#wwx is smug the rest of the day because shijie will always love him | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

robininthelabyrinth · 4 years

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eeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!! Would be awesome if you continued the nmj&wwx sworn brothers fic! I'm not good at giving plot prompts, but I really would just love to see your take on nmj's character, and how he would interact with wwx. I found it interesting that wwx in the untamed was really respectful of nmj when they met, not like how he was in Cloud Recesses. I wanted to see more of how they might interact if they had closer relationship. (Of course also hoping that changes things for the better!)

sequel to this

Wei Wuxian hated to admit it, but being Nie Mingjue’s sworn brother made a world of difference.

People looked him in the eye now, no matter what sort of atrocities were ascribed to him; there was still fear in their gazes, but now it was more like respect – and even more like confidence. He hadn’t realized how many people looked at him as a child, lashing out wildly in all directions, maddened like a rabid dog in his search for vengeance, nor how relieved they would be to know that his sins could be answered for by someone universally viewed as capable enough to keep him down.

It wasn’t just that most people would put money on Baxia against just about everything else – Wei Wuxian counted himself among that crowd – but also, just…Nie Mingjue.

Nie Mingjue was a stern man, short in both temper and speech, but he was straightforward and decisive. He had listened to Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng lay out the benefits of their position, taken an evening to consider, and accepted promptly the next morning; the ceremony had been held at a convenient moment a few days after that, and then he’d invited them both to dinner – Wei Wuxian, as his new brother, and Jiang Cheng as the brother of his brother.

At first, Wei Wuxian couldn’t quite put his finger on what changed after that – it was similar to the way Nie Mingjue had treated them both before, when he was their general and they his lieutenants, but also significantly different. He was still harsh, still fiercely opinionated, still straightforward as ever, as generous in words of discipline as he was sparse in words of praise; was it only that his eyes were softer? That he sometimes felt free to put his hand on Wei Wuxian’s shoulder? That he listened to him, was open to interruptions no matter what time of day or night, asked him for meaningless favors and did them for him in return?

“It almost reminds me of shijie,” Wei Wuxian told Jiang Cheng. “If she were as tall and strong as a bear, and a lot more willing to correct me…almost like Madame Yu, but not as bitter. Yet there’s something of Uncle Jiang there as well: he trusts me to do things, but he’s also there to keep an eye on it – not in an offensive way, you know? Just there in case something goes wrong…it’s very reassuring, somehow. Like having a mountain at your back, keeping you steady.”

“You’re an idiot,” Jiang Cheng said. “All that – you’re just saying he’s acting like he’s your big brother.”

Wei Wuxian stared at him.

Jiang Cheng’s cheeks were red and his eyes averted. “Don’t you know you’re just the same to me?” he muttered, and shoved Wei Wuxian’s shoulder briefly before fleeing, and Wei Wuxian felt a glow of warmth that filled his entire body from head to toe that kept him floating through the next week.

He’s never had a da-ge before, which was probably why he was so slow on the uptake. Nie Mingjue doesn’t so much as blink an eye when Wei Wuxian started calling him that – warily at first, like a bit of mischief that he could play off as a joke if he was rejected, and then quickly enough with confidence, smug and arrogant the way he’d been before the war started, when he’d still had the Jiang sect to hold up the sky for him no matter what he did.

After all, who would dare get in his face with Chifeng-zun at his back?

Nie Huaisang’s frivolity suddenly made a great deal more sense. He was just spoiled!

Jiang Cheng benefited as well, which he wouldn’t have necessarily expected but perhaps should have. Wei Wuxian came across them talking, late one night, and sits in a tree to listen the quiet stories they shared – the burden of being Sect Leader, of needing to honor one’s ancestors and keep their traditions alive while also preserving the lives that had been entrusted to them in this lifetime; the crushing emptiness of realizing that the task for which your entire life has been a preparation had suddenly arrived and there was no one else for it but you; the need for vengeance against those who had robbed you of your parents and childhood all in one go.

Even the struggles Wei Wuxian hadn’t known anything about: the lack of respect from elders who thought they knew better because they still saw you as a child, the need to play politics with small sect leaders eager to take advantage of weakness now to benefit later, the isolating realization that almost everyone you met wanted something from you.

“Thank you,” Wei Wuxian said to Nie Mingjue, after, his face solemn in a way it rarely was. “He’s holding up a corner of the world, all by himself, and I didn’t know how to help him.”

Nie Mingjue nodded; he didn’t shrug things off the way Wei Wuxian did, always took things that were meant to be serious as seriously – it had been such a shock when Lan Xichen had mentioned off-handedly that he was only seven years older than they were; he’d been Sect Leader for as long as Wei Wuxian could remember. If someone told Wei Wuxian that Nie Mingjue had been carved from stone rather than born, he would have believed it, excepting only that his heart could not have been stone.

“It’s something I can do, so I did,” he said, meaning that it was nothing when it was everything. “Perhaps one day you’ll tell me what it is that I can do for you.”

Caught, Wei Wuxian gaped, then tried to turn it into a joke, but Nie Mingjue just patted him on the shoulder and went his own way.

He never pressed, never asked, just accepted things as they were. As long as Wei Wuxian’s demonic cultivation was used for righteousness and killing Wens, Nie Mingjue would let him keep any other secrets he might have, pursue any aims, let him do as he liked.

And yet it was that permissiveness that led Wei Wuxian to start to wonder if maybe he should tell Nie Mignjue what he’d done, the choices he’d make, the sacrifices – he didn’t think Nie Mingjue would judge him harshly for it. He might even understand it, especially when the only thing that made the man smile were Nie Huaisang’s occasional letters complaining about having to do all the paperwork back at the Unclean Realm where he was safe.

He still wasn’t sure, though, so he didn’t, holding himself back, and then one evening not long after he had finished forging the Stygian Tiger seal – Jiang Cheng had banished him to Nie Mingjue’s side at once upon realizing the appalling power of it, knowing as well as Wei Wuxian did that the cultivation world would be terrified if they didn’t believe it was firmly under control – Nie Mingjue told him about how his father had died. Not the part that everyone knew, his saber sabotaged, broken during a night hunt, the spiritual effect rebounding on him to drive him six months later into a qi deviation long before his time; but why the sabers were so important to the Nie clan.

The foremost mission of the Qinghe Nie was to suppress evil wherever they found it: to uphold justice and abhor that which stood against it, to strike fearlessly against it no matter what they faced, whether wind or lightning. But such a mission required blood to be spilled, blood and blood again – like the executioner who took upon himself the duty of sending criminals onwards, allowing the rest of the community to sleep untroubled, those who took on such a duty invariably became targets of resentful energy, the final vengeance of the evil they slaughtered to save the innocent.

Invariably, there were times – times of war, as there was now – when it was necessary to wield violence in pursuit of righteousness. For the Nie, unlike other sects, violence was a virtue, and it could not be purged through a retreat from the world, the application of countless treasures and cleansing rituals inaccessible to most; their philosophy did not allow them to close their eyes and ears to injustice.

And so they did not rest. They killed in the name of justice and righteousness, killed and killed again; they cultivated their sabers as spiritual weapons, letting them absorb the resentful energy from beasts and monsters in order to better defeat evil that other sects could not, and at last cultivated the saber spirits, rich in resentful energy of their own but devoted only to defeating evil. The saber spirits were nourished by the cultivation of their chosen master, their resentful energy filtered and cleansed and purified, but that process was a burden, sparking the infamously short tempers of the Nie clan, with both temper and saber spirit held tightly in check only by their iron discipline.

The Nie sect leaders, who bore on their shoulders not only their own karma but that of those who followed them – their lives were a sacrifice, always balanced on the edge of a blade: the need to always control the saber spirit, to appease it and tame it, made them more susceptible than most to qi deviation, and absent one of them breaking the seal of cultivation or some accident, that would be how they would die.

Wei Wuxian touched the Stygian Tiger seal, hidden beneath his clothing in its two halves: he’d only used it once so far, causing a gigantic massacre that had taken down an army nearly entirely on his own. As soon as that had finished, he’d known that the seal was too much for him, even after he’d broken it in two to weaken it – it obeyed any master that would have it, so full of resentful energy that it needed only the barest excuse to break free to kill without discrimination. His demonic cultivation used resentful energy the way a Nie saber spirit did, his soul directly exposed to human evil, not merely animal; he risked possession, corruption, or worse, and only his skill and his determination was enough to control it – that he’d thought was enough to control it, until he’d made the seal.

The seal pulsed angrily under his hand, seething with resentment, hungry for blood, and then unexpectedly there was a response: Baxia, held in Nie Mingjue’s hands to be sharpened, gave a pulse as well, fierce and unyielding spiritual energy rippling out from it like a rock dropped into a lake, and for the first time the seal went quiet, as if momentarily cowed.

“Has my cultivation affected my temperament?” Wei Wuxian asked, considering the possibility seriously for the first time. Lan Wangji had told him several times that demonic cultivation harmed both the body and the heart, but he’d disregarded it – he felt fine, he didn’t frenzy; so what if he was angry? Wouldn’t anyone be, after suffering as he had? How could Lan Wangji ever understand?

(If Wei Wuxian thought about it too long, he might think that Lan Wangji would understand, could understand, did, but that thought was too painful to tolerate. In his heart, he still hoped that Lan Wangji would live untouched by the pain of the world, even if he knew that it was far too late for that.)

“Yes,” Nie Mingjue said simply, and his unshakable simplicity was more troubling than a thousand of Lan Wangji’s pleas. “My Nie clan sacrifices the second half of our lives for the power to make a difference in the first; I find that trade worthwhile, but it is all for nothing if we do not control ourselves. That it is easier for us to become monsters is all the more reason for us to always put righteousness first, personal interest second; our instincts will lie to us, inflame us, and we must be unyielding and strict, trusting in tradition and law to guide us where our instincts will fail us. If you persist in your path, you will need be twice as cautious as you were before: quicker to anger is quicker to act – but once the act is done, it cannot be taken back. Whether that is a sacrifice you are willing to make remains up to you.”

Wei Wuxian’s breath caught in his throat like a sob.

Tomorrow, he promised himself. Tomorrow, he’d tell Nie Mingjue everything, and get his advice on what to do.

That night, they received word of a temporary gap in the Wens’ defenses in Yangquan, an opportunity to destroy one of their stockpile while the guard was changing; the source of the information was Lan Xichen, who they all trusted. The opportunity was limited by time and the need for secrecy: Nie Mingjue took a small detachment of Nie cultivators to launch a night attack, with Wei Wuxian following at a distance to capture anyone who ran into the forest to escape Nie blades.

He waited patiently in a tree, Chenqing spinning idly in his hands, his mind more than halfway thinking of ways to refine the compass of evil he’d been working on; he wouldn’t let them escape.

He waited, but nothing happened.

No one came running.

The Stygian Tiger Seal abruptly pulsed again, suddenly active in a way it hadn’t been since Baxia had suppressed it, and a pit formed in Wei Wuxian’s stomach. He stood up at once and abandoned his position, rushing forward – and yet he was still too late.

Yangquan was a trap. Wen Ruohan himself had been there, with all his most trusted soldiers, vastly outnumbering Nie Mingjue’s small force; they had been easily overwhelmed.

Watching from a tree not far from the brightly lit center camp, Wei Wuxian bit his fingers until they bled to keep from screaming: he wouldn’t be able to bear it if he had to do this again, to stand by as a mute witness while the Wen-dogs laughed triumphantly over the bodies of those he knew and loved. The Stygian Tiger Seal was hot under his clothing, resentful, wanting to kill, and he wanted to use it – but the first time had come so desperately close to going out of his control that he didn’t know if he could risk it.

What if he lost control? What if he killed those he wanted to save?

Wei Wuxian was accustomed to arrogance, to confidence, to recklessness even – but Nie Mingjue’s warning was so fresh in his ears that for what might be the first time in his life, he wavered, hesitated.

He had just about decided that he would use the seal, and damn the consequences, when someone in the Wen sect dragged Nie Mingjue forward: he had been very badly beaten, his body twisted in unnatural ways and his head cut open, blood blinding him and Baxia nowhere in sight, but against all odds he was still standing – it was almost a desecration in Wei Wuxian’s eyes to see the Wen cultivators put their hands on him the way they had put their hands on Uncle Jiang, on Madame Yu, on all those Jiang cultivators he’d lost at the Lotus Pier.

The way they had hurt Jiang Cheng, so badly that it still haunted his shidi’s nightmares, a hurt so bad that the only way out was for Wei Wuxian to –

He couldn’t let it happen again.

He didn’t have another golden core to sacrifice. If they were going to execute Nie Mingjue right now, in front of him, he would –

“Take them all back to the Nightless City,” someone ordered, instead, and Wei Wuxian’s fingers, which had wrapped around the Stygian Tiger Seal without him noticing, abruptly relaxed in relief. There was still time to make a decision about whether or not to use the seal, or to see if he could rescue Nie Mingjue and the others without it.

The entire troop moved out.

Wei Wuxian followed.

#mdzs #wei wuxian #nie mingjue #jiang cheng #my fic #my fics #this is the one #this is basically a fic already #guess we'll see if I get more prompts #i like the idea of Wei Wuxian having an overprotective big brother #I also like writing out my version of the Nie saber spirits #this should really just be a fic #Anonymous

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eyeslikefoxglove · 4 years

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Episode 4 - Meng Yao has a crush & Foxglove likes to babble

Hello everybody, welcome to episode 4. I slept like a baby last night, but I have a migraine so I may sound a bit incoherent. (Post episode Foxglove here, I’m not incoherent in this, I’m just ranty)

Poor WWX. Funny story, during my first? Second? Year of Med School I fell aspleep on my biophysics notes during exam period, woke up at 9pm when my alarm for my meds started ringing, realised what I’d done and called my mum (who was on a 24h shift at the hospital) crying. In hindsight is hilarious because I had something like two weeks until the exam so I lost no more than a few hours but oh well.

Full disclosure here: I don’t like the Lan sect, LXC, LWJ and the Ducklings excluded I think they’re a bunch of hypocrites. You can’t call yourself righteous and boast about your almost 4000 rules and then shrug when people decide to commit genocide.

Also, 4000-ish rules? Fuck that noise, there’s a post floating around here where some amazing soul translated what they could see of the Wall of Rules and yeah, some of them are in the “don’t be an asshole, don’t hurt yourself or others” vein which, absolutely fair. But things like “dress properly” who are you to tell me what and how I cover my body with? “Don’t be promiscuous” wow thanks for the slut shaming my dudes. “Don’t smile foolishly/don’t smile too much”, “sit properly”, “don’t be too sad”, “don’t be too happy”. You’re telling me these are rules, not guidelines, not common sense stuff. RULES. You’re telling me people get punished for grinning or crying. Fuck off mate.

And we can’t forget the golden example of hypocrisy “Don’t talk to Wei Wuxian” so much for “don’t speak ill of others”.

Is my Western Girl showing? I’m sorry, I’m from Spain and I was raised by the guidelines “don’t be an asshole, don’t hurt yourself or others, don’t take anyone’s bullshit, live and let live, have courage and be kind, we will always love and support you” so some stuff in here is very very grating. I don’t have enough knowledge about the culture to discern if it is because of my modern sensibilities or because my culture is so different.

Oooooohhh I don’t like birds. I mean, I love crows, ravens and birds of prey to an unhealthy degree, but they keep their distance. The other day a pigeon flew into my building and decided that my (very dark) doorstep was the place to have a rest. I screamed like a banshee.

Hey, those two assholes at the back, get the fuck out of here.

LXC protective mode activated.

You will never convince me Meng Yao did not develop a monster crush right then and there.

Oh no. It’s this asshole.

Oh WangJi about to cut a bitch.

Drag him WWX.

MY’s protective mode activated.

And LXC is too done with this shit. Yep, NHS also thinks MY got a massive crush.

WQ aka Qishan Wen’s only braincell.

It’s the One Braincell Trio!

Notice me sempai! Omg JC’s faces.

This is where I dump all my canon-divergence AUs:

Meng Yao stays in Cloud Recesses. He and LXC keep gazing longingly into each other’s eyes.

NHS introduces him to the other two from the One Braincell Trio. WWX takes one look at him and goes “yep, you’re my friend now, I’m kneecapping anybody who fucks with you.” Because there’s no way he wouldn’t be sympathetic to MY after his own childhood (omg, both of them drunk, making terrible gallows’ humour jokes about living poor and mostly homeless while JC and NHS just listen horrified). JC goes into overprotective bro mode with MY. I mean, he still can’t emote for shit but he’s made very very sure that he will cut a bitch for MY and at least he knows MY has a brain, not like someone else he knows.

Shijie makes friends with MY because Shijie is a goddess and MY is so confused because how the hell does someone so kind exist? And she wants to be friends? And she doesn’t care at all about his past? What? MY.exe has stopped working.

Maybe JZX gets his head out of his ass and goes to talk to MY and warn him about what an asshole JGS is, because I refuse to think JZX doesn’t know it. Maybe MY hears him disparaging Shijie and decides that nope, the Jins can fuck right off every single one of them is a rude idiot; it’s ok with him because of his parentage (it’s not ok) but no one touches Shijie. The Yunmeng sibs is where it is at.

And that’s when he unleashes his full Slytherin powers on behalf of his new family. Because he does indeed have a fully functioning brain and shit is going to get really ugly really fast for all the people he loves if he doesn’t try and mitigate the damage somehow.

(A lot of mutual XiYao pinning is going on in the background because I live for the angst ok. LWJ fully approves of him as a brother-in-law tho)

A lot of terrible shit still happens because this is my AU and I want pain, but not only does JGS not have MY’s enormous brain on his side when he tries to seize power, he’s actively working against him (you can’t tell me MY wouldn’t get the kick of his life publicly bringing down and exposing his terrible father).

I’m sorry, back to the commentary.

This two idiots omg.

It’s WQ! Drag him WQ (gently)

I’m going to channel my ballet teacher here for a second: put your hair up! (You bunch of spider crabs, as she would call us)

I mean, JC’s hair is clearly in his face when he’s doing drills and, while the visual of all that dark hair whipping in the wind with the robes (another beef I have, they look like they’d catch on everything) is very dramatic I can assure you it’s fucking annoying. Plus it limits your visual field a lot. Again, I know jack about the culture and people can fly on swords here so why am I complaining about hair but let me live.

I used to have that much hair (then I got a pixie, now I’m growing it back out) and smacking yourself on the face with your own braid hurts.

Shijie knows what’s up with Jiang “I can only show anger” Cheng.

My one track mind when I saw the fish: Anisakis!

I think I would absolutely become a vegetarian if I got dropped in the past tbh. Not only is there no quality control of animal products (hello Trichinella), there’s also no way to do a proper cold storage (hello Salmonella). I’ve read and seen to many horror stories due to contaminated animal byproducts and, while vegetables pose their own risk (hello E. Coli) usually you only have to be thorough at washing and peeling to not have trouble.

5am wake up call without coffee. Fuck that noise.

Wei “I’m a petty gremlin” Wuxian.

I once called WWX a “mad scientist with ADHD” on an AO3 comment and I stand by that assessment.

Ok, but why the turtle caricature? It’s because turtles are “old and wise” like LQR? Is that the joke? Or are they laughing at WWX’s balls?

AW NO PAPERMAN.

“Tell me, what would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood? // Where, would you look if I asked you to get me a bezoar? // And what is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?” It’s pretty much the same energy. LQR is Ancient magic China’s version is Severus Snape down to the pettiness. He tries to catch WWX in a mistake, and when he can’t he dismisses his knowledge (look at Shijie’s face when he says WWX should not be proud to know what he does). He keeps pushing until WWX’s runs into a wall, then uses LWJ to “show him how it’s done” I mean, look how smug he looks and how uncomfortable everyone else is.

“Pity... clearly, fame isn't everything.”

(No, I don’t like LQR and I don’t like Severus Snape either; tragic past and sacrifices do not give you a pass to abuse children don’t @ me, I’m not interested in changing my mind)

And here is where all my “mad scientist with ADHD” hc stem from.

“No screaming in Cloud Recesses.” Screams LQR (yes, I’m 100% that bitch)

WEN NING IS HERE HI WN YOURE SO PRECIOUS.

But intercepting an arrow mid flight is some Geralt of Rivia Witcher bullshit right there.

Detective Wei strikes again.

The scenery is gorgeous my god.

Can we talk again about how this 16-year-old boy reacted to someone sneaking up on him by drawing his sword and attacking? That’s not fucking normal, that’s a common reflex in soldiers or people with PTSD.

(The Netflix translation has him calling LWJ “WangJi” and I die)

Thanks for reading!

#the untamed #cql #mdzs #mdzs live action #foxglove watches cql #foxglove watches the untamed #commentary #Foxglove rants #foxglove babbles #wei wuxian #wangxian #lan wangji #meng yao #lan xichen #jin guanyao #xiyao #episode 4

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