Uh, confusion-and-more has a post about how much they're mentioned in MDZS vs CQL here, and see my last addition to this thread for an argument that the watchtowers were indeed a force for good. God. Twelve hundred watchtowers. He must have saved so many lives...

-confusion-and-more's watchtower post also reminds me that CQL has the Guanyin temple giving out medicine, while MDZS does not

-The episode 23 scene where Sect Leaders Jin, Nie, and Lan agree to spare some of the Wen doesn't exist in MDZS (though I'll take the opportunity to observe that I disagree with popular interpretations of that scene, see point three here).

-In MDZS NMJ's fierce corpse is literally trying to kill JGY, there's no saber spirit. And like, it's been trying to kill JGY for a long damn time, that's why JGY dismembered him.

-The XY plotline—in MDZS, JGY recommends a young XY (who at thay point has a reputation but is not known to have committed any massacres) as a Jin cultivator, as part of an effort by JGS to recreate the Yin Tiger Seal. JGS has multiple people trying, but most of them aren't getting anywhere and XY is getting furthest. It's during this time that XY kills the Chang clan, and is discovered as guilty by XXC, who brings up the evidence at a conference happening in Lanling; the Jin are stalling, MMJ gets angry and shows up, he almost kills XY on the spot and gives JGS a lecture such that he's forced to relent and sentence XY to death (and incidentally scares JGY, imho quite seriously, while he's at it). Then JGS turns it into life imprisonment once NMJ has left, and then NMJ is extremely angry and attacks JGY at the stairs. (Ch. 30 and 118)

-I mentioned before but I'll add it here too: in CQL JGY asks LXC to stay and die with him, and LXC agrees.

-The CQL ending in general is...hmmm. Despite having most of the elements which complicate MDZS' ending (JL is in a terrible position!), it kind of presents as...happy ending all is fixed now? In MDZS I think it's presented as—more complicated, even though Wangxian do very much get their happy ending.

-Also LWJ is a lot less. uh. Okay, so in CQL he's more Mr Morality, and in MDZS it's much more Wei Ying Right Or Wrong. Also, he doesn't become Chief Cultivator in MDZS! I think that's my least favourite change, because it's like...LWJ hates politics, hates compromise, and never attends the cultivation conferences. At least one of 'this is going to be a major diisaster' and 'LWJ is going to have to go through some significant shifts in his worldview and approach' are going to have to happen, but that's not the vibe CQL gives off at all, and I think it really works against some of the major themes of the text :/

-OH RIGHT I knew I was forgetting something—in MDZS MXY's revenge is focused solely on the Mo; JGY is not part of the curse.

Okay I don't want to go too much on about xiyao or nieyao, because this is already quite long and I don't want you to be waiting forever, but broadly although I certainly think NMJ cares about JGY a great deal it seems to be about his competence and potential; he doesn't really seem to, like, actually like who he is as a person. JGY, meanwhile, is at first very grateful to and then increasingly exasperated by and very much fucking terrified of NMJ, but...well, he doesn't seem to be into him or interested in spending time with him for the sake of it or etc etc.

On the other hand—xiyao. Man, xiyao!!!! They just—they get each other so fast, they're /partners/, they work together so well, they like and they respect each other, they're both like—LXC and MS are on their own tier for JGY, LWJ and JGY are on their own tier for LXC, they're for each other in a way neither is for anyone else, they care a lot about the same things—it's not perfect overlap, obviously, but it's more overlap I think than either has with anyone else, they—invest, they're builders, JGY was planning the watchtowers project from way back and although I have no doubt he was driving it LXC was with him and!!!! ugh!!!!! xiyao are REALLY GREAT, okay.

#the best of men #more than one tag could contain #a gentle warmth filling the deepest of needs #anger burned in his heart #long meta #sort of #we can't change places #j #mostly jgy-focused discussion of differences between mdzs and cql under the cut