#(from their da-ge)

[lgbtlunaverse]

You know sometimes I think about that whole narrative tragedy around Huaisang where to get revenge for his brother on jgy he has to become more and more like jgy and turn into a person that his brother would hate. And yes the scheming and the lying and the making other people do your dirty work so you'll never get caught and have to face consequences for your actions is all very foils. Very tragedy. Love it.

But then I think back to nieyao in the fire palace and how it's not the spy thing Nie Mingjue is mad about, not really. He didn't know about it and changes his mind on trying to kill meng yao when xichen tells him but he's still mad and it's not the spy thing. However many cultivators he killed and tortured under Wen Ruohan's orders because he couldn't lose his cover are a factor but the crux of it? It's those last few. And specifically that Meng Yao had an out. A way for them to survive. And he used it. But only for Nie Mingjue. All the others got killed on the spot but Nie Mingjue got the out, got to live. And maybe (likely) if he'd tried to save the others Nie Mingjue would have needed to die but Nie Mingjue has been ready to die for his sect since he was 14 and if it meant defeating Wen Ruohan he'd be happy to. The fact is that those last deaths weren't to defeat Wen Ruohan but to keep Nie Mingjue alive and that is what he can't forgive. It's that after everything the thing he is so angry at Meng Yao for is choosing to value his life over that of his men.

And then I look back at Nie Huaisang who lied and schemed, yes, but who, most importantly, committed so hard to his headshaker persona that the Nie clan declined by the year, a shadow of its former self after only a decade of leadership.

And I realize that both Meng Yao and Nie Huaisang at one point looked at Nie Mingjue, and then looked at multitudes of Nie sect cultivators, and decided that Nie Mingjue was more important. And that's what he'd hate the most.

[thatswhatsushesaid]

shitpost dispatches from nightless city - incorrect but plausibly canon quotes edition

[poorlittleyaoyao]

it's fine, it's cool, I'm sure he'll be super chill about it.

[ultfreakme]

Need way way more content of Jin Guangyao and Jiang Cheng co-parenting Jin Ling because its CANON. It’s not even an exaggeration like that’s what HAPPENED. They shared custody each for half a year BRUH.

(on that note do you think Lan Xichen was dying inside because Jiggy and Jiang Cheng had some amicable coparenting situation going on with no problems though they barely knew each other before but despite his best effort he just COULD NOT make JGY and NMJ get along without it getting messy for like 10 seconds?)

[guqin-and-flute]

AU where Meng Shi had a second child, a baby daughter. Big brother Meng Yao has already had to grow up far too fast--he knows what this place is and what it does and the moment he sees his sister, he knows that he will not let her suffer the same fate.

Meng Shi dies a few months after she is born--she had gotten sicker and sicker through her entire pregnancy and a difficult birth was the last straw.

Meng Yao takes his sister and runs.

[3cosmicfrogs]

i'm just having a silly goofy time smushing my barbies together in new and interesting ways.

[leatherbookmark]

a friendly reminder that jgy doesn’t “tell nmj that he’s more important than all those people he’s killed”.

nie mingjue asks two questions.

one, “are you saying your life is more valuable than theirs?” (高贵),

and second, “are you saying you’re different from them?” (不同)

to which jin guangyao says, “yes. of course we’re different!”

he doesn’t say, “of course my life is more valuable!”, note.

these are two separate questions, and he only answers the last one that, in my opinion, is the most mindboggling one.

nmj asks a son of a sex worker, reviled, harassed and bullied just for existing, if he’s any different than other people. nie mingjue, who’s SEEN the way he was treated and stepped forward himself to confront those people.

the same nie mingjue who thinks he’s a l w a y s killed people for a reason, and that it’s fair for him to kill, but when jgy kills it’s always cruel, needless spilling of blood. yknow, despite the saber.

this nmj gets so furious at jgy stating that he’s not like other people that he kicks him down the stairs.

🆗🆒👍

[little-meowyao]

Something that drives me up the wall with CQL NMJ and JGY is the age gap.

Like, in the novel, it's not really that significant because JGY only goes work with NMJ when he's 19-20, but in CQL, I don't remember well but we see JGY as at least NHS's aide when he's 15-16

That drives me insane because while in the novel NMJ's behavior towards JGY is already pretty fucked up and violent and entitled

And while I don't believe NMJ to be more than 3-4 years older than LXC, that kind of age gap on teenish years is a lot

And that, because of meeting so much earlier while JGY was an (admitedly very mature, but regardless,) teen, you know what they feel reminiscent of for me?

It feels reminiscent of an increasingly abusive and emotionally imature parent and a former golden child who made one mistake once and everything went south from there

And it fits because of NMJ still having that pesky entitlement to JGY's time and attention (see: where he calls him MY and the times he interrupts his conversations w/ LXC)

[valodia]

[greenandhazy]

I am getting like seriously obsessed with the idea of an AU in which Meng Yao, Wei Ying, and Xue Yang meet as children and grow up to be sworn brothers/an Abhorrent Triad (not sold on that exact adjective but w/e)

Wei Ying doesn’t get found/adopted by the Jiang clan, but a nice older boy who lives in a brothel helps him hide there when he’s scared of a dog and they become friends. Meng Yao doesn’t have much food to share, but he does what he can, and he does have books and that’s worth just as much. A few years later Wei Ying stumbles across a boy who has been walking for days trying to track down Chang Ci’an, despite the fact that he’s practically delirious from the pain of an injured hand. Meng Shi is ailing by that point and maybe Meng Yao is reluctant to take on another brother, but Wei Ying brings Xue Yang inside just to give him cool water and bandages at least and Meng Shi insists they help, and Xue Yang is already nursing a vicious streak that becomes really useful as the brothel becomes more of a hostile place to live.

A few years later, Meng Yao goes to Jinlintai. Gets thrown out of Jinlintai. But Wei Ying and Xue Yang are there to say fuck the Jin, we’re your family, and they swear it in an informal little ceremony in the cheapest room of the only inn they can afford. They go to the Nie. At some point, Jiang Fengmian comes across Wei Ying, realizes who he is, and insists on sponsoring his education with the Lan. Xue Yang is already kind of resentful because being a minor vassal for the Nie does NOT suit his temperament, so not being able to accompany Wei Ying is the last straw and he runs away. Neither of his brothers see him again until he’s slaughtered the Chang Clan—although I think this version of Xue Yang, where he has some family he can rely on from an early age, softens him just enough that he is a little more discriminating. He leaves the children alive, at least, and when he’s captured, his silver-tongued Da-ge can make an argument that he was enforcing some kind of justice.

Not enough to convince Nie Mingjue, but enough that Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan (who accompany the group to Qinghe this time because they’re obvi not letting this criminal’s brothers have absolute custody of him) are somewhat swayed. The three brothers end up escaping together—I’m going to say Wei Ying still ends up in the Wen indoctrination camp because he still managed to piss of Wen Chao, but I can’t decide if it makes more sense for Meng Yao to remain as the Wen spy or for Xue Yang to get that job? 🤔 Anyway ONE of them takes it, but regardless Meng Yao also is like “war is coming, that means civilian casualties, that means famine” and sets up like a proto-watchtower system with the help of XXC, SL, and other rogue cultivators.

Wei Ying still turns to demonic cultivation. Xue Yang still turns to demonic cultivation. By the end of the war, the major clans are still calling for their heads but they’re heroes and no amount of propaganda is going to convince the common people that the Abhorrent Triad deserves death, not after they saved so many of the lives that the major clans didn’t seem to care about.

Hand-waving the end of the war a bit because I’m not sure exactly how the Nie/Jiang relationships with WY and MY would change things, but. Imagining Xue Yang having a full screaming meltdown when Wei Ying dies, Meng Yao can just barely keep him from jumping over the cliff to catch him. Meng Yao asks Lan Xichen to promise that if they’re going to be executed, they kill Xue Yang first, because Xue Yang is practically catatonic and he can’t bear to leave his didi alone, even for a few minutes, not after all of this.

ANYWAYYYYY. I think the class and family politics of these three characters makes for a fascinating contrast and I would like it to have even more angst and love and the particular angst that comes from loving others more than you love yourself thnx bye.

[moonwaif]

Jin Guangyao feels like the type of character would have multiple solos in a musical, with each being increasingly dramatic variations of the same melody.

[labyrynth]

i cannot stress this enough:

nie mingjue tried to kill jin guangyao, both before and after he died, but nmj’s reasons for trying to kill jgy never included “jin guangyao killed him.”

nmj never knew that jgy played a part in his death.

he was generally paranoid, but there is no indication that he had any real, concrete information about anything jgy was dealing with. nmj never actually knew anything about what jgy was doing.

he did not know that jgy had done anything to the music, and he had no reason to believe that the progression of his qi instability was anything other than natural. we don’t see any indication that he even acknowledged that it was getting worse.

moreover, nmj tried to kill jgy multiple times BEFORE he died, even before jgy started playing for him. even after jgy was playing for him, what finally set off nmj’s fatal qi deviation was not, in fact, the revelation that jgy was trying to kill him, but overhearing jgy’s private comment to xichen that nmj was treating jgy poorly. that was what sent him into his fatal, paranoid rage.

[thatswhatsushesaid]

Was Nie Mingjue qi deviating when he insulted JGY's mom, pushed him down the stairs, and tried to cut off his head? Bc those do not seem like the actions of a reasonable and just man in his right mind, but I've seen some people defending that bit recently and I wanted to check (I don't own the book, otherwise I would have looked myself lol)

- yunmeng-jiang

i'm really glad i haven't seen the posts defending nmj's conduct on the staircase lol. man. okay:

nmj is not qi deviating during that scene in the novel, no. jgy doesn't begin playing turmoil for nie mingjue until after the confrontation on the staircase (and i am not interested in relitigating this discourse again, anyone else who may see this and feel inclined to argue with me). so while i definitely feel that nmj's continued cultivation with baxia has influenced and more deeply entrenched his hatred and distrust of jgy, he is not qi deviating in that moment. his qi deviation happens at the martial conference about two to three months later, if i recall the timeline as laid out in the empathy flashback + wangxian's conversation with lan xichen.

which makes it worse in some respects, doesn't it. 😕

[poorlittleyaoyao]

There aren't horses in cql?? In what direction cql takes that scene?? Again why there aren't horses 😭😭. It's very cool in the novel

CQL has very few horses in general! One of the best things about Fatal Journey to me, a former Weird Horse Girl, was that the Nie soldiers ride horses. I vaguely remember Wen Chao riding a horse with Jiaojiao en route to Xuanwu Cave, and there are occasional background horses here and there, but other than that CQL has minimal horse content--presumably because horses are expensive and dangerous and if they had the budget/patience for that, they would've spent it on having more human extras so the supposedly epic battles have more than like 20 people in them.

The archery contest in the show takes place in the wake of Sunshot as a precursor to the Phoenix Mountain Hunt. The young masters who aren't sect leader all line up to try their best at archery--but then! Ominous cellos play as master of ceremonies Jin Guangyao beckons forward some guards who lead out a row of shackled Wen prisoners who are clearly civilians to stand in front of the targets as an added obstacle.

Jin Zixuan steps forward and successfully shoots a target.

WWX then blindfolds himself, shoots like 4 arrows at once, and hits bullseyes with all four of them, forcing an end to the competition because nobody could possibly beat him.

I dislike that scene for SEVERAL reasons. Firstly, it's cheesy; it's another instance of showing that WWX is soooOOOooOOOoo cool by having him demonstrate an implausible protagonist skill we will never see again. Secondly, it makes every single other character look like an asshole, but I don't think it intends to do that. Everybody present sees these terrified, malnourished prisoners led out in in chains, and some of them make vaguely perturbed faces, but nobody actually objects to it. Someone pointed out to me when I grumbled about this scene previously that WWX's trick shot is potentially an act of resistance since it frees the prisoners, and I can get behind that interpretation; however, the framing of the scene centers the Coolness Factor above all else, and there's no moment of WWX acknowledging the prisoners as people that would've been a nice setup to his actions re: the Wen remnants later (since, IIRC, he meets up with WQ later in the same episode).

More importantly, though... in the novel, from what I understand, the question being grappled with is when and whether retribution is justified. The Wen remnants are not all civilians and some of them directly profited from WRH's regime; WWX's opposition to their mistreatment (and NMJ et al's rejection of that opposition) is more complicated. In CQL, it is established VERY early that WQ and WN are from a separate branch of the Wen clan and were also oppressed by WRH, and it is this branch who comprise the majority of the people WWX rescues. We also have two instances establishing that the Jin sect is imprisoning and executing noncombatants. In the first, LXC expresses concern at Nightless City that there are non-cultivators among the prisoners, and extracts an assurance from JGS and NMJ that civilians will be imprisoned but treated kindly (after which we immediately see JGY order a mass execution on his father's orders).

In the second, WWX and LWJ personally witness Jin Zixun and his men firing arrows at a group of Wen prisoners (A-Yuan among them) and intervene.

So by the time we get to the archery competition, WWX, the Twin Jades, and NMJ have all witnessed and objected to Jin mistreatment of Wen hostages... and yet none of them has anything to say about the very public use of hostages as archery props, except for WWX and his trick shot, I guess. NMJ, known for being honorable to a fault, has nothing to say about JGS breaking his word. LXC, known for his kindness, has nothing to say about a public display of cruelty (overseen by his bf, no less!) that he himself already spoke against. LWJ, who never attended a gathering he didn't immediately exit the second he decided it wasn't the vibe, stays put, does nothing, and also apparently didn't mention Jin Zixun's target practice to anybody with decision-making powers. Later on, these three men will have very little to say when it's time for the cultivation conference to discuss WWX establishing the Burial Mounds settlement. (LWJ speaks up to defend WWX from allegations that he spoke ill of JC, LXC half-heartedly states that WQ and WN seemed nice enough when he saw them at Gusu, and NMJ is adamant that all Wens be punished as collaborators.)

Meanwhile, this all makes Jin Zixuan's lack of knowledge about JGS's atrocities as Chief Cultivator seem... pretty damning. JGS using JGY to do all his dirty work while keeping Jin Zixuan shielded from it all is a huge deal, and being transparently seen as a tool rather than a son is a core component of JGY's bitterness. In the novel, from what I understand, Zixuan really has no idea about the secret demonic cultivation research or anything. In the show, however, Zixuan is RIGHT THERE, WITNESSING THIS ARCHERY CONTEST HIS DAD IS SPONSORING. He is therefore aware that something fucked up is going on! And his response... is to participate in the contest? To shoot an arrow with no further objection or questioning, even though he's the only young lord present who doesn't have to fear retribution from JGS and doesn't have formative memories of his parents getting murdered by WRH? Okay. Cool cool. (Meanwhile, sweet little JYL claps happily when he does a good job, and claps even MORE enthusiastically when WWX does. GIRL, THERE ARE HOSTAGES.)

Honestly, the only people for whom I find this scene interesting rather than frustrating are JGY and JC. JC looks both deeply uncomfortable and DEEPLY STRESSED OUT when he sees WWX step forward; he looks so relieved when all WWX does is shoot some cool arrows, and it's a good little glimpse into the awful choices JC is soon going to have to make now that he's the political face of Yunmeng Jiang. JGY is racking up villain points here, obviously, but in a way that at least is compelling; it's politically prudent for him to go all-in on harming the Wen to prove that he has no lingering ties to his former employers. For everyone else, though, it's got ramifications and all of them are Not Great!

Granted, I don't feel as if the show wants you to think about it too hard. I think they wanted to include the archery contest since it's in the book (and contains a Wangxian flirting moment that they can get past censors), and they wanted to also establish WWX as super cool, JGS and JGY as super bad, and the Wen remnants as helpless victims. It's not that deep. Unfortunately, I am here to OVERTHINK.

[lilnasxvevo]

i am going to Cry bc i've watching interviews now with both ji li (nie huaisang) and zhu zanjin (jin guangyao) where they've referred to wang yizhou (nie mingjue), the actual person and actor and not the character he plays, as "da ge" even as they call all their other cast mates by their actual names

[qinghe-s]

As a Fatal Journey lover, I object to criticisms of its cgi. Yes it was still pretty crunchy but grading it on a curve? At least it didn’t have the Wen dungeon dog puppet. Besides, I’m willing to forgive a lot of its shortcomings since it gave us such a tight story about the depth and causes of the brothers’ devotion and why Huisang was willing to go to such lengths.

(referring to the tags on this post)

hey, it's one of my favourite films, but that won't stop me from pretending like the cringey boss battle simply never happened ♥ it also divorces itself pretty heavily from the novel, as does cql, so i don't look at it with characterisation or motivations in mind since none of it is canon. i do what the people behind it clearly did and go "¯\_(ツ)_/¯ idk, vibes!" whenever i watch.

i think it's a great time, i absolutely adore it, 12/10 have to watch certain scenes every couple of months or i go insane. i think ji li & wyz did an incredible job. the visuals are, in general, wonderful. do i think it's a good film though? ehhhh

but hey, opinions are subjective!