#no force on earth can make jiang cheng not love

[mxtxfanatic]

Jin Ling and the Curse of Escalating Abuse

Seeing the complex nature of the relationship between Jin Ling and Jiang Cheng, I wanted to cover the topic of escalating abuse of the uncle towards his nephew, as Jiang Cheng is abusive towards Jin Ling throughout the entire story but that abuse shifts as the story goes on. Note: this is not an essay about how abusive people can love their victims still. I know Jiang Cheng loves his nephew, but that love means nothing in the face of him continuously being the force that drives the young boy to danger. Love does not absolve abuse. Moving on: though many of the scenes I mention are gone over in multiple translations, I will only be using one source per scene for my argument, as none of them are worded radically different. I will, however, include the other translations under the cut for anyone who wants to see them for comparison.

In the early section of the novels, we learn two important bits of information about how Jin Ling views his maternal uncle, Jiang Cheng:

From as early as Jin Ling could remember, he had never seen Jiang Cheng’s face make the expression it was currently making. His uncle, who had led the distinguished Yunmeng Jiang Clan alone since the man had been young, had been cold, severe, and gloomy for years and years on end. Not a single lenient or merciful word left Jiang Cheng’s mouth if he could help it, nor was he ever willing to offer charity and kindness.

–Chapt. 23: Malice I, fanyiyi

Angrily, [Jin Ling] leapt onto his feet and pulled out his sword on the spot. “How dare you hit me! Even my uncle’s never hit me!”

Surprised, Wei Wuxian said, “Really? But doesn’t he say he’s going to break your legs all the time?”

“He’s just saying that!” Jin Ling raged.

–Chapt. 24: Malice II, fanyiyi

From Jin Ling’s perspective, his maternal uncle is always acerbic and never kind, but he has never been physically abusive to Jin Ling. Plus though he often threatens Jin Ling with physical abuse–threatening to break his legs or use Zidian on him–Jin Ling considers this all talk. In fact, Jiang Cheng’s abuse of Jin Ling stays firmly in the realm of verbal and emotional for most of the story. His most common insults to throw at his nephew are about Jin Ling appearing unworthy of his position as Jin (and Jiang) heir, in almost a mimicry of how Madam Yu would tell him that he was unworthy of being the Jiang heir in comparison to Wei Wuxian:

Frowning, he said, “Jin Ling, how much time are you going to waste? Do you need me to go over there and invite you back? Look at your sorry state—why the hell haven’t you gotten back up!?”

–Chapt. 7: Pride II, fanyiyi

“‘Fine’?” Jiang Cheng said. “You look like you took a tumble in a muddy ditch—you call that ‘fine?’ Aren’t you embarrassed to be wearing your clan’s uniform? Go back and change immediately! Out with it—what did you run into today?”

–Chapt. 23: Malice I, fanyiyi

He is also shown to have a bad habit of lashing out instead of expressing any emotion that could be considered nice, just like Jin Ling says:

Upon seeing that Jin Ling was fine, Jiang Cheng’s heart crashed back to earth like a boulder. Immediately furious, he said, “Didn’t you bring a signal? Don’t you know to fire it if you encounter something like this? Don’t try to show off! Come here!”

–Chapt. 10: Pride V, fanyiyi

And because of Jiang Cheng’s outward lack of concern for Jin Ling’s health and safety–prefering barbs over comfort–Jin Ling refuses to be vulnerable with him, keeping his fears, concerns, disappointments, and even positive emotions like relief to himself. Outwardly, he lashes out, just like he has learned to do from his maternal uncle:

Since Jin Ling hadn’t caught the soul eating maiden, he was also angry. “Wasn’t it you who told me I had to take the thing down no matter what?! You told me if I didn’t get it, I should never come see you again!”

–Chapt. 10: Pride V, fanyiyi

Annoyed, Jin Ling said, “I already told you, I didn’t run into anything! It was just a fall. The whole journey was a waste of time.”

–Chapt. 23: Malice I, fanyiyi

The one who called was Jiang Cheng, who stood near the edge. Still teary-eyed, as soon as Jin Ling saw his uncle, he immediately wiped his face, sniffing. He looked here and there and finally made up his mind to fly over, landing at Jiang Cheng’s side.

Jiang Cheng grabbed him, “What happened to you? Who did this to you?!”

Jin Ling rubbed his eyes roughly, refusing to speak up.

–Chapt. 84: Loyalty, exr

Who can blame him, though? Almost every life-threatening situation Jin Ling finds himself in is a direct result of Jiang Cheng’s cruelty towards him: from attempting to fight to goddess statue without calling for help, to ending up almost suffocated in the walls of the Nie Clan Saber Hall, and even to him winding up in Yi City:

Jiang Cheng’s next words were wrapped in thorns. “Why are you still standing there? Are you waiting for prey to rush toward you and stick themselves on your sword? If you can’t capture whatever’s living in Dafan Mountain, don’t ever come see me again!”

–Chapt. 8: Pride III, fanyiyi

It seemed that the boy hadn’t come to Qinghe alone. No surprise—at Dafan Mountain, Jiang Cheng had come to support his nephew, so why wouldn’t he come this time too? Only it seemed that the uncle and nephew had gotten into an argument in Qinghe Town, which caused Jin Ling to set off for Xinglu Ridge on his own.

–Chapt. 23: Malice I, fanyiyi

It turned out that, having tricked his uncle and released Wei Wuxian several days ago, Jin Ling had been worried that Jiang Cheng would actually break his legs, so he had decided to sneak off and disappear, intending to reappear in front his uncle only after Jiang Cheng’s temper had cooled.

–Chapt. 35: Flora III, fanyiyi

As much as Jin Ling wants to assure everyone that “that’s just how his uncle is” and show us how unbothered he is by Jiang Cheng’s behavior, he does actually fear the man. And with good reason to! Now let’s address the elephant in the room: Jiang Cheng very much so does want to be physically harm Jin Ling, and this almost always correlates to Jin Ling talking back/not listening to him. Take this scene from right after the juniors survive the goddess statue and Jin Ling reminding Jiang Cheng that he was the one who told the boy to either catch the beast on Dafan Mountain or never return to him:

Jiang Cheng wanted to slap the stinking brat so hard he’d fly back up his mother’s birth canal—but he did actually say those words. Since he couldn’t very well embarrass himself, the Clan Chief could only turn to sarcastically mocking the cultivators scattered randomly over the ground. “So what exactly thrashed all of you into looking so dignified?”

–Chapt. 10: Pride V, fanyiyi

The thing stopping him from slapping Jin Ling is the fact that Jiang Cheng publicly told the boy not to come back if he was not successful, and he has been publicly called out when trying to take Jin Ling to task. Being unable to swipe at the boy as he wishes, he then turns his attention to his disciples to punish, as they are lower than him in rank and therefore no one can chastise him on his unbecoming behavior. But once we get to the scenes where all social hierarchy and propriety break down–the second siege and Guanyin Temple–all hands are loosed:

Jiang Cheng forced himself to walk over to Jin Ling, grabbing him at once, “Did you get hurt?!”

Jin Ling’s breaths even smelled like rust, “I didn’t. I...”

Jiang Cheng immediately slapped him onto the ground, scolding, “You didn’t?! Then I’ll make you get hurt and teach you the lesson! You damn brat turning a deaf ear to my words?!”

–Chapt. 81: Loyalty, exr

Jiang Cheng shoved Jin Ling, who’d been holding him up helplessly, out of the way...

...With panic, Jin Ling stood in front of Jiang Cheng, “HanGuang-Jun! My uncle’s hurt...”

Jiang Cheng slapped him onto the ground, “Let him come! Am I scared of him?!”

–Chapt. 102: Hatred, exr

Social etiquette no longer exists in a life-or-death battle or hostage situation, so Jiang Cheng has no face to maintain in front of anyone else. But by this point in the story, Jin Ling has spent a considerable amount of time with two role models who do show him kindness, care, and support. He begins to crave that parental love he has been deprived of, starting from the second siege:

A few sect leaders clutched onto their sons, cautioning them, “When the corpses rush inside all at once, protect yourself and try to get out. Stay alive no matter what! You understand?!”

As Jin Ling heard this, he felt himself cringe, but somewhere deep down he hoped that his uncle would say something similar as well. He waited for a while, but nothing came from Jiang Cheng...

–Chapt. 81: Loyalty, exr

And when Jiang Cheng finally hits him for the first time, Jin Ling’s only reaction is to look towards wangxian:

He sat down, catching his breath as his eyes turned to the two sitting at the side of the Demon-Slaughtering Cave closest to the outside.

Both Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi were a mess.

–Chapt. 81: Loyalty, exr

Finally, all of the dysfunction in Jin Ling and Jiang Cheng’s relationship comes to a head in Guanyin Temple, the climax of the story. Jiang Cheng’s behavior escalates into physical violence towards his last living relative, while Jin Ling is no longer lashing out at his uncle in place of being vulnerable but is also no longer able to brush off Jiang Cheng’s cruelty as acceptable. He has had his entire worldview turned on its head, and out of that, realizes that he does not want to continue the cycle of abuse and hatred that Jiang Cheng tries to force him to inherit, but would rather follow the path of love and kindness that Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji have shown him is possible.

Jin Ling on Jiang Cheng’s personality:

For as long as he could remember, Jin Ling had never seen Jiang Cheng with such an expression. His uncle, who had single-handedly led the Jiang Clan of Yunmeng at a tender young age, was always cold and gloomy. He was merciless and never kind with his words.

–Chapt. 23: Malevolent Part 1: Running into Gunpoint, taming wangxian

From the beginning of his memory until now, Jin Ling had never seen such a look on Jiang Cheng’s face before. This uncle of his who led the prominent YunmengJiang Sect ever since a young age had always been cold and dark. When he spoke, he was willing to neither show mercy nor do good.

–Chapt. 23: Malice, exr

Jin Ling saying Jiang Cheng has never hit him before and is all talk:

Jin Ling stirred awake after a while. He rubbed his neck, which was still hurting, then angrily drew his sword and sprung up. “How dare you hit me! Even my uncle has never hit me before!”

Wei Wuxian was shocked. “Is that so? Doesn’t he frequently say that he will break your legs?”

Jin Ling raged, “He had never meant what he said!! You fucking cutsleeve, what do you want? I ...”

–Chapt. 24: Malevolent Part 2: Escape, taming wangxian

He was so angry that he jumped up and unsheathed his sword at once, “How dare you hit me! My uncle hadn’t even hit me before!”

Wei WuXian exclaimed, “Really? Doesn’t he say that he’ll break your legs all the time?”

Jin Ling fumed, “He’s only saying that! You damn cut- sleeve, what on Earth do you want? I...”

–Chapt. 24: Malice, exr

Jiang Cheng’s insults to Jin Ling:

He scowled, “Jin Ling, why are you wasting so much time? Do I have to come over to invite you back? You look like a mess now; why aren’t you getting up?”

–Chapt. 7: The Prideful Part 2: Wangji Finally Makes his Appearance! taming wangxian

He frowned, “Jin Ling, why did you linger for so long? Do you really need me to come and pick you up? Look at what a terrible situation you’re in right now, and get up!”

–Chapt. 7: Arrogance, exr

Jiang Cheng said, “Safe and sound? You look like you’ve been rolling around in the gutters, how is that ‘safe and sound’? Aren’t you ashamed to be wearing your family’s uniform? Hurry back now and get changed! Spit it out, what did you encounter today?”

–Chapt. 23: Malevolent Part 1: Running into Gunpoint, taming wangxian

Jiang Cheng, “Nothing wrong? You look like you just rolled around in a muddy ditch, and you say there’s nothing wrong with you! Don’t you think that it’s an embarrassment to be wearing your sect’s uniform? Hurry back and change into something else! Speak. What did you run into today?”

–Chapt. 23: Malice, exr

Jiang Cheng lashing out at Jin Ling in place of concern:

Jiang Cheng was greatly relieved when he saw that Jin Ling was not harmed. He immediately began to reprimand him. “Didn’t you bring the signals with you? Why didn’t you release it even though you were up against something like this? Were you trying to show off? Come over here now!”

 –Chapt. 10: The Prideful Part 5: I’m Bringing This Man Back to the Lan Estate, taming wangxian

Seeing that Jin Ling was safe, Jiang Cheng finally calmed down. Quickly afterward, he scolded angrily, “Didn’t you bring signal firelights with you? Don’t you know to use them when you meet something like this? What are you pretending to be strong for? Scram over here!”

–Chapt. 10: Arrogance, exr

Jiang Cheng’s behavior pushing Jin Ling into danger:

Jiang Cheng then said in a scathing tone, “Why are you still standing there? The prey’s not going to stab themselves with your swords! If you can’t capture whatever’s on Dafan Mountain, don’t look for me again!”

–Chapt. 8: The Prideful Part 3: Discovering His Good Looks After Cleaning Up, taming wangxian

Jiang Cheng turned again, his words covered with thorns, “Why are you still standing there? Waiting for the prey to come and throw itself onto your sword? If, today, you don’t catch the creature hunting Dafan Mountain, don’t come to me ever again!”

–Chapt. 8: Arrogance, exr

It turned out that Jin Ling didn’t come to Qinghe alone. That wasn’t surprising; previously, Jiang Cheng had also provided him with back-up on Dafan Mountain, so why wouldn’t he be here this time? However, from the looks of it, the uncle and nephew probably had an argument in Qinghe, hence Jin Ling had trekked up Xinglu Ridge alone.

–Chapt. 23: Malevolent Part 1: Running into Gunpoint, taming wangxian

It appeared that Jin Ling didn’t come to Qinghe alone. Well, no wonder. Last time, at Dafan Mountain, Jiang Cheng had been there to assist him, so why wouldn’t he have come this time? However, looking at this now, it seemed that the two had a quarrel in the town of Qinghe, which was why Jin Ling went up the Xinglu Ridge alone

–Chapt. 23: Malice, exr

It turned out that a few days ago, after Jin Ling had sent Jiang Cheng away on a lie and released Wei Wuxian, he was worried that his uncle might really break his legs this time around. Hence, he decided to sneak out and disappear for a couple of weeks, then reappear when Jiang Cheng’s anger had subsided.

–Chapt. 35: Foliage Part 3: The Paper Effigies Shop and Glutinous Rice Porridge, taming wangxian

Ever since a few days ago, after Jin Ling lied to his uncle and let Wei WuXian go, he had been worried that this time Jiang Cheng would really break his legs, so he decided to sneak out and disappear for a few days, not appearing in front of Jiang Cheng until his anger subsided.

–Chapt. 35: Grasses, exr

Jin Ling refusing to be vulnerable with Jiang Cheng/lashing out:

Jin Ling was furious that he failed to capture the soul-eating fairy, and retorted, “Didn’t you say I had to capture it at all costs? And that I shouldn’t return to you empty handed!”

–Chapt. 10: The Prideful Part 5: I’m Bringing This Man Back to the Lan Estate, taming wangxian

Jin Ling was also angered from not capturing the soul- consuming goddess, “Weren’t you the one who told me that I have to catch it? And, if I don’t catch it, I shouldn’t go see you?”

–Chapt. 10: Arrogance, exr

Jin Ling said impatiently, “I’ve already told you that I didn’t encounter anything. I slipped and fell. It was a wasted trip. Ouch!” He yelled, “Don’t you drag me around like this! I’m not three years old!”

–Chapt. 23: Malevolent Part 1: Running into Gunpoint, taming wangxian

Jin Ling replied impatiently, “I already said that I didn’t run into anything. I tripped, and it was a waste of time. Ow!” He shouted, “Don’t tug on me like that! I’m not three-years- old!”

–Chapt. 23: Malice, exr

The voice that had called out earlier had belonged to the man standing at the head of the ship, none other than Jiang Cheng. Between tears, Jin Ling peered out and upon seeing his uncle, he abruptly stopped crying and quickly rubbed away his tears. Sniffing slightly, he looked around, clenching his teeth as he quickly flew over to Jiang Cheng’s side. Jiang Cheng grasped Jin Ling’s shoulders in alarm, asking, “What happened to you? Who bullied you!”

Rubbing his eyes forcefully, Jin Ling remained silent.

–Chapt. 84 Loyalty: Little Friends, chiaki_himura

The voice earlier had come from Jiang Cheng. Jin Ling’s eyes were misty with tears. Hearing his uncle’s voice, he immediately wiped his face clean, sniffed his nose, looked back and forth between the two ships, and then finally decided to fly over. The second Jin Ling landed besides him, Jiang Cheng had his hands on him, “What’s wrong? Who bullied you?!”

Jin Ling wiped at his eyes hard, but refused to speak.

–Chapt. 84: “Core” Part 6, boat-full-of-lotus-pods

Jiang Cheng wishing violence on Jin Ling:

Jiang Cheng wanted to slap this kid so hard that he would be forced back into his mother’s womb. However, these were his very own words; how could he take them back?

–Chapt. 10: The Prideful Part 5: I’m Bringing This Man Back to the Lan Estate, taming wangxian

Jiang Cheng seriously wanted to slap the rotten brat so hard that he went back inside his mother’s stomach. However, he really did say so himself, and he shouldn’t prove himself wrong.

–Chapt. 10: Arrogance, exr

Jiang Cheng physically harming Jin Ling:

Jiangcheng limped quickly towards Jin Ling, grabbing him his shoulders with both hands as he said angrily, “Are you hurt!”

Breathing heavily, Jin Ling murmured, “No, I......”

Jiang Cheng had landed a slap on Jin Ling’s face as he berated, “No?! If you’re not hurt then let me give you something to hurt about! You rascal, turning a deaf ear to my words now, aren’t you?!”

–Chapt. 81 Loyalty: Corpses of the Burial Mound, chiaki_himura

Jiang Cheng limped towards Jin Ling, grabbed him and yelled, “Are you injured!”

Even Jin Ling’s laboured breaths were tainted with the smell of blood, “No, I…….”

Jiang Cheng immediately slapped him onto the group, “No?! Then take this as a reminder for what you just did! Do my words mean nothing to you, you little shit!”

–Chapt. 81: “Core” Part 3, boat-full-of-lotus-pods

Jiang Cheng pushed away Jin Ling who had been supporting him, and despite having lost so much blood, his face remained flushed with anger as he roared, “How could you?! Wei Wuxian, how could you?!”...

...Lan Wangji stood up furiously as Jin Ling leapt in front of Jiang Cheng again, trembling as he begged, “HanGuang-Jun! My uncle is injured......”

Jiang Cheng struck a blow on Jin Ling, causing him to stumble to the ground.

–Chapt. 102 Hatred: I’m Sorry, I Swallowed My Words, chiaki_himura

Jin Ling wanting to hear kind words from Jiang Cheng:

Several sect leaders grabbed onto their offspring, urgently directing them, “When the corpses rush in, you have to protect yourself and find a way to escape. You must stay alive no matter what! Do you understand?!”

Hearing the desperation in the parents’ voices, Jin Ling felt a pang of sadness. Deep down, he had hoped that perhaps Jiang Cheng would also say this to him, but however long he waited, nothing came out of it...

–Chapt. 81 Loyalty: Corpses of the Burial Mound, chiaki_himura

Various Sect and Clan Leaders had grabbed their own sons, warning, “When the corpses rush in, you will protect yourself, and find a way to escape! You must survive no matter what happens! Do you understand me?!”

Hearing this, a sourness churned within Jin Ling. A part of him longed to hear those same words from his own uncle. But after waiting for a few, long moments, Jiang Cheng showed no sign of speaking up.

–Chapt. 81: “Core” Part 3, boat-full-of-lotus-pods

Jin Ling looking to wangxian for comfort:

After taking the blow, Jin Ling couldn’t stand any further and sat onto the ground heavily, breathing deeply as his eyes travelled to the silhouettes of the two people sitting closest to the entrance of the cave.

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji were a mess.

–Chapt. 81 Loyalty: Corpses of the Burial Mound, chiaki_himura

Yet Jiang Cheng* himself had no energy left to stand after giving this slap. He sat down heavily, breathing hard as he glared at the two figures closest to the mouth of the Demon-Crouching Cave.

Wei WuXian and Lan WangJi were a mess.

–Chapt. 81: “Core” Part 3, boat-full-of-lotus-pods

*boat-full-of-lotus-pods is the only translation of the three I have of Chapt. 81 that says that Jiang Cheng is the one who looks at wangxian. Both exr and chiaki_himura say that this is Jin Ling.

#human reads mdzs: take 2 #human metas mxtx #omfg this was long #also i thought about using every jl/jc interaction #but that is just too goddamn long #if you want to know how many times jc threatens jl with physical violence #you'll have to look that up on your own #i only took pertinent info from major arcs #canon jiang cheng

[ultfreakme]

Can I ask your top 10 fav fics ever (from any fandom, if you don't mind)?

Also, just curious, is there a story behind your name "ultfreakme"?

*stares at my 100 bookmarks* *stares at my fandom heap which is somehow messier than my laundry heap*

I shall try my best:

1. Upon Our Silver Bridge by TheWanderingHeart : It's a XiCheng fic and it is, so good. It's a long fic where the character Lan Xichen secludes himself out of grief from being fooled by his best friend for decades and being unknowingly complicit in killing his other best friend, slowly succumbing to an unknown illness that weakens him daily. In this time, Jiang Cheng contacts Lan Xichen through letters and the two slowly fall in love through brief meetings, while learning that Lan Xichen doesn't have much time left and that there is no explanation or cure for his sickness......or is there? (huge spoilers if I say the answer for what the illness is but it's WORTH IT when the final reveal happens. I fucking lost my mind).

2. Picture of the Turning Sphere by omphalos: Another XiCheng fic! So Jiang Cheng and Lan Xichen had fought in this battle that led to the destruction of one among five great sects, which causes a great unbalance, resulting in a lot of natural disasters and internal discord across the country. There's a comet that the astrologers everywhere consider inauspicious and to prevent further disaster, Jiang Cheng and Lan Xichen are identified to be the most perfect, balanced match to accomplish a bunch of divinely-assigned duties to bring balance back before the comet either hits or passes by the earth. Thing is; Lan Xichen and Jiang Cheng are barely friends and they are both depressed as fuck and stressed. But they're forced into these trials and slowly fall in love!

3. The Fast Train to Kyoto by courtingstars (FallingSilver): Oh this series. It is the defining AkaFuri fic series. It basically solidified all the tropes in the ship fandom for me. Furihata is an average student and basketball player and Akashi takes an interest in befirending because of a past incident where he absolutely fucking wrecked the dude's self-confidence and energy mid-match and threatened his bestie with scissors to his eyes. With that eventful first impression, these two slowly begin to meet in the middle. It's about learning to trust and open up, basketball, and there's a touch of magic and mystery to it that's slowly interwoven. It's very atmospheric. Akashi's a rich af dude and his mansion is described in an eerie, distant way that makes it seem like its haunted. Their entire relationship has this undertone of Beauty & The Beast but the castle is weird and Belle has secret unidentifiable and undefined powers that you question if it's even real magic or just, human understanding. Idk it's wild if you like the ship it's a fun read.

4. Into the Sinking Horizon by Silver_Porch: My best friend irl wrote this and it's not complete but I KNOW how this fic goes down we talked about it for months. In my heart, this is complete, I know all the story elements and how it ends and it lives rent free in my head. It's about the Kuroko No Basuke cast but Pirate AU. It's extremely well-researched and well-written. The story start with Akashi, a disillusioned prince who wants to escape his father's control and decides to run away with the captain of their guard, Nijimura. Turns out, Nijimura and his family have been cursed to follow the command of Akashi's family so these two go on a quest across the seven seas to find a way to break the curse with their very own plucky pirate crew! It's awesome, do check it out(and perhaps bully my bestie into continuing it mwahahaha)

5. A Soul's Shape by WingsofaBird: I recently finished this and it is amazing! An ItaJun Junpei loves rewrite that's been done up until Shibuya arc. It is heart-wrenching and a really unique take on what would have happened if Junpei got to go to Jujutsu Tech. It gives a lot of time to Junpei's grief and exemplifies exactly why Junpei had a tough time in school and why Jujutsu Tech and being sorcerer isn't going to be a solution to that. He's grieving, alone, and has no one to rely on. Junpei's character is tragic because he's so unreachable in his loneliness despite not wanting to be because of the systems around him and the loathing the systems have created in himself towards himself.

6. The Silver Answer by enemyofrome: It's a Stucky fic! Anyone here from my stucky days? So the Captain America story is about how Steve got super powers through a serum right? What if he didn't? What if 'Captain America' was an illusion created by a special division which uses stage props and other techniques to make it look like there's a superhuman leading a large division? I love this fic because this is based on a real life division called the Ghost Army who used deception techniques like inflatable tanks, recorded sounds etc to make it look like they had a large division.

I love this because Steve in-canon is always the tank, the strong guy. But he was an artist before that and even without the superhuman abilities, he would have fought tooth and nail against Nazis and this fic shows exactly that.

7. despite the threatening sky and shuddering earth (they remained) by praximeter (Zimario): This is also Stucky and it is depressing but also good. Lots of warnings apply, author listed them. But basically it's about how The Winter Soldier's mask is driven into his face and a fixture. He has a lot of other body modifications that are extremely dangerous forced upon him. The fic is about how Steve and the rest of the Avengers help him gain back his autonomy and identity. Though it's a stucky fic I really enjoyed the Sam and Bucky interactions best. It's good if you want Stucky ANGST, it's one of the famous fics in the fandom.

8. Wanting by ac_123: Another Junpei lives fic!!! This one is also about Junpei struggling but a whole new take. We get to see him be somewhat at peace and learning to befriend and interact with the rest of the cast. The plot is building up to be something really cool and I love the story where it's at. I love myself some solid character interactions and world-building, and this one gave a lot of depth into how Junpei's powers can work. Every character interaction and dynamic with Junpei is fun to watch.

That's all I can remember for now, sorry I couldn't muster up 10 ;_;I've read hundreds of fics so it's hard for me to pick. It's like, when you have too many options, it feels like you become less able to choose.

As for my username, ah how embarassing for me. So when I made this I was in high school and taking coding classes and really enjoyed it, also I was way too into anime and studied too much(to noa vail like I always got 80% averages) so people called me a nerd. Now, I was the kinda loser that went "correction, I am not a nerd, I'm not smart eough for that, I'm a geek, i.e., someone who's passionate about certain subject". And I was the 'Ult'imate geek.

"But Riki, 'geek' isn't even in your name!"

I hear you. I tried to get 'ultgeekme' as a username but it was already taken. So the only synonym for geek that WASN'T taken was 'freak'. So. ultfreakme.

Bonus: But then literally no one here calls me 'Ult' afaik and I use Riki to refer to myself. 'Riki' is just 'Kiri' from Kirishima from BNHA but I jumbled the order. He was my favorite character and it sounded gender neutral so I liked it.

Hope that covered everything and the fics, if you take interest, are fun to read!

#riki asks #fic recs

[hyperboleigh91]

MDZS spoilers

Like most MXTX characters, Jiang Cheng is more complex and morally grey than you may first believe. So let me begin at the beginning.

Jiang Cheng was raised in a volatile family. Jiang Fengmian seems to favor Wei Wuxian (I choose to believe it's sympathy for a child that lost his parents and then spent years on the streets fighting dogs for scraps) and Madam Yu favored Jiang Cheng but didn't show a lot of warmth towards him.

Madam Yu's treatment of Jiang Cheng comes off as more of a "You're wasted potential" rather than actually seeing value in who Jiang Cheng is as a person and as her son. Obviously Jiang Yanli is the only one who treats both of her brothers with equal kindness and love.

Jiang Cheng is both privileged and neglected. He's never technically the strongest, but any confidence came from his family being behind him. Meanwhile, he's also insecure in his abilities as a cultivator because he's always right beside Wei Wuxian who is basically a prodigy in cultivation.

Then in one fell swoop, Jiang Cheng loses almost everyone in his family, most of his sect, and is left with only Wei Wuxian (and Jiang Yanli) who he's considered as both a brother and competition his whole life (while his parents almost groomed Wei Wuxian to be his guard because of his power).

It's obvious Jiang Cheng loved Wei Wuxian. He went out of his way to try to protect Wei Wuxian from the Wens. But this instance instills another level of resentment that Jiang Cheng has for Wei Wuxian, even though it obviously wasn't the fault of either.

As Jiang Cheng loses his golden core, and his family, the confidence that he had is obliterated. Now he knows positively that Wei Wuxian is stronger than he is, and this is an especially big blow because he lost his parents who instilled in him from a young age that he has to become everything they are.

He sees everything Wei Wuxian does past this point as betrayal because it goes against the set plan that his parents had for them, even though Wei Wuxian is still trying to help Jiang Cheng and work with the situation that they've been dealt.

Things are moderately smooth once Jiang Cheng gets a golden core again, and during the Sunshot Campaign - when Wei Wuxian is a force to be reckoned with and everyone assumes he's Jiang Cheng's right hand man. But Wei Wuxian is independent and always thinks critically. This arrangement was doomed to fail.

Wei Wuxian has no problem questioning everyone's authority and he already proved during the war that if he wishes to take someone out, there isn't a lot they can do about it. But Wei Wuxian also doesn't have a ton of social awareness; he disagrees and argues with Jiang Cheng publicly, so now the entire cultivation world thinks Jiang Cheng can't keep his "dog" on a leash.

The seeds of resentment have been in Jiang Cheng from the start, and the Yiling Patriarch sows them. Wei Wuxian acting on his own is bad enough as it makes Jiang Cheng lose face, but then Jiang Cheng loses what's left of his family (other than Jin Ling) in direct connection to Wei Wuxian's actions.

Jiang Cheng never severed the bond he and Wei Wuxian had, it stayed but warped and festered like a wound. In Jiang Cheng's life, in his mind, everything he's lost can be connected to Wei Wuxian and even though neither man is at fault, Jiang Cheng winds up hating the only person he has left.

I can't really excuse his actions following Wei Wuxian's d€ath; spending 13 years t○rturing people because you're so hell bent on your adopted brother's soul not being allowed back on earth is pretty negative any way you spin it. I assume he felt that Wei Wuxian didn't deserve to live when everyone else he loved was gone, or maybe he feared for Jin Ling.

The Jiang Cheng we see in the current timeline of the story is cold. But he would have to be, since he was forced to be a leader from such a young age. But he's still actually very protective of those he loves. He's never far behind Jin Ling, and for all of his talk, he never actually does anything to punish his nephew.

Jin Ling always runs off and talks back to Jiang Cheng. He may not feel warm and cozy with his uncle, but he sure as hell feels safe. At the very end of the novel Jin Ling becomes a sect leader, at a very young age (only his early teens). Jiang Cheng is still a sect leader himself and yet he comes around to Jin Ling's sect to throw his strength around so that his nephew is never bullied or taken advantage of.

I hold strongly to the belief that Jiang Cheng's feelings and treatment towards Wei Wuxian are entirely because he sees Wei Wuxian as the reason for everything in his life being ruined, and he wants to protect what's left. Jin Ling has the dog Fairy to protect him; even when Jiang Cheng isn't right beside his nephew, he knows Fairy is, and that Wei Wuxian is terrified of dogs.

I'd like to believe that post-story Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian make up and become close again, but I fear Wei Wuxian represents too much pain for Jiang Cheng.

#mxtx #mxtx books #mdzs #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #jiang cheng #jin ling #wei wuxian

[viterbofangirllovestheuntamed]

Love your jc tags on that post with ozz in the midlle

(the post in question)

He is SUCH a freaking mess! Looming like Batman hovering over a baby at the playground with a somehow-still-prideful kicked puppy expression. Thousand-yard-stare focused six feet in front of him without so much as a single BLINK.

#tehanulilac #jiang cheng #Incredibly The Biggest Disaster In A Cast Which Also Contains Wei Wuxian #HIS BODY IS JUST TOO DAMN SMALL TO CONTAIN ALL OF HIS OVERWHELMING EMOTIONS #EMOTIONALLY CONSTIPATED DUMPSTER FIRE #SEPARATION ANXIETY DISASTER #SMAD PURPLE LIGHTNING MAN #no force on earth can make jiang cheng not love #guanyin temple #LET'S BE BROTHERS AGAIN #twin heroes of yunmeng #twin dumbasses of yunmeng #*glances at watch* OH HEY LOOK IT'S DROWN-IN-JIANG-CHENG-FEELS TIME AGAIN

[robininthelabyrinth]

Prompt: what if jc was lxc's age (and jyl maybe 2 or 3 years older) and wwx was lwj's/nhs' age when he was brought to lotus pier? (Or anything that involves a much bigger age gap bw the jiang sibs and wwx - where wwx is babey)

Untamed

“You know what,” Jiang Cheng said to his sister, who looked at him. “I’ve changed my mind. I’m not marrying a woman.”

Jiang Yanli’s lips started twitching uncontrollably and she hid her smile behind her sleeve. “Oh?”

“Nope. I’m going to marry Chifeng-zun.”

“On the basis of…?”

“If you take two adult men in charge of two Great Sects,” Jiang Cheng said, doing his utmost best to keep a straight face, “with all the power we can generate between us, we might – maybe – have a chance at disciplining our baby brothers.”

Jiang Yanli burst out laughing.

“There, there. It’s all right,” he said, grinning, reaching out to pat her on the shoulder. “You can join us if you’d like. There’s enough room in Qinghe for two wives.”

“We are not both running away to Qinghe,” she said, giggling. “A-Cheng!”

“What? I think it’s a great idea. If our parents want us back, they can negotiate with Chifeng-zun for it – may they have more luck than they had with the whole medicinal herb debacle.”

“A-Cheng, I am officially tabling this idea,” Jiang Yanli said, still snorting. “Older sibling privilege.”

“I let you out of the womb first as a matter of courtesy,” Jiang Cheng sniffed. “And now you use it against me? A-Li, how could you?”

“Call me jiejie! It doesn’t matter how much older, a few shichen or a few years, older is still older.”

“You probably elbowed me with those sharp pointy things you have on your arms. Weapons of war.”

“Older is older!” she sang. “Now tell me, what did A-Xian do this time?”

“Would you like it in chronological order, or in order of severity? I can also group it by theme, if you prefer.”

“Oh no,” Jiang Yanli said, covering her eyes. “Oh no.”

“And the chief-most theme,” Jiang Cheng said, continuing anyway, “is still called Lan Wangji.”

“Oh no!”

“He has the worst crush,” Jiang Cheng said, shaking his head with endless amusement. “And he just – refuses to admit it. ‘Nooooo, shixiong, we’re just friends, he can’t even stand me most of the time, he’s always trying to get me in trouble, but sometimes he lets me sit next to him and spend time with him and he’s so handsome and I really just want to make him laugh –’”

“We have,” Jiang Yanli said thoughtfully, “raised an idiot.”

“He was fine when we got him,” Jiang Cheng disagreed. “We have spoiled an idiot.”

“This is true. Maybe we should go form a mutual complaining society with Chifeng-zun; isn’t his little brother also an idiot?”

“Oh, you have no idea,” Jiang Cheng said. “Worse: they’ve teamed up. Nie Huaisang buys Wei Wuxian porn now.”

“Oh no…”

“In return for help cheating on his tests!”

“Oh no!”

“So that’s why I’m going to marry Chifeng-zun,” Jiang Cheng concluded. “Our parents may be disappointed by my decision, but with our powers combined, we might be able to save the world from our respective younger idiots.”

“Maybe,” she said, and shook her head. “A-Cheng – about our parents…”

Jiang Cheng shook his head as well, echoing her action but more in denial. It wasn’t anyone’s fault that she took after their father and he took after their mother, that she was born a shichen prior to midnight and he a shichen after and their personalities completely different as a result; it was no one’s fault that their parents didn’t get along, with their mother disdaining what she perceived as Jiang Yanli’s passiveness and lack of passion and their father despising Jiang Cheng’ prickly temper and difficulty communicating his affection without scolding.

It certainly wasn’t Wei Wuxian’s fault for being younger and more brilliant, talented at everything he did and with just the sort of personality their father liked best – the combination of his former best friend and the girl he’d once thought of marrying – and that he’d always made that preference very clear to everyone, even to their mother who often worried that her husband would dispossess her children in favor of his foundling and who lashed out at everyone in response.

That had hurt – hurt a lot, even, and Jiang Cheng was soft and sensitive underneath all his defensive layers, but any time he got angry over it he would look at Wei Wuxian, their little A-Xian, baby Xianxian, who adored his older siblings more than anything and was adored in return, and he forced himself to get over it. He was old enough, by the time Wei Wuxian arrived, to know to whom the blame really belonged.

“I spoke with Nie Huaisang while I was at the Cloud Recesses,” Jiang Cheng said in an undertone, one reserved just for his sister. “He’s asked me to pass along a message to his brother, the next time I go night-hunting, about the whole debacle – he’s so terribly apologetic, you understand, he couldn’t wait for the post – if we get to Qinghe by tomorrow, Chifeng-zun will be able to get to Gusu in time to intervene before our father does something wretched like cancel your engagement and take A-Xian home early from his studies.”

“The engagement I wouldn’t mind,” she remarked. “If Jin Zixuan feels so strongly about it that he’d get into a fistfight with A-Xian, it’s better not to marry, no matter what our mother might think. But on no account is A-Xian to be sent home early! He needs his education!”

Unsaid was everything else he needed, things he could get better at the Cloud Recesses than anywhere else.

“Then we go?”

“We go,” she agreed. Between the two of them, Jiang Cheng had more talent at cultivation, but she was steadier, even in her overall mediocrity: when the two of them flew on a sword together, they could make it much further and faster than anyone expected.

Qinghe wasn’t really close enough for a quick jaunt – they flew all night without stopping – but Chifeng-zun was amendable to their scheme, jumping at once onto his saber and making his way straight to Gusu. A waste of spiritual energy all around, really, but far faster than their father would move, with his Sect Leader’s dignity and retinue, rushing to the Cloud Recesses to save his precious little Wei Wuxian from having any connections in life that weren’t to the Jiang sect, and the Jiang sect alone. 

And never mind how much he needed those connections: needed to have friends his own age, needed to have more time with that crush of his, needed independence and freedom and everything the Jiang sect supposedly stood for - needed for them to support him and act as the foundation beneath his feet, rather than the chains tying him down to earth.

Chifeng-zun – who was only a few years older than they were – was really a very understanding person, getting the problem at once and immediately agreeing with their view on things. Perhaps there really was something to be said about the difference in generations…

“Let me show you to rooms where you can rest,” Chifeng-zun’s aide said, a slender young man with a polite smile on his face as he saluted. “I’ll arrange for refreshments as well.”

“We hate to trouble you, but in all honesty you are a lifesaver,” Jiang Yanli said to him warmly, and he unexpectedly flushed red at the cheeks. “A-Cheng, let’s follow this handsome young man and rest a while before we return to the Lotus Pier.”

The young man was blushing.

“What’s your name?” Jiang Cheng asked, and the blush faded away at once as the man paled a little: it would be one he expected them to recognize, then, and not in a good way.

“This one is Meng Yao,” he said, and saluted again even though he’d already saluted once before, and Jiang Yanli’s eyes flickered to Jiang Cheng’s very briefly before she caught his arms and raised him up.

“I’ve heard of you. Smart and talented enough to get Chifeng-zun’s attention, even so far as becoming his personal deputy - you must be brilliant. Truly, you deserve a better father,” she told him, and he stared up at her, dumbstruck.

“Don’t mind her,” Jiang Cheng said. “She’s trying out this new thing in which she says everything she feels without thinking first.”

She elbowed him. “And isn’t it your fault?” she asked snappishly. “You’re the one who needs to speak your mind more; I’m just modeling good behavior!”

If she’d been older than him – really older, rather than just a few shichen – maybe she would have held her tongue more and played the role of the peacekeeper, trying to protect him from his father’s indifference the way she had tried to when they were both younger, just as he had tried to distract his mother from her with his hard-fought accomplishments. It wasn’t until they had little Wei Wuxian to spoil and care for, a joint task that required both of their attention, that they realized that splitting their forces like that was pointless and self-defeating: it wasn’t actually helping that Jiang Yanli suppressed so much of her spirit until she felt like little more than a reflective mirror with no content, nor that Jiang Cheng nearly worked himself to death trying to prove that he was worthy of his father’s love and respect that he would never receive, and it never would.

So they stopped.

They were trying very hard to stop, anyway.

“You’re very kind,” Meng Yao murmured, and led them to their rooms.

The moment he closed the door behind him, Jiang Yanli turned to Jiang Cheng and said, “I’ve changed my mind about your plan – we can run away to Qinghe. You marry Chifeng-zun, and I’ll marry that charming boy out there.”

There was an audible thudding sound from the corridor outside, as if someone had accidentally walked into a wall, and they both grinned at each other.

“Mother would kill you,” he warned her in an undertone.

“And being married to someone who disdains me enough to fight over my worthlessness in public wouldn’t?” she retorted, smiling even though her expression was tinged with pain: if she had one ambition in life, it was to never become their mother. “The marriage agreement might have been forged by our mothers, but the text of it says ‘the Jin sect leader’s son to the Jiang sect leader’s daughter’. Why can’t I marry him?”

“He hasn’t been acknowledged.”

“Only technically. Everyone knows he’s the real deal, or else his father wouldn’t have made such a fuss about it.”

“But –”

“Anyway, he must be a good man, or Chifeng-zun wouldn’t have promoted him.”

“I don’t know about that,” Jiang Cheng said. “Chifeng-zun doesn’t have the sense of self-preservation the heavens bestowed on a lemming.”

There was a vaguely audible snort from outside their door. It seemed Meng Yao, at least, had the good sense not to leave guests in his house unattended, and no discrimination against the very useful business of listening at doors.

He also had a sense of humor, which was good given Jiang Yanli’s newfound ambitions in his regard.

“Yes, well, I wasn’t saying I’d elope with him tomorrow or anything,” she sniffed, eyes dancing. “Give him some time to prove himself to me.”

Jiang Cheng couldn’t help but smile back. “That’s true,” he said, raising his voice a little. “At Chifeng-zun’s side, he’ll be able to make a name for himself until the whispers all say that his father was an idiot for keeping him away.”

“And if even that doesn’t work, I’ll marry him in and make him help me run the Jiang sect,” she said cheerfully. “Who needs Lanling Jin?”

“Wait, since when are you inheriting the Jiang sect?”

“I’m older! And anyway, aren’t you marrying Chifeng-zun? That means you’ll be away helping run his sect, and that leaves an opening at home for me.”

“…huh. Good point.”

“Maybe you can just swap places with Meng Yao,” she said, starting to giggle again. “And we can all see how long it takes anyone to notice…”

“Our parents might not,” Jiang Cheng said dryly. “But Chifeng-zun would. If only because I have my sights set on his bed, and I don’t think Meng Yao does.”

“You don’t know that; everyone wants Chifeng-zun. Maybe you have competition.”

“Better to have competition than be oblivious. Do you want to hear the whole story about A-Xian and Lan Wangji’s tragic mutual pining disaster? Xichen-xiong told me all the details he’s been leaving out of his letters.”

“Tell me everything!”

#mdzs #jiang cheng #jiang yanli #meng yao #nie mingjue #my fic #my fics #jiang sect twins #crazycat27 #mingcheng #meng yao/jiang yanli

[plan-d-to-i]

Hey, sorry to bother, but with so much content on MDZS + Fanon, i am lost.

Would you be able to confirm that when wwx came back (Dafan arc), he was infact hit by zidian ! Right ? Canon ? So Jiang Wanyin had truly tried to separate his soul from Mo Xuanyu's body, effectively killing him in case the body was stolen ! No questions asked !

Hence any questions about them being Bros n Jiang Cheng being a softie, just unable to express and shows love via abuse is out of the window ! Right, he would have plain murdered wwx at that point if his body was stolen !

Apologies but too many different versions and i am not sure !

I read your post/comment on anon ask about them being brothers n how lwj shouldn't come in between and got curious!

I do like post resurrection lwj and glad he won't hesitate to chop off hands to keep wwx safe .

Re THIS post. No worries! (o^ ^o)

Correct. WWX was hit by Zidian. jc was not looking for a loving reunion. He was not keeping Chenqing as a memento, he's keeping it as bait in case WWX comes back. He had been hunting for WWX for 13 years bc he wanted to kill him again not bc he missed him.

"Zidian had a special ability: if it struck a body snatcher, the body snatcher’s soul would immediately be peeled away from the body they had stolen. Zidian expelled the invader without exception. But this person had been whipped, yet behaved just as he did before, bouncing around as usual. Unless he really hadn’t seized the body, there was no other explanation.

Wei Wuxian thought, How useless. Obviously Zidian can’t whip my soul out. I didn’t steal this body, someone offered it to me. Actually, he practically forced it on me!

Jiang Cheng’s expression was surprised but suspicious, and the intention to whip Wei Wuxian again crossed his eyes.

But Lan Jingyi shouted, “Chief Jiang, isn’t once enough? This is Zidian!”

A cultivation tool the level of Zidian wouldn’t fail on the first try only to succeed on the second. If no soul was expelled, no soul was expelled. If someone hadn’t snatched the body, they hadn’t snatched the body, or else the weapon was undeserving of its reputation. After Lan Jingyi’s shout, Jiang Cheng, a man who cherished reputation and prestige as much as life, was able to act no longer." (Chapter 10)

jc was so determined to wipe any trace of WWX off the face of the earth he would rather torture the wrong person than risk potentially letting WWX get away. Even after he struck him w Zidian, he was still going to kidnap and torture him to be 100% sure it wasn't WWX if LWJ had not interfered.

"Everyone in the cultivation world knew that the young leader of the Jiang Clan watched out for Wei WuXian in an almost crazed manner. He would rather catch the wrong person than let go of any possibility, and took anyone who seemed like they held the soul of Wei WuXian away to the YunmengJiang Sect, inflicting severe torture on his victim. (Chapter 10)"

This is repeated throughout the story, including in jc's own POV here:

"Only moments before, Jiang Cheng had been so certain this person was Wei Wuxian that all the blood in his body had gone cold and then boiled over in rage. But now, his Zidian told him loudly and clearly that he wasn’t. Zidian couldn’t possibly lie to him, and even less could it make an error. The Clan Chief rapidly calmed himself, and silently thought: It isn’t as though I can’t deal with this. Worst comes to worst, I’ll find some excuse to bring him back to Yunmeng, and then use every method I can to beat the truth out. There’s no need to worry about failing to get anything from him. He can hardly keep everything hidden. It’s not as though I haven’t done this type of thing before. Once he had made up his mind, he made a hand signal. His disciples understood and started to surround Wei Wuxian." (10).

Anything else is just fanon.

#mdzs #answers #jiang cheng #Wei Wuxian

[drwcn]

maybe after today’s acls training i can finally write that chengqing ER oneshot. 

— “Patient male, mid-twenties, motor vehicle collision, eta 3 mins” 

— “What no vitals? No GCS? ETA 3 mins? Who’s on the paramedic team?!” 

— “No one….Dr. Lu hit someone with her car on her way out of the hospital.” 

【A Midnight Conversation in Your Local ER】- Complete

[1] 

The night hunt had gone to shits.

That much was undeniable.

Jiang Cheng heard the panicked shout of his disciples just as he saw the array that he had stepped on.

Fuck.

The ghost of an once mediocre demonic cultivator wanna-be was going to bring Jiang Cheng, Jiang Wanyin - the Sandu Shengshou - to meet his maker. The irony of the situation would be laughable, if he wasn’t so irrevocably screwed.

That was his last thought before his entire body was engulfed by a blinding light and the world he knew disappeared.

The ground beneath his feet gave away, weightlessness paralyzing his body though he did not fall. He felt…launched, his body warping and squeezing and stretching, the air sucked from his lungs into the endless black vacuum.

But just like that it was over. Jiang Cheng barely had time to make peace with his death before his feet touch solid earth again.

Or at least….he thought it was earth, this black, tarry hard thing striped with yellow and white. He stared at it dumbly, breathless and disoriented, barely able to react when a loud blare assaulted his senses and his world went blindly bright yet again.

This time there was pain.

Jiang Cheng clutched Sandu, ready to fight, but then his head hit the ground and everything went dark. When he woke up again, an indeterminate amount of time later, he was in a small tube and had a distinct feeling he was not wearing pants, socks or shoes.

How the fuck do you ‘scan’ a cat???  

[2]

Method actor. The nurse, from the other side of the curtain, mouthed silently.

“Sir, can you tell me your name.”

“Jiang Cheng, Jiang Wangyin.”

The resident paused, awkwardly contemplating how to continue. “Uh…..which is it? Jiang Cheng or Jiang Wanyin?”

“Jiang Cheng, zi Wanyin.”

“Traditional parents?” The resident tried to crack a joke, but it fell flat. The strange man stared up at him with a blank look in his eyes and a frown that was rapidly deteriorating into a scowl. The resident cleared his throat and cast his eyes back onto his clipboard. “Uh, ahem, just the name on your ID please.”

“My what?" 

"Your personal ID….like a driver’s license?”

“Cultivators of the gentry fly on swords or ride horses. We do not rely on carriage valets.”

“Eh… right. Uhm, can you tell me how old you are and what year it is.”

“I’m 39, and the year is jiachen.”

Lu Qi frowned from where she stood by the door, arms crossed, watching her resident and medical student work. 39? He looks like a college student. But he also thinks he can fly, so I guess age is the least of our worries. 

“Jiachen.…?”

The M3 fished his phone out from his scrub pocket pocket and typed it in. “Sounds like the ganji system, like an old timey way to record year used in the past.” He whispers clandestinely to the resident.

“….Right. And uh, do you where you are?”

The man scowled at him. “Am I supposed to?” 

The resident scribbled something on the chart, and then looked up with a plastered awkward smile. “Well, thank you Mr. Jiang for your patience. Wang Fei here is the medical student on our team. He’s going to stay and ask you a couple more questions if you don’t mind. Afterwards we’ll confer with our attending and the team will be back to see you shortly.”

As he turned away, the R3 grimaced and shared a look with Lu Qi, who was the youngest attending physician in their ER, but was not technically working at the moment and so was not on the case. And technically, as the perpetrator who hit Jiang Cheng with her car, she had a severe conflict of interest.

At least this Jiang Cheng dude didn’t seem keen on pressing personal charges against her for MVA or suing the hospital in general… but that being said…

Yeah, they’re going to need a psych consult. 

Unless he’s on acid. 

Well… okay, psych consult either way. 

[3]

"It’s okay, you can relax.” Jiang Cheng said, waving dismissively at the woman standing by his bedside. “I’m not going to take you to the magistrate for hitting me with your carriage - car. You didn’t mean to, and I just came out of nowhere.” 

“....Thank you.” 

“You’re not Wen Qing. I know that now. Your name is Lu Qi. You can call off those psychia - psych - psychics - head healers - or whatever, I’m not crazy. It’s not my fault, you just… look so much like someone I used to know."

"Wen Qing.” Lu Qi echoed. 

“Yeah. Wen Qing. She was a healer - a doctor - like you, but different.” 

“I see. What happened to her?"

"She died. Almost twenty years ago."

"I'm sorry... that's awful.” Lu Qi’s response rolled off her tongue so well, because she had said those word a thousand times during her residency. So much so that it no longer had much meaning to her. Tonight however, she meant what she said. “Were you two close?"

"No, well…yes, maybe. No we weren’t exactly friends if that’s what you’re asking. She...operated on me. Without my consent or knowledge. Took my brother’s golden core and put it in me and then lied with my brother to my face about it. So no we weren’t “close”, but Wen Qing saved my life - well the purpose of it anyway. Saved me from a life of ordinariness.” 

Lu Qi did allow herself to dwell too much on what the fuck a “golden core” was, because her gut response was almost instantaneous. “That’s shitty of her.”

She clamped down on her tongue. 

God, why did I have to say that? To his face?! He was obviously in love with this Wen Qing person and they were encroaching on some dangerous emotional territories, but Lu Qi swallowed down her caution and plowed on nevertheless. There were things she felt she had to say, and since she’d already hit him with her car, how much worse could this shit get? “What I mean is she shouldn’t have. Not without telling you. Besides...there’s nothing wrong with ordinary.” 

Jiang Cheng chuckled bitterly. “Maybe you’re right. Still...she didn’t deserve to die. What her clan did was not her fault.” 

Now that threw Lu Qi off. Did this guy...kill her? 

Lu Qi half wondered if she stumbled upon a Yakuza-esque member whose psyche finally snapped after years of murder and violence. And yet, he seemed perfectly coherent, no flight of ideas, no tangential thought, no hallucations. Even his delusions seemed...logical. 

I must be the one losing, damnit.  

Jiang Cheng scratched a little at his chest, as if palpating for the “golden core” that he spoke of. "She saved my life, but when she needed help, I couldn't save her. But, if I were to go back… I can't say I'll choose differently. My clan needed me, my clan who was almost cleansed by hers. No, no I wouldn’t choose differently. I don’t regret my choices, but I am sorry. Sorry to her, sorry to my brother. I'll always be sorry that she died, and that I failed her when she needed me." 

Jiang Cheng had no idea why he was telling this stranger any of this, but maybe after twenty years, he was finally ready to address this guilt that he lived with. I mean who else was he supposed to tell? Jin Ling? It was nice, to have that face as an audience, receiving his words of confession. 

"She would forgive you." 

Lu Qi had no idea why she was offering absolution as if she had authority in this matter, but when she said it, the conviction she felt was so real, it was almost as though some external force was acting through her.

Which was ridiculous of course, but... 

"How do you know? You're not her." Jiang Cheng shook his head. “I wouldn’t forgive me.” 

"No, but you said she was a physician. So she should know, more than most, that sometimes there is no choosing who gets to live or die."

Jiang Cheng fell quiet at that, and his gaze grew distant. Lu Qi thought perhaps he was no longer seeing her as she was in front of him - white coat, scrubs, stethoscope -  but someone entirely different. The tension he held in his shoulders slowly eased, and he sighed. In the silence that stretched between them, Lu Qi hoped that this strange man with his strange past could find a sliver of peace. 

[4]

— Did you love her? 

— I thought so, foolishly, but maybe I didn’t. Even if I did, it was not well enough. 

— Do you love her still? 

— No... I don’t know. It’s been too long...but sometimes, late at night when Lotus Pier is quiet, I think I do. 

...

— Are you ashamed of it? 

...

— No. No I’m not. 

[5]

The patient known as Jiang Cheng left AMA, that is, against medical advice. It was the term they used sometimes for people who just up and leave without informing the team. 

Lu Qi had gone out to check on his labs, which came back with bonker numbers (I mean really, a hemoglobin of 455, sodium of 200, and a HCO3 of like...3?), but Jiang Cheng was gone from Bay 6 when she returned. The nurse made the overhead page, a code yellow was called, but four hours later, Lu Qi was ready to admit that she was never going to see this Jiang Cheng ever again. 

Somehow, she was okay with that. She had said what needed to be said.  

Her chief had given her a call on her cell and told her to go home and sleep. The guy didn’t look like he was gonna press charges, let’s count our blessings and move on. But the night had just been too damn strange that Lu Qi was all wired up from it and couldn’t possibly fall asleep. She had handover at 10 anyway. There was a change of clothes and toiletries in her bag. She could always take a shower in the anesthesia staff’s on call room and sleep until then. 

Dr. Sun was the anesthesia staff on-call tonight and was currently stuck in trauma OR. They were buddies since medschool; she’d understand.

Sighing, Lu Qi took a seat on the bench across from the bougie cafe in the lobby of the hospital. At this hour, it was the only one still open in the entire facility. The drinks they sold cost an arm and a leg, but Lu Qi needed the pick-me-up after the night she had. 

As she nursed the last bit of her matcha latte, two bickering voices pulled her attention to the front entrance. 

“Aiyo, A-Liang I already said I’m fine! I don’t need to be here!” 

“Fuck out of here with that bullshit, Chen Zhaoxi. You fell off the fucking roof! If Wu Kun hadn’t called me, you’d have gone on -”

It was him! Lu Qi shot up. It was Jiang Cheng! 

But no...no it wasn’t him. The well-dressed man dragging the second man (dressed in red pajamas) into the hospital was not Jiang Cheng. He had the same face - chiselled, handsome, scowling - but it wasn’t him. For one, his hair was trimmed short and neat, unlike Jiang Cheng who looked like he walked straight out of a BL xianxia tv drama. Secondly, his face was softer, eyes younger, and he couldn’t have been older than Lu Qi herself in her early thirties. 

“I was just trying to get to the litter of kittens trapped -”

“Yes, yes, and it was very heroic and I’m sure it would’ve made Wu Kun very horny, and you morons probably would’ve fucked once he got home had you not made a valiant attempt at breaking your neck -” 

“Excuse me,” the security guard manning the information desk chastised sharply. “It’s 4am. This is a hospital! Lower your voices, sirs.” 

“Sorry.” The men apologized sheepishly. 

Then, A-Liang, Jiang Cheng’s doubleganger asked, “Could you please direct us to the ER? This is my brother, he fell off a roof.” 

Lu Bin had no idea what possessed her to interject. “I can take you there.” 

All eyes fell on her. She walked towards them, heart pounding. 

This can’t be happening, this kind of thing just can’t happen... 

A-Liang’s face broke into a grateful smile. “Thank you, Miss -” Then his gaze trailed to her badge, and he corrected himself, “Dr. Lu. I’m Shen Liang. This is my brother Chen Zhaoxi. I think he fractured...well multiple things, please help him.” 

“Of course, come with me. Let’s get him a wheelchair. If he fractured is leg, he probably shouldn’t be walking.” 

“I didn’t fracture -” 

“You, you shut up.” Shen Liang rolled his eyes. “Don’t listen to him. He can lose three out of four limbs and say ‘ t’s but a flesh wound’.” 

Lu Qi couldn’t help but chuckle as she put an arm under the complaining Chen Zhaoxi and helped him towards the wheelchair. 

Shen Liang’s smile widened. 

[Extra]

“Holy shit, took you long enough!” 

When Jin Ling and Lan Sizhui finally dragged Jiang Cheng to their portal site, Jiang Cheng realized that the transportation talisman had created a channel through realities between what looked like two metal garbage dumpsters in a back alley behind a food establishment marked by giant yellow bunny ears.

Standing guard there, Lan Jingyi and Ouyang Zizhen were each munching on a strange layered bread and holding tall drinks contained in...what was it called again? Right. Styrofoam. 

“What is that?” Jin Ling wrinkled is nose at it. Brat. 

“It’s a Big Mac.” Replied Lan Jingyi as if Jin Ling was stupid. “And this is a milk shake.” 

Jin Ling scowled. “I said the bag of gold I gave you was for emergencies.” 

“Yeah but we were hungry.” Ouyang Zizhen defended. He neglected to tell them that the cashier had refused to accept the gold and instead asked for “cash” or “card”, neither of which they had, so Zizhen used a liiiiil confounding talisman he learned from Wei Wuxian. They did leave more than enough gold though...and that ought to cover the restaurant’s cost for their “burger”lary . Reaching into the brown paper bag he held under one arm, Zizhen pulled out a little box that opened to show pieces of... something. “These are chicken nuggets. They’re delicious! Try one! They’re really good with this sauce....hold on...” 

Lan Sizhui sighed. “We don’t have time for this. The portal will close soon. Let’s get Jiang-zongzhu home and we can sample these exotic food later.” 

The boys agreed. 

Jiang Cheng shook his head and huffed. 

#cql #the untamed #chengqing #wen qing #jiang cheng #a midnight conversation in your local er #cql ficlet #corie fics

[eirenical]

27, 34

Thank you, @friendlydangernoodle!

[If anyone else would like to send asks, here are the questions.]

27. What’s the nicest comment you’ve ever received?

I'm honestly not sure I can quantify that? Pretty much every comment I've ever received has touched me in some way, has made me smile. I've had people make me cry with comments they left because they were so touching, and I've had some that made me blush and bury my face in my hands. I've had people leave comments that led to us becoming friends and others that still make me smile years later. So, yeah, I really can't pick just one comment and call it the nicest? But rest assured, my friends, I routinely go back and reread all of them, even ones I haven't had the spoons to respond to, and they're always a much needed pick-me-up. So thank you--ALL of you--who leave comments or reblog my work with tag babble or break down sobbing at me in my messages. I love all of you. You're a large part of the reason I keep writing. ^_^

34. Copy and paste an excerpt you’re particularly fond of.

I have been wracking my brains trying to figure out what fandoms we share apart from Star Wars (because I really haven’t written anything for Star Wars O_o;;;), and I VAGUELY recall you also like The Untamed?  I think?  So, I’m going to give you this... the entire second chapter of

The Next Best Thing

(because it’s still one of my favorite pieces of writing and in spite of a tremendous response to the first chapter, barely anyone even noticed I’d posted the second and it... kind of killed my motivation to write any more of it. But I still really REALLY love it.  So.  ^_^  Set during the three months of Wei Wuxian’s absence, when Jiang Chang and Lan Wangji were traveling together. Enjoy? ^_^  Link is to chapter 1 on AO3, but they’re really like vaguely connected ficlets, so you don’t need to read that one first.)

They’re so young.

Jiang Cheng cast a weary eye over his newly recruited disciples. It had been nearly impossible to gather any without even a proper sect hall to bring them together. Nearly impossible… but wasn’t that the Jiang Clan motto? Attempt the impossible? Wei Wuxian had always made it look so easy. He’d been not just attempting the impossible but achieving it for as long as Jiang Cheng had known him. Had Wei Wuxian been at his side, they’d probably have had all the recruits they needed and had Lotus Pier all but rebuilt already on the force of his enthusiasm alone.

But Wei Wuxian wasn’t here. Wei Wuxian wasn’t here, and Jiang Cheng had only himself to take his place.

So young.

So, they were young. So was Jiang Cheng. So was Wei Wuxian. So was Lan Wangji. So were they all. Youth was no longer the end-all excuse for not pulling your weight. This war had claimed so many lives already; in many cases the young were all who were left to stand and fight. And they would. They would stand and fight until it killed them unless Jiang Cheng could pull off a miracle.

Unless he could attempt the impossible… and achieve it.

Far too aware of the Lan Sect disciples practicing their oh-so-perfect forms on the other side of the beaten earth of the yard, Jiang Cheng raised his borrowed sword and once more began the painstaking process of demonstrating the first of the Jiang sword forms. They felt wrong without Sandu in his hands. They felt wrong without Wei Wuxian standing beside him. They felt wrong without Suibian to cross blades with. They felt wrong without his father standing over him, judging every move he made and finding it wanting. Everything about this felt wrong, but Jiang Cheng was going to push through it, anyway. He had no choice.

Several hours later, Jiang Cheng was exhausted, wrung out both physically and emotionally from the toll of training raw recruits, many of whom had never held divine steel in their hands before. He hadn’t been able to be particular when recruiting. If they were willing to join a Sect that had been razed to the ground and whose reputation hung in tatters, Jiang Cheng took them. If they were willing to join a Sect that could give them nothing, not even good quality swords with which to fight, Jiang Cheng took them. If they were willing to join a Sect whose only virtue was an unwillingness to give up and roll over for death, then Jiang Cheng took them. But it would take far more than hard work and hope to forge this band of raw hopefuls with nothing left to lose into a Sect that Jiang Cheng could be proud of.

It would take a miracle.

Wei Wuxian could have done it. He could have done it with a smile on his face and a dance in his steps, and every recruit on that field would have half fallen in love with him before he was through. Jiang Cheng had seen it before. But Wei Wuxian wasn’t here, and Jiang Cheng was still the poorest of poor substitutes.

Dismissing his new disciples for the day, Jiang Cheng walked over to the water barrel and raised the dipper to take a drink before lifting it higher to pour the rest over his overheated head, sighing in relief as the cool water did its work. If his mother were here, she’d have scolded him for that. If his father were here, he’d just have shaken his head in disappointment and walked away. If Wei Wuxian were here… he’d have been the one to pour the water.

Straightening his back, Jiang Cheng walked back out into the middle of the field. Spending entire days demonstrating moves at one quarter of the speed would not do anything to bring his own skills and stamina back to where they needed to be. Closing his eyes, Jiang Cheng raised his borrowed sword, waited one single beat for his imaginary opponent to take his place—Wei Wuxian, it was always Wei Wuxian—and then he leapt into motion. This sword was not Sandu, would never be Sandu, and his imaginary opponent was not really Wei Wuxian, would never be Wei Wuxian, but it was a start.

Jiang Cheng ran through the forms as though his life depended on their successful completion. He ran through them first at quarter speed, focused more on balance and precision than power, then at half speed, then finally at full speed, putting as much force into each move as he dared without an opponent to block his borrowed blade. But when Jiang Cheng finally reached the last of the forms, spiritual energy coursing through him, racing down his meridians with the crackle of purple lightning, and brought his sword down for the last set of moves… it met another with a resounding clang. Jiang Cheng’s eyes flew open.

Lan Wangji.

What?

After that one moment of hesitation, Jiang Cheng renewed his efforts, stepping up his speed as he began the first form once again. Lan Wangji matched him, move for move, form for form, blow for blow, as though he’d been practicing the Yunmeng Jiang sword forms all his life. But how? Jiang Cheng pushed harder, leaping higher, turning faster, throwing his all into the moves in a way he’d never dared with anyone who wasn’t Wei Wuxian. Lan Wangji continued to match him, strike for strike, until they reached the last form, again. The move that Lan Wangji performed then was unlike any of the Jiang forms that had come before it, but it wasn’t a Lan sword form, either. And in that one move, Jiang Cheng understood everything he needed to understand about how Lan Wangji had learned the Jiang sword forms. Because the only reason that that move didn’t take Jiang Cheng's head right off his shoulders was that he’d met it on the training field before.

It was Wei Wuxian’s favorite.

And in the whistling of Lan Wangji’s blade as it met his, strike after strike after strike, in the calm certainty of Gusu Lan arms lifting in Yunmeng Jiang sword forms—forms that had to have been learned through observation alone—Jiang Cheng understood something else as well.

This was Lan Wangji’s way of saying: “I miss him, too.”

When they finally came to a halt, saluting each other with arms heavy with more than just exhaustion, the new Jiang recruits erupted into applause and raucous cheers. The Lan disciples did no such thing, but they were on the edge of the yard along with the Jiang recruits, hanging on every move their Lan-er-gongzi made. Jiang Cheng ignored them, turning instead to his own recruits. Their eyes were alight with awe, smiles wide upon their faces, pride written in every line of their bodies as they surged around Jiang Cheng, already peppering him with questions, their enthusiasm a living, pulsing thing.

They’re so young… and that is why we will win.

#ask meme answers #friendlydangernoodle #the untamed #jiang cheng & wei wuxian #jiang cheng & lan wangji #jiang cheng #lan wangji #eirenical.fic #eirenical writes things #i have A LOT OF FEELS about those three months #ok? #and that has NOT CHANGED

[stiltonbasket]

Renouncement verse: you said lwj combs wwx hair in the morning, can you write the first time that happens? Maybe wwx gets overwhelmed but lwj won’t let him run away

anon 2: For your arranged marriage au, I would love it if you can do some domestic scenes between them. Basically things like hair brushing and braiding or making dumplings together, etc 🥺

(brief author’s note: please please reblog if you can, since that’s how we get prompts for future chapters!)

On Wei Wuxian’s first day as a married man, he opens his eyes at chen shi to find Lan Zhan still lying in the wedding bed at his side. 

When the two of them prepared for sleep the night before, Wei Wuxian expected Lan Zhan to retire in full dress, since he had done so every time the two of them slept in the same room before their engagement. During the time they spent traveling together, Lan Zhan only ever removed his shoes before going to bed; he even kept his hairpieces on, most of the time, and he only took them off to keep them from stabbing Wei Wuxian in the face on the few occasions where space constraints and over-booked inns required them to rest in the same bed.

On their wedding night, however, Lan Zhan undressed behind a privacy screen (nearly frightening Wei Wuxian back to death, given the context of what he and Lan Zhan are to each other now) before bathing in a wooden tub and emerging with his hair down and his forehead ribbon looped around his wrist. He was wearing a clean set of sleeping robes, loosely embroidered with clouds and white flowers to match the nightwear Wei Wuxian received as one of his many wedding gifts, and then they got under the covers and went to sleep without saying a word to each other. 

But they held each other the whole night through, which is why Wei Wuxian feels so painfully shy when he wakes up in Lan Zhan’s warm embrace with his left ear pressed over his husband’s pounding heart.

“Does being a newlywed excuse me from getting up at five?” he whispers, trying to hide his face in Lan Zhan’s soft gown. “Can I go back to sleep?”

He isn’t actually sleepy, though; the excitement of the wedding has been thoroughly transformed into the nervousness of a new bridegroom, bringing a thousand uncertainties about living in a new place, with a new family, and with new duties to tend to. No one expects him to do anything, he knows, but he has to do something, or—

“Wei Ying.” Lan Zhan leans down and kisses his forehead, calming his fears just enough for Wei Wuxian to decide that getting out of bed might be worth it today. “You may do whatever you like, and no one will think any worse of you for it. But will you eat before going back to sleep, at least? For me?”

They eat breakfast together after that, and Wei Wuxian notices that the meal seems pointedly unsuited to Gusu tastes. There is a little bamboo steamer filled with baozi, with pork and cabbage filling for Wei Wuxian (and possibly a vegetarian filling for Lan Zhan, though none of those end up in Wei Wuxian’s plate) and hot dry noodles coated with peanut sauce and chili oil, just like Jiang-shushu used to make for family breakfasts sometimes—and then a few plates with the usual trappings of a meal served to a bridal bedchamber, like sesame cakes and preserved dried longan fruits, but Wei Wuxian ignores them and sticks to the noodles and sweet millet porridge. After all, he rarely had sesame cakes during his childhood at Lotus Pier, and he likes lotus-seed cakes better, anyway. 

“There will be some for lunch,” Lan Zhan assures him, and Wei Wuxian flushes at the realization that he must have said that last aloud. “Brother sent a butterfly to tell you that Li Shuai intends to spend the next week cooking southern dishes and preserving them for you and Xiao-Yu to eat later on.”

Wei Wuxian feels his heart swell. “Really?” he smiles, finally reaching for one of the sesame cakes and putting it into his mouth. “But she’s supposed to be our guest, Lan Zhan.”

“Yu Zhenhong is with her,” his husband points out. “The pair of them took over the kitchens and drove out all the disciples on cooking duty. I expect that the whole clan will know what hot peppers taste like by tonight.”

Thoroughly cheered up by the mental image of A-Shuai cackling over a Lan kitchen cauldron and forcing it to learn the touch of chili paste for the first time, Wei Wuxian finishes his meal and then returns to the bedroom to dress, since he and Lan Zhan are expected at the hanshi for the auspicious hour to greet Lan Zhan’s family. He decides to dress in his usual colors, with a deep red undergown against his white silk chemise and a blue patterned over-robe on top of it all, and then he spends a few minutes choosing a new hair ornament: but the old wooden guans have been put aside for Xiao-Yu, and all of the silver hairpieces feel strange when he touches them, so Lan Zhan picks up the gold lotus comb and helps Wei Wuxian put it on. 

“You have thicker hair than I thought you did,” he murmurs, as he places the teeth of another comb—white ivory, this time, and part of Wei Wuxian’s wedding dowry—against the crown of Wei Wuxian’s head and smooths the knots out of his hair. “It curls a little, just here.”

Wei Wuxian nods drowsily. “I use hot oil to keep it straight. Jiang Cheng does, too.”

Lan Zhan nods and keeps working with his comb, brushing out every last snarl until Wei Wuxian’s hair is smooth and glossy again. It still falls in waves, since he hasn’t doused it in hot soybean oil since the day he left Yunmeng, but it looks presentable enough; and then they put their shoes on and get ready to leave, though Lan Zhan makes Wei Wuxian put a cloak on to keep the morning breeze off his shoulders.

“A-Yu has not seen you for nearly ten hours,” Lan Zhan reminds him, holding out his hand for Wei Wuxian to take. “Come, Wei Ying. We must fetch our son.”

Our son. 

Oh. 

He and Lan Zhan share two children. 

How on earth had he forgotten that?

We can make this work, he realizes. At least until Lan Zhan finds the person he really wants to marry. 

“All right,” Wei Wuxian laughs, lacing their fingers together. “Let’s not keep them waiting.”

#wangxian #the untamed #mo dao zu shi #renouncement verse #wangxian arranged marriage au #my fic

[sleepyowlwrites]

find the word tag CCXXIX

no narration. if I get going I will start complaining about Mystic Force again. so we'll skip it this time.

@oh-no-another-idea and @lunarmoment will be my generous patrons today, thank you Idea, Moment.

harden (the chosen one - flash fiction piece)

“I’m the chosen one.”

“Oh, you got a prophecy about you or something?”

“No, I’m the chosen one. Nobody else wants to do the hard work, so they chose me.”

“Are you, like, especially skilled in areas that will help you defeat the enemy?”

“No. But there was a vote, and I guess because I was the only one who suggested actually making plans and fighting back, I was the default choice.”

ice (summon story d0)

“I did not want to be the killer.”

“You are a killer.” The voice was smooth, soft, gliding along her spine like an unseen snake ready to bite. “What makes this one any different?”

Rhea closed her eyes to the scene and the scorched earth. “I wanted to be better.”

The snake voice hissed hypnotically in her ear, ice against fire. “Then you should have asked for that.”

freeze (shots - fanfiction)

Lexi blew some warmth into her bare hands before answering Adam’s call. "They're inside now, where I wish I was. This is not t-shirt weather."

"Tell me you’re wearing more than a t-shirt."

"I'm tough. And this hoodie has fuzz on the inside."

"You're gonna freeze to death. You know what the temperature is right now? I'll be right there."

"Adam, you don't have to-," Lexi sighed. He was so stubborn sometimes.

Not even two minutes later, Adam pulled up to the curb.

bite (to trade in stolen breath, to live after death, 2021)

ecstasy is a phantom, a fall trade yesterday for right now and build a house on a hill with iron walls even the dead have delights, have the night, have their spite eat pomegranates and poetry and bite

time (glow - short story)

I love my pearl. Will I really grow old enough where I don’t need to see its glow or hear its secrets for me? That seems like a very long time away.

“Did your pearl ever stop glowing completely, Mama?”

“Mm,” she wraps her arms around me and holds me tight against her chest, so I can hear her heartbeat and it matches with mine. “It’s still glowing now. It always glows. But I came to a point when I didn’t crave its shine anymore.”

I tuck my head under her chin and whisper, “When was that?”

Her voice always sounds like its smiling, even when I can’t see it. So I know that my Mama was smiling when she says, “When I first saw you.”

morning (greatest detective - flash fiction piece)

“Oh,” you say one morning in the middle of watering your plants. The aloe whines when you pause, a long leaf batting at your arm until you finish the job.

You look down at where your roommate’s cat is rubbing on your legs. “They’re a witch, aren’t they.”

The cat blinks up at you and then grins? Can cats grin?

“Oh,” you say again, stupidly. “You’re a witch.” You scratch the cat behind the ears when it glares at you, head stretched out. “That would explain a lot.”

The car purrs.

up (a Jiang Cheng character study with no name)

“I’m getting strong every day, really, Jiang Cheng, why do you even care-” but then his brother stops, looking rather like he’s just choked on his own words, the pallor of his face graying further. He opens his mouth to say something else, but Jin Ling, thankfully getting better at picking up social cues, shakes him to make him be quiet.

Jiang Cheng concentrates on eradicating the curse from himself, only half-listening to Jin Ling scold Wei Wuxian for being such a colossal idiot, what if it had been a deadlier curse, Jin Ling was perfectly able to destroy one of this caliber by himself anyway, he didn’t need to be so protective, and don’t get any ideas, I’m not worried, you’re just troublesome.

If Jiang Cheng hadn’t swallowed all his emotions before this conversation, he might be feeling fond of both his nephew and that menace that was Wei Wuxian, but he had, so he isn’t.

shift (beating hearts - fanfiction)

Wu Xie takes his arm and lowers it slowly, his eyes full of sympathy. “Careful. Your shoulder wasn’t dislocated but it was a near thing. Can I check your ribs?”

“Didn’t you already?” Liu Sang says rather breathlessly, the pain squeezing his voice out of it.

The chuckle from behind him sounds so familiar. It’s a comfort to hear. “He means he’d like to take off your shirt.”

Liu Sang can’t twist around to hit Pangzi for the slight tease in his tone, but then Wu Xie does it for him. The short laugh Liu Sang produces is strained, more of a wheeze than anything. He tries to shift forward and his muscles are highly uncooperative.

height (ellipses of thought no. 05, 2020)

a faraway dream; yesterday falls from an unseen height. I can’t see the moon against the brightness of night. further and farther, but with walls all around. they’re built up like glass and feathers and sound.

as you can see, I didn't even open the youth story doc, let alone search it. earnest, except, endeavor, endless, endearing. BONUS: emphatic, eternal. @sleepy-night-child @writing-with-melon @writeblrfantasy @ren-c-leyn @uraniumwriting @woodhousejay OR ANYBODY or nobody

#find the word tag #tag game #searching circle #alliteration agency

[wangxiandecoded]

Episode 12

Previous Episode | Next Episode

(Spoilers for the whole show ahead!)

Even when Wen Chao asks for their swords, Wei Ying is trying desperately to make Lan Zhan look him in the eye to telepathically understand what his soulmate is feeling. Lan Zhan hates it but he has no choice but to cooperate with the enemy. He has withdrawn to himself after the multiple losses he’s faced and being a puppet at the hands of the Wens must be rattling him some more. Even if he wanted to tell Wei Ying everything that’s on his mind, he wouldn’t have been able to find the words to. 

Lucky for him, Wei Ying has an inkling that his Lan Zhan has faced an inexplicable disaster and that’s why he’s behaving this way with him. He knows it doesn’t mean he should stop reaching out. His concern for him leads him to repeatedly seek Lan Zhan’s face, looking for anything that might suggest how he can alleviate his plight.

One of the perks of having Wei Wuxian as your boyfriend is that he was born ready to make a clown out of the most dastardly villains.

Wei Ying Says “Fuck You” In The Name Of Love

Wei Ying has a brilliant idea to talk to Lan Zhan or at least let him know he is not alone.

There is something powerfully impressive and quietly romantic about Wei Ying insulting the Wen clan by reciting the Lan clan’s rules to Wen Chao’s face, on the heels of the former decimating and annexing the latter. Of course Wei Ying is the first one in a room to stand up to a bully and protect the others but Wei Ying knows Lan Zhan’s hands are tied right now, even if he doesn’t know what exactly happened. But that’s okay, because Wei Ying will defend his honor and become Lan Zhan’s hands, his mouth, his everything that delivers the unmistakable “fuck you” on behalf of his family. And he does it in an act of rebellion that originates in the sanctum of love. Understandably, Lan Zhan falls more in love with him.

Wei Ying’s Plan Misfires 

His happiness is short-lived, but honestly who could predict his plan would go like this?

We see that Lan Zhan does want to confide in his soulmate the pain and pressure he’s been dealing with alone the whole time, but it’s too dangerous for them to talk right now. 

Wen Chao carries the same kind of smugness as a prick who’s been waiting to out a gay couple. I mean how awful do you have to be to physically abuse Wangxian for.. being Wangxian? Blatant homophobia right there.

Wei Ying has had enough of Wen Chao’s bullshit and is unafraid to clap back with his signature cheekiness.

When Wei Ying is captured, Lan Zhan blocks the whip coming his way and ends up taking a hit to his injured leg. Wei Ying then wants Wen Chao to come for him instead of Lan Zhan, and we can honestly expect nothing less from Wangxian at this point.

Lan Zhan conquers his silent grieving and mute seething to stand in defiance against Wen Chao. It is worth mentioning that his patience and tolerance can even bear the brunt of a fallen world, but cease to exist the second someone mistreats Wei Ying before his eyes. You know what they say about love being a vicious motivator. His protective stance here screams..

Lan Zhan Holds On To Wei Ying For A Short Span Of Eternity

Wen Chao sure is very curious about the nature of their relationship and unable to fathom what Wei Ying could possibly want with Lan Zhan. He’s already safe and sound with him in Qishan, so if they’re not talking about the Yin Iron, what the hell is it? This inquisition is a bit ridiculous, as if the writer specifically gave him these lines to point out to the audience that Wangxian are being soulmates in love once again.

What Lan Zhan does not say, he makes up for with the million times he reaches for Wei Ying instinctively; spontaneous skinship is one of the ways through which his love for Wei Ying finds expression. It is phenomenal that He Who Does Not Touch People firmly holds on to his lover through this whole monologue that follows.

There are few things in the world that can inspire Lan Zhan’s wrath and protection right now, and Wei Ying commands both so effortlessly. Defeated as he is, for Wei Ying, Lan Zhan is always a man of action. And this action particularly proves his willingness to send packing to hell whoever dares to come close to his lover. I wonder what would’ve happened if Wei Ying hadn’t gone to the dungeon on his own volition.

Wangxian Are Once Again Ready To Risk It All For Each Other

It would’ve been nice to see them get their alone time, but what’s one more complication on the path of true love, right?

If you thought about it, Wangxian’s universe truly conspires to bring them together sometimes. Wen Ning tells Wei Ying everything Lan Zhan wasn’t able to, and Wen Qing does everything in her power to ensure they’re both out of harm’s way. Even when our heroes aren’t able to spend time together, they are being assisted by outside forces that work to ensure their love has a future. There are always people left in the world who are rooting for Wangxian because they’re the good gays guys! 

We are well aware of how deeply and madly Wei Ying loves Lan Zhan, but it is startling all the same that even when he is in physical agony, what infuriates him to the point of madness is the news of Lan Zhan being hurt and his home being burnt down. Wei Ying is also more than willing to endure his pain a while longer if it means Lan Zhan has a shot at getting better.

Wangxian at any given point of time are ready to sacrifice themselves for the other and wage a war against the entire world for wronging the love of their life. That’s what makes these soulmates more unique than most, if not all lovers in fiction. Throughout the story, their romance is subjected to a billion tests and every choice they make is bound to make the viewers cry and highlight the unfairness of the impossible stakes they go through to be with each other. This is no ordinary romance, and that’s why it is all the more fantastic they are able to survive these unthinkable odds and come out shining in the end.

Lan Zhan’s concern and affection for Wei Ying is so open that it bleeds all over our screens. It’s like he looks at the rest of the world with aloof objectivity but the minute his lover comes into his sight, his eyes can bloom only warmth and emotion. Even the vision that touches Wei Ying from afar should be gentle and reverent, fit for holding in sight something precious beyond measure. This can be said about the both of them.

It is when NHS mentions their halcyon days at Cloud Recesses that we realize how their lives have changed irreversibly. Both Lan Zhan and Wei Ying are visibly sadder, like they’re wishing to return to simpler times when courting Lan Zhan was the biggest problem in Wei Ying’s life and fighting his feelings for Wei Ying was Lan Zhan’s. They’ve grown closer since then but the impediments on their road have also grown bigger.

Wei Ying Asks Jiang Cheng To Stay Out Of His Love Life

Lan Zhan keeps walking like #conceal don’t feel but the sad version of WuJi reveals all.

Wei Ying has been growing tired of Jiang Cheng trying to dictate what he should and should not feel or do about things that do not concern him and he rightfully puts him in his place in this scene. Jiang Cheng tells Wei Ying to not choose “someone else” as “we” already have a lot to deal with. He implies Wei Ying shouldn’t help Lan Zhan because he isn’t family and is clearly underplaying his injury despite Wei Ying emphasising its urgency. And Wei Ying is so done with putting up with that kind of negative energy in his love life.

He is quick to silence anyone who thinks they can hold him back from his heart or overstep the boundaries of his relationship with Lan Zhan. And his logic is very sound, for who on earth is capable of stopping Wei Ying from helping him? Not even Lan Zhan! 

Wei Ying breaks free of Jiang Cheng's grip and leaves in Lan Zhan's direction after patronizingly patting his arm. And that is his answer. To him, Lan Zhan isn’t just another person and there is certainly no choice he has to make when it comes to him. It will always be Lan Zhan who is his foremost priority and the rest of the world has to simply get used to being left behind.

We see that he knows Lan Zhan would never ask for help but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t need it. His soulmate will hence always offer it, and if rejected, simply throw him on his back and continue while Lan Zhan informs him once again of how “boring” it is. He doesn’t get to do that, but his sentiment is romantic enough to stay in Lan Zhan’s memory for sixteen years and become an action he boldly reciprocates when Wei Ying comes back.

Wangxian’s Love Story is Truly “Epic”

Episodes 11 and 12 trace the beginnings of the turmoil that will forge Wangxian’s path (and make us weep). Every romance starts from the idyllic state of undisturbed happiness but it seldom remains there through the whole story. And let’s be honest, calamities bring emotional depth and complexity to a plot, exposing that our favorite characters are human, flawed and a lot closer to reality than we imagined. Both the heroes stay loyal to their core values, with the conviction to be fearless in the face of unforeseen adversities in life and love.

And we hope like the hopeless romantics who are in love with the greatest love story ever told, that maybe all the tragedies that are about to befall Wei Ying and Lan Zhan won’t matter one day because their happy ending will heal all wounds. Obstacles will continue to strew our heroes apart and push them towards the other on a loop, but Wangxian are like magnets destined to snap back together. They will ascend beyond the stratosphere of romance, straight to the heavens, because their love’s greatest virtue is that they have each other and know each other more than any two people ever did in all of history. They are devoted to the other unconditionally in soul, mind and body. 

It’s just that our idiot-soulmates take the long way round to realize that their own joint force is capable of annihilating and birthing entire universes, and nothing that ever dared to stand on their path ever stood a chance. And when they do realize that their love is an infinite, impossible force that can bend the laws of nature and be a harbinger of greatness to a world that is doomed to fail, their story is exalted to an epic that doubles as a romance, effectively displacing all the bland, straight examples of love that have infiltrated our past and perpetuated heteronormativity. Because it boasts a love that all of humankind should vie to fashion their lives after and is a true sight to behold - a sight we will rewatch for as long as we live, and bequeath to posterity so they can grow up looking up to Wangxian. Because their love story is the big budget live action fantasy that queer people have been deprived of for so long and is now here to tell us : You should dare to love because it will become your greatest strength. Just like it became Wei Ying and Lan Zhan’s.

#the untamed #chen qing ling #mo dao zu shi #cql #mdzs #wangxian #wangxian meta #the untamed meta #cql meta #mdzs meta #wangxiandecoded #lan wangji #wei wuxian #wei ying #lan zhan #wangxian analysis #cql analysis #the untamed analysis #the untamed rewatch #the untamed episodes #cql episodes #cql rewatch #ep12 #this one took a lot longer than I expected #uni was taxing me and I was also feeling unwell #i love reading all your thoughts on these episodes too! #thank you for following this blog! #by the way get ready to stream DYNAMITE by BTS out on August 21st! #Presave DYNAMITE on Spotify!!

[besanii]

double happiness at your door

Part 18 [end] | previous chapters linked on sidebar!

The initial plan was for Qing Qiu to send a retinue, personally led by Wei Wuxian, to pick up Lan Wangji and the rest of the bridal procession from the Nine Heavens. No expenses were to be spared—both Wei Wuxian and Nie Huaisang had had a lot of fun (perhaps a little too much fun) designing the bridal palaquin that would transport Lan Wangji from his quarters at the Palace of Enlightenment to his new home with Wei Wuxian in the Fox Den of Qing Qiu, and they had certainly not skimped out on the wedding gifts either—and for a while everyone had been happy. Except then Lan Qiren had gotten hold of the palanquin designs and thrown a fit, deeming it unsuitably gaudy and ostentatious for an esteemed member of the Nine Heavens Imperial Family.

Which, okay fair. Maybe having a pair of Bi Yi Niao drawing the palanquin had been a bit much. But still! That doesn’t mean Lan Qiren gets to cancel the bridal procession altogether!

So they had to compromise. They’ll keep the bridal procession and the palanquin if they do away with the bridal veil and the Bi Yi Niao. Which leaves him here, outside the Palace of Enlightenment with Jiang Cheng and Nie Huaisang at his side, facing off with Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue.

“Uh, so how does this work, exactly?” Wei Wuxian mutters under his breath, nudging Nie Huaisang with an elbow.

“They’re supposed to give you a challenge!” Nie Huaisang says, fluttering his fan excitedly in front of his face. “Something to prove your love and devotion!”

My what now?

He turns to the two imposing figures in the doorway and gulps.

“Taizi-dianxia, Chifeng-zun,” he laughs weakly. “Have you eaten yet? We’ve brought...cakes! And pastries! Please, have your fill!”

Lan Xichen smiles.

“Thank you for the kind offer, Xiao-dianxia,” he says, “but we have already eaten. Why don’t we focus on the task at hand, hmm?”

There’s a vaguely threatening twinkle in his eye that sends chills down Wei Wuxian’s spine and himself almost crashing into Jiang Cheng on his other side. 

“What does Taizi-dianxia propose then?” Jiang Cheng asks, drawing himself up to his full height. It’s an admirable attempt at making himself appear more threatening, but he’s up against Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen, which pretty much speaks for its effectiveness (or lack thereof).

Well, at least he tried. Wei Wuxian can give him that.

“Mingjue-xiong, what was the purpose of this exercise again?” Lan Xichen asks, voice light and airy. “To prove Xiao-dianxia’s love and devotion for Wangji, was it?”

The grin Nie Mingjue gives them is anything but light and airy. Nie Huaisang audibly gulps.

“I know just the thing.” He stretches out a hand and summons Baxia into his grasp. It glints menacingly in the sunlight. “How about a duel? If you defeat me, you may pass.”

“Is that a good idea, Da-ge?” Nie Huaisang pipes up from where he’s half-hiding behind Wei Wuxian. “We don’t want to hurt Wei-xiong before he’s had a chance to perform his duties!”

Wei Wuxian chokes and turns red immediately—Nie Huaisang is so dead. He’s going to kill him. How can he say something like that in front of the Crown Prince? Lan Wangji’s brother? Does he want to get him killed? He still hasn’t seen Lan Wangji in his wedding robes! 

“Nie-xiong!” he hisses. To Nie Mingjue, he offers a deep bow. “Chifeng-zun, please spare your junior on his wedding day. How could I possibly hope to defeat you in combat?”

“Oh?” Nie Mingjue smirks. “Do you not want to be married then?”

“Chifeng-zun!” Wei Wuxian heaves an incredibly put-upon sigh. “Then you leave me no choice. Luckily, in situations like this, I can call upon my trusty brother to fight in my stead!”

He slings an arm around Jiang Cheng’s shoulders and shoves him forward with an encouraging shout, grinning wickedly at the abject terror on his face as he comes nose-to-chest with Nie Mingjue. Still, he grits his teeth and squares his shoulders and actually looks like he’s going to fight so Wei Wuxian has got to hand it to him—what a good brother! He’ll never compare him to a pufferfish again!

The moment is interrupted by Lan Xichen clearing his throat.

“While that’s all well and good,” he says mildly. “I think Wangji would prefer it if we didn’t destroy his courtyard, or injure his husband before the wedding. Why don’t we do something else?”

He swears he hears Nie Mingjue blow a raspberry. A very tiny, petulant one out of the corner of his mouth. But definitely a raspberry. But Lan Xichen appears not to have seen it, or at least pretends not to, as he waves his arm and a table appears in front of them with a blank scroll and a set of inks and brushes.

“Xiao-dianxia, if you will.” He motions for Wei Wuxian to take a seat. “I have a very simple task for you. Please write down all three thousand of the Lan family rules within the span of one joss stick.”

What?

“What?” he says aloud, dumbfounded. “All of them?”

Lan Xichen raises an eyebrow.

“You were gifted with a copy of them when you first arrived at the Nine Heavens,” he reminds him. “And again when we first sent pingli to your chambers at the beginning of this engagement. I trust you would have read them in preparation for your marriage. After all, these rules are very important to Wangji.”

He tops it all off with a beatific smile that has Wei Wuxian breaking out in a cold sweat. Okay, so he has read all three thousand rules before. Once. Sort of. Okay so maybe he’s skimmed them a bit. But to ask him to write them all down from memory just isn’t fair! He’s not even the one marrying into the Lan family! If anything, Lan Wangji should be the one to copy out Qing Qiu’s rules!

He forces a smile and picks up the brush.

“Of course,” he lies. “Of course I did.”

He’s about half a joss stick in when an idea strikes him and he scraps the page he’s been working on—he hears Nie Huaisang and Jiang Cheng groan and complain loudly and ignores them in favour of smoothing out a fresh piece of paper and setting brush to paper with gusto. They want him to demonstrate his knowledge of the Lan family rules? Well, he’ll give them one better.

He lifts the brush from the paper with a final flourish just as the last part of the joss stick crumbles away into dust. A splatter of ink gets onto Jiang Cheng’s robes, but he’s too busy setting aside the brush and picking up his masterpiece to acknowledge his angry muttering. He offers it to Lan Xichen with a bow.

“Taizi-dianxia,” he says. “For your inspection.”

Lan Xichen’s face softens as he takes in what Wei Wuxian has given him.

“Xiao-dianxia…”

It’s a picture of Lan Wangji sitting under the shade of a peach blossom tree, playing the guqin, from the first time he’d visited the Nine Heavens. He remembers climbing over the wall to escape his etiquette lessons and stumbling into the Palace of Enlightenment completely by accident while Lan Wangji had been practising. He remembers how the sunlight had shone through the branches of the tree just so to bathe him in an ethereal glow—if they had not been already immortal, Wei Wuxian could have sworn he was a fairy descended to earth—and the way his breath had caught in his throat at the sight. 

It was the first time he remembers really seeing Lan Wangji.

Nie Huaisang is smiling behind his fan while admiring the portrait, and even Nie Mingjue looks grudgingly impressed by his work. Jiang Cheng folds his arms over his chest and scoffs, but he too has a pleased little quirk at the corner of his mouth.

“Well,” Lan Xichen says finally, lowering the portrait. “I believe you’ve quite surpassed the task we set for you, Xiao-dianxia. Here is your reward.”

He steps aside.

Lan Wangji is standing at the door to the main chambers on the other side of the courtyard, dressed in layers of red and gold silk fitted to perfection around his broad frame. Even the customary silver pins in his hair have been replaced by a single one made of gold, fashioned into the shape of a dragon and slotted through a guan of flowing golden clouds. His honey-gold eyes are wide and stunned, his mouth falling open just a sliver as he looks Wei Wuxian up and down.

“Wei Ying,” he breathes. Wei Wuxian flushes, his insides squirming in pleasure under his scrutiny.

And oh. 

Oh.

Wei Wuxian presses a hand over his pounding heart in realisation.

“Lan Zhan,” he says, unable to stop the smile breaking out over his face. “I’m here!”

Lan Wangji hums, his eyes soft. 

“Yes,” he agrees. “You are.”

--

Previous parts and ko-fi link on my sidebar!

--

Aaaaaaand that’s a wrap on the main fic, folks! The next part after this is the wedding night, which I’ve already written and can be found in the master post. Everything written after this will be purely extras :)

Thank you for sticking with me through it all! I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I’ll probably focus more on Shattered Mirrors while working on another WIP in the background, so please support SM too!

#mdzs #wangxian #double happiness fic #double happiness verse #dragon!lwj #fox prince!wwx #lan wangji #wei wuxian #雙喜臨門 #my writing

[sssrha]

WangXian wouldn’t have been very functional pre-Wei Wuxian’s resurrection

So I was talking to @litescheme on Twitter and I decided to pour my heart out about how I hated the general fandom consensus that Wei Wuxian going to Gusu when Lan Wangji asked him to would have solved all of his problems, primarily because the idea of just straight up going to Gusu is incredibly flawed. Lo and behold, they agreed wholeheartedly. We had a great discussion and now I’m here to relay the discussion onto Tumblr in essay form uwu.

(By the way, this is based mostly on CQL with a good bit of novel added in, as well as a few hints of the donghua.)

Part One: “Come back to Gusu!” is a great romantic notion but a terrible plan of action.

First of all, one must ask the question: what on Earth was Lan Wangji’s game plan with the whole “Come back to Gusu!” thing? I think we can all agree that most of the Lan Sect hated Wei Wuxian - by the end, at least. Lan Xichen certainly had less than charitable feelings toward him. With such a hostile environment, the only way I can see Wei Wuxian surviving within the Sect is while being forced into a Madam Lan-type situation. I find that prospect more reminiscent of a horror movie than a heartwarming fic about healing.

Luckily for us, we can safely say that canon Lan Wangji would not have done that! Due to certain childhood trauma, Lan Wangji definitely would not have forced Wei Wuxian to do anything, go anywhere, or stay anywhere that he didn’t want to. That isn’t even touching on how much Lan Wangji genuinely wanted Wei Wuxian to be happy, and forcing Wei Wuxian to do anything had generally been proven to not make him happy. Good on him!

The next point: why would Wei Wuxian have gone to Gusu in the first place? Even while ignoring WangXian’s rampant misunderstandings, Wei Wuxian always actively had a reason to not go to Gusu. During the Sunshot Campaign, he was a major player and commanded a huge amount of power that probably aided the Sects greatly. During his stay in the Burial Mounds, he had a community of war prisoners to protect. How could he go to Gusu?

I’ve seen fics where Lan Wangji ensured the safety of the Wen Remnants, and while I absolutely adore the trope, I really don’t see that happening with canon Lan Wangji. First, I don’t think he’d grown as a person enough to fully rebel against his Sect until Wei Wuxian was in immediate danger, and second, I straight up don’t think that he had the sway to. Pulling that kind of stunt implies a good deal of political power within the Sect...and also implies that Lan Wangji would have had enough power to escape a punishment which he clearly never thought he deserved. However, I could be wrong on this point! Politics has never been my forte. 

Also, I don’t think anyone can bank on the Lan Sect accepting the Wen Remnants. After all, the Lan Sect participated in the First Siege of the Burial Mounds and thus, presumably, also the slaughter of the Wen Remnants.

Upon further reflection, I figured that the only time Wei Wuxian might have actually gone to Gusu was that brief period of time after the Sunshot Campaign and before he met Wen Qing. However, for him to agree, I figured that three things had to happen:

Wei Wuxian had to understand that Lan Wangji wanted to help him, not hurt him.

Wei Wuxian had to come to the (false!) conclusion that Jiang Cheng no longer needed his help or support at Lotus Pier.

Wei Wuxian had to accept that he was worth saving in the first place.

(The concept came pre-set with some delicious Yunmeng Bros angst because Jiang Cheng would almost certainly take Wei Wuxian (permanently) going to Gusu the same way he took Wei Wuxian taking the Wen Remnants to the Burial Mounds: a betrayal, a promise broken. Emotionally, of course. There definitely wouldn’t have been political pressure closing in from all sides the way there was in canon.)

I was going to expand on that concept, but then I hit a bit of a hurdle: I genuinely did not, and still do not, see any reason for Wei Wuxian to actually go to Gusu. At that point, Wei Wuxian was doing everything he felt he needed to: he protected Jiang Cheng because Madam Yu told him to (and because he genuinely cared for him, but Madam Yu’s command was his driving force) and he only left Jiang Cheng when Wen Qing - someone he perceived himself owing a greater debt to due to the golden core removal - came along. When looking at it from that regard, I don’t think Wei Wuxian would ever see a reason to go to Gusu.

So, even after clearing up the miscommunication, Lan Wangji would have to present a good reason for Wei Wuxian to listen to him. 

I don’t think Lan Wangji going up to Wei Wuxian and saying, “Please come back to Gusu, I want to protect you,” would have worked. Considering how prideful Wei Wuxian was back then - with a good bit of it justified when you consider the fact that he killed a large amount of people in a single night during the Pledge Conference (though the exact number is never actually confirmed as far as I remember) - I don’t see Wei Wuxian taking the implication that he needs protection very well. No matter how many good intentions Lan Wangji had, he would have ended up offending Wei Wuxian at that point.

Another route Lan Wangji could have taken: “Please come back to Gusu, I want to play Cleansing for you.” Again, I don’t think this would have worked. (At least, that was definitely his stance in CQL and Wei Wuxian still didn’t do anything.) In Chapter 78, Wei Wuxian mentioned that the Sound of Lucidity had no effect on him. The Sound of Lucidity is, presumably, one of the Song(s) of Clarity, of which Cleansing is the most powerful. Lan Wangji used the Sound of Lucidity at the Pledge Conference after the battle had started. I don’t exactly know why he didn’t use Cleansing when it was more powerful... Either way, after he played the Sound of Lucidity, Wei Wuxian said, “You should’ve known since long ago—Sound of Lucidity is useless to me!” Thus, Lan Wangji asking him to go to Gusu so he could play Cleansing probably wouldn’t have seemed like an especially compelling reason to Wei Wuxian.

After some thought, I figured that post-resurrection, Wei Wuxian agreed to stay with Lan Wangji in the Cloud Recesses after the mystery was solved because:

He was not as prideful as pre-death Wei Wuxian.

He saw no reason to go back to Lotus Pier since Jiang Cheng made it very clear that he was unhappy with him.

He managed to process and confess his feeling to Lan Wangji, who did the same.

Pre-death Wei Wuxian has none of this. Basically, Wei Wuxian at that point had no reason to go to Gusu for anything other than a short visit.

Now, I don’t know if any of you have noticed, but this entire time I’ve been ignoring not only the reality that Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji’s relationship pre-death was...very bad, but also something else very important: the Stygian Tiger Seal. 

The Stygian Tiger Seal was, of course, stupidly powerful, and Wei Wuxian only kept it because it would take too much time and energy to destroy, and it was meant to deter anyone from attacking him since he already knew that so many people were against him. One of his main fears was someone else - someone with impure motives - getting their hands on it, so of course he was paranoid wondering who would try to steal it from him. Lan Wangji asking him to go to a place where Wei Wuxian would be surrounded by people who hated his form of cultivation? Yeah, that didn’t sound that great. 

(Also, can we please take a moment to appreciate this excerpt from the novel: “The Stygian Tiger Seal’s powers were considerably greater than what he had imagined. He originally wanted to use it to assist him, but its powers were almost exceeding him, its creator” (Chapter 30). Almost. He said the Seal was not as powerful as him! The Stygian Tiger Seal was, indeed, strong, but he was more so! I see a lot of fanfics paint the Stygian Tiger Seal as what made him so terrifying and...it was certainly a part of it, but he did most of it on his own! Ah, we love terrifying main characters~)

Now, I’ve acknowledged the existence of WangXian’s miscommunication, but I’ve never actually addressed it. So, here it is: I do not think Lan Wangji confessing to Wei Wuxian (even before his stint in the Burial Mounds after the Bloodbath at Nevernight) would have gone well. In Chapter 2, there is this excerpt: “Wei WuXian’s eyebrows twitched. Not only a lunatic, a homosexual lunatic as well.” This requires a bit of interpretation because it’s not exactly clear what Wei Wuxian’s eyebrow twitch means, but I’ve always interpreted it as annoyance - or even disgust - at the addition of “homosexual” to Mo Xuanyu’s profile. I’m not saying that Wei Wuxian was necessarily homophobic before the entire events of the novel, but I sincerely don’t think Wei Wuxian would have appreciated Lan Wangji - or any other man, for that matter - confessing to him. If even (immediate) post-resurrection Wei Wuxian had that attitude, I can imagine what would have gone through pre-death Wei Wuxian’s head. 

So, Sunshot Campaign, post-Sunshot Campaign, and Yiling Patriarch Wei Wuxian would all definitely not go back to Gusu, nor would they appreciate a confession from Lan Wangji. That leaves the question: what about pre-Sunshot Campaign Wei Wuxian?

Part Two: Why I really don’t think WangXian would have worked out pre-Sunshot Campaign.

From here on out, “Wei Ying, come back to Gusu!” is no longer relevant because, well, Lan Wangji never said it before the meeting in the supervisory office. (And I think I’ve made my point regarding that as well as I could.)

Starting with Cloud Recesses-era Wei Wuxian...I think that, out of all the different versions of Wei Wuxian, he would have been the one of the two most-likely to get together with Lan Wangji (pre-resurrection, of course). Even then, I don’t see that high a likelihood of that actually happening. Why? Repression! Fuck both Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji were so deeply repressed at that point! Lan Wangji was obviously more aware of his feelings, and Wei Wuxian...I don’t know, I haven’t read the novel far enough to actually have this be a legitimate interpretation, but looking at CQL, I don’t really think Wei Wuxian was in love with Lan Wangji at that point (but I don’t have much evidence to back that up other than my a-spec radar...).

And even if they did somehow manage to overcome their repression - and actually both had feelings for each other in the first place - they were still teenagers! Fifteen at the beginning, I’m pretty sure, and fifteen-year-olds are decidedly bad at maintaining any sort of relationship. That doesn’t even touch on the fact that WangXian was probably legitimately incompatible at that point. Lan Wangji still lived and breathed the rules and Wei Wuxian didn’t give a fuck about them. To maintain any sort of long-term relationship, they’d have to simultaneously undergo a whole novel of character development...which is doable! But! I don’t exactly see it as plausible.

Then, of course, Wei Wuxian got kicked out of the Cloud Recesses and WangXian didn’t see each other until two years later, at the Discussion Conference in Qishan. I don’t really see long-distance relationships working out very well in ancient China, so I can’t imagine them properly maintaining their relationship throughout that. And, of course, Lan Wangji’s rage after Wei Wuxian pulls his forehead ribbon was also due to his repression. Considering how short the Discussion Conference seemed to be, I don’t think there was much room for a relationship to develop. 

At the Indoctrination Camp, Lan Wangji had a whole swarm of things to worry about other than his (frankly painful) pining for Wei Wuxian so, again, I don’t see a romantic relationship developing at that point in time. 

A time-frame that I think can be uniquely isolated as a very possible place to develop their relationship would be while they were trapped in the cave with the Tortoise of Slaughter. Mostly before they killed the beast, though, since afterward, Wei Wuxian had too much of a fever for any romantic shenaniganry. My reasoning is that the cave was the first time since Wei Wuxian’s punishment in the Cloud Recesses that the two of them were forced to spend a long stretch of time together, and thus could potentially open up to each other. I remember in the anime that Lan Wangji sheds a few tears as he mentions that the Cloud Recesses had burned, that his brother was missing, and that his father was...dead? Severely injured? One of those two. He was back in business-mode pretty soon afterward, but if Lan Wangji could have been persuaded to open up a bit more by an persistent and concerned Wei Wuxian, I can see a slow confession being teased out of him - there was certainly enough time!

Then again, them getting together would only happen if Wei Wuxian were both comfortable with the idea of gay men and willing to accept that he was, in fact, attracted to Lan Wangji, and if Lan Wangji were willing to let go of the rules enough to be comfortable with Wei Wuxian’s naturally rebellious nature.

After that, WangXian doesn’t meet again until the supervisory office, and I’ve already talked about all of that.

In conclusion, “Come back to Gusu!” was sweet but misguided and WangXian wouldn’t have effectively happened pre-resurrection.

Now, what does that mean for you? ...Nothing. Absolutely fucking nothing. This doesn’t mean I’m forsaking all fics where WangXian gets together pre-resurrection (in fact, I absolutely love them!) and I’m definitely not trying to say that my interpretation is the only right one. I’m not trying to police what everyone thinks and decree that all fics where Wei Wuxian is open about liking men are wrong or any crap like that. Those fics are great and I love them! These are my (and @litescheme’s) thoughts on the matter that I (we) wanted to spill out into the greater world! You can agree, you can disagree, you can ignore me (us) entirely! But if you read through this meta, then I’m assuming that you found the concept interesting. That is all I was going for!

(Well, that and trying to thoroughly debunk the notion that Yiling Patriarch Wei Wuxian getting shoved into seclusion in the Jingshi by an apologetic Lan Wangji would be in any way “healing” or even “good” for Wei Wuxian, because honestly? Fuck that.)

Ahh, thanks for reading!

#is this a hot take? #you bet ya #do i care? #not anymore #litescheme i hope this lived up to your expectations ;-; #wei wuxian #lan wangji #wangxian #mdzs #mdzs meta #wwx #lwj #wei ying #lan zhan #feel free to ignore if you disagree!!! #i'm not gonna force you to read it

[lotusjwy]

omg can you do 🚙 for jiang cheng and jin ling 🥺🥺🥺 i need more wholesome jiujiu content. you can throw other characters in too if you want !!! family road trip 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

oh my god this sounds so wholesome. so i will try to mainly focus on jin ling and jiang cheng, as asked, but u are giving me free reign for other characters, and since i’m simply a slut for forcing lan wangji and jiang cheng to get along, i will also add him and a-yuan into this road trip, for no reason other than to cause chaos :) 

okay so if jin ling and a-yuan are kids then, obviously its wangji and jiang cheng in the front seats, the kiddos in the back 

idk where they’re going, use ur imagination, they’re going where ever you want them to be going

jiang cheng makes sure they have enough snacks, and wangji makes sure they have healthy snacks (except they pout at him once and he hands over the chocolate, bc he is a weak weak man, and will indulge a child in anything) 

honestly, i think this roadtrip goes without many problems, like i imagine jin ling loves a-yuan’s company and a-yuan can entertain jin ling better than anyone else, and jiang cheng and wangji wouldn’t be talking a whole lot, so it’s just a peaceful roadtrip to where ever they’re going 

mostly jiang cheng makes sure that jin ling is content to be sitting in the backseat, and isn’t about to throw a tantrum (he’s a very spoilt child) 

they probably take a lot of stops to make sure jin ling gets his snacks, and bathroom breaks, and one particular stop bc the kids saw an animal and wanted to look at it closer, or at least get a picture of it, and again. wangji and jiang cheng are both weak, so ofc they oblige 

the biggest issue is that wangji is a backseat (passenger seat) driver, and hisses if jiang cheng goes even a km over the speed limit and “you turned that corner quite sharply, are you sure you do not wish for me to drive?” “i will turn this car around, so help me lan wangji, do not test me. i don’t know why you had to come with me, just because wei wuxian has work, this is ridiculous. the kids are more well behaved than you’re being, you’re impossible.”

however, if we’re talking jin ling and a-yuan being teenagers? lmao c h a o s 

because wangji backseat drives, he gets put in the actual backseat, bc jiang cheng might actually physically harm the man if he has to look at him

you may think jin ling would get the front seat, bc he is a spoilt boy, who usually gets what he wants

no. a-yuan gets the front seat. jin ling is the type of person who skips through 500 songs bc he wants a specific song but refuses to pick it out saying that it’s gonna come up eventually, and then he doesn’t even listen to the song properly, and skips like half the song, and it’s infuriating 

so a-yuan gets the front seat, bc he’s a civilised human who will take requests, add it to the queue and let songs play through (and he also doesn’t backseat drive) 

“my car, my rules, if you don’t like them, you two can come by yourselves, and i’ll enjoy a peaceful drive with a-yuan” 

in retaliation, jin ling requests ‘what does the fox say’ no less than 10 times during this road trip, and bc he was raised by wei wuxian, a-yuan obliges every time 

in retaliation to this, jiang cheng makes sure ring ding dong by shinee ends playing right after what does the fox say, bc it’s jin ling’s biggest ear worm. a-yuan obliges. 

lan wangji is simply suffering. 

none of the four are ever gonna get the two songs out of their head. whenever they arrive at their destination they keep humming it and hating every second of it, the rest of their family hates them too. 

the actual road trip itself is probably fine, a few arguments between everyone, as they discuss real life problems, like the realistic probability of aliens having made contact with and continue to live on Earth (wangji and jin ling are very much on the ofc they have and ofc they do train of thoughts, and jiang cheng doesn’t really give a shit either way, and a-yuan says ofc aliens exist, but is skeptical of the rest) 

they stop off at a dodgy roadside cafe because jin ling’s stomach was ‘simply going to eat itself, i’m so hungry jiujiu’, and they eat questionable burgers 

lan wangji is still suffering. he questions why every time they plan a family holiday wei ying seems to have work suspiciously on the day they leave every time, forcing him and a-yuan to catch a ride with jiang cheng and jin ling 

he’s still backseat driving, from the actual backseat. jin line and a-yuan have a bet for how long it takes before jiang cheng actually turns the car around because of him. 

he didn’t, but it got very close when wangji suggested that jiang cheng take his driving test again 

by the time they arrive at their destination none of them want to look at each other, and will probably avoid each other for like an hour or two, before they can look at each other without wanting to punch each other

send me an emoji and a character for hc’s

#jiang cheng #jin ling #lan wangji #lan sizhui #mdzs #headcanons #ask prompt #omg this uh got away from me #i hope u like this anon #sorry i threw wangji and a-yuan in there #i just have been in a lwj/jc be friends mood #since forever #and i had to #i hope u like it!!!! #Anonymous

[viterbofangirllovestheuntamed]

#reblogging a link to my main blog bc for some reason this sideblog can't reblog any iterations of the original post which is weird #BUT ANYWAY #if you love #HAAAAANDS #and #twin heroes of yunmeng #jiang cheng #wei wuxian #hugs #HERE YA GO #no force on earth can make jiang cheng not love #SEPARATION ANXIETY DISASTER #jc gives the BEST hugs i don't make the rules it's just a fact #jc give AWESOME HUGS it is fucking CANON #featuring amazing tags from #winepresswrath

[veliseraptor]

AU where Yanli survives, and/or, she survives but Jiang Cheng gets killed instead (~~~disaster)

Oh boy. I decided to go with an AU where Yanli survives and Jiang Cheng doesn’t, because I’ve seen at least some of the former (have read a few!) and haven’t actually seen the latter. 

So, first off, absent Jiang Yanli’s death it is a little harder to imagine Wei Wuxian killing himself (since I think the one-two combo of her dying and Jiang Cheng blaming him for it is what really shoves him over the (in CQL, literal) edge) but I can see two ways clear to doing it anyway - one where he thinks Jiang Yanli is dead and knows Jiang Cheng is, or one where Jiang Yanli is crying over Jiang Cheng’s body and is not paying attention to Wei Wuxian such that he interprets, as you do, rejection in the face of this ultimate violation of their siblinghood. 

I realized as I wrote this that I don’t actually have to kill Wei Wuxian, but I think I kinda do - even if he survives Nightless City (as in the novel), the Siege of the Burial Mounds is still likely to go poorly even with Jiang Yanli there (no one’s going to listen to her), and even if he makes it out of that...he’s just very unlikely to continue to make it out alive, even if he weren’t imploding on every level already.

So anyway! Moving on from there, the number one consequence of this outcome is that the Jiang Sect? It’s gone. Like, for sure by the time Wei Wuxian resurrects, but probably well before then Jin Guangshan moves in and just kind of...absorbs it. And he can make it like he’s doing them a favor, he’s just protecting them with their lack of a sect leader, and it only makes sense since Jiang Yanli - the last remaining living member of the Jiang family - is his son’s widow...but everyone knows what he’s doing. No one has the ability to stop him, though. But this does throw the balance of power even further out of balance, making the Jin Sect by far the most powerful and wealthiest of the sects to an even greater extent (by dint of absorbing all the Jiang resources and having one fewer power to contend with). 

Jiang Yanli in this universe, meanwhile? Not happy. She’s been widowed, her brothers are both dead, she’s watching her former sect get swallowed up by the Jin Sect and she doubts Jin Guangshan’s motives are as nice as he’s acting like they are. I think this is a verse where Jiang Yanli does get very disillusioned with the world around her, with the people around her. 

All Jiang Yanli wanted was for her family to stay together, and she watched them fall apart. She would’ve sacrificed herself for either of her brothers, and they both wound up dead. I think there is an anger and a bitterness that develops in her that doesn’t ever in canon.

She channels a lot of energy into Jin Ling, to be sure. Into taking care of Jin Ling, into raising him to be the best man he can be, into countering the spoiling influences of the people around him. She pours...not all of her love, but a lot of it, into him. But she also has a lot of practice in getting willful children to behave. 

But you know who this might bring her closer to? Who she might end up growing closer with, a widow alone in Jinlintai with a new baby? Jin Guangyao, honestly. I can see Jiang Yanli striking up a relationship with Jin Guangyao - he’s smart, he’s earnest, he’s hard-working, Jin Zixuan seemed to like him, and he’s unfailingly polite. 

Meanwhile, Jiang Yanli is warm, generally kind, accepting of people as they are, would never insult him on the basis of his heritage, and absolutely lets him hold Jin Ling. 

Jin Guangyao likes this woman, it turns out. 

He doesn’t tell her the truth, of course, but she’s up there with Lan Xichen and Qin Su as far as people to whom he shows his best self. And this also means, I bet, that Jiang Yanli ends up friends with Qin Su.

Which also means, possibly, that instead of directly going to confront Jin Guangyao when she finds out the truth, Qin Su would seek out her friend, instead. 

But well before that - the other real ripple effect here is: if Wei Wuxian, resurrected, runs into Jin Ling and hears him mention his mother, and figures out (as he does in canon) who his mother is...there is no force on earth that would keep him from beelining directly for Jinlintai to see his shijie. 

Which really creates some problems as far as Nie Huaisang’s murder mystery goes, because Wei Wuxian crashing into the middle of Jinlintai screaming “SHIJIE!!!!!” is not exactly, uh, helpful in terms of bringing Jin Guangyao’s crimes to light.

(Also I am sad about Jiang Cheng being dead here. Someone bring that boy back as a fierce corpse already, or something.)

#stripedroseandsketchpads #conversating #five headcanons meme #this is SO late #but i had to mull this over for a while #the untamed #the sad queer cultivators show #jiang yanli #is mostly who this ended up being about #it occurs to me that also jyl would probably bond more with lwj too #though possibly they would be distanced by virtue of jgs efforts #and lwj's general isolation #but the mental image of them bonding is cute and would mitigate some of her loneliness